Exorcists

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 22, 2025

Year C, Proper 7: The Second Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 19:1-15a

Psalm 42 and 43

Galatians 3:23-29

Luke 8:26-39

Exorcists

You may remember that we had a service here on Election Day evening.

Scheduling our service near the time when the polls in Maryland were closing was a deliberate choice – a signal that we weren’t gathered here to pray for a particular outcome, though no doubt plenty of us were doing just that.

No, we were here to place our trust in the God who will not let go of us no matter what – the God who will not let go of us no matter who is President. 

And to make that point, that night I didn’t preach about the election.

I preached about baptism.

And during these tumultuous months, when some of us have believed we’re heading in the right direction while others of us have been shocked and dismayed by so much, I’ve gone right on talking about baptism.

I’ve talked about baptisms because, thank God, we’ve had a lot of baptisms.

And because baptism is where our Christian life begins.

And no matter what’s happening in the world and in our lives, when we remember our baptism, we remember who we are meant to be, who we really are.

We remember whose we are.

And so, this morning, with the dread of yet another war sickening our stomachs, I’d like to begin by talking about baptism – one particular baptism, actually.

Every baptism is a powerful and deeply meaningful experience, but I have to say, that Brendan’s baptism last Sunday was especially powerful and meaningful.

Part of that extra power and meaning came from a beautiful synchronicity that I mentioned last week: Brendan’s mom Leslie was baptized by Dave Hamilton who was also the priest who welcomed Sue and me into the Episcopal Church. As many of you know by now, Dave was a very close friend and mentor who inspired, supported, and nurtured my call to ordained ministry.

I’ll just never get over what feels to me like much more than a coincidence.

But it wasn’t just that spiritual connection that gave Brendan’s baptism extra power and meaning.

It was also the fact that, unlike the babies who are carried to the font, the babies who have no say in the matter, Brendan chose to be baptized.

Baptism was something he wanted for himself.

Brendan is old enough to seek baptism and he’s old enough to make the big baptismal promises, promises that he will strive to keep with God’s help, and with the support of his parents.

Brendan made the promises of the Baptismal Covenant:

The promise to continue to be part of the church.

The promise to resist evil and ask forgiveness when we mess up.

The promise to proclaim the Good News by word and example.

The promise to seek Christ in everyone, to love our neighbor as our self.

The promise to strive for justice and peace, to respect the dignity of everybody.

These promises – trying to keep these promises, with God’s help – should guide Brendan and all of us, especially during these tumultuous times when love, justice, peace, and respect sure seem to be losing ground.

But there’s another part of the baptism service that I rarely mention.

Near the start of last Sunday’s service, I asked Brendan some pretty heavy questions:

“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

“Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?”

Pretty heavy questions for a young boy, but each time he answered with a strong voice:

“I renounce them.”

“I renounce them.”

“I renounce them.”

With each renunciation, Brendan cast away evil.

With each “no,” Brendan rejected the forces of evil and chose instead the way of love.

A powerful moment.

And not so different, really, from… an exorcism.

In his earthly ministry, Jesus was a teacher and a healer, and he was also an exorcist, casting out the evil spirits that held people hostage, restoring them to health and wholeness.

In today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, we hear the particularly graphic story of Jesus casting out a legion of demons from this poor tormented man, sending the demons into a herd of swine who then plunge off the cliff to a watery demise.

(Yes, it’s OK to feel bad for the pigs.)

It’s always interesting to me that, unlike his own usually befuddled disciples, the demons always know who Jesus is. 

And sure enough, in this story the demon calls Jesus, “Son of the Most High God.”

And now, after he’s been liberated, the man seems to know who Jesus is, too. 

Jesus sends him back home to tell everyone what God has done for him. And he follows instructions, but adds his own twist, telling people what Jesus had done for him. 

        So, exorcisms.

I don’t often mention Jesus’ exorcisms because, well, for us “modern and enlightened” Christians, the whole idea of an exorcism is kind of embarrassing, it makes us uncomfortable, right?

I mean, we know a whole lot more about sickness than people did two thousand years ago. We know that illness is caused by a range of factors, not necessarily demons.

Plus, exorcisms have been so sensationalized by Hollywood that we can hardly talk about them without images from countless horror movies running through our head.

But exorcisms were an important part of Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of the first disciples, who were empowered by Jesus to cast out demons.

And the church has kept the renunciations of evil in the baptism service because, whatever we may think about Satan and demons, evil is powerful and destructive – evil is powerful and destructive – and, with God’s help, we need to resist evil, to cast away evil, and choose instead the way of love.

