Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” John 20:27-28

There are some things you can just depend upon, even in this year when we have had so much upheaval and uncertainty. And somewhat ironically one thing we can depend upon is that every year on this Second Sunday of Easter we hear this Gospel reading about Thomas.

It doesn’t vary, even with the three-year lectionary cycle. The passage is there – solid, consistent, dependable; and so we have the opportunity to come to it afresh every year, with eyes and ears and hearts that have been shaped and affected by everything we have gone through in the year that has passed.

So often in the history of this Gospel passage being read or studied or preached Thomas has either been criticized as a doubter or defended as a sensible practical person. But something a little different about Thomas and his exchange with the Risen Jesus has caught my attention.

Thomas says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Unless I see…unless I touch. What if this is not about Thomas needing verifiable proof of Jesus’ resurrection?

Thomas had not been present on Easter evening when Jesus appeared to the gathered disciples. He may well have felt hurt, left out from the joyful experience. Thomas may have been one of those people who takes in the world primarily by seeing, rather than hearing – what we might call a “visual learner.” If that were the case then merely hearing about Jesus’ resurrection might not have registered with Thomas at a deep level, would not have made spiritual and emotional sense to him.

We all learn and take in information and our surroundings and our relationships in a variety of ways, and some of us lean strongly in a particular direction – visual, auditory, hands-on, verbal, or social styles of learning for example. And we all come to faith or are sustained in our faith in a similar variety of ways.

One of the characteristics I know about All Saints’ as a parish, for instance, is that many of us find that music often expresses feelings and thoughts about our faith that we might struggle to put into words. And music also touches our depths and becomes a vehicle to us for God’s grace and love.

In similar ways, contemplating symbols, and structures, and artwork and visual beauty feeds many of our souls and draws us near to God – again, in ways words may not be able to express.

As Episcopalians we value what you might call “whole body worship” in which we stand, sit kneel, embrace or clasp hands, sing, speak, listen, breathe, bow, process, get wet with baptismal water, receive bread and wine – the Body and Blood of our Lord. Which is what has made this time of being Church in pandemic so very difficult.

For all the ways that I am grateful for Zoom and for other technology that has enabled us to gather, to pray together, to hear Scripture, to sing – after a fashion – to create and listen to music, to see pictures, it is not the full expression of our faith. And we miss all those elements that used to sustain and reinforce our personal faith and our life as a Christian community.

In the Gospel, when Jesus appears to the disciples again – a week after the day of the Resurrection, Thomas is there. Jesus bids them all “peace” as he did before, and then he invites Thomas to see and touch; to do those things that Thomas needs to do to take in this amazing and life-giving new reality. Jesus offers him an avenue or a portal to faith that was what Thomas needed – visual and tactile. Thomas’ response was immediate, heartfelt, and life-changing: “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas can be an icon or an example for us. His experience of the Risen Christ came in the context of the gathered community, the group to which Jesus had said in his previous Resurrection appearance, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Thomas did not make his exclamation of faith merely to say, “Well now that I have seen Jesus’ wounds, I feel connected to God and comforted in a personal way.” Thomas’s faith in his Lord was going to send him and the rest of the disciples out on God’s behalf, just as Jesus had been sent.

Indeed, the Book of Acts tells us that in the earliest days of the Church that “the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” They had a radical re-working of their understanding of how life should be lived after the Resurrection; a single family of faith with the Risen Christ as their center.

As we move closer to being able to gather in person again, to being able to experience “whole-body worship”, to practicing once more those aspects of our faith that have so sustained us in the past, it is important to come to them anew, afresh – just have we have been able to do with this morning’s Gospel. It will be essential to re-invest ourselves in the practices, the meaning, and the realities of those things we find so life-giving. And in doing so we may find that there are aspects of our previous practices or attitudes or ways of being Church that need to step back a bit or fade out, and others that need to become much more front-of-mind and focus.

At root we are a community of faith gathered around font and altar – the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist – those portals through which the Risen Life of Christ comes to us and among us and within us, infusing us with God’s life and love. And we are a community of God’s story, of lectern and pulpit, of the proclamation of Scripture and our conversation with it; a conversation between and amongst ourselves within our daily lives.

These are the elements that need to shape us and energize us. This is what needs to feed us, to bind us together, to bring vitality to our relationships with one another. The Church is the visible Body of Christ and we as a community and as individuals are to be examples, expressions, and portals of Christ to those around us.

As we begin to approach the time of re-gathering it will be important to let these fundamentals of Scripture and sacrament re-define us in ways that will be both challenging and life-giving. They should be the starting point, foundation, and guide for our conversations and decisions about the shape, direction, and focus for our parish and our faith – in the same way that Thomas’ acclamation of faith in the Risen Christ did for him and those earliest disciples.

When we mindfully, intentionally, expectantly focus on Christ in our midst – in all the variety of ways he comes to us – and open ourselves to receiving and being changed by him, then we will reflect much more truly and completely God’s love and light and wisdom and healing in a world that very badly needs them.

Let us pray.
Loving God, who have told us how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters in the faith live together in unity. Guide us in the ordering of our common life and our community that we may be more truly your people in your world, to your praise and glory. Amen.
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday of Easter
April 11, 2021

“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Mark 16:7

Happy Easter! Wherever you are, however you are joining in this time of worship, we are very glad that you are here, to share with us this time of joy, of renewal, and praise of God.

