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

[Jesus] saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:10b-11

What would you do if you knew you were beloved, cherished beyond measure? I would hope that we all have had that experience – if not now, then at some point in the past. Of course, because we are human beings our expressions and experiences of love frequently get watered down or tangled up. This doesn’t happen because of bad intentions usually, but because we get tired, worn out, confused, overwhelmed with our own neediness; and so we either can’t make the effort to give love, or we have a hard time receiving it.

So, I’ll ask it again: what would you do is you knew you were beloved – full stop? What difference would that make to you, to the way you live with yourself, to the way you “live and move and have your being in the world”?

We know that babies don’t make good progress in their developmental milestones of crawling, walking, exploring, relating to others if they don’t have a sense of security in their parents’ love and care. That love gives them confidence and support to try something new – even if it seems daunting and scary. The love of parents, family, and caretakers surround and support the child. Not only are they encouraged and cheered in their progress, but they are held and given time to re-gather their feelings and their psyche until they are ready to be brave and try the next new or difficult thing. Without this kind of unconditional love, a child’s development is harder and slower.

What would you do if you knew you were beloved by God?

Like so much of Mark’s Gospel, this morning’s passage telling us of Jesus’ baptism is direct and to the point. John, the one often referred to as “The Fore-runner”, the Baptizer, is out east of Jerusalem in the Judean wilderness, preaching and calling people to repentance, to be baptized in the Jordan River as a sign of their preparation to welcome God’s next great act – the appearance of one more worthy than John was. And people came. They had a sense that they needed a new beginning; they symbolically needed to put their past separation from God behind them; they had to put away their old expectations so they could get ready to accept the new.

In going out into the wilderness to be baptized by John, the people were re-enacting (at least on some level), the story of the Exodus when God led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt, through the waters of the Red Sea, and into the wilderness where they would come to know God’s love, and character, and purpose. The wilderness – no matter where it was – has ever since been a symbol for that Exodus experience; a place to meet God in profound and life-changing ways.

Jesus came too, to be baptized in the Jordan. And as he was coming up out of that River Jordan water, he saw the “the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.” And he heard God’s voice saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.”

As we picture this scene in our minds we need to be clear that the heavens opening, and the dove descending, and the voice sounding was not from far-off above the earth’s atmosphere. The people of New Testament times – including John and Jesus, and Mark – would have understood this experience to be filled with immediacy. God was very close by, just beyond sight normally, almost as if in the next room. The opening of the heavens would have been like opening a sky-light in your house, and letting light and fresh air pour in.

What came to Jesus in that theophany, in that revelation, was the power of God’s love. The baptism was the start of his public ministry, and Jesus was going to need every ounce of awareness of being beloved, of being suffused with the Holy Spiirt, of being energized with divine love for him to be able to carry out his vocation and mission over the next three years.

John baptized with water for repentance; the Holy Spirit baptizes with the power of love.

Today is one of the four great baptismal feast days of the Church, and we will be renewing our baptism in a few minutes. This is one of those days that – if we could – we would have a baptismal candidate. And most often that person to be baptized would be a baby, perhaps dressed in a white christening gown. It would be a wonderful celebration for the family and the parish, a blessing of the child as we marked his or her entry into the life of Christ and the life of the Church; a time of welcome and joy.

But sometimes in the midst of christening a young child the emphasis gets puts in the wrong place and we think about how beautiful the baby is, about the happiness of the event, about the family celebration. All of that is true, but…we can miss the life-changing nature of baptism. We can overlook the high calling of following Jesus, we can let our attention be diverted from the high stakes of Christian discipleship. For those of us who were baptized as children it is important for us to be reminded from time to time of the true nature of baptism – the holy work of the Holy Spirit in us and through us.

For baptism is connected to the Exodus story. It is our being rescued from bondage of sin and death, through the waters so that we may be truly free to love, worship, and serve the Lord our God, just as much as it was for the Israelites going through the Red Sea.

Last week I invited us to begin to ask ourselves who we wanted to be – as Christian people and as a church – when we finally come through this pandemic. More importantly, I invited us to ask who we thought God wanted us to be. And I suggested that preparing to renew our baptismal vows, here at the beginning of the new year, was a good way to start that kind of reflection and discernment. I sent out the five baptismal promise questions for you to think and pray about.

