Christ Episcopal Church

Redwoods in Henry Cowell State Park. PHOTO: DIANA WILCOX

October 25, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

So, last week on the Jesus Channel, the Pharisees teamed with their not-so-best-buds, the Herodians, to try to trip Jesus up with a question (after, of course, flattering him).  They essentially said, “Hey Jesus – you are lookin’ mighty awesome and since we know you are the absolute bomb when it comes to, ya know, knowin’ stuff, we have a question for you…”. Then they asked him about whether it was legal to pay taxes to the emperor.  We know from last week that this was a trap, and that Jesus wasn’t the least bit fooled.

And now for today’s episode, the Pharisees are at it again.  A lawyer among them thought up a great question to test Jesus, or so he thought.  Now, you’d think that with all the questions these folks have, they would be Episcopalians, but they aren’t interested in finding out anything new.  How do we know that?  Well, because they already know the answer – so does Jesus (obviously), and so does everyone else gathered around them.

See, unlike last week where they tried to give Jesus a no-win situation, thinking there was only two answers, they entered that situation unaware of the truth.  This time, everyone is on the same page – everyone knows the truthful response to the question they pose “Which is the greatest commandment?”

They all know, because they are all Jewish – Jesus, the Pharisees, the disciples – all of them.  And they know Torah, and the teachings of the great Rabbis.  But Jesus answers them anyway, saying that the greatest commandment is “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.

It isn’t that Jesus is choosing his words carefully or trying to determine the answer.  He is quoting it verbatim from the scriptures.  The first part is the Shema, the Jewish prayer of worship from Deuteronomy “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  Now our translation read today changes that last part from might to mind, however most do not.  But might or mind, it means – with everything you’ve got.  These Pharisees can’t argue with that one.

But wait, Jesus doesn’t end there.  He continues and says “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  That is also a direct quote from that book everybody loves to read – Leviticus.  Yup! 

Then Jesus, for good measure, adds, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  That there is a bit of an insider smackdown that those who are not learned Jews often miss.  One of the greatest teachers of the faith, Hillel The Elder, who lived “a generation before Jesus, had said the same thing to a gentile who asked for the whole Torah summarized.  After saying Shema, he answered, and: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow—this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.” Jesus is telling these Pharisees, these temple leaders, “Not for nuthin’ guys, but don’t you’all know this already?” 

At about this point, I suspect they wanted to slink away.  They really should have, because Jesus was about to drop the mic on them.  He decides to ask them a question. 

He says, essentially “So, let me get this straight…this Messiah you await… Whose son is he?” 

They answered “The son of David.”

“Okay, well…why then does David call him Lord?  I mean, if the Messiah is the son, why does the dad bend a knee to him?”

BOOM!

Those Pharisees didn’t know how to answer him, so they left and never came back to ask any more questions. 

But I bet we have some.

What the heck was that second bit about David about and why did Jesus ask it at this particular time after answering the question about the greatest commandment so perfectly?  

Well, to answer that, let me return to something I mentioned last week.  That while on sabbatical I had the chance to

Mother Diana at the base of a sequoia while hiking the Mariposa Grove Trail, Yosemite.

go to California and stand amid the enormous sequoias of Yosemite, and the redwoods and Ponderosa pines of the Pacific coast.  I knew beforehand that redwoods are only able to stand as tall as they do by intertwining their roots in a vast network of relationship.  But that is only part of the story. 

Before I left, I was reading a book by Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry.  In Finding The Mother Tree, Simard describes her logging family background, and her search to discover the effect of clear cutting on forest sustainability.  The practice was to just plant new trees in fully cleared lands to replenish the forest.  That sounds good, but it wasn’t working.  The seedlings were looking sickly and not growing. 

Thinking about this on her way back to her truck, she happened to dig up a truffle from the forest floor.  She noticed the long fibrous strands connected to it, and was curious about it.  She put it in her pocket and was continuing on, when she slipped down a small hill.  As she was sliding, she grabbed a sapling, which yanked it from the ground, but slowed her fall.  When she looked at it, she saw something very strange.  “These root tips were glowing yellow, like lights on a Christmas tree, and they ended in a gossamer of mycelium of the same color.”  It was the same color as what flowed from the root of the mushroom she had picked earlier. 

The book tells the full story of her journey to discover the significance of this connection, but essentially she came to find that trees are not isolated plants.  The mycelium was a life line between the truffle, the trees, and the rest of the plant life on the forest floor.  In fact, nothing in the forest acts on its own.  “Trees are a complex, interdependent circle of life, and forests are social, co-operative creatures connected through underground networks.  Trees perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past…At the center of these vast networks are the Mother Trees: mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain those surrounding them.”[1]

We could learn a lot from trees. 

They do naturally what Jesus is reminding the Pharisees and all of us.  That being in relationship with the others around us, even those as different as a tiny mushroom would be to the grand redwood or sequoia, is not only a good thing, but life giving to all.  The tree doesn’t say “I am taller and bigger and therefore better than that little thing growing in the dirt at my feet. Why should I care what happens to it.”  It is the humility of the natural world – the world created by God, unspoiled by human ambition, greed, or hate.  And it is the root (yeah, I did that) of how to live out the greatest commandments. 

So, when Jesus asks the Pharisees about King David, a very flawed fellow himself, he is saying that even though David was the ruler of all of Israel & Judah, he knew that he was not greater than the Messiah, even if that Messiah was a descendent to him.  Humility such as that of David was missing from these Pharisees, and they knew it the moment Jesus posed the question to them.  And humility is the key to keeping the greatest commandments.

As one commentator noted, the great Christian theologian, “Thomas Aquinas defined love [this way] — to will the good of the other. Not to feel warmly toward the other. Not to tolerate the other. To actively, structurally, sacrificially orient your will toward the flourishing of another person […] It is a choice, made again and again, in the direction of someone else’s good.

But Aquinas understood something else as well.  The will cannot orient itself toward the other if the self is still crowding the center. […] You cannot love, […] without first making interior room for the other person to matter as much as you do. That interior making room has a name. It is called humility.”[2]

These days though, it seems there are a whole lot of folks who seem to wake up every day singing that classic song of the late country-folk singer-songwriter, Mac Davis “Lord, it’s hard to be humble when your perfect in so many ways.”  If you don’t know anyone like that yourself, then just read or watch the news.  You are bound to hear about them. 

We live in a world where, if humans were trees, we’d all be dead, because some of them would create a zero-sum game in the forest, without realizing that all lives depend on the others around us.  While we are not trees, our arrogance instead leads us to just clear them out whenever they become inconvenient, even the Mother Trees.  The President just did that in DC, against a court order, chopping down over 400 trees so he could change public parkland to a private golf course.  The trees die, and God weeps.

So, to sum it all up: Jesus answers the Pharisees in the same way as Hillel The Elder taught, as all of the commandments of God taught, as all of the witness of the prophets taught, as all of scripture taught, and it boils down to this: Love God, Love Neighbor.  And love is impossible if it is not paired with humility.

Humility, as the trees themselves show, doesn’t mean bending down or making oneself small.  It is as Aquinas taught – to make room for others. 

So, how do we do that? 

Well first, we come here to this place, to connect with our Mother Tree – Christ – in the forest of our community – our parish family. Here our roots are connected not only with one another, but to the ancestors of this parish, the ones whose generous faith made it possible for us to be here now.  Here we confess our sins too, so that we may always be able to make room to love.

Here too in this sacred place we experience the transcendent and the mysterious, and we remember that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves.  We are part of the body of Christ, the communion of saints, the universal forest we call the Christian Church.  The church whose foundation is the One whose great love for us we know not from the miraculous or the showy, but from his humility to kneel before his disciples to wash their feet and to give himself up on the cross.

By the example of his humility and love, we are all reminded what it means to follow him – what it means to live by the commandments of God – what it means to love.

And I have seen this at work in all of you over these many years together.  You all demonstrate how to love God and neighbor in so many ways.  In humility that you would never claim (because that would negate it) you tend to those who are struggling, visit the sick or imprisoned, and check-in on those who are alone. 

You offer of your time to make the Eucharist possible by serving on Altar guild.  You greet people at the door on Sundays as an Usher.  You use your cooking or baking skills, or go to the store, to provide hospitality at our coffee hour.  You ensure those who cannot hear are included, and those who do not know the language can understand.  You offer healing prayer to those in need.  You tend to our children in Sunday School, helping them to grow in faith. 

You serve in leadership positions as Vestry members or Wardens, reviewing the finances, the buildings & grounds, and keeping up with the needs of the entire parish.  You serve in worship ministries as crucifers and acolytes, or put in many hours each week to offer your voice and music talents in the choir.  You have taken people to doctor appointments, stayed with them overnight, cleaned out refrigerators, brought over food, and so much more.  This you all do every day, all year.

But you all also know that our proverbial forest is not just this parish, or even restricted to the church.  All of God’s creation, all people, are a part of it, and if one part of that forest is hurt or sick or being cut down, we all suffer.  So, you are out in the streets marching for justice. You raise donations for the hungry, the fearful, and animals in need.  And you offer your prayer for peace around the world.

And so, in this Stewardship season, you will be given a gift blessed at the altar.  Today it is a miniature pine tree.  

Let it be a reminder of the life of trees and of our Mother Tree – Christ Jesus. 

Let it help you to know that you are part of God’s forest and you are not in this alone – God, and all of us – your parish family – are with you tool

Let it set your heart and mind as well on how you might be a nourishing root to this parish by your pledge, so that we can continue to be a place that loves God, loves neighbor, and changes the world.

Amen.

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[1] From the book cover summary.

[2] Zina Jacque, Board Chair, National Senior Communities, Washington, D.C. at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-30/commentary-on-matthew-2234-46-7

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

October 25, 2026

Pent 20, Proper 25 – Year A – Track 1

Hebrew – Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

Christian – 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Gospel – Matthew 22:34-46

October 18, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

It is so good to be back.  I have missed you all so very much, and I look forward to catching up on everything in the days ahead.

For anyone who may be visiting, or new since July of this year, I have been away on a long overdue sabbatical, which gave me much needed rest and renewal to equip me to better serve this parish and God as we move toward the future. 

Sooooooo, did I miss anything while I was gone?  I mean, anything going on in the country or the world?  Yeah… it never seems to end, does it?  Which is why I was grateful that this sabbatical did allow me to step off if that carousel of crazy – to get away from the chaotic Chronos – or human time – and step into the peace of Kairos – or God’s time. 

While I indeed caught up on some much needed sleep, particularly at the beginning, I spent some of the time learning new things and engaging in new interests – from riding horses to ballroom dancing, baking (yes David – real baking) to writing, photography to drawing.  All of it allowed me to recharge my soul after so many years of ministry in the world.

I also took a trip to California to hike among the sequoias of Yosemite, and the redwoods of the coast.  Standing there – just a small spec against the enormous trunks of those grand trees – was a reminder that, while we exist within the bounds of human life, God and God’s creation does not.  Our world and God’s are not one and the same.

