So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Mark 6:12-13

This past week I went to see a new film, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”, the documentary biography of Fred Rogers of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” fame. I’m sure many of you knew the television show and appreciated it. Others of you may be only vaguely aware of it, or only know the spoofs and parodies of the show that appeared in places like Saturday Night Live.

I probably started watching the show soon after it began airing in 1966, along with my  younger sister and baby brother. It became enough of a childhood staple for me that when my own children came along it seemed only right that watching Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood would be part of our family life. One of the aspects of the show was that Fred Rogers never talked down to children, he never thought they were too young to have important questions, and he always had very high quality jazz, classical music, art, and dance featured on the program. And at the very heart of everything Mr. Rogers did was the belief that children should know that they were loved and valued – no matter what.

So I was shocked to learn in the film that at Fred’s funeral in 2003, members of Westboro Baptist Church showed up to protest at his funeral – you know, they’re the folks who protest at military funerals because the U.S. Armed Forces do not discriminate based on sexuality. And I was further distressed to hear from the film that a commentator on a cable news network some years ago, called him "an evil man" and claimed that young adults today feel entitled because Mr. Rogers told them they didn't need to earn love from anyone.

Well, I suppose that should be no surprise. Jesus is the One who incarnated and taught God's gift of unconditional love (which comes even before the need for repentance and forgiveness). And Jesus was clear that He would be a stumbling block to those who could not or would not hear Him; so those who share and teach Jesus’ love will also sometimes be a stumbling block to others. Fred Rogers was a Christian and a Presbyterian pastor, ordained and sent for the work of evangelism on television. The unconditional love he taught to children was God's love. There will always be those who are threatened by and rejecting of what they cannot control. And nobody can control the love of God – which is there for each and every person. And that takes us right to this morning’s Gospel reading.

Jesus has returned to Nazareth, and is preaching in his home synagogue, where everyone knows him and his family. But rather than appreciating what Jesus was teaching, or welcoming and honoring him, or even being curious and asking genuine questions, the townspeople were indignant, even resentful, in essence saying: ‘Well, look at who’s getting too big for his britches!’ All they could see was the boy they had known growing up in the carpenter’s family; their unbelief creating a climate where Jesus could not show them God’s power and mighty deeds – the signs of the Kingdom. They wouldn’t have believed him, anyway: ‘It must be some kind of trick’ they might have said. They rejected Jesus and his purpose and mission. They took offense at him.

So rather than try to cajole or argue with them, Jesus walks away. He goes on about his business, God’s business, Kingdom business. The home folks aren’t on board with the mission, but Jesus has another group who is: the disciples, specifically, the Twelve who were his inner circle, his training team. He calls them together and then sends them out, two by two, equipped with authority over unclean spirits, with a staff, no money or food or change of clothes; equipped with a message – that all should turn, should repent, should reorient their lives around Jesus. And if any group you go to will not listen, will not receive you with an open heart, don’t worry about it – just leave. Shake off the dust, don’t let it get you down.

We know this story – at least Luke’s version of it – because it is one of the Gospel passages we’ve spent a lot of time with in our Going Local efforts. Jesus sends disciples out into the towns and villages as his advance party. And one of the things we’ve learned is that while we can have some amazing and important encounters with people, while we can see that the Holy Spirit is out in front of us, working in the lives of people and in ways we might never have imagined, doing that work can seem very scary. We feel unsure, under-equipped, completely at sea about what to say or even sometimes what to believe in a world that often feels so un-lovely.

And yet, Jesus still bids us to go, to go forth – we who are disciples every bit as much as the Twelve were – to be part of Jesus’ mission of announcing the blessings of God’s love and goodness, to come alongside others in their struggle and their celebration, and their need to hear the truth of God’s unconditional love for them; to be an active part of the Jesus Movement that our Presiding Bishop keeps talking about. And now we’re going to get some help with that: some structure, some practices that we probably all knew about but may have forgotten or not considered, a pattern of living that can help us be rooted and grounded in Christ, that will transform us over time, that we can draw on as we are living and speaking Jesus’ mission in the world.

At the General Convention of our Episcopal Church this past week, Presiding Bishop Curry – in a very moving sermon – invited and encouraged all Episcopalians to adopt a Rule of Life called “The Way of Love.” A Rule of Life is “an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness”, in becoming the people God wants us to be. A Rule of Life is not new; it’s as old as Christian faith. A Rule of Life is not like waving a magic wand; transformation doesn’t happen overnight but takes long and sustained effort and time. But a Christian Rule of Life can be a tremendous vehicle of God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to shape us and equip us for service in the Jesus Movement.

This particular rule, this “Way of Love” has seven practices – seven points or areas – and each one is important, and each goes back to the earliest days of the Church and has been used for centuries. Here in brief are the seven practices in the “Way of Love”:

• Turn: Pause, listen and choose to follow Jesus.
• Learn: Reflect daily on scripture, especially the life and teachings of Jesus.
• Pray: Spend time with God in prayer every day.
• Worship: Gather in community for worship every week.
• Bless: Share one’s faith and find ways to serve other people.
• Go: Move beyond one’s comfort to witness to the love of God with words and actions.
• Rest: Dedicate time for restoration and wholeness.
  

