Jesus said: There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. Luke 16:19-21

What do you do when someone comes across your path who asks you for money – someone who is begging on the street, or at the train station or the subway, or some other place you go to? And how does it make you feel when you are approached in this way? These are questions we were discussing in our Bible study group this past week. And there were a variety of answers: one person has invited a street person into a nearby coffee shop and paid for their meal; someone else carries a zip-lock bag with a warm hat or scarf, a bar of soap, and several granola bars to distribute as the need arises; and others of us were not sure we have ever been in a place where we have been pan-handled for money.

It also got us into a discussion of why there are people living on the street or very close to that in the first place – and we came up with lots of reasons, often intertwined and causing a cascading fall into destitution, or pretty close to it. Some of those reasons can be illness or injury, family troubles, mental illness, lack of education, lack of job opportunity, domestic violence, a business failure – just for starters; and then substance abuse and addiction on top of that creates a whole new level of difficulty. Add to all that the very small number of inpatient recovery programs and supervised shelters, and the wait for available beds and funds, even for people who want to get help….and the problem is overwhelming. And that can leave even people of good will and intentions feeling helpless and fearful. When we are feeling like that, it can be easier to turn away, easier not to see. I’m sure we’ve all been in that place.

And then this morning we hear the story that Jesus was telling to the Pharisees when a group of them mocked Jesus for his teaching about not being able to serve both God and wealth, which we heard last week. The Pharisees, after all, were coming from the mind-set that the land (and the wealth that came from it) was a blessing from God and a sign that they were faithful to Torah – the Jewish law for living, the Hebrew Scriptures. So for them, wealth was conflated with serving God, and if there were poor people in the world – certainly in ancient Palestine: Judea and Galilee – it was a sign that those folks weren’t right with God, that their condition in life was their own fault.

So Jesus tells this parable about a man named Lazarus (not to be confused with Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany, whom Jesus raised from the dead) who was poverty-stricken, and sick, and sat at the gate of a wealthy man, hoping for some food, or assistance, whatever the man might be able to spare in his direction. But the rich man would not see him, and did nothing. Eventually, Jesus says, both men died, and Lazarus went to be with Abraham, the father of his people, in a place of blessedness and comfort, while the rich man was consigned to the torments of Hades.

It is important for us to be clear that Jesus is not telling this story to describe what heaven or hell is like, or what happens after death. Nor is this story saying that poor people will get their reward in heaven, and so they just need to be patient and wait to die.
On one level, this parable is a cautionary tale, similar to “A Christmas Carol”, by Charles Dickens. The rich man, once in Hades, realizes his mistake and asks for relief; or barring that, at least mercy for his siblings who are still living, that they might learn from his example. In Dicken’s’ story, Scrooge goes through a life review, opens up his places of personal pain and hurt so that he is then capable of seeing the suffering of others, and comes to a place of repentence, and personal change and transformation. Certainly, Jesus wants each of us to hear that our actions and decisions in this life affect our spiritual condition, and the way we live faithfully on Christ’s behalf – or not.

But if we only understand “A Christmas Carol” as personal redemption, we will have missed Dickens’ point. He describes very clearly and directly the social evils of his day – their causes and consequences, the milieu in which Victorian England lived. It was a commentary on society as a whole. In the same way, Jesus uses this parable to address conditions among his own people in their own place and time. In what was largely a peasant society, begging in the street was an everyday occurrence.

But Jesus doesn’t just leave it there. In response to the Pharisees alluding to the Scriptural promises of God’s blessings of land and prosperity, Jesus wraps the story in such a way as to remind them that God’s Law also requires compassion and acts of mercy towards the poor and the suffering and the stranger. He puts these words in the mouth of the rich man and Abraham:
“Father, I beg you to send [Lazarus] to my father's house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” He said, "No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” In other words, Jesus is saying, if you hold the Scriptures – the Law and the prophets – in such high esteem and you won’t take them seriously and live by what they say, they you will never be convinced by something outside of them that God does.

Woah! I don’t know about you, but I am always brought up short by Luke’s very sharp drawing of what Jesus has to say. So what do we do with this story in our own context, we who seek to be faithful followers of Jesus? I can give you one example, at least.

This past Wednesday morning, about a dozen volunteers from All Saints’ went to Shop-Rite in Stirling to bag groceries as part of Shop-Rite’s Partners in Caring program. Because Shop-Rite supports our food pantry by putting funds on our account at the Community Food Bank, they invited us to come and help them publicize their efforts to alleviate hunger and food insecurity during Hunger Awareness month. Our volunteers had some really interesting experiences: people who didn’t want help, people who were grateful for the help; some who gave very generously to the collection cans – twice, some who asked how there could possibly be hungry people in America when the use of food stamps in our country is so high – and didn’t really want to hear answer. That’s a very good question, and it has multiple, complex answers.

