Packing Our Bags

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

November 30, 2025

Year A: The First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:1-5

Psalm 122

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

Packing Our Bags

You know, it’s rare that everything comes together just as you hoped, but that’s what happened on Monday night at our beautiful Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.

On the Monday night before Thanksgiving, lots of people (the official count was 148) journeyed from their homes out into the dark to gather here with people of other faiths, people with different ideas about all sorts of things, gathering because what unites us is way more important than what divides us, gathering because it is good for us to gather.

Jon and our choir, joined by singers and musicians from other congregations, gave us beautiful music.

The visiting clergy offered profound prayers, in most cases, prayers they had written themselves.

And we raised just under $1000 for the Community Crisis Center!

I know that Thanksgiving has passed and we are moving onto the next thing, but if you need of some uplift (and who doesn’t?), I encourage you to watch the video on YouTube or on our church website.

In my reflection on Monday night, I talked a little bit about my childhood Thanksgivings, when my extended family plus some other guests would squeeze into the living room and kitchen of my grandparents’ not very large rowhouse in downtown Jersey City.

So, memories of my grandparents – and especially my faithful and hardworking grandmother – were already on my mind when I turned my attention from Thanksgiving to Advent, the holy season of anticipation and preparation that begins today.

I’m convinced that Advent is the most counter-cultural season of the Church Year.

We all know that out in the world, it’s already the “Christmas Season.”

People are scrambling to buy gifts and put up decorations, doing their best to create a nice holiday for their families and friends.

Even here at church, next Sunday evening we’ll enjoy “Carols and Casseroles” and light our Christmas tree – and then there’s the Christmas Extravaganza, our amazing festival of community and generosity, just a week from Tuesday.

These are all good things.

And, in part, Advent is a spiritual preparation for Christmas.

But, as we heard loud and clear in today’s lessons, Advent is also the season when we are meant to prepare for the last day, the day of judgment, to be ready for the Second Coming of Christ.

And, as Jesus says at the end of today’s gospel lesson, his second coming, his return, will be at an unexpected hour – so we need to be alert.

And we need to be ready.

Which brings me back to my grandmother.

I remember visiting her in her apartment in a senior citizen building, towards the end of her life.

As I’ve mentioned before, she was a person of great faith, a very devout Roman Catholic.

And I’m not sure how we got to talking about ultimate things, but at one point she said something that got my attention.

Anticipating the end of her life, she said:

“My bags are packed.”

As you’d guess, those words – “My bags are packed” – made me sad. 

In the moment, I thought she meant that she was done with life, that she was just sort of sitting around waiting to die.

But that wasn’t it – and as I’ve reflected on that vivid expression – “My bags are packed” – I’m pretty sure that, for her, “packing her bags” meant that she knew that she had lived her life as faithfully as she could – not perfectly, of course, but as lovingly and generously as she could, so she felt prepared for the end.

And the end – or what might seem to be the end – was nothing to fear.

Advent is a season for us to pack our bags.

Advent is a season for us to pack our bags with prayer.

With God’s help, this is a season for us to spend even just a few minutes in prayer, maybe at the start or end of the day, maybe instead of doomscrolling on our phone or zoning out in front of the TV – a few minutes of prayer, to thank God for our many blessings, to ask God’s help to face the challenges ahead of us.

Advent is a season for us to pack our bags with repentance and forgiveness.

With God’s help, this is a season for us to repent of the ways we’ve gone wrong, the ways we’ve missed the mark, the ways that we’ve been selfish, unkind, or judgmental. This is a season for us ask for forgiveness - and also to offer forgiveness, to let it go, to unburden ourselves and ease the burdens of others.

Advent is a season for us to pack our bags with community.

With God’s help, it really is good for us to gather. 

I think that’s why so many people ventured into the night and came to our service on Monday. People – we – are hungry for community – hungry for what we receive here every week.

So, over these next busy four weeks, make time for community – come to church each of these four Advent Sundays, witness the lighting of each of the Advent candles, come have some casseroles and sing some carols, join us for the Extravaganza, our festival of community and generosity.

And, yes, Advent is a season for us to pack our bags with generosity.

With God’s help, let’s provide Christmas gifts for families in need, a gift card, a toy, a sweater.

Or, if we can’t afford that, all of us can manage picking up the phone to call or text someone we know is struggling - and a lot of people are struggling right now – the holidays are hard for all sorts of reasons, the times we live in are challenging for all sorts of reasons.

But we can be generous with our time and our attention, our genuine care for others.

Advent is a season for us to pack our bags.

My grandmother’s final illness took place during Christmastime. 

Since I was a teacher, I was off from school, and able to spend a lot of time with her in the hospital, spending more time with her than I had since I was a kid.

It was a hard time, but a beautiful time, too.

Once, while I was sitting beside her hospital bed, she turned to me and, calmly and confidently, she said, “I know where I’ve come from and I know where I am going.”

“I know where I’ve come from and I know where I am going.”