In the intervening days, we have experienced an horrific and violent attack on our Capitol that will take time to fully absorb and understand. But what we do know is that even though there were some religious symbols displayed in the crowd, this was not the Way of Jesus. The vast majority of symbols and slogans represented ideologies and movements that are hate-filled and death-dealing.

So it is even more important that we can gather here today and re-commit ourselves to living the Way of Jesus, to being Christian disciples.

Take a moment and think about one of those promises in the Baptismal Covenant, or one of those phrases in the Apostles’ Creed that might have spoken to you, might have resonated with you. That is very likely the area that God would like you to focus on – at least for now. Ask yourself if there is something you can do or learn or practice that will make your discipleship stronger, truer, clearer.

And if it seems like a daunting task, it probably will be – and that is where the love comes in. The answer to each baptismal promise is: I will, with God’s help. The help that God gives us is the power of love, the power of God’s love – for us, in us, through us.

Jesus stepped into those waters of baptism and came up from the river knowing to his core that he is God’s beloved. Our baptism fills us with the knowledge that we, also, are God’s beloved – even though we have to be reminded over and over and over again, just like that little child taking a few tottering steps and then needing to look over their shoulder to Mom or Dad for reassurance and encouragement, remembering that they are loved.

We are beloved by God. We are called to a life of worship and service that requires courage, truth, and humility; and we will do so “with God’s help”, with the power of love.

Let us pray.
I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.  ~ Covenant Prayer from the British Methodist Church
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday after Epiphany: Baptism of our Lord
January 10, 2021
 

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. Luke 2:52

The old year has passed, and the new year lies open before us; let us pray with one heart and mind. Silence is kept. As we rejoice in the gift of this new year so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you; now and for ever. Amen.

Often at the start of a film or novel or television drama there is an opening scene that takes place in a time or location other than the one the main part of the story inhabits. For some people this is an intriguing story-telling device, alerting the audience to some thread or event whose importance will be revealed later on. For others, this is out-of-order scene is just confusing and annoying.

I hope that our Gospel passage this morning is not confusing or annoying, because it does come outside of the chronological flow of the general pattern of the liturgical year. We are in the Christmas season, and Epiphany, when we celebrate the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem and the homage they pay to the Christ Child, is still to come on this Wednesday; so it is worth asking why we are hearing this particular story about Jesus as a 12-year old today.

There are a few detailed answers to the question, and one major reason. The detailed answers have to do with the intersection of the secular calendar with the church calendar, as well as with the Biblical material itself.

This year, this Christmas season of 2020-2021 is one of those years when we celebrate two Sundays after Christmas (Christmas I and Christmas II). That doesn’t happen every year. And even when it does, we often use the Second Sunday after Christmas to focus on the Epiphany; to make that our Epiphany celebration. But there are three possible choices for the Gospel on this day: two from Mathew and one from Luke. The readings from Matthew are either the Flight into Egypt – when Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the Baby Jesus and flee to Egypt for safety from King Herod’s murderous wrath; or the story of the Magi, which we also hear on Epiphany. The reading from Luke is the one we have this morning, where Mary and Joseph have traveled to Jerusalem for Passover with their son – now 12 years old.

Of the four Gospels only Matthew and Luke give us any description of Jesus’ earliest days. After Matthew relates the Flight into Egypt we only hear a few more verses about Joseph being told in a dream to return from Egypt, but not to go back to Bethlehem and instead settle in Nazareth.

Luke, on the other hand, gives us more. First, the account of Jesus’ circumcision at eight days old in accordance with Jewish Law and custom – which is celebrated in the Feast of the Holy Name. Second is what we know as the Feast of the Presentation, which we also call Candlemas, when Jesus is presented in the Temple at forty days old – again in accordance with Jewish Law and custom – to be offered and dedicated to God in thanksgiving for a first-born male child. We celebrate this feast on February 2nd.

Finally, there is the story we have this morning, about Jesus as a 12-year old. After this we hear nothing about Jesus’ life or that of his family until he begins his public ministry approximately eighteen years later.