But we have to start by asking questions right here in our own communities, and being open – maybe even surprised or shocked – by the answers that come. Here is something I have learned in the last six months. There are at least 25 families in the Long Hill Township school system who qualify for the federal free or reduced lunch program. However, those children only get free milk, because our schools don’t have cafeterias and don’t serve lunch. So even though those families qualify for that benefit, there is no lunch to be had, adding to the daily challenge these families have to feed, clothe, educate and raise their children.

Why are they in this situation in the first place? I’m sure there are many, many reasons – a divorce, a death, an illness, a job loss, a legal difficulty, an unexpected pregnancy – each reason as individual as the family. And these are just the folks who have kids in the school system and who have filled out the paperwork. There surely are others.

We are doing what we can to connect with these families, but it is not easy. There is a lot of shame connected to poverty and hunger, people in communities like ours don’t want to come forward and ask for help, they don’t want others to know that they are struggling. They don’t want their children to have the stigma of financial difficulty.

So what can we do, as Jesus’ followers, as God’s People led by the Holy Spirit? We can ask questions, we can educate ourselves about the facts of hunger, homelessness, and poverty. The website of Feeding America is a good place to start. We can read the Gospels deeply and meditatively, open to what Jesus has to say. And we can pray, and ask God to lead us in wisdom and compassion for this world he has made, and then act – in ways small or large, as the Spirit leads us.

Let us pray.
Lord Christ, you call us from death into life in so many ways – spiritual and temporal. Give us the strength and courage to follow you in being life-givers to those who share this world with us. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
September 25, 2016

Jesus said: No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Luke 16:13

Do any of you find this Gospel reading confusing? If you do, you are in good company! It almost seems like Jesus is commending dishonesty and sharp business practice. And yet there’s that last bit about not being able to have two masters, about not serving God and wealth. What are we to make of all this?

Part of the difficulty is that Jesus is using two different forms of speech here. The biggest part of the passage is a parable about a wealthy employer and his manager, his steward. The last part of the passage is some direct teaching, some comments about faithfulness, loyalty, and about money. So you think the passage is going along in one direction, and then Jesus changes is up on you!

So let’s think about the parable for a moment. A wealthy man has a manager who is in charge of his estate – real and financial. The manager has been siphoning off funds, embezzling – and he eventually gets caught. But before he actually gets fired he cuts a deal with some of the master’s debtors, reducing their bills. He does this, of course, to curry favor with these debtors, maybe grease his way into a new job after he is let go. But there is another side to it, as well, and to understand it you need to know a little bit about first century Jewish Law.

The Law (which governed all aspects of life – spiritual and civic) forbade the charging of any interest on loans; it’s what was called usury. Now that didn’t mean it didn’t happen, and one way of hiding those interest charges from the public eye was to ask for payment in grain or olive oil, rather than cash. It was harder to track, and easier to pay because grain and olive oil were plenteous commodities. So most likely the deal the manager struck with the debtors was that he was erasing the interest from their payments. Imagine if you could remove the interest from your mortgage or your credit card bill or your car payment; that would be a huge help!

And when the employer found out what the manager had done, he applauded him; said (in effect) “I’ve got to hand it to you – that was a really shrewd deal.” He said this because the manager was building up good will with the debtors who might be able to help him network to a new job, and doing it at the master’s expense, while simultaneously tying his hands. Because if it all came out, the employer’s own law-breaking, his usury, would be exposed. So here we have embezzlement, cooking the books, and a form of blackmail. And the master praised the steward. That doesn’t mean that Jesus was commending any of what just happened. But what he was commending was the manager’s ability to think on his feet, to be shrewd about his situation and the world around him, quick to size things up and take action. Sometimes the “children of light” don’t cope as well with the crises of the world and do the “children of this age,” Jesus says. To his hearers, this would have meant the Jews who were struggling with Roman occupation and bitter contest for political and military control over their own destiny. He’s telling them that they need to wise up, pay attention to the real situation, and be prepared to act quickly and shrewdly in the face of mounting tension and danger. Of course we know that forty years later, the Roman army razed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple as a final act of power and control over the Jews.

And that’s not all jut ancient history. There’s something in that for us, as well. As Christians we do not serve God and ourselves and the world well if we retreat into a pleasant place of sitting quietly until all the problems and crises of the world go by, trusting that God will work everything out. Of course, God does have his arms around everything, and all shall be well, to quote Julian of Norwich, in the long run. But that run can be very long, with a lot of damage and difficulty in the course of it; and part of our work for the Kingdom of God is to do all we can, with God’s help, in the here and now to be God’s agents of light, peace, justice, goodness, truth, and love – but we have to be wise, have our wits about us, not be caught off-guard by the ways of the world, nor become immune to them.

At the end of the passage Jesus does have some direct things to say about our relationship with money – about honesty and faithfulness in the small things, as well as the big things; and about serving only one master: God or wealth; the old-fashioned word was mammon – the greedy pursuit of wealth at all costs.

Maybe this seems like an awkward time to be hearing and thinking about this passage, on this Sunday when we are set to announce the results of yesterday’s Rummage Sale, but let’s think about the Sale (and everything that leads up to it) for a moment. To start with, Kimberly’s first rule of rummage is: “No one gets hurt.” Our concern is always for everyone’s physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Then, we know well that the Rummage Sale is an event that provides a welcome and a service to our neighbors and visitors, as well as being an agent of community building for ourselves. Having a party on our front lawn every September to which everyone is invited – whether they buy or not – is part of who we are as God’s people. In fact, yesterday some of our guests were from a group home for developmentally disabled adults here in town. Stopping by the Sale was part of their outing for the day. They seemed to enjoy looking at all the rummage, talking with some parishioners, and I know they enjoyed the coffee at the bake sale table! One of the residents had to be firmly steered away by his supervisor. She said,” He’ll stand here and drink your coffee all day, if you let him!” Finally, the funds that we raise at the Sale are for the mission of the parish – the work God calls us to do and be: as a place of worship, prayer, community, service to others, a place to refuel before you go out into your work week - doing God’s work wherever you are; being a place of fellowship and joy.

This morning we have a baptism: Quinn Beyer will be baptized shortly; and in baptism we are always reminded who is the Master, our Master, the One we follow, and trust, and try to emulate: Jesus. There is a question in the baptismal liturgy, one of the affirmations that Quinn’s parents and godparents will make on her behalf, and which was said either by or for each one of us: “Do you promise to follow and obey [Jesus] as your Lord?” and the answer is “I do.” That means that our ethical choices, our behavior, our work, the way we conduct ourselves in business and friendship, and family, as parents and neighbors all should be a reflection of Jesus – his words, his work, and his life: “Love God; love your neighbor as yourself.” That is what the baptized life is about, following Jesus as Lord and Master; becoming his apprentices; committing ourselves anew each day to serving the Lord as best as we are able, with God’s help.

“Do you promise to follow and obey [Jesus] as your Lord?” and all God’s children say: “I do.” Amen.Victoria Geer McGrath

All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 18, 2016

Jesus said: What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Luke 15:8-9
 
Fifteen years ago tomorrow, on September 12th I sat down with my clergy colleagues, as we did every Wednesday morning, to pray together, to read over the lessons for the coming Sunday, to share insights about the Scriptures, and ideas about preaching. But of course, this Wednesday was different: we were all still in shock over the attacks the day before; we all had friends, neighbors, parishioners who had not returned home and whose death was presumed. Because we were in Bergen county we were able to hear the fighter planes that patrolled the airspace over the George Washington Bridge – so eerie in the otherwise empty skies.
 
We wondered how in God’s Name – literally – could we get up on Sunday and preach. What in the world would we say? And then we looked at the lessons, the very same ones in front of us this morning, and I was stunned by the passage from Jeremiah. It seemed as though the prophet was describing the scene in lower Manhattan: “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins.” It was as though God was speaking to us directly about what had happened, about the destruction, about that suspension of reality that we were living through and continued to live through in the days and weeks following.
 
In those weeks so many searched and hoped for news of friends and loved ones. In those weeks we wondered when and if New York would be able to pick up the pieces. In those weeks, we took stock of ourselves and our society and wondered what had been lost, and we struggled valiantly not to be overcome by fear, by hatred, by an aversion to the stranger and the other – because that would mean the terrorists had won, and evil had triumphed. Do not be overcome by evil, St. Paul writes, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:25).
 
So here we are, fifteen years later, with those same passages from Jeremiah and from Luke: the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and the Parable of the Lost Coin. Whether we are remembering what happened on 9/11, or thinking about some other anguish elsewhere in the world – Syria being the most prominent recent example – or we have in mind some personal situation that threatens to undo us – Jeremiah captures the sense of destruction and desolation, the loss of hope and purpose and reason.
 
And then we put the Gospel reading alongside Jeremiah. The two parables are word paintings, pictures, stories Jesus tells about what God is like. God is like a shepherd who goes searching for that one sheep who has wandered away and become lost, gotten into trouble, hanging by a thread. He risks leaving all the rest of the sheep to go after this one – not because it is special, or more beloved, but just because that is the way God is. God is the Shepherd who searches for the lost, who knows the flock – the People of God, the Beloved Community – will not be whole without all the sheep.
 
God is also like a woman, Jesus says, who has ten coins; maybe they are her life savings, her nest egg, her dowry. One goes missing. She searches relentlessly – spending precious resources to light an oil lamp in the daytime, sweeping every nook and cranny – until she finds the lost coin. And then she calls her neighbors together for a party, to celebrate with her, so that they could share in her joy and relief. That which was lost has been found.
 
That is what God is like: searching relentlessly, unstintingly, pursuing us, seeking us when we are lost and out of touch, and cut off from love and wisdom and goodness. And God rejoices and throws a party; all the saints and angels in heaven are invited – God doesn’t want to have this party alone! What had been lost has now been found, and is safe in God’s keeping.
 
You might think that if we have been lost spiritually, morally, in terms of human decency and relationships, that when we are found by God, when we come to our senses and turn around (the real meaning of repentence) that we’d just try to slink back home, tail between our legs, hoping that God and everyone else wouldn’t notice too much, or at least not say anything. The very next section in Luke chapter 15 is the Parable of the Prodigal Son – and that’s exactly what he tries to do – but God (the father in that parable) will have none of it. There is a party, a celebration.
 
The people in Twelve Step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous know something about being lost…and being found. And they know how to celebrate! The anniversary of a person’s sobriety is celebrated by the group at thirty days, at ninety days, at six months, at nine months, at a year, at eighteen months, and every year after that, because they know the difference between being lost and being found - all the difference in the world.
 
We all have ways that we get lost – in greed, in willful ignorance, in fear, in rigidity, in manipulating others, in dishonesties large or small, in shutting down our feelings, in viewing life through a lens of criticism and judgementalism, in loneliness or pain or grief. And in our lostness, God does come and search for us – tirelessly, relentlessly, sometimes camping out on our door step just waiting for us to open the door a crack, and let the light of his love seep in.
 
On this fifteenth anniversary of September 11, there are still many scars; there are wounds that may never fully heal; there are new tragedies and terrors that continue to take place in our personal lives and throughout the world; there is always the temptation to give into hatred, fear, and revenge. But there is also this: God loves us like that shepherd searching for the lost sheep. God loves us like that woman who searched for her lost coin. And we are here – able to find and be found by God – today, and every day, and for all eternity. That is worth celebrating, indeed.
 
God is good/All the time; all the time/God is good.
God is good/All the time; all the time/God is good.
God is good/All the time; all the time/God is good. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 11, 2016

*Photo from National Geographic

Jesus said: Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26-27
 
This summer I’ve been going to an exercise class at the YMCA that combines cardio and strength training; I’ve tried to go twice a week – three time when I can. I’ve enjoyed the class, and I can tell that it’s been helpful in getting more fit. But it’s meant a time commitment, even though a small one. I’ve had to keep an eye on my schedule.
 
Now a friend who is a fitness coach has invited me to be part of an on-line challenge group that she is hosting, and I have signed up. So for three weeks, starting tomorrow, I’ll be doing a thirty-minute work-out video every day, planning out my meals, and checking in with my coach and the challenge group. For me, that means I’ll need to get up about forty-five minutes earlier most mornings to get these work outs in. It seems a little daunting, I have to say, but I know it will be a good step to becoming more fit and staying healthy, which is a good priority.

Our Gospel reading this morning is all about priorities, and Luke puts it in the most stringent language – as he often does. In fact, Jesus says: Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (NRSV). Yikes! Harsh words. Another translation puts it slightly differently, but still worded strongly: Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple (TM). How are we to understand this? How does it apply to us as we follow Jesus in our own lives?

When we decide to make something a priority, that means we give it importance, a weighty matter for us, we carve out time and energy for it. That doesn’t mean we always succeed, but it means we keep it in focus, keep coming back to it, we don’t let other things crowd out our priority and choke it off. Certainly that is true with fitness. If you’ve ever had a health scare, and your doctor has said that you need to make changes in your habits and physical well-being, you know you need to do it, or be prepared to pay the health consequences. Similarly, if you have learned to play an instrument well, you have discovered that you can’t just sit down a play a piece with beauty and confidence on the first try – even if you already read music. It takes many hours of playing scales, and agility exercises, and technique practice, as well as learning the piece itself so that it begins to inhabit your body and soul. You’ve made your music practice a priority.

The same is true with faith, with following Jesus, being a disciple, living the baptized life. Faith is a priority, and Jesus is asking us to make it THE priority, the foundation and cornerstone on which everything else is built. Our relationship with God and the practical day-to-day living of it is what being a Christian is all about. It’s so easy – once we’ve started – to get distracted, tired, discouraged, overwhelmed, wander away. How many of you know that construction site in the Meadowlands called the American Dream? It is intended to be a mall and entertainment center. But it has been under construction for thirteen years. The ownership keeps changing, funding for the project keeps running out, and meanwhile the shell of the complex just sits there, rusting in full view of the Turnpike. Well, sometimes our spiritual lives can be like that construction project: we get started, but then something else comes along that absorbs our loyalty, we stop putting time and effort into it, we limp along on a few memes we come across on Facebook or half-remembered Sunday School lessons from childhood, and our relationship with God stalls out.

In the last twenty years or so the word “spirituality” has come into common use. At its best, the word tries to embody the way we experience God, as opposed to a dry knowing about God. Spirituality has always been a part of the Biblical and Christian record – that’s why the Psalms speak so deeply to us, and why various Christian writers describe different approaches to prayer, and worship, and Scripture reading. Some approaches hit home and resonate with some people and not with others. But in recent years, the word “spirituality” has sometimes become disconnected from anything larger than me, myself, and I; and we fall into the trap of thinking that God is there only to make us feel better, to get us through the rough times, to attend to our own personal wants and needs and those of our families.