I’m not sure if she knew that she was quoting Jesus (it’s John 8:14).

My grandmother’s words were life-changing for me, making me wonder what I would need to do so that I could face my future, my fate, with as much faithful confidence – it’s one of the things that nudged me to explore my sense of call to the priesthood.

I’ve told this story many times but it’s only now that I’ve connected it to what she had told me before, back in her apartment, about her bags being packed.

Of course, she was calm and confident: her bags were packed.

With God’s help, as we begin a new Church Year, as we begin Advent, let’s pack our bags with prayer, repentance, community, and generosity.

And with our bags packed, we’ll be prepared.

And there will be nothing to fear.

Amen.

Women of Hope

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 22, 2024

Year C: The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:2-5a

Psalm 80:1-7

Hebrews 10:5-10

Luke 1:39-55

Women of Hope

So, a question: how many of you have a lot on your mind?

Yes, that’s what I thought.

I’m glad I’m not the only one!

There’s all the preparation for Christmas, of course, trying to come up with good gift ideas, trying to find the time and energy to purchase those gifts and make sure everything is ready for the holiday.

And there’s all the preparation for Christmas here at church.

So many faithful, creative, and dedicated people – parishioners and staff – have been hard at work, creating bulletins, rehearsing music, preparing the children for their “tableau plus,” planning for the greening of our beautiful church later today, and so much more.

And, amid all that joyful preparation, the sufferings of our community, our land, and the world have been on my mind, too.

I think of our parishioners facing what’s meant to be a joyful holiday without a loved one, or while enduring illness, while fearing the future.

I think of the teachers, students, and families at a school in Wisconsin with the now heartbreaking name of “Abundant Life” – an infuriatingly familiar story that has already faded from the headlines (have you noticed that?) but not from the hearts of parents who have to send their kids to school each day.

And the other day, as I was driving around, I listened to a radio program about just one child, a little girl, in Gaza – how she had lost so much – lost loved ones, lost her home.

Thinking about her suffering and the suffering of countless people in Gaza and Israel, Ukraine and Syria, and so many places around the world. 

And, of course, together, we look ahead to an uncertain new year.

So, yes, like you, I’ve had a lot on mind.

And I’ve been searching – searching for distractions, searching for good news.

And, most of all, I’ve been searching for hope.

For the past two Advent Sundays, we’ve been reflecting on John the Baptist.

I made the smart decision to, ahem, “outsource” those two Sundays to Amelia and Sue.

       So, we had the gift of hearing our two wonderful interns reflect thoughtfully and beautifully on that powerful and challenging prophet – John the Baptist – John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Lord, calling people to be baptized and change their ways – to repent - before it’s too late.

And now today, on the Fourth and final Sunday of Advent, at last we turn our attention to the other main character of this holy season, the Virgin Mary.

This year we don’t hear the story of the Annunciation – the story of the Angel Gabriel appearing without warning to Mary – Mary, a young peasant woman from Galilee, from the countryside – Mary, a seemingly unimportant person from a poor and insignificant place – a place under Roman rule, a place that knew all about fear, suffering, and loss.

The angel appears to Mary with the earthshaking news that she has found favor with God, so much favor that she – in the eyes of the world a nobody – she has been chosen to carry the Son of the Most High God into the world.

We’re not told what thoughts must have raced through Mary’s mind in this moment, but we can imagine.

Maybe she briefly considered telling the angel that God got it wrong and should choose someone else for this monumental task, maybe that nice young woman who lived across the road.

Maybe Mary quickly began calculating the cost of saying “yes” to God, began considering the uncertainties and dangers ahead.

How to explain this pregnancy to her fiancée, Joseph?

How to explain this pregnancy to her family?

What will the neighbors think? In a small town, everyone’s going to talk.

And, as a faithful Jewish woman, she would have known the stories of the prophets. She would have known that there would be a high cost to saying “yes” to God – a high cost for her and an even higher cost for her child.

But, despite all of that, Mary says, “yes.”

Mary says “yes” to God.

Mary says “yes” to hope.

And that’s where we pick up in today’s gospel lesson.

After receiving this most extraordinary news, after giving her most hopeful “yes,” Mary does a very human thing. 

        She visits family. 

        All by herself, apparently, Mary travels to her relative Elizabeth, who is in the middle of her own miraculous pregnancy.

In her “old age,” Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptist – John, who doesn’t get a speaking part today, but he’s already on the move, leaping for joy in his mother’s womb at the presence of the Son of God and his mother.

And then, Mary does another, most human thing.

She sings.

Mary sings a song of hope.

Mary sings about her own blessedness.

And Mary sings about the powerful acts of God - God who has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly – God who has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

Mary, woman of hope, sings about the powerful acts of God.

        Mary sings about what God has done in the past.

        Mary sings about what she knows God will do again, in and through her son.

Mary knows that hope is not so much a feeling, but an action.

Mary, woman of hope, has acted – saying “yes” to God, doing her part in the downside-up revolution that is now underway.

