Category Archives: Easter

Comfort in the Familiar…

COVID-19, Easter, John

Year A, Easter 6, John 14:15-21
My first Zoom service at Trinity Church, Matawan with Christ Church, South Amboy

We’re just getting to know each other, so I’m going to start with a story. In the first week of my first semester at college, I joined the Episcopal Campus Ministry group at the University of Delaware. In that time of my life, everything was new and scary. Everything was changing. On one of my first nights with the campus ministry group, my new friend Amelia, a sophomore, shared something she’d learned. She said to find something you do or see every day: a tree out your window, your coffee pot, maybe even your toothbrush. Take one everyday object and use it as a reminder. Make it so that every time you see this particular thing, you remember that the God who made you loves you madly, and that God’s love is unbreakable. Since it was fall, I chose leaves falling off trees, and fifteen years later, the lesson has stayed with me. Today’s gospel passage shows Jesus’ offering the disciples a similar teaching. In this passage, Jesus seeks to comfort the disciples by reminding them off all the things they can do to draw closer to God and that God is always with them – no matter what.

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus is trying to comfort some scared, confused disciples. This passage comes from a part of John’s gospel called the Farewell Discourse, John 13-17. In these chapters, Jesus talks to the disciples about his upcoming departure, how he will be betrayed, and how Peter will deny him. I can only imagine how confused and scared the disciples were to hear all of this. Jesus is telling them that everything they know is about to change in some sad and scary ways. Jesus’ words to the disciples are words of comfort that are grounding the disciples – and grounding us – in what we already know. Isn’t it funny the simple things we forget when we’re stressed out? Jesus comforts the disciples by reminding them that they have everything they need to draw closer to God, even when he can’t be there with them.

Today’s gospel passage begins and ends with reminders to follow Jesus’ commandments – Jesus teachings. What do all of Jesus’ teachings have in common? They’re all about relationships: Love God. Love your neighbor. Love God by loving your neighbor. Jesus demonstrates this love with humble service and unceasing compassion. Jesus’ actions are as full of love as his words are. Loving people this way is the path to God, and no matter how much the world changes, this path stays the same. And the more deeply and fully that we love, the more we see God around us.

Both in the opening and closing lines of this passage, there is a promise that God’s presence will always be with us, when we live our lives according to this commandment of love. In the closing verses, Jesus tells us that he himself will be revealed to us; an example of this would be the way that I saw Christ made manifest in Amelia’s loving words of wisdom. Now, in the opening verses, Jesus promises the disciples an advocate who will always be with them; this is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s love always accompanying the disciples – and always accompanying us, wherever we go. There’s no place too far, too strange, too scary, too dark, or too socially distanced for the Holy Spirit. She is relentless in her love.

We’re in chapter of history where our world has changed in some big ways that we’ve never seen before. In the midst of all of these changes, we’re all here together for our first Sunday, embarking on a new chapter. I know there will be surprises ahead for us, but I know we’ll face them together, growing in love with God and each other. The path to grow with God is the same love-filled path it’s always been, and we’re navigating it together now. There is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place – the same Spirit with us in all of the places we’re zooming from today.

An Invitation to Grow

Acts, Baptismal Covenant, Easter, Year B, , , , ,

Year B Easter 6
Acts 10:44-8

Sunday Sermon – May 6, 2018 from Christ Church Christiana Hundred on Vimeo.

When was the last time someone made a comment on your listening skills? Was it on a report card? Was during an argument with someone dear? To hear how God is calling us to grow, we must be good listeners: ready to hear the expected and the unexpected, the familiar and the radically new, the comfortable and the uncomfortable. The diversity in God’s Creation isn’t there to fuel one versus another; our differences are invitations to each other to grow closer to God by seeing the diversity of God.

We’re in our fifth week of our series Witness, as we work our way through the Acts of the Apostles, the band formerly known as the disciples. We’ve been following the apostles on their journey in the years following the resurrection as they spread the Good News and sow the seeds to start the Church. We are called just as they were called to witness – to proclaim our faith. When we follow their example, we know that this is not just about our words; it’s about action. In this season of Easter, we’ve heard about answering God’s call – even when it brings us back to the place of conflict, resisting temptation – especially the temptations to fear and worry, and moving forward in our call as adventurers – even when we like staying settled in one place. Our testimony of our faith to others is not just what we say to them; it’s how we live.

Our life in the Episcopal Church is shaped by two primary sacraments: Holy Eucharist, the bread we break and the cup we share around God’ table, and Holy Baptism, in which we become members of Christ’s Body, the Church and inheritors of the kingdom of God. The promises we make at our baptism govern our life together. One of these promises is “to seek and serve Christ in all people.”[1] The Main Event at the heart of today’s passage from Acts is a baptism – on an occasion where Peter is able to serve Christ in an unexpected way.

