Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin   The Feast of Pentecost (Year B) Acts 2.1-21                 Psalm 104.25-35, 37             Romans 8.22-27                         John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15     Alleluia.  Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.     “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth …”  That sounds comforting, but vague, because what we agree to be true, anymore, is often up for debate.  Jesus tells us that the Spirit He will “prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment”.  When we put the two statements together, we realize that the question Pontius Pilate poses to Jesus before Jesus is condemned is, in fact, the right question.  When Jesus is brought before Pilate, He says “… I have come into the world , to bear witness to the truth.  Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.”  Pilate replies with his famous question, “What is truth?” (Jn. 19.38) That’s the right question, even as posed by an evil cynic.  It is the question posed in all of our debates in society.  It is the question the answer to which is ignored by the postmodern culture which defines truth to be relative, to be just a power statement.  But it is the right question, for once the truth is identified then what becomes clear is what standard exists against which we may judge decisions, conduct, truth statements, exercises of legitimate power. What is truth?  If you ask most people what truth is the first definition you’ll get relates to how truth can be verified, how something can be shown to align with facts that can be demonstrated.  Something is true as opposed to false, because what is true can be demonstrated.  This understanding has become even more prominent in an era when a dominant theme in public debate is about “fake news”, and when we encounter people who even if given the facts will still insist upon their own “truth”, for what they deem to be true has become a matter of their identity.  In arguing about truth let’s begin with how the word is used in the Bible, bearing in mind that Jesus self identifies as “… the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14.6). The word Jesus uses in the Greek of the Bible is alētheia.  The Greek language understanding of truth is sometimes contrasted to that found in biblical Hebrew emet, but the contrast is really two sides of a coin.  In the Greek word the emphasis is on timelessness and ultimate reality; in the Hebrew on faithfulness and what doesn’t change.  What the Bible is talking about is what we might today call the “real reality”, ultimate reality, that which does not change regardless of conditions and regardless of who it is, or what culture it is, that encounters this truth.  When Jesus says He is the way, the truth, and the life, He is saying:  follow me into ultimate reality, life everlasting.  When ...

Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Sixth Sunday of Easter Day (Year B) Acts 10.44-48 Psalm 98 1 John 5.1-6 John 15.9-17 Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. How many of you have heard about the best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. This is a book recently recommended to me by a friend. Reviews have generally been very favorable, and the author, a Canadian psychologist named Jordan Peterson, both writes well and has a lot to say. The book is about what people in the world today need to know to live lives without chaos, lives that make sense. There’s some good advice in 12 Rules, advice that’s good because it recognizes that rules are necessary, that life without boundaries is both chaotic and self-defeating. But—and you knew that was coming—the problem with the advice is that it assumes a worldview informed by the same sources (Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, for example) that have driven the deconstruction of those societal rules and norms that have existed across millennia precisely to prevent chaos. And—and you knew that was coming, as well—Peterson, in quoting the Ten Commandments makes them into projections of collective human wisdom, and in quoting Jesus makes Him into a very wise human teacher. Throughout 12 Rules God is not really mentioned. Being (with a capital “B) is. Being is not defined, per se, but can be understood as a projection of collective human wisdom and longing, the construct necessary for human societies and individuals to try to make sense out of life. Let’s compare this well thought-through and useful worldly wisdom with what Scripture reveals in today’s lessons. We set the stage by praying in our collect that God will “[p]our into our hearts” that which is necessary for us to have purpose and to flourish. In praying this, we are stating that what we need is not just something that we can construct on our own. And this realization of the reality of and need for the divine is reinforced. In Acts we hear of the action of the Holy Spirit. In the psalm we praise God because God has done marvelous things. In 1 John the apostle reveals that those born of God love God, and that this love is lived in how we keep God’s commandments. Note that when we speak of commandments, we are speaking of something external (given by the One who rules), and not just a set of rules we have devised because they somehow make sense. Finally, in the gospel Jesus enjoins us to abide in Him, in His love, by keeping His commandments, including the commandment He then gives that we are to love one another as He has loved us. Hmm. How does that “make sense”? That we are to love in ways of self-giving that are sacrificial? It’s the need to “make sense” out of things that poses the rub. God’s commandments are not just societal norms ...

Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B) Acts 8.26-40 Psalm 22.24-30 1 John 4.7-21 John 15.1-8 Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. “God is love” is perhaps one of the best-known phrases in all of Scripture. But before we start thinking about what this means, let’s first notice that this descriptor follows an injunction on how we are to act: “Beloved, let us love on another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 Jn. 4.7). In order to receive the revelation that God is love, we must ourselves love, and how do we do this? Love is not a feeling, a point often missed when weddings get over-sentimentalized. At weddings it is almost de rigueur to use the famous “love chapter” (“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful ...,”), chapter 13 from 1 Corinthians, but if you pay attention you’ll note that when Paul speaks of love he uses fifteen verbs to say how love acts, never once trying to describe how love feels. In each of Paul’s phrases the subject, love, is named, but the predicate adjective after that verb is not. “Love is patient.” With whom? To whom? “Love is kind.” To whom? “Love is not envious or boastful or rude.” Of whom? To whom? The list goes on. The object of love is all others; all within the Church and all outside the Church. That’s the object of the verb when we are the actors. But what about God? When I was a toddler and learning to speak, I had a number of ungrammatical phrases in my store, by which to express myself. One of them was “I is loving”. Not, you’ll note, “I love you,” but “I is loving,” a phrase which even if we correct it to “I am loving” still emphasizes the action of the verb as a state of being. A grammarian would tell you this is how a participle works. Standing in this pulpit, I speak to you–a participial phrase. Loving is who and what we are called to be. Is loving a thing? Not really. We can’t describe love except in terms of what loves does, how love acts, who expresses love and how it is expressed. There are four different words for love in Greek, but the one John uses, agápe, is sometimes translated as “charity. Charity, agápe, is love expressed as selfless love, as living for the other; treating love as a verb the object of which is the other, all others. And that’s the word used by Jesus in the gospel when He gives us His new commandment, “love one another” (John 15.12). That’s the word used by St. John when he says “God is love” and enjoins us to “love one another” as God has loved us. Agápe one another as God has “agáped” us. Be loving. You see ...

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Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Third Sunday of Easter (Year B) Acts 3.12-19 Psalm 4 1 John 3.1-7 Luke 24.36b-48 Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. Last week we heard John’s account of Jesus appearing to His disciples in the upper room, and this week we hear Luke’s version. Luke also emphasizes the physical reality of Jesus’ resurrection. The disciples touch Him; He eats. What is perhaps more interesting is that when Luke describes Jesus as being in the disciples’ “presence” (v. 43), the Greek term used (enōpion autōn) should be understood in the sense this term is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament, i.e., the version of the Bible Luke knew, as “at their table”. Luke’s point is that Jesus’ victory over death is symbolized by and enacted in His table fellowship with His disciples. It’s in this context that Jesus commissions His disciples, a context of peace, table fellowship, the fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus, and of disciples being witnesses. As in the story of the journey to Emmaus, Jesus opens the eyes of the disciples, that all Scripture has pointed to Him. Jesus says that all Scripture points to the forgiveness of all nations through Him. This raises the question of how Jesus shall preach to all nations. He shall do so through Paul (Acts 26.23) and through His disciples. He commissions His disciples to act for Him. This commissioning includes that of witnesses as well, and this includes not just the eleven disciples, but all present at the table fellowship (i.e., the women also). “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24.48). That’s what the risen Jesus tells the disciples, as He reclines at table in their midst, and shares in fellowship. Last week we heard John recall a scene like this, when he wrote: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands ...” (1 John 1.1). The disciples witnessed the risen Lord, experienced Him, and then witnessed to the reality of His lordship. How did they witness? Let’s take a look at what happened to the original disciples. Including Matthias, who was appointed to replace Judas Iscariot. All of the disciples except for John suffered violent deaths; deaths such as being crucified upside down, being flayed, or being beaten to death with clubs. And let’s not forget that Paul was beheaded and Barnabas stoned to death. Looking just at the evangelists, Church Tradition informs us that Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed with sword. Mark died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead. Luke was hanged in Greece. And John? He faced martyrdom when he was boiled in huge basin of oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. (He still had writing to do.) John ...