That’s part of what Jesus’s hyperbolic words about “hating” family members and even our own lives is about. God does not want us to hate anyone or any part of his creation. Our families are one of God’s gifts to us, our life is God’s gift to us. But we musn’t mistake the gift for the Giver. We can’t put anything in God’s place of ultimate priority and loyalty – not even or families, as difficult as that may seem. There always has to be a place in our heart, and mind, and energy, and schedule for God and God’s concerns – some time for learning and growth, for prayer, for worship, for loving service.

But there’s another aspect to being a disciple that Jesus touches on here, which we could spend a great deal of time on, and which is important not to lose sight of. When Jesus speaks of carrying the Cross and following him, he is not speaking about the burdens and difficulties that naturally come in any life. We need to remember that in the first century, crucifixion was a form of torturous punishment by the Roman empire for crimes against the authority of the state, including law and order. In order to increase his public shame and humiliation, the prisoner was made to carry the wooden horizontal cross-bar through the streets to the place of crucifixion and ultimate death. Jesus’ hearers would have witnessed these kinds of executions, and known what they were about – an attempt to coerce and threaten the public into submission, as in: ‘if you don’t want to suffer the same fate, you will be sure to follow our rules.’

So Jesus holding up this image of disciples carrying the cross is putting those who would follow him on notice. There will be times, Jesus is saying, when my priorities and values and those of the Kingdom of God will come into conflict with those of the surrounding culture and the political authorities, and you need to be prepared for that. Not just prepared to follow a different way of life, but to know that there may be real-world consequences to your faith and discipleship. It might mean needing to break off a friendship, it might mean taking a public stand for justice and being ready to accept the consequences, it might mean feeling led to follow a course of action that is potentially dangerous because it threatens malign powers-that-be. The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was part of the WWII resistance movement, and the Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels, who was a white civil rights volunteer working to register black voters in Mississippi after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, were both killed because of their work on Christ’s behalf. Jesus’ words are a reminder that following him will not make us safe and secure, as much as we would like that to be the case.

But following Jesus will lead us to truth, to love, to partnership with God, to greater meaning and purpose in life, to strength, and wholeness, and joy. And that is worth our time and attention and effort each and every day.

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

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 4, 2016
 


 

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Luke 10:30

The Parable of the Good Samaritan….probably one of the most well-known stories that Jesus told – at least in title, if not in detail. In fact, we even have a law that is referred to as “the Good Samaritan law”, meaning that if you, as a passerby, come upon the scene of an accident and stop to help an injured person, can’t be held legally liable for getting involved. But as it can so often happen, our very familiarity with this passage can cause us to glaze over it, skim the surface, and not stop to look and listen to God at work in and through this story. In fact, given all the events of this past week in our national life, I believe this story has a great deal to say to us.
There are a few details that will help to get the full impact of the story the people in the crowd knew right away, but that we may not remember or realize.

First, Jesus tells this story about who really is our neighbor, by way of engaging the trick question posed by a religion scholar “And just how would you define neighbor?”; and he answers the questions from God’s point of view about who it is that we should love as ourselves.

Second, the priest and the Levite had specific religious roles at the Temple in Jerusalem; they had to be ritually clean to perform their duties – touching a dead body or getting mixed up with human blood would have rendered them ritually unclean. Giving the half-dead man by the side of the road wide berth was the prudent choice, if they were to show up at the Temple ready to do their jobs.

Third, Samaria was a region in what is now modern Israel, in between Galilee in the north, and Jerusalem and Judea in the south. For many historical and religious reasons, people from Samaria were considered less-than, not good enough, beyond the pale, deficient in their understanding of faithful living by religiously observant Jews. There was hostility and enmity between these two groups of people who shared so much history. That’s often the way it is between people who share a lot of history, isn’t it? It’s the folks you are closest to with whom you often have the worst fights.

Samaritans were truly “The Other” to faithful Jews, who would avoid traveling through Samaria as they went back and forth between Judea and Galilee, and go out of their way and take the longer route through the Jordan River valley so they didn’t have to cross through the region. So to his first century audience, making the man from Samaria the one who fully embodied and lived out the abundant love and grace of God was shocking, perhaps even disorienting.

Well, we have lived though some shocking and disorienting events this past week with the news of the deaths of two African-American men by police officers for what started as a minor traffic violation or community life question; and then the deadly ambush of Dallas police officers by an African-American man as the officers were patrolling and protecting a peaceful protest about those very shootings. And actually, the protest was incredibly peaceful and calm. In recent years the Dallas police force has worked very hard to improve their policing among African-Americans, by working on their own attitudes and impulses. In fact, the protest was just ending, and the marchers and officers were taking selfies together, celebrating how well the march had gone, when shots rang out.
And all of this was magnified for the general public by the immediacy of video – some of it live streamed. What we saw in a very dramatic way is the painful reality that exists every day: that police officers feel vulnerable and at risk and far too exposed as they serve in communities of color; and that African-Americans (young men especially) and often Latinos, feel vulnerable and at risk as they go about their ordinary daily lives. Both these groups share a fear and vulnerability and a risk of violence that is long-standing, and that is (on one level) an expression and a flash point for the fear of The Other that is a theme in our society. That theme ebbs and flows, but in recent years it has been building to a crescendo again, perhaps taking many of us off-guard with the strength and passion of the anger, and hatred, and violence of word and deed that seems to be filling up so much of our psychic and emotional space. Has anyone been surprised by this swell of anger and hate? Has anyone not been surprised by it?

