John Snow 8/16/23 John Snow 8/16/23

August 13, 2023 Rev. Susan Flanders

Walking on Water - Sermon for Aug. 13, St.George’s, ME

Walking on water! How often we hear that phase! It can signal admiration - she walks on water for me - because she’s so good at what she does, or so inspiring. He walks on water - goes above and beyond our normal expectations, does what no-one else can do.

The phrase can also signal scorn. If we say someone thinks she walks on water, that’s bad! We’re then saying the person is arrogant, thinks he or she is better than the rest of us. We need only a bit of the daily news chatter to hear about such people. Walking on water has become a way of expressing how extraordinary a person is, or thinks he is, and certainly today’s gospel story - the original walking-on-water text - is one of many expressing how extraordinary Jesus was. The story of Jesus walking on water is one of those stories about impossible things, seeming miracles. We can’t really believe these stories, but they work on us all the same. They appeal to our imaginations and deepest longings; they are metaphors for actual lived experiences.

And in today’s version from Matthew’s gospel, we have what is to me the more interesting part of the story, Peter’s attempt to walk on water - his amazing, courageous striding out onto the waves to meet Jesus, only to flounder and be caught by Jesus’ saving hand. Our human instinct to go for it, dare it, risk it all, but then our fear, our loss of confidence, our realization that we need help. It’s all there in this tiny vignette.

I want to dig further into the story with the help of a reflection and then a poem. The reflection is from Macrina Wiederkehr, a RC sister, author of Seasons of the Heart, a collection of reflections and prayers. Here is a part of the reflection:

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things!
Take out your heart of courage,
a lamp amid your fears
and walk on the water with me.

Let’s look at everything that could be
believing it will be
if we dare
to walk on water
scared and hopeful.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Let’s wrap our fears in hope.
Across these waters we must go
our lamps of courage high
Scared and hopeful we will go.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Hold high your lamp of courage
Put all your doubts away
Let’s take a chance on staying up.

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things.
I feel scared
because it is impossible
I feel hopeful
because it is not impossible

So, scared and hopeful
we will walk.

Come!
Walk on the water with me!

When we face something tough, or perhaps seemingly impossible, it’s fear that gets in our way, right? This can be helpless fear – like that of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat, feeling there was nothing they could do. What if you, or your child, or your sister gets very sick – terminal cancer, ALS, Alzheimers – all the terrible fears, of pain, of loss of body function and dignity, loss of mind, fear of death. All these fears rise like towering waves and raging winds. Getting out of the boat and walking away isn’t an option – or is it? How can we find hope? We can’t change the situation, make the storm subside. However, we can make choices about how to live with or live through such a terrible storm. As the reflection says, we can wrap our fears in hope; we can be both scared and hopeful.

And lots of times, we are not helpless in our fears, we can do more than hope. Often the storms that beset us are about tough decisions, things that may change our comfortable or familiar lives. Here’s where courage joins hope in combating fear. Here is where Peter, seeing Jesus walking on water, and beckoned by him, starts out himself, taking a chance on staying up. As long as he focuses on Jesus’ outstretched hand, it works, but he gets distracted by the wind, lets his fear take over and begins to sink. Isn’t that the way with us, when we try to take bold steps in a new direction? It feels like stepping on a surface that won’t hold our weight. And we also worry about what others will think -“Who does she think she is? She’s trying to do the impossible.” How do we respect such voices but not necessarily heed them? How do we trust that the support we need, the metaphorical hand of Jesus, will be there for us?

I turn now to a poem by David Whyte, one of my favorites. He is a poet who actually works for corporations, bringing the life of the heart and the soul into the business world. But he also writes very personal poems like this one with its allusions to this morning’s gospel.

THE TRUELOVE
by David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

The poem can be heard as a poem about love for another person, about the awakening finally to a love that is both eros and agape and that feels so meant to be that it cannot be denied. I think it bears all these meanings as it certainly did for me when it was read by my sister at Bill’s and my wedding back in 2005.