This is the out-of-order part for us – to hear this story now. And what a story it is! The family has travelled to Jerusalem for Passover as they do every year, along with a group of friends, neighbors, and relatives all travelling together to and from Nazareth; 80 miles each way on foot. If this is something the family did every year, it is perhaps not surprising that they didn’t know Jesus’ exact whereabouts at first. Walking with a friend or a relative would have been very understandable – after all, what 12-year old boy doesn’t want a bit of independence from his parents? But once  it was clear that Jesus was not in the extended travel party, panic ensued, sending Joseph and Mary back to Jerusalem to try to find him.

In New Testament times that ceremony that we know from our Jewish friends as a bar mitzvah did not exist; that only came into being in the Middle Ages. But a boy’s twelfth birthday was the beginning of increased intensity in his religious and spiritual learning. No doubt Jesus had already begun this, and was intrigued, perhaps hungry for more; perhaps a growing sense of his own identity and vocation was coming to the fore and he wanted to hear from people outside his family or his own synagogue and be able to ask questions about God and the Scriptures and what it all meant. So he stayed behind in the Temple, satisfying his curiosity and sharpening his skills in rabbinic rhetorical debate. “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

When Mary and Joseph found him in a flood of relief, gratitude, and anger that any parent knows after searching for and finding a lost child, Jesus says in a response that is both cheeky and innocent: "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? – or ‘on my Father’s business?’” Jesus here is displaying the perspective of his childhood as well as the vocation beyond his years.

The family returns to Nazareth, and we hear nothing more about him until his baptism as an adult in response to the ministry of his cousin John. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor,” Luke tells us.

We have this story now, in Christmastide, because it is part of Jesus’ childhood, and so the season stretches to include it. But coming at the start of the New Year, when we often focus on what might be ahead for us, and what we might want to accomplish in the coming twelve months, it is also a lens through which we can view our own spiritual growth and development.

How can we increase in wisdom, as well as in years, and in divine and human favor? The wisdom Luke refers to, of course, is divine wisdom – that sense of being in touch with God; of trusting God’s loving providence; of both understanding God’s purposes for us and for the world, and yet being content with not knowing, with not seeing the whole picture.

Being in “divine and human favor” is not about trying to get God and other people to like us or approve of us; after all, God will never love us any more when we are at our best than he already does when we are at our worst. But as we grow and develop and become more Christ-like we will naturally develop a greater affinity and accord with our fellow human beings; we will see them as siblings in God’s family, not as enemies or adversaries. As we grow in spiritual depth and stature we will pay more attention to our own short-comings than we do those of others, and we will learn to rejoice in the blessings and accomplishments of those around us; the focus will be off of us.

So back to our question: How can we increase in wisdom, as well as in years, and in divine and human favor in this new year?
There are still challenges a-plenty ahead of us in 2021 before we are done with this pandemic and its medical, political, economic, and social and racial upheaval. I know that some days it feels like all you can do is buckle your seatbelt and hang on for dear life, and so the idea doing anything different seems like just too much.

But it has been clear to me for a while now that when this is all over – whenever that may be – we will be different than we were before. We will be a different church. That’s not good or bad; it just is. We will be different than we were before because of what we have all lived through. We will be different because of the people who have moved or died. We will be different because of new people who have joined and will join us. We will be different because the world in which we serve God and carry out Christ’s mission is different. Most of all, I hope we will be different because we will have grown closer to God; because we have been more intentional in wanting our lives to be an embodiment of God’s love and purpose; because we have learned a little better how to listen to God speaking to us through prayer and Scripture and silence – to grow into the full stature of Christ.

So it bears asking the questions: Who or what kind of church do we want to be? And more importantly, who or what kind of church does God want us to be?

There is no instant answer, but these are questions that we need to be asking actively and over time, and to be pondering them and our responses as Mary did when the family returned from Jerusalem.

Next Sunday we will have the opportunity to renew our baptismal vows, as it is the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. And we will be asked, as we are every time we say the Baptismal Covenant, to affirm our faith in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, and to re-commit to living the Christian life as shaped by the five questions. I would ask you to take some time during the week ahead to reflect on that Creed and those five questions – and I’ll send them out so you can have them ready to hand. Consider if there is an area of your life or faith that you would like to focus on in the coming year; something you might like to know more about, something you want to get better at doing, an attitude or mindset that you would like God to change, or a spiritual practice that you would like to learn, or ways that we together can respond in Christ’s love to our surrounding community as we learn to be truer disciples.

