Every Season is a Season of Celebration

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

March 2, 2025

Year C: The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm 99

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Luke 9:28-36

Every Season is a Season of Celebration

Let us pray.

O God, whether we are up on the mountaintop or down in the valley, give us the gift of awe, help us to recognize and celebrate your love and your healing at work in and among us.

Amen.

        Well, last weekend, we had a couple of really great days here at St. Thomas’.

On Saturday afternoon, of course, we had our magnificent recital: “A Journey of Song: A Celebration of Heritage and Hope.”

David Marshall dreamed up a beautiful program for us and the musicianship was extraordinary. No surprise there.

But, even more important than the amazing technical skill, there was so much heart – heart that we could all hear in the songs, heart that we could feel here in this old building among parishioners and friends and guests.

For Sue and me, the recital was extra-meaningful because it was a reunion with one of our all-time favorite people, Gail Blache-Gill, who had been the Minister of Music at our church in Jersey City. 

It’s hard to find exactly the right words to describe what it felt like to see and hear Gail sing at St. Thomas’ – it was kind of like weaving together different threads of my life, of our lives, creating something unexpected and new, something that felt just right.

As if that weren’t enough, three of our Jersey City parishioners surprised us by making the trip down to Maryland, transforming the recital into a real family reunion.

So that was amazing.

And then on Sunday we gathered in the Parish Hall for our Annual Meeting.

Meetings can be a drag, believe me I know, but our meeting felt like a celebration – a celebration of your extraordinary generosity, a celebration of all the life-giving ministries that happen here all the time, and a celebration of some big plans in the years ahead:

        We’re going to transform what was formerly the assistant’s house into a home for Afghan refugees.

        We’re going to enclose and memorialize the North Cemetery.

        We’re going to fully rehabilitate the organ, which should continue to serve our church for many decades.

        We’re going to connect to the sewer system (that may not sound glamorous but it’s a big deal!).

        And, lest we forget, we will hire a full-time Assistant Rector so we can do and support even more ministries and help keep me going, too!

        All with God’s help, of course.

        Yes, last weekend was really something – it was a celebration of song and ministry.

        You might even say that, for us, for St. Thomas’, last weekend was a mountaintop experience. 

        And now here we are today.

        It’s the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the start of the holy season of Lent.

        And every year on this day in our gospel lesson we hear the story of another mountaintop experience: the Transfiguration.

        As we just heard, Jesus is transformed before their eyes, giving a glimpse of Easter, when Jesus is still himself but also different – a preview of Easter, when Jesus journeys from death to new life.

        In this mountaintop experience, Jesus and his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, encounter two key figures from Israel’s past, Moses and Elijah.

        On the mountain, Jesus and his friends hear the voice of God: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.”

        And as suddenly as the mountaintop experience began, it was over.

        It was time to come down the mountain, back into our broken and suffering world.

        Who could blame Peter for wanting to build mountaintop dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah?

        Who could blame Peter for wanting to stay “up there” forever?

        And then, in the second part of today’s gospel lesson, we get a snapshot of the world’s suffering:

        A father desperately seeking help for his son, for his only child.

        The well-meaning disciples trying to help, trying to fix the situation, but they fail.

        In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus doesn’t explain why the disciples can’t cast out this demon, but in Mark he says that this kind of demon can only be defeated by prayer and in Matthew he says that the disciples just didn’t have enough faith.

        But, far from the mountaintop, in this valley of suffering, Jesus casts out the demon and restores the boy to health.

        Just like for Jesus and his disciples and just like every mountaintop experience, our amazing weekend at St. Thomas’ eventually came to an end.

        We all went back down the mountain to our routines and responsibilities.

        We all went back home to face our challenges and fears.

        At some point, most of us probably turned on the news or doomscrolled through social media, filled with stories of cruelty and violence, suffering and loss. 

        Life is hard in the valley of suffering.

        This is why it is so important for us to be here week after week.

        Now, I’m not going to say that every Sunday is a mountaintop experience, although if our hearts are really open to what’s happening here, then maybe.

        But I will say that, when we’re here together, every season is a season of celebration.

        I came across an interesting quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great 20th century Jewish theologian, philosopher and civil rights activist.

Heschel draws a distinction between entertainment and celebration.

        Entertainment, he says, is a passive state, “it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or spectacle.”

         But “celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.”  

        So, every time we gather here, it’s a celebration – a celebration of God’s love for us, a celebration of our love of God and our love for one another.

        Every time we gather here – when we hear God’s Word, when we receive Christ’s Body and Blood, when we exchange a sign of peace especially when there’s not much peace “out there” in the world, it’s a celebration.

        Every time we welcome a new Christian in the water of Baptism, that’s a celebration. Obviously. Everybody knows that!