        Now, I’m not gonna go down to Wegmans and tell people this exactly, but we are exorcists.

        Through us, in our tumultuous times, Jesus can still cast out demons.

        Two examples:

Last Sunday, just before Brendan’s baptism, a few of us gathered at what we’re calling Gilead House 2, the new rehabilitated house that will soon be a home for an Afghan family that has traveled far and suffered much – they’ve experienced the power of evil.

It was impressive to see all the work that has been done on the house – it looks a whole lot different from the last time I was there!

And it was so beautiful to gather with Jews, Muslims, and other Christians as we blessed the house and asked God to watch over those who will soon live there.

And, of course we didn’t say this exactly, but through our actions and words, we were also exorcists - casting out the evil spirits of mistrust, fear, selfishness, and division, and choosing instead the way of love, widening God’s community of love to include this beautiful family that’s been through so much.

And now, here this morning we will have our second annual Service of Remembering, remembering the people buried in the North Cemetery, the African-American burial ground, just outside our churchyard wall.

As most of you know, over the last few years we have sought to rediscover and remember this important chapter of our church’s history, to remember the story of this piece of land, to remember the people buried there, the people whose names we know and the many more whose names are lost to us but never forgotten by God.

From the start, I think we recognized that our North Cemetery project is holy work.

But this year, this year, when the old demons of hatred, racism, and division are on the loose, this year our Service of Remembering feels a bit like an exorcism.

Through us, Jesus is casting out the demons that can degrade and destroy us just as the legion of demons were destroying that tormented man in today’s gospel lesson.

Through our work together, Jesus is casting out the demons of fear, hate, and division.

        Through our work together, Jesus is walking with us, restoring us to health and wholeness.

        And just like the man who was freed of his demons, Jesus calls us to share the Good News, to share the Good News down at Wegmans and everywhere, to tell them, that yes, we live in tumultuous times, but God will not let go of us, no matter what.

        To tell them, look at what God is doing for and among us here at St. Thomas’, to tell them about a boy who stood before us and made some big promises to God, to tell them that this is a place of remembering and welcome for all, to show them a different way, to invite them to a different way.

        In these tumultuous times,

        May Jesus use us to cast out the demons that torment us.

        May God give us the strength to keep building a community of love.

        Amen.

Closer Than Ever

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 15, 2025

Year C: The First Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

Closer Than Ever 

Well, last Sunday we had a Pentecost celebration that I doubt any of us who were here will ever forget.

So, let’s see, where to begin?

        Bishop Carrie made her first official visit with us, confirming six of our young people at the 10:00 service.

        It was Rev. Amelia’s first Sunday as a priest, and Bishop Carrie very graciously invited her to give the blessing at the 8:00 service and preside at the altar at 10:00. 

        Celebrating your first Eucharist with the bishop beside you! No pressure!

        And then there was the choir. 

        Just when I think they can’t outdo themselves, they outdo themselves. They sounded absolutely amazing. And Nick Corasiniti’s trumpet-playing on Sweet, Sweet Spirit was the sweet Spirit-filled icing on the Pentecost cake.

        Oh, and yes, there was literal cake during fellowship - two of them, actually!

        And lots of people were here, with many of you remembering to wear red.

        Thanks to the faithfulness, talent, generosity, and hard work of many, it really was an extraordinary celebration.

        And now today, as we do every year on the First Sunday after Pentecost, we are invited to reflect on the inner life of God.

        Today we’re invited to reflect on our understanding of God the Holy Trinity - One in Three Persons – Unity in Diversity.

        Now, the great temptation for anyone tasked with preaching today is to try to somehow explain the Trinity. Just how is it possible for God to be both One and Three?

        Fortunately, I’m not going to fall for that temptation.

        Because the Trinity is not a puzzle to be worked over and solved.

        No, the Trinity is a mystery to be pondered and celebrated.

        So, rather than offer some half-baked explanation, here’s what I will say:

        Our understanding of God the Holy Trinity reveals to us that God is a Community of Love.

        This is what God is.

        God is a Community of Love – the perfect Community of Love – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the perfect Community of Love – Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

        And I assume that God the Community of Love could have gone it alone forever and ever – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – a perfect circle of love for all eternity.

        But, you know, the thing about love is that it’s not really love unless it’s shared. 

        Love must be shared. 

        Maybe even for God, love must be shared.

        And so, God the Perfect Community of Love creates all of us.

        And, most amazing of all, God invites all of us to join the party, invites all of us to be part of the holy and eternal Community of Love.