Mary – and Elizabeth, too – were women of hope.

So, like you, lately I’ve had a lot on my mind.

But also like you, I’ve also been blessed by some women of hope – not only Mary and Elizabeth – but women of hope in our own time and place.

As I mentioned to some of you last week, I’ve attended a lot of church services in my day. But I can’t remember a service that was more joyful and more hopeful than the ordinations last Saturday at the Cathedral.

The place was packed with people of all ages but with a noticeable number of younger people.

        There was a buzzing excitement.

And as I watched Amelia and the four others stand before the bishop and all of us and make some very big promises, I was in awe of their faithfulness and courage.

You know, in the old days, in the boom years of the middle part of the last century when new churches were being built all over the place, when most everybody attended church, when Sunday School classrooms were packed, back in those days, being an ordained person in the Episcopal Church may not have been easy but it was secure – there was a lot of job security.

It’s not like that now – and so it takes more faith, more courage, more hope, to sign on for this work than it did even when I was ordained 17 years ago.

So, it was deeply moving to see Amelia and the others stand before God and us and say “yes.”

Hope is not so much a feeling, but an action.

        And Amelia our deacon is a woman of hope.

And then, if you were here last Sunday, I bet you’ve been thinking all week about Sue’s beautiful, challenging, and deeply vulnerable sermon.

I had read a draft of Sue’s sermon a few days earlier, so I had a good idea of what she was going to say, but I still wasn’t prepared for the power of seeing and hearing her stand up here in front of all of us, people she’s only known for a few months, and speak about the worst thing, and speak about it with raw honesty and deep faith, connecting her suffering to the Gospel message of hope.

Hope is not so much a feeling, but an action.

And Sue, our ministry intern, still in the early days of discerning her vocation, is a woman of hope.

In a hard time, long ago, Mary and Elizabeth both said “yes” to God.

Knowing that the future would be difficult for them and for their sons, they still placed their trust in God, choosing to be women of hope. 

In our own hard time, as we complete our Christmas preparations, let’s all say “yes” to God. 

        Let’s all say “yes” to the God who, in and through Jesus, turns the world downside-up.

With God’s help, in this time and place, let’s be people of hope.

Amen.

“A Time of Being Deeply Shaken”

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 1, 2024

Year C: The First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Psalm 25:1-9

1 Thessalonians 3:9-15

Luke 21:25-36

“A Time of Being Deeply Shaken”

So, by now you all know that in my sermons I often address, directly or indirectly, what’s going on in our community, our country, and in the world.

I firmly agree with the person who said that preachers should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. 

I mean, if what we say and do in here isn’t relevant to the rest of our lives, what’s the point?

But, at the same time, the church – our church or any church – loses its way when it becomes too much like the culture out there in the world.

        So, if the message we receive here is pretty much what you’d see and hear on MSNBC or Fox News, well, we’ve lost our way – we’ve become too much like the culture – or, at least, one of the cultures – out there.

Now, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that this community, this place, is different than what we see and hear out there. I think that’s why you keep coming back week after week. I think that’s why new people are making a spiritual home here with us.

I mean, you’ve heard me say many times that this is one of the few places left where all different kinds of people, people who probably disagree about many different things, come together.

        We pray and serve together – it was Republicans, Democrats and Independents who filled those 153 Thanksgiving meal bags that were delivered to hungry people at the Community Crisis Center last week – feeding people about whom we know nothing except that they’re hungry and, for us, that’s all that matters.

        Counter cultural.

        The Church is meant to be counter cultural.

        And there is no season more counter cultural than Advent.

        While the world has been celebrating Christmas – or at least selling and buying what it calls Christmas – since, oh I don’t know, around Labor Day, here we begin a new church year with these four Advent Sundays of preparation – preparation for the birth of Jesus that we’ll celebrate on the real Christmas – and also preparation for the Last Day, the Day of Judgment.

        We’re even having a “Celebration of Life” planning session today.

        I don’t think we can get any more counter cultural than that!

        To help get ready for this holy season, I recently read Advent sermons and meditations written by Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who was among the few German Christian leaders who spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis, one of the few German Christian leaders who helped Jews escape to safety.

        Fr. Delp’s courageous opposition led to his arrest and execution in 1945, near the end of World War II.

        Fr. Delp wrote some of his Advent meditations while in prison, writing on scraps of paper smuggled into his cell, his hands shackled.

        It was very powerful and moving to read his words written under such duress.

        Alfred Delp wrote about Advent as a time of being deeply shaken.

        Of course, he and the people hearing and reading his words were already deeply shaken by a culture that had turned to idolatry, hate, and genocide – deeply shaken by the war, by the bombs falling from the sky, deeply shaken by the loss of life – deeply shaken because they could not see their way to a peaceful future.

        As I was reading Delp’s words, of course I thought about the less dire but still real traumas of our own days – the terror attacks and pandemic that I talked about a couple of weeks ago – a political system that seems not so stable – the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that have caused so much suffering and death and still threaten to spread like a wildfire.