Play Video Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Second Sunday of Easter (Year B) Acts 4.32-35 Psalm 133 1 John 1.1-2.2 John 20.19-31 Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. A scientist or engineer will tell you that it is not possible to construct a “perpetual motion machine,” a machine that once started will continue to run without the addition of more energy. A perpetual motion machine is an impossibility because, even though Newtonian physics demonstrate that “for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction,” we are bound by the First Law of Thermodynamics: “Heat is work, and work is heat.” The motion of the machine–which is work–will generate heat, for example in the form of friction, and the machine will lose this heat energy and eventually slow down and stop. The machine needs energy added to it in order to keep running. And so do we. In the collect today we pray that we “... may show forth in [our] lives what [we] profess by [our] faith ...” We pray, in other words, that as we have faith we may live in accordance with God’s will. We pray that as professing Christians we may be “professional Christians”. But we can’t do it alone. We have to have God’s help. He needs to add continually that little bit of grace to the equation that allows us to continue; to continue our journey to our true home in heaven. And we receive this grace by remaining in fellowship with God. There’s a “feedback loop”. In the epistle, St. John makes it clear that when we do God’s will we have fellowship with Him, and that when we fail to do His will–when we sin–His grace brings forgiveness when we are truthful and turn to Him. St. John is describing how the mechanism of salvation keeps going and going, like a divine “Energizer bunny,” when we stay connected with the source of all life, all power, all grace; the source which later in this letter St. John describes in the famous phrase, “God is love” (1 John 4.8). So, here we are, a week after the Resurrection, and the light which has come into the world is light which is now arisen to rule over all the world. But we walk in darkness, in shadow, when we fail to acknowledge sin, so that our sin may be covered by God. And this is where the image of the machine comes back in. We want to keep this engine of salvation running. We don’t want to gum up the works with sin, and dissipate grace, trying vainly to just keep some kind of motion going, as did the morlocks in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. In The Time Machine the time traveler goes aeons into the future, to a time when human beings have evolved into the a species of small, weak devotees to the arts and to pleasure, known as the eloi, and into a species that ...

Play Video GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH Sheboygan, Wisconsin Easter Day (Early Service) Ezekiel 37.1-14 Psalm 114 Romans 6.3-11 Matthew 28.1-10 May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen. “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you …” What the angel says to the women at the tomb he says to us today: That in the midst of all of the trials and loss in this life; in a world in which, on a daily basis, we see evidence of fallenness and sin; in a world in which goodness and truth are often recognized only by their absence; in a world in which love is often felt most keenly when it is lost and our hearts are broken; and in a world in which beauty is continually smudged with the ugliness of self-interest, life triumphs. Love triumphs. Goodness and truth and beauty triumph, for God’s will triumphs. The blessedness of life as intended by God, the life everlasting in which we experience the image and likeness of God in which we have each been created—in ourselves and in all others—is real, is manifest. God’s presence is so real that we can actually taste it; we can “taste and see that the Lord is good”. Easter is the feast of blessing, of victory: that life becomes life as intended by God; that it is not in darkness and death, not in any exercise of worldly power, but in God’s will made manifest in the life of each one of us that the ultimate reality of the universe, the plan of all Creation is experienced and lived. We experience, and live, and learn the joy of the Easter acclamation, “Alleluia! The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!” If you are a believer already, you can taste and see that the Lord is good. But we are surrounded by people for whom the concept of faith is something alien. They’re OK with the idea that faith might work for you and me, but they have no real experience of faith, and so how faith “works” for others remains something that is at best an idea. And this idea has not changed their own lives. Which brings us back to what else it is that the angel says. He says “go quickly and tell [the] disciples”. In going the women encounter the risen Jesus, who says “go and tell”, for joy is made complete—the experience of God is made complete—in how it is shared. When we are told to “go and tell” we are told to witness, and the word for witness in the original language of the Bible is martyr—martyr, as in the reality that all witness involves a price. A price? How does this equate with joy? The world would have us confuse happiness with joy, but real joy involves the experience of God in ...

