John’s condition is heart-wrenching. In an isolated cold dark prison waiting execution,  he is struggling to make sense of it all. He had been so confident of Jesus.

 

Have you ever confronted his question? Jesus are you the one or should we look for another? We all face the existential reality of heartbreak, tragedy, betrayal, and suffering. We may experience doubts about the goodness of God. We may even ask “Are  you the One?”

 

Jesus responds, “Go, report to John what you hear and see.” He doesn’t answer directly to justify himself. He lets actions speak. Then he quotes the prophet Isaiah who centuries before described the coming Messiah as the one from whom “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

 

Every proof of his being God’s chosen involves compassion and healing rather than judgment and condemnation. And the recipients of this healing are those ordinarily dismissed; the ones usually excluded by the religious. 

 

Yes, if we see his way of being, his words, his actions, it is clear Jesus is the fulfillment of all prophetic hope. He is God with us, the Messiah, and in him we our infinitely loved and given an unshakable life in the Kingdom of God. 

 

With Joy That Sustains, 

 

Rob+

It has been one of my joys as a retired priest to serve as a supply priest, and especially to see the dedication and giftedness of the next generation of clergy as they boldly begin in parish ministry. It reminds me of my younger days! 

Fr. Cameron MacMillan is the Rector of Good Shepherd in Maitland, Florida and is bringing grace, healing, and vision to this parish. Many spoke to me of how grateful they are for his ministry and leadership.

I am deeply grateful for the gift of preaching and celebrating the Eucharist today.  I find my message becoming more focused on the essentials!  Hope this brings comfort to you. 

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+

 

Have you ever cried out, Lord, Increase my faith?  WHAT AM I ASKING FOR? Faith is confidence grounded in reality, not a wild, desperate leap.

Jesus agrees we need faith. However, he does not support our assumption that a greater quantity of faith will help us. The disciples do not need more faith. They need to be reminded about what faith is and assured they have all they need to do what Jesus has enjoined them to do.  It only takes the size of a mustard seed.

Maybe the mistake the disciples make isn’t so much in asking for more faith, but in thinking they don’t have enough, in thinking God’s gift to them was somehow insufficient. 

Jesus is saying to them and to us:  Faith. It’s Already Within You. Engage it! 

In this sermon I focus on two ways our faith can be engaged:

1. God Confidence and 2. Personal Agency. 

In short, the biblical meaning of faith is confidence in God, or as we say, “God-confidence.” Basic to everything here is the idea that Christian belief is really about knowing who and what to trust. In Christ, what you can rely on are his person, his life, death and Resurrection, and the available resources of God and God’s Kingdom. 

With deepest gratitude to Fr. David Bumstead, Rector of Emmanuel.

With you on the Journey, my dear friends, 

Rob+ 

 

I am not an expert, but I am in the heart of this stage of life. How do we live to our fullest potential in the last third of life? With careers winding down, and children having long ago left home, we are faced sometimes for the first time in our ever-productive lives with the most basic questions. What is the most important? What is the essence of my life? Who am I becoming? 

This podcast episode is a reflection about living into the last third of life. Baby boomers are retiring at an average of 10,000 per day; over the next 20 years, an estimated 70 million boomers will stop working. Those over age 65 are the fastest-growing age demographic in the United States.

The Gift of Years can be a Pilgrimage.

I have been inspired to see this stage of life as a Pilgrimage. If we re-envision aging as a pilgrimage and ourselves as pilgrims, it can imply a life of meaningful intent and spiritual intensity, a far more vital way of looking at the experience of the Last Third of life.

How do we become pilgrims, how do we understand living in our Last Third as the most important pilgrimage of our lives? The decision to go on a pilgrimage is uniquely our own. 

As the Psalmist wisely says: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90: 12

            Two Foundations For This Pilgrimage 

1. Be Grateful For The Gift of Years

The last third of life, from age 60 on up, doesn’t have to be feared. When viewed from a Christian perspective, this season of life can be meaningful, endurable … and even joyful. 

These years can provide new adventures and challenges we never would have dreamed of. Being older can come as a gift, a joy and a blessing far exceeding our younger years. And this is not to deny the realities of frailty and disability that we may suffer.

May we affirm our gifted age and live out the Last Third of life with courage and joy.

2. Deepen Your Embrace Of The Love That Carries

Isaiah 43:6  God speaks and  says: 

“ …even to your old age, I am he,    and to gray hairs, I will carry you.I have made, and I will bear;    I will carry and will save.”

We choose to see this as our final pilgrimage—the one that will ultimately lead us to our Beloved, our Source. Through the love of family, friends, colleagues and most important the relentless and first love of God in Jesus Christ, we learn to give, to contribute, to adventure, and to flourish evermore.

With you on The Pilgrimage! 

Rob+

Episode Resources

My New Facebook Podcast Page: 

 

From Silence+Something To Say

@Frroblord

 

 Fr. Rick Lord Classical Guitarist and Priest

 

 

 

 

 

Doogie MacLean – Songwriter and Performer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What can we do to have the manifest presence of God in our lives? What can we do to be sure that we really are living before the shining face of God?