But I also think it’s a poem about God - about how we are called to love God and discover ourselves known and loved by a presence beyond ourselves, like that ghostly figure of Jesus, calling across the water. It’s a poem about giving ourselves to that presence – trusting in something that seems impossible, saying “yes” after perhaps a long time of doubt and floundering. It’s about saying “yes” to a voice calling you to your true self and to real life. It’s a poem about God’s love for us, just as the gospel story is, at its heart. If you wonder about Jesus in today’s story – think about times when life has beckoned you to do and to be more than you ever thought, and you found you actually could! Think about times when a tumult has been stilled in your life or your heart because you’ve felt the presence of God with you – like Jesus sitting in the boat with the disciples.

A personal note here: Some of you know that I am in a new and demanding role as caregiver for Bill as dementia and its diminishments shadow our life together. This walking on water story just grabs me this year in ways it never has before. And it grabs me here in Tenants Harbor where every single day I look out at the ocean, sometimes flat and calm, other times raging and rough. And I, we, Bill and I, need to stay afloat and not lose ourselves in fear and hopelessness. I need to trust that I can be and do what is needed. I’m not a brash, young Peter, thinking I can walk on water like Jesus. But I can trust in the hand, that there will be love held out for me and that I will not sink in despair. People, not always those I expect, but those I need, are there, reaching out, and life is still rich and beautiful, and we are held up.

You’ve probably experienced times like this as well, but maybe like me, you never really connected them to Jesus’ walking on water, or more specifically Peter. Today, in gospel and reflection and poetry, we are offered a vision of the saving help we all long for.

Come, walk on the water with me. Amen.

The Rev. Susan M. Flanders, August 13, 2023

John Snow 8/16/23 John Snow 8/16/23

August 6, 2023 Rev. Betsy Scott

Transfiguration Sunday

August 6, 2023

This is Transfiguration Sunday, it celebrates one of the most profound moments that ever took place on this earth. The scriptures record the moment of great holiness, intimacy and love between God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. The son prays to the father up on the mountain with his disciples present, Elijah and Moses appear, the prophet and the law, and the son’s face shines with light and his clothes become a brilliant white. Light has always symbolized love, goodness, wisdom, hope, grace and in this case divinity. This is a mystical event, a direct and personal experience of the divine in a temporal setting. Mystical events have been recorded and known throughout the ages but this transfiguration is the penultimate mystical event. William James in his book Varieties of Religious Experience explains mystical experience: James said mystical experiences are ineffable or inexpressible, noetic, or great wisdom, transient, not lasting and passive, it happens to you. You cannot make it happen. They are always a surprise.

The Transfiguration is also one of the five most important events in Christ’s life and many writers say the transfiguration has language that leads back to the Exodus and language that is a preview of the glorified body of Christ following His resurrection. The transfiguration took place 40 days before His passion.

For me to plumb the depths of this extraordinary text, penultimate happening, in just a few minutes is a herculean task.

I decided to explore just one aspect of this great even given to me in a couplet by a pastoral counselor:

“ Divinity was Revealed to Humanity in the Transfiguraion

and

Humanity was illuminated by Divinity in the Transfiguration.

Christ said: “ I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.”

The Transfiguration text is certainly a declaration of the divinity of Christ and it has been interpreted thus throughout the ages but it is also interpreted as a declaration of the way we can change, the way we can draw nearer to the Knowledge and love of God and be transformed into the image of God., to be in touch with the Kingdom of God that is within us.

We have been talking about the Kingdom of God within us for a number of Sundays here at St. George’s Chapel and today we are going to be talking about the process of getting in touch with this Kingdom of God within. To repeat: Christ said in 1 John 1 that : I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me won’t walk in darkness but will have the light and fellowship with one another.” This is crucial, life changing! It means we are not stuck in whatever state of heart, mind and spirit that we find ourselves in but that we can change to become closer to the image of Christ, the Kingdom Within. Notice that it is Christ that changed and in turn others changed in relation to Christ. In other words, the only person we can change is ourselves but if we change, others will change in relation to us.