Which brings me to the gospel text we heard today.  It is a familiar one, and sometimes misused by those who try to silence critics of the institutions of government.  But that is not being true to the text or to the teachings of Jesus.  So, let’s take a closer look, because it is a particularly relevant passage for us today – and no, not just because we are in Stewardship Season.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is asked by Pharisees and Herodians if was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor.  Now, the question being asked of Jesus here is not a political one, but a moral or theological one.  The Pharisees and Herodians, usually not folks found hanging out at the bar together, but bound together here by their mutual fear and frustration at this growing Jesus movement, are not interested in a political dialog about the virtues, or lack thereof, of supporting the Roman occupation.  They are attempting to box Jesus in by giving him only two choices – both of which would be dangerous.

He either says that the taxes should not be paid – which would set him up as a target for arrest by the Roman authorities.  Or, if he says it should be paid, he would alienate most, if not all, of his followers, who hope he is the one to free them from the shackles of the oppressive Roman empire.  It is a trap meant to ensnare him.

But Jesus didn’t come down with yesterday’s rain.  He knew what they were up to, and instead of just answering them, he tells them to produce a coin used to pay the tax – a denarius.  The coin was minted with the image of Caesar.  On the denarius at that time, the image would have been of Tiberius, and the Latin inscription would have read “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.”  On the back would be inscribed “PONTIF MAXIM or “High Priest.”  He claims to be a son of God, the High Priest – it is blasphemous from a Jewish point of view, and why it was forbidden to use it in the temples (hence the need for money changers to exchange Roman coinage for temple coinage). 

Back to the story, Jesus, looking at this coin asks them whose image is on it.  When they respond that it is the emperor’s, he tells them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

And they stood in awe at what he had done by his response.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

Clearly Jesus isn’t condemning money, or even tax paying. 

So, what then should we make of his answer?  What did those who were testing him hear that set them back on their heels?

We need to understand it as much as they did, because we too face similar choices being presented to us today as those that the Pharisees & Herodians brought to Jesus. 

Our government, today’s empire if you will, is using our tax dollars to round up, beat, or kill people without due process of law, destroy national parkland, pollute the environment, oppress and marginalize, engage in acts of terrorism or financial economic warfare against other countries, and so much more. 

We don’t have to look far to see this play out.  Earlier this month, in nearby Harrison NJ, a man was grabbed by federal agents, while his crying children, who were clinging desperately to him, were shoved aside.  Some of those agents violated state law by being masked.  Who is acting illegally in this case?

And just last week, in The Bronx, a federal agent came up to the car of Oscar Belgal and began banging on the windows to break the glass, while his 5 year old child was in the backseat!  Oscar attempted to evade the officer, and what ensued was horrific.  Agents shot into the car multiple times, severely wounding Mr. Belgal in the neck and endangering his young son.  Who was acting legally here?  That child, by the way, has not been able to speak since witnessing the horror that happened that day. 

This is when some say, “They are here illegally,” to justify our government murdering people in the streets, throwing them into small cages, or taking away their little children.  These are the Pharisees and Herodians of today who lean on the first part of Jesus’s answer: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s…”

Oh, where to start…

How about with this: More than 70% of those arrested, deported, abused, or killed by ICE & Homeland Security have no criminal record.  Even if they did, they would be entitled, under the 5th and 14th amendments, to due process – their day in court –  to defend themselves.  So, if we want to talk about what is legal and what is not, let’s start with this: It is not legal for our government to engage in immigration enforcement as we have seen done by this administration, and the courts have been making that point very clear.  Adherence to the law has to go both ways – to the government as well as the governed. 

Sadly, our government is not interested in what is legal when it comes to protecting the rights of anyone who isn’t white, straight, male, or Christian.  That is the corruption of being guided only by the laws of empire, and not the laws of God – you end up violating both.

And let us also remind those misguided Christians, that while Jesus was telling us to follow the law of the government, “to “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s” he didn’t stop there.  He said also, “…and to God the things that are God’s.”   Something they seem to have either forgotten, or think it only means tithing to the church. 

So, let me be clear:  Jesus is saying that, while it is true we are citizens of an empire, we belong first and foremost to God, which comes with a different set of responsibilities.  And second, the currency of the empire is not the currency of God.

Rome’s currency, like that of many governments, including ours, has images of government leaders – either dead or current.  It is a reminder that we are the ruled, not the ruler.  To be fair, taxes themselves are not always bad either. They can be used for good as well too – things like education, healthcare, public safety, environmental protection, and more.  So, it is our legal obligation of our civil life to provide for the common good, which taxes are supposed to do – even if they are sometimes misused.  And government issued currency is also used for more than just  paying taxes.  We use it for trade, wages, necessities, and if fortunate enough – entertainment and leisure activities.  And of course, we use it to support the mission and ministry of the church by our tithing, which is a very good thing.

The currency of God, on the other hand, is not minted with gold, silver, copper, or specially coded paper.  It does, however, bear an image – ours.  The image of God is minted on the face of all people – no matter where they were born, what language they speak, who they love, what gender they claim, or how they pray.  We are created in the image of God, and we are God’s currency in the world.

And how we spend our time and our gifts – spiritual or financial – is very different than how a tax works. 

Taxes are a legal obligation. 

Our lives and how we live them – that is a moral choice we make. 

“Give to God the things that are God’s.” 

Whatever gifts we have must be spent in the building up of God’s kingdom – speaking for those without a voice, caring for those in need, freeing the oppressed, and nourishing the creation entrusted to us. 

For those of us baptized into Christ, this is our calling, and one we take on with joy – something most of do not feel about taxes.  I mean, I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I fill out all those forms and send a check to the IRS. 

We should always seek to follow the law, but we should never allow that law to bind us from our lives in Christ, because legality is not the currency we trade in as followers of Jesus.  And to be sure, there will be times in our lives when what is just is at odds with justice itself – when the law of empire is in conflict with that of God. For we know, as followers of Jesus that what is legal is not necessarily what is moral, just, or good. 

The crucifixion of Jesus was legal, but it certainly was not moral, just, or good.

Slavery & segregation in this country was at one time legal, but it certainly was not moral, just, or good.

Up until 2005 in the US, when the last state enacted laws against it, men could legally rape their wives, but that didn’t make it moral, just, or good (and yeah – it was not that long ago folks).

Immigration law and border protection is not without need of improvement, and certainly within the bounds of our government’s role, but brutality, cruelty, racist selective enforcement, and murder are not legal, and are against the higher law of God.

Legality and morality, the justice system and justice – they are not always one and the same. What we owe to our common society – to obey the laws – is not the same as what we owe to God.  The coinage of God, in which we are to deal, is mercy, love, justice, and righteousness. 

So clearly, there are times when what we are to give to God will be in tension with the ones demanding our homage to our current empires.  That is when we may be called to risk our freedom and our very lives for that larger calling.  Jesus knew that.  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Sister Dorothy Stang, Jonathan Daniels, the Nuns of El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and so many more martyrs in the cause of human freedom and dignity knew that too. 

Guided by their calling, their deep faith in Christ, they gave to God what was God’s and challenged the tyranny of power that sought to oppress.  By their faith and courage to live it fully, they paid the ultimate price.

Most of us, thankfully, will never face that choice, but all of us are still called to choose how we spend the currency we are given by God.  And we must always place that currency we owe to God – the moral one, above all else.  For while violating one may land you in prison, violating the other will condemn you for eternity.   

And so we must ask ourselves – if we are stamped with the image of God – how must we spend our lives?  What is God calling us to do or to say in these troubling times?

The answer to that will be found in those quiet moments of prayer beneath the trees, in the nourishment of the Eucharist shared here, in the unguarded moments of our day when that still small voice of God can be discerned.

These are the small moments of personal sabbatical that prepare us, so that when we find ourselves at the crossroads of justice – when we, the ones minted with the image of God, are faced with a choice we never hoped to have to make – between what is “legal” and what is moral, just, and good, we will, by the grace of God, know what we must do.

And we will joyfully give to God what is truly God’s for the sake of the world, and of our very souls. 

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

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The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

October 18, 2026

Twenty Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

1st Reading – Exodus 33:12-23

Psalm 99

2nd Reading – 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Gospel – Matthew 22:15-22

June 28, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Ahhh, the summer is here, and vacations are hopefully in full swing.  We all need time to rest, renew, reflect, because when we are exhausted, we can start to loose our way.  It would seem Abraham, in the story from Genesis, could have used a trip to the Jersey shore, or at least a long nap in a hammock, because this guy is hearing some strange voices in his head.

We are told that God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, the one he had been promised would be the beginning of many descendants, the son he and his wife Sarah had waited so very long to bring into being.  Abraham doesn’t question what he is asked to do, but instead brings the unsuspecting Isaac up the mountain on a hike.  Isaac, for his part, is saying “Hey Dad…I know you want to offer a sacrifice to God up there, I’ve got the wood for it, but like…where’s the sacrifice?” When his dad replied “Don’t worry, be happy, God will provide,” that’s about when we would hear sinister music playing in the background if this were some sort of movie.

Anyway, they get up there, and Abraham says “hop up on that pile of wood there Isaac,” and takes out his knife.  Now given Abraham’s history of getting it wrong – a lot – I can imagine God sitting there in a big heavenly recliner, you know, flipping through the infinite channels of human existence, and all of a sudden going “What the hell is that idiot doing now!”  So God sends an Angel – Stat! – who grabs Abraham’s arm, and stops him from doing something really stupid.  Abraham then finds a ram caught in a thicket and sacrifices that instead, which isn’t really fair to the ram either.  I am guessing Isaac had a falling out with dad and decided it was time to find another place to live.

Of course, taken literally – this is a very disturbing tale, which, as I have said before, I believe led to the invention of psychotherapy, given what it likely did to poor Isaac and his mom. It is often taught that this was some sort of test of Abraham’s faith because the text says that is what happened.  I have to wonder if Abraham wrote that part himself – kidding, of course.  Yet, if we read it with a discerning heart, we can come to understand one possible lesson the text can teach us today.

Sometimes the voice we hear isn’t from God. 

How many times have we seen folks claim to be speaking on behalf of God, or doing the work of Jesus, while they hold up signs that say God hates gays, or stop women from leadership in the church, synagogue, or mosque, or says that God wants the US to be a white Chistian Nation, or God supports the institution of slavery because there were slaves in the bible?

So many children of God have been sacrificed in blind obedience to the God of our own hate and bigotry – the God we fashioned in our image, rather than the other way around – and we, the followers of Jesus, have been complicit, even downright responsible. 

Specifically, on this LGBTQ+ Sunday, may we be reminded of the pain and suffering the church through the centuries has inflicted on those who love differently, or who see the world as more fluid and non-binary.  Oh, the altars we, a people called to follow Jesus, have built listening to the voice of a God of our own making – with knives of doctrine and dogma the church provided to others to use against the vulnerable. 

Just this past week, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttegieg and his husband Chasten were victims of this very type of hate.  Someone anonymously reported that they were a danger to their two children.  Child Protective Services were then forced to separate them from the two four year olds from their dads to interview them.  To be clear, CPS was doing what they had to do – they don’t get to decide which reports they will respond to and which they will not.  News reports focused on this false report as being a politically hateful act of partisanship.  However, no one can be foolish enough to believe that if Pete and Chasten were Pete and Mary that the partisanship would have taken the form of calling CPS.  This was rooted in bigotry, and faith traditions, particularly Christianity, have had the biggest influence on spreading this hate in the secular world.

