St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

Anyone who reads my Bellringer columns has heard me mention many times Bishop Browning’s book of meditations, A Year of Days, with which I’ve started my mornings for decades. The year I was given the book I opened it on November 13th to find the line from the Prayer Book that Bishop Browning focused on that day was from the birthday prayer. November 13th is my birthday. Every year since it has felt as though I’m receiving a personal birthday greeting from Bishop Browning when I encounter that reading anew. Many years after I received the book I opened it on January 20th, 2009, and the quote Bishop Browning focused on was from the catechism: Why do we pray for the dead? The first line of his meditation was, “Because we still love them and they still love us.” My mother had died the evening before. Without a doubt the force we know as love connects us through space and time to those who have gone before us as surely as it does to those most dear to us who walk the earth with us now, be they present with us at this moment or living thousands of miles away. Clearly love is central to our faith, to our way of being as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ. Out of that love that God has always had for us and that we have for one another arises another critical aspect of being a Christian: hope.

In his letter to the Ephesians Paul prays that the “God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.“ What is that hope to which we’ve been called? For that matter, what is hope? The dictionary says that hope is “desire accompanied by anticipation or expectation.” Sadly one of the most pervasive effects of the past three years has been the degree to which we have lost our ability to hope. We have been disappointed so many times when we thought we had put the widespread presence of Covid behind us. We live with constant stress over our fraught political situation, complicated by uncertainty about a world economy tinkering on the brink of recession or worse due to the lingering effects of the pandemic complicated by the war in Ukraine. As a result, for far too many people today anticipation has been replaced by fear, expectation by dread. I strongly believe that’s what’s at the root of the great exhaustion Bingham and others have written and spoken about, because while love empowers us, and faith directs us, hope is what sustains us. Without hope it’s hard to find the strength to go on.

Now hope, as I’m using the term, is as far removed from the empty “Oh, I hope I win the lottery” type of statement as love as a way of being is from the sappy sentimentality of greeting cards. Rather, I would suggest in many ways hoping is simply praying without mentioning God. Please, God, let him make it home safely and Oh I hope she doesn’t have any problem with these icy roads, come from the same place inside us. Indeed in Spanish ojalá, derived from the Arabic phrase meaning God willing, is used all the time by my Mexican friends to mean God willing or hopefully. So how do we regain our ability to hope? Maybe we need to focus on taking more time to pray. The simple act of praying reminds us that we’re not alone, which in itself can be a great comfort. One of the interesting things about prayer is how it can evolve over time. Early in one’s life or faith journey it seems as though petitions make up the bulk of what gets said. Please God help me…. Please guide the surgeons….. Please help her make a wise decision…. Over time, we may learn that prayer is about more than speaking, we’re also supposed to listen. We’re meant to quiet our own inner voice and, following God’s admonition in Psalm 46: Be still and know that I am God. Still later, if we’re truly fortunate, we internalize the truth of Meister Eckart’s statement: If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

Nearly thirty years ago when I was president of Central Convocation and Father Ted was the dean, I went to Ted when I wasn’t even a member of St. Mary’s because I simply didn’t know where else to turn and I was truly at the end of my rope. Life at that juncture was really difficult. I keep thinking things are going to get better I told Ted, but they just seem to keep getting worse. Sharon, Ted told me, I’ve sat and talked with a lot of older people - many of whom were probably younger than Ted and I are now - and they’ve told me one way or another they’ve learned that life doesn’t get better, life is, and it’s up to each of us on a day to day basis what we make of it. The other bit of wisdom Ted shared with me that day came from a book entitled To Give Thanks in All Things which Penny’s first husband Rudy, while on his deathbed, had made Ted promise to read. After Rudy died Ted did of course read the book and upon finishing it concluded it was the stupidest book he’d ever read. However, he couldn’t forget it, and over time, Ted told me, it changed his life. No matter what was happening, he gave thanks. I was feeling desperate enough to try anything so I started by making a list in my head every morning when I woke up of things for which I was thankful. I’d do the same when I was driving my car or pretty much anytime I had the chance. Over time the practice of repeatedly taking stock of all for which I was thankful changed me. It has become so ingrained by now I don’t even think about doing it. Even when things were really hard this past summer I’d still break into prayer while I was out walking. Thank you, God, for this gorgeous day, for this incredibly blue sky and the ability to see it. Thank you for the friends who have been so kind, and on and on. I sincerely believe that an overriding sense of gratitude is intimately related to the ability to hope, just as the ability to hope is an integral part of who we are as Christians.