        And then there are our own personal traumas – loss of work, illnesses and addictions and accidents, the death of someone we love so much.

        Like Alfred Delp and the people of his time, we are also deeply shaken.

        And Advent is indeed a time of being deeply shaken.

        Did you hear Jesus’ description of the Last Day in today’s gospel lesson?

         “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.”

        We are shaken by the events of the world and our lives.

        We are shaken by Advent and its preview of the Last Day.

        Yes, we are shaken - but we do not fall because we know the love of God.

        We are shaken but we do not fall because we know the love of God – the love that sent John the Baptist to call us to repent and change our ways.

        We know the love of God – the love that chose Mary, a young peasant woman from the middle of nowhere. God chose the most unlikely person to carry the Son of God into the world – Mary who will sing that, through her son, God is turning the world downside up.

        We know the love of God in the holy men and women down through the centuries, people like Alfred Delp, faithful even unto death, writing to his shaken people about God’s love and faithfulness even in prison, even as he prepared for his own last day.

        We know the love of God in the people we pray and serve with here, week after week – the people who packed as much food and festive accessories as they could into those very heavy Thanksgiving bags – people who call or write when we’re in trouble or feeling low – people who make the choice to pray and serve with – people who make the choice to love – people with whom they probably disagree about all sorts of stuff – the most counter cultural move of all.

        And, most of all, we do not fall because in just a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of the Holy Child in the humblest of circumstances, Jesus the Foot-Washing King whose life of love and sacrifice, whose teachings of love and sacrifice, will change everything, showing us the way to new life.

        Yes, we are shaken but we do not fall.

        As Jesus says, we don’t cower in fear but raise our heads with confidence.

        We are shaken but we do not fall.

        As Jesus says, we don’t numb ourselves to the shaking up that’s happening all around us but we pay attention, looking for signs that God is still at work, looking for signs that God is coming into the world – coming into the world through a priest writing on scraps in his prison cell – coming into the world through people feeding the hungry – coming into the world through the people lined up to be fed – coming into the world on a cold night in Bethlehem when, perhaps, it seemed all hope was lost.

        Advent is a time of being deeply shaken.

        We live in a time of being deeply shaken.

        We are shaken. 

        But we do not fall.

        Because we know – we know - the love of God.

        Amen.

The Faith and Courage to Carry Jesus Into the World

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 24, 2023

Year B: The Fourth Sunday of Advent

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26

Romans 16:25-27

Luke 1:26-38

The Faith and Courage to Carry Jesus Into the World

For the past two Advent Sundays we’ve been hearing about John the Baptist, that powerful and uncompromising prophet who called people to repent, to change their ways, to be dunked in the River Jordan and begin anew.

John prepared the way for Jesus, declaring that the Kingdom of God was drawing near.

And now this morning, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, which, you may have noticed, also happens to be December 24th, as close as we can get to Christmas without it actually being Christmas, this morning we go back in time a couple of decades and turn our attention at last to the other central character of Advent: the Virgin Mary.

The passage that Deacon Les just read from the Gospel of Luke is a familiar one.

The story of the Annunciation is a key part of every church Christmas pageant when a child wearing a tinsel halo and fluffy wings stands before a blue-veiled girl playing Mary and says, “Greetings, favored one!”

But although this passage is very familiar, it was only recently that I realized that we’re not really told why Mary is so favored by God.

In fact, we’re told almost nothing about Mary – we don’t know how old she was, or what she looked like, or what kinds of things she was good at or what she enjoyed.

We do know that she was a virgin who lived in Nazareth, an unimportant town in Galilee.

We know that she was engaged to Joseph, who was of the house of David. That certainly sounds impressive, yes, but King David had lived a long time ago and by now his descendants were numerous and really just ordinary people.

Joseph was definitely not a prince living in a royal palace.

And we know that Mary had a cousin Elizabeth, who in her old age was miraculously pregnant, carrying the future John the Baptist.

That’s all good and important to know, but we’re still not told why Mary is the favored one, why God chose her to take on the unprecedented, mind-blowing, terrifying responsibility of carrying the Son of God into a cold and inhospitable world.

I always want to know more about the people we meet in the Bible – to learn their backstories and what happened to them next. That can be fun and interesting to imagine but the truth is that Scripture tells us everything we really need to know.

And that’s certainly true of Mary.

Why is Mary the favored one?

Well, when the angel appeared to her and greeted her, our English translation says she was “perplexed.” 

But a better translation of the original Greek would be that she was “terrified.”

And who could blame her, right?

Mary was terrified. 

But this young woman from the sticks didn’t try to run away from the angel.

She didn’t cry out for help.

She didn’t squeeze her eyes shut, desperately hoping that it was all a dream.

No, Mary stayed right where she was.

And when she heard the most amazing message from the angel, she must have known that she was being asked to do something very hard and dangerous, something that would be awfully difficult to explain to Joseph and everybody else, something that would cost her - and her fiancée – dearly.