But it’s not new. Human sin is not new. Hatred and violence that are spawned by fear and a sense of vulnerability is not new. Our desire to turn away from pain and difficulty and risk is not new. What is new is our capacity to act out that fear and anger with deadly force more quickly and effectively than ever before.

So what do we do? What does Jesus ask of us? What is the Holy Spirit inviting us into?

To begin with, we need to look inside ourselves and find those places where we are afraid of The Other; our places of anger and grief for our lives and our world that may lurk in the shadows, but are powerful and painful. And as we look at that fear within ourselves, be aware that it is held and loved by God – held and loved enough for us to examine our fear, to ask questions about our anger and pain and not be afraid of what our feelings tell us; including not being afraid to talk about our experience of race and racism in an open and honest way.  The author Brené Brown (University of Houston shame researcher, Christian, and Episcopalian) had this to say on Friday morning: “Instead of feeling hurt we act out our hurt. Rather than acknowledging our pain, we inflict it on others. Neither hate nor blame will lead to the justice and peace that we all want - it will only move us further apart. But we can't forget that hate and blame are seductive. Anger is easier than grief. Blame is easier than real accountability. When we choose instant relief in the form of rage, we're in many ways choosing permanent grief for the world.”

Once we know that the love of God really does encompass our deepest fears, we can remember that all people – all races, nationalities, ethnic groups, social groups, religious groups – all people are made in God’s image, all people are beloved of God, all people are our brother, our sister, at the most fundamental level possible. We are all one human family, for whom Jesus willingly went to the Cross, sacrificing his life for us. In Christ, there is no Other.

But God doesn’t want us to leave it there. We also have to act this reality, in our own interactions with our neighbors, our co-workers, the people with whom we come in contact every day. And we have to add our voices, our prayers, our influence, our actions to making decisions and attitudes, and legal and social standards that will bring greater justice, greater peace. Remember those questions in the Baptismal Covenant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? and Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? Our answer is (say it with me): I will, with God’s help. We will, with God’s help.

This is the question at hand, and the time is now, today, every day. Let us take our courage in both hands, knowing it will never be perfect. Let us know that God’s love holds even our deepest fears and vulnerabilities. Let us live the love and peace and justice of God with our brothers and sisters in God’s big human family of all colors and kinds, not overlooking differences, not being color-blind but in the differences seeing the glory of God. And let us live in trust and hope and work for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in the world.

Let us pray.
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen
 ~ A Prayer Book for New Zealand

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 10, 2016

When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." Luke 7:9
 
I want to start today by setting the scene, by getting clear about the backstory – on several levels.

To begin with, we have entered a new liturgical season: the Season after Pentecost, aka Ordinary Time, which gives the suggestion that this time of year – stretching all the way from now until Thanksgiving – is unremarkable, ordinary, not exciting, nothing much going on in the life of the Church, in the Scriptures, in our lives as Jesus’s followers. After the sequence of following Jesus’s life and ministry through Advent and Christmas, the Season after Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter, the Ascension, the gift of Spirit at Pentecost, and even the great mystery of the Trinity which we celebrated last week, things do seem ordinary; perhaps we need a bit of a breather. And yet this is also the season that focuses on the work of the Spirit in the life of the Church – and that means us: the Body of Christ, the People of God. This is the time of year that asks us how we are going to put what we know and have learned and loved about Christ into action. It’s as though our spiritual bones have been grown and stretched through living Jesus’ life with him; now our spiritual muscles have to catch up, they have to be worked and exercised if we are to have any strength of faith.
 
The second point of our backstory to get clear is that we are in Year C of the lectionary – the third year of our three-year cycle of readings. We started Year C back in Advent, and have been hearing from the Gospel of Luke for the most part, with readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament that support the Gospel. Now we are moving into that time when the Old Testament readings will follow in course, telling large swathes of the story from one week to the next. In Year C those readings will all highlight the prophets and their ministries. It’s important to remember that in the Old Testament, prophets were messengers of God – not fortune-tellers, not clairvoyants, but people who had been called by God to steep themselves in prayers and the divine presence so they could listen for the word or message that God wanted to be spoken into particular situations. They usually addressed the leaders of God’s people so they could be guiding in making decisions that would keep the people as a whole in a faithful relationship with God, that would keep them in the covenant.
 