One of the great, unexpected joys of my ministry, was my year as an Episcopal missionary after college. When I was at training for my journey, one of the priests I was working with tried to teach my classmates and I about comfort; It’s a lesson that’s useful every day of our lives, and I’m really glad I listened to it. He drew an oval on the board and said, “This is your comfort zone: everything you know, everywhere you feel safe.” Then, he drew an “X” 5 inches from the oval and said; “This is one of the many experiences you’ll have when you move outside the country. Your comfort zone is going to have to grow to encompass this new item, and there will be nothing comfortable or expected about that, but you know what?” He drew a new oval on the board; once that encompassed the previous oval and the X he’d drawn. “Once your comfort zone expands, your perspective will always be bigger and what you’re capable of will be permanently altered.” It’s astounding.

At the beginning of today’s passage from Acts, Peter is preaching, something well within his comfort zone. While he knows he’s connecting with people and he can see the Holy Spirit moving through them, the people he’s connecting with are the people he’s used to connecting with, the people he expects to reach: the Jews. Peter’s seeking and serving the Christ is people who are familiar to him, whose way of life he already knows that he understands.  Suddenly, amid all this familiarity, something happens that astounds Peter: he finds his preaching is reaching people he did not expect to reach – people outside his comfort zone. Suddenly, he’s seeing that the Gentiles, too, are filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter’s suddenly found an opportunity to serve Christ in people he hadn’t even been seeking it in.

Peter had this oval that encompassed where he was comfortable seeing God, and in that moment from today’s passage from Act – that moment when we hear that he is astounded – Peter’s oval has an unexpected growth spurt, and his faith grows to encompass an unexpected way of seeing the Holy Spirit work through people. His perspective was permanently altered; his faith is permanently bigger. Because he opened himself up to listen for God in an unexpected place, in unfamiliar faces.

I’ve come to believe in my heart of hearts that the reason we’re all made so differently is because learning to understand each other helps us grow. To overcome the barriers of speaking different languages or coming from vastly distinct cultural backgrounds, we must slow down, really listen to each other, and make the effort to understand how someone who sees the world very differently than we do. This is why the experience of traveling is so important and enriching! Every new person, place, way of life, we take time to understand along our early pilgrimage brings us closer to God by helping us see Christ in our fellow humans, especially the ones most different from us. We get to know God better by exploring a new corner of God’s Creation. Whether we’re going just around a river bend like Lewis and Clark or growing deeper in relationship with another human, the richness of God’s Creation is astounding!

What Peter thought was a world of one versus another – Jew versus Gentile – was really a reminder that we’re all in this together. Encountering Christ in another person looks like a moment of tender vulnerability, a deep belly laugh, something powerful and new yet familiar, common ground: this is holy, indeed. This is living into our promise to seek and serve Christ in all people. How could Peter withhold the waters of baptism from a brother or sister after seeing Christ in them? How could we withhold that piece of the divine in each of our hearts from a neighbor, when we made a promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, no matter how short, tall, culturally foreign, politically opposing, or geographically distant?

Seeking and serving Christ is an opportunity to grow and be astounded as Peter was astounded. Don’t you just love that for all the wild and crazy places Peter’s followed God’s call we still get to Peter surprised by the Holy Spirit? It happens to all of us; it’s how comfort zones – and our faith – grow.

The Main Event in today’s sermon about Witness is our call to be good listeners, who are unafraid to be a little uncomfortable because we know that every new experience is an invitation to grow our faith comfort zone, to know God’s diversity from a grander perspective, and to be astounded at this richness of God’s Creation into which God has called us all into being and continues to call us to grow. So, slow down… and listen up!

[1] BCP 305

Lead us not into temptation… especially fear…

Acts, Easter, It, Movie references, Year B

Year B Easter 4
Acts 4:4-12
(John 10:11-18)

What is your most irresistible temptation? That thing you want to indulge in so much that you can almost convince yourself there’s no harm in it. Is it watching that speed needle on your car hit a certain number? Is it that extra pair of shoes that match your new outfit perfectly but that you absolutely cannot afford? Is it a phrase that comes out of your mouth that you know is over the line – but will certainly ruffle someone’s feathers or the will turn the head of someone whose attention it’s not appropriate for us to vy for We can pick on Eve all we want, but we all know what it’s like to have our mouths water for a certain piece of forbidden fruit, to have days where we give into that temptation and take that luscious bite, and then feel our hearts race with fear when we suddenly realize we have to face the consequences of what we’ve just done. Temptation and fear have an interesting relationship, don’t they?

