From Genesis: [God] said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." Genesis 22:2 And from the Gospel: [Jesus said], "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Matthew 10:40

Did you ever have the experience of reading the Bible, or hearing a passage read in Church, and saying to yourself: What’s that all about?  I don’t get it. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve probably all had that experience – clergy included – and this morning’s reading from Genesis may well have been one of those times.

It’s the story referred to by Christians as “The Sacrifice of Isaac;” Jews call it Akedah, “The Binding of Isaac.” Not only is the meaning of this story hard to grasp, but it’s the very sort of passage that makes  some people want to run away from God, or religion, or at least the Old Testament, saying “If that’s what God is like, I don’t want to have anything to do with him” OR “Well, that’s the God of the Old Testament; I’m a Christian, I believe in a God of love, like we read about in the New Testament.” And, almost as if to prove a point, the Gospel reading this morning is all about welcoming, and receiving rewards, and being kind to people in need; could these two readings be further apart in their depiction of God?

To makes matters worse, because Easter was so late this year, we are jumping into all of these summertime, post-Pentecost readings much later than we usually do, and so we are missing the build up to each of these passages which we would otherwise have heard over the past several weeks. So we would have heard much more about Abraham and Sarah, and God’s call to them to leave their home and start out on a journey; and then heard God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and that his descendants would be as many as the stars; only to hear later that Abraham and Sarah had such difficulty conceiving a child that they took God’s plan into their own hands, only to muck it up before Isaac was finally born, the miracle child of their old age.

And if we had started the Season after Pentecost Gospel readings several weeks ago, we would have heard some of Jesus’ teaching and healing, and then heard Jesus calling the twelve disciples to be his followers, and giving them instructions about what to do and what to expect as they join in with Jesus’ mission.

But instead we just jump into this lectionary cycle mid-stream; we jump into this story of Abraham and Isaac with no warning; maybe we’re even a little blind-sided by it. Why in the world would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, his child?  What kind of cruel and capricious God is this? It’s very tempting to turn our backs on this story, or to say in a perfunctory way: God wants us to have blind faith in him – and leave it at that. But neither approach is fair to the Biblical narrative, or to our human experience.

Isaac was the promised child, the proof of God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah, the vehicle through whom God’s blessings were to come.n And so, I think, part of what is going on here is that at a time in the very early history of God’s people, when they were learning what it meant to be monotheists, to worship one God, to have an exclusive relationship with the Lord of Creation, they were still sorting it all out, and they were living in a time and culture where human sacrifice did sometimes take place. In the midst of all of that, God wanted Abraham to be clear that he was in the relationship for God himself, and not for the benefits he might receive in the way of descendants, or posterity, or even showing off how powerful his God could be when compared to the other gods of the people among whom Abraham and Sarah travelled and lived. It was important for God alone to be Abraham’s commitment, and so the willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God was a willingness to put God first. Now I realize that probably doesn’t sit too well with our twenty-first century point-of-view, and there are many questions that we can and should ask of this story, but the willingness to put God first and foremost is a major aspect of what is being offered to us here.

Another important aspect to this passage is that it is true to human life - in the sense that we can find ourselves in painful, awful circumstances, not of our own making, and sometimes we are asked to make choices that we can barely begin to fathom, yet God is with us even in those most difficult times. God did provide the ram in the end, the animal to be sacrificed; God was there with Abraham and with Isaac all through their ordeal, and God is with us in our times of fear and confusion and pain.

If this sermon was a movie this is the place where one scene would fade out and another scene would fade in, but the only way you’d know what was happening is that a caption would appear at the bottom of the screen saying something like: “20 years later….”

Only this time it’s two thousand years later , so please make the jump with me.

We’re moving ahead about two thousand years to hear Jesus as he is winding up his instructions to the disciples: "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward." Jesus is giving the disciples the authority to represent him, and to represent God in their work; if the people they are sent to welcome the disciples they are, by extension, welcoming Jesus and welcoming God. The disciples are emissaries, ambassadors on God’s behalf, full participants in Jesus’ mission to the world. They are drawn into God’s life and work as surely as if they were Jesus themselves, and whatever good or kind act a person does for one of the disciples will be counted as a goodness or kindness done toward God – that is what Jesus is saying to the disciples.