But Mary didn’t suggest that the angel should try someone else – you know, maybe ask the girl who lives across the road.

No. Mary says, yes.

“Let it be with me according to your word.”

And in that moment we learn everything we need to know about Mary.

God favors her because she is a person of the greatest faith and courage – and she’ll need every bit of that faith and courage to carry Jesus into a world that already had enough kings, thank you very much, the powers that be who will want to get rid of this king of the Jews, right from the start.

And eventually, those powers that be will get rid him, all right. 

Or, so it seemed. 

And Mary, the favored woman of faith and courage, she will have to summon the strength to watch her son die in a horrible and shameful way, still trusting in the long-ago promise of the angel, believing that somehow her son would reign forever.

Mary was favored for her faith and courage.

You’ve probably seen on the news or read in the paper that, because of the horrific war between Israel and Hamas, the Christian leaders of Bethlehem decided to cancel this year’s Christmas festivities.

There will be no huge crowds of pilgrims and tourists flocking to the place of Jesus’ birth.

You may have also seen that this year the Lutheran church in Bethlehem created a very different, painfully stark, nativity scene.

Instead of resting peacefully in a charming straw-lined manger, the Baby Jesus lies amid smashed concrete, just like children lie among the rubble in Gaza and in so many war-torn places around the world, just like many children live in poverty and hopelessness right here in our own country.

Frankly, you know things are pretty bad when the Christians of Bethlehem feel like they have to essentially cancel Christmas.

And during these hard days – hard days for the world and for many of us - we may feel perplexed, or terrified, or angry, or sad, or maybe just exhausted by it all.

Yet, Mary’s faith and courage is available to us, too.

God gives us the faith and courage to carry Jesus into our cold and inhospitable world, right here and right now.

For example, we carried Jesus into the world with each gift we donated to the Christmas Extravaganza – each gift that we shared, sorted, wrapped, and delivered.

Our Afghan friends have endured so much rubble, survived so much suffering. They’re not Christians, of course, and nobody is trying to convert them – but we carried Jesus right into their lives with the many bags of clothing and other gifts they received from us – people they will probably never meet, people they’ll never really be able to thank.

And our friends at St. Mark’s On The Hill in Pikesville, during a time of transition and uncertainty, are boldly carrying Jesus into the world by restarting their food pantry – carrying Jesus right into the rubble of poverty and hunger, offering food to fill the belly, sharing hope to fill the soul.

Well, we are now as close as we can get to Christmas without it actually being Christmas.

At last, we’ve turned our attention to the Virgin Mary.

We may not know very much about her but we know all that we need to know.

Mary was favored because she had the faith and courage to carry Jesus into a cold and inhospitable world.

And in our own time and place, God gives us that same faith and courage, too.

Amen.

Making An Old Way New Again

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 17, 2023

Year B: The Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Canticle 15: The Song of Mary

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Making An Old Way New Again

Last Monday evening, after getting over Covid, I attended a very impressive event at Greater Harvest Baptist Church on Saratoga Street, in West Baltimore.

It was an action hosted by BUILD (“Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development”), which has been doing the hard and good work of community organizing in Baltimore for decades.

As you may have seen in the paper or on the news, BUILD has partnered with the City and with the Greater Baltimore Committee on a bold plan to address the thousands of vacant properties in Baltimore City – buildings that are dangerous and drag down entire neighborhoods.  

I’m really not knowledgeable enough to evaluate the merits of the plan, but it was inspiring to be with well over 500 people – Christians, Muslims, Jews, other people of goodwill – who remain committed to a city that has suffered so much for so long.

Now, it just so happens that BUILD is a sister organization of Jersey City Together, which I was involved with back home.

And so on Monday, I was once again reminded of the similarities between Baltimore and my hometown. 

Just like there are two Baltimores – some prosperous and beautiful neighborhoods and also areas of near-total devastation and despair – there are two Jersey Citys – there’s the impossibly expensive real estate along the Hudson River – the Gold Coast, it’s sometimes called - and an inner city that continues to struggle with familiar and persistent and heartbreaking problems.

Both Baltimore and Jersey City were once industrial powerhouses, providing reliable, if often dangerous and tedious, blue collar employment to many thousands of people.

And both cities were once great railroad towns.

Just a few decades ago, what is now the Gold Coast was occupied by half-abandoned rail yards and warehouses. And a few decades before that, every day many thousands of people poured into Jersey City on the Jersey Central, the B & O, the Pennsylvania, and other once mighty railroads – and then hopped on a ferry over to New York.

Maybe some of you remember doing just that.

In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a little spur line, just a couple of blocks from our house.

As a kid, it was always exciting when the railroad crossing bells would ring and a freight train would rumble by.

Today that’s all gone – all that’s left is an irregularly-sized strip of land, a kind of no man’s land where I’m sure kids hang out, just like some kids hung out “on the tracks” when I was little.

So, this is a longwinded way of saying, maybe it was inevitable that I would be interested in trains.