        But every time we gather here after a beloved sister or brother has died, as hard as that is, it’s also a celebration – it’s a celebration because we remember the person we’ve loved and why we loved them and now miss them so much – it’s a celebration because we hold each other up – it’s a celebration because we know that the Transfiguration is a glimpse of Jesus’ future and our own – God will not let go of us, no matter what.

        Even Lent, which maybe doesn’t seem so celebratory, and, considering the grim state of the world, we might even be tempted to skip this year, even Lent is a celebration.

        It’s a celebration to remember that we are dust, totally dependent on our loving God.

        It’s a celebration to repent, to turn around, to be even more loving, more faithful, more generous.

        It’s a celebration to prepare for the biggest celebration of them all – to prepare for Easter.

        It’s at Easter when we learn, when we know, that evil and death do not get the last word – that, even when things look as hopeless as a sealed tomb, even when shadows seem to be blocking all the light, love and life will triumph.

        So, last week we had quite a weekend here at St. Thomas’, days that I know I won’t forget anytime soon.

        And maybe we can’t promise a mountaintop experience quite like that every week.

        But, whether we’re up on the mountain or down in the valley, when we gather here with Jesus and his friends, every season is a season of celebration.

        Amen.

Less Woeful, More Blessed

Less Woeful, More Blessed

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

February 23, 2025

Year C: The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Let us pray. 

Loving God, help us to follow the way of Jesus.

Help us to follow the way of love, generosity, and mercy.

Help us to make this world less woeful and more blessed.

Amen.

So, as you know, each week we hear various excerpts from Holy Scripture. 

And, by the way, we follow a schedule of Bible readings. So, I don’t choose the scripture that we hear – and, sometimes, maybe like today, for example, I might have made a different choice!

One problem with this system is that it’s easy to get so focused on these individual passages that we miss the big picture, the context, we don’t pay any attention to what was happening in the background of the biblical world, we don’t know or forget what life was like for Jesus and for all of the other people we read about in the Bible.

It’s important for us to remember that life in biblical times was almost unimaginably difficult.

Of course, there were none of our modern conveniences – none of the gadgets that make our lives so comfortable – no electricity which Sue and I sorely missed last week when the high winds brought down trees and knocked out our power – the house got cold really fast.

I know lots of you were in the same boat.

Back in biblical times, people were completely dependent on the harvest and the catch – a drought or an empty net meant hunger or even worse.

And while there were folk remedies and maybe some of them even worked, there was, of course, no modern medicine – no vaccines or antibiotics or scans or surgery – none of the marvels that have restored so many of us to health, none of the discoveries and innovations that have kept so many of us alive.

Yes, life in biblical times was almost unimaginably difficult.

And, in the first century, during the days of Jesus’ earthly life, on top of the usual challenges, the people of Israel lived under Roman occupation.

Now, the Romans were great builders. In fact, some of their roads, and aqueducts, and buildings are still in use today – which, let’s give them credit, is amazing.

But those impressive achievements were built on the backs of poor people throughout the empire – the people who were forced to send so much of their wealth to Rome.

And, of course, if any of those subjugated people ever dared to resist Rome, the punishment was swift and brutal.

Crucifixion, which was really death by suffocation, was common. And, unlike in the case of Jesus, usually the bodies of the crucified were left on the cross to decay, a horrifying sight, a stark reminder of the price of challenging the powers that be. 

So, it’s in a land of suffering, that Jesus offers what we heard last week, what’s often called the Sermon on the Plain.

It’s in a land of suffering that Jesus presents his downside-up vision, “Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the hated.”

And it’s in a land of suffering that Jesus warns the people who were living large, the people who were doing well while so many were suffering: “Woe to you who are rich and full and laughing and respected.”

If this all sounds bizarrely downside-up to us, which it does, imagine just how crazy Jesus’ words must have seemed to people living under Roman occupation!

And now, in today’s excerpt from the Gospel of Luke, we hear the continuation of the Sermon on the Plain, the continuation of Jesus’ downside-up vision of how we are to live together.

Jesus’ downside-up vision of how things were always meant to be.

We are meant to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to give away what we have, to do to others as we would have them do to us.

We are to be merciful, just as Joseph was merciful to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, just as God is merciful to all of us.

You won’t be surprised that Jesus’ most challenging vision got me thinking about baptism – got me thinking about the big promises we make in the Baptismal Covenant – to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self – to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.

With God’s help. Always and only with God’s help.

Finally, at the very end of today’s passage, Jesus says, “the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

That sounds like a quid pro quo with God – that if we’re good then God will be good to us.

But we know that’s not how God does things.

Instead, I think Jesus is simply stating a fact: when we are loving and generous and merciful, then, with God’s help, we create a church, a community, a world, that is more loving, generous, and merciful.

The measure we give will be the measure we get back, and, knowing God, we will always receive way more than we give.