When it comes to fear, I’ve never been any kind of adrenaline junkie, but I do have quite an affinity for scary movies. When I was a little girl, one of the things my father wanted to teach me about the world was what makes a good horror movie. We watched Alien, Halloween, Fright Night, An American Werewolf in London. When I say little girl, we’re talking single digit age. By the time I was nine, I was such a big fan of A Nightmare on Elm Street that I was Freddie Krueger for Halloween. But my all-time favorite has always been Stephen King’s It. I know not everyone is a movie buff and the horror genre in particular is one many have strong feeling for or against, but I’m going to tell you why this story encapsulates both the power of love and the true nature of evil. The story centers around 7 kids – seven best friends, who are also self-proclaimed losers. The story’s monster, Pennywise the clown, wakes up every thirty years and terrorizes a small town by feeding on its children, but in order to feed, It has to scare. Pennywise takes the form of whatever each intended victim fears most: werewolves, fire, bullies, disease, blood, or even parents. It can even work through – and find allies in – adults who live in fear.  It embodies fear. Only when the children start to share their experiences with each other do they start to be able to fight It by working together. By being less afraid together. Sounds a whole lot like Christian community, don’t you think? As for Pennywise, one of the most powerful moments of the 2017 movie is a shot of Pennywise drooling over, as he puts it, “tasty, tasty, beautiful, fear” in the face of one of his intended victims. The kind of evil Pennywise is gains power Its power from fear, and the children’s fear weakens, when they are together.

The situation Peter and John find themselves in in today’s passage from Acts is scary, too. I imagine the Annas, Caiaphas, and the other high priests assembled with the rulers, scribes, and elders; they must’ve known having so many present made their proceedings extra-intimidating for prisoners, and even more, for Peter and John. This was the kind of gathering – in this same city – that had condemned their friend and savior Jesus to death on the cross. I imagine that they were tempted to be silent and believe that their silence was harmless. I imagine they were tempted to evade punishment by ling, so they could get back to spreading the gospel throughout the land, although that would be rather counter-productive to a savior who’s the Way, the Truth, and the Life wouldn’t it? Peter’s already learned that lesson in Gethsemane, anyway. Instead, Peter does the most radical thing of all: he speaks the truth in love – that he is here in the name of Jesus, the stone that they – rulers, scribes, elders, and high priests – rejected yet that has become the chief cornerstone and surest foundation

Last week, we heard about Peter and John healing a lame man. After that encounter and immediately before their arrest, do you know what they were doing? They were “teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is resurrection of the dead.”[1] Peter’s faith is so certain that even when he’s arrested for proclaiming the gospel, he continues to proclaim it. This is the Peter who asked for Jesus love. This is the Peter who raced to be the first to Jesus, when he was walking on water. This is the Peter who is showing us what it means to have Jesus as your cornerstone by modeling for us that even when you have every reason to be afraid, you should proclaim Jesus and the power of resurrection. What we don’t see in today’s passage is that the rulers, elders, scribes, and high priests are unable to convict Peter and John since the people of Jerusalem have already seen the healing power of Christ that they’re proclaiming!

In today’s lesson from Acts, the forbidden fruit that Peter is tempted by is fear – tasty, tasty, beautiful fear that would make him deny Jesus either by his words or his silence. Now, some of you may remember Peter’s key moment in the Story of the Passion we heard on Palm Sunday and how in one night, on the eve of the crucifixion, Peter denied Jesus three times. What’s changed?

In today’s gospel from John we hear Jesus foretell his death and resurrection, as “the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep…[he] lay[s] down [his] life in order to take it up again”[2] The Peter who chooses to proclaim in love rather than to deny in fear is a Peter who has journeyed through Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension and is therefore grounded more deeply than ever before in his faith. Peter and John saw Jesus hand over his life and defeat death. They saw Jesus risk it all, so Peter, with John at his side, and Peter having Christ as his sure foundation, as his head and his cornerstone, he had the courage to risk it all, too. Christ’s resurrection defeated death and transformed Peter and it can transform each of us, should we be bold enough to ground ourselves in it.

The reason It is one of my favorite books and movies – horror or otherwise – is because the friendship formed by these seven children – the sure foundation of the love they share – strengthens them to be able to conquer the evil monster who preys on their tasty, tasty, beautiful, fears. When the children set out together to defeat the monster, It is weakened when It realizes that together they are far less afraid.

Temptation in the shape of a gas pedal, an irresponsible purchase, or a dishonorable word can be pretty easy to recognize, no matter how succulent each appears to be. Simple shapes like these quick to come to mind, when we pray “Lead us not into temptation.” But fear – fear of truth or of silence, fear of action of inaction – fear can sneak up on us. We can find ourselves tasting fear before we even realize we’ve bitten forbidden fruit, a taste designed to lure us away from God’s love. To choose Christ as our sure foundation means to choose love instead, to choose hope whether or not we can see it, to remember that whatever death is in front of us can be transformed by resurrection, should we be bold and keep the resurrection love of Christ as our cornerstone, Should we keep a sure foundation in love that conquers all.

Lead us not into temptation nor fear, O Lord. Deliver us from these evil.

[1] Act 4:2 NRSV

[2] John 10:11,17 NRSV