St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

Just in case your mind went on a little walk-about during the reading of the Gospel, let me read a bit back to you again. “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

And for all you Book of Common Prayer nerds who were busy studying your Prayer Books while waiting for communion, page 445 has this rubric for the Thanksgiving of a Child:

The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal gods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

To go on, let me do a little test here. How many of you have a will or estate plan? How many of you have the church in that will or plan? Enough said. I will be literally eternally grateful that when my parents died they left current wills, clean and simple. I have three brothers and I promise you that we have no sibling rivalry whatsoever among us. But just in case, it really helped to have that will. My parents also had funeral plans, not completely filled out, but enough that we could work with it. And, of course, the Book of Common Prayer was part of that. It helped a lot to have those things.

Now there was one part of the will that disappointed me: there was nothing given away to church or charity. My parents met at Willamette University, my mother had a Bachelor of Arts in Nursing from the University of Oregon. They were the fourth generation family at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Salem, Oregon, and----- nothing. All of us brothers are doing fine. We would not have missed it if there had been, for example, ten percent of the total given to charity. That was my one disappointment.

Dorothy and I have wills and have sketched out our funeral plans. We have provided for our children and we have also provided for church and at least one other charity. We all sit under trees we didn’t plant. We all drink from wells that other people dug. It was the faithful Christian Episcopalians in Salem who provided the structure so that as I grew up I would learn and have my faith strengthened. It is thanks to the giving and work and faithfulness of previous members of St. Mary’s going back 170 years that there is a structure here for a faithful community to strengthen my faith, and uphold and support me, Dorothy, our children and our grandchildren in their faith. For all of that I am most grateful.

Lastly, why? What is the basic point? The basic point is that it is all about love. God loves me, God loves you, and has given us all many, many gifts, including the lives of our children. In the time we have had them, thanks be to God, our children and grandchildren have been an abundance, an overflowing cornucopia of love. It is our love towards God and our families and our faithful institutions that we show by doing this. So, I bid you to remember God’s love.

AMEN.

Our first reading today comes from the book of Genesis. We heard a reading from Genesis last week as well. Both of these readings come from the story of Abraham and Sarah, a part of Genesis that begins in chapter 12 and goes on for a few more chapters beyond today’s reading. One of the ways to read the story of Abraham and Sarah is as a story about trust. Abraham and Sarah show great trust in God at the start of their story when they leave behind their family and their home on a wild promise that they would become the ancestors of a great nation. But the rest of the story can be seen as exploring the question of God’s faithfulness to them. For in chapter after chapter this promise fails to materialize. Abraham and Sarah call to God and God keeps assuring them that it will pass. At one point, in chapter 15, God tells them to look up at the stars and try to count them. You will have more descendants than that, God proclaimed!

We might not quite grasp the immensity of what God is saying here when we look up at the night sky, with all of the city light here in Eugene and Springfield, we cannot see too many stars. But this past week, I went on a mini-pilgrimage with some of the youth and their leaders, and we went out to the desert late at night and we had the opportunity, the privilege, to see the stars in their glory,

to catch a glimpse of some meteors falling, and to gaze at the milky way, that great blob of stars that make up a portion of our galaxy. As I stared in awe at the stars, I thought about this promise and how remarkable that must have been to Abraham and to Sarah.

This storyline about God’s trustworthiness in the promise of descendants continued last week in the story we heard about the three visitors and Sarah laughing. And it will continue again in the coming chapters. Through this story in all of its fits and starts, we learn, with Abraham and Sarah, that God is trustworthy, that God will be faithful to them and to us. God’s faithfulness might not always look like we want - we might even laugh at the way it comes about - but God is faithful.

Today’s first reading from Genesis is not about that promise per se, but it can still be understood as a story about learning to trust in God. Rowan Williams, the theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury, argues that as Abraham haggles with God in this story, Abraham is learning “bit by bit” with each bargain lowering that number that God really is trustworthy to be merciful and just. God is faithful to God’s promises, not just in the matter of the particular and personal promise to Abraham and Sarah, but in these weightier matters of justice and righteousness. God is trustworthy.

Trust seems to be in short supply these days. Survey after survey shows that people have been losing trust in the institutions of our society for decades: government, business, nonprofits, even churches. I am not here to defend these institutions. In many cases, these institutions have absolutely done things to lose our trust, and they need to do some things to rebuild trust. But I do worry about the impact on our ability to trust in general and the implications of that. Surveys also indicate that we do not trust each other – our neighbors and our fellow citizens as much. And how does that general distrust impact our ability to trust in God? Have we lost the ability to trust?

This pandemic certainly has not helped our ability to trust as it has tried its hardest to draw us away from one another, to make us see each other as a threat. Trust is critically important to our lives and our faith. Trust is the sun around which faith, hope, and love orbit. To have these three great virtues or gifts, require us at some level to trust. To trust in God, to trust in each other. If we want to realize that prayer that Jesus teaches us in our Gospel today for “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” requires us to have trust. I do not have answers, only questions. How can we practice trusting one another? How can we deepen our trust in God? (Or maybe for some of us, how can we learn to trust God again?) The Abraham story today shows us that trust is not built by avoiding questions, in just wishing it to be so and magically it will be, but in learning bit by bit, sometimes through the questions – sometimes really tough questions – that someone is trustworthy.

Abraham and Sarah learned about God’s trustworthiness, and so did Moses and all of God’s people out in the wilderness. Ruth learned to trust in God through Naomi and Boaz. David learned to trust God when facing lions and giants and friends. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want, he is supposed to have said at some point after having figured this out. Or maybe he wrote those words to help convince himself of its truth. Mary learned to trust in God as she pondered each little incident of her son’s childhood in her heart. Jesus learned to trust in God when he went out in the wilderness to face those forty days of temptation, a trust that laid the necessary foundation for his journey to the cross. It is almost as if we have to learn in each generation to trust. Trust is not a given, but something we have to work out bit by bit, like Abraham and Sarah. We must discover as they discovered that God is faithful. God is trustworthy. Amen.

We find in today’s Gospel one of the most familiar Biblical stories of hospitality. Lazarus may have come home early to let his sisters know that Jesus and his friends were coming for dinner. Mary and Martha tidied up the house and began dinner preparations. The guests arrived as one sister prepared the meal and the other sister welcomed the guests and shared in the pre-dinner conversation. This is a scene very familiar to us, especially those of us who have homes without open concept, where one or more are preparing food in the kitchen and the others are in the living room making lively conversation so the guests feel at home.

Hospitality is all about preparation and welcome. Eugene and our adjoining communities have been preparing a long time for this weekend and the next several days, preparing to welcome athletes, the press, and visitors from around the world. New murals have been painted on the sides of buildings. Some building construction has stopped so streets are not partially blocked. Other streets have been closed to cars, and opened for pedestrians. Hotels and restaurants, and the entire hospitality industry have been shining things up and training new staff. People have volunteered to be greeters at the airport and helpers at the track and field events. Whether we are official helpers or simply walking around town this week, we have an opportunity to say Welcome, Bienvenidos.

And just as hospitality is about preparation, Luke in his Gospel has been preparing us for today’s story. A couple of weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus sending out seventy apostles. While much of the reading is about the apostles receiving, or not receiving, hospitality as they travel around the countryside, it is also about the hospitality they show to others. They give God’s peace to each house and when welcomed in, share in good conversation about the kingdom of God. This past week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan. Yes, the Samaritan traveler bandaged the wounds of the injured man, but then he took the man to an inn and saw to it he received food and drink and a place to heal. Not only does he show mercy, he shows hospitality with kindness.

Hospitality comes from both abundance and scarcity. The Samaritan had enough resources to rent a room at the inn while the injured man recovered from his wounds. Martha welcomed Jesus and his friends into her home. Her home. She had her own house and abundance of space to host Jesus and his disciples. But, sometimes, hospitality is an especially appreciated gift when it comes from scarcity.

In 1985 a famine ravaged Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, due to adverse climate conditions and warring factions. A photojournalist, John Isaac, traveled there with a UNICEF team that wanted to bring attention to the plight of the country’s children through film, speeches, and celebrity. Isaac was there for all the official occasions. He recorded all these meetings and was quick to respond to photo opportunities to show what was being done, and what was needed to be done, to help the people of the region. Finally, Isaac had a chance to leave the group and explore on his own. That is when he met a half-blind woman who lived with a chicken in a slum called Gaza Tanika. Isaac said later to the UNICEF team: “She was a gentle old soul and she was worried about me because she had nothing to offer to me. She kept apologizing for that and kept saying to my interpreter to tell me not to leave yet. I was worried, because my ride was waiting for me because it was past curfew. Suddenly she came rushing out of her shack and said, ‘You can leave now!’ She gave me this”, he told his friends, opening the palm of his hand and revealing an egg. “She had just one chicken and she was waiting for the chicken to lay an egg that she wanted to share with me. It would have been her dinner, but she wanted me to have it instead, because I was out there in the war, and she worried.”

Hospitality is about preparation and about welcome. It comes from abundance and from scarcity. It is for the friend and for the stranger. Here at St. Mary’s we are slowly bringing back in-person Coffee Hour after some of our Sunday services. While visitors are invited and warmly welcomed to join us, the Coffee Hour is hospitality by and for our parish family, a chance to reconnect and be with friends. Thanks to Louise of our office staff, volunteers are placed together on teams to share in this parish tradition of hospitality. Consider staying a little longer on Sunday morning, as host or as guest. As you can see in today’s bulletin announcements, Louise would love to hear from you.

On Saturday mornings sandwiches and other food items are made for the hungry in our community. At this time, we cannot welcome our guests to Berktold Hall as we once did, but hospitality is shown through this preparation and delivery of sandwiches. Consider being a part of this parish outreach of hospitality. As you can see from today’s bulletin announcements, Dick and Holly would love to hear from you.

Another opportunity for hospitality is the receptions which follow funerals and memorial services. I lead this endeavor and I’m always looking for others to help with preparation and with hosting. Part of the preparation that brings me satisfaction is meeting with a family member and going over the details for the reception. At the end of our talk, I am able to say: “And now you can let go of the preparations. We will provide a welcoming place, for you to gather with family and friends and share in conversation and remembrances.” Consider being on the receptions team. I would love to hear from you.

There are many other opportunities to share in the hospitality of welcome and kindness at St. Mary’s. Watch for and respond to the ones that call to you.

I have spoken today of hospitality to family, to friends, to visitors, and to strangers. We are called as Christians to include kindness in our hospitality. And as Christians we welcome Jesus as our host and as our guest. We are invited to hear God’s Word and to join in conversation about the teachings of Jesus. We are invited to come to the Lord’s Table and be Christ’s guests: “Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you.” We also welcome Jesus to eat with us. There is a sweet, little grace that is said before many meals: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let this food for us be blest.”

In our Episcopal Church liturgical calendar, July 29th is set aside for the Feast Day of Mary and Martha of Bethany. I close with the Collect for this day. Listen, and find your place at the table, as host, as guest, as friend of Jesus in the family of God. Let us pray.

O God, heavenly Father, your Son Jesus Christ enjoyed rest and refreshment in the home of Mary and Martha of Bethany: Give us the will to love you, open our hearts to hear you, and strengthen our hands to serve you in others, for his sake; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Book of Deuteronomy is essentially a farewell address by Moses to the Hebrew people preached to them on the plains of Moab shortly before they entered the promised land. Knowing that he would not be going with them, I can imagine Moses would have had a lot to say to those whiny, stiff necked people who clearly tried his patience over the years, even as they did still stick with him through all the ups and downs of their journey. The first part of Moses’ address, some describe it as three separate sermons, recaps the journey of the Hebrew people through the wilderness. The second section focuses on the laws and statutes that were developed along the way. The third section is largely one of comfort. Indeed in the part of the address that we hear today, Moses assures the people that the commandments they’re to follow aren’t beyond their reach, not found on a mountaintop nor on the other side of the sea, but rather “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.”

 I can imagine that would have been very comforting to a people who had been given not just the Ten Commandments, but an extraordinarily complex set of laws and statutes during their time in the wilderness. Indeed over time it seems like trying to follow all those laws became an end unto itself, with little time or energy left for focusing on actually living a righteous life. This was one of the main issues Jesus addressed during his ministry. Aware that the emphasis on the law was not helping people grow closer to God or each other, Jesus offered a different approach. He dared to suggest that being faithful to Yahweh was more about compassion than compliance, more about love than law. He even went so far as to violate laws when the situation called for it. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, a clear violation of the purity laws, he healed on the sabbath and allowed his followers to glean food from the fields oh the sabbath as well, so that they would have something to eat. Jesus talked to, and even socialized with women. While this was all likely very pleasing to ordinary people who’d never been able to obey all the laws anyway, I suspect it was very troubling for people who could see value in what Jesus was teaching but who at the same time had tried very hard to follow the law.

 This tension between following the rules and being compassionate is not one confined to Biblical times. This has been a struggle throughout history. The reality is societies change, traditions evolve, matters that were once crystal clear become less so with the passage of time. We Anglicans have been known since the time of Elizabeth I as the Via Media, the Middle Way. Remember that at the time Elizabeth ascended the throne England was on the verge of civil war between those who wanted to return to the Roman Catholic Church and those who wanted the Church of England to remain the autonomous Protestant Church that Henry VIII and James VI had tried to establish. In what is known as the Elizabethan Settlement, it was agreed that the Church of England would take the best from both sides and make that blended approach its basis going forward. Centuries later I remember well all the couples who came to my dad back in the fifties and sixties wanting to be married in the Episcopal Church because one member of the couple was Roman Catholic and the other was not. In those days a Roman Catholic could not get married to a non-Catholic in the church. So the Episcopal Church, with its vestments, liturgy, albeit in English but still, and ordained clergy was close enough to the Roman tradition to satisfy the Catholic member of the couple, while the other person was just happy not to have to either become a Roman Catholic or be forced to get married in the sacristy and promise to raise their children as Roman Catholics.

 Over the past thirty or so years it’s been interesting to me to observe the mixed response the world seems to have to the Episcopal Church. On the one hand we’re often seen as a denomination stuck the past. “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb? the joke goes. “Five. One to change the bulb and four to stand around and talk about how wonderful the old one was.” This of course is the world’s way of mocking the fact that we as a Church have held on to many traditions that other denominations have long since cast aside. From our vestments to our liturgical calendar to our emphasis on the apostolic succession of our bishops, we are seen by many as being behind the times in both our style of worship as well as our focus on our spiritual connection to the early church. At the same time, some of those same people who see us as hopelessly old fashioned, regard us as far too ready to change with the times. They consider us as wishy washy, having no principles because we’re willing to change our rules. It was in the 1990’s that Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning made it the overriding focus of his episcopacy that there would be no outcasts in the Episcopal Church. His emphasis in those days was on our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. I attended hearings at the 1997 General Convention, which marked the end of Bishop Browning’s term as Presiding Bishop, regarding the development of rites for blessing same sex unions. Ultimately, in a vote by orders, the resolution to begin that process failed by one vote in each order, but the ball was rolling. By 2003 the Anglican Church of Canada was blessing same sex unions and in that year the Episcopal Church ordained and consecrated The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as our first openly gay bishop of the Diocese of Vermont. Bishop Robinson and his partner wore bullet proof vests to that ordination, which is to say this was a highly controversial event. Indeed, the huffing and puffing that ensued both in other parts of the Anglican Communion as well as here in the Episcopal Church was really quite something. There was a move to make us and the Church of Canada sort of second class members of the Anglican Communion, which was talked about and talked about until I remember realizing by about 2012 that the idea had simply gone away. Here at home a handful of dioceses withdrew from the Episcopal Church, but only a few, and in every case the dioceses were reconstituted and within a few years were heathy thriving dioceses of the church once again. Fast forward to 2015 when we were in session at the General Convention in Salt Lake City where we were going to vote on approving rites for blessing same sex unions which had been approved for trial use three years earlier, when the President of the House of Deputies announced that she had just received word that the Supreme Court had legalized same sex marriage. People cheered, people cried, and we stood and sang the Doxology. It still gives me chills to think about it. Of course, not everyone was happy, not everyone cheered but that’s another of the traits of the Episcopal Church of which I am most proud. For the most part, we manage to hold together, we manage to kneel together at the altar rail week in and week out, even when we have diametrically opposing views regarding the issues of the day. That is incredibly important and increasingly rare in today’s world. It also makes today’s Gospel reading as relevant as it could possibly be.

 Picture the scene in today’s Gospel reading. A lawyer stands up to test Jesus. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life he wants to know. What does the Bible say, Jesus responds. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself, replies the lawyer. You’ve got it says Jesus. Do that and you’re good to go. Ah, but that’s not good enough for the lawyer. Wanting to justify himself, I love that wording, he asks, but who is my neighbor? Now you know what that guy was thinking, because the thought is alive in everyone of us: just how far does this love your neighbor business extend? Are you talking about other Christians? Surely not the jerk down the street who lets his dog poop in my yard! Clearly the lawyer wanted parameters because he knew he didn’t treat everyone in a loving manner, and we want parameters too, for the very same reason.

 But Jesus didn’t let the lawyer, or us, off the hook. In the parable that he told by way of answering the lawyer two representatives of Jewish law, a priest and a Levite, pass by on the other side from where the wounded man lay in the road, lest they risk contamination by touching his probably bleeding body. This of course is an excellent example of how compliance can be the diametric opposite of compassion. Then Jesus used not a shepherd or some other lower class Jew which would have been challenging enough for the lawyer, and probably very pleasing to many of the other listeners, but a Samaritan, a member of a people regarded very disparagingly by the Jews, as the hero of the story. The Samaritan not only treated the man where he found him, but took him to an inn and promised to pay for his care until he was well. The implication would have been clear to the lawyer, as it is to us. No, we don’t get to make exceptions. Yes, we really are supposed to love everyone.

 Now I’m not stupid, and I am human. As committed as I am to the Great Commandment, as hard as I try to live into our Baptismal Covenant, I know I don’t treat everyone I encounter in an equally loving manner. But I have noticed over the years, if I just allow myself to be open to it, situations arise when the invisible barrier that may have existed between me and someone else disappears. It’s suddenly just gone, so that going forward we’re able to connect in ways we may never have before. As often as not this happens when we find ourselves working together on something. One of my most poignant memories from the five General Conventions I attended is from the morning after the 2012 Convention approved for trial use those rites for blessing same sex unions. When we arrived on the floor of the House of Deputies that morning only one member of the eight person deputation from the Diocese of South Carolina was seated at their table; the rest of the deputation had left the Convention. All the members of the other deputations that had voted against the resolution, however, were there. Indeed a priest who had spoken quite eloquently against approving the resolution at the hearing earlier in the week was sitting in the visitors area right near the Oregon deputation. She had evidently given up her seat to an alternate that morning. During a break I went over to her, her name was also Sharon, and said, ”I’m so glad you’re here. I know the vote yesterday must have been really hard for you.” Her eyes filled up as I continued saying, “I’m from a,” and she filled in, “rather liberal diocese,” and I continued “yes, but I’m good friends with a priest from our diocese whose perspective on this is exactly the same as yours. I absolutely believe,” I told her,” that even if we disagree on this particular issue, we can still minister together.” She took my hand, smiled and said, “Thank you.” I truly believed what I told that other Sharon that day, and I believe it still. Amen.

Let us pray: Gracious and loving God, comfort, console, and strengthen us with these words today, that we might find your joy in the midst of our grief. Amen.

In this final chapter of Isaiah from today’s Old Testament reading, God calls a people who have been mourning to rejoice. The people of God are mourning the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the destruction and desecration of their temple, their occupation, and subsequent deportation and exile. During this time of unimaginable national agony, God is calling for rejoicing. What? Are we missing something here God?

One of the daily devotions I read comes from the Forward Movement, you may know them from the little “Forward Day by Day” booklets. They have an app for students and people who work with youth called “d365”. This week’s author Valerie Lott helped me understand what’s going on here. She says:

Isaiah 66 calls for rejoicing, celebration, and joy for the people who have just experienced great loss and hardship. So, it may seem hard to believe that scripture asks them to celebrate. But the verses do not ask the people to embody joy and celebration at the cost of ignoring or forgetting their hurting. The verses hold both things to be true: there can be joy and mourning, comfort and sorrow. The work God sends us out to do can be challenging, especially amidst a hurting, mourning, grieving world, and it may even feel irresponsible to have joy amidst the hurting. But God’s gift of joy can be a part of what we turn to for strength on our journey.

(Valerie Lott, https://d365.org/devotions/big-impact-sent-out-to-serve/ accessed on 6/27/22).

Strength on our journey. With everything that’s been going on in our world lately, and that continues to go on with no clear end in sight, today’s prophetic words from Isaiah about the power of joy and celebration in the midst of anger, pain, and suffering, hit home. In times of despair, it’s not as simple as, “Just believe!” Or, “Have faith!” Or, “Pray harder!” In fact, those sayings do more harm than good. As Episcopalians and Anglicans, we believe in God’s gift of our minds and the science of psychology to help us as we struggle through traumatic times. We mustn’t ignore, compartmentalize or make light of the very real distress and anxiety that many people in the United States and around the world are feeling right now. We know that it’s healthy to express our feelings, to name and claim them, to get angry, to grieve, and to lament injustices in our world today. And we are called to align ourselves, as Jesus did, with those who find themselves outside the power structures of society. These are the same groups of people that Jesus recognized, invited, healed, and restored.

Last week I celebrated my first baptism at our Spanish service, a joyous occasion. During the service we were all invited to renew our baptismal covenant and the questions and responses of our communal promises rang truer than ever:

¿Proclamarás por medio de la palabra y el ejemplo las Buenas Nuevas de Dios en Cristo? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will, with God’s help.

¿Buscarás y servirás a Cristo en todas las personas, amando a tu prójimo como a ti mismo? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will with God’s help.

¿Lucharás por la justicia y la paz entre todos los pueblos, y respetarás la dignidad de todo ser humano? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Así lo haré, con el auxilio de Dios. I will, with God’s help.

This is what we are called to do in our world today. To seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbor as ourselves, ALL of our neighbors, to strive for peace and justice and to respect the dignity of every, EVERY human being. This important work that we do is never done alone. We do it in community and we do it with the help of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Today, I want to encourage you to grieve, WHATEVER and HOWEVER that looks like for you, your feelings are your feelings and they manifest themselves in MANY different ways in our bodies, minds, and spirits. Take time for that, recognize its effect on you and those around you. Bring those feeling to others in conversation, listen well and ask other to listen carefully to you. And then sit together in silence. Allowing space, allowing presence, dwelling in this experience. Bring those feelings to our loving God who knows and understands all of our emotions. Come together, like we are doing here today. This is how and what we are created for.

Our relational God, manifested in the Trinity— The Lover, The Beloved and Love itself— is the model and example of our interconnectedness.

We need to make our way through this life together, in community. And that’s what we do here at Saint Mary’s. We come together to sing, to praise, to hear and respond to God’s word, and to ask God to care for us and our hurting world. To ask for forgiveness for the evil that we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. And then we come to the table to be reminded that we are forgiven and restored, nourished, renewed, connected with Christ and one another.

Today, I invite you to find strength, hope, and encouragement in the words of God to the hurting people of Israel, and to envision and dwell in the joy that is ours as we give ourselves into God’s loving care.

Isaiah 66:10-14

Thus says the Lord:

"Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,

all you who love her;

rejoice with her in joy,

all you who mourn over her--

that you may nurse and be satisfied

from her consoling breast;

that you may drink deeply with delight

from her glorious bosom.

For thus says the LORD:

I will extend prosperity to her like a river,

and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream;

and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm,

and dandled on her knees.

As a mother comforts her child,

so I will comfort you;

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;

your bodies shall flourish like the grass;”

Wow! We don’t get very many images of our loving Mother God in our lectionary, but they ARE there! If we look, we can find more of them in the scriptures. Here is a lovely one for today. Rejoice and be glad! As a young child is fed, satisfied, and bonded to her mother in the most intimate way through breastfeeding, so God invites us into her care as we too yearn to be consoled, drawn and held ever so close. God promises prosperity like a river, good things like an overflowing stream from our Mother who will nurse us and carry us in her arms, propped up on her hip, bounced on her knee, safe and secure in her lap. As a Mother comforts her child, so will God comfort us. We will see, and our hearts will rejoice, and our bodies will flourish, shoot up and grow like the greenest of grass after Oregon rain and sun. People will see that our Mother God is with us, loving, feeding, caring for us during these toughest of times. Sweet!

Siblings in Christ, I pray that you may take these images of our loving parent God with you today. Yes, our grief is real, and so is our hope in the joy that God delights in us as beloved children.

I close today with this slightly amended blessing from Terry J. Stokes:

“May God console you; may God affirm you, may God shepherd you, may God delight you out of the inexhaustible stores of [Her] divine love and joy.” Amen.

Blessing from Terry J. Stokes, from “Benediction” in Prayers for the People: Things We Didn’t Know We Could Say to God (2021)

“Almighty God, you have built your church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.” These words from our Collect today point to something important about the nature of the church and its relationship to Jesus. We have this metaphor of the church as a building. Colloquially we often say “down at the church”, meaning the church building, but as we have talked about before, the church is not the building. The church is the people. The church is the people, not the steeple. More properly, this is the church’s building, because we are the church and this is the building where we gather together.

The church is us, but the Collect is using the metaphor of a building to describe us. We, together in this metaphor, are a building, a building that is ultimately a temple for God to dwell. The Collect says the foundation of this building is the Apostles, Prophets, more properly their teachings, and the chief cornerstone is Jesus Christ. Both of these, the foundation and the cornerstone, are critically important for the structural integrity of a building. If you don’t have a foundation, the building is going to sink into the earth, it will probably do it inconsistently which will cause things to break apart and the building to collapse. A cornerstone is the first stone you put down. It is the one that all the other stones are put down in relationship to, so the cornerstone has to be really square, otherwise the building will be a little bit wonky. So there must be a good foundation and a good cornerstone to have a solid building. That for us, as the church, is the teaching of the Apostles and Jesus. These are not different things, they are mutually reinforcing concepts. The Apostles are basing their teaching on Jesus as well.

At the heart of the Apostles’ teaching, as we heard in the words of one of those Apostles today in our reading from Galatians, the heart of that teaching is love. As St. Paul says, for the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is not the only time he talks about love. You know from many weddings you have attended and heard 1st Corinthians thirteen, if I have prophecy but do not have love it is not worth much of anything. If I give everything away but don’t have love, it does not have much value. Faith, hope, love abide, and the greatest of these is love. St. Paul is not the only Apostle, all the Apostles talk about love, most profoundly from James and First John. Beloved, let us love one another for God is love. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Love is also at the heart of Jesus, his message, his life, his teachings. We hear a similar thing to the Epistle reading today when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. He said it was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. When he is pressed by a lawyer who asks, who is my neighbor, Jesus says your neighbor is probably not who you think it is. It has to stretch your boundaries. If you lived in the 1st Century, it is clear he was talking about the Samaritans. It’s not so clear to us because we don’t have a relationship with Samaritans that way. But there was enmity between Jesus and those people hearing his message and the Samaritans. You can hear that in the Gospel reading today. Jesus shows up and they won’t offer hospitality to him, so the Disciples ask, with glee in their voices, can we burn them down? Jesus says no, of course not, because of this sense of love.

Toward the end of his life, Jesus gives a new commandment, love others as I have loved you. As he is going to the cross he describes the meaning of the cross in terms of love, there is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. He embodies that love from the cross when he forgives those who have done this to him. In John’s Gospel he is explaining what Jesus is all about and why he’s here. We hear those famous words that we all know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. In the end, the core message for the Apostles and for Jesus is love. The foundation and the chief cornerstone of our faith, of our community, has to be love. If it is not, there is no structural integrity to this building that is us, and it cannot hold together. We need that love.

I don’t know about you, but it feels like love is in short supply these days. Two years of a pandemic made us all grumpier, a little shorter with each other, it’s harder to pull that love together. We realize this was going on before the pandemic. If you read history, you know it has always been this way. Love has always been in short supply, even among those of us who profess to follow a God who is love, a teacher who taught us to love, inviting us to love. We all too often find ourselves short on that love. Love is not easy. It is not just a feel-good feeling. Love is a decision we have to make day in and day out. Love has to be embodied in actions, in kindness, in generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, as St. Paul talks about in the Epistle today. It is not easy, but it is critical. It is the foundation. It is the chief cornerstone. We need to nurture and we need to nourish that love day in and day out, for that love is a reflection of the God who made us in love. We need to try and walk in that love each and every day.

So, my friends in Christ, I encourage you to nurture and nourish that love in your life. Don’t let the grumpiness, the shortness, get in the way. But make the decision every day when you wake up to love. To love as Christ loved, to love as he taught, to love as the foundation and cornerstone of who we are.

AMEN.

Before I begin today’s sermon, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support, your welcome, and all that you have taught me in this past year. Tomorrow, June 20th will mark my first year as your curate. It’s been my pleasure to serve, learn, worship, and grow with you. And I look forward to the next year of my curacy and beyond as I focus on children, youth and family ministries. As a child I always felt safe, welcomed and seen at church. I was listened to, invited to take part in the life of the church, and valued. As a kid at church, I mattered. In Sunday school, as an acolyte with my older brother, in confirmation class, in church-wide education activities, youth events and summer camp, I found my community, and I realized God’s love for me through the actions, words, and teachings of others. It is my goal that all young people feel valued and included here at St. Mary’s. And that they grow to know the God who loves them. I thank you in advance for partnering with me to bring God’s love to all of our children, youth, and families here at St. Mary’s.

And now, let us pray: Good and loving God, take these words and use them for your glory and for the unity and restoration of your people. Amen.

Wow. What a gospel story we have today! A naked guy who lives in the tombs, possessed by multiple demons who are so bad when they take over his body he has to be restrained with chains and shackles, and even that’s not enough, he somehow manages to break free and run into the wild. Woah! And then these demons beg Jesus to send them into the pigs and he does, and then the pigs go rushing into the lake and drown? What? Crazy! This is the first person that Jesus and the disciples encounter when they get off of the boat in the country of the Gerasenes, opposite from Galilee. Opposite from Galilee in geography, and also in religion. This is the land of the Gentiles, the non-Jews. But this man with many demons knows who Jesus is, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God...Do not torment me!” And then Jesus asks, “What is your name?” But his answer is not Joshua or Nathaniel, he answers, “Legion.” Legion. Many. Who is this man? Or perhaps better, who was he? Clearly, he is no longer himself. He has no clothes, no house, he has been separated from his community, cast out, no one to care for him, except on the occasions that he becomes too violent and then people bind him in chains and shackles. This man lives among the tombs, on the outskirts of town, tormented, alone, he no longer knows who he is.

What is your name? Legion. Many. Many are the problems, the demons, that weigh on us today, it seems that everywhere I look I am attacked by another story of terrible, senseless, violence and dehumanization in our world today. Like the Gerasene man, it can be hard to remember, hard to tell anymore, who we are, whose we are. Anxieties about our own health, or the health of a loved one, worries about our young peoples’ mental health, about the safety or our schools, shopping centers, even our churches, struggles with addiction, mental health and houselessness in a tangled web, our problems are many, legion. In today’s gospel Jesus crosses over to the other side and reaches out to this man whom his community has dismissed, and kept at bay. He has his place, and they have theirs. They know where this crazy guy will be and how to avoid interacting with him. Stay away from the tombs! The community has chosen their identity and this man is not a part of it. Enter Jesus, the great disruptor. “Then people came out to see what had happened…they found the man…sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” He had been healed, saved, made whole. Jesus disrupts and Jesus restores. He disrupts the pain and evil of our world with compassion, grace, and mercy. He flips the tables, literally, overturning our human way of thinking about who is or isn’t valuable. “Those who had seen it told how the one who had been possessed by the demons has been healed.” Jesus restores this man to himself and returns him to his community. He has been made whole again, the assaults from the demons that beset him are no more. He knows who he is again and he begs Jesus to let him stay with him, the one who has healed him physically, mentally, and spiritually. But Jesus sends him away. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he goes back into the city, back into his former community and proclaims the good news of Jesus’ healing, restorative power. What’s your name? I’m Joshua. I used to roam among the tombs naked and out of my mind. I’m the one Jesus healed. I am worthy. I am valued. Beloved of God!

But this restoration doesn’t come without its price. The swineherds lost their pigs, their way of making a living. And the people lost the devil they knew, the crazy guy screaming out by the tombs. When they first saw him restored, Luke tells us “They were afraid.” And then they ask Jesus to leave, to go away from them, “For they were seized with great fear.” What were they afraid of? The unknown? The status quo? Change? Jesus has the power to make whole, to restore, to grant to all their true identities. But at what cost? What are we called to lose, to change, to give up? The certainty that we have now? Life as it is, as we know it, people in their places? What would we be willing to offer up for an unknow future, shaped and guided by God? A future that would include restoration and wholeness for all of our hurting siblings, the ability for them to know their names, their true identities, worthy, valuable, beloved.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians our true identities are revealed. “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God.” Like the Gerasene man, we may have trouble remembering or even believing who we are. We are all of us beloved children of God. When we are baptized we are “clothed with Christ.” I love this image. I am reminded of the prayers shawls at my house on the couch and at the end of the bed and the new shawls that I took with me for my family in the Midwest. We are clothed with Christ. Wrapped up in loving arms, the warm embrace of the God who knows our innermost being, who knows exactly what we are feeling and dealing and struggling with as human beings. Paul also reminds us that this love, this grace and mercy, the restorative, healing power of Jesus, does not discriminate. It is available to all. In Jesus, our binary distinctions and separators, our groupings of ins and out, in fact ALL dichotomies, are done away with. None of that has any effect on the love of God for all of God’s beloved children, for we are all one in the love of Christ. What is your name? Beloved.

Amen.

Collect: O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lessons: Gen 11:1-9; Psalm 104:25-35,37; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-27

Welcome to St. Mary’s church on this Feast of Pentecost. This morning I’m going to try to articulate a way of looking at Pentecost that’s maybe a little different from what you’ve heard before. But first, let’s look briefly at the history and significance of the feast.

Pentecost has its roots in the Jewish festival of Shavuot. Jews celebrate Shavuot fifty days after the first day of Passover. This year is a little bit unusual in that the first day of Passover and Easter were on the same day, which means our Jewish friends are also celebrating Shavuot today. When Jerusalem still had a temple, Shavuot was a pilgrimage feast for bringing the first-fruits of the harvest to the temple, a thanksgiving for the bounty of the land. But when the temple was destroyed, Shavuot became mainly a celebration of God’s gift of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. These two seemingly unrelated themes, the fruitfulness of the land and obeying the Torah, are interwoven throughout Scripture. You’ll hear that interweaving several times this morning.

In the Christian celebration of Pentecost the background is not mainly the agricultural festival but the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, with the result that everybody is speaking languages they don’t know but that are recognized by the crowd. What is it that they’re talking about in all these languages? What was the message that was so important that the Holy Spirit wanted each person to hear it in their own language? The answer appears in Acts 2:11. Thousands of pilgrims heard their own languages in the apostles’ mouths recounting “the mighty works of God.” “The mighty works of God” is a stand-in for the whole sacred story of God’s people, culminating in the resurrection of Jesus and, more immediately, in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost can be viewed as the crowning moment for the season of Easter. The whole point of Holy Week and Easter is the salvation of the world, and Pentecost is when that really begins to happen. At Easter the good news was limited to Jesus’ immediate followers, but with Pentecost it starts to look global.

Shavuot and Pentecost take place fifty days after Passover and Easter. The number 50 is symbolic: seven weeks of seven days each are 49 days. The end of the 7th week was yesterday and today is the beginning of the eighth week. Two passages in Scripture will help to understand the symbolism. First, in the creation story God creates the world in six days, rests on the Sabbath, and then starts something new on the eighth day. The eighth day is the day of going forth into the world. Second, in Leviticus God tells Israel that every fifty years would be a Jubilee year: all debts are cancelled, all slaves are released, and property that has been sold reverts to the original owners or their heirs. So it seems clear to me that the symbolism of 50 is about a cycle of history leading up to a a reset that enables a new start. In Jerusalem they heard the story of the “mighty acts of God” on Pentecost, and they no doubt realized that God was doing something new — something in continuity with all those works of salvation but beginning a new phase.

This brings me to the two stories that were our lessons this morning. The first is the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11, and the second is the story of the first Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. At first glance it seems that Acts 2 is the antithesis of the Babel story. In Babel, so this reading goes, communication starts out easy and becomes impossible. God seems to find building a city to be threatening, and so confuses their language. I think this reading is either shallow or just plain incorrect.

Here’s what I think is a better reading. The Babel story is the first major story in Genesis after the story of Noah, in which God reiterated the command given to Adam and Eve that they “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” The story is set in the “plain of Shinar,” which is the Hebrew name for what we now call southern Iraq, the homeland of the Babylonian Empire. When the city is named Babel on account of the confusion of languages there, every ancient reader would understand that this is the Babylon that spawned the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. Maybe there’s a little backhanded snark in identifying Babylon with confusion. When God comes down to see the city and its tower, He finds that their unity and solidarity, empowered by a common language, is preventing them from carrying out the divine command.

Now God’s commandment that they “be fruitful and multiply” is hardly a restriction on their freedom and happiness. He commands them to make babies and enjoy God’s creation! It’s a joyful commandment whose sole reason for existence is to promote a human flourishing. But the Shinarites’ cohesion as a group interferes with the command, interferes with their ability to go forth into the world, to embrace and contribute to its bounty. There’s a reciprocity and a synergy between the fruitfulness of the land, the fruitfulness of the animals, and the fruitfulness of humans. Together they help to create the bountiful world that God is making. That task is important to God because people are important to God, so God opposes any obstacle that stands in the way of it.

What we read in the Babel story is not mere unity but a pathological unanimity that prevents the people from embracing God’s living world. Maybe they find the wide world too fearsome. Maybe that’s why they want to build a “city and a tower.” Cities and towers in the ancient near east were not about wealth and convenience and entertainment; they were about defense. Cities and towers were military installations. The tower “reaching to the sky” and the desire to “make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be scattered abroad” is the language of the Mesopotamian empires worrying about their security. At first blush the story gives the idea that they’re all just working happily together as friends to build a nice little monument to themselves. But this has a dark side that isn’t mentioned in the text yet surely would have been in the minds of ancient readers: public works like these are built not through common, egalitarian effort but through enforced and slave labor. The language of unity is a code, in their world just as so often in ours, for everyone rallying behind some powerful person in what they want to do. So God’s confusion of the languages and the consequent destruction of that pathological unity is an act of grace. It is a judgment against the coercive regime in favor of the people.

Our Epistle reading, the story of the first Christian Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, is a deliberate inversion of the Tower of Babel story. In Acts, the apostles are all gathered together on the 50th day after Jesus’ resurrection and Jesus, as promised, sends the Holy Spirit. Divided “tongues” “as of fire” come down and rest on each person, enabling them to speak the truth in many languages. In the Babel story, the diversity of language is the divine gift that sets humans back on the way of blessing rather than allowing them to stay entrenched in their morbid defensiveness. In the Acts story the many languages are simply a fact; the miracle, the gift from God to the Church, is the ability to speak and understand one another despite the many languages, by means of them, and to begin telling the good news everywhere. In other words, in both stories, in Babel as well as in Jerusalem, God gives the gift of diversity. Hold onto that thought.

Returning to the idea that the Feast of Pentecost is the climax of the Easter story, let’s unpack that a bit. Did you catch what Jesus said in the Gospel reading? That the disciples would soon start doing “greater works than these” and that whatever they ask in Jesus’ name He would do. John’s Jesus ties this promise to “the Paraclete,” which means both “comforter” and “helper.” This is John’s distinctive vocabulary for the Holy Spirit; no other NT writer uses it. The idea here is clearly that the Paraclete is the source of the apostles’ miraculous power that would go beyond even that of Jesus. Obviously Jesus’ eye-catching miracles, like healing blind people or calming storms at sea, aren’t really part of our experience today. So we have to entertain the possibility that the “greater works” he refers to are of a different kind. What if language — and languages! — are also miraculous? In John’s gospel Jesus is the Word, He’s the message of love that God has always been speaking in the world, now embodied in an actual person. But Jesus only spoke two, maybe three languages, and He could only give His love to a few followers, just because of the limitations of being one person in one body. Jesus’ followers, though, were becoming more numerous daily, so their ability to spread the good news exceeded his. The same goes for their ability to bring God’s love to the world. These miracles are not big attention-getters like some other miracles, but they are the real power from God that enables us to do God’s work.

Greater things, even than Jesus. Sometimes I wonder if we lose track of the fact that Jesus was a real human being just as we are. We get caught up in talking about His wonder-working and his exaltation to divinity. We find it impossible to believe that He really did think we would be doing greater things than He did. Of course He doesn’t say that we’ll doing it by our own power; He says it would be by the power of the Paraclete. In giving the Spirit, Jesus gives the capacity to discern the Truth, to speak it and live it, so that God’s will is done on earth just as it is in heaven. He gives the ability to understand and love those who are different from us. That’s the miracle, the “greater things” that we must do to help complete God’s work in creation and in Christ’s resurrection.

The world of the early Christians was, like ours, a messed up place. Everywhere people tell us that what we need is more unity. By that I think most of them mean “more love” or something like that. But a demand for unity as such, even when it is couched in seemingly friendly terms, is in some degree coercive. Love exists not in unity but in diversity. To love someone because they’re the same as me isn’t love, it’s narcissism. Only when someone is different from me can love develop. Diversity is dangerous only to those who insist on conformity. How do we resist the forces that seek to train us all into a single controllable mold, that try to enlist us in projects that actually do us and our neighbors harm? How do we resist the forces in the Church and all our institutions that want to circumscribe our thoughts and convictions? We take our many voices into the world, glorifying God and freeing people from their bondage, living joyfully in the refreshing diversity that is God’s gift to us. Because diversity is the soil in which love for one another can grow. I’m going to do what I can to declare that there is room for radical diversity of every kind, that it is a gift much to be sought, in the Body of Christ. Now, on day 50, we have another Pentecost, another invitation to go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to “do the work God has given us to do.” Pray that God will make us increasingly diverse; pray that God will increase our love for one another. Jesus promises that He will ask the Father, and it will be done.

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, inspire these words, open our hearts and minds to be one in your love today. Amen.

I am tired, but it is more than that. I am weary. Weary of this world. Weary of COVID, weary of politics, of arguing, and disrespect. Weary of war. Weary of horrible news and images, senseless violence. I am weary.

Before I became a priest, I taught French and Spanish at Marist Catholic High School for 22 years. I was doing my student teaching in a French classroom at South Eugene High School on May 21st, 1998 when my mentor teacher was called away for an interview on a French-speaking radio station. His niece was a student at Thurston High School. Throughout my time at Marist, I learned and we practiced, lockdown drills. Turn off the lights, close the blinds, lock the door, sit on the floor in silence, away from windows and doors. Later, a new protocol was put into place as first staff, then students went through active-threat training drills, A.L.I.C.E. training, Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. Toward the end of my teaching career, I was tasked with talking to my students about the very real possibility of someone coming to our school intent on harming us. We learned how to barricade our doors and windows, which routes where the safest exits from our room depending on where the threat was.

And finally, in the event that we couldn’t evacuate, we learned how to counter, how to make it harder for someone to harm us. This was something I NEVER thought I would have to learn and teach my students. This week, I am weary. I came across this prayer from Bishop David Reed, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of West Texas. We will use it today in our Prayers of the People. I found it helpful. I pray that you will as well.

O God our Father, whose beloved Son took children into his arms and blessed them: Give us grace to entrust your beloved children of Uvalde to your everlasting care and love, and bring them fully into your heavenly kingdom. Pour out your grace and loving-kindness on all who grieve; surround them with your love; and restore their trust in your goodness. We lift up to you our weary, wounded souls and ask you to send your Holy Spirit to take away the anger and violence that infects our hearts, and make us instruments of your peace and children of the light. In the Name of Christ who is our hope, we pray. Amen.

Today, with you, I lift up my weary, wounded soul and pray for the Holy Spirit to use us to bring about peace and unity.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus prays for his disciples and for all of those who would come to know and follow Jesus’ way of love. “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” That’s US! We are the ones who are trying to believe the witness passed down to us from these first apostles to where and when we are now. Jesus’ prayer for us, for this world, is that we may all be one.

Today’s gospel reading is the basis for Marist Catholic High School’s motto: We are one. You can find it painted on the walls of buildings, in classrooms, on uniforms, t-shirts and hats, and as a part of many teams and groups’ opening prayers and chants. To come together, to be “one” is a tricky thing to do. But…when it happens, it can produce an amazing, powerful force for good, for care, for love in our world today. I witnessed it in the girls’ soccer, boys golf and co-ed pétanque teams that I coached, as players supported, encouraged, and willed one another on to their best performances. And I witnessed it in classrooms as we came together to include, value, and do our best work as a cohesive unit. And as choirs, bands, and cast members came together to create amazing pieces of performance art. Together, we are truly able to accomplish SO much more. And along the way we find value, belonging, and love.

One of my favorite places to witness the “we are one” motto enacted was at Marist Junior Encounters, yearly retreats held at St. Benedict’s Lodge on the McKenzie River. Over these three days, groups of junior boys and girls journey together, discovering who they are individually, as a class, and as God’s children. Here by the river and amidst the trees, they experience the radical, transforming power of God’s love. These experiences bring together and bond students in ways never before imagined, as they come to know just how loved they are by their family, friends, and community, and by God.

“That they may be one as we are one.” This is the prayer of Jesus for his disciples and for our broken and hurting world today. Jesus’ prayer entreats our loving Parent God to help humanity become completely one, to experience the life-affirming, life-changing love that the Creator God has for Jesus, “so that the world may know that you have loved them EVEN as you have loved me…so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” We ARE one. If, and when, we come to realize that we are loved with the same infinitely deep, unconditional love that exists between our loving God, The Lover and God’s Beloved, Jesus. We are loved by, with, and in love its very self!

In this time of enormous separation and senseless violence, what CAN unite us, what DOES unite us is the love of Christ. It is a unity that has its being in, and grows out of, the love of God. What can possibly unite our fractured world? LOVE.

Love always wins over and against and above, every other thing, no matter how terrible, unthinkable, unspeakable, love is there, God is there, in Christ, suffering, sobbing, loving. Love is the last word. And when we come together to grieve, to support, worship and pray, to be nourished in the Eucharist, we are reminded: for God SO loved the world that he offered up his beloved son as a counterexample to the hatred, violence, and disunity of our world. In the Easter preface for our Eucharistic prayer we proclaim:

(Rite I) by his death (he) hath destroyed death, and by his rising to life again hath won for us everlasting life.

(EOW) Dying, you destroyed our death. Rising, you restored our life.

(Rite II) By his death he has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again he has won for us everlasting life.

We are one. One in the love and hope of Christ. We grieve together. We somehow move forward together. We share the message of God’s love, of Jesus’ life and prayer for us, that we become one in the love of God.

Siblings in Christ, God’s beloved children all of us, may we come together united in the love and goodness of God.

Amen.

Last week we talked about the Book of Acts of the Apostles which we have been reading throughout this Easter season. We started at the beginning of the Book and have been going through it sequentially, taking big leaps each week. The Acts of the Apostles is not the only book we are doing that with. We are also doing it with the Book of Revelation. We started on the 2nd Sunday of Easter with the first chapter, and after taking some big leaps we find ourselves today in the 21st chapter.

When I was a kid back in the last century, we had a thing called cable television which I have not had in years. We cut the cord and stream everything now. But on our cable there were about 100 channels and the last few were religious channels. I don't know if they have them anymore, but they did when I was a kid. The preachers on those channels really liked the Book of Revelation. If there was an image that seemed really confusing, they had charts and graphs to prove that it was going on in the world today. Then they expanded that method to foretell future things that were going to happen. These were not the people who tended to identify exact dates. That is a different group of people. But these people would place events in the next couple of years, often around an election. Something major was going to come, so one had to be on the lookout for the mark of the beast.

To put it bluntly, that way of looking at the Book of Revelation is wrong. But it captured a popular imagination in this country which has led to two responses. One is that you love that stuff, and even though it hasn't happened yet, you are still looking for it. The other response is just to say, who cares about the Book of Revelation. In 2000 years no one has figured this out, so it is just a waste of time.

I think this is a great tragedy for us because the book of Revelation is a rich book that has so much to offer us if we stop looking at it as some kind of road map, this prediction that happened 2000 year ago, and start trying to understand it differently. John of Patmos was not trying to predict what was going to happen, he was telling us what was happening. All of the very imaginative and vivid images he uses are all meant to describe a world he existed in, a world full of chaos, a world full of dragons, a world full of bad stuff that is happening to him and the people he knew and loved.

Things like the mark of the beast, 666, are not mysteries. We know exactly what it means. John was talking about the Emperor. There is a clear 1st century understanding in Greek that you put numbers to letters and it spells out Nero. What John is saying is with all the principalities in the world, what is God doing in the midst of it, and where is your loyalty in that? Is your loyalty to these power and principalities? Is your loyalty to the dragons of this world? Or is your loyalty to God? The real Revelation is not that bad things are happening, or that bad things are going to happen. The real Revelation is God revealing God's vision, his dream for this world. And again, just like with the bad stuff, John uses beautiful, vivid imagery to describe it.

That is where we find ourselves today in the reading from the 21st Chapter of Revelation, with the vision of a New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, the embodiment of a prayer that we pray every week: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name; Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. John is taking the image of the idea that heaven comes down, that we can imagine the Kingdom here among us. He says there will be no sea anymore. The sea is the image of chaos, so the chaos has gone away from the world in John's image, in God's dream for this world. We will not have that kind of chaos. Instead we will have a city with the Lamb as the Light. In this city there is going to be a river. What do rivers do? They bring life. Think about the Middle East. Water is so vital to life and it is so limited there. You build your city by a well or by a stream, but John's image is of a river. There is so much abundant life in God's vision, God's dream for this world.

There is a tree in this city, a tree that has twelve types of fruit. One for each month. Winter will not be a time of starvation, but we will be nourished even in those moments. Twelve should also remind us of the twelve Tribes, the twelve Disciples, all these efforts that God is using to share with us his vision of the Kingdom. The tree should also remind us of Adam and the Garden of Eden, the tree they took the fruit from that led them away from God. But now here is a tree with fruit that is bringing us back. God is offering this vision of reconciliation, of restoration of humanity to God and to each other.

The Revelation in John is not all the bad stuff and predictions of when the end is coming. The Revelation is what God has been trying to share with us for so long, the vision that God had in the liberation of God's people from their slavery. That vision that God had in bringing people into the Promised Land. That vision that Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Prophets had of the people streaming towards justice in God's Kingdom. That vision that we find in Jesus, in his teachings, in his life, in his death, and in his resurrection. Revelation is saying that in the midst of all the difficulty you are having, in the midst of all the chaos and all the dragons that are threatening the world, there is an alternative, a different way that the world can be and the world ultimately will be.

Where is our loyalty in the midst of this? With the dragons, or with the Lamb? Like the words of the Collect, God is asking us to love Him in all things and above all things, above all those powers and principalities of this world.

God is inviting us to be part of that, to start living as if we are already in that Kingdom, eating from the fruit and having that abundant life. We live in a life full of chaos, and it feels, especially in these last few years, like it is getting worse. We desperately need this image, this vision of God shared in Revelation by John, to keep our eyes on the horizon of that hope that it offers us as we navigate all the dragons that are out there that threaten us. So that we, with Jesus in the Gospel today. can offer that peace to a world that so desperately needs it.

I hope and pray that you have not given up on the Book of Revelation because of something you heard as a child, because it is a beautiful image of God's dream for you, for us, for this world. A dream of grace, of mercy, and love.

AMEN.