Back in the 90’s I spent a lot of time traveling around different parts of New Jersey, photographing remnants of the Jersey Central Railroad.

And now thanks to the Internet, it’s possible to belong to different online groups of people with similar interests, abandoned rail lines, old train stations.

I recently find one group that’s a little different, though.

Rather than documenting railroad ruins, instead of discovering relics of long lost routes, this group is documenting the surprising rebirth of a line in New Jersey that has been out of service for decades – it’s called the Freehold Secondary.

And so for several months, from afar, I’ve been watching this amazing progress, as brush was cleared and old tracks and ties removed, as gravel ballast and new ties and tracks have been firmly planted, getting ready for the trains that will be rolling again soon.

The workers have been making a way – not a new way – but making an old way new again.

Making an old way new again.

Today, on the Third Sunday of Advent, we switch our liturgical color from blue to rose.

It’s a symbolic lightening up, signaling that the Advent days of preparation are drawing to a close.

Rejoice, because soon – very soon, actually – it will be Christmas!

This week we get to spend a little more time with John the Baptist, the powerful prophet who declared it was time to repent – time to turn around - because the Kingdom of God was drawing near.

John the Baptist fascinates me because then, as now, people really didn’t like being told they were on the wrong track. But John doesn’t sugarcoat his message – not at all – and yet the people still come in huge numbers.

Deep down, they know they’re heading the wrong direction – they know that they need a new start.

Well, no surprise, John’s big crowds drew the notice of the religious authorities in Jerusalem. And, as we heard in today’s gospel lesson, they send a fact-finding mission to learn just what John is up to.

And what they learn is that John is not Elijah and he’s also not the Messiah.

John declares his mission by quoting the Prophet Isaiah. John is the one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

John prepares the way of Jesus by cutting down the weeds of sin and delusion.

John prepares the way of Jesus by calling people to repent – to change their ways – to be dunked in the River Jordan and begin anew.

John prepares the way of Jesus.

And the other main Advent character, the Virgin Mary, whose song we said today in place of a psalm, she prepares the way of Jesus by quite literally carrying him into the world - into a cold and inhospitable world, carrying the Son of God into a world where the powers that be are out to get him, right from the start.

And later, after the first Easter morning, the way of Jesus – the way of love and sacrifice - will be well traveled by the apostles and by Christians down through the ages, including the hearty and faithful band of “forest inhabitants” who built this beautiful church on the highest ground they could find.

But, you know, the way of Jesus – the way of love and sacrifice – is kind of like a railroad right-of-way. 

If the trains stop running, if maintenance is deferred, the weeds quickly take over, burying and hiding the tracks.

And it’s the same with the way of Jesus.

If we neglect the way, it too can be buried, lost, and forgotten.

Over the past couple of years, one of the key themes here at St. Thomas’ has been renewal.

We haven’t invented a new way.

Kind of like those workers laying track on the Freehold Secondary, we have made an old way new again.

With God’s help, of course.

We made an old way new again at the Christmas Extravaganza on Tuesday night, following a tradition that’s now more than two decades old, but which this year noticeably included quite a few new people, new to outreach, new to the parish, who brought their own gifts and ideas.

We made an old way new again by reimagining our Youth Confirmation program, making it less like school and more of an experience – giving our wonderful young people the opportunity to not just learn about the church but to be the church, to be who they really are.

And, I’d suggest the BUILD action on Monday night was making an old way new again – Christians and people of other faiths or maybe no faith but goodwill, gathering together to endorse a kind of complicated plan which may or may not work, we’ll see, but really we gathered to choose hope – choosing Advent hope even in the midst of so much fear and despair.

This is the way of Jesus.

This is the way of love and service.

It’s the way prepared by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist.

It’s an old way that we are called to make new again.

Amen.

Putting On the Armor of Light

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

December 3, 2023

Year B: The First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

Putting On the Armor of Light

I’ve mentioned to you before that I am a big believer in the value of weekday worship.

It’s a lesson that I learned way back at the first church I served as an assistant – a church that offered at least one service of public worship every single day of the year.

Frankly, when I first arrived there that devotion to weekday worship amazed me, and now, after being rector of a couple of churches, it still does.

Although relatively few people attended most of those services – and sometimes it was just the officiant praying alone – I came to appreciate the spiritual value of that daily discipline – the way all of that prayer changes us, in ways both visible and invisible, known and unknown.

And daily worship has a symbolic value, too. 

It reminds us that the Christian life is more than something we do for an hour or so on Sundays.

No, following Jesus a 24/7 undertaking, the commitment and adventure of a lifetime.

And, finally, offering weekday services is just good stewardship.

We really should use our holy and beautiful and expensive to maintain buildings more than just once or twice a week.

So, one of my goals has been to reintroduce weekday worship to St. Thomas’, which we did first by adding the Service of Holy Communion and Anointing on Wednesdays at noon and then introducing Morning Prayer on Thursdays at 9:00.

I’ve hoped that eventually we might actually have one service every single day.

I’m playing kind of a long game here, so I’ve assumed that this would take a while.