Now some may argue that they stand against marriage equality, and other LGBTQ+ rights, it is a form of love because they were saving people who have “strayed” from the path of righteousness.  Well, first of all – who the hell are they to judge, and secondly, our conduct as follower of Christ is a lot like the legal principal that was used to govern the voting rights act…until recently anyway.  That principal held that the law doesn’t care about our intention.  The law is concerned about how the act impacts others.  Sadly, with this Supreme Court, that seems to have been tossed in the trash heap of history, but we answer to a higher calling, so we absolutely can not ignore the impact of our actions.

Now, to see this play out, take a look again at the case of Abraham.  He may have thought God told him to do this, but if he had just thought about who God is, and the impact this would have on his son and his wife, he would know that was not possible.  Oh sure, the bible tries to clean it up a bit for this patriarch, but we all know that God would not ask that of us.

And, not for nuthin’, Abraham had a track record of thinking he was doing the right thing by God and messing it up pretty badly.  You would think he would have realized that by now having tried to pawn off his wife as his sister to save his hide, conscripted Hagar into sexual slavery because he didn’t think God was moving fast enough on the loads of descendants promise, and then, as we heard last Sunday, sending her and their young son out into a sure death to avoid annoying his wife.  Thankfully, God interceded then too.  Abraham sure kept God very busy.

So, what about us?  How do we avoid the same mistake?  How do we know if we are listening to God, or if we are listening to a God of our own making? 

Well, one way is to read the gospel we heard today and ask ourselves a simple question – is what we think God is asking us to do like offering a cup of cold water to a child of God?  Or is it more like drinking it ourselves, wastefully pouring it out, or throwing it in that child’s face? 

The thing is, throughout his ministry, Jesus was very clear about what God wants from us. You must see and hear the voices of the oppressed – go to them, be a healing presence for them, and welcome them as you would him.  And to make that point, he says in the passage we heard today, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple– truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Think about that – Jesus uses the word welcome or receive 6 times!  6 times! Clearly this is important.  Clearly Jesus wants us to welcome everyone as we would him.  But there is more to his message that gets lost to us because we are not living in 1st century Judea or under the Roman Empire.  Jesus chooses a cup of cold water to a little child as a way of describing what we should do.  There are some important things to note about this.

First, water was (and still is) required for life.  In those days, you couldn’t just turn on the tap or pop into a WaWa to grab a bottle of it.  If you weren’t living by a body of water, you had work to do to get it – digging a well, and then hauling it up from the ground.  Without it, you died – as we saw in the story last week as Hagar feared her son would, until God provided a fountain in the desert.  That is why Jesus describes himself in the Gospel of John as the living water.

Secondly, in Jesus’ time, children were not showered with attention by the adults around them.  Until they grew, they had the same status as slaves – which meant they were to be ignored for the most part. 

So the setting here is important.  Jesus is telling his disciples, telling us, that it is the “little ones” – the vulnerable of our world, the ones we have pushed to the margins – it is they that thirst the most for what is given so plentifully to others – respect, love, and welcome.  Jesus calls all who follow him to be his water of life to those who are dying from thirst on the altar of our neglect, our hate, our selfishness, and our indifference. 

And so, understanding what Jesus asks of us, perhaps the larger church would do well to reflect on its role in persecuting people who love and live differently, especially in this Pride month.  We have come a long way, to be sure, but there is still much more work to do to atone for our sins against LGBTQ+ people, to ensure they are fully welcomed, and to stand beside them in their fight for full equality. 

Yet even knowing this, we sometimes can be left wondering how we can possibly make a difference with so much injustice swirling all around us every single moment of every single day.  It just seems like an impossible task.  But Jesus didn’t suggest his disciples raise millions, or overturn the Roman empire.  He uses this simple act – a cup of water – the very thing of life – as an act of welcoming him – an example of what we can do.   In other words, the smallest acts of compassion, empathy, love, and grace matter and are enough, if it is all we are able to do. 

We don’t have to wear capes and jump tall buildings.

We don’t have to lead lives that are pure and pious.

We just have to have eyes to see the vulnerable, hearts to hear where God is calling us, and a desire to welcome Jesus who thirsts.  This we can do.  This we have been doing here, to be sure.  And yet there are times when even that seems too much for our weary soul. 

I know many of you have been active in justice mission and ministry in Christ’s name for years.  You know that it is the life we are called to, the direction that God’s voice will lead us if we listen.  But in these insane days of our nation, this work has been non-stop, often overwhelming, and seemingly without end.  It is no wonder that so many of us are exhausted and in need of rest.

When we are worn to the bone, or see the enormity of the injustice everywhere and all the time, we can become discouraged, despairing, and feel a bit lost ourselves.  That type of exhaustion will always lead to a place where God’s voice will be hard for us to hear. 

There is a story I shared with you’all several years ago and perhaps we need to hear it again: An explorer in Africa, anxious to press ahead with his journey, paid his porters for a series of forced marches. But almost within reach of their destination, they set down their bundles and refused to budge. No amount of extra payment would convince them otherwise. They said they had to wait for their souls to catch up.

They had to wait for their souls to catch up.

God needs you to listen, Jesus needs you for mission, and the Holy Spirit needs you to join her in the world…but we can’t do any of that until we let our souls catch up.  So how do we find that rest we so often need, especially if we don’t get much vacation time? 

Well, the first thing is to take what we do have and set boundaries to ensure it is truly kept.  Now, this is not easy to do in our 7×24 work lives caused by the prevalence of devices that keep everyone connected all of the time.  These days getting some downtime is as filled with as many dependencies and setbacks as any large scale project plan.  Even if we have time off, our personal schedules can sometimes look like the battle plans for D-Day.  But, if we really think about it, companies, families, community groups, even churches – they would all survive time without us if we got hit by a bus, right?  They would figure it out.  So, we can do this, but it will take diligence.  We will need to set boundaries that guard our time off – weekends, vacations, personal days, whatever it may be, remembering that this isn’t selfishness.  It’s like the instruction flight attendants give you about putting your oxygen mask on before helping others – You cannot serve others if you are depleted yourself.

And there is another way to allow your soul to catch up – come here.  Come here to be nourished.  You know, it is the one time when, because it is a religious practice, legally a business cannot stop you, which means that unless you are on-call for something or someone, you get two hours of respite. 

Here you are welcomed with the living water of Christ. 

Here you are nourished in community and in Him. 

Here you are given time to listen, really listen – with phone, tablet, computer – all of it – off. 

So, in the days ahead, with so many children of God in need of even the smallest cup of cold water to quench their thirst, allow time to see that child within yourself – and come to this table alongside your parish family to let your souls catch up.  Because I can assure you that the lives you will change in the world, and you will, it all starts with the one that is changed here first.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

June 28, 2026

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

1st Reading – Genesis 22:1-14

Psalm 13

2nd Reading – Romans 6:12-23

Gospel – Matthew 10:40-42

June 7, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Sometimes the life of a priest is about prayer, worship, pastoral care, and all the other things many people think about when they wonder what clergy do.  Often it is also about boilers, budgets, broken pipes, roof leaks, personnel issues, or paperwork.  But once in awhile, it offers a special little gift to this priest – the joy of children in our Nursery School on the day of graduation.

This past Friday, my dog Lexi and I participated again in our preschool graduation ceremony, bidding farewell this year to 11 children heading off to Kindergarten, including Sophia Reynolds.  Professor Lexi, in her cap and gown, not only leads the procession, but offered up a few words of advice to the graduates: “do not be afraid to snag the treats and be sure to take time for belly rubs.” She then helped to clean up the floor of all the cake and icing that happened to fall. Thankfully, I stopped a child from sliding her a whole cookie. 

So, while following the call of Christ into ordination isn’t always what one expects, it is always filled with far more joy than we could ever imagine.  Call is like that – it begins with a willingness to enter into the unknown. And, these kids are leaving behind the teachers and friends they have come to know so well to begin a new adventure too.  Based on the test scores our students achieve when they graduate, I know they are, as they sang in their song “Ready to go!”

Today we hear about some other call stories – the one of Abram and Sarai in Genesis, that of Matthew in the gospel, and perhaps some others that will emerge for us as we do a deeper dive.  And today, I want to focus on the passage from the 9th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

In the first part of the text we just heard, Matthew is sitting in the tax booth when Jesus walks by and says “Follow me.” While the text doesn’t say it, tax collectors in those days were not the beleaguered public servants of our day.  They were ones who collected the taxes due to the emperor– and then some – lining their own pockets.  So, as you can imagine, they aren’t particularly well liked in the community.  Was Matthew one of those crooked types who got rich off the backs of others?  The text doesn’t say. 

Yet when Jesus invites him, he leaves that booth and becomes a disciple.  Apparently, so did a few other tax collectors, as the text tells us.  What must that have been like for them?  They would lose all their income.  They did not really know what lay ahead for them – neither, for that matter, did any other follower of Jesus.  I mean, imagine if Jesus just walked into some CEO’s office, said “follow me,” and they got up – leaving laptop and everything else behind, and walked out the door with him?  That sounds crazy, right?  Well, that is what Matthew did.

But there is more going on here, because people like Matthew were understandably considered traitors of the people.  Imagine if that CEO had been in charge of a pharmaceutical company that profited off the opioid addiction and death of millions.  Jesus, what are you thinking?  Well, that is what Jesus did.  But wait, there’s still more…

Matthew and others like him – tax collectors, other pharma CEO types, and the like, end up having dinner with Jesus too.  And – here’s what we sometimes miss – this isn’t in some town far away where Jesus is traveling.  This is in his hometown, in his own home.  The opening of the chapter begins in this way: “…and after getting into a boat he crossed the sea and came to his own town.”  This Matthew may have been the very guy who ripped off Jesus and his family through the years – who profited on the backs of his friends and relatives in town.  It kinda puts the next part in perspective.

The local religious leaders were not happy about this and question Jesus about it (I have to wonder if there were more than just those Pharisees who thought that way too).  And to them Jesus says “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” 

Now, this is where it pays to actually read the text, not just hear it.  When he says “Go and learn what this means,” he isn’t referring to what he just said – that bit about “Those who are well have no need of a physician…”. He is referring to what he is about to say: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” 

One thing I have to note here before I continue is that this is not Jesus condemning Judaism as a faith.  In today’s context, he would say the same thing to many, many, Christian leaders, to be sure.  That absurd antisemitic reading of the passage aside, a better translation might be this: “I desire mercy, not purity,” which makes the next part more understandable: “For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”  And folks, that’s a good thing for us all.

Because if Jesus didn’t eat with sinners, he’d be eating alone!  The same is true for all of us.  If folks are looking for perfect people, they better look elsewhere, because they sure as heck won’t find them in a church.  And the truth is – they won’t find them anywhere else either. 