Easter, of course, is the absolute center and cornerstone of our Christian faith. Even with all of Jesus’ teaching and healing and miracles and confronting the unjust power structures of his day, without the Resurrection there would be no Christian faith, no Church. There would be just another first-century Middle Eastern philosophy and ethical path. There would just be a collection of sayings from an intriguing and somewhat edgy Jewish rabbi giving us interesting perspectives on God, who then died an untimely and unjust death.
But that’s not the way the story ends.

The story of Christian faith is all about God having come into human life in the person of Jesus, come to share our life so that we may know the height and depth and strength of God’s love for us. The story of Christian faith – the story of God’s relationship with God’s people – is about the way to God being opened up for us, and God’s plan for the world being brought to fruition.

Jesus gave himself for us. He willingly took on the injustice, the humiliation, the beating, the torturous and shameful death of Crucifixion for our sake – a magnet for the worst that the forces of evil, sin, and death could muster.

And they thought that was the end of it. The Romans thought that was the end of it. All Jerusalem, including the disciples thought that was the end of it. The world at large would say that is the end of it. And yet it’s not. There is more to the story.

In the Gospel reading Mark tells us that three of Jesus’ followers – all women – go to the tomb where his body had been placed after it was taken down from the Cross. These three women: Mary Madalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had all been witnesses to the Crucifixion. They had seen the horror and destruction of Friday afternoon, and yet somehow they summoned the courage – or at least the sense of decency and duty – to go to the tomb to complete the burial rites for Jesus, not knowing how they would manage to move the stone that sealed the mouth of the cave.

I’m sure they were shocked to discover that not only was the tomb open already, the stone moved away, but that inside that rocky cave was a figure in a white robe who spoke to them and told them that Jesus was not there. Jesus had been raised, just as he had told them he would. Then the figure – perhaps an angel – told the women to go and tell Jesus’ other followers what they had seen and heard. Even Peter should be told; Peter, who had betrayed Jesus so spectacularly not much more than forty-eight hours before – even he was to share in this good news.

Mary, and Mary Magdalene, and Salome were given news to tell, a message to share, a word to proclaim. The inner circle of the disciples were to return to Galilee up north, to their home base, to the scene of their pre-Jesus lives, and they would see Jesus there. He would be there, waiting for them.

But the women don’t seem to know what to say. They are terrified and panicked because they don’t understand what has happened. It is completely outside the comprehension of any of the disciples, and yet – Jesus has been raised from the dead.
So they say nothing.

And here the words of the story run out – at least in the Gospel of Mark. We never get to hear what happens. Probably the end of the original scroll of Mark was broken or torn or worn away. Later scribes added a few bits to try to put an ending onto the story but they really don’t fit Mark’s style and way thinking.

So we are left with an opportunity and an invitation. We get to write the final chapter of this Gospel. But rather than merely imagining what the women would have said to the rest of the followers, or what Jesus said to the disciples when they finally got back to Galilee and saw them there, we have the opportunity to make this final scene about our own encounter with the Risen Christ. We have the chance to ask what Jesus’ ultimate defeat of the forces of evil, death, and destruction mean in our lives and our world. We can think about who it is we have told, or need to tell, about the love and grace of God in Christ.

When I was a young child I had a favorite story book that was a mixture of words and pictures on each line. The idea of the book was that a child who could not yet read could see the picture pointed out and say the word; the adult and child together were telling the story. And the best part about that book was that wherever there was a picture of a child, I was supposed to say my own name. I was a part of the story; it was as much about me as it was about the characters on the page.

That is the way the Good News of God’s love and mercy and grace work. Each one of us is part of the story. It is not just about a rabbi and his followers who lived two thousand years ago, but we are part of Jesus’ story. And Mark’s Gospel (unlike the other three) makes this very clear; we have to tell the end of the story of Jesus’s Resurrection to New Life in our own words; we get to think about how Resurrection is active in our own lives, through our faith in God’s goodness and grace.

We have a role, a job, a mission; we’ve been given a commission just like the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning: to share with others God’s self-giving love, to let others know how much they are cherished and beloved by God – even in the face of sin and death and destruction. Stop and think about it for a moment, or take the question with you throughout the day, and throughout the week: how many people know of God’s deep, abiding, and victorious love for them because of knowing you? How many people know God’s love for them because of you – what you have done, what you have said, how you have shown up, how you have prayed?

This is your role in the Easter story – God’s big story of creation, sin, death, redemption, and victorious love. As Christians we are not distant spectators of the Easter events, but we are participants – drawn into the very heart of God’s plan of mercy and grace for the whole world.

What a wonderful story to be part of, what a wonderful life of faith to be living – being Jesus’ followers, Christ’s hands and feet in the world, given a role in telling the Good News of what God has done for the world and for you.

Hope, mercy, forgiveness, grace, redemption, goodness, love, and New Life. These are the marks of Resurrection, of Easter faith, of life in Christ. Who else needs to know this Good News, and how will they hear it? It’s your story to tell. Amen.
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day
April 4, 2021

“For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.” ~ Job 14:7-9

This morning I went to the Church to livestream the Holy Saturday service. It is simple, spare – a quiet, waiting time. The altar is stripped; not even the candles from Good Friday’s Veneration of the Cross were there. I was there alone until my husband slipped into a pew a few minutes after I had started. The prayers and readings don’t take long, about fifteen minutes.