The backstory of today’s reading from 1 Kings is that Elijah was a prophet and wonder-worker from the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Ahab, in the 9th century BC. Earlier in time Israel and Judah (in the south) had been one united kingdom, under the leadership of David, and his Solomon; and it was during Solomon’s reign that the Temple had been built in Jerusalem, in the south, to be the home of the Ark of the Covenant, and the focus of worship for the whole nation. But the coalition and the dynasty of Solomon’s sons finally fell apart, and south and north each went their own ways. The Israelite kings pursued policies and alliances that ran counter to the ways and worship of Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord God. King Ahab married Jezebel, a foreign princess and priestess of the Canaanite fertility god Baal and his consort Asherah. And he built many shrines to Baal, and put many priests of Baal on the court payroll – all in a nation that was supposed to have a faithful covenant relationship with God.
 
Elijah took the lead in opposing Ahab and Jezebel and in calling the people back to the worship of Yahweh alone, and there were a number of skirmishes in that long-running struggle. But finally, as we hear in the reading today, Elijah has called for a direct and public face-off with the priests of Baal. There were 450 of them, and only one of him. The idea was to see whose god is indeed listening to and answering prayer, and powerful enough to show up in the lives of the people.
 
Now, the story of this encounter is very long – thirty verses; that’s why we read as a dialogue this morning. And the lectionary editors suggest that we could omit verses 22-29, but that leaves out the Baal priests’ attempt to call down fire on their sacrifice – the whole point of the contest. And it would also leave out Elijah’s mocking of them – surely one of the snarkiest lines in the Old Testament: "Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is ‘meditating’ (OT euphemism for being in the bathroom), or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." Another reason for reading the whole passage is because life just takes time, faith takes time; as we tell our own stories of faith and our journey to know the Lord we know that it has ups and downs, ins and outs, and that our life of faith and relationship with God cannot be put in a 30-second container, like an ad for dish soap.
 
So the priests of Baal have failed to have their god respond in any way to their prayers. Elijah, on the other hand, shows his faith and trust in the Lord God first by suggesting the contest, and second by upping the ante by dousing the entire sacrifice and altar with water three times, just to make God’s response seem all the more dramatic. And that’s exactly what happens – Elijah prays, and God sends fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, and all the people standing and watching are convinced and say “The Lord indeed is God.” Elijah to an enormous risk, went out on a huge limb, in order to call the people back to God through his very dramatic action. Had he failed, he would not just have been disgraced, and the people unconvinced, but Elijah would no doubt have been put to death by the king’s order.
 
In the Gospel we see a similar kind of risky faith. A Roman centurion, a Gentile, one of the despised military leaders of the occupying imperial force, sent a delegation of community leaders he had worked with to ask Jesus for help in healing a household slave who was ill. As they were talking, the centurion sent another messenger: “Master, you don’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m not that good a person, you know. I’d be embarrassed for you to come to my house, even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well. I’m a man under orders; I also give orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (The Message). The centurion had no guarantee that Jesus would entertain his request, that he would not be rejected out of hand. And perhaps he ran the risk, from the Roman point of view, of foolishly stooping to the local customs, being disloyal to the Roman imperial code. But he clearly knew from what he had heard about Jesus that here was power, and compassion, and his request was worth the risk on behalf of this slave whom he seemed to value. Indeed, the man was healed, and Jesus was very impressed with the centurion’s faith, so far than any of his own people.
 
And that’s one of the real hallmarks of faith – it is risky; the outcome is not assured by any means. It entails putting your hopes and plans, and sometimes even your life, on the line – trusting that God has your best interests at heart and wants you to be intimately involved with his purposes. Even when – or especially when – life seems to be falling apart, we are called to put our trust in God, to exercise risky faith; not foolish faith, but risky faith with no guarantee of the outcome except that we will always be held, loved, valued, and cherished by God. It was true for Elijah, it was true for the centurion, and it is true for you - now, today, tomorrow, next week, and on and on. God’s purposes for us and for this world are before us, and we are called to embrace and be embraced by the faith of Christ which will sustain us always.
 
Let us pray in these words from Henri Nouwen:
“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday after Pentecost
May 29, 2016

On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. Acts 16:13

In this Easter season, we’ve been reading through the Book of Acts as our first lesson on Sundays, as we do every year – not the same set of passages each year, but a total of eighteen readings, spread out over the three-year lectionary cycle. We read about the very earliest history of the Church in Easter season, because these are the people who were living and working and worshiping in the earliest days after the Resurrection; they were the ones forming the community of believers who followed the Risen Christ.

Last week we heard about the Apostle Peter and the experience of the first Gentile person to come to faith in Christ without first becoming Jewish: the Roman centurion Cornelius. And you may remember that was a big hurdle for the apostles to get over. This week we have the account of the first person on the European continent to become a Christian: Lydia, a Greek business woman who traded in luxury goods - purple cloth.

The Apostle Paul was on his second mission trip. He had already made a two-year tour of the island of Cyprus, and the area of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) called Galatia, in the western part of the region. Whenever he would go to a new community, he would always go first to the synagogue, to connect with his fellow Jews when he could. After that, he would reach out to any Gentiles who seemed interested in speaking with, anyone to whom the Holy Spirit led him.