God didn’t create perfect people, but God become incarnate to dwell among us that we might come to know that perfection isn’t what God desires of us.  We aren’t meant to be perfect – we are meant to love – radically and unconditionally.  And that leads us to the rest of the story, because that type of love is what Jesus was offering in that moment, and it opened doors even he did not expect.

As he walked along, a temple leader came begging him to revive his daughter who had just died.  With the same words that were used for Matthew, Jesus got up and followed him.  As he walked along, “a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak.”  She did this because, as the text says, she believed that just by touching something that touched him, she would be made well.  And – she was.  But more than that, Jesus turned to her, looked at her, and affirmed her.

There is a lot packed into these twin stories, but one thing that needs to be understood is that these two people are different in more than just their gender and situation.  The man had agency to come right up to Jesus, the woman did not.  A woman in that time and culture who was bleeding was considered impure.  She would have been kept out of the temple those 12 long years, and most likely pushed to the margins of society.  It was a brave thing for her to do – going into a group of people on the chance of touching even just the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. Bravery born of desperation – for inclusion, for grace, for mercy, for love – but maybe she also heard about the radical welcome Jesus had given to Matthew and the others in his own home.

Perhaps we can hold these two stories – of Matthew and this woman – in our hearts and minds in these difficult days.  Let’s give her a name though, she deserves one.  Let’s call her Leah, a Hebrew name which can mean weary or grieved, for she was certainly that, not only from her physical ailments, but by the marginalization it brought her.

Matthew and Leah are two different call stories – both are the story of the church today.  Matthew is all of us – flawed people, who have erred along the way, hurt others intentionally or not, and perhaps have been deeply hurt ourselves.  Jesus called to us and we followed.  Jesus welcomes us to this table, and we eat. 

Leah is called to Jesus too, for healing and for love, but approaching him seemed dangerous – the doors of the church have not always felt like a welcome place for her.  She is the trans teen, the gay man, the addicted executive, the immigrant or refugee, the homeless woman, the elderly WWII vet with PTSD, the child with autism who is louder than some think they should be, the lonely, the infirm, the lost, and the last of our society.  They are in our hometown too, as Leah and Matthew were in Jesus’, yet sometimes it is hardest to see clearly what is too familiar to us; or, even more likely, they have been pushed into the shadows so we don’t see them at all.

As for their call and ours, Matthew certainly was not worthy of the call of Jesus – none of us are.  That’s when we need to remember this quote by the late and great Bishop Barbara Harris: “God doesn’t call those who are worthy.  God makes worthy those whom God has called.”

And like Leah, our healing by Christ, here at this table, will give us all that we need to lead the life he calls us into when we leave these doors. 

Which is a good thing, because Jesus is saying to each of us today the very thing he said to Matthew: “Follow me.”  He is turning to affirm our desire for grace and love as he did with Leah that we may be healed and live into our lives as his followers.

And, when Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of safety, but of dangerously prophetic witness.

When Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of ease, but of discomfort with injustice.

When Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of purity, but of unconditional love born of redemptive grace.

When we answer the call of Jesus to follow him, it means we leave from here – from this table – to seek him out in the world.  In this very gospel, he told us where he could be found – and it was in all those society and the church has for so long cast aside.  We must, as Jesus did, search to find the Matthews yearning for a new path.  We must turn toward the marginalized who seek healing and affirm them with love as he did with Leah. 

Today that means we hear the cries of those in concentration camps like Delaney Hall, and call for their immediate release.  It also means we see the Matthew there too.  I remember standing just about 15’ from the federal agents outside of that horrific facility and looking directly at each one of them.  This was in the hours before that close contact was cut off.  I prayed for a turning of their hearts, and for a change in the nation toward compassion and mercy.  Perhaps these agents believed in what they were doing.  Perhaps they were in need of the signing bonuses our government was offering to enlist them.  Just like with Matthew, we will never know.  Just like with Matthew, I will pray that they hear the call of Christ toward a change in life.  

And inside the cells we will find Jesus, from where we will hear him call to us to follow him.  For it is Christ himself who is given rotted and infested food.  It is Christ himself who is, like Leah, in need of medical care and suffering for so long. He is reaching out from those cells in the hope that we will see him and hear his call to offer love and grace to the suffering inside.  And we will answer that call and stand in solidarity with them, their families, and against our nation’s hateful and oppressive acts.

We will stand too with LGBTQ+ people in this Pride Month, that they may know deep within that we see them, we affirm them, we love them, and we welcome them.

We will stand with people of color across our nation whose voice is being eradicated by new Jim Crow voting maps.  This after fighting and dying through decades upon decades for the rights our nation’s highest court has now stripped away from them, and whose history of oppression our nation’s leaders want to eradicate.  We will not allow them to be pushed aside so that white people can feel more comfortable.  We will not stand by while they are stripped of their voice. 

We will stand with women and listen to them as much as we have listened to powerful men.  We will hear their stories of being victimized, assaulted, abused.  We will not allow convenience or political expediency to privilege men’s voices over theirs. We will turn to them, affirm them, and offer grace to them.

And when others, particularly the ones who seek to align Jesus and our country with power and wealth and whiteness – the so-called Christian Nationalists – come to us denouncing what we are doing, we will say:

“Go and learn what this means,

‘Jesus desires mercy, not sacrifice.’ For Jesus wants us to welcome the immigrant, love the oppressed, and heal the brokenhearted.  What part of that did you not understand? 

We will say, “Go and learn what this means…

For Jesus came to call not the righteous but sinners,” and you, my brother or sister, might want to consider which of those two categories you find yourselves in right now, as we pray deeply for you.  

We will say, this is what it means to follow Jesus! 

This is our faith, our baptism, our call, our life!

And we are ready to go!

Come and follow him with us – it is not too late.  It never is.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

June 7, 2026

The Second Sunday After Pentecost – Year A/Track 1

1st Reading – Genesis 12:1-9

Psalm 33:1-12 

2nd Reading – Romans 4:13-25

Gospel – Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

May 31, 2026 – Trinity Sunday – May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Good morning, and welcome to Trinity Sunday, when priests usually pass off the sermon to unsuspecting seminarians or assisting clergy.  Kidding.  Sort of.  This is one of the Church’s principal feast days, and the only one that celebrates a doctrine, rather than an event or a person.  The doctrine itself is the work of the earliest Christian theologians, who were trying to find a way to understand the nature of God, Christ, and Holy Spirit.  Each being part of our scriptures, but their relationship to one another was not in our sacred texts.  The Trinity, as a construct, came later.  And this mystery of 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 can often end up leading even well intentioned people of faith down a theological rabbit hole.  

So, that’s why I am not going to preach about it, other than to say this: The doctrine of the Trinity is not a complete description of God, because that is impossible. The doctrine of the Trinity is a way of describing relationship – the relationship of God, Christ, and Holy Spirit – yes.  But, it is also a way to understand ourselves – the ones made in God’s image.  “The Trinity is a statement of how God relates, not how God is. Or perhaps how anyone relates is indeed how one is.”[1]  And when it comes to God, the relationship – God, Christ, Spirit, and us, is an eternal and unconditional dance of love.

And if there is one thing we all need now is an eternal and unconditional relationship of love – God’s love for us, our love for God, and loving our neighbor.  So, with all that in mind, let’s look at the passage from Genesis that we heard today, because there is a lot there that will feed us as we move along in these difficult days.

Now, there are two creation stories in the bible – three if one were to count the Revelation to John as a creation story of sorts. Many, if asked how humanity was created, would say Adam from clay and Eve from Adam’s rib.  But that is found in the second chapter of Genesis, not the story we get here – the one given primacy in the scriptures.  

Why two?  Well, why four gospels?  On Genesis, scholars believe they came from two different cultural traditions and were kept together so as not to lose either.  The differences are more than just the introduction of humanity, and a full description of them is really too much to get into today, but suffice it to say that Genesis 1 offers a cosmic God, and Genesis 2 a personal one.  Genesis 1 moves from dark chaos to order to sabbath.  Genesis 2 from dry land to water everywhere.   Which is right?  A rabbi of these Jewish texts would say “they both are.”  Which is why these are not meant to be read literally, but faithfully.

The story we hear in those first 35 verses of our bible begins this way (using the NRSVU translation): “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness [God]called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

It goes on like this, each day God creating something – heavens & earth, sun, moon, and stars, coffee and fast food, etc.  And then there was the 6th day when God created all the animals of the air, the sea, and those that dwell on the earth, and also humans!  Yup, that’s right, we were created on the same day as all the other animals.  That was a very long 6th day to be sure for God.  Oh, and the text also says that both humans and animals were meant to be vegetarians.  Missed that part?  Well, it’s right here: “God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” I suspect nobody asked the plant life how it felt about all that.

I once pointed that out to a friend from Texas who loves her BBQ and she was like “WHAAAATTTT????  NO!”  Don’t worry though, that all went by the scriptural wayside later.

Anyway, then God declared all that was made on that 6th day good.  God didn’t say “Love those animals we created, but the humans – well, they are just awesome!” Nope.  Just the same divine thumbs up at the end of a long day for all of it.  That outta humble us a bit.

And, as we point out in the diocesan Anti-Sexism training, God said “Let us make humankind in our image – male and female.”  Of course – there is that bit about God saying “Let us” and “our,” making it clear that God is the ultimate non-binary being.  But something the church and the world so frequently ignores is that the image of God is equally in women as in men. 

So – lots to consider in this one creation story.  Of course, as noted earlier, we should read this passage, and our entire bible, not literally, but with a focus on the context in which it was written, and draw from all of it the meaning God has for us – the truth found within and between the lines of text.  With that in mind, let’s think about what it is telling us today.  Why do we need to hear it now? 

You know, with all the cold and rain we have had coming into the past week, it has sort of felt like we might never know the warmth of sunlight again.  Some of you feel, or know people who do, this type of darkness from the grief, pain, or fear you face personally.  And of course, for all of us, there is also the darkness of the world that we feel and see and hear all around us. 

We all know about the violence of war in Iran and Ukraine and other places.  We know too about the violence in our schools, places of worship, and in the streets.  We know the violence of government agents against citizens and non-citizens alike, and those who protest on their behalf.  But most of us will never know what it is like to be tossed into one of these concentration camps our government runs.

Specifically, reports out of Delaney Hall in Newark, just a few miles from this parish, describe what these inmates are living through there –  rotted or infested food, unsanitary conditions, pregnancy, cancer, and other medical conditions left untreated, and physical beatings.  In some prisons across our country with similar conditions, suicides are on the rise.  In a recent study, it was found that 73% of those imprisoned by ICE and CBP have committed no crime, and even if they did, we believe in this country that people should be treated humanely.  And,100% of those picked up by ICE & CBP have not received due process of law that is owed to every single person – citizen or not – within the borders of our country by the 5th and 14th amendments of our Constitution. 

The horrible conditions have led some in Delaney Hall to go on a hunger strike.  Protestors, including faith leaders, have been supporting their families outside and speaking on their behalf.  Government leaders have tried to gain their rightful access to the facility to inspect it and speak to the prisoners, and they most were not only denied, but in some cases they have been pushed, pepper sprayed, or arrested.