The transfiguration of Christ shows the process by which we can change. Obviously Christ is divinity but we can change to become closer to the image of Christ. The process described is a description of the process of love. Christ draws close to the father, they are present one to the other. The Father affirms the Son. This is my son in Whom I am Well pleased. They are united in this love. So what is love and how do we able to learn to love? Drawing from my seminary years, Love was described to me by the great Dr. Russell Davis, as a presence, an affirmation and a union. I have found this a very helpful definition of love. It is one way to describe what happened on that Mountain as Christ was present with the father in prayer, the father affirmed Christ, this is my son, listen to him, and the light was the divine light of Holy love, the union.

St. Paul expressed this thought in

2 Corinthians 3:18 where Paul wrote:

“And we all, who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s Glory, are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord.”

In order to come close to the Lord , we must have an unveiled face. What does that mean? With a veil, we are hiding ourselves and we can’t see others clearly. With an unveiled face, we can see more clearly ourselves and others, we are enabled to contemplate the Glory of God. As we unveil ourselves, we become more compassionate on ourselves and on others.

To understand what the Scriptures are talking about, let’s think of figures and stories in literature where the main character has either been unveiled or refused to unveil themselves and what happens to them. The two examples that came to me are Don Juan and Prince Andre. I’m sure you can think of others.

Don Juan is the great libertine in the Mozart opera Don Giovanni who ruins the life of many women and at the end of the opera, he is asked to repent, he refuses and disappears, going to hell.

My favorite transformation in literature is in WAR And Peace when Prince Andre transforms. The story is that Prince Andre was engaged to Natasha and then went off to war. While he was gone, Natasha almost ran off with another man, as it turns out a scoundrel. Subsequently, Prince Andre is wounded in battle, perhaps his unveiling as he comes in touch with his own pain. He then sees clearly. He looks up to the heavens and realizes how small he is compared to the universe and suddenly sees Natasha as the young girl that she is and how he is the one who left her by going off to war. Tolstoy has another beautiful scene where Natasha comes to Prince Andre while he is mortally wounded and begs for forgiveness. Prince Andre answers: “ While there is nothing to forgive. I love you now more than I have ever loved you before.” I am quite sure Prince Andre’s face was radiating in love.

What happened to these figures when they transformed?

In Christian theology transformation is understood as a change of heart. One is filled with compassion and gratitude , increased awareness, greater sense of purpose and meaning, deeper connection with divine energy expanded consciousness and understanding , enhanced intuition and inner guidance positive change in life relationships and life. This is what happened to Prince Andre and the Scripture promise it will happens to you and me when we draw closer to the Lord.

Many people have written about this process of transformation, but one of my favorites is Ken Wilber who describes the unveiling very well: Clean up, grow-up, wake-up and show up.

In this process, one learns to love oneself which in turn enables one to love another.

This is the life long journey to which we all are called, the journey home to our true selves, the Kingdom of God Within. It has been written about forever. Many interpret the Odyssey as the journey home.

I thought you would be interested to know that in the field of the teaching of parenting, there is now a big movement away from behavior modification of the children and towards what is called parent centric parenting. What this means is that the parents are taught to unveil, to tune into their own emotions, the unveiling: to feel their own emotions, to understand where their own emotions have come from, to finally find their own center of peace and joy. When the parents are in their own state of peace and joy, they will have their eyes unveiled to see their own children more clearly. The parent will be enabled to listen to their children, to try to understand what is bothering their children, what are their current needs etc, You know that listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give one to another. To really listen without immediately chiming in to say who we are. In this way, the children will feel understood and loved and can truly blossom into their own God given natures. So this process of the amazing transfiguration of Christ is also the path we are called to follow to become more loving in our everyday lives.