 
As I said, these are not new; they are what the Church has always known, and they are just as powerful today as they have ever been, and yet how far have we drifted or wandered away from them, or done some parts and not others, or depended on someone else to maintain our connection to God for us, or just need to be refreshed and revived in our life with God. There are resources for this Way of Love up on the Episcopal Church website and print resources will be available soon. In very short run, there is a small flyer with the basic information about this Rule of Life on the table in the Narthex; please take one home with you. I would also urge you to listen to Bishop Curry’s sermon introduced and launched this Rule of Life; I sent you the link in the Daily Prayer e-mail yesterday. And in case you were wondering, if you have been following along and praying the parish Daily Prayers for the last few months, you have already been working on the Pray aspect of the Way of Love.

Fred Rogers knew about the Way of Love, the Way of God’s love – it’s what he taught, and played, and sang about with the children of America. The Way of Love is the basic building blocks, the primary formation for service in the Jesus Movement. The Way of Love will always send us in generous, open, even sacrificial love for others. And God goes before us and prepares the way for us – always.

Let us pray.
Go forth for God; go to the world in peace
be of good courage, armed with heavenly grace,
in God’s good Spirit daily to increase,
till in his kingdom we behold his face.

Go forth for God; go to the world in love;
Strengthen the faint, give courage to the weak;
Help the afflicted; richly from above
His love supplies the power and grace we seek.
            ~ Hymn 347, J.R. Pearcy

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 8, 2018

Jesus said to the people, "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away. John 6:37

Charlie White wanted to live to be a hundred years old; a while back he was even reading a book about how to do that! And there were many of us who thought that Charlie would outlive us all. He did pretty well; he got to ninety-three. But it wasn’t Charlie’s actual age that was the important thing. He was an icon in our community; a presence; a representative from another time and place; an emissary, if you will, from God’s time and God’s realm.

And I don’t think any of us can really quite imagine what life in Long Hill Township will be like without Charlie. We will never be able to go to Shop-Rite without expecting to see him pushing his cart, or swimming at Stirling Lake on a summer’s day, or waiting for the train at Millington Station, or riding his bike on Long Hill Road, or sitting in his spot here in church, or crossing the intersection out here in front – onlookers being on pins and needles for his safety. So it is good for us to be here together to grieve his death and our loss, and to celebrate his life – and there is so much to celebrate!

Charlie and his parents moved to town in 1927 when he was two years old, living first on Central Avenue in Stirling, and then moving to Old Forge Road in Millington. Although the term was probably not used when he was a child, Charlie had Autism Spectrum Disorder, making his communications skills difficult. He went to local public schools and then spent a few years at a residential school, eventually returning home to live with his parents. Charlie was not able to drive, but he loved to read math books, especially calculus and trigonometry. He rode his bicycle everywhere, delivering Grit, a weekly newspaper for small-town America.

That paper route was emblematic of who Charlie was. He had grit, tenacity, even a stubbornness that stood him in very good stead as he learned to advocate for himself in the world, no doubt taught by his parents to do what he could do to his utmost.

Another way that Grit was an extension of Charlie’s life is summed up in the words of the paper’s editors to its employees in the late nineteenth century:
“Always keep Grit from being pessimistic. Avoid printing those things which distort the minds of readers or make them feel at odds with the world. Avoid showing the wrong side of things, or making people feel discontented. Do nothing that will encourage fear, worry, or temptation... Wherever possible, suggest peace and good will toward men. Give our readers courage and strength for their daily tasks. Put happy thoughts, cheer, and contentment into their hearts...”
That is our Charlie; that is the way he lived and the way he treated others, with loving-kindness, gentleness, gratitude, joy, and faithfulness.

Charlie was a man of deep faith, very rarely missing Sunday worship until two weeks ago. Charlie was baptized here as an adult in 1969 by the Rev. David St. George; he was prepared for confirmation by the Rev. Al Salt and confirmed in 1977 by Bishop George Rath who had known Charlie since he was sixteen; both Al and the Rev. Richard Wrede served as his guardians after the death of his father. And now we are here today to bury Charlie’s earthly remains and commend him to God’s loving care and presence.

One of Charlie’s aides in these last months, Ronnie, told me that as recently as a month ago, Charlie was still getting down on his knees by the side of his bed every night to say his prayers. His faith in God and his faithfulness were the foundation of his life and an example to us all.

Of course, Charlie was not able to live his life alone. That African proverb about “It takes a village to raise a child” is absolutely true for Charlie. It took Long Hill Township and All Saints’ Church to support him in living as independently as possible.  At different times, and in differing capacities, so many people played an important role in Charlie’s life, and on behalf of his parents Jessie and Harold I thank you for that. Their trust in the goodness of this community must have given them the confidence to have Charlie live at home, and not in an institution.

But in these last dozen or so years the people who have lovingly, generously taken on the ministry of Charlie’s care have been the Golden family – specifically Ann and Terence. I know that they were glad to do it, but I also know it was a great deal of work, some heartache, and responsibility. We all cannot thank you enough. And in Jesus’ words of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew’s Gospel: “Well done, good and faithful servants.”

Charlie has given All Saints’ and Long Hill Township a great gift. It is the gift of knowing that we are all bound together in a community of God’s love and compassion, that we can and do care for one another, and that the ones who are cared for have as much to give as those who are doing the caring, if we will receive it. This a real-life example of the kingdom of God that Jesus taught and incarnated lived out on earth as it is in heaven.