What is happening in our country now has created a chaos as dark as an abyss.  And so, as I stood in protest with other faith leaders at Delaney Hall this past Friday, looking into the eyes of Federal agents, or gazing up at the prison windows, I thought about this text – and there I found hope.

Remember – darkness and chaos covered the earth, the Holy Spirit – the breath of God – moved over the waters.  And into this, God decided to first create light.  Was it to see everything better as God continued to create?  I doubt that.  The thing is, scientists know that light plays an important role in sustaining life.  And we all know, that light, even the hope of it, can sustain us in times of deep darkness – the thought of it can keep us going, even when we are unable to see it.

We hear that in the iconic poem found scratched into the wall of a cellar where Jews were hidden in Cologne, Germany, which read:

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when I do not feel it.

I believe in God even when God is silent.”

Imagine the darkness that surrounded the person who etched that into the stone – fear, violence, hatred of others, war, loss of loved ones.  The sun was not shining into that cellar, but its promise was a lifeline of hope in a time when love could not be felt.  And it was that knowledge, deep within whomever wrote it, that is a sign that God was not silent at all, but present in that very place in that very moment, with one who felt so alone, so afraid, so unloved.

This is why God chose to make light the first act of creation – because God knew that without light, with darkness ever present, life would quickly wither into nothingness. 

So, if all of that is true, why then did God not make everything full of light?  I mean, even with the understanding that these stories were not meant to be taken literally, this version does beg the question – why did God keep the darkness alongside the light, and called it all good!

Maybe part of the answer is found in what God did on the 4th day – creating the stuff in the sky we see at night – the stars and the moon.  A reminder that darkness is never fully in control.   

Perhaps it is also so that we can better understand the nature of light itself, and what that gives to us.  If you light a candle, or flip on a switch, in a dark room, the light enters, and the darkness instantly vanishes. They cannot coexist in the same space; light always wins by displacement.  In a one to one matchup – light always overcomes darkness.  Every.Single.Time. 

But maybe the biggest reason of all is because God is at work in the darkness too.  Remember, God wasn’t absent in the void before the light – God’s breathe – the Holy Spirit – moved across the deep.  Think about a photographer’s darkroom.  For the photos to be properly developed, only a safe light – not visible to the film – can be present.  The darkroom isn’t a place of destruction or absence of the good.  It is a place of creativity and development.  The newly created work will emerge into the light when it is ready. 

In the same way, God is not absent in the darkness of our lives.  God is at work then too, doing perhaps the deepest development work in our lives at that very time when we feel so lost, alone, afraid, or abandoned.  

And like the way we feel when we gaze upon the stars and the moon on a clear night, or a campfire in the evening, the mixture of light and dark can inspire and even entrance us.  Just last night many of us experienced a transcendent moment in this very church as we sat in darkness, surrounded by hundreds of candles while a string trio beautifully played the music of Coldplay.  It was amazing and inspiring..

The thing is – God knew that the chaos that existed before would always be – would always linger.  The humanity God would create would encounter darkness – some of its own making, some of the world.  That is why God didn’t eliminate the darkness, because God was at work there too.  God then created light, that we would know that darkness doesn’t have the last word – the dawn always comes, the sun shines after the storm, and darkness is unable to exist in the presence of light. 

That is also why the light of God – Christ – came into the world. 

To breathe life into our very souls that we may transcend the chaos swirling around us. 

To show us that even hate and violence wrought down by the powerful like the Roman Empire cannot defeat God’s love. 

To show us the power of light – his light – to overcome even the most insidious darkness.

And as followers of Christ, we are the children of light.

We are a part of that never ending act of creation whenever we love and serve in his name.

Whenever we speak for the voiceless.

Whenever we stand against injustice.

Whenever we love unconditionally those others have cast aside.

We bring light into the shadows, and the darkness will never overcome us, for it can never withstand light – the light of God’s love and grace most of all.

And at the end of our own six days of creative action in the world in partnership with God, we will also take our sabbath rest – right here at this table, and in this community.  Here we will receive respite from our labors, and strength to meet the journey ahead in the nourishment of Christ’s great love.

And finally, at the end of all our days, at the end of our witness of light in the abyss of humanity’s evil, we will take our final sabbath rest in the communion of Saints. 

And God will look at all that we have done, and declare it very good.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

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[1] Bob Eldan. http://preachingtip.com/archives-year-b/pentecost-year-b/trinity-sunday-year-b/

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

May 31, 2026

Trinity Sunday

1st Reading – Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Psalm 8

2nd Reading – 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Gospel – Matthew 28:16-20

May 10, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Happy Mother’s Day, and many good wishes to those celebrating.  It is a joyous occasion for most – offering a time to appreciate the love of their moms with maybe flowers, a visit or a call, or some other way to thank them.  For others, this is also a difficult day, or one that brings about mixed feelings at least.  For they are those whose mother’s have died, or those whose mothers are absent – in whatever way that may mean – or those mothers who have lost a child, or those women who could not have one.  For these people Mother’s Day can be troubling, awkward, or even painful.  And if that is you, know that we, your parish family, are holding you in prayer.

And so, as I say each year, that is that is why I like to think of today as less about Mothers specifically, and more about women – mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, nieces, aunts, and friends.  Women who have been a part of our lives – nurturing, mentoring, loving, caring.  That is what we really celebrate today – the journey of women – us, if we are women, and those women who have been a part of our lives.

And there was a woman listening to St. Paul in the passage we heard today from the Acts of the Apostles, but you wouldn’t know it based on the reading for this morning.  As the story we heard goes, St. Paul was speaking before the Areopagus.  What we didn’t hear was why. 

See, while he was waiting for his preaching buds Silas and Tim to arrive in Athens (why is a whole other story), Paul had been walking around town seeing among the bustling city lots of monuments to various Gods, even an altar that, as he would later note, was inscribed with this: “to an unknown God.” 

As Paul does, he taught people in the synagogues and the streets about Jesus.  Now, this is where the previous verses get funny, and why I think they should be included.  It goes like this: “…some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” … So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” That is part of what is missing from the story.  The part we did hear was this…

St. Paul then speaks before the council, mentions the bit about the “unknown God,” and in classic Paul style, uses their own poetry to counter the notion of such a thing.  He quotes Aratus (a Cilician poet) in the phrase “For we also are his offspring,” and likely refers to Epimenides of Crete with the phrase “For in him we live and move and have our being” to counter the idea that any God would be unknown to their own creation.  Socrates would have been proud of his use of their own words, and given that Paul was university educated, with excellence in rhetoric and debate which we see in his writings, it also isn’t surprising.

Then Paul told them about Jesus – about his life, death, and resurrection.  For reasons that confound me, that is where the lectionary stops this reading.

But on this day, when we celebrate the women in our lives, we need to hear, as the late Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.” The text continues with this: “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.” 

Now, there are are a few things to note about Damaris, especially on a day when we celebrate women.  First, that she is mentioned at all by the author.  In his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham argues that named individuals in the Gospels and Acts are not random, but rather were known to the early Christian communities as key witnesses, leaders, or teachers.  This would be especially true of any women named.

Second, some try to link Damaris by marriage to Dionysius, the other convert mentioned in this story.  Nowhere does it say that, and the author of Luke-Acts, being a stickler as he was, would have done so if it had been the case. 

And third, is that she is standing there listening to St. Paul speak before the Areopagus in the first place. The Areopagus was a place for centuries where the learned, the most respected in that region, the most powerful, would listen to and debate ideas, pronounce judgements over serious criminal matters, and wrestle with larger questions of science, philosophy, & religion.  Damaris would have had to have been wealthy, intellectually gifted, powerful, or all of the above.  

So, there is a lot for us in this larger story about St. Paul, a bunch of Greek philosophers and judges, and Dionysius and Damaris.  And we need to hear it too, especially amidst all that is happening in the world today.  For starters, there the inscription on the altar that Paul saw and spoke about.

One wonders who constructed it, and why?  As I was thinking about that, I was struck by this one part of the Psalm we heard today. The Psalmist speaks of God as one, “Who holds our souls in life.”  Think of that for a moment.  What does it mean that God is one that “holds your soul in life?”  There is such a sense of care, of nurturing, of love in that imagery – and most of all – of knowing.  That God knows us.

The thing is, we hear this not only in that Psalm, but throughout the scriptures of our faith.  We hear that same message, or something like it – over and over and over again in many different ways.  From Genesis 1 to the final chapter of the Revelation to John, our scriptures remind us that, as those Greek poets Paul quoted made clear – God created us, and in God we have our very being – God holds our soul in life with great love.  This is why at the Easter Vigil and in Lessons & Carols we get texts that span the entire bible – to tell the story of God’s relationship with us through time as a reminder that our God didn’t begin loving us when Jesus was born, but he was born to us because God has loved us from the beginning of time.  That God does indeed hold our souls in life…or really, in love.  And that type of relationship, the one God has with all of creation, rooted in unconditional love – means that God knows us – knows us deeply – even if God is unknown to us.

All of which brings me back to whoever built that altar.  The thing is – it wasn’t built because they thought God doesn’t exist.  Why bother?  No, it was built because they could sense God’s presence – could sense that there was something larger than themselves – they just didn’t know how to name what they were feeling.  This was a seeker – something we all have been, and hopefully still are, or we wouldn’t be here right now.

We don’t stop seeking just because we walk in the doors of a church and sit in the pew.  Or I sure hope not.  It is practically in the DNA of the Episcopal Church to seek, to question, to wrestle with what we think we know.  And seeking is as much about what is sought as it is about the one who is searching.  The spiritual seeker wants to understand the Creative force they can sense in the world, but learns as much about themselves when they do.  Understanding is about knowing – about seeing and being seen.  And the truth is that we not only seek God that we may know God, but also that we may feel seen and known ourselves. 

So many people in the world today yearn to be seen – not looked past, ignored, or pushed aside.  They want to be listened to, not because they think they have all the answers, but because in listening, we see them a bit more.

That is why it is so important to lift up Damaris in this story.  So many women in scripture get ignored or go unnamed – and even our lectionary cuts them out.  But the patriarchy rooted in sexism isn’t just a part of faith traditions like ours. Women all across time have been left out of our history books – their inventions, courageous acts, writings, or leadership unacknowledged – their names unknown. 

If we are to ever know God the way God yearns to be known, we cannot ignore or abuse what God creates, especially those made in God’s image – the women as well as the men.  For when we do, when we ignore and abuse the very soul God holds in life – we willingly do the same to God. 

Which brings me back to Damaris.  She was noted by the author of Luke-Acts, and we should not make the mistake so many do and take no notice of her.  We will remember Damaris today.  We will say her name and tell her story.

But there is something else going on in this story – something missing from our world today (not to mention the lectionary).  Paul was doing as evangelists are meant to do – all of us really – he was talking about his faith.  That’s a good thing!  Yet, the lesson we most need now though does not come from Paul.  It comes from the Athenians, and begins in the part left out from the passage, which I mentioned earlier. 

Sure, some thought he was a “pretentious babbler,” which, if you read a lot of Paul’s writings you might agree with them.  And yet, they didn’t throw stuff at him, push him aside, or arrest him for saying things they didn’t like or understand (as we know happened to Paul in other places).  What did they do?