As Irenaeus wrote in the 2nde Century: “The glory of God is a live human being and a truly human life is the vision of God.”

Christ went up on the mountain with his disciples to a place of quiet and refuge and strength and a place where he drew close to the Holy Spirit, and he prayed. Christ went to the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal. He devoted himself to drawing nearer to the Holy Spirit. It was during that praying that his face shone and his garments became dazzling white. We are all exhorted in our unveiled state to climb our own mountain, find the quiet places, draw closer and listen to our inner most selves, to meditate, to pray, to draw closer to the Holy Spirit, and in the process we ourselves become more loving and whole.

To close, I want to read to you what Thomas Keating wrote in his book Open Mind and Open Heart about what is was like to be in the presence of the Holy Spirit or in the presence of pure unconditional love.

This presence is so immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring yet so gentle; limitless yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me—all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness—and still loves me infinitely. This presence is healing, strengthening. Refreshing, just by its Presence. It is non-judgmental, self-giving, seeing no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize.

This is the kind of love which we can find with the Holy Spirit and which we in turn can offer to our children, our loved ones, our friends, all the people. The Transfiguration of Christ shows us the way the Holy Spirit interacts with us here on earth. May we all follow this light and become a light.

Amen

This is a very big and important topic so I am happy we will now have a time for the audience’s reflection, questions and discussion.

John Snow 7/16/23 John Snow 7/16/23

July 16, 2023 - The Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace

Tenants Harbor, Maine | Proper 9A

Gospel wisdom from Sandra Pankhurst: “When at first you don’t succeed, redefine the meaning of success.”

Sandra Pankhurst was founder and director of Strategic Trauma Cleaning Services in Frankston, Australia. The company cleans up crime scenes and suicide sites. They assist the mentally and physically disabled with home maintenance. They clear out hoarder homes and the likes. Ms. Pankhurst, who died in 2021, described her business as cleaning up messes no one else wants do deal with.

Ms. Pankhurst was not your typical successful business owner. The Guardian newspaper described her as “a person who has led many lives within a life: adopted as a child, then severely abused by her adoptive parents; emerging from a failed marriage and coming out as a transgender woman in the 1980s; working as a drag queen and sex worker; and eventually starting her own cleaning business in the 1990s.”

Last week, Victoria and I watched the 2022 documentary about Ms. Pankhurst and her cleaning service. The title of the documentary is Clean.

The rotten tomato score shows a wide discrepancy. The tomatometer score, based on critical reviews, gave it 100%. The audience score: 36%.

The discrepancy makes sense. I have seen PG-13 depictions of violent murder scenes, stains of decomposed bodies, homes of hoarders and general squalor. All of which are revealed in R-rated reality in the documentary. Hard to watch. And for Victoria and me, well worth it.

Ms. Pankhurst died of severe COPD, after decades of struggling to breathe. She was a smoker. And her disease was due in part from exposure to extremely harsh cleaning agents during the first years of work, when she did not wear a mask.

Ms. Pankhurst lived a Christ-like life. Radical compassion and care for the untouchables, the disenfranchised, the inconsolable, the so-called criminal element, the erased, and ridiculed.

Moreover, she recruited colleagues whose own lives parallel those they serve. Folks who are struggling to get their lives back together.

The Specialized Trauma Cleaning Services mirrors what one of my heroes, Will Campbell, understood the church to be: “One cat in a ditch and one no count son-of-a-gun trying to pull her out.”

Church, at its best, celebrates what I call the sacrament of shared sorrow and suffering. From such a sacrament emerges a solidarity that incites a relational joy. Sizzling joy inspires fiery passion for justice.

The Specialized Trauma Cleaning Services zealously embraces grunt work. Another way of saying it: STCS, as their logo reads, re-defines the definition of success.