We are, after all, a resurrection people, who enthusiastically live our lives here on earth all the while with a sure and certain hope of heaven. While that particular hope isn’t necessarily our focus on a day to day basis, it undergirds all that we do hope for, because it reminds us that there is so much more to be hoped for than we can possibly imagine. Our horizons are limited after all. Unlike God we can’t see all there is to see, we can’t know all there is to know. Only God can do that. And, because God is a loving God, God doesn’t merely see what we need, God helps those needs to be met, often in completely unexpected ways. I believe that’s what’s at the heart of the beatitudes. Jesus is reminding his listeners that this isn’t all there is. Today’s circumstances aren’t going to be your circumstances for all of eternity. God is with you. You may be hungry or poor today but you won’t be forever. God is with you. And if you’re well off now, you may find yourselves wanting in the future, but your needs then will be met, maybe differently from how you might imagine, but they will be met, because God is with you.

How often do you actually stop and think about that? Last summer my younger sister fell twice in ten days. The first time she fractured her patella which was surgically repaired four days later. All went well. Things were looking good. But six days after the surgery she fell again and fractured her pelvis in three places. It was a nightmare, beginning with the fact that the kind EMTs who responded to my 911 call informed us they couldn’t transport Kendra because there was not a single ambulance available anywhere in Eugene. They didn’t know what was going on, but people were having cardiac arrests all over the area. We basically got no help from the medical community for a week and a half. Mind you, I was scheduled to leave for Mexico two weeks after that second fall, my brother and sister-in-law were leaving for Hawaii two days before I was scheduled to fly out, and Trudy doesn’t drive. One could say I was more than a little stressed. But, exactly at the point Kendra took that second fall, a long time friend of hers who has done in home health care for over twenty years, lost a client, so she had Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons free. Some would call that a happy coincidence. I call it the Holy Spirit working overtime. Sharee was truly a gift from God. I hired her for four weeks, to take us through until I got home from Mexico. Ten days after the second fall we were able to see Kendra’s primary care physician, who happens to be a member of St. Mary’s and who agreed to see us late on a Friday afternoon. She prescribed in home physical therapy, which meant there was going to be someone coming to see Kendra five days out of seven for the next three weeks, and Zack agreed to stop by on weekends. I left for Mexico with a clear conscience and an equally clear sense of just how close at hand God really is.

Hope, Paul’s wish for us, Jesus’ gift to us. We come here week in and week out and are greeted by the cross, an instrument of death that is the ultimate symbol of hope, because it is empty. The cross didn’t win, Jesus did. Death didn’t win, life did. That is the hope to which we have been called. And so we find ourselves today surrounded by the names of people special in our lives who have gone before us. We give thanks to God for giving them to us, their family and friends, to know and to love as companions on our earthly pilgrimage. We rejoice that they have found their way home to God, knowing full well that someday we will join them. And of course we pray for them, because we still love them and they still love us. Amen.

May this be in the name of our loving, liberating, life-giving God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

In the first line of today’s collect, as per the formula, God is addressed according to an attribute, a facet of God’s nature, our attempt to define the divine in terms of our relationship.

O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity…

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity…

God’s almighty power is shown through the ways that God shows mercy and pity. God, creator and ruler of the universe, shows forth divine power by being merciful, by taking pity on us. Power, for God, is demonstrated through mercy and compassion. In the life, ministry and teachings of Jesus, we see this mercy and compassion on full display as Jesus cares for the poor and the outcast, and those without power, as our Psalm reminds us the God who made the heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, gives justice to the oppressed, and food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, gives sight to the blind, and lifts up those who are bowed down, cares for the stranger, and sustains the orphan and widow. Truly our God is a god of mercy and compassion.

And so we are called to transform our nature to be more and more like God’s, to show the power of God’s love to those around us, through our acts of mercy and compassion.

The last few week’s gospel lessons have dealt with the connection between power and riches, what we value in our lives, and what is valuable in the eyes of God. Last week we heard the confusing parable of the unjust steward and how he sought to take care of himself once he was fired, and the week before, we heard about the 99 sheep who were left behind while the shepherd went in search of the one lost sheep, and the women who searched and swept the whole house in search of the one lost coin out of the ten, and when she found it invited her friends to a party to celebrate. Today we continue with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

The contrast between these two figures couldn’t be any greater. On the one hand we have the rich man dressed in fine, purple linen clothes, with a life of sumptuous, daily feasting in a gated mansion. And on the other side of the gate, a man dressed in rags, covered in sores, being licked by wild dogs, hoping for even the smallest of crumbs from the feast. While the rich man has everything in this world, the very model and image of “success” with all that his wealth afforded him, when he dies, he loses it all, separated not only from his power and privilege, but also from God. And Lazarus who had nothing in this world, destitute, a beggar, sick and overlooked, when he dies the angels come and carry him to heaven where he is cared for by Abraham himself. Lazarus is safe, secure, and treasured. From our story it seems that the the rich man knew Lazarus, he calls him by name, perhaps he stepped around or over him as he came and went or peered at him from behind the gate, in any event, he sees him, but doesn’t really SEE him.