Well, this is why this earlier part is so important, and why I cannot figure out why it was left out – I mean, how can you understand the full scripture of you don’t hear it?  Just a reminder, this is how they responded: They said to Paul “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” The text goes on to describe all of the people in that region, saying “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.”

And when they listened more to Paul in his speech before the Areopagus, they didn’t throw him over a cliff for speaking about something they hadn’t heard before – nor did most of them immediately accept what he said.  In the final part of this story, again left out of the lectionary for today, they said instead “We will hear you again about this.” 

We should not be surprised by their response.  Anyone who had to read Plato in school knows Socratic dialog, which originated in Ancient Greece long before Paul or Jesus were born.  For that matter, anyone who reads some of the epistles of St. Paul see in them this method of question and answer to get to truth.  Some scholars have pointed to striking similarities between Socrates in Athens and Paul in Athens – something the learned author of Luke-Acts may have been trying to bring to mind.

But while interesting, especially if you enjoy trips down the philosophical rabbit hole, the most important part is in the invitation to dialog in the first place offered by the Athenians in the face of something they either did not know, or did not believe to be true. If only we today would do as these Athenians and the others in Athens at the time of Paul’s travels are doing in this story.  

Instead, most people would just change the channel, walk away, yell and scream, or Gerry-mander them into silence.  If you are in our government, you would arrest and indict them, or push to have them taken off the air.  What would the world, or really – let’s narrow that down…what might our country be like if we were to listen more to what we don’t understand, invite those who offer different opinions to speak to us, or at the end of a contentious town hall say “We will hear you again about this.”

If we think about it – listening is one of the ways we see others, one of the ways we say to them that they are known to us.  One of the ways we become known to them too.  And seeing someone, getting to know them a bit, is the first step toward loving them as we are called to do.  It is also the first step toward knowing God.

So as we leave here and head out into our own public squares – divided as they are – let us question as the Athenians what we hear from others, not to shut down, but so that we can better understand, see, and know – them, the truth, and the God who created it all.

And let us hear of the resurrection of Christ and have our hearts moved in such a way as we become like Damaris – leaving this place to proclaim the good news in such a way that we cannot be pushed aside and be forgotten or ignored. For there are far too many yet for whom God is still unknown, who yearn to be known themselves, who dream of being seen and loved by One who would hold their soul in life.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

May 10, 2026

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

1st Reading – Acts 17:22-31

Psalm 66:7-18

2nd Reading –  1 Peter 3:13-22

Gospel – John 14:15-21

Maximino Cerezo Barredo (Spanish, 1932–), “Emmaus” (triptych), 2014. Carvalhos, Portugal.

April 19, 2024: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Happy Easter everyone!  Yes – it’s still Easter. In fact, while we celebrate Eastertide for 50 days, in reality we are always a resurrection people.

Now, the New York Times had a headline this week about the Vice President that read “Vance Says The Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology.”  Does anyone else feel like the real news these days sounds more like something the parody news outlet, The Onion, would put out?

Seriously though, the Vice President said about the Pope, I kid you not: “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to be sure it’s anchored in the truth and that’s one of the things that I try to do and that’s certainly something I would expect from the clergy…” Says the guy who converted only 7 years ago about the man who has been a priest for 3 decades and is now the Vicar of Christ? 

Well, Mr. Vice President, I am not the Pope, just a priest in Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic church, but I do intend to speak on matters of theology, and I suggest you stay in your lane of – well, whatever it is you do.  If you have a problem with that – bring it on.  I would be happy to have a theological dialog with you, because Lordy, you seemed to have skipped some of your RCIA classes when you were prepping for your conversion.    

Now, if you think that was the most outrageous thing that happened this past few weeks, you may get the same head scratching stares Jesus got on the road to Emmaus when he asked Cleopas and the other disciple “What news?”

So, let’s talk about this beloved Easter story. 

It begins with Cleopas and his companion walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, comforting one another in their deep grief over the death of their teacher and friend, Jesus.  Now, before we go any further, I want to remind everyone about the identities of these two folks. 

So many just assume that these are two men walking on this road, but as most of you who have been here awhile know by now, that assumption is a reflection of our society, not the scriptures. 

The text says “Now on that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.” Nowhere does it say these were two men!  The Greek is gender neutral.  Given that the bible is rife with examples of women going unnamed, and given that the bible authors have no problem usually telling you the names of every single man in any story, it is far more likely that it is a woman with Cleopas, not a man.  This is not just my own opinion, of course, but that of many scholars who argue as much.

So, there you have it – Cleopas was walking the road to Emmaus with his wife, girlfriend, sister, female best bud, wing woman, or whatever. Now that we have that cleared up, let’s give her a name…how about Zoe, from the Greek word for life.  Now, back to the story.

Remember, Cleo and Zoe were leaving Jerusalem – leaving the place where the disciples were cowered in fear, where Jesus had been crucified, where those associated with him were in danger.  Tensions were high.  People, including these two, were grieving and fearful.  And as they talked among themselves about the situation and all that had happened to them, Jesus came near and went alongside them. 

Now, they didn’t recognize him.  This was a stranger on this road, and not only that, but that same stranger basically says “Heyt, what’s up?” First, let’s look at the word choice of the author here to describe Jesus.  It is the Greek word πάροικος (paroikos) which means migrant, or a resident foreigner.  It often refers to a temporary resident lacking citizenship in a particular place.

And they tell this stranger, this foreigner, everything – who they thought Jesus was, what had happened to him, and who was responsible for it.  That they had hoped he was the one to “redeem Israel,” which may not mean much in our context, but then was the same as saying overthrow the Empire and free the oppressed.  They told him things that could get them crucified if he happened to be someone connected to power.  It was risky.

And knowing that risk makes the next part even more astounding – they invited this stranger to stay with them.  Welcoming the stranger was the law of God, and one that was a matter of life or death in that time.  There were not Wawas on every corner to grab food, and roads at night were prime places for robbers to lay in wait.  They did not know Jesus, but they knew their God and what God expected of them.  They invited him in, this man on the road.  They took another risk.

Today Jesus, the paroikos, the migrant, the resident foreigner, needs us to take a risk.  To risk having the conversations that may put us in danger with those in power, to risk welcoming him as we would if we could have the veils lifted from our eyes and saw the Christ walking alongside us.  And that is exactly what Pope Leo the XIV was doing that prompted responses from both the Vice President and the President.

First, let’s step back a bit to get the full scope of all that has happened just since Easter Sunday.  On that most sacred and holy of days for Christians, the President posted on his social media this heartwarming message: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.  There will be nothing like it!! Open the F’in’ [he used the full word – I will not)…anyway] Open the F’in’ Strait you crazy [a b word I also will not repeat], or you’ll be living in Hell.” And then, in all caps (for reasons known only to him) he continued “JUST WATCH!” Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump”

This was the President’s Easter message – a pledge to commit war crimes against the Iranian people, and mocking their faith.  But wait, there’s more… The Secretary of Defense called this a holy war, and this week, in a worship service at the Pentagon, he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”  I should note, this same “Christian,” also asked everyone to pray while he quoted a passage of scripture – except what he read was from the movie “Pulp Fiction,” and not the bible.  This was on top of his declaring that journalists were like the Pharisees who opposed Jesus…implying that the President was Christ himself.

The President seemed to think so, as he re-posted on social media a blasphemous meme of him depicted as Jesus, healing a sick man, as avenging beings fly in the skies above, and a bunch of white people hold their hands in prayer around him.  And – he claimed that Leo owes his election as Pope to him.  Yup – you can’t make this stuff up.

But let me make one thing perfectly clear – while some of this is farcical, this is no laughing matter.  This is what Christian Nationalism does.  It perverts the gospel of the Prince of Peace into a bludgeon for war, hate, violence, and oppression.  Christian Nationalism is a heresy and it must be stopped whenever and wherever it rises up.

Now, back in “Sane-ville” – the Pope made it clear that “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”  While traveling to Cameroon, actually to a city I spent time in years ago – Bamenda – Pope Leo said even more.  Now, he was speaking about the long and violent civil war that had wracked this beautiful nation, but of course a certain President and Vice-President didn’t see it that way.  The Pope said, “The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild…” And quoting actual scripture, not the Gospel of Quentin Tarantino, he said “Blessed are the peacemakers!” which we know was a part of the sermon on the mount.  Then Pope Leo added “But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

Why am I telling you all this? 

Because Pope Leo is having a risky conversation, in a risky place.  The Pope is exhibiting moral courage at a desperate time in the lives of so many around the world.  Don’t mess with a guy from the South Side of Chicago.  Seriously. 

And supporting him in this is our own Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullaly, who said “I stand with my brother in Christ, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, in his courageous call for a kingdom of peace. As innocent people are killed and displaced, families torn apart, and futures destroyed, the human cost of war is incalculable. It is the calling of every Christian – and of all people of faith and goodwill – to work and pray for peace. We must also urge all those entrusted with political authority to pursue every possible peaceful and just means of resolving conflict.  As I prepare to visit Rome later this month to meet and pray with Pope Leo, I am mindful of his call to keep our eyes open to the suffering of the world, and our gaze fixed on our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ – the image of the invisible God, in whose image and likeness every human being is made.”

Let the people say “Amen.”

Folks, the Road To Emmaus is what we are walking now.

People are fleeing empire today and we, the followers of Jesus, sometimes may feel like those first converts in the passage of Acts we heard this morning, who asked of Peter “what should we do?” 

The story of Cleo and Zoe provide the answer.

We should have the risky conversations – proclaim the gospel even when it may be dangerous to do so.  Proclaim it in what you say and in what you do. Proclaim it in places others might not go.

We should welcome the foreigner – not bomb them, not shoot them, not unjustly imprison them, not rip their children from them.  We should invite them in, for they are made in the image of God, and they are the crucified one in our midst.

We should come here to experience Jesus in the breaking of the bread – to hear the scriptures (again – real ones not from a movie) – to have our hearts burn within us.

That is what we should do – have the risky conversations, welcome Jesus in the stranger in our midst, experience him in the breaking of the bread – for that is our faith!  That is our Easter life.

Cardinal Tobin, who I have had the pleasure of working with here in New Jersey, said in an interview in response to what Pope Leo is doing “I’ve had the privilege of working closely with four popes, very different people in a lot of ways. But each one in some way was the right one for that moment in time.  I believe that — Pope Leo is the right man at this time.”

Now, I am not a Cardinal, but I can assure you this:  Pope Leo is the right one for this time…and so are each of you.  All of you are in this moment – this road to Emmaus moment – because you are the right person for this time.

There will be people, sometimes powerful people, telling you to stay in your lane, perverting the gospel, trying to crucify Jesus. But you must continue on that Emmaus journey.

You must recognize Jesus in the stranger, who yearns to draw near to you.

Welcome him, share your pain with him, listen to him, experience him in the breaking of the bread, and then proclaim the gospel – even when it’s risky.

