Rebuilding Bonds of Love

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 26, 2022

Year C, Proper 8: The Third Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Luke 9:51-62

Rebuilding Bonds of Love

Back in Jersey City, many of our parishioners lived in neighborhoods that were regularly scarred by violence.

These good people never knew what they might face each time they stepped out their door – worrying about their kids until they got back home safely – passing by the makeshift shrines set up at corners where yet another young man or woman had been struck down by gun violence.

Each time someone was killed in Jersey City, we would pray for them by name in church – and, for a while, a group of clergy would gather to pray at these places of violence and death, hoping that our witness would be a sign that God’s love was present, even in these bloodstained and seemingly hopeless places.

After a while, most of the clergy stopped coming to these grim vigils – maybe even they found them pointless or just too depressing.

Here, of course, it’s different.

Now, thanks to alerts from the “Owings Mills – Reisterstown Patch,” I know that there is some violence here in our immediate neighborhood, but most of us leave our homes without feeling like we are taking our lives in our hands.

But then there is the city just down the road.

You know better than I that the epidemic of gun violence has battered Baltimore.

There is so much death, so many victims, that I am ashamed to say that they become a kind of bloody blur. But every once in a while a violent death stands out as especially tragic.

Maybe you remember from the news that the other day Trevor White was shot and killed in Baltimore City.

He had played football at Boston College - he was the father of three, a CPA, an entrepreneur – he had recently opened a restaurant in Little Italy.

But, what really caught my eye was that for the past five years he had worked with ReBUILD Metro – which, as many of you know, is a grassroots effort to restore city neighborhoods block by block.

As I read Trevor White’s obituary, I grieved that someone so talented and, most of all, someone working hard to rebuild long-neglected city communities, had fallen victim to gun violence.

Meanwhile, here at St. Thomas’, lately quite a few of our parishioners have faced difficult and sometimes heartbreaking challenges.

Some have endured serious illness or injury, the death of a loved one, or a rupture within the family.

No matter what, these are difficult challenges, but a few days ago I heard one of our parishioners who has been going through a hard time speak very movingly about how much harder it all would be without her faith in God - how much harder it would be without the love and support that she has received from our St. Thomas’ community.

Amen.

There is no getting around the fact that life is often hard, and sometimes unspeakably sad.

And yet, it’s often in the midst of the hard times, and during the sad moments, that we get little glimpses of the way God has always meant life to be:

The kind note or concerned phone call.

The delicious homemade meal dropped off at the door.

The tender touch of a friend’s embrace.

A church full of people gathered to celebrate a life well lived and to console a grieving family.

Little glimpses of what God has always intended for us.

Right from the start, God’s great hope has been that all of us – God and us – that all of us would be held together by bonds of love – bonds of love, stronger than the violence we inflict, stronger than any disagreement or division, stronger than any challenge, stronger than any heartbreak, stronger even than death itself.

Today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke marks the beginning of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and all that awaits him there: a joyful welcome that was followed quickly by betrayal, rejection, suffering, and a death that seemed to be the end of his story.

Perhaps it’s Jesus’ awareness of his fate that shapes the serious and challenging tone of what we heard today.

Jesus and his disciples began their journey from Galilee to Jerusalem by traveling through Samaria.

Now, because of the famous parable, we tend think of Samaritans as “good,” but back in the first century there wasn’t much love between Jews and Samaritans. Although Jews and Samaritans were related, they had different ideas about scripture, worship, and the messiah.

So, probably it was no surprise that Jesus was rejected by at least one Samaritan village.

And, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the brother disciples James and John respond to this rejection with let’s say, a wild overreaction.

Their threat to call down fire and destruction reveals an astonishing overconfidence in their own power – just the latest episode of our long-running series, “The Disciples Just Don’t Get It.”

Although they’ve been with Jesus for a while now, James and John seem to have missed, or maybe have just conveniently forgotten, that we are supposed to forgive those who wrong us – that we are meant to love our enemies.

But, then again, we have been with Jesus for a while, too, and we also struggle with those teachings.

It would be fun to spend the rest of my sermon picking on the disciples. But, no matter how much I want to skip it, I can’t avoid talking about the second, more challenging, half of today’s gospel lesson.

Jesus has brief interactions with three unnamed would-be disciples.