He fails to recognize him as a human being worthy of mercy and compassion. The rich man clings to his riches, tightly grasping power, unwilling to share, to show mercy or take pity on Lazarus. And in overlooking him, he fails to do anything to improve either one of their lives. This cautionary tale emphasizes the nature of God, a nature that is also within us, a nature that we must strive to take on. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, we are to demonstrate our power through our own acts of mercy and compassion toward others. I return again and again to our baptismal covenant which calls us:

To seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. To strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. What matters for God, and so, what should matter for us, what we strive to attain, must be showing and sharing God’s mercy and compassion.

This merciful power of God is for building up, leveling out, and healing, so that ALL may flourish. This is the priority for God, to cede power and to empower others for the betterment of ALL. Witness the incarnation and crucifixion of God in Jesus. God humbled, stooped down to take our human form, allowed for an unjust death on a cross, gave up all power, to give the power of resurrection to all, for the good of all. So that through Jesus all might be invited into a life of mercy, compassion and love.

(8:00) For God SO loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

(9:30/11) For God SO loved the world, that God gave the beloved Son so that all who believe may not die but have everlasting life.

Our God is a god of mercy, and compassion. And we are called to see, to care for, and to share our power and our wealth with those who have not, for the betterment of us all. We are called to be rich in good works, generous, ready to share, and in so doing, to emulate our lovingly merciful and compassionate God. May we show power through our acts of mercy, and reflect God as we work together to accomplish God’s dream of inclusion, care, and love on this earth, here and now.

“Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

This morning’s gospel is part of a larger discussion in Luke on the meaning of money and wealth. In the previous chapter is the parable we traditionally call “the prodigal son,” which among other things raises the question of whether a family’s wealth is more important than one of its children. After this morning’s reading (it will be next week’s gospel) we have the parable of “the rich man and Lazarus,” which leads us to see that wealth is for easing other people’s suffering in the here and now, before the die is cast and it’s too late.

In between them is this odd parable about a household steward of dubious moral character. As with all parables, we can’t just take this story as a straightforward exhortation about what God wants and approves. Parables just show us a vision and ask us to look at it, to reflect on it. If we do that, hearing the parable on its own terms, then this surprising story has considerable power to make us see in new ways.

First, let’s talk about the characters. The rich man, also called the “master,” enters the parable only to fire the steward and then at the end to commend him. What sort of person is he? He’s rich, and he seems unmoved by the hardship he brings on his steward. But that’s about it for the master. The debtors receive even less character development than the rich master does: all we know about them is the amounts they owe.(1) But apart from that these debtors, like the rich master, are what literary studies people call “flat characters,” characters who are just there to move the story along. In contrast, the steward’s character is remarkably well fleshed out for such a short story. He is first introduced with the accusation that he is incompetently “wasting” the things under his charge, and for that he is to be fired. In verse 3 we can see his inner thought process, planning to survive and secure his livelihood as well as he can. His terse summary of his quandary, “I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg,” shows us his character better than a whole paragraph full of exposition would do. The next verse shows us his satisfaction as he comes up with a viable plan. We still don’t know what the plan is, but we see that he does, and we see his realization that his hope lies in the community’s goodwill.

No narrator tells us what the steward plans; it is revealed only by his action when he sits down with each debtor and instructs them to discount their bill, essentially buying friends for himself by changing the ledgers, cheating the master out of part of what’s owed him. Yet no narrator stands up and tells us that these actions were wrong or right. We’re just given the picture and asked to look at it. The question comes to my mind, though as yet it’s not raised by the story: “Is the steward doing right?” and the answer, also from my mind, would seem to be “clearly not.”

And yet the rich master praises the steward (v. 8a), now identified as “dishonest” or “unjust,” for his “wisdom” or “savvy.” It’s a positive trait. It’s the same word used of a person who builds a house on a rock rather than on sand (Matt 7:24), and of the virgins who keep their lamps ready for their master’s return (Matt 24:45 — 25:10). So when we see “shrewd” in the NRSV’s translation we shouldn’t see that as any kind of criticism. Rather, I think we have to see the master as expressing genuine approval of the steward’s transgressive actions. But in what sense can the steward’s actions be considered “wise”? The subsequent verses give four different answers that appear to be placed side by side in order to convey a sense of the conversation in Luke’s community about money.

The first answer appears in the second half of verse 8, which seems to understand the story as a meditation on the wisdom of securing one’s livelihood by building relationships with others, even if those relationships are self-serving. The master commends the steward not for his shady dealings as such but for using the scam prudently. The steward is one of the “children of this world” whose wisdom serves as an example for the “children of light” to follow. Is the example we’re supposed to follow that we should be charitable by giving away other people’s property?(2) So it would seem, according the second half of verse 8.