On this second journey, Paul and Silas, his traveling companion, left Jerusalem and headed north along the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Then they headed northwest into the various regions of Asia Minor. In the town of Lystra they met Timothy and recruited him to serve on their missionary team. Paul planned to go into the area of Bithynia, up on the Black Sea coast but (as he said) “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them”, so they ended up in Troas, a town on the Aegean Sea. Here is where our story picks up.

While staying overnight in Troas, Paul had a vision/dream of a man in the region of Macedonia, just across the straights, pleading for Paul to come and help them…whatever that meant. So Paul, Silas, and Timothy got a ship the very next day and eventually landed in in Philippi – an important Macedonian city and a garrison town for the Roman army. For the first time, Paul was on European soil. He stayed in town for several days, but there is no mention of what he did or who he met. Then the account tells us that Paul went outside the gate, beyond the walls of the town on the Sabbath day. He went to the river “where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.” Why Paul supposed there might be a place of prayer there, we do not know, except that people throughout the ages and throughout cultures have found inspiration, solace, strength, and peace near water: rivers, lakes, oceans, streams, springs, and wells. Perhaps Paul’s efforts in town had been frustrated, he’d come up empty-handed in looking for people who were receptive to hearing the Good News of Christ, and so he was willing to step outside his comfort zone and outside the walls of Roman power, and seek other, less-likely people. And he was led to Lydia.

She is described as a worshipper of God, already drawn to the One God of Judaism, as opposed to the pantheon of Greek and ancient Near Eastern deities. She was a dealer in purple cloth – a very expensive commodity – so she was a woman of means, used to dealing with buyers and sellers, probably a shrewd judge of character, with the ability to weigh the truth (or lack thereof) of what she was being told. Lydia and her friends had gathered for prayer, and Paul goes ahead and preaches to her and the others, not being put off by the fact that they were a group of women. Lydia hears what Paul says and responds eagerly; she and her whole household ask to be baptized. Her quick response to Paul’s message may well be a sign that the Holy Spirit was already at work in her life and in her heart. She just needed to hear the specifics of who and what Jesus was so she could complete the trajectory her life and faith were on. Not only was the Spirit at work in Lydia before she had ever heard of Jesus; the Spirit was at work out ahead of Paul, preparing the way, guiding him, calling him in that dream to Macedonia, where he was indeed needed.

And look how Lydia responded further. She didn’t only put her faith and trust in Christ and begin to live as a baptized follower of Jesus’ Way. She prevailed upon Paul and his companions to come and stay with her, at her house; to make it the launching pad for the rest of Paul’s mission in Philippi, the center of the new church there. Lydia’s hospitality was more than offering refreshments and entertaining guests. Lydia made sure that she was going to learn as much about her new faith and way of life as she could; she created a space and an opportunity for Paul’s ministry. No doubt Paul, and the new Philippian church, benefited from her generous financial support, as well.

Why is this important for us? How is this not just ancient history, part of Bible trivia? This encounter between Paul and Lydia is full of risk, and trust, and the work of the Spirit. Paul was trying his best to be faithful to where God was leading him, but he wasn’t getting anywhere, until he listened to that dream, and until he stepped outside the walls of the Roman garrison and found Lydia and her friends. He had to be willing to take the risk to follow Jesus on what might have seemed like pretty slim information. And Lydia, for her part, had to be willing to risk that what Paul was saying was true, to trust that the depth and meaning of life that she had been seeking in worship was finally coming to fulfillment. They both had to trust the Holy Spirit was active and at work ahead of them, calling them both to deeper and truer relationship with God. That takes wisdom, and discernment, and paying attention to the sorts of things we often ignore or devalue.

As we think about our own context, our own day and age, there are many places people gather to try to connect with God, to deepen their spirituality – even if those places are often not in church on Sunday morning. How many people do you know who talk about the satisfaction – the spiritual fulfillment or peace – they find in a yoga class; walking in the woods; gathering with others to paint or make music; gardening; volunteering in a literacy program or with Habitat for Humanity; getting together with good friends for coffee or a glass of wine and deep conversation? And they are right…. these are all absolutely places where God is present and active in the lives of people – maybe in your life, too.  And so for us – Jesus’ followers – we need to know that it is good and right for us to take the risk, when we meet and friends and neighbors in these settings, and share a bit about what faith in Christ means to us, why we give our love and loyalty to Jesus. When we speak this way, we are not trying to convince anyone to be Christian, we are not trying to prove them wrong or ourselves right; but we can honestly and respectfully and confidently share what is of deepest importance to us.

And most of all, we can pray and trust that the Holy Spirit goes before us, invites us into places of hospitality and relationship and truth, and gives us wisdom and guidance when we seek to honor Christ – especially when it feels risky.

Let us pray.
Holy and Life-giving Spirit, help us to see you at work in the world about us, to go with courage and confidence to the places, people, and relationships you send us to, knowing that you are with us always, and that there are hearts and minds all around us longing to hear of your love and grace. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 1, 2016