And, each time, Jesus emphasizes the high cost of discipleship.

It is costly to follow a Savior who has no home of his own.

It is costly to follow a Lord who insists that he comes first, ahead of even serious obligations like burying one’s father.

It is costly to follow Jesus who insists there can be no looking back at what we have left behind.

We’re not told if, after hearing about the high cost of discipleship, these three would-be disciples ended up following Jesus.

I wonder.

As I’ve sat with this really hard passage, I’ve come to see it as Jesus’ version of God’s commandment:

“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage. You shall have no other gods but me.”

God began that commandment by reminding the Israelites of God’s liberating power – and then God demands an exclusive bond between God and God’s people.

Now, God does not insist on this exclusivity because God somehow needs our love and devotion.

No, God insists on being first because God knows that we are made for God, made for God’s love.

And so whenever we try to put something else – or even somebody else - in God’s place – we very quickly go off the rails.

But, when we accept God’s bonds of love, then, as St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, we are set free – free to truly love one another, free to generously serve one another.

I’ve mentioned before that some of us have been thinking about the mission of St. Thomas’ at this time of our history.

You’ve heard me talk about my vision of us as a servant church – but maybe we need to go even deeper than that.

We live beside a violent city in an appallingly violent country, a frightened and angry country, ever more armed to the teeth.

We live in a land where on Friday the Supreme Court deleted a right, further inflaming the country, and leaving many people, most especially our gay family, friends, and neighbors, fearing what will be lost next.

We live in a time when people don’t know God or the church (and, frankly, considering our track record, many do not want to know the church).

And we live in a time when people don’t know each other, either.

So, in a time and place such as this, maybe our mission is to show the world out there what it means to be a community where, despite our differences and disagreements, the bonds of love – the bonds among God and us – are so strong – a community that looks more and more like what God has always intended for us.

With God’s help, may we rebuild our bonds of love.  

Amen.

Agents of Liberation

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 19, 2022

Year C, Proper 7: The Second Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 19:1-15a

Psalm 42

Galatians 3:23-29

Luke 8:26-39

Agents of Liberation

Most of you know that before I was a priest I was a high school history teacher.

Although I’ve been out of the classroom for quite a while now, I have so many vivid memories, making it feel like not too much time has passed.

But, every once in a while, I have an experience that forces me to realize how long ago that all was, and just how much has changed.

So, I can’t remember. Have I mentioned to you that my wife Sue recently earned her doctorate? Has that come up before?

Well, what most of you don’t know is that one of the other students in Sue’s program was a woman named Aileen - who I taught more than twenty-five years ago, at St. Vincent Academy, an all-girls high school in Newark. 

I’ve known about that remarkable connection for about three years, but it was still a little unnerving to actually see Aileen and some of her high school classmates who came to celebrate with her at the graduation ceremony a couple of weeks ago.

I was glad that these former students all still recognized me and even happier that they wanted to pose for a picture with me, but our little reunion was still a kind of disorienting reminder of just how much time has passed since they were all in my History class.

 

So, as you might guess, that experience put me into a kind of reflective mood.

And, as I’ve thought back to my teaching days, I’ve cringed a bit at my younger self: so sure that I had things mostly figured out, thinking that I really knew what I knew and that I knew what I did not know.

To give just one example, having grown up in the relatively peaceful time after the end of the Vietnam War, I remember saying to my students that I was sure that Americans simply would not tolerate another drawn-out military conflict in a faraway land, only later to be proven quite wrong, of course. 

And, even though the history curriculum at St. Vincent’s emphasized Black history and women’s history, there was so much that I just did not know, so much that I certainly did not teach.

Like, for example, Juneteenth.

Do you know the story?

On June 19th, 1865 – more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation - Union General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom at last for the enslaved people of Texas, the most remote and the last to be occupied part of the Confederacy.

Of course, Black people did not forget this day of liberation.

Each year in Texas and across the South, they celebrated what came to be known as Juneteenth. 

And then later, during the Great Migration, they brought this tradition to other parts of the country.

And, as you probably know, just last year Juneteenth became a Federal holiday, now meant to be a national celebration of liberation.

When I first turned my attention to today’s Gospel lesson, I was immediately struck by how appropriate it is that today - on the 157th anniversary of the first Juneteenth - we hear a story of liberation.