The first reading was from the Book of Job (chapter 14, verses 1-14) found in the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament. The phrase “the scent of water” caught my attention because it is the title of a novel that I read many years ago and still enjoy. The book is about a woman who has had bitter disappointments in life and moves to a secluded place to try to heal.

When the prayers were finished, I packed up my laptop and wondered, as I always do, how much longer we will be worshipping like this, under pandemic restrictions. Holy Saturday, with its spareness and emptiness and yet with Easter in view, is a good description of where we are now – in the country, in our diocese and parish, in our own lives.

We are waiting. Waiting for people to get fully vaccinated, waiting for the virus case numbers to go down, even as the new COVID strains become more virulent. Waiting for warmer weather so we can at least gather outdoors. Waiting for the time when we can gather and celebrate the Eucharist, and see one another in the flesh, and sing together.

This waiting is so hard. It feels like it will never be over, and the waiting itself has wounded us in different ways as individuals and as a parish community. I wonder who we will be and what God will make of us in the “whatever comes next” time.

And then I looked over to the south-side windows, where the sun was streaming in on a bright spring morning, and I saw the row of green plants, one in each window, where they have always been, lovingly tended by Altar Guild members throughout the pandemic. The words “yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant” sprang to mind.

The plants know; they know that God’s love and mercy are with us always. They continue to grow true to the way God made them. They have borne witness over the years to the prayers, the songs, the joy, the tears, the new beginnings and the earthly endings, the deep silences and the resounding celebrations that have been held in this place.

They have been waiting and watching for us, knowing that in God’s time renewal will happen, that we will bud and put forth branches. Today they are a sign of God’s hope. ~ Vicki McGrath+

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Holy Saturday
April 3, 2021

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, "Whom are you looking for?" They answered, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus replied, "I am he." John 18: 4-6

We hear on this day the telling of Jesus’ Passion – those things that he suffered and bore, those things that he endured between the Last Supper and his body being placed in a borrowed tomb.

Throughout the ages artists and musicians have sought to portray this story, each in the idiom of their own day. Some of these pictures seem calm, almost serene, while others are full of energy, shadow and light, and details of blood and pain. And yet, more often than not for contemporary Christians, these portrayals seem to be coming to us from a distance, as if seeing them behind museum glass. It’s certainly safer that way; if we hold Jesus’ Passion at arms-length we can be somewhat detached, dis-passionate in our response.
And yet the Gospel tells the story in words that are powerful, if spare. What do we read there?

We read betrayal, bribery, denial; we see injustice, mockery, power, violence, control, indifference; there is fear, anguish, debasement, pain; suffering, humiliation, agony, death, and grief. It is no wonder that we want to put distance between ourselves and Jesus’ story.

Except that this is our story – our human story, and all too often our personal story. In this past year we have been so aware of the way these elements have been present and visible in our society. That’s nothing new, those elements are always there, but they have come into the foreground of our vision in so many ways – here at home, and in the world at large.

What Good Friday calls us to do is not to look away; but neither are we to be swept up in a gratuitous fascination with the evil of which all these human behaviors are an expression.

Instead, we are to remain grounded in Jesus. The Passion opens with Judas delivering the soldiers to Jesus’ place of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. The protocol of the arrest required that the right person was in hand. Jesus asks the soldiers who it is they are looking for. “Jesus of Nazareth”, they say. And he answers them, “I am he.”

I AM. We are to hear in that statement the echoes of Jesus’ earlier statements to the disciples:

• I am the bread of life
• I am the light of the world.
• I am the door.
• I am the good shepherd.
• I am the resurrection and the life.
• I am the way, the truth, and the life
• I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser
• Before Abraham was, I am.

I AM – the name that God revealed to Moses from the burning bush. Right here at the beginning of Jesus’ final conflict with the religious, political, and civil authorities we are reminded that this is God-in-our midst, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

At Christmas we rejoice in the announcement of the Word becoming flesh and living among us, coming into his own. And now on Good Friday we see the full extent of what that means. Jesus the Messiah, the Sovereign Lord, the agent and Author of Creation had come into our midst, to take upon himself our human nature. And in doing so he takes on the very worst of human experience – the crushing weight of sin and state-sanctioned execution.

Why word Jesus do this? Why would God do this? If he was to truly inhabit human nature, then there was no going around, no side-stepping, no being whisked out of harm’s way at the last moment. There was only “through”, only going through the worst of who we human beings can be. If Jesus had not gone through this, we could not have been redeemed, and there would be no hope.

There is a striking series of black and white paintings on Jesus’ Passion made this past year by a Brooklyn-based artist named Doug Blanchard. They seem to be part-Edward Hopper and part- graphic novel. In the series he imagines Jesus as a dark-skinned young man in contemporary New York. The painting I find the most arresting is the one that art historians would call the Pietà, the Pity – Jesus’ dead body being embraced by his mother. In Blanchard’s picture Jesus is on a gurney in the morgue, Mary having thrown herself over him, and several followers collapsed on the floor, weeping.

This is every parent’s nightmare – the death of their child. What the Passion story tells us is that even here, in the nightmare, God is. Even in our worst nightmares, God is with us, Emmanuel.

