Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Mark 10:51

Have you ever known anyone who really was not particularly interested in getting well?

I know that sounds odd; you would think that someone who was ill would want nothing more than to be well again. But there are some people like that.

Their illness, or condition, or difficult circumstances have garnered for them attention and sympathy that has become all-too comfortable and beneficial to them. Sometimes the person will complain bitterly about their problems and pains but will protest even more loudly when you offer help or suggest alternatives. It is at this point you recognize that person really doesn’t want to get well. The effort and pain of healing seems to be too much to contemplate – never mind losing the attention of others that such self-centeredness brings.

This is not a new phenomenon; there have always been people like this. Perhaps you have had to care for such a person. Perhaps you have even flirted with being that sort of person yourself when you have been through a difficult period in your life. It can be a very tempting and self-destructive pattern to fall into; not to mention making those around you miserable.

So when Jesus asks Bartimaeus, the beggar who was blind: “What do you want me to do for you?” it is a real question.

Doe Bartimaeus really want to give up the pity he may have become used to from being blind? Does he really want to give up a life of begging (as hard as that is) and take on a different means of supporting himself? Does he really want to be restored to relationships with others and his community? Is he ready and willing to take on the challenges of living life in a way that will be new and different? All of these concerns are wrapped up in Jesus’ single question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

The way Mark paints this encounter is spare, brief. Jesus, the disciples, and a crowd of others are leaving the city of Jericho, an eighteen-mile walk to Jerusalem, and one with a steep climb of over three-thousand feet in elevation. The road between them follows the top of a narrow, stony ridge that twists and turns through the arid Judean desert. At the end of this road is Jerusalem, the center of all legal, religious, economic, and cultural power. And at the end of this particular journey Jesus would enter the city for the last time – humble, and riding on a donkey.

Bartimaeus, sitting by the side of the road hears the crowd, hears that Jesus is at the center of it, and calls out to him to get his attention. Bartimaeus calls him “Son of David”, a title for the Messiah. The crowd tries to shut him up; so as not to bother Jesus, or because he is merely a blind beggar, or because that “Son of David” title could bring down the wrath of the authorities if it got spread abroad, we don’t know.

But Bartimaeus persists, and Jesus responds with the question about his desire. Bartimaeus responds swiftly and whole-heartedly: “My teacher, Rabbi, let me see again!” He is not only asking for his vision to be restored, but he is also claiming a connection, a relationship with Jesus.

Jesus answers him very simply: “Go; your faith has made you well.” Bartimaeus’ sight is immediately restored, and he follows Jesus, both physically and in faith, throwing in his lot with the others as a disciple.

In this encounter and healing, Mark wants to draw our attention to direct, persistent, whole-hearted, eager faith – even in the face of the challenges of the Jericho road, and even more, in the events that will soon transpire in Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem.
If Jesus were to ask you the same question he asked Bartimaeus – What do you want me to do for you? – what would your answer be? What is it that you long for Christ to do for you?

What is holding you back from being the person you know God wants you to be? What roadblock seems to trip you up over and over? In particular, what is it that you carry with you that you would be better off letting go of and losing, like Bartimaeus did with letting go of his blindness? What would really set you free in heart, body, mind, and soul?

Even if you don’t think you have the faith to ask for God’s help, or to let go of those things that drag you down, or the faith to do anything different, Jesus still asks: “What do you want me to do for you?” and he means it.

So tell him; be honest. But also be willing to change, to let God change you. Be willing to trust that while the road ahead of you may be new, and strange, and even steep and rocky – especially now when the world around us continues to change in often dramatic ways – it will also be a path filled with the purpose and blessings and joy of God’s presence.

Let us pray.
Restore us, Holy One, Son of David, Merciful Savior, in the ways we long for and in all the ways that are best for us; only, attune our hearts to your desires and give us the faith to walk your way with gladness and singleness of heart. Amen.
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
October 24, 2021

Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he was amazed at their unbelief. Mark 6:4, 6

Happy Fourth of July! I think many of us have looked forward to today, and tomorrow’s federal holiday, and this long weekend for a long time. The sense of having a close-to-carefree summer holiday after so much sadness and difficulty over COVID is very welcome.

Here in Church this is a day with a double focus for us this year. It is, of course, the birthday of our nation, Independence Day, and it is also the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. As much as we are embedded in the civic community and the wider world, the Church keeps its own calendar, its own rhythm of life, and always has. Sometimes that rhythm intersects with the secular calendar, and other times it doesn’t – even though we do recognize and pray for and respond to the concerns of the world around us - God’s world. And so, I want to reflect a bit on the Church calendar.

The history of the Episcopal Church in America is very much wrapped up in the early history of our country. Once the United States became independent from the British crown, American Anglicans could no longer be part of the Church of England. So, after much prayer, discussion, discernment, and argument and wrangling, the leaders of those colonial Anglican parishes came together to become the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 1789. The first American Book of Common Prayer was published that same year; and the Preface to that first book is still in our current Prayer Book. You can find it on page 9.

In setting forth the Church calendar the leaders of our new Church included two national civic days as major feast days: Thanksgiving Day and Independence Day. In both cases the clergy and lay leaders saw God’s goodness and providence at work in having come through the Revolutionary War and in the establishment of this new nation. Those two days have remained major feast days in our Church calendar – right up there with the feast days of important saints like Paul, Archangel Michael, and Mary the mother of Jesus.

But the Prayer Book is also clear that in our worship and liturgical life Sunday – the Day of Resurrection, the “little Easter” every week, the Lord’s Day – is the most important celebration we have and there are only a small handful of occasions that take precedence over the Sunday readings and themes. If you want to see the details of this, they are laid out very clearly beginning on page 15 in the Prayer Book.

This may seem trivial or nit-picky; important only for people planning liturgy, but it is not. This order of precedence or importance in the Church calendar helps us Christians to keep our priorities in good order. We are to keep Jesus Christ our Lord front and center, and Jesus’ saving death and resurrection first and foremost. That comes first – even before major feast days, before civic holidays, before Independence Day. When we proclaim Jesus as Lord, we are saying that he is our highest loyalty and everything else in our lives gets in line after that priority.

That principal is at work in our service today. We opted to us the Old Testament reading and the Psalm that responds to it that are appointed for Independence Day in keeping  with the church calendar instruction. The Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are the assigned readings for the Sunday – the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.

Placing the reading from Deuteronomy and the passage from Mark’s Gospel alongside one another can help to keep this priority of our Christian discipleship in focus.

The first reading reminds us that God comes first and foremost, as well as highlighting God’s character: mighty and awesome, not partial, executing justice for the needy, loving the stranger. And because we worship and follow the Lord God, we are enjoined to do the same. The ancient Israelites were to remember with humility that they themselves had been strangers in Egypt and were enjoined to care for the stranger in their midst; to exercise God’s mercy.

I wonder if our early Episcopal Church forebearers chose this reading for Independence Day because they knew it was their duty and responsibility as Christian people to take these sorts of actions towards their larger society. Perhaps they also hoped that their new country would embody these same values and practices – even if they were more honored in the breach than in actual fact.

Then in the Gospel we hear Jesus preaching in his home-town synagogue, the place where he grew up, amongst people who had known him all his life. But that very familiarity prevented his neighbors from believing what they were hearing, and they dismissed him out of hand. ‘What makes him so special? Who does he think he is?’

The people of the Nazareth congregation would not allow themselves to see God at work in and through Jesus. They narrowed their minds and their vision to the point that they could not get on board with his ministry.

But Jesus was not held back by that limiting unbelief. He moved on to other communities, and sent the Twelve core disciples out in ministry, as well – partners in Jesus’ mission of calling people to turn to God in new and renewed ways, confronting evil, working to bring God’s healing and wholeness to the lives of people and communities.

This is still the ministry that Christ calls us to today. We are still asked to embody the values that Deuteronomy speaks of. We modern-day disciples are still to be conduits and agents of God’s love, and healing, and blessing to others in whatever ways the Spirit nudges us.

In order for us to do that we need to have our priorities straight: our loyalty and commitment to our Risen Lord, first and foremost. Everything after that gets ordered in line by prayer and wise discernment - our relationships, responsibilities, recreation, and civic engagement.

This is a day on which we have much to remember and celebrate and give thanks for; our country and all the best that it represents and embodies. But even more, we give thanks for our faith and salvation and life in Christ.

Let us pray.
Christ is made the sure foundation,
Christ the head and cornerstone,
chosen of the Lord and precious,
binding all the church in one;
holy Zion's help forever,
and her confidence alone.
May these words be true in our hearts and our lives. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
July 4, 2021

[Peter said:] “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” Acts 1:21-22

Welcome to the time in-between. It is the time in-between Ascension and Pentecost. The time in-between the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry, extended by bis resurrection appearances, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It is the time in-between the disciples having a clear understanding of their work directly from Jesus and the mission that they will be sent out to do in the power of the Spirit – but without a blueprint.

On Ascension Day (and in the Easter station reading at the beginning of this service) we heard the last words in Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus says to the Eleven: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

These words are often referred to as the Great Commission – the task Jesus gave his followers, the Church. We are to make disciples of others, to baptize them so that they become part of the household of God, and to teach the things that Jesus taught, and do his works after him.

After Jesus vanished from their sight the Eleven disciples returned to Jerusalem to pray, to gather and stay connected to others who were also following Jesus, and to wait for the Holy Spirit that had been promised them.

During the course of that prayerful waiting, it became clear that the core leadership group needed to be restored to twelve persons. Someone needed to fill the place left empty by Judas’ betrayal and death. Twelve was not an arbitrary number; Jesus had intentionally chosen twelve primary disciples as a reflection of the ancient twelve tribes of Israel; a connection back to God’s original purpose in calling humanity to faithful living, belonging, and believing.

So who now should that twelfth person be? Who should take Judas’ place? This was a question for prayerful discernment. Peter as the leader set out some parameters – it should be one of those who had been with them since the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and had spent time and travelled with them. There were two people proposed: Joseph, called Barsabbas or Justus; and Matthias. After praying for God’s guidance and wisdom they cast lots – we might say they drew straws – and Matthias was chosen.

We don’t know anything else from the New Testament or church history about Matthias, but we can assume that he faithfully exercised his ministry in partnership with the others. From that point forward in the Book of Acts the Twelve are not referred to any longer as disciples (learners) but are called apostles (ones who are sent on a mission).

This in-between time, this prayerful waiting time, was not just hanging around at loose ends. It was not empty time. The selection of Matthias to be an apostle was important. It prepared Jesus’ followers for what was to come next. They were poised and ready, as much as one can ever be, to go about God’s work wherever they would be sent.

And the prayer itself during that time was their work. It wasn’t a matter of just saying a few words at the beginning of a meeting, but I imagine that the Twelve apostles and the other 120 disciples gathered for the regular daily liturgical hours of prayer in Judaism – at sunrise, at 3 pm, and at nightfall. And I also imagine that there were times of silent meditation, perhaps the  recitation of certain psalms, and maybe even pairs of people taking turns throughout the day and night being in active prayer for the whole group to be ready to receive the Spirit – a prayer watch for the promised Advocate and Guide whenever he might arrive. It was an intense time of preparation and waiting.

In many ways I think our current experience echoes the disciples’. We are in an in-between time. We have been through the trial of the pandemic which has tested our strength, our courage, our fortitude, our resiliency. Some of us have suffered illness; others of us have had family and friends die; all of us have lost aspects of our lives that we knew before.

And now it looks like we are emerging from the pandemic – certainly here in New Jersey, although we know it is still raging elsewhere. But even as the virus cases has dropped so precipitously, we know that there are lingering questions about situations and details that the medical and scientific community still need to address. And it may well be a while before all of us feel ready to fully engage life in person again – face-to-face.

For us as All Saints’ as we get ready to move back into worship in our building and consider what shape and rhythm our parish life and activities will take – particularly as we think about the new program year in September – we need to be full of prayer, and listening, and discernment about the shape of God’s mission in and through us.

How do we do that kind of prayerful listening and discernment? That’s probably not something we have a lot of experience or skill in doing.

We can begin by asking ourselves some questions, and then pondering the answers. What delights us? What gives us joy? What seems life-giving? What is drawing our attention? What gives us hope? What makes us feel close to God?

Sometimes we can have a gut, intuitive answer to these questions; at other times we have to sit with them for a while; talk them through with someone who is a good listener; maybe journal our response to the questions.

And then ask a second round of questions, this time specifically about All Saints’: What was a time you felt most proud of this parish – and why? When was a time in this congregation that you felt most alive, engaged, and motivated – what were you doing, and who were you doing it with? What do you understand as the core values of All Saints’? What is the best from our past, and what would be most important to carry into the future?

These questions, also, should be prayed and pondered and discussed with one another if we are to be able to listen to the direction and the shape of the mission that God has for us now and in the new chapter ahead of us.

One thing I know – God longs to see God’s people alive, renewed, refreshed, revived, and ready to serve the world in Christ’s name and to be a witness to the gracious and life-giving love of God. Just like the apostles and the first church community, this is what we should be praying for: renewal, refreshment, and revival.

Let us pray.
Almighty God, we thank you that by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ you have overcome sin and brought us to yourself, and that by the sealing of your Holy Spirit you have bound us to your service. Renew in us your servants the covenant you have made with us at our Baptism.  Send us forth in the power of that Spirit to perform the service you set before us; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. ~ from the service of Confirmation, Book of Common Prayer.
 
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And at the same time we have been:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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