So, I’m not sure if I would have chosen this most challenging gospel lesson for the day of our Annual Parish Meeting, but the more I’ve thought about it, I think it is exactly right for us today.

Out there, the ways of the world continue to be… the ways of the world.

A first century Jew brought to our time would be dazzled, shocked, and confused by many things, but the cruelty and oppression and suffering of so many people in so many places would be all too familiar.

But, here at St. Thomas’, while we are certainly not perfect, there is a sincere and honest attempt to follow the downside-up way of Jesus, the way of love, generosity, and mercy.

I hope that you will take the time to read our Annual Report – a lot of people worked really hard on it, most especially Jane Farnan, our dedicated Parish Administrator.

There’s a lot of data in the Annual Report but at its heart is a story of one Christian community here in the Baltimore suburbs doing its best to make Jesus’ downside-up vision a reality.

It’s a story of this church, with God’s help, trying to make the world a little less woeful and a little more blessed.

While the world teaches us to be selfish, while the world insists there’s just not enough so we better hold on to what we’ve got, here we give so much away.

Think of the thousands of sandwiches made for the guests at Paul’s Place and the hundreds of bags of supplies and all those Thanksgiving bags shared with the people at the Community Crisis Center.

And I was so touched that so many of you bought tickets for the Sutton Scholars event at Top Golf on Thursday night – some of you buying tickets even though you couldn’t be there, even though you missed the chance to see me make a fool of myself trying to swing a golf club.

While the world teaches us to fear and even despise strangers, we continue to welcome and support and love our Afghan friends, giving countless hours to make sure they have every chance to thrive here in their new home.

On Thursday evening, at that Sutton Scholars event, Betty Symington of ERICA pulled me aside to thank me for your generosity, your persistence, your steadfastness. I’ve had very little  to do with that but I was proud to accept her thanks on your behalf.

While the world pushes us apart, dividing us up, here at St. Thomas’ everyone is welcome – all kinds of people from lots of different places with all sorts of different ideas – everyone is welcome here.

And as I have preached many times and will continue to preach in the days ahead, this is one of the last places where lots of different people can come together, pray and serve together, love one another.

It’s a special vocation, and one that we must protect, cherish and nourish.

While the world insists that the church is in decline and the future looks bleak, God sent us two remarkably faithful women who have said “yes” to God’s call, and we have been so blessed by Amelia’s and Sue’s gifts – and I know that I can’t wait to see the next chapters of their ministries.

And God continues to send us so many wonderful new people who have gotten involved in our ministries and have even taken on leadership positions.

For example, our Stewardship chair Amy Sussman, Preschool Board chair Kathy Resnik, new Treasurer Brian Lyght, Vestry member Shyla Cadogan, and Green Team co-chair Leslie Steele – they are all newer to St. Thomas’ than me. Isn’t that amazing?

While the world often seems so ugly, and getting uglier by the minute, here at St. Thomas’ there is a commitment to beauty – caring for our buildings and grounds, polishing the silver and ironing the linens, arranging gorgeous flowers every week – and our choir sings with astonishing skill and faithfulness – what a place of beauty this is!

And speaking of beauty, yesterday’s Spirituals recital created by David Marshall (also newer than me!) was incredibly beautiful and moving, a real comfort during challenging days.

I could go on, but I won’t because I know you’ll read the Annual Report.

Seriously, please read the report because in words and numbers, it tells the story of St. Thomas’ Church as we follow the downside-up way of Jesus, the challenging way of love, generosity, and mercy.

As Deacon Amelia said in her wise and thoughtful sermon last week, we do this work together.

Here at St. Thomas’, with God’s help, together, we make the world a little less woeful and a little more blessed.

Thanks be to God.

And thanks be to you.

Amen.

Soul Work

Soul Work

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

February 2, 2025

The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord 

Malachi 3:1-4

Psalm 84

Hebrews 2:14-18

Luke 2:22-40

Let us pray:

Loving God, we pray for purification and strength.

Wash away our fear and hatred.

Strengthen our souls so we may withstand the piercings of suffering and sorrow.

Amen.

This past Thursday, our sextons made their way through the churchyard and cemetery gathering up the Christmas wreaths that, thanks to your generosity, have rested on many graves for quite a few weeks now.

The wreath removal happened a little later than usual this year because of the snow and the bitter cold that kept the snow on the ground for several weeks.

And, you know, I didn’t mind that at all, because the wreaths looked so beautiful out there, rings of green and red sprinkled among the graves, flashes of color among the snowy white, much needed reminders of Christmas joy.

But, although the wreath-removal may have been a little later than usual, it was actually right on time, or maybe even a couple of days early.