For that will always be a risk worth taking.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

April 19, 2026

The Third Sunday of Easter – Year A

1st Reading – Acts 2:14a,36-41

Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

2nd Reading –  1 Peter 1:17-23

Gospel – Luke 24:13-35

April 5, 2026 – Easter Sunday: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Well, I had hoped it would be a bit more Springy today.  Still, even if the weather isn’t sunny and bright, Spring truly is here – flowers are blooming, birds are singing, everyone is sneezing, and move aside basketball on TV – baseball is back! 

And Lordy, do we need all of that now, don’t we?

It’s been a tough winter, and an exhausting year. 

Weather wise, this winter has chilled us to the bone, and drenched our spirits in the snow and icy rain.  And the gloomy clouds matched a lot of our spirits with all that we were experiencing in the world around us.

On Good Friday, we remembered when empire crucified Jesus.  And this year, it seems we have been in a perpetual Good Friday.  Day after day after day, we see Jesus being crucified. For we know, as this Gospel of Matthew tells us, Jesus taught his disciples where to find him.  As I noted at the beginning of this Holy Week on Palm Sunday, and again on Good Friday, Jesus, using the setting of a final judgement, said about those who will be declared righteous, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger (immigrant in today’s terms) and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When perplexed as to how they had done that, the answer came, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

So, the part of the story of Holy Week, the shallow praise of the people as he entered Jerusalem, his prayer of grief in the garden of Gethsemane, and his execution on the cross by the Roman Empire – it feels very familiar now.  It is a darkness that we have been experiencing for so very long as we watch our own empire grab people of color out of their homes, places of work, or even children in school and disappear them.  As we see empire shoot and sometimes kill people outright in the streets.  We feel betrayed.

We grieve as we hear of the oppression of already marginalized people, our nation bombing a school for girls, and service men and women returning home in flag draped coffins. 

Our country has been in a very, very, long Holy Week.

It seems that might has shoved right into a tomb and rolled over the stone.  It sure must have felt that way to the first followers of Jesus too.

And yet, that isn’t the end of the story. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary…  Honestly, can we just stop right there…what is up with that?  I mean couldn’t the author of Matthew give that other Mary a surname too?  It’s a little like on that old Bob Newhart Show – My brother Darryl, and my other brother Darryl.  I know – showing my age here.  But, really?

Anyway, those two Marys went to the tomb expecting to care for the body of Jesus, their friend and their rabbi.  Instead, their world was turned upside down – literally.  There was a great earthquake – just like what happened according to this gospel account when he died on the cross, and the same effect was felt too as he entered the city of Jerusalem.  God sure knows how to get our attention.  And the only thing the women found that was dead were the soldiers – or at least they “became like dead men” according to the text.  That was because just as they arrived, a messenger of God appears looking like lightening, who rolled away the stone and sat on it, you know – like you do if you are a messenger of God, I guess.

Then the women were told that the tomb was empty, Jesus had been raised from the dead, and they were to go tell all the other disciples.  They did, but before they could get very far, Jesus appears before them on the road.  And if that wasn’t crazy, it gets even stranger – he says “Greetings!” 

Seriously?  It’s like he’s messin’ with them.  There they were, having experienced an earthquake, a lightening bolt angel, nearly  dead soldiers, and a missing Rabbi, whom they were told has somehow been brought back from the dead… I mean – that’s already a LOT to deal with, right?  And then Jesus drops down on them and says “Hey you’all!!  What up?”  I don’t know about you, but you could hardly blame her if Mary Magdalene said “It’s five o’clock somewhere, I need a drink.”

Instead, she and Mary the sequel grabbed his feet and kissed them. Note that they didn’t need anything more, as the ones in Galilee would ask for – just him being in front of them was all that was needed.  And, not for nothing, but as is needed to be pointed out every year – Jesus came to see the women disciples before Peter, James, John, or any of the other men.  Jesus, in every gospel account, always appears to Mary Magdalene first (and any other woman who happens to be with her in the synoptics of Matthew, Mark, and Luke – in John, she comes alone).  She, and if there are other women with her, are sent to tell the rest of the disciples.  The women were the apostles to the apostles.  The first ones sent to proclaim the good news. 

And what was that good news?

That the cross, erected by empire to destroy love, to extinguish hope – it wasn’t the last word.

Or, to put it another way, since it is the early days of baseball season, in the immortal words of the great Yogi Berra, – “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”  Now, Yogi said that about the 1973 pennant race when the former Yankee was the manager of my hapless Mets.  They were 13 games back, in other words, a usual season.  The manager wrote a 1998 astutely named book: The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said. In it he said, “That was my answer to a reporter when I was managing the New York Mets in July 1973.”

Of course, he also said other, what some call Yogi-isms:  There’s “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”  And of course, this classic: “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours.”  But, “It’s not over till it’s over,” still has a way of inspiring us.  It sure did the Mets.  They went on the win the pennant and got into the World Series!  In true Mets fashion though, they lost. 

Well, here’s the thing.  Easter is when God offers the same message, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” but adds this note of hope: “And I am telling you – it ain’t over.”2

It ain’t over. 

Nope – God isn’t dead or defeated, so neither are we.

That is the first lesson of Easter – hope.

But another is this.  That is in these Good Friday moments, when the tomb looms large and empire seems to have their boots on our neck, God will always meet us there, in our darkest hour – when it seems that all hope has been lost.  God will meet us on that difficult road and instill new life into us to send us on our mission in the world. God will do that, because God loves us – just as we are, unconditionally, and for all time.

That is the second lesson of Easter – Love.

God.Loves.Us.

God.Loves.You!

For Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, for the rest of the disciples in Galilee, and for each of you – God meets us where we are and calls us to new life, because of that great love.

And God is with us now! 

That, my friends, is good news for us all!

But sometimes we don’t see it.  Sometimes we don’t lift our eyes to see Jesus on the road, we don’t go to the tomb to encounter an angel waiting for us.

When life throws so much at us in these difficult times of our lives, one of the things that can happen is that we, intentionally or not, turn away from the pain and chaos around us.  We dismiss the pain in our body out of fear of a difficult diagnosis.  We turn off the TV so we don’t have to see people being hurt or killed by federal agents.  We keep our heads down looking at our social media feeds of cat videos.  We watch Hallmark movies (or, maybe that’s just me).  We turn to the things that comfort us, even sometimes self-medicate to ease the anxiety and the pain. 

Now, don’t get me wrong – comfort is important.  We all need it.  We all need rest from what wears us down emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  That is a healthy thing to do.  But there is a difference between seeking temporary respite, and deliberately putting ourselves in the tomb and rolling over the stone.

I am reminded of something I read once about lost sheep.  “When someone asked a wise old shepherd how sheep manage to get lost and separate themselves from the flock, the shepherd said, “Sheep don’t just get lost. They nibble themselves lost.” The sheep, in other words, never look up to see where they’re going, or how far they’ve wandered from the flock. All they can see is the next succulent patch of grass: and the next, and the next. The grass is a good thing, and essential to life: but they follow it so single-mindedly, it leads them ultimately in the direction of death.”[1]

A good patch of comfort to nibble on for a time is a good thing, but we must keep our eyes focused on what will really sustain us, so that we never get ourselves lost – so that we see God sending a messenger to give us hope, so that we see Jesus standing in front of us to offer us new life. 

Even in Holy Week, if we focus only on the betrayal, denial, anguish in the garden, the arrest, and the crucifixion, we will miss something else. There was also his great love in washing the feet of his disciples – even the ones who would deny and betray him.  There are always the helpers, the ones who offer great love in all of the darkest moments of humanity’s history.  We just need to watch for them.

And, if we really think about it, in these dark times we face, the comfort we truly need isn’t to be found in self-medicating, isolating, or ignoring the world anyway.  We shouldn’t throw the blanket over our head on Sundays and attend the church of the Holy Comforter.  No, it is here, at this table, where we are brought back from the dead by him whose resurrection restores our souls and reminds us that there is nothing in the world to be afraid of when we stay close to Christ Jesus.

For by his death and resurrection we know that life is stronger than death, light overcomes darkness in the end, and love will always defeat hate.  Every single time.

By his death and resurrection, we know that the powers of this world are weak, and there is nothing to fear.

By his death and resurrection, we know that the earthly powers of this world do not have the last say – God does.  It was true of Rome so long ago, and it is true today.

So, let us rise up from our despair, grief, and isolation.

Let us step away from the tombs in which the powerful of the world have tried to bury the love of Christ.

Let us lift our heads from the comfortable, to return to the true comfort of our shepherd – here at this table.

Because make no mistake about it – God is telling us: “It ain’t over till I say it is over, and folks, I am telling you it ain’t over! 

It ain’t over because Christ Is Risen! 

He Is Risen Indeed!

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

And that, my friends, changes everything.

Happy Easter Everyone!

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

April 12, 2020

Easter Sunday – In A Time of Separation

1st Reading – Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

2nd Reading –  Colossians 3:1-4

Gospel – Matthew 28:1-10

[1] Homileticsonline.com

Good Friday – 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Tonight we continue our three day service.  We really began two nights ago – at our healing Eucharist – when we remembered the betrayal of Jesus.  But the three part service that makes up what we call the Paschal Triduum started last night, when we remembered the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples.  There he washed their feet, an example of servant ministry, and commanded all who follow him to love one another as he loved us. And after praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he was arrested.

And, so we are now here on Good Friday to stand at the foot of the cross, to experience the pain of grief and loss, to bear witness to the cruelty of empire, to feel the darkness of the tomb.

Why would we willingly choose to do this? 

Because we know that if we do not, Easter is rendered meaningless.  There can be no victory over death without the death itself.  And so here we are, gathered together, on this most holy night.

One particular moment of the Passion struck me this Good Friday.  It was in the sixth reading tonight, and is something that happens in all four gospel accounts – Jesus is offered sour wine or vinegar (the poor man’s wine the soldiers would drink).  Sometimes it is noted that it is mixed with gall, a narcotic mixture offered to those being crucified to ease their suffering.  In the gospel of John, read this evening, this offering of sour wine is in response to Jesus saying, “I thirst.”

“I thirst.”

We can hear in these words the anguish of Jesus. 

Crucifixion was a horrendous way to suffer before death – your lungs collapsing from your own weight, your body exposed to the full heat of the sun for hours, even days.  And so one can only imagine the thirst anyone would have hanging on a cross.

“I thirst.”

He likely did, but perhaps there is a deeper meaning to his words in this gospel account.

Some say it is a reference to a number of Psalms Jesus would have known so well – Psalm 69 in particular.  Perhaps.  But earlier in this gospel, I think we get a better understanding of why he said it, and why it matters to us. 

In one of the first chapters of this gospel, John 4, which we read just a few weeks ago, Jesus enters into a dialog with a Samaritan woman at a well.  When this woman wonders why he has come to the well without something in which to draw the water out, Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 

And yet, as he nears death, Jesus says in his anguish, “I thirst.”

The living water thirsts.

How can this be?

One of the themes I keep being drawn back to this Holy Week, perhaps because of all that is happening in the world, is from another of our canonical Gospels – the Gospel of Matthew.  In that gospel, Jesus tells us where he may be found in the world – in the poor, the immigrant, the imprisoned, the sick, the naked, the hungry, and those who thirst.