And in going through the Crucifixion, going through the sin and death, Jesus opens for us a way to God’s New Life and New Creation. The powers of sin, and violence, and death have been exposed for the lies they are. Their power is not ultimate – only God, the one who is I AM, holds that power, and it turns out to be the power of love and healing and forgiveness.

By coming to us in the Incarnation, by inhabiting our human nature and our human dilemma, Christ has changed it and changed us from the inside out. There is hope, and New Life, and resurrection, and joy – for us and for all that God has created.

And for now, we pause here; we look, we do not look away. We see Jesus’ humanity and our own, and we pray for God’s mercy for the whole world.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Good Friday
April 2, 2021

[Jesus said:] “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

This is a strange night, this Maundy Thursday. It always is, as we are in the depths of Holy Week, with the Palm Sunday shouts of adulation having already faded, and Jesus’ arrest, trial and Crucifixion looming large in the shadows. In between those two events, Jesus and the disciples have been in the Temple every day, participating in the daily worship life, as well as giving Jesus an opportunity for focused and intensified teaching.

And now they have gathered for a meal, a time to feed their souls, as well as their bodies. It’s the last meal that Jesus has with his followers, this band of Twelve who have spent three years together – teaching and learning, praying, eating together, preaching, traveling, healing the sick, driving out demons. We who are their descendants know what comes next, even if the disciples couldn’t see it.

This is a strange night for us, as well, as we are in our second year of pandemic restrictions. Ordinarily some of us would have gathered for dinner earlier in the evening – a reminder that the Last Supper was a real meal, and that we present-day disciples have the same need for food and companionship that our first-century forbears did.

And then we would have gathered in Church to wash one another's feet and to celebrate Eucharist together – to be fed by the Body and Blood of Christ. Instead, we are gathered in time and in prayer and in spirit. And we are perhaps more acutely aware than ever of our connection to one another because of our physical absence from each other.

It is a strange night, indeed, and yet maybe we can contemplate Jesus’ words and actions in a slightly different way, step back from them a bit, get a wider perspective.

In John’s Gospel we don’t hear the words that Jesus speaks over the bread and the wine. Instead, we see Jesus taking upon himself the role of a household servant, washing the feet of the disciples. This was a shocking thing – the master, the revered teacher was doing something that would have been considered beneath him. And if we are squeamish about having our feet washed or washing someone else’s feet – we whose feet are nicely protected from the elements by shoes and socks – we need to remember that in the first-century people wore open sandals and the streets were full of all kinds of dirt and refuse. Foot-washing was an unattractive job, to say the least.

So why does Jesus do this? Why does he model this behavior for his followers? What does this reveal to them about the attitudes and actions they need to take on if they are to continue to be his followers?

Jesus wants the disciples to understand that his way is a way of love, and that love is not a feeling, nor an idea, but an action, a way of being. The love of Christ serves others in a humble way; it is self-effacing, unpretentious, giving up any claim of privilege or power. Yet it is paired with dignity and purpose and even joy – a quiet river of love.

But there is also a fluidity here: Jesus has taken off his outer garment and wrapped himself in the servant’s towel, and when the task is finished, he puts his own clothes back on again. He is both the master and servant.

The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He loved them completely, his love fulfilled its purpose, which is to draw all people to God, and to bring about the salvation of the world.

God’s love for us is full, complete, purposeful. We are loved for who we are in all our specificity and individuality, as well as in our overarching humanity. But even more than that, Jesus called, and taught, and trained a group of people, a fellowship. There could be no redemption, no salvation, no “new humanity”, no Church, no Body of Christ without the community of the faithful.

And so Jesus says to his disciples – including us, and all those who have preceded us and all those who will come after us – “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This was the final piece, the last bit of formation. The disciples as faithful Jews knew they were to love God first and foremost, above all else. And they knew that they were to love their neighbor as themselves. It was right there in the Torah, in their Scriptures, and Jesus certainly taught them that as well.

But this love for one another was something deeper, something a bit different. By showing humble, joyful, loving service to one another, the disciples would show the world the nature and truth of God’s love, and the world would recognize that the disciples did indeed belong to and represent God because of the love they showed for one another.

Christian faith and discipleship finds its most complete expression in the community gathered around Jesus. That was true at the Last Supper, it was true in John’s Gospel, it has been true throughout the ages, and it continues to be true for us – even now, when we have had to spend so much time physically apart from one another.

We are not a Christian community because we are already people who love one another; but because we are loved by God and are called into community by Christ, we take on the task and the role and the responsibility of learning to love one another – in speech and action, in prayer, and even in affection.

It is the quality and character of our love for one another as disciples and as members of Christ’s Body that will be a sign of hope and truth to the world around us - a world that doesn’t know whether to cheer Jesus or to crucify him. In our love for God enacted in our community we are, like the bread of the Last Supper, broken open, and our lives are poured out like the wine, and Christ is revealed. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Maundy Thursday
April 1, 2021

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” John 12:20-21

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Those are very simple words, and they were spoken by people who had come to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. They had most likely come from the area northeast of the Sea of Galilee, a mostly non-Jewish area where people spoke Greek, as well as Aramaic. These were people who were Gentiles, but were drawn to the worship of Israel’s God, perhaps even considering the process of conversion to Judaism.