Most of us have long since moved on from Christmas, our trees disposed of or put away, decorations back in the closet or up in the attic – but there is a Christian tradition that the Christmas Season lasts for forty days, lasts all the way to February 2, lasts all the way to the great feast day that we celebrate today: The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord.

In the story of the Presentation, Luke tells us that forty days after Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph brought him to the Jerusalem Temple.

And in this story, Luke combines two Jewish traditions:

Forty days after giving birth to a male child, mothers underwent a ritual of purification, which included offering a lamb to be sacrificed in the Temple. Or poor people could offer a pair of doves or pigeons.

That’s the option chosen by Joseph and Mary, a sign that the Holy Family was a poor family.

The other ritual was what’s called the “Redemption of the Firstborn,” the idea that a firstborn male child belonged to God and could be redeemed by an offering made by the father.

So that’s why Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus are in the Temple but, actually, we don’t hear much about those two rituals.

Instead, the story of the Presentation is really about the encounters with two holy people: Simeon and Anna.

I’m going to take them in reverse order.

Anna is described as a prophet – a prophet who seems to have been living in the Temple for a while, totally devoted to fasting and prayer – and once she recognizes who Jesus is, like other women in the gospels – like the Samaritan woman at the well, like Mary Magdalene - once she recognizes who Jesus is, Anna begins to spread the Good News.

Simeon is described as righteous and devout, and like Israel itself, he has been waiting for the Messiah – but maybe he’s been waiting with more confidence than most because the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die before seeing the Savior.

Well, as we heard, thanks to the Holy Spirit, Simeon recognizes who Jesus is and he sings his song, giving thanks to God that he can now die in peace because he has seen the light, the light of God shining on all the world’s people in and through Jesus.

So, you can get why some people say the Christmas Season extends to the Feast of the Presentation – this story does have a Christmas feel to it, doesn’t it?

There’s plenty of Christmas joy.

 But there’s also the Christmas foreshadowing of hard times, of sacrifice and suffering ahead.

We don’t talk much about this during Christmas – we don’t want to bring people down during a time that’s supposed to be “holly, jolly” – but once you start looking for this Christmas foreshadowing you find it everywhere:

No room at the inn: from day one, the world will not welcome God’s Son.

The Magi give the gift of myrrh: customarily used to anoint the dead.

Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children in Bethlehem: the powers of the world try to kill Jesus right at the start.

And the flight into Egypt: for a time, the Holy Family will be a refugee family.

Christmas foreshadowing of hard times, sacrifice, and suffering ahead.

And we certainly hear that Christmas foreshadowing in Simeon’s words to Mary:

“This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”

And then Simeon says to Mary, “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Powerful and stark words to a young mother who must have already known that saying “yes” to God would require great sacrifice, both for her and for her son.

As many of you will remember, last Sunday we had a beautiful baptism.

Henry Brooks is just six months old but already a familiar and much-loved presence here at St. Thomas’.

Henry was patient as I poured those three scoops of water over his head, announcing that he was baptized in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Henry was patient but he wasn’t still, he was kind of paddling, which made total sense when I learned that his parents have been bringing him to swimming class!

As we do at every baptism, we renewed our Baptismal Covenant, making those big promises to keep on praying and breaking bread together, to confess our sins and try to do better, and to proclaim the Good News by word and example.

And then there are those two last promises, the hardest, most challenging, promises of all:

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

And, will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

And to each of those questions, we answered “I will, with God’s help.”

All people, every human being.

If you were here last Sunday or watched online, you’ll probably remember that in my sermon I listed different kinds of people we are called to love, specifically including kinds of people that we might not like one bit, people we might not trust or approve of, some people we might even hate.

As I made my way down the list, I could see some of you start to become uncomfortable, start to squirm a little bit in your seats.

Now, I can’t read your minds – not usually, anyway - but I think you squirmed because this is REALLY HARD.

And I’m right there with you. I can’t tell you how many times I deleted that list from my sermon draft, thinking, no, it would be better – safer – easier – to just keep things vague.

“Love all people.”

But, no, vague is too easy.

Specific is hard.

Loving the people I disagree with, the people I don’t like, the people I don’t approve of or trust, that’s hard – and it’s not getting any easier.

Only remotely possible with God’s help.

But, especially in this tense moment, this is what we’re called to, this how we are meant to live.

The way of the world is the way of hate and death.

God’s way is the way of love and life.

So, the only question – and it’s a big one – is how? How do we live this way of love and life? How do we, with God’s help, keep our baptismal promises?

I was pondering this question the other day when I came across these words from Sam Shoemaker:

“In the end, the outer world is a pretty faithful reproduction of the inner world. We cannot hope to make a world of righteousness and peace while the souls of our people are full of sin and conflict.”

Following God’s way of love and life, striving to keep our baptismal promises, begins with working on our souls.