Tonight, Jesus, the living water thirsts.

Indeed, he truly does now.  For he is in all who suffer in this world today. And he thirsts for righteousness, justice, love, healing, and grace. 

Mother Theresa had a sign above the entrance to the chapel in all her missions around the word.  It read, “I thirst, I quench.” Whenever we, the body of Christ, who is the living water, tend to those who thirst – physically, spiritually, mentally, or emotionally – we quench the thirst of Jesus himself.

That was Jesus’ final message to us all – he thirsts.

After all he had tried to do in the world, there was then, and now, more to do – Jesus thirsts, and so we too thirst, for alleviation of suffering for all of God’s children, for an end to the abuse of all of God’s creation.

In his final moments, Jesus reminds us of the work we are called to do.  He implores us not to forget him.

“I thirst.”

So, as we go out into the night of the tomb, let us not forget him in the world, let us thirst too. 

Let us hear his cry “I thirst,” and let it be our cry as the body of Christ.

Let us offer spiritual gall – not to dope the mind with narcotic, but to ease the pain of our sisters and brothers who suffer.

Let us be the water of life, quenching the thirst of others with his love, grace, and light.

Jesus thirsts.

May we go out into the world to meet him at the cross, and offer him the living water of our lives.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

April 3, 2026

Good Friday

Psalm 22

Gospel – John 18:1-19:42

Palm Sunday – March 29, 2026 – May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Now, if you’ve been coming here awhile, than you already know that this should just be Palm Sunday, with the passion being our Holy Week journey.  Still, we do include it because Easter without the passion is an empty experience, and some will not be able to attend on Maundy Thursday & Good Friday. 

And as in past years, the Dzieci Theatre company will push our imaginations, engage our senses, and challenge our assumptions in the second half of our service as they envelope us in the experience of Christ’s passion.  But, let’s not go there yet.  Let’s give the reading from Matthew, about the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, its due.

It’s a rather odd telling of this moment.  There are cloaks and branches, not palms.  Which was also almost our experience too, as these palms we have today got sidetracked by FedEx.  And, unlike in the other gospels, Jesus doesn’t mount one animal, but two.  I mean, you can almost imagine it looking like one of those rodeo tricks – the cowgirl on with a foot on each animal?  How the heck is he doing that, and even more to the point – why on earth is he doing that? 

Well, the short answer is that it ties Jesus directly to messianic prophesy – found not only in Zechariah, as quoted here (and as we heard earlier in the service before the procession), but also in Genesis 49.  The author Matthew is making it clear that Jesus is the Messiah whose reign would not end until he drew all people to himself. 

But this author is also telling us that the people who greet him with praise, did not understand who he is, and the moment they were in.  When some asked “Who is this?” Others answered that Jesus was a prophet from Galilee.  This sets the stage for what will happen to Jesus.

But there is another part to this gospel, something we will see if we read Matthew through the crucifixion to the resurrection.  The text says “the whole city was in turmoil asking about him.”  Yet the word turmoil is not exactly describing it.  The Greek word here is σεισμός, which means earthquake, shaking, big commotion.  It occurs again just after his death on the cross, and again as the women get to the tomb.  Things aren’t just a bit puzzling, everything was moving chaotically.  That’ll get your attention, just like it did the guards at the cross and the women at the tomb. 

Does it get ours? 

Because even while the people in Jerusalem didn’t quite get it, the question they ask is one being asked today – of each one of us. 

The church is being asked to declare who we are as the body of Christ in this earthquake moment in which we together live, where empire crushes the vulnerable.  What will be the crowds response if asked about us?  Will we show them who we are, as Jesus did, even if they don’t understand, even if they turn against us? 

These are questions for us today on this Palm Sunday, as much as they were for those there in Jerusalem so long ago.

Jesus knew this would happen to him – he entered into this city, at this tense moment, opposite the powerful Roman military – and he knew that, while the people in the crowds may not fully understand, his disciples needed to.

So, after he enters into the city, Jesus teaches his disciples a number of things, both in word and in deed.  First, Jesus goes to the temple, overturns some tables, and heals the sick.  Then, he offers them perhaps the most important lesson they, or we, will receive.  It was about who he is.  Maybe he heard the crowds, or maybe he thought his disciples still didn’t understand, so he answered the crowd’s question. 

Using the setting of a final judgement, he said about those who will be declared righteous, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When perplexed as to how they had done that, the answer came, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

And finally, Jesus takes it a step further, washing the feet of his disciples as a model of servant ministry, a symbol of his commandment to love one another as he loved us.

“Who is this?” the crowd asked.

“Who is Jesus?” we need to understand the answer to, and it is this:  Jesus is the stranger, the imprisoned, the hungry, the sick – the one who overturns the tables of injustice – who heals the broken ones – the loving servant – the crucified one.

Why then would he be crucified – how could a government do that to another human being., or how could the people allow it to happen?

It is questions like these that make this Passion we will experience here today by Dzieci is so powerful, because it is set  – not in the ancient near east – but in the Warsaw ghetto of our 20th century.  A Nazi created neighborhood prison, where the death toll among the Jewish inhabitants of is estimated to have been at least 400,000.  This setting is a reminder to us of what can happen when we fail to understand who Jesus is as his followers.  This is what can happen when we turn our backs on the crosses being erected outside our city walls.  When we look at another as being “them” rather than “Him.”  When we think – “that’ll never happen here – not in the US, not in my neighborhood.”

But, the passion sadly isn’t something that just happened over 2,000 years ago. The passion is a story happening through the centuries up to this very moment, because Jesus is being crucified all over the world, not only by governments, but by our own greed, hatred, and neglect.  The crucifixion of Jesus, is happening today, because today – Jesus is Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Liam Ramos, Lumos Campos, Ruben Ray Martinez, and all the other people killed, injured, unlawfully deported or detained.  Jesus is the 150 Iranian girls and other civilians, killed by our bombs, and the US Servicemen and women killed in our unjustified war with Iran.  Jesus is the farmer struggling to make ends meet, the mother with no food for her children, and the homeless veteran.  Jesus is the LGBTQ+ person rejected by others.  Jesus is the Epstein victim and all other women or girls trafficked.  Jesus is the person of color afraid to grocery shop or go to school in our country for fear of being disappeared by masked Federal Agents.  Jesus is the prisoner, the hungry poor, the neglected, and the oppressed.

But on this Palm Sunday, Jesus is also the one who enters into the public sphere with authority and overturns tables, even as empire threatens all around, even as he can see the cross looming ahead for him.  What can we learn from all of this?

During Lent, a few of us have been reading together a book, “For Such A Time As This: An Emergency Devotional,” by Hanna Reichel. In it, the author writes this:  “As a scholar, I have closely studied this nation. It prided itself in its influence in the world, its intellectual leadership, its technological innovation, its economic prowess.  But as global orders shifted, its social and political system, built for simpler times, crumbled… Polarization increased and made coalition building ever less feasible. Widening gaps led to social unrest economic instability and even violence in the streets.  The nation was overwhelmed and disoriented… Special leaders claiming for themselves special powers rode waves of public disgruntlement against immigrants, intellectuals, and those visibly “other.”  Democratic processes were manipulated, checks and balances hollowed out.  Executive overreach became the order of the day.

The nation I am talking about is Germany; the time is roughly a century ago.  But maybe my description sounded familiar to you today.  Maybe, like me, you find yourself thinking: we have been here before…We’ve been here before.  You won’t like what happens next.”  Reichel then asks: “What should the church’s response be?”

Or, as Matthew might put it: “Who are you?”

There were many in the church who complied with the Nazi’s, even siding with them.  In the decades since, many in Christendom have had to atone for this sinful inhumanity and shameful lack of courage. But there were others – those in what was called the Confessing Church – some of whom came late to it, others who resisted from the start.  Deitrich Bonhoeffer is one of the more famous examples, but there were far more.  But something Bonhoeffer was very clear about, “…the church is not a building, but is also not a people.  It is the body of Christ.”[1]

And as the body of Christ in the world, we too need to enter our proverbial Jerusalem – not on military horses with weapons, but as Jesus did – with a message of hope, healing, grace, and love – and some righteous anger to topple the tables of injustice too.

And that is what many of us were a part of yesterday in the latest “No Kings” march – the largest single day of protest in the history of the United States – with 8 million people and rising in every state, and nearly every single county across our country.  Joining with others of different faiths, or none at all, we were proclaiming that might does not make right – that we will not bend the knee to any President.  In signs and voice, we said we will not turn our backs on our neighbors – immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+, women, children, the poor.  We will not allow them to be crucified.  We will protect them, love them, and stand by their side.  Because in them, we see Jesus, and we are called to love and serve him – not any imagined earthly “King.”

And for me and many other parts of the body of Christ, we also proclaimed emphatically that Christian Nationalism is a heresy.  Jesus did not enter Jerusalem to cooperate with Rome, or align himself with Pilate – and neither will we allow him to be used as a tool of the powerful to oppress the vulnerable. 

We didn’t create the σεισμός – we WERE the earthquake!

Did we do this weapons or violence?  No.  We did this the same way Jesus did and for the same reason too.  Mercy and love  is what shakes the city to its core, not abusive power.  Think of how our own empire today wanted protestors to become violent – doing all they could to provoke them so the Insurrection Act could be brought out., and the people subdued by violence.  But, Portland Oregon showed us the way – they came in inflatable frog costumes. 

Why?  Maybe for the same reason Jesus enters Jerusalem on two animals.  Not because this isn’t a serious moment.  No.   Instead to meet the moment – to meet violence and hostility with love and joy.  In protests since Portland, violence and power have been met with shouts of kindness, songs, and peaceful opposition.  And you know what?  That is the scariest thing any dictator could ever see.

Jesus knew that too. 

And so, as the body of Christ today, many of us met that moment yesterday, and have been for many, many years.  And we will keep doing it too.  We must, because if we do not, then we are as clueless as those in Jerusalem so long ago as to who Jesus is, and who we are as his followers.

Reichel in that same book ,when talking about what we do here on Sundays, said “There is no gathering without sending.  The miracle of real community is a special blessing that strengthens us for everyday existence…The cross is a part of Christian life.  Where we try to avoid it, we just end up putting others on it…The Christian belongs out in the world.  Blessing turns into temptation when we use community to escape the world…” 

Or, as I have said for years – going to church on Sunday is not the destination, it is where we get strength for the journey – the journey to Jerusalem.

And so we have a question to ask ourselves this Palm Sunday – the same one asked about Jesus.  Who are we as the body of Christ?

In this time of empire and oppression, when Christ is being crucified will we head to Jerusalem to overturn the tables of injustice? 

In this time of σεισμός, where it seems the world we knew is falling apart, will we move into the danger with grace and humility, love and righteous anger?

Because make no mistake about it – The cross IS a part of the Christian life.  The Christian belongs out in the world – and each and every one of you – every follower of Jesus – was made for such a time as this. 

Amen.

[1] “For Such A Time,” Reichel.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

March 29, 2026

Palm Sunday

1st Reading – Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm 31:9-16

2nd Reading – Philippians 2:5-11

Gospel – Matthew 21:1-11