I said at the beginning that Charlie was an emissary from God’s realm, from that reality we call heaven which is not somewhere out beyond the planets but is right here with us, alongside us, unseen, but not unfelt or unknowable. If we look closely, if we listen attentively, we can see and hear God’s presence breaking through into our ordinary, day-to-day lives; an awareness of blessing, and goodness, and peace.

That’s what Charlie was so good at. He paid attention, he listened, he saw you, he knew you – in later years he might call you by your father’s name, instead of your own, but he knew you; you had a place in his world. He was a reflection of the God in whom he trusted who sees, and hears, and knows, and loves us – each one of us, deeply and tenderly, and calls us all by name.

So take this gift that God has given you through Charlie – the gift of loving-kindness, the gift of gladness and singleness of heart, the gift of courteous generosity, and the joy and wonder in all God’s works and put it into practice – every day if you can – with one another and with all those who cross your path. As we do this, we will continue to be the people and the community that Charlie knew us to be, and that God calls us to be.

It has been an honor and a privilege to know you, Charlie White; and we are all better people for it.
And so for all that has been, for all that is, and for all that is yet to be, we say: thanks be to God. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Charles A. White Funeral
June 14, 2018

And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."… Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!" Isaiah 6:3, 8

Can you think of a time when you had a profoundly moving experience of God, of the holy? It could have been when you were alone, or when you were in a sea of people, or when you were with only one other. Your experience of God may have come through your senses: listening to music, seeing the tremendous beauty of Creation, touching the face or holding the hand of someone beloved to you, singing with a whole group of people. Or it may have come from deep within you: a feeling or conviction of God’s presence in a powerful and incontrovertible way.

One such experience for me was when, as a 16-year old, I worshipped for the first time at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York, a high church, Anglo-Catholic parish, whose tradition knows so well how to open the windows of the soul to the transcendence of God. The service was Solemn Evensong and Benediction, meaning that the prayers and canticles and Creed were chanted, the clergy vested in beautiful embroidered copes and other vestments, the consecrated host of the Reserved Sacrament was venerated with prayers and hymns, and there was incense – clouds of it. I had never seen, heard, or smelled worship like that, and it just blew me away. The sense of God’s presence and grandeur and holiness was palpable, and drew me in. And ultimately sent me out. Like Isaiah, with his vision of God while he was on duty in the Temple, I sensed what Isaiah did, hearing “the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ It was a piece of the beginning of my call to ordained ministry.

This experience of God’s majesty and holiness and power need not – in fact should not – be limited to worshipping in church, because the whole earth is the realm of God, and all human beings have been made in God’s image and likeness – that is, with the capacity for love and life-giving relationship.

Today is Trinity Sunday, and over the years more dry and dusty sermons have been preached in an attempt to explain the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity than you would care to imagine. Don’t get me wrong, doctrine is important; using the best of our intellect, and precise and careful language to describe matters of faith and theology is very valuable. But all the language and theological commentary in the world is secondary, an unpacking of the experience of the holy mystery that is God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the holy and undivided Trinity, One God.

At the heart of God is a community of love, of relationships – Father and Son, Son and Spirit, Spirit and Father – each aspect or face of God sharing love within God’s self. If you need a visual image, think maybe of a model of an atom with the electrons whirling around the nucleus, the locus of incredible power and potential, always in motion, yet held together by its own internal force.

At the heart of God is a community of love and relationship; and if that is true of God, then it is true for us. We who are made in God’s image, we who have been baptized into the life of Christ, we who are guided and empowered by the Spirit, are to embody this powerful community of God’s love. Our vocation, our calling as followers of Jesus is to reflect the truth and goodness of God into the world around us, and it starts with being drawn into the circle of love among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It starts with being caught up into the dance between the Persons of the Trinity. It starts with being grounded in the atom-like movement that is the heart of God. This is what energizes us, this is what empowers us – being loved to our depths from the very source of love.

But that love is not for our benefit alone. The love of God and the life of God is always given for the other; that is the deepest meaning of the Cross. That is why Jesus says to Nicodemus in the Gospel: “For 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 (rescued, made whole, be put right again) through him.”

So God’s love for you will always send you out, into the world, into human community, to build amongst those around you the same kind of network of mutual loving relationship that is within God. As God’s agents and representatives in the world we are to do on a small scale what God does on a large scale. If that seems like a daunting prospect – and it should – we only can do it in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. And yet, we cannot shrink back. We cannot draw near to God only for our own comfort or peace or safety or wisdom. If we are truly drawing near to God, if we are really entering that community of love and dance of relationship, then we will be sent out to do God’s work, to be God’s people, to serve as the presence of the Triune God wherever we live and move and have our being.

Call to mind again your experience of the power and presence of God. Did you see, or, hear, or feel in it a sense of being sent out, of needing to do or be differently in the world? Was there joy or blessing that you could not keep to yourself? Or an urgency of truth you felt you had to share? The closer you come to God, the greater your sense of mission will be, because the Triune God has a mission for the world God loves so dearly – to heal, restore, set right all that does not reflect the love and goodness of God.