This will look a little different for each of us but will certainly include time for prayer – what Shoemaker called “Quiet Time.”

And maybe that prayer is simply lifting up to God the people we can’t stand, - name them - the people we fear, don’t trust, even hate. Lift them up to God and say, “I know you love them God, help me to love them, too.”

This soul work definitely includes being here as much as possible with the rest of your fellow Christians – here in a community made up of people from all over, people who disagree about all sorts of things and yet, and yet, we pray together and serve together, we receive the Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation together – we love one another.

Following God’s way of love and life, striving to keep our baptismal promises, begins with working on our souls.

We know that Simeon’s prophecy came true: as Mary watched her son die on the cross, a sword did pierce her soul.

And we know only too well that our souls have been and will be pierced by suffering and loss.

But we also know that the cross is not the end of the story.

God’s bond of love with us is indissoluble, unbreakable.

Suffering and loss and death do not get the last word.

So, with God’s help, let’s do the soul work necessary to keep going, to follow God’s way of love and life, together, and let’s help build a world of righteousness and peace for all people.

Amen.

Our True Home

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

January 26, 2025

Year C: The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Our True Home

Let us pray.

God of love and peace, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Help us to remember the way to our true home. Show us the way back to you.

Amen. 

        Most of you know (because I’ve mentioned it a couple hundred times) that I grew up and lived most of my life in Jersey City, New Jersey, one of America’s great cities, a diverse and  densely populated place just across the Hudson River from New York City.

And, although I’m glad and thankful to be here with all of you, I don’t think you’ll be surprised that I do get homesick from time to time.

I miss having my family and friends close by.

I miss being able to walk down the street to our local restaurant or hopping on the PATH train and spending a few hours wandering around New York.

Of course, Jersey City isn’t that far away, so I do get back there a couple of times a year, which I’m always happy to do.

But, you know, these homecomings are strange.

Since I don’t live there anymore, I stay in a hotel – which is both shockingly expensive, and it’s also weird, disorienting, to feel like a tourist in my hometown.

And walking and driving around the city, it’s still very familiar but also changed – old buildings are gone and new, often very tall, buildings have arisen.

The city has changed.

And over my three and a half years away, during my time here with all of you, I’ve changed, too.

So now, for me, Jersey City is both home and not-home.

I got to thinking about all of this when I began reflecting on today’s gospel lesson:

Jesus’ return to his hometown, Nazareth.

You may recall that two weeks ago, we remembered Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.

Luke tells us that right after his baptism, while Jesus was praying, he saw the Spirit descend like a dove and he heard a voice from heaven say, “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Like us, Jesus was changed by his baptism, filled with the Spirit.

If Jesus didn’t know it before, he could now be certain of the Father’s love, God’s indissoluble and unbreakable love.

Luke tells us that after his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for his time of temptation and testing.

Satan gives it his best shot, but Spirit-filled Jesus resists.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, more than any particular satanic temptations, I think the biggest challenge for Jesus – and for all of us – was and is to remember – to remember our baptism - to remember God’s indissoluble and unbreakable love for us – to remember God’s love and grace during the hard and frightening times that we all face in our lives.

Jesus must have remembered the Father’s love – must have felt God’s love – and he survived – triumphed – in the wilderness.

No doubt, Jesus was changed by his baptism and by his days and nights in the wilderness.

And now, filled with Spirit, he began his ministry of teaching and healing, and the word about him began to spread all over, including back in Nazareth.

So, by the time Jesus returned to his hometown, there was a lot of anticipation and curiosity and maybe also confusion and doubt – could it really be Joseph and Mary’s son who was teaching like no one had ever heard before?

Could it really be Jesus – I mean, we’ve known him since he was a kid – could it really be Jesus who was healing all these people?

Well, today we heard the first part of Jesus’ homecoming.

Filled with the Spirit, Jesus goes to the synagogue and reads from the Prophet Isaiah, reading words that must have been familiar to his fellow Jews:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then spirit-filled Jesus boldly tells his Nazareth family and neighbors, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That day in the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus declared his mission – his mission to bring good news to people who get a lot of bad news, to liberate those in chains, to give people vision, to declare the dawn of a new day, a new age.

What a moment that must have been.

This year, we won’t get to hear what happened next, but you may remember that it doesn’t go well – in fact, it goes so badly that the crowd wanted to kill Jesus, forcing him to flee his home.

Or, maybe, what he used to think was his home.

The truth is that in his baptism and during his time in the wilderness, Jesus must have understood that his true home wasn’t Nazareth or any other place on earth.

His true home was God the Father.

And the same goes for us – if we’re open and paying attention, in our baptism and during our wilderness times we can recognize that for us our true home isn’t Owings Mills or Jersey City or the United States or whatever land we’ve come from.

No, our true home is God.

In a few minutes, I’ll have the great privilege of baptizing young Henry.