Jesus and his disciples have traveled away from home, to the “country of the Geresenes.” We don’t know exactly where that was but, thanks to the presence of an unfortunate herd of swine, we know that Jesus and his friends are no longer in Jewish territory.

The moment Jesus steps foot on this foreign soil, he is immediately greeted by a disturbing and pathetic figure: the man with many demons.

We’re told that he’s naked and lives among the tombs.

His neighbors tried to keep him under guard and chaining him, maybe to protect themselves and maybe to protect him from himself. 

But those demons were powerful.

And, it turns out that those demons were knowledgeable, too.

Unlike Jesus’ own disciples, who always have a hard time figuring out his identity, the demons in this foreign land get it exactly right: 

Jesus is the Son of the Most High God.

Well, without waiting to be asked, Jesus liberates this poor man.

And, at the demons’ request, he sends them into the swine that promptly rush down a hill and drown in the lake, leaving the swineherds suddenly without their livelihood and probably feeling not so positive about Jesus and his ministry.

Actually, it’s interesting that, aside from the man who was freed of his demons, nobody seems very happy about this turn of events.

Instead of rejoicing at the liberation of their neighbor, the people are afraid. No doubt this miracle has upset their sense of order.

If this man possessed by a legion of demons can be liberated, just what else might be possible?

Faced with that uncomfortable question, they probably just want Jesus to turn around and go back where he came from.

Not the liberated man, though. He becomes a disciple, telling everyone how much Jesus had done for him.

The story ends there, but like so often with the Bible, I wonder what happened next.

In this case, I wonder about the moment when this man’s family first saw him “clothed in his right mind,” finally free.

What was that day of liberation like?

Joy, yes, of course. 

But maybe also anger and sadness about how much had been lost: time, opportunity, dignity.

And, I wonder, in the years ahead, did this man and his family continue to celebrate the anniversary of his liberation?

At this week’s Bible Study, we had a lively conversation about this amazing story of liberation.

Although we know from the gospels that exorcisms were a significant part of Jesus’ ministry, we don’t talk about them much because, with our modern understanding of illness and healing, they confuse us, or make us uncomfortable and embarrassed.

And horror movies certainly haven’t made things any easier.

Yet, even just a quick look at the news reveals that the old demons are on the loose.

The demons of hate, and violence, and fear, and addiction are on the march, wreaking havoc, destroying people, just as surely as that naked man living in the tombs was nearly ruined.

But, here’s the good news: just like two thousand years ago, Jesus is the Liberator.

And, today, Jesus calls us to be his agents of liberation.

With God’s help, this liberating work begins by us building a community here that is a demon-free zone:

A church where absolutely everyone is welcome.

A church where we are unafraid to confess our faults.

A church that offers itself in loving service to the poor and oppressed.

A church where, like the liberated man, we proclaim how much Jesus has done for us.

A church that is wonderfully diverse but where, as St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, there is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female, because we are one in Christ.

Today is Juneteenth – and, regardless of our age, or our history, or how much we still have to learn, Jesus calls us to be his agents of liberation.

Amen.

Mutual Joy

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 12, 2022

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

Mutual Joy

Now, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad, but if you were not here at St. Thomas’ last Sunday, well, you missed something pretty special.

We celebrated Pentecost – we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit – with so much joy.

All three of our services were Spirit-filled – so many Alleluias - but the 10:00 service was something else.

It was wonderful to look out in the pews to see so many of you dressed in red – or at least wearing red accents – and to see the choir with their sharp red scarves – and to see the acolytes wearing red cinctures, the cord that we wrap around our robes.

The choir sang nothing but Holy Spirit music.

And then there was the Baptism.

Everything had gone very well during our Saturday morning rehearsal, but when it came time for the baptism itself, two year-old Marcelo had some… very vocal second thoughts.

I’m sure he was a bit overexcited, surrounded by his loving family who filled the first four pews.

And, it pains me to say that he was probably scared of me - wearing both a mask and a bright red outfit, who poured water over his head, anointed him with oil, and then held a candle before him, telling him that he is the light of the world.

At the rehearsal, Marcelo’s parents had expressed some concern about how it would go – two year-olds, you know – but I told them that, just like at a wedding, at a baptism you are surrounded by people who love you so much, so no matter what happens you just can’t go wrong.