But his words are not meant just for those twelve people two thousand years ago, but also for us who are Jesus’ followers here and now. The mission that Jesus entrusted to the Twelve he has given to us in our own generation. We are invited to be emissaries, ambassadors and full participants in Jesus’ mission; there is work for each of us to do in making God’s reign and purpose for us humans a reality. God invites us, and trusts us to be partners with him, knowing that if we spend enough time with Jesus - doing his work, speaking his words, loving as he loves – we will become like him, we will find that “it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”

And so as Christians, as Biblical people, as people of the Word, we hold on to Genesis and to Matthew, to the story of the Binding of Isaac and to the instructions given to the disciples. We know that our faith and our God encompass the experience of heartbreak, suffering and things beyond our comprehension, and also the joy and purpose of being drawn right into the heart of God’s meaning and work. To say otherwise is to cut our fabric of faith too small, it is to deny the fact that every facet of human life and human experience is open to God.

But it is hard work – this holding on to Abraham and Isaac, as well as to the Gospel, at the same time; it sometimes pulls and stretches us in ways we might not find so comfortable at first. And certainly the world around us has a difficult time understanding that Christian life and faith can’t be put into neat and tidy prescribed boxes and categories, and the culture is always trying to get us to say the simple, on-or-off, black-or-white thing about God or faith or life.

But we Christians stand firmly rooted in the God who became incarnate in Jesus; the divinity who took on our humanity; the mystery and the power of the universe which makes itself known in the daily chores and tasks and minutia of human life and relationships.

We know that our God has a big story, rich with details and emotion and meaning and so many different characters; a story with plenty of room for us to live and move and have our being in it. This is story we have to tell; this is the story we take out into the world, to share with all who need the power and the presence and the purpose of God in their lives.

Let us pray. Lord God, you call us to be true to you, and to tell the truth about this human life you have given us.  Help us never to lose sight of the reality of suffering, nor the joy of new life; and build our faith day by day as you send us into the world as your ambassadors, emissaries and friends.  We ask this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 26, 2011

Jesus said: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  John 14:15-16

A couple of vignettes to start with:
About six months ago a package arrived for me at home.

It was a photograph I had never seen before, a group shot of my father, my uncle and their cousin sitting at a banquette in a night club in New York, with pictures of Benny Goodman and other musicians on the wall behind them.

It was April of 1944; my father was just barely 18 years old and was home from basic training before he was sent to join his unit.

My uncle was 15 and their cousin was 17; the younger boys wore jacket and tie, and Dad was in uniform, his medical corps insignia on his lapel, a very serious look on his face.

I think it’s the only picture of my father where he wasn’t smiling; the photo conveys a real sense of the weightiness of going off to war – a war where everything you loved and held dear in the world was on the line.

Love of country, love of family, love for friends who had already gone off to serve and had lost their lives ­- all captured in that moment.
+ + + + +
Somewhere today a couple is getting married – probably many couples are getting married, and lots more got married yesterday and Friday night.

All the services will be different from one another – Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, a civil ceremony; weddings with many bridesmaids and ushers, weddings with just the couple and two witnesses; a reception with a sit-down dinner for 250, or cake and a champagne toast in the backyard; all very different from each other.

But all weddings have one thing in common – they are about love and commitment, about taking the next step with another person, about building a life together in the face of all the challenges and joys that life brings you.

They are about love that begins where romance leaves off, love that sees beyond the here-and-now, love that expands into a widening circle of family and friends.
+ + + + +
In the movie “Stepmom” Susan Sarandon plays a woman who is dying of breast cancer.

Her six year-old son Ben is fascinated with wanting to be a magician.

For Christmas, just weeks before her death, she makes Ben a magician’s cape, with photos of the two of them stitched into it.

He is delighted with the gift, but then he comes right out and asks his mother if she is dying.

As she tries to answer his questions she kisses Ben’s hand and places it on his heart and says, “Right there, that’s where I’ll always be, inside.”

And Ben reaches out for his mother, to hug her, saying, “No one loves you like I do;” his mother replies “No one ever will.”

The love of parent and child – the most basic kind of love there is.
+ + + + +
All of these different kinds of love are things we know, we experience, we recognize.

And then we hear Jesus in this morning’s Gospel talking about loving him and keeping his commandments – love Jesus how? in what way? and what are the commandments that Jesus is expecting us to keep?

It is helpful to know a little bit about the context of Jesus’ words.

We are reading in the Gospel according to, as written down by, John; and throughout John’s version he is always trying to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, always trying to show how the majesty and the magnificence and the divinity of God are present in human life through Jesus.

Basically John’s message is: if you have seen and known Jesus, you see and know God.

And the particular setting of this passage is during the Last Supper – the meal Jesus had with his closest friends and disciples before being arrested and crucified.

They have gathered for a meal, Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet just the way a servant would, he acknowledges Judas’ plot to betray him, and then he tells the disciples:

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

Jesus then spends the next four chapters trying to prepare the disciples for his death: love one another, don’t worry, the Holy Spirit will come and be your comforter, strengthener, advocate, guide and encourager.

So the commandment that Jesus wants us to keep is, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

This is not a flimsy, haphazard, conditional kind of love.

God’s love for us comes with no strings attached; it is a gift, it is strong, it’s abundant, it sees clearly.

As St. Paul says: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is the love that Jesus wants his disciples to have for one another; this is the kind of love that Jesus wants us and all his followers to have for one another.

This kind of love is hard; it takes work – not that we earn God’s love (or anyone else’s, for that matter), but that in our human limitations and short-comings we are not always as full of God as we could be.

And so to love with God’s love we need to keep focusing our attention on Jesus, to learn from him, to see how he does it, to love with the strength of Jesus’ love for the friends and enemies he was willing to die for.

And Jesus promises the disciples and us that we won’t be alone, we won’t be orphaned, comfortless, without guidance.

esus says he will send the Holy Spirit to be with us, to live within us – much like the mother in “Stepmom” tells her son that she will be inside his heart always.

It is the Holy Spirit who will teach us how to love as Jesus loves.

In two weeks we will celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, one of the great festivals of the Church year.

But the Holy Spirit doesn’t just make an appearance once and then go back in the box until next year; the Spirit is present in our lives, even when we aren’t particularly aware of him.

Many of you know that the window next to the altar is a descending dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

That image is there week in, week out; not visible until you get up close to the altar, but always there, nonetheless; and at certain times of the year, the light will come through that window just the right way and clearly project the dove’s image onto the wall behind the altar.

That’s the way it is with the Holy Spirit: always there, but not visible unless you are close enough and paying attention, until suddenly the Spirit will show up in unexpected and surprising ways.

But the hallmark of the Holy Spirit is to teach us to love as Jesus loves; to give us strength and courage to love as Jesus loves; to draw us into intimacy with God so that we may be infused with Jesus’ love - the love that underlies all sorts and conditions of human love, and in which they find their fulfillment.

This is what we Christians are to be known for, this is what we have to offer to the world: the love of God which touches, saves, heals, restores, encourages, redeems and dwells with all whom God has made.

God’s love brings joy and new life; it sends us out with ample abundance so that we may share it with others, and then gathers us back in again so that we may be renewed.

Jesus says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with you forever….They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”  Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
Sixth Sunday of Easter - Rogation Sunday
May 29, 2011

When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.  All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.  Acts 1:13-14

What do you think prayer is all about?

You might say it’s about asking for guidance or requesting help - for yourself or for someone else who needs it.

Or you might say that prayer is about asking forgiveness for the things we have done wrong – and for the good things we have failed to do; or that prayer is about counting our blessings and saying ‘thank you’ to God.

If you pick up any popular magazine that runs articles on health and wellness, or if you read any of the major news websites that feature the same kind of stories you will often read that “prayer and meditation” are good for you, that they make you calmer, more centered, can even lower your blood pressure and possibly prolong your life.

Well, all of this is true, but this is not what the disciples were doing in that upper room when they gathered and prayed after Jesus’ ascension.

The disciples had returned to Jerusalem from Mount Olivet, where they witnessed Jesus’ ascension, and they had heard him promise them the power of the Holy Spirit, and charged them with being his witnesses.

In fact, the picture that Jesus was that the disciples were to begin their mission of being Jesus’ witnesses right there in Jerusalem and then spread out to the kingdom of Judea, to Samaria (that place so problematic to first-century Jews) and then out into the Roman Empire – the far-reaches of the civilized world.

The disciples had been walking with Jesus for three years, watching, listening, learning from him, being sent off on short-term mission projects.

They had lived through the painful and dramatic experience of Jesus’ arrest and death by crucifixion, and had then been astonished and elated at his rising to new life on Easter.

Then for the next forty days the Risen Christ appeared to the disciples many times – talking with them, eating with them, making final preparations for them to take up the work that he was setting before them.