In his first six months of life, Henry has already been quite the Christian – his parents have brought him to church very often – yesterday he went on his first church trip to the National Museum of the American Indian – and let’s not forget, he was our Baby Jesus in this year’s Christmas Tableau.

Thanks to his faithful family, Henry’s Christian life is already underway.

But today, in the water of Baptism, God will make an indissoluble, unbreakable bond with Henry – and there is nothing that Henry or we could ever do or not do that would ever cause God to break that bond of love with Henry or with any of us.

There’s no force powerful enough to break God’s bond with us.

No force powerful enough to separate us from God, our true home.

And when we experience this – when we remember this - when we know this deep down in our hearts – then we can be brave – we can bravely use our God-given gifts out in the world.

There is no force powerful enough to separate us from our true home.

And when we experience this – when we know this – when we remember this – we can be brave and, with God’s help, we can live out our “servant church” mission which continues Jesus’ mission of love and liberation.

        Our mission is best summed up in two of the promises we make in the Baptismal Covenant – to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self – and to respect the dignity of every human being.

        I always think, I wish it didn’t say “all” and “every.”

        “Many” or even “Most?” Easy! I’m in. Sign me up right now!

        But all persons, every human being? That’s really hard. That’s only possible with God’s help.

        But this is our mission.

        We are called to love not only the people who are easy to love but also the people we don’t approve of, the people who drive us up the wall, and the people we don’t like or trust one bit. 

        All persons, every human being.

        We are called to love Republicans, Democrats, independents, and people who somehow pay no attention to politics or current events.

        All persons, every human being.

        We are called to love people whose ancestors sailed on the Mayflower, people whose ancestors were brought here in chains, the Native Americans some of us learned a lot about yesterday, and the people who have just arrived here, like our Afghan friends who are cherished by so many of us.

        All persons, every human being.

        We are called to love straight people, gay people, and transgender people.

        All persons, every human being.

        We are called, commanded, to love our neighbors as ourselves – all of them, every one.

        This is our Christian mission, a continuation of Jesus’ mission, a most challenging mission, a mission possible only with God’s help, only possible when we, the Body of Christ, stick together.

In our baptism, our restless hearts discover that our true home is God.

In the temptations and trials of life, we discover that our true home is God.

There’s no force powerful enough to break God’s bond with us.

No force powerful enough to drive us from our true home.

And when we know this and remember this, Henry and all of us can be brave, and live out our Christian mission of love and service.

Amen.

Church is a School of God’s Love

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

January 12, 2025

Year C: The First Sunday after the Epiphany – The Baptism of Our Lord

Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

Acts 8:14-17

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Church is a School of God’s Love

Last week, I met with several other Episcopal priests to talk about community organizing in Baltimore County.

Some of you know that community organizing is important to me. I was involved in community organizing back in Jersey City and I’ve been eager to do some of that work here – work that has already begun with our deepened relationship with Owings Mills Elementary School.

So, since community organizing obviously only happens if we partner with others, I was especially glad to attend this meeting with some of my colleagues.

But our meeting took an unexpected turn.

A community organizer who was at the meeting asked us priests a simple but actually kind of hard-to-answer question:

“What is church?”

“What is church now?”

Behind that question was the recognition that we’ve been through a lot these last few years:

We suffered through a global pandemic that sickened and killed countless people and upended our usual way of doing things everywhere, very much including here in church.

During the pandemic we quickly developed and have continued to offer online worship. This is surely a blessing. But are people who only “attend” our services virtually actually part of our community? How? What does that mean? What does that look like?

What is church now?

In our country over these last few years, we’ve faced bitter partisan divisions, losing much sense of common ground and leaving our political institutions wobbly and ineffective.

And then there are the frightening changes to our climate, the disasters that we have all witnessed, the terrors that some of our own parish families have endured, in just the last few days.

And, finally, we all know that, for all sorts of reasons, church has drifted from the center of people’s lives. Many churches have shrunk and closed. And that trend is likely to continue.

So, given all of that, what is church now?

Well, I’ll come back to that.

If you were here last week, you’ll remember that we heard the Epiphany story, the journey of the Magi to pay homage to the newborn King.

It’s a beautiful and magical story, but it’s also a story with some ominous shadows.

King Herod told the Magi that he also wanted to pay homage to the newborn king. That was a lie, of course. Herod was determined to eliminate this rival as soon as possible – so determined and so ruthless that he ordered the execution of all the children in Bethlehem.

And, as I reminded you last week, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous rampage.

Like so many others, the Holy Family became a refugee family.

Well, eventually, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus made their way home, back to Nazareth.

And, aside from the charming story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, we know nothing about those Nazareth years, the decades of Jesus’ childhood, youth, and young adulthood.