And, sure enough there was great joy, even amidst the screaming.

And, I’m happy to report that after the service, Marcelo and I shook hands and parted as friends.

It was an amazing Pentecost.

But there was more – after the service, about fifty of us gathered outside for a delicious lunch – and, yes, there was even an ice cream truck!

I mean, come on, right?

So much love, so much joy.

I feel like I really know what Paul meant when he wrote to the church in Rome, “…hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Well, after such a big day last week, you might think that things would now kind of settle down around here.

But, you would be wrong!

Yesterday, I had the great honor of officiating at my first wedding at St. Thomas’ – it was actually my first wedding since before the start of the pandemic.

Frances Wells, who grew up in this church, and Braxton DeCamp made some big promises to each other at the altar, and all of us who were here promised to support them in their married life.

I really enjoyed preparing Frances and Braxton for their wedding and for marriage – just as I’ve enjoyed working with Katherine Moriarty and Conor Barr, who will be married here next Saturday.

Just like with every soon to be married couple, we spent time looking at the words of the service, and discussing what they teach about the meaning of marriage.

You may remember that, near the start of the service, the Prayer Book lists the purposes of marriage, and at the very top of that list is this:

“The union…in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy.”

Mutual joy.

The list continues with helping and comforting each other, and the possibility of raising children, but I always remind couples that number one on the list is “mutual joy” – imperfect as we all are, that is what married people are meant to offer each other.

But, actually, mutual joy is not just for married people. 

All of us are made for mutual joy.

Today is the First Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday - the day when the Church invites us to reflect on God’s inner life – our mind-blowing belief that God is One in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Since the Trinity takes us way beyond the limits of our comprehension, trying to explain it is a big mistake, and even talking about it is notoriously difficult.

All I know is this: the Trinity reveals that God’s very essence is community.

God is a community of love.

And the three members of that community offer each other mutual joy.

And, you know, that community of love – that mutual joy - would have been enough for God.

The One God in Three Persons could have gone on forever and ever, perfect and completely content, in a kind of eternal and divine dance, as some early theologians imagined.

But, instead, and even more mind-blowing than the Trinity itself, God invites us to be part of the community of love.

All of us are made for mutual joy.

Throughout history, our One-in-Three God has invited us to be part of the community of love, sending the prophets to call us back to faithfulness, to demand that we beat our swords into plowshares, to offer a vision of the day when we will all gather together on the holy mountain, beloved siblings at last.

Our One-in-Three God has invited us to experience mutual joy, most of all by coming among us in and through Jesus of Nazareth, who offers the joy of forgiveness, the joy of healing, the joy of welcoming absolutely everybody, the joy of knowing that not even death can separate us from God’s love.

And, throughout our lives, our One-in-Three God offers us signs of the community of love – tastes of mutual joy – so we can know that this – this – is what we are made for.

Falling in love, the look of wonder in a child’s eyes, the bond of a lifelong friendship, simply holding the hand of another, sharing good food and drink, coming together here at St. Thomas’, with all of our different backgrounds and various ideas – joining together, imperfectly, yes, but united as a community of love.

Our One-in-Three God is a community of love, who has made us for mutual joy, inviting us to be part of the community of love.

Unfortunately, with all of the woes of the world and the challenges in our own lives, it’s so easy to forget this great truth.

So, I’m going to try to remember Frances and Braxton, and Katherine and Conor, making some big promises, surrounded by so much love.

And I’m going to remember Marcelo, who was frightened and overwhelmed and screaming – and, especially these days, we all know that feels like – and yet the truth is that he was surrounded by so much love.

And I’m going to remember our Pentecost ice cream truck.

We are made for mutual joy.

Amen.

"Living Christs Here and Now"

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

June 5, 2022

Year C: The Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

Psalm 104:25-35, 37

Romans 8:14-17

John 14:8-17, 25-27

“Living Christs Here and Now”

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

As most of you know only too well, beginning on Easter Day and continuing through all the Sundays of Easter, I have begun and ended each of my sermons with the Easter Acclamation:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I’ve kept our Easter call and response going as a way to keep Easter joy alive, even after the crowds in church have thinned out just a bit, even after the flowers are scaled back (but still always beautiful), even after most of us have long since left Easter behind and gotten back to our daily routines.