But then, world events intervened.

As most of you know, when war broke out between Hamas and Israel, some of us felt the call to step up our prayer life.

While it’s true that armed conflicts are always raging in different places around the world, this particular war seemed extra dangerous, running the risk of sparking a wider war in the Middle East.

This horrible war also released – or maybe simply uncovered – the old demons of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

This brutal conflict and the suffering of so many innocent people tempted so some of us to dehumanize the “other side” – forgetting that we are all beloved children of God – our blood and our tears are made of the same stuff.

And so, we stepped up our prayer life by offering The Great Litany, Monday through Friday at noon in the Old School Building.

I chose the Litany because this is a prayer that people have prayed for centuries, especially in times of crisis.

It’s also an exceptionally comprehensive prayer. 

In the Litany, we ask God to deliver us “from all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity.”

We ask God to “make wars to cease in all the world; to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord; and to bestow freedom upon all peoples.”

And we beseech God “to have mercy upon all mankind.”

I also chose the Litany because it’s easy: it was already right there in the Prayer Book – no creativity or bulletins were required - and it only takes about twelve minutes to pray aloud, which seemed manageable.

I wasn’t entirely sure if anyone would show up, but most days there has been at least one other person in the Old School Building and for the last few days a good friend of mine, Tina, has been joining us on Zoom all the way from Tallahassee.

Sam Shoemaker once wrote, “Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.”

“Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.”

And that’s been my experience of praying the Great Litany over these weeks.

I can’t say that the world is in any better shape because of our prayers, though you never know.

But, I can feel a difference in me – a renewed strength to face the future – a deepened confidence that God is present with us even when everything is a mess, even when the shadows grow very deep.

In the words of today’s collect, our opening prayer, praying the Great Litany each weekday has felt like putting on the “armor of light.”

Today, the First Sunday of Advent, is the first day of a new church year.

And today, and during many Sundays this year, we’ll be reading and hearing from the Gospel of Mark.

Although, it’s placed after Matthew in the Bible, in fact Mark is the oldest of the four gospels.

The Gospel of Mark was written about forty years after the earthly lifetime of Jesus, right around the Year 70, the year when the Romans brutally sacked Jerusalem, destroying much of the city, including the Temple.

The Temple was where, in a sense, God was believed to dwell – it was where the Jewish people made sacrifices in order to keep their end of the Covenant – it was simply the heart of Jewish life.

And so its destruction was a horrible blow.

In a way that we can’t quite grasp, for Jews of that time, the destruction of the Temple must have seemed like the end of the world.

And at least some Jesus followers thought that the destruction of the Temple was surely a sign that Jesus was about to return, that the Last Day, the Day of Judgment had arrived.

But in his gospel written during this time of turmoil, Mark quotes Jesus as saying that, yes, awful and terrifying things are going to happen, but we do not know when the Last Day will arrive.

So, we need to be alert, to be prepared, to keep awake.

We live in a time of deep shadows.

After an all-too-brief ceasefire, after the release of some hostages, the war between Hamas and Israel has resumed, and the risk of a wider conflict remains – and the old demons of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are still on the loose.

Russia’s assault on Ukraine grinds on, causing so much suffering, and also threatening a larger and even more devastating conflict.

Meanwhile, many of us face our own personal challenges and sorrows.

And across our country, rightly or wrongly, so many have lost trust in our institutions and leaders.

We’ve lost trust in each other.

And I still haven’t met anyone who’s excited about the next presidential election.

It’s tempting to give into despair.

But, God does not let go of us, no matter what.

And, while we may not know the future, we do know Jesus.

So, during Advent and always, we keep awake.

We offer loving service to people in need, as we will next week at the Christmas Extravaganza.

And, most of all, we pray – trusting that our prayers will change us - not just here on Sundays but every day – praying the Litany or in whatever way helps us feel God’s closeness.

In a time of deep shadows, we put on the armor of light.

Amen.

Our Zillion Blessings

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

November 19, 2023

Year A, Proper 28: The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Judges 4:1-7

Psalm 123

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

Our Zillion Blessings

If you were here last Sunday, you may remember that we began a kind of seasonal change.

Although the holy season of Advent doesn’t begin for two more weeks, our Bible readings and prayers and even our music are getting us ready by drawing our attention to the Last Day – the Day of Judgment.

Last Sunday, we heard Jesus’ Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids.

The wise bridesmaids had enough oil for their lamps while the foolish ones were unprepared – not ready for the arrival of the bridegroom.

The foolish bridesmaids made a big mistake, thinking somehow that they had all the time in the world.

And in today’s lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, we pick up right where we left off last week.

We hear another challenging parable from Jesus – what’s often called the Parable of the Talents.

Some scholars think that this parable was originally an economic critique from Jesus.

The character of the master – demanding, shrewd, cruel - would’ve been familiar to Jesus and the people of his time and place.

And, we also know his type, don’t we?

The slave who received the one talent is definitely not wrong when he says, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed…”

And, if there was any doubt about the master’s harshness, casting into the outer darkness the slave who buried his one talent settles the question once and for all.

In our own time, when employees are often mistreated and casually cast off, I’d say that this economic critique still holds up.

But, by the time of the Gospel of Matthew was written, a couple of generations after Jesus’ earthly lifetime, some early Christians heard something else, something even deeper, in this parable.

We don’t know exactly how much a “talent” was worth in the ancient world, but it was a lot – in fact, a “talent” may just be a shorthand expression for “a lot of money” like we might say, “a million dollars” or, with inflation, maybe “a zillion dollars.”

Early Christians began to recognize that Jesus might not only be talking about money but might be teaching us about the blessings that we have received – the “zillion” blessings we have received. 

Our “talents” – our blessings – come not from a harsh master but from a loving God.

But, nevertheless, we are expected to use our blessings wisely – to multiply our blessings, for the good of the world.

Each of us has the obligation to invest our blessings, not by burying them, not by hoarding them, not by zealously guarding them, but by sharing what we’ve been given.

And, together, we the church, have a sacred responsibility – a holy expectation - to share the zillion blessings we have been given.

As I mentioned to you last week, Sandy Martin was one of the first people we met here at St. Thomas’. Sue and I met him and his beloved Beaumont even before we moved here. Their warm embrace helped to convince us that this was the right place for us.

And Sandy’s death has gotten me thinking back to my first encounters with St. Thomas’, which were on paper and video.

And somewhere in the parish profile or in the videos you put together – I didn’t have time to go looking - this parish expressed the hope that it – we – could be a spiritual resource not only for our parishioners, but for the whole community.

You recognized that St. Thomas’ has been blessed in a zillion ways – and we certainly have – we’re the slave who has been given five talents.

And it’s our duty and obligation and privilege to share as much as we can with the people beyond our walls.

Of course, parishioners like Sandy and Beaumont and so many of you have been doing that all along – it’s built into the DNA of this place – just look at the Thanksgiving bags that are currently crowding the Old School Building.

But, I want to share with you just a couple of recent examples of us sharing some of our “talents” – our zillion blessings – with people “out there.”

Many of you will remember that a few weeks ago, Janice Mabry, the wife of Curtis Mabry, the longtime golf pro at the Greenspring Club, died. 

Although Janice and Curtis were not parishioners, it felt very appropriate for her funeral to be here.

In her funeral homily, Caroline Stewart noted the longstanding close relationship between “the Club” and St. Thomas’ and how right it was for the community to gather here to celebrate Janice and to comfort Curtis and his family.

That day, St. Thomas’ was a spiritual resource for the whole community.

Right around the same time as Janice’s funeral, we received an inquiry through our website about possibly having another funeral here.

A woman named Lisa wrote to tell us that her daughter had recently given birth to twins – Summer’lynn and River’lynn – but, so very sadly, after only four days of life, River’lynn had died.

Lisa wrote that she and her family were new to this community and hadn’t found a church, yet. Would we be open to having River’lynn’s funeral here?

I wrote back to Lisa and we set up a time to meet.

Several family members joined us, including Summer’lynn and her mom.

I have to tell you, it felt like a little village of love had come to visit.

We had a beautiful and sad conversation, learning a little bit about each other, and talking about what River’lynn’s service might look like.

At one point, I asked Lisa why had she reached out to us. Why St. Thomas’?

And her answer was, she liked what she saw on our website – how we emphasized that everyone is welcome here – and, I think, she wanted to see for herself and her family if that claim was actually true.

“Would we really be welcome here?”

Well, River’lynn’s sad and beautiful service was here yesterday afternoon, followed by a small reception in the Parish Hall.

Jane, our Parish Administrator, spent a good part of the week creating a brand new service bulletin, since we had no existing template appropriate for someone so young.

Roz created a beautiful pink quilt, which we gave to River’lynn’s mom, and another parishioner dropped off a plant to give to the family.

John was here to assist. Wanda played - and Jon and Rachel sang – all so beautifully, just as they did for Janice, just as they will for Sandy tomorrow, just as they always do.

Chris gave up a good chunk of his Saturday to set up for the reception, live-stream the service, and then clean up and get us ready for today.

It was yet another another busy weekend for the Altar Guild.

And I hope that our sharing of just a few of our zillion blessings was a comfort for River’lynn’s family – a reminder of God’s love – a sign that God really does not let go of us, no matter what.

I decided to share these two stories with you not to toot our own horn. 

Frankly, I doubt Jesus is impressed – he would say that we were only doing what we ought to be doing.

But I wanted to share these stories as signs of what really is possible - examples of us heading in the right direction, of us being a servant church, with God’s help.

We really have been given a whole lot of “talents” and we know that God calls us – expects us – to invest them by sharing them with others, people we’ve known for a long time and people we’ve never met.

And, this little pre-Advent season is a pointed reminder to get going, because we do not have all the time in the world to share our zillion blessings.

Amen.