We’re left wondering, did Mary and Joseph tell him the story? Did they tell him who he was?

Could people of Nazareth sense something about him – something special – something unique?

Or did he just live a normal life? Did he live pretty much like everybody else?

That’s what I think, but we really don’t know.

The story of Jesus resumes when, as an adult, he appears at the River Jordan and is baptized by John the Baptist.

And, as we heard in today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, after his baptism, Jesus was praying when the heaven was opened and the Spirit descended and the voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

Now, you don’t have to agree with me about this, but I think that it’s at this moment – it’s at his baptism – that Jesus discovers – or begins to discover – who he really is:

God’s Son, the Beloved, with whom God is well pleased.

And I also believe that it’s at our baptism that we discover – or we begin to discover – who we really are.

As I never get tired of saying, in the water of baptism God makes an indissoluble, unbreakable bond with us.

There’s nothing we could ever do or not do that could cause God to dissolve or break this bond.

Why does God do this?

Because God loves us.

God loves us unconditionally.

We are God’s beloved children.

The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all report that immediately after his baptism, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, where for forty days and nights he was alone and hungry and thirsty and tempted and tested by Satan.

And I would imagine that during those long wilderness days and nights, our brother Jesus must have struggled to remember his baptism – struggled to recall that he was God’s Son – that he was God’s Beloved.

More than any of Satan’s tests, maybe the greatest temptation during those hard days was to forget or dismiss his baptism – to think that it was all a dream, just a figment of his imagination.

But Jesus remembered who he was and remained faithful in the wilderness.

And, you know, my baptized sisters and brothers, today we are in the wilderness, too.

So much is uncertain and frightening.

I’m sure you noticed that two of today’s lessons plus the psalm mention fire – a force, like water, that can both purify and also destroy.

Today we are in the wilderness and maybe we are tempted to forget or dismiss the great truths that we experience in baptism – the graces that we receive in baptism.

In the wilderness, maybe we forget God’s love and give into fear and despair.

But Jesus didn’t give into temptation, and, with God’s help, we can resist temptation, too.

        Even in the wilderness, even when the fires rage and the floods roar, we are beloved by God.

        And God will not let go of us, no matter what.

        So, what is church now?

        We could talk about this all day, but in this time and place, here’s what I think:

        Church is a school of God’s love.

        Church is a school of God’s love.

        You know, whenever I’ve had conversations about Sunday School, I’ve always said that, while I hope our children learn about our faith, that they learn some of the stories and the prayers, most of all, I hope that they feel loved here and begin to know that God loves them, no matter what.

        But it’s not just children who need to learn this.

        Especially in a culture that’s kind of stingy when it comes to love and compassion, a society that teaches us that we must earn everything and that we must deserve everything we get, we all need to learn and relearn that God loves us, no matter what.

        Church is a school of God’s love, a school where we are all teachers and students, over and over teaching one another and learning from each other the most important lesson:

        We are God’s beloved children.

        This is who we really are.

        And when we know this, we can endure the troubles and tragedies of life.

        We are God’s beloved children.

        This is who we really are.

        And when we know this, we really can keep our baptismal vows, loving God’s beloved children out there, seeking and serving Christ in all persons.

        We are God’s beloved children.

        This is who we really are.

        And church is a school of God’s love.

        Amen.

Religion and Life

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

January 5, 2025

The Second Sunday after Christmas

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 84:1-8

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a

Matthew 2:1-12

Religion and Life

If you were here last week, on the First Sunday after Christmas, you may remember that our gospel lesson was the Prologue to the Gospel of John.

        The Prologue is John’s poetic version of the Christmas story – a Cosmic Christmas.

Rather than giving us details about Jesus’ birth, John looks all the way back… 

        “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

        So beautiful, right?

        And then, John declares that the Word that was with God, the Light that is God, became a flesh and blood human being in and through Jesus.

        “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”

        Christians have been hearing and reading and pondering those words for two thousand years.

        And maybe, over all that time, we’ve somehow gotten used to the idea of God becoming flesh, what’s called the Incarnation.

        Maybe we’ve gotten kind of ho-hum about God becoming one of us.

        Or, more likely, we still haven’t fully grasped what all this means for God and for us.

        God – the Creator and Source of all life – was uniquely present in Mary’s son, watched over by Joseph.

        God – the Creator and Source of all life – becomes flesh and blood, just like us.

        God plunges into our messed-up world - a world with brutal tyrants like Herod.

        God plunges into our still beautiful world, a world with people of wonder, curiosity, and courage – people like the Magi.

        We really don’t know who the Magi were – these wise visitors from the East - we don’t even know how many of them there were. We just assume that there were three because of their three gifts.

        But whoever they were, the Magi were willing to make a long trek to see for themselves the newborn king, eager to pay him homage and to present their gifts, and they were also brave enough to disobey Herod.