Our renewal as the Body of Christ, as Jesus’ followers – whether as individuals or as the parish as a whole – doesn’t come just by wishing for it, but by prayer and practice. It is my hope that next week’s Renewal of Vows will be an opportunity to start asking those questions of ourselves, and putting ourselves in the way of listening and responding to God in a more intentional way, so that we may increase in wisdom and faith, and so be more truly God’s servants in God’s world.

Let us pray, in the words of St. Paul:
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us all a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know him, so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know what is the hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday of Christmas
January 3, 2021

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:3b-5

This is the time of year when we are all looking for light. The days are at their shortest, the temperatures have dropped, and this year in particular we stay close to home (or at least confined indoors) more than we have probably ever been. Have you noticed how quickly people put up Christmas trees and outdoor decorations? We are all looking for light and cheer.

That is no surprise; it has been an incredibly difficult nine months since the pandemic struck New Jersey and then the rest of the country. Some of us have experienced the illness and death of people we love (whether from COVID or not), some of us have had our employment and income disrupted, we’ve been isolated from others to varying degrees, we’ve all had to learn to do our jobs and our lives differently than we’ve done them before.

And adding to the challenges have been an incredibly turbulent election season and renewed attention to the way our society understands and responds to questions of race, racism, and difference. It’s as if the pandemic had taken all the pieces that make up our life and thrown them into the air in the middle of a gale. All this leaves us feeling disoriented, off-kilter, fearful, and suffering at some level or another.

It’s no wonder people are looking for light and cheer and a bit of comfort.

The Gospel of John begins, not with a story, but with a proclamation that the God who created the world – all life, all matter, all being – has come into history and the human race; has come as life and light. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

That light is Jesus, born in a specific time and place, to a particular family, in a poor community, to a minor ethnic and religious group within a powerful trans-national empire. The Savior of humankind, the Lord of all creation, the Light of the world and eternity, born in such smallness, such meanness; as the medieval carol puts it, “heaven and earth in little space.”

And yet this tiny, inauspicious beginning did not diminish God’s light. The older King James translation uses the word “comprehend”, meaning understand, grasp, contain, encapsulate, overcome: “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” The Light of Christ was not overcome by the darkness that could neither understand nor contain him.

This is the Light we celebrate in the birth of Jesus, remembering that he did not remain a helpless infant but grew to adulthood, challenging the powers-that-be and taking upon himself the sufferings of the world before destroying death, the last enemy. It is no wonder that the darkness cannot comprehend and overcome the Light who is Christ.

At Christmas we celebrate Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, and we also celebrate the birth of Christ in our hearts and the coming of the Light into our lives – not just once at our baptism or confirmation, and not just on Sundays or whenever we formally worship God, but every day. The Light of Christ longs to live in us to guide us and to empower us to be beacons of God’s love in a dark world – “let every heart prepare him room.”

We are all looking for light, and comfort, and cheer, and celebration, and the cherished familiar – this year in particular. But if this Christmas we look for comfort only, we will miss God’s power for healing and for ministry. If we look for good cheer only, we will miss God’s hope. If we look only for a jolly celebration, we will miss true joy. If we look only for the familiar, we will miss God’s truth.

Humble, healing power; hope; joy; truth – this is the Good News, the Light of Christ which has come into our very midst, the Christmas that can live in our hearts every day. This is the gift that we can help bring to birth in our world as Jesus invites us, with him, to be the Light of the World. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Christmas Eve 2020

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ Matthew 25:37-39

How do we see one another? That question, of course, is not about how we physically see one another, but about how we view, approach, understand people outside our ourselves or our close circles. Do we tend to view others with a wait-and-see attitude when we first meet them, or do we start from the assumption that the person before us is trustworthy and approachable – at least until proven otherwise? Do we start from the position that someone who looks different from me, whatever that difference may be, is someone who has to prove their worth and value; or do we start from a place of healthy curiosity about the nature and value of that difference?