For those of you who have been not so thrilled with the Easter call and response, I have some welcome news.

Today is Pentecost – the fiftieth and final day of Easter – and so today is the last day for a while that I’ll begin and end my sermons with the best news of all time:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

You’ve all been good sports and given it your best, but there’s no denying that our call and response has faded a bit over these past Sundays.

And a few of you have mentioned to me that our joyful “Alleluias” sound hollow, or maybe even false, as we look at the bleak state of the world, and as we face our own personal challenges and setbacks. 

I get that, of course.

And I wonder if the first disciples experienced something similar.

For them, there was the shock of the empty tomb and then the overwhelming joy of Easter – the difficult to describe describe experience of encountering the Risen Christ – the Risen Christ who was still very much the Jesus they had known, still marked by the nails of execution, still up for breakfast on the beach – but also mysteriously transformed – now able to pass through locked doors and not always recognizable at first glance.

It must have been amazing time.

And, if I were one of those first disciples, all I would want is to sit with the Risen Christ – to see him in his glory – and to wait around for his next appearance.

But, at least according to Luke’s timeline, this intensely beautiful time only lasted for forty days, only lasted until Jesus ascended.

Then the appearances of the Risen Christ stopped.

Even for people who had seen the Risen Christ with their own eyes, perhaps Easter quickly became just a sweet memory, as the cares of the world crowded out their joy, silencing their “Alleluias.”

We don’t know what the disciples were up to during what must have been a strange and uneasy days.

But, they gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, also known as Pentecost because it was held fifty days after Passover. 

Not only were the disciples in Jerusalem, but, the author of Acts tells us, “the disciples were all together in one place.” 

I imagine them waiting together for something to happen – or maybe they stuck together because they were frightened and demoralized.

And then we’re told, suddenly, there’s a loud sound like rushing wind that fills the house and divided tongues like flames appear above their heads.

The Holy Spirit gave those first disciples the ability to share the Gospel so that people from all over the world could understand it.

That day in Jerusalem, those Spirit-filled first disciples made such a spectacle that some people concluded that they must be drunk!

But no, it wasn’t early morning wine.

It was the Holy Spirit, transforming the frightened and demoralized little band of disciples into bold and courageous ambassadors for Christ, spreading the Good News far and wide until eventually it arrived here among all of us:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I love Pentecost (and, as most of you know, I really love baptizing people – and so with Marcelo here about to be baptized I can barely contain myself right now!).

Mostly I love this great feast - I love celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit - because unlike the other big days like Christmas and Easter, Pentecost is not only a historical event.

No, Pentecost happens all the time.

The priest and writer Henri Nouwen wrote, 

“Without Pentecost the Christ-event – the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus – remains imprisoned in history as something to remember, think about and reflect on. The Sprit of Jesus comes to dwell within us, so that we can become living Christs here and now.”

I love that.

“The Sprit of Jesus comes to dwell within us, so that we can become living Christs here and now.”

And I know Pentecost happens all the time because I’ve seen it for myself.

I’ve seen the Spirit of Jesus come to dwell within us at St. Thomas’. I’ve seen you become living Christs here and now.

Now, it’s true that there may not be a sound like rushing wind or divided tongues like flame over our heads, but God sends the Holy Spirit to us all the time.

To give just one example, I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit was at work last year, when some among us who were feeling awful about the plight of Afghan refugees suddenly hit on the idea that we could do something big – that we could do more than just write a check – that we could and should make some real sacrifices to welcome people from far away.

Maybe some people thought it was a crazy – dare I say drunken - idea, but this hearty little band of ambassadors persevered through many, many obstacles.

Some even learned to speak a new language – mastering the complicated jargon of refugee resettlement! 

And now our application is just about complete, and God willing, one day soon, we and our partners St. Mark’s On the Hill and ERICA will finally welcome refugees into our community.

Pentecost happens all the time.

The Holy Spirit is right here and now transforming us into Living Christs –Living Christs offering love to the outcast.

And, in just a moment, in the water of Baptism, the Holy Spirit is going to descend on young Marcelo – you folks in the back may have trouble seeing it but it’s gonna happen – transforming him into a Living Christ – giving him all that he’ll need to live a life of love and service.

And, I don’t know about you, but the joy of a Pentecost Baptism makes me want to cry out once more:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen.