St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

On Wednesday mornings we hold a Eucharist in the chapel, and most weeks we commemorate a different saint. Some of the saints are the Biblical saints: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Paul, Phoebe, Lydia. Some of the saints are the great historic saints: Aidan, Cuthbert, Patrick, Francis, Brigid, Hilda, Claire, Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich. And sometimes we have more modern saints, people who lived in the last hundred years: Dr. King, Pauli Murray. These different kinds of saints get a special day of commemoration.

These are the famous saints, famous enough that they got into a calendar to be commemorated. Sometimes we think of these saints as the superheroes of the faith. We might even think of them as perfect. Sometimes we use the word saint to be a synonym for being perfect. I think it does a great disservice to these saints, because if you read about their lives or their histories, you learn they were anything but perfect. They were real people like you and me, who had all kinds of challenges and struggles and doubts in their faith.

But they were something else. There is a great prayer that sometimes gets appointed on these Wednesday mornings services that says that the saints are the lights of their generation. I think that is a much better way to think about the saints. They were not people who were perfect, they were not faith superheroes, they were the lights of their generation. They shined light in the midst of the darkness that the people faced. There is much darkness in the past, if we look at history. The people faced all kinds of plagues and wars and falling of empires, all kinds of illnesses and economic collapse. The last two thousand years have been rough. The saints in the midst of all that darkness are lights.

Those are the famous saints, but it is not all the saints. They are just the ones that became famous enough to be commemorated. There are all kinds of other saints. I call these the not-so-famous saints. They, too, were lights in their generation. The famous ones might be lights in our generation, hundreds of thousands of years later, but the not-so-famous saints were lights just in that moment. Lights for a small community, perhaps lights for just a few people, but they, too, were saints. They were the lights in their generation.

I see many of those saints on the wall around us. As I was taking a moment on Friday to walk around and look at the names, I saw so many names of people I had known over the years here at St. Mary’s who were a light to me. And I suspect they were a light to the person who wrote their name. I suspect they are still a light to that person.

The light that all these saints are shining is not their own light. It is the light of Christ. That is what they are shining forth and how it is that they lived their life in the ways that they touch our lives. It is the light of Christ.

So whatever darkness you are facing, whether we are talking about the great darknesses of this world, the wars, violence, and divisions, systems falling apart, whether nationally, internationally, communally. And the personal darknesses we all feel, the grief over the loss of a loved one, a job that is lost, marriages falling apart, a cancer diagnosis. Whether it is a big darkness or a very personal one, in the midst of it there is a light, the light of Christ. We can look to the saints, the famous ones and the not-so-famous ones, to shine the light of Christ in the midst of it for us.

On the Feast of All Saints we are celebrating all the saints. On Wednesday we get one or two, but today we get all the saints. That is a whole lot of light that is shining in our lives if we just look to them, the famous saints, and the not-so-famous saints.

There is a third category of saints. These are the ones that Paul refers to in the Epistle reading today. Paul is not talking about people who have died when he talks about the saints in this Epistle. He is talking about people who were very much alive in that community, people who were faithfully trying to follow Jesus as perfect or imperfect as they were, shining the light of Christ to people in darkness. The saints are all around us. They are here in this room. I reckon they are even in you. You too, can be a saint. You can shine light for the people who are struggling.

On this Feast of All Saints, I encourage you to commemorate all the saints, all the great ones and all the lesser ones of the past, and all the ones that are here today. Look to their light and let it help guide you, and share that light with people who need it.

AMEN.

Sermon for Sunday, August 17, 2025, Mary Sunday, St. Mary’s, Eugene, Oregon, Preacher: Ryan Baker-Fones+

Let us pray: Mary, our Sister in Faith, you always have your son Jesus in your heart or in your arms. Draw us close as we discern how God calls us to the Marist way of life. Inspire us to say ‘yes’ to the surprising ways God asks us to make Jesus known and loved today. Amen.

This prayer is from a booklet I used as a part of a Marists of Champagnat week-long discernment retreat. You might know about Marist Catholic High School here in Eugene. I was a French and Spanish teacher, girls’ soccer, boys’ golf, co-ed pétanque coach and retreat moderator there for 22 years. A little more than a year ago my wife Stacey left her administrative job at Marist here in Eugene to work for the Marist Brothers U.S.A. Province. Part of her job is supporting and connecting the nine other Marist high school around the United States with each other and with the international Marist brothers and schools around the world. There are currently Marist schools in 82 countries on six continents educating nearly 600,000 young people each year.

Marist, Les petits frères de Marie, o Las Maristas, little brothers of Mary, is a Catholic teaching order founded by Saint Marcellin Champagnat in 1817 near Lyon, France. Marcellin, a new, young priest saw a need for secular and Christian education for the young people he encountered in rural France. The mission of Marist brothers and lay Marists is to make Jesus known and loved, especially to the most neglected of young people. Two quotes from the founder sum up this mission:

"I CANNOT SEE A CHILD WITHOUT WANTING TO LET HIM KNOW HOW MUCH JESUS CHRIST HAS LOVED HIM AND HOW MUCH HE SHOULD, IN RETURN, LOVE THE DIVINE SAVIOR."

— ST. MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT

And

“IF YOU WANT TO TEACH YOUNG PEOPLE, FIRST YOU MUST LOVE THEM, LOVE THEM ALL EQUALLY.”

— ST. MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT

During my time teaching at Marist here in Eugene I didn’t know much about Marcellin or the wider Marist community. Last summer my wife and I were invited to go on a pilgrimage to visit the sites of the founder and stay with other Marists from around the world at the hermitage built by Marcellin and the brothers as their home base for learning and starting schools for young people. L’hermitage has become a retreat center, with a museum tracing the history and showcasing some of the original artifacts in the room of the founder. In this place you not only learn but you experience the history of the Marists, sitting, praying, worshipping, eating and fellowshipping where they did. I was warmly greeted upon entry by a large sign in multiple languages that said, “Welcome home!” As we shared meals and conversation, prayers, day trips and hikes, we grew as a community drawn together by the desire to make sure young people knew how much they were loved by God.

At the heart of this mission is Mary and her example of love, courage, and desire to bring God’s love into the world as the mother of Jesus.

Here is an excerpt from ‘He gave us the name of Mary’: Mary and the Marist Tradition

Mary has been at the heart of the Marist movement since its very beginning. Marcellin’s original inspiration and our guiding light still today, Mary shows us the way to follow Jesus. Our Marist charism compels us to build a Marial Church, a community of believers whose discipleship reflect Mary’s own. (p. 17)

Here at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, on this, the feast day of Saint Mary, what might it look like for us build a church that reflects Mary? What examples of relationship with God and others does she offer us?

First and foremost, for me, Mary is an example of openness, willingness, and trust in God’s good and loving plan. Even, and perhaps especially when we don’t know what that might mean for our lives. When Mary consents to bearing Jesus and recognizes the special blessing, this important and scary thing that God is asking her to do, she gives thanks and praises God for this opportunity.

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”

Mary couldn’t know what her ‘yes’ to God would mean for her life. She must have had some ideas, certainly things would never be the same. This was not an easy task, but it was what God had asked of her, and she had confidence that God would be with her. Mary is an inspiration to us as she places her trust, her very life, in God’s hands. She knows deep down that God will care for her and will use her to bring life, light, and love to the world. I pray that we here at St. Mary’s, Eugene, may aspire to this level of confidence in God’s goodness for us and for our world. Together, do we dare consent to God using our gifts to bringing about the divine dream for our world? For unity, for equity, peace, and flourishing for ALL? Mary is a courageous woman. Mary is a hopeful woman. Mary is a woman who dares risk all and give all to God and for God. She doesn’t know. She isn’t perfect, a very human example of a woman trying to hear, understand and follow God’s will for her life.

Marist Brother François Marc writes about what a church following Mary’s example might look like.:

A Marian church follows Mary into the mountains going off with her to encounter life…

A Marian church rejoices and sings and is in wonder at the beauty there is on the earth and in the human heart. It is there that she sees the works of God.

A Marian church knows she is the object of gratuitous love, and that God has the heart of a mother.

A Marian church does not know the answers before the questions are asked. Her path is not mapped out in advance. She knows doubt and worry, the night and loneliness. She takes part in the conversation but makes no claim to know everything. She accepts that she is searching.

A Marian church stands at the foot of the cross. She does not take refuge in a fortress, or in a chapel, or in cautious silence, when others are being crushed. She is vulnerable, in her deeds and her words. With humble courage she stands with the most insignificant.

Brothers and sisters, (siblings), let us be this people. Let us take Mary into our home. Let us go in with her into the “humble and rending joy” of loving and being loved. And the church will be in this world as St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, “a heart radiant with love.”

(Plea for a Marian Church, François Marc, S.M., from Marists of Champagnat Discernment Retreat: Brothers and Lay Marists Together in Communion, Troutdale, OR, 2025, p. 18-21)

I pray that Mary be an example, an encouragement, and a pathway for us to say our “yes” to God at work in our lives. To say yes to standing up and speaking truth to power, to lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry. To say yes to spreading and sharing God’s IMMENSE love for each and every one of us, God’s lovely and beloved children and Mary is our good mother. Amen.

God has a dream for this world, a vision in which everyone can thrive, in which everyone doesn’t have everything they want, but they have at least everything that they need; that everyone can use the gifts that God has given them, and they can find joy and love and grace, have dignity and respect; that every person is given the honor due the image of God that is within them, the image of God in which they were made.

We have often talked about this dream that God has and that the prophets put so beautifully. The dream of God is a world so transformed that the predator and the prey can rest comfortably in each other’s presence. And the weapons of war are transformed into tools of agriculture. That which once was used to destroy life can now bring life. This is God’s vision, God’s dream for this world, for you, for me, and for all of creation.

This world, this dream, this vision can be called the Kingdom of God. That is what Jesus called it. It is very different than the kingdoms of this world, for it is full of the love that Jesus proclaims. Jesus proclaimed this Kingdom every where he went. He said it was near, it was coming, it was already among you, it was within you.

And yet it does not take much imagination to see that that Kingdom has not been fully realized. If we look around, we can see all the ways this world is broken, broken in all those big ways, the ways the powerful principalities and nations and empires and geopolitics of this world are creating more and more destruction, among nations and within nations. We can also see all the ways this dream has not been realized much closer to home. Maybe it is happening in your life right now. And if not, perhaps it is in the life of someone you know. Pain, suffering, tribulations of relationships falling apart, a medical diagnosis that is not what you wanted to hear, the grief of losing or having lost a loved one, of work that is not going the way it should. We see the ways this world is broken from abuse and trauma. It is a broken world. The dream of God is certainly not fully realized. We don’t have that fullness of peace that Jesus wants for us.

We can still cry out as we sang in the hymn this morning:

Our hope and expectation,

O Jesus, now appear;

arise, O Sun so longed for,

above this shadowed sphere.

With hearts and hands uplifted

we plead, O Lord, to see

the day of earth's redemption

that sets your people free.

This issue of the gap between God’s dream for this world and the reality we now live in is what the author to Hebrews was addressing. These were early Christians who might have heard Jesus himself proclaim this Kingdom, or heard it from someone who had heard it directly. They had been at this for decades, but they are not seeing this dream becoming a reality, so the author is trying to give them hope, some structure for understanding this period in which the promise has been proclaimed, but the dream has not been fully realized, and how they should live in the middle of it.

The author gives all kinds of explanations and arguments, and honestly, some of them are kind of weird for us today. But in the section we had for our second reading today, the author goes through all the ways our ancestors in faith had faced the same thing. The promise has always been out there, and they are not the first generation to wonder why it hasn’t come about, and wonder how to live in the midst of it.

The author says look to your ancestors in faith. What did they do? They acted in faith. The part of the Scripture we heard today is about Abraham and Sarah and the ridiculous promise they were given, that they would have more descendants than stars in the sky and sand on this earth. That is a promise as ridiculous as vegetarian lions, as Isaiah promises. And yet, what do Abraham and Sarah do? They walk in faith. They step forward, trusting in God. Not in faith that is in rituals and doctrines, but faith that is trust in God. They walk in that faith. Here is the thing: that promise did not become a reality within their lifetime, but they got little glimpses of it. They saw how it could come about, so they walked forward in faith, looking for that, trying to help make it a closer reality for this world.

Then the author of Hebrews goes on with the stories of other people, the story of Jacob, and the story of Joseph, and the story of Moses who stood up to Pharoah, the greatest emperor of the day, and told them to “let my people go.” Moses did not realize the liberation of all people in this world, but the liberation of those people is a little in-breaking of the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. And how did Moses do it? By walking in faith, by answering the call to this ridiculous thing of standing up to the greatest emperor in the greatest empire.

The author goes on to tell the story of other people, eventually getting to the point of name-dropping and expecting you to fill in the story yourself. He gets through the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the stories of the ancestors of our faith. But we can imagine ways the story could continue. By faith, Mary Magdalene went down to the tomb on Easter morning, in all the sorrow and darkness, and found the risen Lord. Then she went and proclaimed this Good News to the Apostles, becoming the apostle to the Apostles. By faith, Paul, who had been the adversary of Jesus, becomes the advocate of Jesus. By faith, Francis gave up all of his riches and started begging for his bread, proclaiming, like Jesus, the Kingdom of God in their midst. By faith, our ancestors throughout the ages have faced the very same question: God’s dream has not been realized, so what do I do in this moment? Do I give up all hope? And the answer, time and again, is no. Keep walking in that faith, that trust. That trust, the Psalmist says, is actually stronger than what a horse could give you. It is a vain hope to put your hope in the strength of horses, the Psalmist says. The powers of this world are not as strong as the power of God.

It is the same for us. Whatever challenges or difficulties we are facing, or in the many ways we see the gap between God’s dream and our reality, we are encouraged to keep walking in faith, trusting that God is working something out, and we are a part of that. We are to look for, and help bring about those little in-breakings of that Kingdom. Jesus said it is here. It is at bay. It is around you. It is within you.

The author of Hebrews says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. I think that is a good definition, as long as we understand that this is about things we cannot see with our eyes, because you can see the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom if you look at it with the eyes of faith, the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your soul. You can see this happening every day, and you are invited to be a part of that, as well. In every act of love and grace and mercy, in every way that you help bring about that peace of the Peaceable Kingdom, it is an in-breaking of God’s Kingdom in this world.

The promise is still alive, my friends, and one day it will be realized. In this in-between time, we walk in faith by faith, joining our ancestors who did the same, holding on to the hope and sharing the love, trying to live within the Kingdom today.

AMEN.

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, enliven these words and help us become richer toward God. In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sustainer. Amen.

"Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

Today, Jesus is talking to us about all those things that we work so hard to get. Although society tells us otherwise, Jesus reminds us that our lives and our identities are NOT based on the things we’ve accumulated. Sure, we need SOME things, and I know I certainly ENJOY certain possessions. But, like Martha, Jesus reminds us once again that our focus should NOT be on producing, consuming, or accumulating. Instead, it should be on relationship, on growing rich toward God. Today, Jesus challenges us, invites us, and reminds us, about our relationship with our things and our relationship with God.

Notice the language in today’s parable: The land of a rich man produced abundantly. This man already has plenty, he is wealthy landowner and his land yields a bumper crop. Great, right? He says to himself. What should I do? I don’t have room to store all of this extra. I know. I’ll tear down my perfectly good barns and build huge new ones so that I can store all of this surplus. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

Then I’ll be all set. I’ll store all of MY grain and MY goods and I will say to MY soul, soul, you’re set for many years. Chill, relax, eat, drink, party it up.

God calls this man a fool, reminding him that even though he may think he’s set, he might die that very night. And then what? And then who will get all of the extra he’s laid up for himself. We can’t take it with us, right?

One of the commentaries I read titled this parable, “The Mismanaged Miracle.” The man in the story mismanages this amazing gift of a bumper crop. He fails to recognize that this extra is a gift from God. He lacks gratitude. He fails to consult others about what he should do with this gift. And he doesn’t give any thought to how he might use this extra to help others. I, me, my, mine. He fails to consider that the abundance that God provides is for the good of all. God’s generosity it to be shared.

Everything that we have is thanks to God. All things come of thee O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee. To God we owe our ultimate thanks. Yes, we do work and achieve and accomplish and do amazing things, AND, we could do none of those things without the gifts that God has given us.

Like the man in today’s parable, how do we choose to view the things we have? Especially when we receive an unexpected bonus? Do we too, tend to forget that everything comes from God? When we receive a windfall or an unexpected gift do we take the time to give thanks to God? Do we think of others and how we might be able to help, share, and use our abundance for their benefit? Do we consider how to use our “more than we need” so that others can meet their needs?

Today, Jesus challenges us, invites us, and reminds us. He challenges us to evaluate our relationship with our things, to evaluate our needs and our wants. Our necessities and our extras, our luxuries. And he invites us to consider how we can share our abundance with others so that we might help God’s dream of justice and equity come true all around us. And finally, Jesus reminds us that our possessions are not our lives. Our stuff does NOT define us. Nor can things every truly satisfy us. No matter how much, or how much bigger, nicer, or more expensive, our things won’t fill us up. Only a relationship with our loving God can do that.

Working to be rich toward God means working on that relationship.

By comparison, our possessions are worthless. Coming to know our Creator God is invaluable. We can’t let our works or our possessions, define nor guide us. When we begin to see that everything we have is a gift from God, then we can change our whole lives. When we begin to consider others before ourselves and start to understand that what we have been given from God is for the mutual aid and benefit of ALL, then we can start to grow our riches with our good and loving God.

Amen.

In the Epistle for today, Paul implores us to remain established in the faith, which brings up the question, what is the faith? What is faith itself? There is a popular idea of what faith is out in society, and many churches do teach it. It is the idea that faith is about having the right answer. You need to have the right answer about knowledge, you need to have the right answer about the nature of God, or the correct Biblical interpretation, or the morally correct position on some social matter, or knowing the right words to say. That is what faith is: being right. And since faith and salvation are so intertwined, it creates an anxiety about what happens if you fail the test, and the depth of the consequences if you do. In some traditions it is not failing the test, it is about getting any one answer wrong. If you don’t get an A+ it isn’t good enough. What are the implications of that? It can create a huge sense of anxiety in people, even trauma for understanding the faith in this way.

I don’t think that is a good thing. Not only can it create anxiety, it can lead people away from the faith. It is also not the faith we see unfolding in the Biblical story. When we look at stories of faith in the Scripture, it isn’t about getting the right answer. It is about being engaged with God. We see in our first reading today the perfect and beautiful example of what faith is all about. Abraham and God get in a conversation. God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the people were inhospitable and didn’t take care of the widows and the orphans. In the understanding of faith that requires the right answer, the answer is always what God wants, so you think destroying the people would be the right answer if that is what faith is all about. Abraham should say OK, but instead we see the great ancestor of our faith pushing back on God. He asks, are you really going to destroy the city? What if there are 50 righteous people? Abraham and God get into this conversation in which Abraham pushes back on God. He argues with God, he haggles with God. That is faith.

We see something of that in the Gospel. The Disciples want to know the right words to pray? John gave his Disciples the right words, can’t you do so, too, Jesus? Jesus says fine, here are some good words. And they are good words. The Lord’s Prayer is lovely, and we say it every Sunday. But then Jesus goes on to say that having the right words is not what it is about. The life of prayer, the life of faith, is about seeking, it is about asking and searching and knocking. It is about trying. It is not about getting it right. It is even trying up to that point in which you become an irritant. That is faith. When you are trying to engage with God so much that God gets annoyed with you, that, Jesus says, is faith. Perhaps like the irritant that gets into the oyster and becomes a beautiful pearl of great value. That is faith. So, my friends, engage with God to the point of being an irritation.

Paul tells us that we are to be rooted and built up in Christ. So as we engage with God as those who follow Jesus, we should be trying to do it in a way that models our lives on Christ and on his way of love. To love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, and soul, and love our neighbor as ourselves. That is what Paul says is so important for us who follow Jesus. But here is the thing: when we fall short of that, when we mess up, when we are not perfectly able to love God or perfectly love our neighbor, or we can’t understand that our enemy is our neighbor, the point is to keep trying, not to be perfect.

So, my friends, try. You’ve already started today by showing up here. You came here to engage with God, and that is good. Keep trying the rest of the day. Keep engaging with God throughout the day, and tomorrow when you wake up, try again. And the day after that and the day after that, and the week after that, and the month and the year. On and on throughout your days, keep trying. Keep engaging with this God who wants to be in relationship with you. It doesn’t mean other things aren’t important, like the questions of the nature of God and Biblical interpretation and morally correct positions and the right words to say. Those are all valuable things, but they are not the core of the faith. Ultimately, the point is not the answer, the point is trying.

So, my friends, try. Keep trying day in and day out. Try to the point of getting to be an irritant, and remember that Jesus told you to.

AMEN.

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit. Show us the one thing we need. Help us to rest in you. Amen.

Such a familiar story, right? The two sisters, Mary and Martha, and Martha’s just busy and doing all the work and Mary’s just doing nothing, not helping her sister at all. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things…

Right? Me too. Us too? There are SO many things in our world right now that are truly worrying. SO many things that are distracting us. We’re SO busy that we can’t even remember what we’re supposed to be doing. We’ve got SO much going on, SO many things that we’re trying to balance, SO much multitasking going on that we lose track of why we’re even doing all the things, or where we put our keys or our water bottle, or what time we were supposed to be at that place for that thing. I was supposed to pick up the kids from camp? I thought your parents were getting them this week! Aaaah!

In today’s story Martha is distracted, just like us, she has too many things to do, too much on her plate. She is worried and her mind is spinning from one thing to the next. And then Jesus comes along and says: There is need of only one thing.

How very Zen of Jesus! One thing? Really? Just one thing? Well, alright, go ahead and tell me what it is then!

Where is that we need to place our focus, our attention, and our efforts in our overwhelmingly distracting world? Jesus. The one thing we need is to focus on is Jesus. A return to our roots. A recentering on God come down to know us and be us and show us how to live our human lives. Like Mary, we need to just sit. And be still. And listen to Jesus. In the busyness and the myriad competing demands for our attention, we need to stop, slow down, and find our rest in Jesus. I hope this is what we do here on Sundays and in the chapel on Wednesday mornings at 9:30. But of course, our time spent at the feet of Jesus is in no way limited to once or even twice a week. No. It can happen is so many ways. We can listen to Jesus as we read scripture, devotionals, and other holy books. This fall there will be several opportunities for bible study and book groups and I encourage you to check them out. As a part of our recent pilgrimage, we adopted the practice of finishing our day with compline from the prayer book, p. 127. This is a lovely way to slow down and end your day with Jesus. There are forms for morning prayer, noon day prayer, and evening prayer in the prayer book as well. What about our little Forward Day by Day booklets with a reflection on the scriptures for each day and a prayer?

Being still is good. Silence is hard, but good. Can you find time to be still and invite God’s presence? On the 2nd Saturday of each month in the Guild Room at 5 p.m., and at the Church of the Resurrection on the 4th Saturday, there is a lovely opportunity for us to practice contemplation, meditation and silence together. In this service we intentionally slow down. After we hear the gospel, we spend 20 minutes in silence, quieting ourselves and opening up to God.

We are SO busy as United Statesers. It’s part of our capitalistic system. And the demands that it places on all of us are not healthy. When Creator God made the earth he built in a day of rest, Sabbath. God knew! We need to rest, to reconnect, to rejuvenate, to incorporate times of sitting at Jesus’ feet into our lives.

I’ve spoken about theologian, author, and podcaster Kate Bowler before. Here is what she has to say about rest, in her recent post entitled: The Summer of Too Much: Practicing Holy Underachievement:

“Our calendars and our capitalism say go-go-go, and then toss us a cold beverage and call it rest. But God's version of rest? It’s not productivity in disguise. It’s not something you earn. God’s rest says: You are loved before you’ve done anything at all. You can stop. You are allowed to stop. Wouldn’t it be lovely if rest weren’t simply optional but mandatory? That’s what the Christian tradition has always understood. After creating the entire universe, God took a break.

God. Took. A. Break.

God called it the Sabbath and declared it holy, set apart, necessary.

St. Ambrose of Milan once said that God rested, not from weariness, but to teach us the value of measured labor and rest.²

(From: Kate Bowler from Everything Happens ) The Summer of Too Much: Practicing Holy Underachievement: July 17, 2025)

I recently started reading a book by Tricia Heresy called, “Rest is Resistance.”

She talks about resting as a way to push back against our society and its systems that constantly push us to go, go, go, to produce and consume more and more and more. In it she shares 20 practical ideas for what resting can look like. I encourage to take up a practice of rest this week.

1. Closing your eyes for ten minutes.

2. A longer shower in silence.

3. Meditating on the couch for twenty minutes.

4. Daydreaming by staring out a window.

5. Sipping warm tea before bed in the dark.

6. Slow dancing with yourself to slow music.

7. Experiencing a sound bath or other sound healing.

8. A sun salutation.

9. A twenty-minute timed nap.

10. Praying.

11. Crafting a small altar for your home.

12. A long, warm, bath.

13. Taking regular breaks from social media.

14. Not immediately responding to text and emails.

15. Deep listening to a full music album.

16. A meditative walk in nature.

17. Knitting, crocheting, sewing, and quilting.

18. Playing a musical instrument.

19. Deep eye contact.

20. Laughing intensely.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive. But I hope it gives you some ideas. My prayer for us this day is that we all recognize our need to rest and that by resting we are connecting with our bodies, with creation and with our Creator God. Amen.

“And who is my neighbor?” Now there’s a question with worldwide implications 2100 years after the lawyer wanting to justify himself asked it. Indeed the question has a very personal meaning for me at the moment. My question actually isn’t who is, but who will be my neighbor? You see the house next door, where my former student and her husband, and with time their two sons, lived for the past fifteen years, stands empty. The moving van pulled away exactly one month ago today. John, who has been in the management track at Costco his whole career, was finally given his own store in Silverdale, Washington. So these wonderful neighbors have moved on to a new home, new schools, a new life since all of them until this transfer had lived their entire lives in the Eugene area. I was thrilled back in 2010 when I realized that a former student and her husband were the people who were buying what had been my mom’s home for the previous six years. As time went by I was able to imagine how thrilled Mom would have been as first one little boy and then another came home to live in what had been her final home on this earth. Now I and the rest of us in the cul de sac can only wait and see who will live there next. Neighbors.

But we all know Jesus wasn’t simply talking about the people next door, or down the street, not even the ones who may seem less than friendly. No Jesus’ usage, indeed the biblical usage, of neighbor refers to everyone, with the emphasis seeming to be on neighbor as stranger. I presume that’s because it comes naturally to be kind to those with whom we already have loving relationships. As the inimitable Frank Burns of Mash fame remarked at one point: “It’s nice to be nice to the nice,” to which Margaret replies, “Really, Frank. It’s nice to be nice to the nice!” But it is, or at least it’s easy. Jesus asks us to go farther, and with the parable in today’s Gospel he goes so far as to use a Samaritan, someone with whom faithful Jews would not normally have even associated, to illustrate just how broadly love thy neighbor should apply. Interestingly this particular parable is so widely known in the secular world that all fifty states and the District of Columbia have Good Samaritan laws. Ironically though, these laws provide legal protection for individuals who try to provide aid to someone in need, preventing the aid giver from being sued for inadvertently causing injury while offering assistance. How sad we have to protect ourselves from legal difficulties for daring to try to help in a crisis. Of course most of us never find ourselves in such a situation. No, our failure to show compassion for those we don’t know, and sometimes those we do, is due more to the invisible yet remarkably powerful barriers we construct between ourselves and others, be they groups or individuals. Getting past those barriers is hard, hard because it’s uncomfortable and let’s face it, because we’re scared.

We’re taught from an early age to fear people we don’t know. I remember well that “Stranger Danger” was one of the topics covered at Safety School decades ago when Zack participated in the program before he went to kindergarten. How sad that we need to teach our children not to talk to someone they don’t know unless someone they do know tells them it’s okay. Depending on where we are, the time of day, whether we’re alone, adults have learned to be cautious about dealing with strangers as well. I believe this sense of caution around those we don’t know can really complicate any desire we may have to take to heart the message of today’s Gospel. Add to this cultural hesitancy to be open with strangers a healthy dose of shyness, and you’ve got a pretty clear picture of what it’s been like to live in my skin basically my whole life.

However, learned behaviors can be unlearned. While there are certainly situations where caution is appropriate, there are many more situations where a perceived threat is due more to those imaginary barriers we’ve created in order to isolate ourselves in our cozy little clusters of “other people like me,” than to any real danger. One way we can know how meaningless those barriers are is how quickly they disappear in times of crisis. When flood waters are rising, a wildfire is approaching, when an area has been left in ruins by a tornado or hurricane, people don’t pause to ask about political or religious affiliations, citizenship status or much of anything. They simply help each other. Our common humanity, grounded in the love from which we were created, wins out over societal norms or any sort of perceived differences based simply on fear. Fear is such an insidious emotion. The opposite of love, fear is what Jesus worked his entire ministry to teach people to overcome. Fear not, be not afraid, he pleaded over and over again. And yet we’re living in a world today where fear is systematically used by those in power to control us. The paradox though, is that those who rely on fear to control others are at heart fearful themselves. Terrified of how they see the world changing, they try through every intimidation tactic available to somehow force time to run backwards, to somehow recreate a world that simply no longer exists. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” is every bit as applicable today as it was in 1933.

Just as learned behaviors can be unlearned, habits can be changed as well. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve always been shy. Without going through my entire keep to myself history, let me just share that at the beginning of my sophomore year at Rochester, I decided I was going to meet every young woman on my hall before I looked up any of my friends from freshman year. This was completely new behavior for me, but having set a goal, I did it. As I’ve looked back on it, I believe in many ways that decision changed my life. To begin with, at the first hall meeting, since I was the only person everyone knew because I had introduced myself to all of them, they elected me hall president. I was stunned! I’d never been president of anything. Now I don’t know that being hall president meant a darn thing really, but in my mind it gave me license to speak to folks as we passed in the hall, check on how they were doing, offer help or at least encouragement when it was needed. By spring, having observed my behavior all year, my RA suggested I apply to be an RA myself. I did and was hired. I filled that role both junior and senior years, and doing so did more to prepare me to be a teacher than any class I ever took. What I think I learned, though only in writing this sermon did it occur to me in these words, is that loving your neighbor doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to involve offering medical care to the victim of a crime or an accident - that was a parable not an instruction manual - it simply means taking the time to be compassionate. We’re all so hurried, rushing past each other in hallways or on the street, so focused on the to do list in our heads or on our phones that we often fail to notice when others need us, or we push the awareness aside with the thought that we’ll help later, when we have more time. We’re not so much intentionally callous as obsessively oblivious.

However, we simply can’t afford to be oblivious in today’s world. There are too many people these days who truly need our help. Whatever has caused us, or allowed us, to live more or less by and for ourselves and those closest to us simply has to change, and it can if we’re simply open to the possibility. My favorite story of such a change, largely because it’s so extreme, is that of Oskar Schindler. Schindler was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi party who saw in the Jews of the ghettos of Poland a gold mine of slave labor for his factories. So he made use of his contacts and some well placed bribes to arrange for people to be released from the ghettos on a daily basis to work for him. It soon became clear to the Jews that working for Schindler offered perhaps the only assurance they could find of not being sent to the death camps. As time passed Schindler grew increasingly attached to the Jew he had made foreman of his operation and through him Schindler acquired an empathy he had never sought to develop with the workers themselves. Consequently, as the collapse of the Third Reich became imminent and the German army worked at an ever faster rate to send as many Jews as possible to the gas chambers, Schindler arranged to buy the freedom of roughly 1200 of his workers. This man who had set out to use people to make money, spent all the money he had to save people. Today the descendants of the people Schindler saved number in the thousands and his body is buried in Israel, where he is honored as a righteous man.

In perhaps less dramatic ways than in the case of Oskar Schindler, loving our neighbors doesn’t merely change their lives, it changes our lives too. Faithful scientist that I am, this seems to me a bit like a spiritual example of Newton’s Third Law which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. My students often had trouble discerning what the equal and opposite force was, or on what it was exerted. Similarly it may not be clear in the moment how our actions on behalf of others impact us but they do, and over time we may very well find that in the act of loving others we have been changed in ways we could never have asked for or imagined. Love, after all, is like that. Amen.

Last week it seemed that Jesus was a bit cranky in the Gospel reading. We talked about why that might, the possibility that the crankiness came from a sense of urgency because his time was short. He was on his way to Jerusalem to be killed, and he felt that he needed to get the message of the Good News out there. I think part of what triggered that crankiness was the Disciples not understanding, yet again, because he had been with them quite a while. Jesus must be thinking, I can’t convince these guys, I don’t have much time, I have 35 cities I want to get to. How am I going to get people on board with this?

In this week Gospel, I think Jesus is a little bit less cranky, and part of that is because he has figured out a possible solution to his problem: He has decided to gather 70 of his followers and send them out ahead of him to those towns he intends to visit. I think the idea is that they will till the soil and get the people ready to hear the message when Jesus finally shows up.

So Jesus sends them out, and he tells them they need to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near. When they welcome you and invite you into their homes and feed you, talk to them about the Kingdom of God coming near. And if they reject you and send you away, tell them the Kingdom of God has come near. Tell everyone, those who welcome you and those who reject you. Tell them the Good News, the Kingdom of God has come near.

What is this Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is God’s dream, God’s vision for this world, the way God intends this world to be when he created it. We see glimpses of that Kingdom throughout Scripture, no better than in the Prophets, especially Isaiah. He gives us so many beautiful images of what that Kingdom is like. For instance, he says it is a world of peace, a world in which the weapons of war are turned into the tools of agriculture so that every single person can have enough in this world, and everyone can thrive and flourish. It is a world in which the predator and prey are so transformed that they can eat together because the lion has become a vegetarian and the lamb is no longer worried they are the centerpiece of the meal. They are so comfortable that they eat straw together, and can even rest and fall asleep in each others arms. It is a beautiful image that Isaiah offers us of what this Kingdom is like.

Our first reading today from Isaiah is a part of this vision. It is the final chapter in the Book of Isaiah, the final image that Isaiah gives us. In this image, Isaiah spends time showing us not what is going on with the people in this Kingdom, but what is going on with this King. The King, of course, is God, but this King does not act like earthly kings. This King does not take all the power and use it to rule over, to lord it over others. Instead, this so-called King is more like a mother, inverting that image. Rather than a king that lords it over, this is a King that comes underneath and supports and cares. This King, this God, is our mother, and we are her children. We are protected and cared for by this loving, caring mother, our God who nurses us, carries us in her arms, dandles us on her knees. This is a God who loves us completely.

The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of comfort and care and compassion and love which every single person made in God’s image has the dignity and respect that they were made with. Every single person gets to enjoy and flourish and thrive. It is a beautiful image. This is what those 70 people are meant to go and proclaim, the Kingdom of God has come near.

So, when is it going to show up? That is what the people keep asking Jesus: when is this Kingdom coming? A few chapters down the road, when the question is asked, Jesus’s answer is going to be: the Kingdom of God is already among you. It is within you. The Kingdom of God is so near that it is already here, and you can start living in this Kingdom right now. It is among you, it is within you, it is right here in this room. Look to the left and to the right, it is here among you. The Kingdom of God is so near that it is inside of you. You can look there and find that peace, that transformation, that love that God, who is like our mother, has for you. It is caring for you and protecting you.

Some people like to call this the “Kindom” of God because it is not so much a chain of kings, but it is like a loving family that surrounds us.

So, my friends, in this world where it is so hard to see the Kingdom, where there is so much pain and suffering that we are reminded of every single day, the Kingdom of God is near. It is among you and within you, and you can start living within it and inviting people into it. You can start sharing that love that God has shared with you. You can be like a mother caring for people, loving them, living in the Kingdom that God has set forth.

So, my friends, my siblings, in this Kingdom, in this Kindom, I encourage you to start looking for it, to open your eyes to see it, and to live your life within it.

AMEN

I don’t know about you, but I think Jesus sounded rather cranky in the Gospel today. He is not quite the all-loving, all-patient, all-calm, all-compassionate Jesus that we are used to. He is still compassionate, it’s not like he lost it. When the Samaritans reject him and the Disciples wanted to rain down fire upon them and destroy them, Jesus said no. He has compassion on the Samaritans, and he rebukes the Disciples for suggesting such a thing. Rather than being calm and suggesting we review what we talked about when someone rejects us: wipe the dust from our feet and move along. It is not our place to rain down fire upon people. If there is going to be anything like that, God will take care of it, not us.

And there are the examples of people coming up to Jesus, and they either want to follow him or he invites them to follow him, but they have important things to do before they can do that, and he has no time or patience for them. He says that anyone who looks behind them isn’t worthy of the Kingdom. He is a little bit short with them. He is cranky.

Why is he cranky? I don’t know. Perhaps he is just having a bad day, as we all do. He is fully divine, but also fully human, so he gets to have some bad days. Maybe he is a little hangry, hungry/angry. Maybe a few crackers and a cheese stick would make this all better.

But I think there is more going on here. The hint is in the line early in the Gospel where it says that Jesus had set his face to go to Jerusalem. His ministry in the Galilee area, going from town to town, preaching and teaching and healing, is mostly over. He has gone up the Mount of Transfiguration, and has come down and set his face to Jerusalem. He knows what is going to happen there. He knows he is going to die, and he does not want that to happen. Do you remember that in the Garden of Gethsemane, he begs God that the cup will pass from him. He does not want this, but he know that is what has to happen.

Maybe Jesus is a little anxious right now, a little distracted, but he also has a sense of urgency because there is not much time left to proclaim the way of love that he has been sent to proclaim. As Paul says so beautifully, the whole law is summed up in the commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. That is what Jesus is showing and teaching in his life and in his words, and he needs to get the message proclaimed to people. And he has to waste his time with Disciples who keep getting it all wrong, and he is tired of people finding excuses not to move forward with him, but putting it off to tomorrow. There is an urgency to Jesus’s proclamation, his life, his ministry, his work.

Do we have the same urgency that Jesus does, or do we put it off until tomorrow? And then when tomorrow comes, do we put it off until tomorrow again? Are we always putting off the Good News of following Jesus to the next day? Jesus has invited us, called us to follow him in this way of love, and how often do we say tomorrow I will do that, but today I’m going to walk down a different path? I hope it is not the path of hatred you are walking down. Maybe it is the path of apathy, but Jesus says I want you to walk with me on the path of love, the way of love. And it is urgent.

Why is it so urgent? Well, life is short. As we often say in the final blessing, quoting the Swiss philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel: Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind.

It is true, life is short. I know some days it doesn’t feel like it, but it is. Maybe your life isn’t as short as the one Jesus has in front of him. His is coming to an end pretty soon. Maybe you have time, or maybe you don’t. I buried a woman yesterday who died in a car accident. Life is short, so we may not have a tomorrow to put it off to.

It is also urgent because every day we are walking down one of these other paths, we are forming ourselves in the way of that path. We might be forming ourselves in the way of envy, or the way of enmity, and every day we go down that path the harder it is to get back on the way of love. It is urgent that we start backtracking and getting on the way of love and start forming ourselves in that way. That is the dream and the vision that God has for us.

So, my friends, the proclamation, the invitation is urgent. The question is, do we hear that urgency, do we listen to Jesus’s urgency and start following him, or do we say that it sounds like a nice idea, but I’ll take care of it tomorrow?

AMEN

Let us pray: May these words be in the name of the God who heals, restores, and liberates. Amen.

Wow! What a fantastical story! We have a man who lives in the tombs and is possessed by a legion of demons who seize control of him causing people to chain and shackle him up. But he breaks free and runs off into the wild. And when Jesus commands the spirits to come out of the man there’s this whole conversation with the spirits begging Jesus to let them go into some pigs. And Jesus gives them permission! And then the pigs rush down the bank into the lake and drown. WOW! This is crazy! WHAT is happening here? Let’s take a look at these characters and some context and ask together, “What does Jesus do here? How is the nature of God revealed? What do we learn about God and ourselves? And finally, what is this story inviting us to do?

Jesus and his disciples have crossed the sea of Galilee and entered into Gentile/non-Jew territory. By crossing the sea, they have crossed the border into different cultural and religious territory. We read that as soon as Jesus steps off the boat he is met by a man of the city who had demons. There are many stories in the bible about demons, possession, and exorcisms. What are we to make of this? While we may or may not have believe in literal demons, I’m sure we can come up with examples of demons that are very real, those things that hold us back, hold us down, and take control of our lives, causing us to act in ways that aren’t who we are as God’s beloved children: Substance use disorder, greed, corruption, envy. Certainly trauma, past, present, or ongoing, is a very real demon for too many in our world today.

Back to our gospel:

We learn that: For a long time, the man had worn no clothes. He did not live in a house but in the tombs and that he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. Hmm…I often see “people of the city” like this man near St. Mary’s. They too are unhoused, perhaps they shelter in a cemetery, at times they have little or no clothing. Sometimes their demons take hold of them causing them to yell and curse. Sometimes I have conversations and do what I can to help people who come to the church for help. Sometimes I learn about their past, their stories, their trauma, what’s led them to where they are now.

I wonder who the man in today’s story is? What was his life like before? Where did he live? Where was his home, his community, his people? I wonder about the people around him. Who guarded, bound and shackled him? Who sent him away from his home, family, friends and community?

I have so many questions about today’s story. Perhaps that’s what makes it such a good one! Like how does the unclean spirits recognize Jesus? And why do the spirits want to go into the pigs? And why does Jesus let them? And why did they run into the lake to drown? And why were the people afraid after seeing the man restored? What were they afraid of? And why did they ask Jesus to leave? And why did Jesus just go? And when the restored man asked Jesus to let him come with him, why did Jesus send him away?

But if we focus on what Jesus does, on how he interacts with this man, then we begin to see who God is. First off, Jesus crosses borders, he gets outside of his comfort zone and reaches out to those who are foreign to him, outsiders, different, unknown. Jesus makes the effort to meet them in THEIR territory. Second, Jesus offers healing, restoration, and liberation. Jesus sends our demons away.

“And when they came to see Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” Jesus not only restored his physical and mental health, but also restored him to his community. When once he had been expelled, shunned, and cut-off from family and friends, Jesus now sends him back into community. The belonging that the man had lost has been restored. He belongs. He has a home, family, friends, a place to return to. And what does Jesus ask of him?

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” Go, Jesus tells him, return to your people and share the Good News. Speak to them and show them how God cares, heals, and restores.

What are we being invited into by this story? First, we recognize that we all have our own demons, and that’s what it means to be human, AND, that’s what Jesus invites us to bring to him. In fact, that is what Jesus is looking for. He crosses the lake to find us and set us free. Bring your worries, bring what is holding you down, and offer them to Jesus for healing. And then, then, give thanks, it might not be a miraculous, instant release and healing for you, or it might be, but, if even in the smallest ways, Jesus WILL be working to bring restoration. And for that we give thanks and then we go and declare how much God has done for us in our lives. We share it with others and we invite them into the story. We invite them to bring their chains and shackles to Jesus who declared his mission at the start of his ministry in Nazareth:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me

    because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

    to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives

    and release to the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

(Isaiah 61: 1-2a)

I leave you with these two questions today: What can you bring to Jesus for healing, liberation, and restoration?

And, what can you declare to others about how much has God done for you?

Amen.