And now that Jesus had ascended the disciples went back to Jerusalem, to that upstairs room – the one where they had shared the Last Supper, the room they had fled to after the crucifixion, the same room where they gathered on Easter evening when Jesus appeared to them, and the same place where a week later Thomas made his declaration of faith when Jesus told him to touch the wounds in his hands and his side.

This upper room had been a place of worship and shelter and fellowship and safety all through their two-month sojourn in Jerusalem.

And it was there that they gathered once again after the ascension, devoting themselves to prayer as they waited for the promised Holy Spirit.

So the question is: what was this prayer that they were engaged in?

It was a prayer of expectant waiting on God – a prayer of listening, of being open to what God was going to do next whenever that “next” was going to be.

It was also a prayer of worship that drew Jesus’ followers together: the Twelve, the women, his mother Mary, his brothers; they were united in their waiting and listening.

This intense and focused prayer of expectation opened up a space in their hearts and in their midst for the Holy Spirit to come, almost like a spiritual convection that would draw in the power of the Spirit.

Or another way to describe the disciples’ prayer is that it was concentrated enough to harness divine energy, the way a magnifying glass held in the sun over a piece of paper or a pile of tinder can create fire.

This is probably not the way most of us think of prayer.

We want to draw close to God – but not too close!

We come to God with our list of wants and concerns and needs – and most of them are certainly worth praying about.

But the kind of prayer the disciples were engaged in during this time between Jesus’ ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was filled with an intense and expectant longing to be open to whatever God was going to do next with them.

It’s not that the disciples were any more “spiritual” or special than we are, but they had gone far enough down the road with Jesus that there was no turning back, no putting on the brakes at that point.

And so they prayed – intensely, fervently, with eager longing – waiting on God.

And really, that is the kind of prayer that Jesus invites us into as well – to pray with focus and expectation that we may be receptacles of the Spirit, channels for God’s energy and purpose.

But this kind of prayer is risky, because we don’t know and we can’t predict how we might be changed by coming so close to God; after all, look at what happened to the disciples!

And yet this kind of steady, focused prayer is the way we will grow to be more like God, the way we will know best what God plans and purposes and intentions for us are, and then be given the power to complete those plans.

It’s not a prayer of emotions or feelings, necessarily, but rather a prayer of full attention and concentration on God and than waiting with a calm openness for God to act.

This time after the ascension, this Ascensiontide, is an example, and a reminder, and an invitation for us to enter more deeply into prayer to our Ascended Lord – and then wait to be empowered for the mission Jesus has in mind for us.

Let us pray.

Come down, O love divine, seek Thou this soul of mine,
And visit it with Thine own ardor glowing.
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
And kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn, til earthly passions turn
To dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
And let Thy glorious light shine ever on my sight,
And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,
Shall far outpass the power of human telling;
For none can guess its grace, till he become the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling.  Amen.
                                    -- Bianco da Sienna, Hymn 516

Victoria Geer McGrath
Seventh Sunday of Easter: the Sunday after the Ascension
June 5, 2011

[Jesus said:] “But you are not to be like that.  Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” Luke 22:26

When I was in college my campus job was working in the dining hall.

Five nights a week at this small women’s college we had waitressed family-style dinners, and usually two of those five nights I was working.

The student-waitresses carried big metal trays filled with platters and bowls of food for tables of eight – three tables per waitress.

After everyone was finished eating we collected up the dirty plates and cutlery and glasses, took them to the dish room and then went to the kitchen where we picked up dessert – servings of cake or pie or ice cream, or whatever dessert happened to be that night.

At the end of the meals the tables were cleared, wiped down and swept beneath.

This was hard work; the trays were heavy, people often made a mess of their plates, china and utensils were usually sticky or greasy, and there was more than once when I stepped on a wet patch on the floor, only to slip and fall with a fully-loaded tray.

But it was different than waiting tables in a restaurant.

The student-diners were my peers and classmates and friends.

In our small, rural academic community there was only one dining hall, the snack bar wasn’t open at meal times, the off-campus options were the real dive of a bar a mile away or the over-priced college-owned inn; any kind of fast-food was in the nearest big town – 15 miles away.

So shared meals at college were as essential as labs, lectures, rehearsals or the library.

We came together in the dining hall to eat, to socialize, to continue a classroom debate or argument, to hear all-school announcements, to be silly and to blow off steam.

It all built the bonds of our community, but a lot of that social fabric was made possible by the students who waitressed, or worked as lab assistants or library staff, or teaching assistants or lifeguards at the pool or any of the other campus jobs.