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne was one example of the Celtic Christian Tradition for whom God the Trinity invites us to live in two landscapes: the visible and the invisible, the seen and the unseen, the domain of the physical and the spiritual. We can practice and know the manifest presence of God in every moment of daily life. 

Aidan’s life work began at Iona. During his exile, King Oswald of Northumbria, had lived at Columba’s monastery of Iona where he had been converted and baptized. He sent to Iona, rather than to Canterbury, for missionaries. The head of the new mission was a gentle monk named Aidan, who centered his work at Lindisfarne, an island off the northeast coast of England.

With his fellow monks and the English youth whom he trained, Aidan restored Christianity in Northumbria. They counted on the manifest presence of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Don’t forget to download the prayer resource below! 

Feast of St. Aidan Contemplative Practice PDF DOWNLOAD

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+

 

Almost everyone lives a divided life where we are out of touch with our soul – that life-giving core of the human self, with its hunger for truth and justice, love and forgiveness that has the power to guide our lives.  

Parker Palmer,  Director of the Center for Courage and Renewal, has wisely said: “Congruence between our inner lives and outer actions is what our soul longs for and whenever we live in defiance of this inner voice our life is divided and our spirit suffers under the burden of duplicity.”

What our soul yearns for are wholeness and integrity. We need to care for our soul.

One of the best ideas about integrity and the soul comes from Dr. Dallas Willard: “Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.” Your life depends on the health of the stream.

The stream is your soul, and you are the keeper.

In this second of four podcasts on Integrity, I explore how our inner life, our soul, is where we find the capacity for living “divided no more.” 

“For God alone, my soul in silence waits. From God comes my salvation. Flourishing. (Psalm 62)

With you on the Journey! 

Rob+

 

Almost everyone lives a divided life where we are out of touch with our soul – that life-giving core of the human self, with its hunger for truth and justice, love and forgiveness that has the power to guide our lives.  

Parker Palmer,  Director of the Center for Courage and Renewal, has wisely said: “Congruence between our inner lives and outer actions is what our soul longs for and whenever we live in defiance of this inner voice our life is divided and our spirit suffers under the burden of duplicity.”

What our soul yearns for are wholeness and integrity. We need to care for our soul.

One of the best ideas about integrity and the soul comes from Dr. Dallas Willard: “Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.” Your life depends on the health of the stream.

The stream is your soul, and you are the keeper.

In this second of four podcasts on Integrity, I explore how our inner life, our soul, is where we find the capacity for living “divided no more.” 

“For God alone, my soul in silence waits. From God comes my salvation. Flourishing. (Psalm 62)

With you on the Journey! 

Rob+

 

Today was the second of two supply Sundays  at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Orlando, on behalf of their well loved and gifted Rector,  Fr. David Bumstead+.  I find great joy in these opportunities to express my ministry and to support local parishes from time to time.  It is deeply meaningful. 

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is filled with many levels of  wisdom and truth for us as those who seek a more flourishing life. In this proclamation of the parable I was drawn to the necessity of becoming the kind of person for whom compassionate involvement with the suffering of others naturally (supernaturally) flows. 

Of course, loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength comes first. Without that, you can’t love your neighbor as yourself. You have to have the resources, the insight to do that, and that comes from our love of God and our devotion of every aspect of our being to the work God is doing in our world.

This Parable of Jesus reveals our need for ongoing renovation of the heart, for life truly “runs rom the heart.” Because this is true, God’s grace is abundantly and freely given to help us. 

Hope this homily brings inspiration to you. Thank you for listening. 

With you on the Journey.,

Rob+

 

Today was the second of two supply Sundays  at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Orlando, on behalf of their well loved and gifted Rector,  Fr. David Bumstead+.  I find great joy in these opportunities to express my ministry and to support local parishes from time to time.  It is deeply meaningful. 

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is filled with many levels of  wisdom and truth for us as those who seek a more flourishing life. In this proclamation of the parable I was drawn to the necessity of becoming the kind of person for whom compassionate involvement with the suffering of others naturally (supernaturally) flows. 

Of course, loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength comes first. Without that, you can’t love your neighbor as yourself. You have to have the resources, the insight to do that, and that comes from our love of God and our devotion of every aspect of our being to the work God is doing in our world.

This Parable of Jesus reveals our need for ongoing renovation of the heart, for life truly “runs rom the heart.” Because this is true, God’s grace is abundantly and freely given to help us. 

Hope this homily brings inspiration to you. Thank you for listening. 

With you on the Journey.,

Rob+

 

It was an honor to preach at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Orlando today for Fr. David Bumstead, their wonderful Rector and my friend. 

My theme for the sermon was taken from The Gospel lesson for Proper 9, on the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20. 

….cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

We’re talking about a partnership where God’s grace and your well-directed efforts by grace collide to live in the Kingdom now. It is all about Aliveness.

Above all, it is about waking up to the always available Presence of the crucified and risen Christ, alive and at large throughout the world, Who invites us to be his followers wherever we are.

P.S. Music theme in closing: Fanfare for King of Glory. RCL+

So grateful to Fr. Bumstead for this opportunity. 

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+