        Herod, of course, didn’t like this one bit.

        And in a grim part of the story that we didn’t hear today, Herod was so determined to kill this new king – this newborn rival – that he ordered the slaughter of all the young children in Bethlehem.

        But Herod’s plan to kill the new king was thwarted because, alerted by an angel, Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus fled to Egypt.

        For a time, the Holy Family was a refugee family.

        I appreciate the transition from John’s poetry that we heard last week and Matthew’s very earthy story that we heard today.

        It’s a vivid reminder that, in and through Jesus, God plunges into our messed-up but still beautiful world.

        And it’s also a reminder that for us Christians, there should be no gap between our religion and our life – no gap between the poetry that we say and sing in church each week and how we live our lives out there in the world.

        This is something that I think about pretty regularly: what difference does all of “this” make? 

        And I’m in good company because this was a main interest of our old friend Sam Shoemaker.

        It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Shoemaker, which means there are some newer parishioners who’ve never heard of him.

        Sam Shoemaker was born in Baltimore in 1893.

        He grew up here at St. Thomas’ and, to make a long story very short, he was ordained a priest in 1921. In fact, he presided at his first Holy Communion service right here.

        Shoemaker spent most of his ministry at Calvary Church in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of New York City.

        For decades he was incredibly active, writing over 20 books, speaking regularly on the radio, going on preaching tours, some of his sermons were even released on records – something which just amazes me.

        Today he’s best remembered for providing the spiritual foundations for the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous – just think about how many millions of lives he has touched and saved through that extraordinary program.

        But, as I said, Shoemaker was also especially passionate about connecting our religion with our entire life.

        Very early on, in 1926, Shoemaker started the “Faith at Work” movement.

        On Thursday evenings, lay people would meet at Calvary Church and talk about how they had lived as Christians out in the world.

        (A little commercial: nearly a century after Shoemaker started “Faith at Work,” this will be the topic for this year’s Shoemaker event on Saturday, February 1, which I very much hope you’ll attend.)

        It was the Incarnation, it was God plunging into our messed-up but still beautiful world that pushed Shoemaker to do this work. Here’s what he wrote:

        "We must utterly abolish the common distinction between religion and life. We have religion in a compartment - then there is life on the other side. Religion is praying, going to church, reading the Bible. Life is raising a family, making a living, enjoying company and recreation. In a religion that began with 'The Word was made flesh,' such thinking is heresy."

        Coincidentally or not, one of the things I’ve been thinking about for our new year together is to find new ways, or maybe rediscover some old ways, for us to get together and tell our stories – to learn more about each other – and maybe also to talk about the challenges of living as Christians out in the world.

        As Shoemaker said, we must abolish the distinction between religion and life.

        Stay tuned.

        So, on the morning of New Year’s Day, I went over to the office to work on today’s sermon, hoping for a couple of quiet, solitary hours before our noon service and Bible Study.

        I had just started writing at my desk when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man walk up to the office door. After finding it locked, he rang the bell.

        I confess that my first irritated thought was, “You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s 9:00 in the morning on New Year’s Day.”

        But I unlocked the door and greeted the man in the office hallway.

        He identified himself as detective with the Baltimore County Police Department.

        And then he told me there had been a homicide “just up the road.”

        My stomach dropped, thinking that maybe one of our parishioners – that maybe one of you - might have been killed.

        The detective explained that he was hoping that our security cameras might be helpful in the investigation.

        When I finally got back to my desk, I looked online for more information and saw that it was a 21-year-old man named Raheim Ali Esna Ashari who had been shot and killed on Garrison Forest Road. 

         Nobody I knew.

         But yet another tragedy, particularly unsettling because it was so close to us.

         And as I tried to work on my sermon, I thought, well, here it is - here is a painfully local and terribly sad example of what I wanted to say today.

        Two thousand years ago, God plunged into this world, shining light and love into our messed-up world.

        God plunged into a world seemingly ruled by tyrants like Herod, ruthless men willing to lie and kill to protect their power and wealth.

        God plunged into a world where life seemed to be cheap, a violent world, where lives could and would be taken for little or no cause.

        God plunged into a world where families are forced to flee their homelands, desperate to save the lives of their children.

        But God also plunged into a world that’s still beautiful, a world where the Magi travel far to worship the newborn King, to offer him their gifts.

        God plunged into a world that’s still beautiful, a world where so many of you offer your gifts to people who can never repay us, never even thank us.

        In and through Jesus, God plunged into our messed-up but still beautiful world.

        And, especially as we begin an uncertain and already bloodstained new year, we Christians are called to follow God’s lead.

        With God’s help, may we plunge into the world.

        May God continue to shine light and love, in and through us.

        May we bridge the gap between religion and life.

        Out there.

        Amen.