The French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in his book “The Little Prince”, wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Learning to see this way takes time, and curiosity, and patience, emotional imagination, and sometimes courage.

There is a part of us that sees difference and sometimes registers that as “threat” – and sometimes that sense of threat is true, and it would be wise to listen to it. That God-given intuition has evolved over millenia and is there for a reason; it’s part of our survival instinct.

On the other hand, at the other extreme, we may be tempted to blow right past any notion of difference at all, telling ourselves that we “only see a human being” in front of us, and that nothing that shows outwardly is of any importance of all – whether that be the way they dress or speak, their skin color or facial features, anything the person chooses to outwardly display about their culture or a group they may belong to. That is a temptation that we need to avoid. We know that our physical, cultural, and ethnic make-up all contribute to who we are and how we understand the world; we can’t dismiss those things out of hand, whether for ourselves or for someone else.

How do we see one another? How do we know one another?

That is a crucial question that is asked by this scene that Jesus poses in his last hours of teaching in the Temple before the Last Supper, before the Crucifixion. He paints a picture of God’s justice being like a king, the world’s true Lord, who brings the world back into balance by sorting out the righteous from the unrighteous, and the criteria used for this sorting out is the way each group behaves towards the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned – all those cast-offs of mainstream and polite society.

What did the righteous see? They say people who had needs. What did the unrighteous see? They saw people who were not worthy of their time and effort. And yet the king, representing Jesus in the story, invites both groups to look more closely, to see on a deeper level: Truly I tell you, just as you did it or did not do it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

St. John Chrysostom, in the fourth century said, “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door you will not find him in the chalice.”

Jesus is asking us, then, to look at others with the heart and, ultimately, to see Jesus himself. This is part of justice and holy judgment, part of bringing the world back into balance by learning to see others through the eyes of faith and. by seeing them, value them as God’s beloved ones.

That is a very hard thing to do in our culture right now – and has been increasingly so for quite a number of years. So much stress has been put on the objective way of seeing the world, particularly in our political dealings with one another. This data-driven, objective way of seeing can be manipulative, it is seeing others only from afar, never finding out what they are really like in their complex, many-layered, many-faceted selves. That kind of objective seeing only drives us further apart, and certainly does not lead us to see Christ in others who are very different from us.

The New York Times columnist David Brooks*, who comments on both cultural and politics and has become a person of faith in recent years, says that this political type knowledge that pollsters use has led to an epidemic of mis-seeing, led to a feeling of being unknown and unseen by the rest of the world, led to a sense of alienation and isolation from others. It divides and separates us.
Instead, Brooks says, we need to embrace the spiritual way of knowing, of seeing the depth of the other, with all their very real difference from ourselves, and value them for who they are. That leads to connection and community.

We need to have a holy and respectful curiosity, a willingness to be vulnerable and learn about one another. In doing so we may well learn more about ourselves, and the bonds of generous humanity that can tie us together.

Christ is the world’s true Lord and just Judge, and he bids us to see, respect, and value him in the face of all others, so that we are indeed seeing rightly with the heart and taking our place in the re-balancing and repair of God’s world.

Let us pray.
Day by day, dear Lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly, day by day. Amen.

*For reference see Brooks’ address at the awarding of the Abraham Kuyper Prize, November 17, 2020 on Calvin University's YouTube channel.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday before Advent (Last Sunday after Pentecost)
November 22, 2020
 

Jesus said, “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.” Matthew 25:14

This is the Sunday that we begin our approach to Advent, that time when the old Church year and the new one overlap with the themes of justice, hope, judgment, peace, and the longing for Christ’s coming at the end of this age, at Christmas, and in our hearts each day. It is in many ways a time outside of time – an opportunity to reflect on time itself, and God’s purposes for us and for the world.

The Gospel passage before us this morning is one that is often read and understood to be about judgment – God as the master who goes away on a long journey, having left vast and abundant resources with his servants. A “talent” in Jesus’ day was a unit of money equal to fifteen years’ wages for an ordinary laborer. The amount entrusted to each of the three servants was almost incomprehensible, as is so often the case in parables. When the master finally returns – without having given any instructions about what is to be done with the money – he criticizes and penalizes the servant who was given the smallest amount and just buried it.