They have come to celebrate the most important festival in the Jewish year – the annual commemoration of God freeing the Hebrew people who were enslaved in Egypt. And just at this time Jesus and his disciples also arrive in Jerusalem – for the same reason of celebrating Passover. Except Jesus had ridden into the city on a donkey, right up to the Temple gate, and crowds surrounded him, accompanied him, acclaimed him with shouts, and waving branches, and making a pathway with their cloaks, just as they would if Jesus were a conquering hero, or beloved royalty.

These Greek-speaking worshippers must have been very curious about who Jesus was. If they had been studying the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures – particularly Zechariah and Isaiah – they might have wondered excitedly if Jesus was, in fact, the Jewish Messiah.
So they go to Philip (himself a Greek-speaking Jewish disciple) and ask for an introduction: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” And as so often happens in the Gospel of John, Jesus doesn’t answer their question on the level they think they have asked it – simple, direct, factual, straight-forward.

Instead, Jesus answers the Greeks’ question on the most profound and spiritually truthful level possible. He tells them that now the time is right for the final act of God’s drama to unfold. He reminds them that grain can’t become a new plant and produce much more grain unless that seed grain falls into the earth and dies by being planted; and tells them that their lives in God are like that grain of wheat. They must be willing to let go of, to lose, whatever power and control they think they have over their lives, if God is going to bless them with abundant life and love.

Beyond that, Jesus tells the Greeks that he himself will die, and that in his death God will be honored and glorified. It is not to be a death in valiant combat, not one of which heroic tales would later be told; but it would be a death that would draw all people to himself. And we should hear in the back of our minds – just as those travelers probably heard – the echoes of Isaiah’s vision about God’s purpose: that one day all the world, Jew and Gentile alike, would come together in a common humanity, untied by their worship of God, at one with each other and all creation.

The Greeks asked to see Jesus, and he told them truly and deeply who he was – the One who would be lifted up on a Cross, the One who would draw all people to himself, the One who can show the world what God is like when they draw close, because if we see Jesus, we see God.

The Greeks asked a simple question; Jesus gave them a profound answer.

Phillips Brooks was the most renowned preacher in America at the end of the 19th century. We know him because he wrote the words to the Christmas hymn: “O little town of Bethlehem.” But as the rector of Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston, he had a small brass plaque installed on the inside of the pulpit: Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  This was to be a perpetual reminder to Brooks, and anyone else who stepped into that pulpit to preach, that the congregation gathered before him was there to see Jesus.

It was – and is – the preacher’s job to make Jesus visible in ways that are meaningful and connected to the lives of those who listen. But it is also the preacher’s job to open a window onto the reality of God that may not be apparent in daily life. The Greeks came to Philip asking to see Jesus, and Jesus gave them much more than they thought they were asking for.

We all are like those Greeks who came to Jerusalem for the Passover and ended up being pilgrims who were seeking Jesus. They were seeking the intimate and powerful experience of God that Jesus embodied, for which Jesus was a portal.

And isn’t that what we seek – an intimate and powerful experience of God? Don’t we want to know God’s comfort, and forgiveness, and healing, and abundant life? Don’t we want to know that we belong to and are beloved by the One who created the very fabric of the universe? Don’t we want to know how to live with one another and all creation in peace? These questions and desires are pressing and profound.

We know in human nature there is something that also pulls against those desires, those good intentions; and sometimes pulls against them hard. It’s the force of sin. Sin is not just a list of our individual transgressions and failures, not just the things that would put us in the time-out chair or the penalty box. But sin is a force that separates us from our best intentions, from God’s purposes, and from being in love and charity with our neighbors. Sin keeps us from being able to fully know ourselves as loved and valued by God.

And tragically, that sin often spills over outside ourselves – sometimes in small ways, sometimes in large and public ways as has become so obvious in the growing threats and violence against Asian-Americans. What we saw in Atlanta this past week was not an isolated incident, but another link in a chain that has escalated over the past year, and for many, many years prior to that here in the United States. Some hurting and angry people have dealt with their feelings about the pandemic by lashing out at anyone who is of Asian descent – as if the COVID-19 virus were their fault.

We want to see Jesus; but how does Jesus see us? What does Jesus see when he looks at us? He sees a person made in the image of God. He sees a person for whom he was willing to go through betrayal, and torture, and death. He sees a person for whom he conquered sin, and to whom he offers a new life, and a new way to live. Jesus also sees our struggles to accept that love, our struggles to let go of our old, distorted views of ourselves that nevertheless give us a false sense of control and power.

When you look at Jesus, what do you most want to see and hear and know? What is it that you yearn and ache for that only God can provide?

And when Jesus looks at you, looks into your heart, what does he see? And what words of profound love does he speak to you?

Let us pray.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. Amen. (Psalm 51)

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 21, 2021

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:10

This has been such a hard year for all of us – each in our own particular ways, certainly in our national life and in the world as a whole, and as All Saints’ Church. Last year on this second Sunday of March, the Sunday on which the time changed and we all “sprang forward”, was the last day we were able to worship together in the building. I have strong and poignant memories of that day, as I’m sure many of you do.

If anyone had said to me then that we would have spent the last year grappling with all of the issues and realities we have faced, and learning to do old familiar things in news ways, even has we had to put so many other things on hold, I think it would have been like the conversation between Jesus and Rabbi Nicodemus that comes just before this morning’s Gospel reading. I just could not have taken it in.