And this experience of the power and presence of God is not a single-use item, not a “one and done.” While not every day or week or even month will be filled with an over-whelming sense of God’s presence (because, really, we can’t always live in a rarified state of awe and wonder), we can lay the ground work; we can draw near to God through prayer, meditation, and worship; we can know every day that the community of love which is the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – surrounds and enfolds us, and sends us out into the world as bearers of love.

Let us pray.
Day by day, dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, to follow Thee more nearly; day by day. Amen. ~ Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
The First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
May 27, 2018
 

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Romans 8:22-24a

Today is the Day of Pentecost, the day we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ followers, the birth of the Church, the empowerment of the disciples to carry out and carry on God’s mission in and for, and to the world God has made. We may puzzle over Jesus’ words to his inner circle about the Spirit, which we heard in the Gospel. We may be astonished at the description of the descent of the Spirit in the Book of Acts. But it is in St. Paul’s greatest letter – his Letter to the Romans – that we ground ourselves here and now in our own experience of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate and Guide, the One who intercedes for us and through us without end.

What is Paul telling us in this passage? He’s telling us that the whole creation, all humanity, and all who follow Jesus, are in the process of being born into God’s New Heaven and New Earth. One of my current favorite television series on PBS is “Call the Midwife”, about an order of Anglican nuns and nurses in the East End of London in the several years on either side of 1960. The Sisters and nurses care for expectant mothers, run maternity clinics, deliver babies at home and in birthing centers, and act as social workers and nurse-practitioners for the medical, social, and spiritual needs of their neighborhood. The series does not shy away from showing the hard work of labor and delivery, and the noisiness of birth, when every fiber in a woman’s body and voice comes together to push a child out into the world.

It is that image of all creation groaning in labor pains for the birth of God’s kingdom on earth, and for our own redemption – for us to be born anew into God’s best purposes and intentions for us, that Paul is painting. And that work of new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is work, it is labor, as well as gift. We were saved in hope, Paul says, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, but that is only the first part of the story, God’s story of our redemption. The second part of the story began at Pentecost with the outpouring of the Spirit to guide and strengthen and shape us into the Body of Christ; and for us to grow into the full stature of Christ. As St. Athanasius put it in the fourth century, “God became man so that men (and women) might become gods.”

The 20th century writer C.S. Lewis said: “[The Lord] said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to Him perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said.” (Mere Christianity)

This is the work of the Spirit – making us radiant with God’s life, and energy, and joy, but sometimes it s a very hard road, as I think we all know. How often have you struggled to make sense of bad news, a disappointment, or grief? How often have you resolved to speak and act like Jesus, only to find yourself far from that standard? How many times have you begun a daily program of prayer or Bible reading, only to abandon it in a fairly short period of time? How have you wrestled to hang on to the promise of God’s love for you, not sure whether or not you can trust that to be true? And yet, always we begin again, in hope, with the Holy Spirit himself interceding for us, with groans too deep for words.

This is the life that begins for us in baptism, this being joined to Christ in a way that is beyond our understanding, and yet our ultimate reality. This is the life that Brooks is beginning this morning, when his parents and godparents make renunciations and promises on his behalf, and he is washed with the water of baptism and signed with the sign of the Cross and the oil of chrism – a symbol of the healing, gladdening presence of the Spirit.

But the work of the Holy Spirit is not ended on the day of our baptism. It is a daily project as we grow and mature, as we go through life’s challenges and joys and difficulties, as we come face-to-face with the sin and brokenness in our world. The Spirit is always at work – poking us, prodding us, whispering in our ear, giving us a shove, blocking our path and sending us in another direction, inspiring and enlivening us. Sometimes it’s easy to see the Spirit at work, and other times it is much harder to recognize how and when the Spirit is acting.

I have always thought that the Holy Spirit window here to the left of our altar is a wonderful metaphor for the Spirit’s work in our life of faith. When you sit in the center section of the church, you cannot see the window. If you move over to the side, you can get a glimpse of the window, but people, or the lectern, or the paschal candle might block your view. It is only when you approach the altar, when you come forward for Communion – union with Christ and all who love and follow him – that you can see the Holy Spirit window in full. And then there are a few weeks in the year, when the rising sun comes through the window at just the right angle, that you can see the image of the Spirit projected on the wall behind the altar – a fleeting and surprising glimpse. But the window is always there, and the Holy Spirit is always present and active, whether we see him or not.

So on this Day of Pentecost – in the midst of so much change in our lives, in our diocese, in our world – let the Holy Spirit pray in you and through you. Let the Holy Spirit enliven you and direct your steps. Listen to the Holy Spirit whispering in your heart and mind so that you may grow more deeply into the reality of Christ; so that we may all work together under the guidance of the Spirit to build and bring to birth the better world that is God’s dream, as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry so often says – the world for which God’s love was poured out so abundantly in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

Thanks be to God; Amen. Alleluia!

Victoria Geer McGrath
Al Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
The Day of Pentecost
May 20, 2018
 

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Luke:24:36b-37
My father had a knack for running into people he hadn’t seen in a long time, and in unexpected places. It seemed like every few weeks he would come home from work or business travel with a story of someone he had met on the sidewalk or in a restaurant in New York, or in an airport waiting area. It could have been a childhood friend, someone he’d known from college or the Army, or even a former co-worker. Somehow, Dad was able to recognize the essential quality of a person – whether by their face or eyes or voice – even if it had been a long, long time since they had last seen each other. This ability fell into the category of what our kids used to call a “hidden talent” (as in, we all have a hidden talent), which served him very well in his work in public relations.