Play Video GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Great Vigil of Easter Genesis 22.1-18 Psalm 16.7-11 Exodus 14.10-15.1 The Song of Moses Ezekiel 37.1-14 Psalm 30.1, 3, 6, 12 Romans 6.3-11 Matthew 28.1-10 May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen. “[Jesus] has been raised; he is not here. … But go, tell his disciples … that he is going ahead of you …” What the angel says to the women at the tomb he says to us today: that in the midst of all of the trials and loss in this life; in a world in which on a daily basis we see evidence of fallenness and sin; in a world in which goodness and truth are often recognized only by their absence; in a world in which love is often felt most keenly when it is lost and our hearts are broken; and in a world in which beauty is continually smudged with the ugliness of self-interest, life triumphs. Love triumphs. Goodness and truth and beauty triumph, for God’s will triumphs, and the blessedness of life as intended by God—the life everlasting in which we experience the image and likeness of God in which we have each been created—is real, is manifest. God’s presence is so real that we can actually taste it; we can “taste and see that the Lord is good”. Easter is the fulfillment of God’s plan, God’s promise. That’s why our vigil begins with the words of the Exsultet, “Rejoice heavenly hosts and choirs of angels …” Go back to our lesson in the vigil from Genesis, to the story of Abraham offering his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Abraham is commanded to offer his son, and he does. Let’s note a few details: The wood of the offering is carried by Isaac, just as Jesus will carry His own cross. Isaac is laid on the altar of sacrifice, just as Jesus is lifted up before the world in atonement for the sins of the world. God Himself provides the sacrifice, first the ram and then His only-begotten Son. And just as Isaac is raised from being bound, destined for destruction, so are we raised with Jesus from the bonds of death. God’s will is for our salvation, a reality intuited by Abraham even in the midst of offering his own son, for what he tells his servants is “… the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you”. This intuition of life—this intuition grounded in Abraham’s faith in who the LORD is—becomes the experience of life, of blessing. And it is in this experience of blessing that we are brought back to what else it is that the angel says at Jesus’ grave. In addition to telling the women that Jesus has been raised, he says “go, tell his disciples” that ...

Play Video GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH Sheboygan, WI Good Friday, March 30, 2018 Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Psalm 22 Hebrews 10:16-25 John 18:1-19:42 I come to you in the name of one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Gospel today begins with the words, “The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John.” Passion. Have you ever wondered why we call it “Passion”? In our everyday lives, we typically use the word “passion” to describe an intensity of love for a thing or a person. Thinking of what happened on Good Friday some 2000 years ago and associating “passion” with “an intensity of love” would not be wrong but it is also so much more. Let me describe it with the words “to”, “for”, and “with”. To: “Passion” comes from the Latin word passio meaning enduring suffering. It is passive… a non-activity… of absorbing something more than actively doing. The passion of Jesus is the time where the meaning of his life is not defined by what he is doing but instead by what is being done TO him. Think about it. Jesus life is typically described as being one of two things: his “ministry” or his “passion.” During his “ministry” Jesus is the doer: teaching, preaching, healing, counseling and so much more. For almost all of his public life Jesus was actively doing something and in command of the activity. However, from the moment he walks out of the Upper Room and begins to pray in Gethsemane, he is no longer the one doing things for others, but he is the one who is having things done TO him. He is arrested, bound, lead back and forth and back and forth between the high priest and Pilate. He is beaten, humiliated, stripped of his clothing, nailed to a cross, mocked, and eventually dies. We are saved through Jesus’ passion (his death and suffering), the things done TO him.  For: We are saved through Jesus’ passion because it was done FOR us. Our Epistle today says, “’I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’ Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” And, of course, we know that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” His passion is FOR us, FOR all of us, the entire world. With: Our sung version of the Passion narrative takes us only Christ’s death (John.19:37). John, however, has five more verses for us.  After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. ...

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