We served each other for the good of the whole, as well as for our work-study money.

The same thing happened in the early days of the Church.

As more and more people came to faith in Christ the community of believers grew, and the leadership found it difficult to keep up with all the aspects of caring for this spiritual community that also had very real physical needs.

In fact, some people were starting to fall through the cracks: the Greek-speaking widows were getting short-changed in the daily distribution of food, and so they complained to the apostles against the Hebrew-speaking portion of the community.

The size and diversity of the Church was growing beyond what the apostles alone could handle, somebody needed to make sure everyone was getting fed, and so the apostles asked the community to raise up leadership from among themselves to take on this task of overseeing the people’s physical needs.

Seven were chosen, all with Greek names – including Stephen who became the first martyr for the Christian faith.

And as the Book of Acts tells us: “The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem.”

As the spiritual and physical needs of the whole community were met – Greeks, as well as Hebrews; the newly-arrived, as well as the long-timers; the widows, as well as those who had means of support from their families – as the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of all were valued and attended to, the mission of the Church went forward and grew and flourished.

The well-being of the Christian body and the success of its evangelism was dependent on these seven deacons, those called to diakonia – the ministry of service.

And that is so because the Lord they served is one who takes account of the small, the poor, the least, the outsiders, the powerless, the down-trodden, the grief-stricken and the hurting; all of these are precious in God’s sight.

Jesus told the apostles - the Twelve, his closest friends, his inner circle - that they were not to argue about who was the greatest, but that “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.”

 And he said this in response to an argument the Twelvewere having at the Last Supper, as Jesus shared his last meal with them.

That may seem incredible to us now, to think of the disciples arguing about their own standing and stature in the face of the impending death of their rabbi and Lord, but it’s a good reminder for us.

Too often, when we focus on ourselves, we can forget what we are about, we can overlook God’s priorities, and we need to hear Jesus calling us back to what is real and what is important: “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves… [for] I am among you as one who serves.”

The ministry of a deacon is a gift to the Church, a gift to all of us, because this ministry keeps reminding us that we are all called to service, we are all called to reach out, we are all called to humility, we are all to take our place in the fabric of the Christian community – one person interwoven with the next.

Diaconal ministry reminds us very clearly that “it’s not about you,” because being a follower of Jesus is about loving God and loving our neighbor, and not about our own self-importance.

And so we come to this day when we are setting aside a deacon, raising up from among us one who will be an example and a role model of service, a leader who values the needs of the whole community, one who will pay attention to those least likely to draw attention to themselves – in the Church and outside it.

Beth does this as well as anyone I know.

She has offered her considerable skills and talents - and her willingness to take risks and push herself beyond what is easy or comfortable – in five different congregations in this diocese, in a women’s shelter, and in several national church organizations – all places where it could be very easy to forget what Jesus says about service and humility.

We know, and Beth and the Bishop and the Commission on Ministry (on behalf of the Church) have discerned, that her call to ministry is ultimately as a priest; but this ordination as a deacon today is so important.

It is an indelible mark that will remain with Beth throughout her life – a call to service, to diakonia, to drawing the circle wide, to including those who would otherwise be left behind; God’s mission of love and compassion in a broken and hurting world; an icon of service for the whole Church.

And now Beth and Peter and Phoebe, will you please stand.

You have come to a new threshold in the life of your family as Beth is about to be ordained.

Prior to this, Beth and Peter, you have made vows before God: baptismal vows, confirmation vows, marriage vows, vows as parents of a baptized child.

Those vows and promises continue; they are not trumped by ordination, but ordination does cast a different light, does shade things differently in the life of a family.

And so Peter and Phoebe, Beth will need your support – which you have already given so generously – but she will also need you sometimes to help her stay grounded in her relationships as wife and mother, to remind her to pray and to play (Phoebe, I know you are particularly good at the playing part and you’ll be able to help your mom with this).

Beth, please remain standing; Peter and Phoebe, you may be seated.

Beth, my friend, my colleague, my sister in Christ – my charge to you this day, and my prayer for you, is that in your ministry and in your life you will always know the love and joy of Jesus, that you will serve others with the love and joy of Jesus, that you will continue to draw the circle wide in the love and joy of Jesus – and always for God’s glory and for the building up of God’s people and kingdom and Church.  Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral, Newark, NJ
Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate
June 4, 2011