Inevitably, Dad’s reporting of these meeting to us involved not only the conversation they had, and catching up on news – some of it forty years old or more, and usually in a very brief space of time – but it also involved some reminiscing about how he first knew the person – some tidbit of their boyish hi-jinks, or a college prank, or a sailing experience, or the details of a business project they had worked on. His delight in telling these stories was obvious; he wanted us to share in the joy the encounter had given him.

In a secular sense, Dad was doing what the new definition of evangelism in the Episcopal Church is all about – some of you may have heard me talk about it when I came back from the Evangelism Matters conference a month ago. To refresh our memories, here’s the definition again: “Evangelism is the spiritual practice of seeking, naming, and celebrating the loving presence of Jesus in the stories of all people….and then inviting them to MORE!”

Dad was always on the lookout for people with whom he could make a connection or a recognition; he remembered their names and their stories; and then not only was he pleased to have seen the person again, but he shared the encounter with our family – seeking, naming, and celebrating, if you will.

In today’s Gospel reading, there’s a problem with recognizing – specifically, some of the disciples don’t recognize Jesus in his resurrection body. It is the night of Easter day. In Luke’s telling of the resurrection, the women who had been with Jesus even during the ministry in Galilee had gone to the tomb early in the morning with spices to anoint his body. When they arrived, the stone was rolled away, and two figures in white told them that Jesus was not there, that he was risen. They didn’t see Jesus then, but went back to the place where the small band of followers were staying, and reported to the apostles what they had seen and heard – what they had been witness to. But their report was dismissed, “seeming to the apostles an idle tale”; women in the first century, after all were not considered to be reliable or credible witnesses for legal matters.

Later that afternoon of Jesus’ followers – one called Cleopas – were walking out of the city to the village of Emmaus, and on the way they met a stranger with whom they talked all about their distress and sorrow over the death of Jesus, and now the strange account of his body being missing. The stranger talked with them all about what the Scriptures had to say about the Messiah, but it was only when they stopped for dinner and their guest blessed and broke the loaf of bread for their meal that they recognized Jesus, who then disappeared from their sight. So Cleopas and his companion rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples that they had seen, and spoken with, and walked with Jesus. The others had their own news: Jesus was risen and had appeared to Simon Peter.

And in the midst of all of this, Jesus himself stood among them. What was their reaction? They weren’t joyful, they weren’t celebrating; they were startled and frightened, thinking that they were seeing a ghost. But Jesus made it very clear that he was no ephemeral spirit, but had flesh and bones and was able to eat. Even more importantly, Jesus spent time reminding them of the story he had been telling them all along, reminding them of the Scriptures, and God’s purposes. He told them that they were witnesses to all that had happened – every one of them – and that they had a role in making known these events and the meaning behind them to the rest of the world.

This transition from being followers to being witnesses to the Resurrection had a rocky start: the women didn’t recognize the meaning of the empty tomb without a word from the angels, and the male disciples didn’t recognize the meaning, either; the two disciples on the road didn’t recognize Jesus until he was breaking the bread – a flashback, perhaps, to so many meals they had shared together, especially the Last Supper; and then the whole assembled company didn’t recognize Jesus when he came and stood among them.

How good are you at recognizing Jesus in your midst, the Risen Christ? Do you think to look for Christ’s presence in a variety of ways: in prayer? in Bible reading? in your relationships? in your conversations with others? in the suffering of the poor, the sick, the down-trodden, the marginalized? in the beauty of creation and the arts? There are many things that can keep us from recognizing Jesus – not that least in our modern-day reality of living life at warp-speed. I think many times we rush right past Jesus, never even thinking to keep an eye for him, and then we wonder why we don’t seem to see him. I’m not talking about seeing with our physical eyes, as the disciples were able to in the post-resurrection/pre-ascension period were able to – although I certainly wouldn’t rule that possibility out.

Most often, I believe, we are asked to recognize the Risen Christ through his felt-but-unseen presence in the very human-yet-divine activities of comforting, healing, strengthening, advocating-for, teaching, standing-up-for, creating, helping to restore broken lives, caring for Creation, respecting the dignity of all people, being a loving and true presence – activities we are all called to engage in, especially in relationship to other people.

We need to practice seeking the presence of Christ; recognizing or naming the presence of Christ (Yes, that is what is going on; Jesus is here); celebrating the presence of Christ – being glad, giving thanks. And we need to seek, name, and celebrate the loving presence of Jesus in our own lives, our own stories, and in the story of Scripture just as much as we seek, name, and celebrating the loving presence of Jesus in the stories of others. Recognizing the Risen Christ in our own lives will give us practice and skills in recognizing him in the lives of others.