Nicodemus, you may remember, has heard Jesus say some interesting, intriguing, and disturbing things, and he comes to Jesus privately, by night, under cover of darkness so that he will not be seen. In that conversation Jesus answers Nicodemus’s question, but the visitor does not understand the answers; they just lead to more questions. They are speaking on two different planes, and Nicodemus does not yet have the spiritual insight to understand what Jesus is saying.

There’s another reason that it is night when Nicodemus visits. Light and darkness are very important themes in John’s Gospel. We remember back to Christmas when we read that Jesus is the Light that has come into the world, and the world has comprehended it not.

The darkness here is a spiritual darkness, a shadow that hangs over those who have yet to step fully into the light and life of God’s love. And the light makes clear and plain not only the goodness and love of God, but also our own shortcomings and failings. And don’t we know those from this pandemic year! There is not one of us who has been the best version of ourselves – how could we have been? We have known fear, doubt, confusion, anger, a desire to lash out, a wish to run away, impatience, hopelessness, depression, sorrow, grief, and so much more. And these feelings then just fold in on themselves and sometimes spin out of control.

And into the midst of all of this we hear Jesus say to Nicodemus and to us: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Or to put it another way: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”

Eternal life – that experience of life with God we call heaven beginning in the here and now: peace, wholeness, goodness, love, mercy, truth, God-with-us.

In this past year we have struggled, and experienced, and learned anew – or perhaps for the first time – that Church is not the building, that God is with us wherever and however we gather as a community of faith. We have been reminded that Church is God’s People – all of us – through whom God carries out the fundamental mission to bless, heal, and care for the world, even as we bless, heal, and care for one another and receive those gifts from God.

You will read in our “Year-in-Review” report of many of the ministries that flowed in and through All Saints’ Church in 2020. I expect some of you will be surprised at how much there has been. It hasn’t been perfect, it may not have been what other churches or parishes have done, but it is what God has given us the strength, the wisdom, the light, and the guidance to do, and I am very grateful.

It occurred to me the other day that in many ways All Saints’ has been doing the work of an “institutional system capital campaign”. That’s kind of a funny image. Normally in a capital campaign a church raises money to repair, rebuild, or expand the physical structures that house worship and ministry, and perhaps set up a special endowed funds for outreach or other particular aspects of mission. After the fund-raising comes the work of rebuilding, re-tooling, and renewing.  So how has this very difficult year been like a capital campaign?

We have spent the year concentrating on our core ministries of worship, prayer, and outreach. And we have spent time putting systems in place to enable these core ministries, especially in our worship, and in our office procedures and financial systems – and in a year with so much financial doubt and turmoil in society at large, that is an important achievement.

Some of the aspects we have focused on have been building and embedding have been:

• Institutional memory and responsibility
• Institutional literacy
• Institutional on-going renewal

And at the same time we have been:

• Engaging in mission and ministry
• Discerning the direction of the Holy Spirit
• Developing Christian and Anglican literacy and capacity for faithful discipleship.

While investing in “the institution” may not seem exciting or even much about mission, the structures of our parish life need to be in place so that our community of faith functions in a healthy way and supports the ministry with which Jesus has entrusted us.

And as we enter what we hope is the final phase of the pandemic, please be patient and full of care for one another for just a little longer. In many ways we are in the “ice breaking-up” season of this pandemic, when we know spring is coming and the ice in the river starts to thaw and move, but the big chunks flow together and are sharp and can crash into boats, and docks, and people and do a lot of damage and cause hurt.

The time between now and whenever we can move fully into what comes next will be awkward and choppy and confusing, but we know that God is in it with us and for us. Let us not lose heart now.

Let us keep front and center before us Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

It is by God’s grace, and grace alone, that we are here, together, now; and it is only by God’s  grace, mercy, and love that we will move into the light and love that are up ahead of us.

Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we have come this far by grace and faith in your loving care for us. Enlighten the eyes of our hearts with your grace that we may live in your Light and be bearers of Light and Love in your world. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 14, 2021

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Mark 1:14-15

What good news have you heard or shared recently? It may just be a small piece of news, and in the face of larger or pressing media coverage, it may not seem like much.

Some of us have been able to get appointments and receive COVID vaccines, and there are more doses on the way, even though it may not be as fast as we want. In fact, more than one in every ten Americans have received a first dose. That’s good news.
In the natural world, snowy owls have been spotted by birdwatchers in Central Park for the first time in 130 years. In the midst of the weather crisis in Texas and its crippling human effects, volunteers still made the effort to rescue five thousand sea turtles from freezing to death in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s good news.

In June the city of Denver launched a pilot project to respond to non-criminal calls with social workers and paramedics, working in tandem with uniformed police officers. Over a period of six months the program had nearly 750 calls. A third of them dealt with people who were homeless or had substance abuse issues, along with many mental health concerns. Not one of them resulted in an arrest or jail time. That’s good news.

It’s the First Sunday in Lent, and Jesus is preaching good news.

We probably think of Lent as a time of deprivation and restriction and penitence. It can be all those things; those themes are certainly part of this season of preparation. But the penitential aspects of Lent are in service of something bigger, something better than judgement alone.

In fact the very name for the season comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for “spring”: “lencten” the lengthening of the days. Spring is coming, and that is certainly good news for us.