In verse 9 we have, I think, a different speaker, applying the story in a slightly different way. I’ll show you what I mean. In what sense can the discounted parts of the grain and olive oil be termed “unrighteous” or “unjust” wealth? Was this particular wealth unjust because it had been stolen by the steward, or was it already unjust before it was stolen, perhaps because of unjust business practices like the ones condemned in Amos, using deliberately unbalanced scales and pricing gimmicks? If the wealth was already unrighteous when the steward charged it off, then the steward may be commended not only for his savvy but for his charity. This is the dominant interpretation given by early Christian theologians like St. Augustine, who saw this parable as an object lesson in charitable giving. An updated version of this interpretation sees the rich master as part of the corrupt aristocracy who come so often under the prophets’ scornful gaze, so that the entire economic system is corrupted by injustice. As the modern New Testament scholar François Bovon quips, the only way to make dirty money clean is to give it away.(3) And there have been Christians over the years, for example St. Francis of Assisi and his companion Claire, who advocated abandoning all wealth because it was tainted by the world’s injustice, choosing to live in poverty. I think all of us should struggle a bit with how our consumerism contributes to global suffering. If you’re like me you’re tempted to stand on a soapbox (or in a pulpit!), maybe with just a touch of self-righteousness, and do what you can not to participate in “the system.” But the speaker of verse 9 advocates using the admittedly contaminated wealth to foster community and improve justice.

The last two interpretive comments articulate more Establishment-friendly views. In verses 10-12 we have a different speaker yet, drawing a different lesson from the parable, and this time expressing almost the opposite perspective to that offered in the previous verses. Now the parable is “redirected” to talk about dishonest people and whether they can ever be trusted again. The position taken here is not in any way a criticism of the economic system, but rather represents a perspective usually taken by the powerful, the perspective of the wealthy master, if you will, or to use a modern term, this perspective is bourgeois. Finally, verse 13 brings out another saying of Jesus, identical with a saying in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (6:24), saying in this context that any use of wealth at all must be avoided.

See what I mean about how the author of Luke (or an editor) placed these very different understandings of what the parable is about side by side? So what we have here is not a straightforward “teaching” about money, but a conversation between diverse people as they engage with one another about how Christians should think about wealth. Like Jesus’ disciples, we’re invited to wrestle with the question of how best to use money for the Kingdom of God, and there is room for disagreement on that. What there isn’t any room for disagreement on is the fact that God is paying particular attention to how we treat the poor. We participate in an economic system that, as Amos says, essentially treats the poor as commodities to be traded, little more than consumers to whom we might sell things. We take as much money as we can get for as little product as possible, all to increase profit. And the harm that does to the poor, to human society as a whole, and to the environment, rarely troubles our conscience because What can I do about it? I’m just one person. I totally get that, and it’s the same with me. So like Luke, I’m not going to give you ”the right answer” on the question of money; I’m just going to open the question and let you wrestle with it. If we remember that God cares how we treat the poor in our community, that God holds us accountable not only for how we personally treat them but for how we allow our society to treat them, then we can discuss and even disagree about how to serve them best … but we have to agree that making their lives better is what we’re really trying to do.

“Make friends for yourselves by means of unjust wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Friends, community, enemies, even the people regarded as worthless by everyone else, these are all infinitely more important than all our wealth; and whereas money can never last, the relationships we build do.

So invest wisely.

[1] The amounts they owe are significant: by my estimation we’re talking about around 581 gallons of olive oil and 22 cubic yards of grain, well over the total amounts harvested by an average farmer in that world. So these debtors are themselves pretty wealthy, which may mean that they are landholders, with serfs who work the actual fields.

[2] Ephrem the Syrian, a contemporary of Augustine: “[The steward] was praised because he acquired what was to be his by what was not his, namely, his friends and supporters….O children of Adam, buy for yourselves those things that do not pass away, by means of those temporary things that are not yours!” Arthur A. Just, Luke (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, vol. 3; Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003) 255.

[3] François Bovon, Luke 2 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress), 451.

Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and he turned and said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Whoever does not hate? Really, Jesus? I love my parents. I love my spouse. I love my children. I love my siblings. I love them so much I went to the coast this week for four whole days, and we had a great time because we love each other. I struggle with this portion of scripture because I have such deep love for my family, and it is within the context of my love for my family that I learned about Jesus, and I learned about the love of God. It is in that love of family that I found what love is.

This Gospel reading today is an excellent example of how the so called plain meaning of Scripture is really not possible. The idea of literalism really doesn’t work out in the end. Proof-texting is not a good way to engage the Scripture. Because the plain meaning of these words to hate your parents, your spouse, your children, your siblings, is counter to everything else we know about Jesus. The core of Jesus’s message is to love. He summed it up when asked what the greatest commandment is, and he said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets. It is a message he repeated time and again, and was something he embodied in his actions, his compassion, his healing, his care, his feeding, and in his going to the cross. Wren asked what it’s all about, he says there is no greater love than this, that one lays down one’s life for one’s friends. That is what the cross is all about, the love of Jesus for us.

We know that is not just the words of Jesus, but his actions point to this love. We know the earliest Disciples understood that love was the center of Jesus’s message. We hear a bit of that in today’s reading from Paul to Onesimus when he talks about trying to appeal to him in love, because he knows that love is the center of their faith. We hear it also in the beautiful reading from 1st Corinthians, Chapter 13. I did a wedding yesterday, so I got to hear it again. If you have faith that can move mountains but you don’t love, it’s worthless. If you can prophesy and speak in tongues but you don’t have love, you’re just a noisy cymbal, a clanging gong. God gives us three great gifts that are more important than all the others: faith, hope, and love. And among those three the greatest of them is love. Paul very much understood that love had primacy, that love was the center of the Gospel message. Other Disciples had the same idea. 1st John, Chapter 4: Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. When we look at the fullness of Scripture, we know that love is the message. So what do we make of Jesus saying to hate anyone, let alone your family?

Let’s take a step back from this reading for a moment and look at it in its bigger context. Jesus, as that moment in time, is moving towards Jerusalem where he is going to be crucified. He knows that. He’s talking about that, although no one else understands what he is talking about. And as he goes toward Jerusalem he is teaching, he is healing, he is acting in love, and he is getting pushback. He doesn’t get much pushback for the words about love, but he does when he performs actions in love, like when he tries to heal someone on the Sabbath.

He has a moment a couple of chapters earlier where he says that this message that he has brought might create division among people. It might put parent against child and child against parent. That is where this passage today is coming in. It is in that context that this message of love might create division, and you might find there is resistance coming from your family. And in those cases you have to chose the Gospel. You have to chose love over hatred. It is weird, a little paradoxical that these words about hating are trying to pull you back into that very love that is the center, the core of Jesus’s message. Acts of love can get pushback because sometimes love demands things of people that they don’t want to do. Sometimes it requires us to give something up in order for someone else to have. And sometimes those of us who have don’t want to do that. Sometimes acts of love require us to be there for someone when we’d rather not. Sometimes love asks us to be uncomfortable when we’d rather just be comfortable. So Jesus is saying that if someone is not on board with these acts of love, with this Gospel message, you need to keep your eyes focused on that love. Family is such a critical part here, because family ties are strong. In the 1st century in Palestine, these ties were very strong. It seemed that nothing was more important. But Jesus is saying there are things that are more important, that love of God, that love of neighbor is more important. And when the family gets in the way, you have to keep moving forward.

These words of Jesus are strange to me when I first hear them because my family is a place of love, a place where I learned about God, a place where I experience God’s love. So these words of the Gospel to hate my family are not really Good News on their face. But from someone who comes from an abusive family, someone who comes from a place where there is not love, these words may be balm. To know that they do not have to prioritize family over that love, that family ties are not more important. When we find ourselves in those environments of abuse or hatred, environments without love, we sometimes have to separate ourselves from them for awhile in order to keep ourselves focused on that love, and do not fall into that hatred.

We hear more of this message at the end when Jesus talks about giving up possessions as the same kind of thing. We need to pull ourselves away from those things that draw us away from that love of God so that we can stay focused on that love. It is not to actually hate your family, but it is in a very odd way to love them, to show them that love has the priority over everything with the hope, the ultimate goal, the ultimate desire of Jesus for reconciliation, which is another act of love, is held out there. But we always have to stay focused on that love.

So, my friends in Christ, remember to love, stay focused on that love. And when its demands are too much, remember that God’s love will carry you forward. Do you remember that Jesus said whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple? Do you remember what happened to the Disciples? They couldn’t carry that cross. They abandoned Jesus, but his love was strong enough for them.

AMEN

Sit back and listen to the Rt. Rev. Neff Powell share the stories of the Bible.

Let us pray: God of compassion, mercy and great kindness, be present, heal and lift us up with these words. Amen.

Today’s readings provide us with some wonderful images of God’s restoration and healing. From the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places.” “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places.” Parched places. Appropriate for these hot and dry times of our climate, and in these arid, and scorched times in our nation and in our world. God also promises to make our bones strong and says that we shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. God speaks to the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah, and God speaks to us gathered here today. The assurance that God IS with us and WILL remain with us, continually guiding us, and satisfying our needs, even, and especially, in the driest and hardest of times. God’s love will rain down on us from an overflowing watering can, a hose of refreshment, the clearest, coolest spring water to cleanse, heal, and nurture us.

Today’s psalm also reminds us of the healing and restorative nature of God. Beginning at verse three and continuing from there: God forgives ALL your sins and heals ALL your infirmities. Let me say that again. God forgives ALL your sins and heals ALL your infirmities.

God redeems your life and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness. God satisfies you with good things and renews your youth. And verse eight is my favorite: God is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness…full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.

Compassion, mercy, great kindness. These are the qualities of God that we see on full display in today’s gospel story of the bent-over woman.

“And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.” EIGHTEEN YEARS! “She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.” I wonder what ailments, what spirits, have been, or are, weighing on you, bending you over, making you “quite unable to stand up straight”? Whether it’s been eighteen years, or more, or eighteen minutes, or less, we ALL know, and experience the burdens of this life. Very real physical ailments, aches and pains, our body’s inability to do what we want it to, to move and feel how we want it to, connected to and with the emotional and psychological weight pressing down, making it impossible to lift our eyes, forced to gaze only on our feet, our heads bowed down. We are, all of us, the bent-over woman.

“When Jesus saw her, he called her over…” Jesus sees this woman, he recognizes her and he beckons her. The fact that she is even there in the synagogue is an act of courage and determination on her part. As a woman, strike one, and as a disabled person, strike two, it wouldn’t have been easy for her to be in that space. Nevertheless, she comes, she is there. We don’t know why or how, there’s no indication that she came to hear Jesus, maybe she did, she doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her, but she has made the effort to come to the synagogue. Maybe she’s been coming all these years, diligent and faithful, tireless in her seeking God. We don’t know. But what we do know is that Jesus sees her. Jesus recognizes her, the outcast, and he calls to her. Jesus invites her from the outside to the in. Reminding the detractors that she too, is a daughter of Abraham, entitled to God’s mercy and blessing. Jesus identifies and validates this woman and then he sets here free. “Woman, you are set free…!” And he lays his hands on her and immediately she stands up straight and begins praising God. The burden has been lifted, the weight gone from her body, both physically AND spiritually and now she CAN stand straight up and she praises God for this miracle. Siblings in Christ, Jesus sees YOU, Jesus knows YOU and your burdens, all that is weighing YOU down, and Jesus calls YOU, inviting you to seek and receive the healing of YOUR ailments-- the freedom offered by our compassionate, merciful and loving God. Your liberation may not look like exactly like this woman’s, but…it will be what you need to lift your head and your heart, to stand tall, confident that God sees, calls, and heals you.

It’s in God’s nature: God is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. And it’s in our nature: We are God’s beloved children, worthy to receive and grow.

And what about those who were unhappy with this restoration happening on the Sabbath? What Jesus tells them and what Jesus reminds us, is that with God it’s not about rules, but about compassion and love. As our presiding Bishop Michael Curry is fond of saying, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” To Jesus, there are no barriers, no qualifications, no “ins” or “outs” for receiving the mercy and healing of God. Nope. That’s not how God works.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.

Remember this! Remind yourself! You are IN! You are worthy through nothing you’ve done or not done, through nothing you can or can’t do. You have a right to receive the full pressure of God’s water hose of love because that’s who God made you to be! Recall this invitation of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30).

Amen.

Today is the Feast of St. Mary. Actually, tomorrow is the Feast of St. Mary, but the Prayer Book gives us a wonderful opportunity and even encouragement, that when a church is named for a Saint, their Feast Day can be moved to a nearby Sunday so the whole community can gather to celebrate their namesake. So that is why we get to celebrate St. Mary, our namesake, a day early.

I have a confession to make to all of you. Before I came to St. Mary’s fifteen years ago, Mary didn’t mean a lot to me. I know there are people who adore Mary, there are a lot of images about Mary, prayers about Mary, and there is a sub-field of theology called Mariology. I knew all that existed, but it didn’t do anything for me. I guess you could say I didn’t really notice Mary when I was reading the Gospels. I knew she was part of the Christmas story, but I didn’t really focus much on Mary. When I came to interview at St. Mary’s, I fell in love with the community, but the name not so much.

But over the years as I began to worship here, surrounded by all these images of Mary, preaching sermons on Mary Sunday, I started paying attention to her. I started noticing how often she shows up in the Gospels, not just on her Feast Day or Christmas time, but at other times, too. I began to realize she is a remarkable person.

She is actually the most fleshed out character in the Gospels, other than Jesus, of course. All the other characters in the Gospels are like foils for Jesus. They show up in the story or we learn something about them because of what Jesus and his story is doing. Some really important people get their name mentioned at best. There are Feast Days for Saints and all we know about them is their name. We try and tease things out to try to understand who they were, but we don’t find much.

Except for Mary. It is remarkable how much of her character is fleshed out because she shows up so much. She is there before Jesus in the story of the Annunciation, she is there after Jesus exits the scene after the Ascension, and she is there many times in between. We know a lot about Mary. The portrait that Scripture paints of her is a person with a deep and strong faith. We can infer that from the fact that God selected her to bear Jesus into the world, but we see it throughout the entire Gospel with all the stories about her. Mary is a person with an active, courageous, and present faith.

What do I mean when I say Mary has an active faith? She is not a passive participant, but actively involved in what God is trying to do in this world. Take the story of the Annunciation. I think there is a misreading of this story when Mary appears as a passive character when the angel proclaims to her what is about to happen. But that is not the story that the Gospels share with us. The Gospels, in the Annunciation, show a woman who is very active in that story. It begins with her pushing back against the angel, saying no, you are wrong. This is not how it is going to go. It is not possible. Then there is the point when she consents, she agrees, she says yes to what God is doing. We can imagine that she could have said no, but Mary says yes. She is an active participant in what God is doing in this world.

We see that level of active participation again in the story of the Wedding at Cana, which is depicted here in our church in a stained glass window. It is a wonderful story of Jesus’s first miracle when he comes on to the scene and shows his power to everybody. But he wasn’t going to do it. He says, it is not my time. I’m not ready, yet. This is not the moment. And Mary says, yes, you are. Son, you are going to do this. She is actively participating in what God is doing in the person of Jesus Christ.

There is a theological concept called the Missio Dei. It is a Latin term and means the mission of God. It is a theological idea that we, the church and members of the church, do not have a mission in this world. This goes against everything we learn about corporate culture that defines an organization’s mission. We have no mission in the world. God has a mission and we can choose to join it or not. If we look at the history of the Church, we can see the Church has not always joined in God’s mission. But God is always actively involved, doing something, bringing about the dream, the vision that God has for this world, and we can choose to join in it. We see in the story of Mary that time and again she chooses to join in with what God is doing. To this act of liberation, this act of salvation that God is trying to achieve throughout time in history, Mary says yes. I am going to be a part of that.

Courageous. We see her courageous faith in the Annunciation story. It says that she is afraid when the angel Gabriel appears. For good reason. When angels show up it is usually not a good thing. But the angel says, don’t worry, Mary. This is one of those good times we show up. So the fear of an angel appearing is one thing, but there is so much more for her to fear. What God is asking her to do is a dangerous thing. Childbirth is dangerous. It has been throughout history and still is today. But Mary says she is willing to do it. On top of that, Mary is not married, and this could be a very dangerous thing in first century Palestine. Mary is courageous. Courage is not the lack of fear. Courage is acting in spite of it. She is afraid, but she acts.

We see that courage again in the Annunciation that we heard a few minutes ago when Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth. Mary says, My soul magnifies the Lord. The Magnificat is a poem, a proclamation of God’s vision, God’s dream for this world. These are prophetic words that Mary proclaims, much like the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Elijah and Elisha and Amos and Micah and Obadiah, and all the others. Mary is joining with those Prophets to proclaim what God wants to see in this world. That is a dangerous thing because the prophets say that God wants the mighty cast down from their thrones. We know that the mighty on thrones don’t like to be cast down, and they have the means not to let that happen. And remember what Jesus said about prophets? They go to Jerusalem and they get killed. And yet Mary is willing to proclaim that.

We see that courage in Mary’s flight to Egypt when she becomes a refugee to escape Herod. She, Joseph, and her son go to a foreign land, leaving their land and everything they know. That is an act of courage to be a refugee.

We see that courage in the story when Mary goes to confront Jesus. Early in his ministry she hears that he is saying some things that is stirring up some trouble. The family go to him to try to persuade him to come home. This is a story in which Mary does not do the right thing, a reminder that Mary is not perfect. She has an imperfect faith, just like all of us. She tries to interrupt what Jesus is doing, and Jesus asks, who is my mother and my brothers? It is a story of Mary not getting things right, but it is a story of her being courageous because she does try to stand up to Jesus.

But the most important story of courage is Mary at the cross. When almost all the disciples have abandoned Jesus in fear for their own lives, Mary is there, standing by her son with that courageous faith.

Present faith. What do I mean by that? I mean that Mary shows up. She shows up there at the cross, she is present. We see Mary showing up in a remarkable number of stories of her going to the Temple. We see that she shows up in the story after the Ascension when the Disciples have no idea what to do, Jesus has gone, the Holy Spirit hasn’t come yet, and they are praying. Mary joins them. She shows up. She shows up to God and shows up to the community, the people of God. She is present. Mary shows a deep and strong faith that is courageous, active, and present.

This active, courageous, present faith is a model for us, we the people of St. Mary’s. We would do well if we would join with her in what God is doing in this world. This courageous faith that is willing to act despite our fears, this kind of present faith that shows up to each other and shows up to God.

This active, courageous, present faith is a model for us, and I think right now we need this faith more than ever. In this moment of late stage pandemic as we rebuild our lives and our faith as we come back together again, we need this kind of active, courageous, and present faith. We need to keep Mary before us. We, the people of St. Mary’s, need to remember that she is our model for how we should be acting, how we should be strengthening and deepening our faith. An active faith, a courageous faith, a present faith.

AMEN.

Our second reading today comes from the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews is a rich and complex work. Many scholars think it was originally a sermon in which the preacher is exploring what Jesus is all about, the meaning of Jesus and his work in this world, its purpose, what God was trying to do, how it works, how it is accomplished, and its meaning for us.

As I said, it is a rich and complex work and there is a lot of stuff in it. One of the major themes that keeps recurring is the issue of salvation, how salvation is achieved through Christ, and why it matters. When Hebrews was being written or preached for the first time, it was the first century. In order to talk about Jesus they didn’t have things like the Gospels or the Epistles. Those were all being written about the same time, so the Gospels were not yet widely distributed to all the communities. So the author of Hebrews doesn’t have that to rely on. Instead, the author relies on Scripture as they understood it in the first century, which is more or less the Old Testament we have today. The author is taking those stories in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the Samuels, the Kings, the Chronicles, the major and minor Prophets, and showing how it is that Jesus is understood in light of those stories. How do they help us understand what Jesus is all about. It goes the other way, too, how does Jesus understand those stories. There is a mutual interpretation going on in this rich and complex sermon that was being given.

There is some interesting stuff in Hebrews. You can see how the preacher has a creative and holy imagination. He is able to take stories that I suspect we do not remember, like the story of Melchizedek which is three verses in Genesis. If it were not for the Book of Hebrews, we would not remember Melchizedek and how the priesthood of Jesus and the priesthood of Melchizedek are related, how they interact and help illuminate each other.

But the part we have for today is Chapter 11. Right before this chapter, there is a line that says, “we are not those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.” Salvation comes through faith. This is a profound and important statement that the preacher makes. It is also a statement that raises a lot of questions. One is what is faith, and that is our reading for today. We get the answer to the question, what is this faith in which we find our salvation.

It begins, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” This is a very nice bumper sticker kind of answer. But what does it mean? As I said, the author likes to use the stories that everybody who would be hearing this understood, how God has worked in the world, and uses them to illuminate the concepts or ideas the preacher is trying to make.

That is exactly what we have in Chapter 11. The author gives us a great review of the story of salvation, of the story of the ancestors, the great cloud of witnesses, in order to illuminate what faith is. Faith is a mushy concept that has to be embodied in real actions for us to grasp it. So the preacher tells the story in today’s reading of Sarah and Abraham. We have heard a lot about them in the past few weeks, how they went on an amazing journey leaving behind everything at home in order to follow God to a new land based on a wild promise, a promise that they would be the ancestors of a great nation, a promise they were already too hold for when the promise was made, but they trust in God and go in spite of their doubt. Certainly they are too old by the time the promise is realized. The reading today is the second time that God makes this promise to them, and we see that Abraham is getting a little fed up. It is only going to get worse. He will laugh the next time God says it, and then the next time Sarah is going to laugh when God repeats the outrageous promise.

That is not the only story that the preacher references here. You notice in our reading there are a few verses missing. They are the faith stories of Cain, and the stories of Enoch, and the story of Noah. It will continue on with the story of Isaac and the story of Jacob, the story of Joseph, the story of Moses, and so on. It is a review of the great story through the lens of faith: what is faith? How did these people live in faith? As the preacher tells these stories, which are already known, he doesn’t need to go into them in depth. Some of them are paragraph length, like we had today about Sarah and Abraham, but some are just sentences. Noah had faith because he built an ark. Joseph had faith because he secured the future of his family. They are little touchstones to remind people what the story is, and how it is they had faith.

You can imagine this as a sermon and the congregation looking at their watches and thinking get on with it, so the author gets to a point where he just starts name-dropping. “What more should I say, for time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Baruch, Samson, Jephtha, David and Samuel and the prophets.” But he knows as they heard each one of those names they would remember their stories.

In the process of going through this great review of their ancestors, the people would start to paint a picture of what faith is all about. That picture that we see painted is of the radical trust in God. People going on adventures and journeys with ridiculous promises. People standing up against great odds for justice and against the great empires. Think of Moses standing up against the greatest empire in the world at that time, Egypt, in order to achieve the Israelites’ freedom. These are stories of faith. Stories of the little guy fighting the big guy. Stories of challenging lions and facing fires. Stories of helping those in need. All these wonderful stories paint this image of what faith is all about.

Faith is not, in the author of Hebrews understanding, about getting it all right. Faith is not about doing the right thing all the time. Faith is about trusting in God.

At my house, we are currently reading aloud The Lord of the Rings. This week there was a part that stood out to me as embodying this understanding of faith that Hebrews is talking about. This takes place in Chapter Three. Frodo has sold his house and started out on the journey, but they haven’t gotten very far. He and his companions get to a point that one of the companions, Sam, has never seen before. It says that Sam’s round eyes were wide open, for he was looking across lands he had never seen to a new horizon. Frodo recites this poem that he’s not sure if he picked up from Bilbo, or if he made it up himself.

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way,

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then I cannot say.

Faith is a journey along the road, taking it as far as we can see, and then taking the next step into that part we cannot see. Going on that uncertain way with only this one certainty in mind: that God will be there, to be with us, to walk with us. God is there in that unknown. That is the journey of faith, knowing but not seeing, that out there is the larger way, that our own path along that road of faith will meet up with the paths of others, with Sarah and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Miriam, Samson and David. All those great ancestors’ journeys, and our own journeys are all about trusting in God. Not always knowing, but continuing to walk even when our feet get weary. Not necessarily knowing it all, not having it all right, not doing it perfectly, but taking the next step.

AMEN.