        And yes, you guessed it, it’s in the water of baptism that we Christians begin to accept God’s invitation to be part of the Community of Love.

        And, with God’s help, we go right on accepting God’s invitation when we keep our baptismal promises – when we keep gathering here to pray and to sing and to serve. 

        We go right on accepting God’s invitation, when we ask forgiveness for our sins, and offer forgiveness when we’ve been wronged.

        With God’s help, we go right on accepting God’s invitation when we share the joy we experience here, last week, today, next week. 

        We go right on accepting God’s invitation when we try to see Jesus in every person we meet, even the people we don’t like at all, and when we work for peace among all people, even the people we don’t trust one bit.

        And when we try to do these things, with God’s help, we move ever deeper into the Community of Love, ever closer to God.

        Now, even if you are only vaguely aware of the news, you know that it seems that our country and much of the world is moving in the opposite direction, moving away from the Community of Love, away from God.

        Hatred and violence are on the rise.

        With so many wars and threats of war, countries are spending even more precious resources on weapons, taking food out of hungry stomachs, fighting over scraps on our degraded and depleted planet.

        But it’s not so among us.

        Here, we accept God’s invitation to the Community of Love by welcoming absolutely everybody, by caring for children who are not our own and yet are our own.

        Here, we accept God’s invitation to the Community of Love by creating and, just this morning, blessing a new home for people who have traveled far from their war-ravaged land, desperately seeking refuge and peace.

        We’re not perfect, of course, but here at St. Thomas’, we accept God’s invitation to the Community of Love.

        Together, we are moving in the right direction, journeying ever deeper into the Community of Love, closer than ever to God.

        Yes, because love must be shared, God the Perfect Community of Love creates all of us – invites all of us to join the party, invites all of us – all of us - to be part of this holy and eternal Community of Love.

        And one last thing:

        In the Community of Love, the living and the dead are spiritually united.

        I have been here with you for just about four years now, which is a little hard to believe.

        And in that time, several parishioners I’ve been especially close with have died.

        And yet, because we are part of God’s holy and eternal Community of Love, and because their prayers still bathe these old walls, I can still feel Jim Piper and Donna Gribble and I can still feel Beaumont and Sandy Martin here with us – so much so, in fact, that occasionally I catch myself forgetting that they have died.

        I’m sure you’ve had that experience with people you’ve loved.

        Someone else who, to me, doesn’t feel dead at all, is my friend and mentor Dave Hamilton.

        I’ve mentioned him to you many times now. He was the priest who welcomed us to our church in Jersey City.

        His outstretched hand changed Sue’s and my life forever. 

        It was through Dave’s friendship and example that God invited me to a very different kind of life, beginning a journey that led to ordination, a journey that eventually led Sue and me here.

        Dave lived long enough to know about St. Thomas’ and some of what was happening here – and he loved hearing about it all.

        He was so happy and proud that I had landed in such a great church.

        One thing that he didn’t know, however, is that someone he had baptized would become a parishioner – a very active parishioner – here at St. Thomas’.

        Leslie Steele was baptized by my friend Dave Hamilton.

        I’ve known that for a while now – but it still kind of blows my mind.

        And now this morning, I’ll have the great joy of baptizing Leslie and Mark’s son Brendan, who has also become a much-loved member of our community.

        With all of us gathered around him, Brendan will accept God’s invitation to the Community of Love.

        And so today on Trinity Sunday, watched over by a great cloud of witnesses, Brendan and all of us here will accept the most holy invitation.

        Together, we will journey ever deeper into the Community of Love.

        Closer than ever to one another.

        Closer than ever to God.

        Amen.

Unity and Liberation

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 1, 2025

Year C: The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 16:16-34

Psalm 97

Revelation 22:12-014, 16-17, 20-21

John 17:20-26

Unity and Liberation

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Well, today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

Yes, it is still Easter!

But, in today’s gospel lesson, we once again back up to before Easter, back to before the Resurrection, back to the Last Supper.

In today’s lesson from the Gospel of John, read for us by Deacon Amelia - I won’t get to say that for much longer! - in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus prays for his disciples and for all his disciples to follow, very much including us here today.

Jesus prays most of all for our unity, that we may be one just as Jesus and the Father are one.

Jesus prays that we might all be united in love.

Now, if you know even just a little bit of church history, you know that over the centuries and even in our own time, we have often fallen far short of Jesus’ great hope for us.

All too often, the Church has been disunited, fighting over all sorts of stuff, and I guess that all those controversies seemed important at the time – sometimes even worth dying for, perhaps – and yet, looking back, it’s often hard to understand what all the trouble was about.