So the penitential aspects of Lent are in service of something bigger, something better than judgement alone They are in service of God’s good news, which we hear being announced in the launch of Jesus’ public ministry.

The good news that Jesus is preaching is that the Kingdom of God has come near. That’s a first-century Jewish short-hand way of saying that God’s long-promised victory over evil, God’s rescue of his people, and his sovereignty over all human power structures was finally now beginning. And Jesus was saying that God’s program of salvation was coming in and through him.

Jesus’ message and ministry were not something brand-new, completely out of the blue. Instead, they were connected back to what God had always intended for creation and people, a message that was held in trust and tended by the Israelites, but now was coming to fruition in a way that no one had ever really imagined possible. That God would come among us in both humility and authority, in the limitations of a human person but with access to the power of divine creativity was not what anyone expected, and yet it was exactly what we needed.

Those who heard Jesus’ message and saw his ability to heal; to confront and drive out demonic forces; to challenge the religious authorities who were more ready to hang onto their positions and interpretations of religious practice than they were to hear God speaking in their midst; those who took in Jesus’ meaning bore witness to God’s good news in their midst. Jesus’ words and actions were the lead-up to the new life and New Creation that was inaugurated on Easter Day.

The story from Genesis about Noah after the flood (our first reading) is also a story about a renewed creation after destruction and devastation. God was creating order out of chaos, just as he did at the very beginning, and the promise of God’s care and constancy for humanity and the created world was assigned a visual symbol – the rainbow in the clouds. That’s good news.

We have been living through a very long year of disruption and chaos and - at least for some in our communities and country - devastation. There’s a meme that’s been going around Facebook. Like any slogan, there is some truth to it, even if it’s incomplete. It says: “We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat”, meaning that some of our boats have been more able to withstand the storm than others.

Those whose “boats” were small, or leaky, or not well-equipped to begin with have been often been far more adversely affected. If you started this pandemic with certain health conditions, or financial instability, or you or a family member worked in a job or industry that did not allow you to work remotely, or if you were a person of color, you have had a much greater possibility of having your “boat” get swamped with the water of misfortune and calamity.

We have seen all of this if our eyes and ears and hearts have been open. But where is there any good news in these inequities? That’s where Lent comes in.

In Lent we ask God to show us where our sins and failures and shortcomings are. We do this so we can repent of these sins, and ask God to forgive us, and heal us, and keep us from repeating them. And if they are habitual sins, then we know all too well that our repentance and God’s forgiveness is not a “one and done.” We have to be persistent and vigilant.

And as Christians we are not only concerned with our own personal salvation, but with the condition of the world – with our brother and sister human beings and with the created order, the natural world.

So Lent is also a time for us to tell the truth about our communities and society, to be honest about who is hurting, how they are hurting and in what way, and to understand the causes of the pain and damage. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it several years ago: “There comes a point where we need to stop pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

You may remember that Archbishop Tutu was one of the architects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa as that country’s system of racial apartheid was coming to an end. He knew that if the people who had been harmed and those having done the harm were not able to come together and speak honestly about what had been done and what had been suffered and what their fear was, then no peace and no justice or reconciliation would be possible in South Africa.

“There comes a point where we need to stop pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
 
The story about the pilot project in Denver is an example of this. The city decided to “go upstream” and see why there was a high arrest rate for people with mental illness; and the arrests weren’t solving their problems. Having a different kind of emergency response team handled the crisis and got people more of the real help they needed.

We each can “go upstream” and try to understand where the failures and shortcomings in our society’s problems are – especially the ones that seem so entrenched and baked-in. We might have to go pretty far upstream. We might have to follow our curiosity, keep asking why, not get dissuaded because our questions disturb others who don’t want to be bothered.

Of course, we can’t work on everything, but we can at least choose one thing, something we feel strongly about. While we do the work of going upstream, of asking why, of learning root causes of problems and inequities, of talking with those who are most affected by them, we do so as Christians, as bearers of Jesus’ good news.

We can bring the light and love of Christ to shine on thorny issues, we can listen to those who have been most affected and harmed, we can ask for the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us move further towards solutions that will be good news for all God’s people.

The good news of the Gospel, the good news that Jesus preached and embodied is for God’s world and all the people God made with loving care and intention. God’s good news is that the wholeness and salvation of New Creation began on Easter day and continues into eternity.

Our part in it is to share the work God’s love, forgiveness, and re-creation; and then share that good news story.
Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, give us eyes to see, ears to hears, minds to think, hands to work, and hearts to love generously; and in your wisdom hold us and heal us and all your people. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday in Lent
February 21, 2021
 
 

Immediately [Jesus] called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. Mark 1:20

When our son was two years old, he took delight in running everywhere. He didn’t want to hold hands; he didn’t want to walk with us. If he could see a straight shot of sidewalk ahead of him, he would make a break for it and run. The problem was that he would soon come to the corner; and, of course, our immediate fear was that he would run into the street. At that point all we could say was, “Stop! Freeze!”, followed by, “Wait right there!” Short, direct commands designed to keep a two-year old safe.

We hear Jesus in the Gospel passage speaking in the same way, offering short, sharp directives, full of energy: Repent – Believe – Follow. Immediately Simon and Andrew respond. A little further on Jesus sees James and John and calls them, as well – immediately, upon seeing them. There is no room here for Q&A, for discussion, for pondering.