We are the current generation of disciples. The commission that Jesus gave his followers on Easter night has not changed with the passage of time; we are not off the hook. We are to be witnesses to the power and purpose and promise of God in Christ, just as we vow in our baptismal covenant: ‘Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? I will, with God’s help.’
So, practice this week. See how many times you can see and know and feel and recognize the loving presence of Jesus in what you do and say, and in situations in which you find yourself. And when you recognize the Risen Christ, when you meet him on the road or in the breaking of the bread or in a conversation – tell someone else; share that story with a friend or a family member - and celebrate the loving presence of Jesus in your life.

Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, give us eyes to see you, ears to hear you, hearts to love you, voices to praise you, and minds to be awakened by you, so that we may know that you are our companion in the way, revealed in Scripture, in the breaking of bread, and in the stories of all people. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Third Sunday of Easter
April 15, 2018

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 31:33
Have any of you ever had the experience of exile – whether a forced exile, or one that was self-imposed? Sometimes strained relationships cause a person to leave home, or they are sent packing by their family. Some people have to leave a place they love because it is no longer safe for them. Of course, there are those who are political or economic exiles. But they all share the experience of a separation from home and roots, and if and when they do go back, home has changed; the people have changed; and many things are not as they were before, and even going home brings a sense of loss.

The Israelites of Jeremiah’s day – the sixth century BCE – were in that place. They had been conquered by the Babylonian army, many of them captured and deported, and they lived in Babylon in exile for seventy years. Finally, the Persians conquered Babylon, and the person king Cyrus allowed the Israelites to return home.

But home wasn’t the same as when they had left. The city walls were broken down, strangers were living in their houses, those who had remained in Judea had married outsiders, and the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people rebuilt the city, and the Temple as well, but it still was not the same as it had been before they had been taken into exile. The glorious presence of the Lord, whose sign had been the pillar of fire and cloud of smoke that had accompanied them all though their journey through in the wilderness, was not present in the rebuilt Temple; the most sacred place, the place here heaven and earth met. God had left the building, and they knew it. Things were still not right., and the people yearned for the day of Yahweh’s return to the Temple.

Into this situation, the prophet Jeremiah spoke a word of hope and promise on God’s behalf – long-term, but a promise, nevertheless. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…this is the covenant that I will make with them… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” God promises that his people will have a new start, a new covenant agreement, one in which intimacy with God, the life-giving law of God will be written in the hearts of all God’s people. They will become a living temple, the center of God’s presence and God’s glory. This was hope, and good news, and promise.

This past week I spent four days at the Evangelism Matters conference. Four hundred Episcopalians gathered from across our church, including some of the international dioceses. There was a great diversity of people: young, old, black, white, Asian, Latino, gay, straight, people with tattoos, people wearing Brooks Brothers blazers, men, women, teens, introverts as well as extroverts, some from very large churches, some from tiny churches – all gathered to learn more about “the spiritual practice of evangelism in the Episcopal Church which is seeking, naming, and celebrating Jesus’ loving presence in the stories of all people – and then inviting them to MORE!”

There was tremendous energy, and joy as well as urgency in the workshops, and worship, and conversations. One very powerful example was an exercise that we did on the first day. We were asked to think of a time when we had reached the end of our rope, had hit the wall, and to remember the feelings we had at the time. And we wrote those feelings on one side of a piece of poster board. Then, we were asked how God had resolved the situation; what made it better, and we were to write those words on the other side. We walked around the room silently, showing our difficult feelings to one another, and then we turned the cards over and showed the other side. Some of the difficult feelings that people wrote down were: abandoned, loss, grief, confusion, sadness, fear, death, alone, ashamed. And then when we turned the cards over we found words like: comfort, meaning, friends, guidance, wholeness, healing, love, community. After we had shared silently with six or seven people, we very briefly told the story to one other person who listened to us, and then we listened to them. We all had a story about God’s love and care for us that had given us hope.

Just like the Israelites, we all had stories of despair and hope; of destruction and restoration; of being at the end of our rope, and being found by the love of God and by community.

And all of us have these stories – times in our lives that have been absolutely awful, and being held and loved by God through the faces and hands of others has made all the difference. That is Good News that we have experienced, the Good News of hope in the love of God.

In the Gospel reading some Greeks, some Gentiles, want to see Jesus. So they go to one of his followers, one of his disciples, Philip, and say “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip then tells Andrew, and they go together to see and speak with Jesus. Now, we never get to hear if these Gentile folks ever connect with Jesus, but what matters in the story is that there are people outside of the Jewish community, outside of Jesus’ own circle, who are curious, who are drawn to him, who see in Jesus the presence of God in a powerful way, and want to know more.

God had promised to his people a new heart, and a new covenant, and it was coming true in Jesus, and people were hungry and thirsty for this true love and hope which held up even in the face of death.
People are no different today; they are just as hungry and thirsty for true love, and belonging, and hope, and goodness, as any ancient people ever were – especially hope, love, and goodness in the face of exile, despair, and death. But they don’t always know where to find it, or that it is even possible to be found.

I hope and pray that all of you in your times of pain, or alienation, or sorrow, or despair have been held by the love of God; that Jesus has met you in that dark and terrible place and brought light to your path, to your heart, to your life. If you have been through this you have a story of hope and love that you can share with someone else who needs to hear it, someone who is in their own dark place. Just by sharing your story with a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor in their need, you can be a messenger of hope, a conveyer of God’s love, one who helps others to see Jesus. Just by offering to pray for or with another in pain, you are conveying that they matter to God, that God notices them, sees them, listens to them; in the very same way that God notices, sees, and listens to you. You matter to Jesus.