To be clear, we must not take away from this the idea that Jesus is urging his hearers to look for a good rate of return from the stock market and punishing those who don’t or can’t do so. Jesus, and the prophets before him, actually did have a great deal to say about money and material goods and how they are to be used. But the vast and abundant resources in this parable are the resources of the faith and history and purposes of God for Israel to be a blessing to the world that were being squandered in their complicity with Rome, and the Roman claim to be the final arbiters and controllers of the meaning and value of life. So much of Jesus’ sharp rebuke to the leaders of his time came to fruition in 70 AD when the Roman Empire finally destroyed Jerusalem and razed the Temple.

The third servant in the parable acted from fear and distrust of a master he clearly did not know or understand. The consequences of his behavior are a result of his false reading and understanding of the master’s intentions. He brought upon himself the behavior he expected and feared.

So what were the master’s intentions; and what are God’s intentions and purposes? In the parable, the master’s intention was that the servants would be good stewards of the resources which had been entrusted to them. They had been given a treasure and they should have let it continue to blossom and grow – not molder in the ground.

Going all the way back to Genesis, to the beginning, God created the world for the sheer joy, creativity, and goodness of it. And God created humankind to tend, and care for, and be wise and grateful stewards of the good creation.

And in the covenant with Abraham and Sarah God states it even more plainly: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing...  and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:2-3) God’s purpose for his people, for those whom he has called is to be a blessing to others.

The catechism in our Prayer Book puts it in a different way, by asking what is the mission of the Church, its purpose: “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” (2x) This deepens and sharpens God’s intent. Not only are we to be agents of God’s blessing to others, but we are to actively work for the unity of all people with one another and with God. That unity is spiritual, personal, societal – not just religious. In other words, as much as we (personally and as a Church) are called to do the work of evangelism which will help people to be consciously connected to God in Christ, we are also called to work for reconciliation and unity between and among people.

Reconciliation and unity do not mean uniformity or facile glossing-over of differences. Instead, reconciliation means seeing the other as a someone of value, worthy of love and respect, seeing the other as being made in God’s image, someone who we can learn from as much as we can give to. None of this is easy. The work of reconciliation is hard, but it is necessary, as we know in our current political and social climate post-election. And yet, reconciliation is fundamental to God’s purpose; it is part of the Advent hope.

A very striking and poignant example of the ministry of reconciliation is found in the life of Coventry Cathedral in England. Eighty years ago, on November 14-15, 1940, the city of Coventry was bombed – part of the Nazi blitzkrieg. Nearly all of the city center was destroyed, and almost six hundred people were killed. St. Michael’s Cathedral, a fourteenth-century building, was demolished. But the story has a different ending than despair and destruction the bombs intended.

The very next morning Father Richard Howard, the Cathedral provost, put forth a vision to rebuild as a sign of faith, trust, and hope in God’s future – not just for the Church, but for the city itself. This vision gave people an alternative to their feelings of bitterness and hatred. Eventually the Cathedral developed a Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation, which works in areas of conflict in the world with both prayer and practical support.

The outward sign of this hope is described on the Cathedral’s website: “Shortly after the destruction, the cathedral stonemason, Jock Forbes, noticed that two of the charred medieval roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross. He set them up in the ruins where they were later placed on an altar of rubble with the moving words ‘Father Forgive’ inscribed on the Sanctuary wall. Another cross was fashioned from three medieval nails by local priest, the Rev’d Arthur Wales. The Cross of Nails has become the symbol of Coventry’s ministry of reconciliation.” The ruins of the former building form a forecourt to the modern building, completed in 1962. Together the two structures “create one living Cathedral.”

Reconciliation between God and humanity, person to person, in all ways and at all levels of society, is part of God’s purpose for the world; and those of us who follow Jesus are called to participate in that work in whatever ways we can – small or great. It is part of the Advent hope, part of what we long for and pray for in this season.

Reconciliation requires honesty about wrongs done and harm inflicted. It requires confession and a willingness to examine our own attitudes and actions. Reconciliation needs humility and a willingness to be about forgiveness and peace-making. Reconciliation depends on us knowing we are all one human family, held in God’s just and loving embrace.