That is Mark’s style. Of all the Gospel writers he uses short sentences that are action-packed; he doesn’t waste words painting a picture or setting a scene. It’s almost as if we can see him watching the sand in the hourglass running out. He’s got something important to say and maybe not enough time to say it in: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

We’ll be spending a lot of time in Mark’s Gospel this year; his is the primary Gospel source for Year B in the Sunday lectionary. Our ears will become accustomed to Mark’ short, sharp, action-packed version of Jesus’ story.

But I wonder if there is more to Mark’s direct and hurried Gospel than just his own particular style. What if this were Jesus’ own sense of urgency for his message and his mission? Both Jesus and John the Baptist called their fellow Jews to repentance; but John stationed himself in the wilderness east of Jerusalem along the Jordan River. People looking for refreshment and a new beginning needed to go to John, however it was they heard about his message and his ministry of baptism to get ready for the Messiah. He was stationary.

Jesus, on the other hand, was mobile, itinerant. He went from place to place, from town to town. Sometimes people approached him, but just as often Jesus was taking the initiative and approaching others. He showed up in places where people gathered – their workplaces, houses of worship, party venues, the public square, the communal water source, dinner parties hosted by people of prominence and authority.

In this opening scene of his public ministry Jesus returns to his home province of Galilee from the Jordan wilderness after forty days of prayer and fasting and being alone with God following his baptism. He was returning home, you might say, a changed man – or certainly a man with a clear mission and purpose.

His mission was to announce that God’s kingdom, God’s dominion, God’s power to reign in the affairs of God’s people and the world as a whole had arrived. And he was calling and inviting anyone who wanted to get on board with that to do so now.

So often much is made of the response of Simon and Andrew, James and John – the first four disciples – who drop their fishing nets, walk off the job, and follow Jesus. But we don’t think much about how that call was issued in the first place. At least here in Mark Jesus sees Simon and Andrew and tells them to follow him. A short while later he sees James and John and calls them immediately.

There is no vetting process here, no resume review, no application to fill out, no mulling over about whether this person standing in front of Jesus would make a good disciple or not. No doubt Jesus’ perception, wisdom, and insight were sharpened and heightened after having just spent forty days on retreat. So he may have seen something in each of the four that he knew would be of value to the work in front of them.

But there’s another layer to this story, another echo of a rhyme with Biblical history. When God called Abram and Sarai to pull up stakes in Haran, the land of their ancestors, and go to the new place that God would show them, they were going off into the complete unknown. There was no proposal made, no discussion, no assured outcome, or even a prescribed destination that could be plugged into Google maps. All they had was a promise from God that they would be blessed and that they in turn would be a blessing to all the families of the earth – an enormous promise with absolutely no specifics to go on. It was a future that was completely unknown, except that God would be in it.

Jesus’ call to the first disciples was also to a future completely unknown, except that God would be in it. Did these four hear Jesus’ call and remember Abraham’s story and sense the connection, the faith, and the blessing? Maybe.

And maybe Jesus’ very short, direct, imperative, words touched a chord with their urgency. Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John had probably all heard about the message and work of John the Baptist, that he had been calling people to prepare themselves for the coming of the Messiah. And they probably would have heard, as well, that John had been put in prison by Herod the puppet-king of the Roman government. So, when Jesus suddenly turned up announcing that God’s reign was at hand – rather than Caesar’s – the fishermen might well have thought this was a mission worth getting on-board with.

We live at a different point in history. Rather than being at the start of Jesus’ mission, we are in the midst of it. What may have seemed like a clear binary choice at the beginning - follow Jesus and work to make God’s kingdom a reality in the lives of God’s People or not  – now often seems much more fuzzy or nuanced or confusing.

Many, if not most of us, have grown up with some form of Christian belief and belonging. The Church has been doing God’s work more or less since the beginning. We have had more than two-thousand years of praying the Lord’s Prayer and asking for God’s kingdom and will to come and be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

We know that we live in a world that is multi-cultural and multi-religious and we know all too painfully what kind of harm can be done by intolerance and insistence on conformity towards people of other faith traditions. And as Americans we have that clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution that we often call “separation of Church and State”; there is much more that could be said about that, but we don’t have time to go into it here. But at any rate a theocracy in America is neither possible nor desirable.

So we are in the middle of Jesus’ mission where our choice, our decisions, our context, and our way forward is not always clear. And Jesus still is calling us forward, just as much as Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John; just as much as God called Abraham and Sarah. The call is to us as individuals, as a parish and diocese, as the Episcopal Church, as the entire Body of Christ throughout the world, the Church Universal.

We are called to “Repent – Believe – Follow” and to invite others to do the same. Maybe fewer words are better. Maybe we are living in a time when the clarity and brevity of Mark’s Gospel is what we need. Maybe that will cut through some of the noise and fog that seems to plague our world.

Repent – Believe – Follow. These words are the hallmark of renewal; they can be a touchstone in our Christian discipleship. They put us right in the center of Jesus’ mission in, and for, and through us. They remind us that we are called, like Abraham, like the first disciples, to a future completely unknown, except that God is in it.

Repent – Believe – Follow.

Let us pray.
Lord Christ, give us your gift of grace to hear, heed, and follow your call to be and serve and do that which you would have us do for your glory and for the good of your Church and for the blessing of your world. Amen.
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 24, 2021