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
Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 18, 2018
 

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:1-3

When I was in high school and taking European history, we started out the year by reading some ancient Middle Eastern documents that were foundational for the legal and social arrangements that eventually developed into European culture: the Code of Hammurabi, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount, among others. In our American culture we often refer to our “Judeo-Christian heritage”; in large part, the ethical guidance given by these words that Christians refer to as the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. They are more often referred to in the breech than kept in fact, but they are a part of the way we, as Christians and as Americans, think about how we are to act.

But they are not Ten Rules, with corresponding punishments if broken. In fact, if we dig into them a little more, we find that these words given by God to Moses are much richer and deeper than mere rules. These Ten Words (as the Hebrew puts it) are all about the relationship between God and God’s People – both as individuals and as a whole – after God has freed them from slavery in Egypt through the leadership of Moses. They have been led to Mount Sinai to worship God, back to the very place where Moses heard God’s call from the burning bush in the first place – to go and speak to Pharoah, to free the People from their suffering and oppression.

These Ten Words are a covenant – a outline for the relationship between God and the People. In fact, it’s the third covenant we have heard about in the Hebrew Scriptures. First, there was the covenant between God and all humanity, all creation that God made with Noah after the Flood. Then there was the covenant of trust and blessing that God made with Abraham and Sarah when they agreed to leave everything and throw their lot in with God. And now within that agreement between God and the descendants of Abraham and Sarah is a more clearly defined covenant of what it looks like to live as God’s People in light of God’s redeeming and saving act.

And right upfront God makes it clear: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol. In Judaism the first commandment is verse two, the reminder of what God has done for the People, and then verses three and four are the second commandment. The Christian version starts with verse three and makes four a separate item. But either way, it is God’s initiative in saving God’s People that is the ground for this covenant renewal. Keeping the commandments is their thankful response.

The first four commandments are all about our responsibility to God. The remaining six are all about our relationship to our neighbor, to the community. What become clear when we hear this passage from Exodus is that the most important responsibility of the faithful is to live with God as the primary focus of their lives. Anything else is idolatry; and even the command for Sabbath-keeping is to remind us that it is God who makes and keeps the world, and not we ourselves. Taking time for rest, sleep, refraining from work, is a powerful statement or our recognition that God is ultimately in charge.

And if God is truly in charge of the world and of our lives, then God will have quite a lot to say about how we treat others, and the quality of our relationship with them; which is what commandments five through ten are all about: Honor your father and mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor. Do not covet. These are all aspects that will tear apart the fabric of life together, that drive a wedge into human society and under-cut God’s desire for us to live as a community of faith and trust, stewards of God’s good creation, all of us made in God’s image of loving relationship, giving honor and glory to God.

Anything else that captures our attention, our hearts, our energy, our time, our money and becomes more important to us than the Lord God is idolatry. As human beings we are all prone to that, and I think we can each identify for ourselves those people, ideas, possessions, shiny objects and glittering prizes that are hard for us to say “no” to, or at least put them in their proper place, which is “not God.”

And then we hear today’s Gospel – Jesus turning over the table of the money changers in the Temple in Jerusalem. All four Gospels recount this story; Matthew, Mark, and Luke place it in the context of Holy Week after Jesus has entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. There were good and practical reasons for the money-changers to be there. No non-Temple currency could be used to purchase animals for sacrifice, and most Jews coming to worship in the Temple could not bring their own animals; they lived too far away. But in John’s telling of it, the event happens very near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, as if Jesus is saying right from the outset: even a place as holy, and beautiful, and important as the Temple must be put aside to make room for the Messiah, no longer God’s heaven-and-earth place, but now God’s heaven-and-earth Person. It was now to be in and through Jesus that the truest, fullest connection with God and worship of God was to happen. Anything else, no matter how sacred, no matter how time-honored, no matter how valuable, has to take second place.

And that’s still a challenge for us today. We all have ideals, traditions, habits, loyalties, relationships, possessions that sneak up on us, sometimes when we are not looking, and then claim pride of place in our lives. And then the divine anger we saw when Jesus turned over the tables and drove out the money changers becomes understandable. Time and again God has called us to be faithful, just as God is faithful to us. Time and again God has asked for our trust and loyalty and love; and how often have we given it elsewhere? We know that everything we have is a gift from God – good and necessary for human living. Our responsibility is to live with gratitude and faithfulness, putting all these good gifts in their proper place in our affections and loyalty.

This is why, when he was asked to identify which commandment was the greatest, Jesus said:
The first commandment is this: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31.

This week ask yourself what are things that you are tempted to place above God in importance? Who or what can become a focus of loyalty and even worship for you? Is there anything that has taken God’s place in your heart, mind, or schedule? Then ask God’s forgiveness and strength, and commit to living your relationship with God in Christ anew, as well need to do, every day.
 
Let us pray.
Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. ~ BCP, page 832

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Third Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2018

I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. Genesis 17:7

This year during Lent we are in the season of covenants, in the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures. Last week we heard about the covenant that God made with Noah: that God would never again destroy the entire earth by flood; a covenant of care for the flourishing of all humanity and all creation. And just as a reminder, covenants in the Bible are binding agreements in which both parties have responsibilities and rights, and usually carry some sign, symbol, or tangible reminder.