Some of you have been around long enough to remember the battles in the Episcopal Church over ordaining women, which was a big change, a big step, for sure.

My friend and mentor Dave Hamilton, whom I’ve mentioned to you many times, was a young priest back in the early 1970’s when the church was bitterly divided by that issue.

Dave was absolutely opposed to women’s ordination – so opposed that at a church meeting, he got up and said something like, “May my right hand wither if I ever participate in the ordination of a woman!”

Strong statement!

Well, a few years later, after Dave had had a change of heart, he did indeed participate in the ordination of a woman, placing his right hand on the ordinand, just as all of us priests will do for Amelia on Saturday.

Well, after the ordination was over, the bishop turned to Dave and asked him, “How’s your hand?”

Now, a few decades later, our church is so much richer because of ordained women – this community has been so blessed by extraordinary women clergy, very much including Ann Copp and Caroline Stewart, and now our Assistant Rector, Amelia Bello.

Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t some important principles worth fighting for.

Of course there are.

But I am saying that we need to be very careful about the battles we choose because we know that Jesus’ great desire for us is unity.

And unity is so important because if we’re fighting among ourselves, then we just won’t have the energy, or even the credibility, to do the work that God calls us to do.

And that work is liberation.

God is the God of liberation.

And Easter is God’s supreme act of liberation, freeing Jesus from the tomb, revealing to us that sin and death are defeated, revealing to us that love and life have won.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

And with God’s help, God’s work of liberation continues in and through the Church.

And we certainly hear that work of liberation loud and clear in today’s first lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles.

We pick up right where we left off last week. We don’t hear anything more about Lydia, but Paul and the other disciples are still in the Greek city of Philippi.

There, they encounter an enslaved girl with “a spirit of divination,” an ability to tell fortunes, which was very profitable for her owners.

Well, just as the demons always knew Jesus, this “spirit of divination” knows Jesus’ followers, so the enslaved girl cries out, “These men are the slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

We’re told that she went on this way for days, which very much “annoyed” Paul, though we’re not told why.

Finally, in the name of Jesus, Paul casts out this demon from the girl, which lands Paul and the others in jail, at least until God engineers yet another liberation.

God’s work of liberation continues in and through the Church.

But I want to reflect a little more on the enslaved girl.

Because, unfortunately, we don’t know what happened to her next.

Deprived of her money-making skill, maybe her owners released her. Maybe, like Lydia and other women in Philippi, she became a follower of Jesus, too. 

Maybe, but probably not.

More likely, her owners found a new and even worse way to exploit her, which is very sad and troubling to consider.

But I think this episode is a good reminder for us that God’s liberation – the liberation that we are called to do - is much deeper, much more challenging than just an easy fix.

Think of the Israelites on their long exodus, out in the wilderness for forty years.

Liberation - doing God’s liberating work - requires commitment, community, and confidence, over the long haul.

So, last week, I met with Bishop Carrie to prepare for her visit next Sunday.

I brought next week’s draft bulletins, last week’s announcements, and a copy of the 2024 Annual Report, all to give her a better sense of what we are about here at St. Thomas’.

I could’ve talked about this place for a long time – and I may have gone on a little too long - but one thing I emphasized is our unity.

We’re a pretty diverse group so, yes, of course, we disagree about all sorts of things, from politics to current events to how the Orioles can salvage this season.

         But, for the most part, we stick together, we pray together, serve together, love one another.

        And it’s that God-given unity that gives us the strength and courage to do the holy work of liberation.

        And this work of liberation isn’t just swooping in with a kind of spiritual band-aid.

        No, it’s deep work of listening and learning, getting to know the people in our community, building relationships, with all the risks and challenges that come with any real relationship.

        It’s because of our unity that we’ve had the strength and courage to walk beside our Afghan friends, not seeing them as a problem to be solved, but as beloved brothers and sisters.

        It’s because of our unity that we’ve had the strength and courage to walk beside the children and teachers at Owings Mills Elementary School, not seeing them as a problem in need of an easy fix, but as beloved sisters and brothers.

        Yes, the forces of division are very powerful, especially these days, but with God’s help, we can be an answer to Jesus’ great prayer for unity.

        With God’s help, we can be one – and as one, united church we can continue God’s holy and challenging work of liberation.

        And if we do this work, then the best news of all time will continue to echo off these old walls – the best news of all time will continue to ring out in Owings Mills and beyond:

        Alleluia! Christ is risen!

        The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! 

        Amen.