May Christ’s ministry of reconciliation be part of our prayer, our work, our longing, and our hope this Advent-tide.

Let us pray in the words of the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation:
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
FATHER FORGIVE
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,
FATHER FORGIVE
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
FATHER FORGIVE
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
FATHER FORGIVE
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,
FATHER FORGIVE
The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,
FATHER FORGIVE
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
FATHER FORGIVE
Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday before Advent
November 15, 2020

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Matthew 5:3-4

We are gathered here this morning to mark our parish feast day, to remember our connection to the Communion of Saints and pray for those who have gone before us in the faith, to celebrate the Eucharist together for the first time in eight months. And in one of the synchronicities in life, the last time we were together for Communion on March 8 it was the start of daylight savings, and today is the day we return to standard time. Our experience of being apart in so many ways has been bounded by the time changes we observe.
And we hear these very familiar words of Jesus, those we call the Beatitudes, and we draw comfort from them – a recognizable touchstone in the sea of so much that is uncertain and unfamiliar, and feelings of frustration, sadness, confusion, anger, and just plain being fed up. It is good to have a safe and familiar rock upon which to stand. And yet, if we only hear these words as solace, we will have missed the fullness of what Jesus wants to say to us.

The Beatitudes are the start of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew’s presentation of much of Jesus’ core teaching, early on in his public ministry. But they are not just philosophical statements to consider, good advice for those who might like to ponder such things.

It helps to remember that just prior to this scene, Jesus has called two pairs of brothers to give up everything and follow him. They travel throughout Galilee and attract a huge following with people coming on foot from all over, even over a hundred miles away – hungry for the healing, deliverance, and wholeness that they have heard comes to those who were in Jesus presence. Jesus is gathering around him a new community, founded on a renewal of God’s purposes for humanity, a fresh understanding and experience of God’s presence and promise.

Just like God makes a covenant with the enslaved Hebrews after Moses frees them from oppression in Egypt; and just like God renews that covenant with the people as they are about to cross the Jordan River into the promised land under Joshua’s leadership; so now Jesus is calling God’s people into a new covenant of faith and love which will ultimately be ratified in his Body and Blood, his crucifixion and resurrection.

The Sermon on the Mount and the words of the Beatitudes, in particular, become the handbook, a manifesto almost, a rule of life for life in the community of the kingdom of heaven – not just a far away, eventual destination, but God’s kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. The word “blessed” here can just as well be translated as “wonderful news” an announcement of the life-giving things that God is doing for and through this new community.

Wonderful news for the poor in spirit! Wonderful news for the mourners! Wonderful news for the meek! Wonderful news for people who hunger and thirst for God’s justice; and for the merciful, and the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. And wonderful news for the people who are persecuted and slandered because of God’s way!

All of these are characteristics and hallmarks of living in and for Christ, and Jesus also lays out the results of this rule of life: The kingdom of heaven, the fullness of God, is yours; you’ll be comforted and given solace, but you’ll also be advocated for; and you’ll possess the truly important things in life. You will be filled up and satisfied with God’s justice; you will be on the receiving end of mercy and care; you will be able to see God at work in the world about you, as well as in your own heart. You will know your identity as God’s child and your place in God’s family. You will be living right at the heart of the kingdom of heaven, and you’ll be in very good company – that of the prophets and the saints who got into good trouble for God.

Those are the hallmarks of being a follower of Jesus, of living in God’s way, of being part of the Communion of Saints – that great cloud of faith and witnesses who surrounds us and pray with us.

I have no doubt that these past eight months may have tried and tested your faith in many different ways; and we know that we are not yet at the end of it. So it is really important, crucial actually, that we take time this morning as we are gathered to remember what we are about as Christians, to renew our commitment to following in God’s way, to live and move and have our being in the love and grace of God even as the world around us does not always recognize, or affirm, or accept the Truth and lives by a different reality of its own making.

In a few moments we will renew our baptismal vows, our baptismal covenant. And we will be fed and blessed by the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven. That bread is enough – enough to feed us, to shape us, to give us strength for the continuing journey ahead of us. And we pray that we will become that which we receive – the Body of Christ in the world, living, serving, and loving God and all of God’s creation. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
All Saints’ Day
November 1, 2020