Today’s passage is about God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah – a very brief version of the much fuller story. Abram, you may remember, first heard the call of God in Chaldea, a part of Mesopotamia which became the Babylonian Empire, which we know today as Iraq. And Abram and his wife Sarai pulled up stakes, left their home to go to a place which God would show them (they knew not where), and make them the founders of a large and abundant family (as many as the stars in the sky), through whom God would bless the rest of the world. Pretty incredible promises – in both senses of the word – especially because Abram and Sarai had so far not been able to have any children together. So if this family of abundant generations was God’s part of the promise, what was Abram’s? It was faith – to have faith, to exercise faith, to trust that God was the center and focus of his life, his decision-making, his purpose. And the sign of this covenant, which the lectionary delicately skips over, is circumcision. Talk about something being etched into your very being! God also changed Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah – another mark of their life-changing encounter with God. If they would walk by faith with God, God would give them a family full of nations and kings, as we know today: Jews, Christians, and Muslims – all descendants, spiritual and actual, of Abraham and Sarah.

God’s covenant was for a world-wide family whose hallmark was faith, trust in God – especially trust for the things we cannot yet see or be sure of. And the mission of that big family was to be a vehicle of God’s blessing to the rest of the world. It’s a responsibility, a role, a job, a ministry to be God’s agents of blessing. These covenants that God made with God’s People in ancient times, in the Old Testament, are still in force today. God has not backed off of them. But they look different now; in many ways their true depth and meaning has been opened and revealed over the years and the centuries.

And so part of what happened in Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection is that he opened the way for Gentiles, for those outside the Jewish community, to be grafted onto Abraham and Sarah’s family tree. By faith – just as Abraham and Sarah had faith and trust in God. When we put our faith in Jesus, when we trust him with our lives, then we know that we are part of that world-wide family that is rooted and grounded in God. And the sign for us is no longer circumcision, but baptism. Our baptism ratifies our faith and seals us by the Holy Spirit.

Baptism is the sign that we have been joined to Christ, that we belong to the big family that God intended from the start and promised to Abraham and Sarah through faith. And in our Prayer Book we use the language of the Baptismal Covenant: the Apostles’ Creed – that ancient statement of faith used at baptism – in question and answer form, followed by the five promises of Christian living and practice:

• To continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.
• To persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
• To proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
• To seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
• To strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.

These are the practices and the ways of acting and being in the world that God calls us to in our baptism as part of God’s big family of faith. This is what we do in our family, we who have Abraham and Sarah as our ancestors.

And we need to hang on to, and be rooted in, and engage in these baptismal practices, these markers of faith and spiritual family because the challenges of following Jesus and living as a Christian can sometimes seem daunting. It is both hard work, and we meet with plenty of resistance – both in our society and in ourselves.

We have a very clear example of this resistance in the Gospel reading. In the several verses before this, Peter has just gotten finished acclaiming Jesus as Messiah; Jesus’ identity has finally dawned on him and he has blurted it out, and Jesus commends him for it. So far, so good. Jesus then goes on to teach the disciples about his coming suffering, and rejection, and betrayal and death – and Peter is horrified: God forbid! Peter could not possibly imagine that the Messiah, God’s Anointed, the One whom he expected to be king and to deliver Israel from its oppressors, could meet such a fate. That did not match up with Peter’s expectations; it did not follow the script Peter was hoping for.

So Jesus had to speak harshly to Peter, rebuke him, essentially say “Snap out of it!” Peter needed to learn to see Jesus, and his ministry, and their whole project from God’s perspective, not from a human perspective. And we are just like Peter, all of us. Because, left to our own devices, we want to take the soft way, the easy way, the path of least resistance, the story that has the straight road to the happy ending. But that is not the way faith works, it’s not the way following Jesus works, it’s not the way the Kingdom of God works. Jesus tells the disciples and us: What will it profit a person to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their life? If you really want to follow me, you’ve got to be prepared to do the hard stuff, to take up your cross, to tell the truth about life, to put your own desires and ego aside.

We will meet resistance when we follow Jesus – out in the world, and in our own hearts, sometimes in our families, and even in our church. That doesn’t mean everything will be hard, or a struggle, or a life and death issue. There is plenty of joy, and glory, and exaltation in being a Christian, but there is no short-cut through the hard stuff; we can’t leap-frog over it, much as we would like to. And while we are in those hard places we need to remember that we are not alone. God is with us, accompanying us, preparing the way before us, waiting for us to catch up, to notice, to remember that our covenant with God places requirements on us: faith, trust, staying connected to Abraham and Sarah’s family of faith, living the practices that we promised at our baptism: We will, with God’s help.

And when we remember our covenant with God, when we walk through the hard stuff, take up our cross, we will be changed, and we will know the power of God’s presence and love – for the long haul.

Let us pray.

Take up your cross, the Savior said,
if you would my disciple be;
take up your cross with willing heart,
and humbly follow after me.
Take up your cross; let not its weight
fill your weak spirit with alarm;
Christ's strength shall bear your spirit up
and brace your heart and nerve your arm. Amen.
                                                                ~ Hymn 675
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday in Lent
February 25, 2018