The Parable of the Sower, at first glance, is a morality play. The story stirs in us a desire to scratch our heads. What kind of soil am I? What does good soil look and act like. How can I enrich my soil?

The more I wrestle with these questions, the further down I go into the be-and-do-better rabbit hole.

I often follow paths that lead nowhere. I make commitments that are uprooted. I am distracted by thin cares and appealing possibilities for more and better.

And I keep striving to plant my life in good soil.

What, exactly, is good soil?

The Parable of the Sower also is found in the gospels of Mark and Luke, each with its particular nuance. Matthew says good soil understands. Mark says good soil accepts. Luke says those who have good and noble hearts. I guess that’s the go to 10-10-10 fertilizer. Still, weeds grow, plants wilt, dry out and drown, and sometimes fail. Like our lives.

And that leads me back to the parable’s title: The Parable of the Sower. The parable is less about the quality of our faith and actions and more about God’s fiercely devoted heart.

When it comes to seeding love, God is generous, if not reckless, indiscriminate, if not wasteful, determined, as in possessed. God, in this parable, does not get the less is more thing. The heart of God is profligate.

Good for God. Great for us. We all need love over-seeded in our lives now and again. And at times we really, really need love over-seeded again and again. And for that, thank you Strategic Trauma Cleaning Services. Thank any and all who show up when we are knee deep in you know what.

Here’s what I imagine Ms. Pankhurst saying to me when I am obsessing about the quality of my dirt: “Get over yourself! It’s not all about you! Get with your neighbor. Pick up a mop, and don’t forget to put on your mask.”

We belong to the post-resurrection Church. Jesus, for us, is less a person and more a way of life. Jesus was back then. Christ is right now. Christ as presence. Christ as action. Christ in and as us.

Christ as us. Those who have finer polish and more means than the majority of the world. Our social location calls for a Christ-like caution.

In the Specialized Trauma Cleaning Service, the distinction between server and served is transfigured into us, just us. Little noblesse oblige in the body of Christ.

Generosity of the more privileged toward the less privileged has little to do with the Jesus Movement. Just us, all of us, making our way together through life-the-way-it-really-is. Down and out. Up and out. And those in between.

A few days ago, at breakfast, while reflecting on having watched Clean the night before, Victoria said, “The fundamental questions are, for all of us, it seems: “Am I enough? Do I have enough?”

When we ask these questions in a materially saturated culture, the answer is usually no, whether we are on a fixed income or have a big bank account spilling over into investments.

Always scratching in the dirt to be more and have more. A less anxious me. The latest driver to correct my slice. Or, more concisely and succinctly put, words of Damon, protagonist in Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel: Demon Copperhead: “The landfill is where I figured out one of my main philosophies, that everybody alive is basically in the process of trading out their old stuff for different stuff, day in and day out.”

When we ask Victoria’s questions about enough, from the standpoint of a less domesticated Jesus Movement, the answers are more nuanced.

From such a social location, our faith might whisper: “Maybe I am enough. Possibly we are enough.”

Gospel identity is simple: We relate, therefore I am.

Amen.

John Snow 7/24/22 John Snow 7/24/22

July 24, 2022 - Rev. Ralph Moore

Rev. Ralph Moore

Hosea lives in Samaria in the northern kingdom after it has split off from the southern kingdom centered in Jerusalem—about mid-8th-century BCE—and in the poetry of his thirty or so years we feel the pain of a personal faith stretched to the limit. The kingdom is shattering by assassinations of kings and other royalty, corruption among the wealthy, and the disappearance of any loyalty to the ancient covenant between the people and God. Hosea's spiritual strength is such that he can interpret the infidelity of his wife as a metaphor for the disintegration of his society--national infidelity. But he doesn't give up; even in the end of today's reading he writes predicts that some day the people can again be called “Children of the living God.” His fears come true: shortly after his death the kingdom is devoured by the forces of Assyria.

Jump ahead 700 years to Jesus and his people. The tyrants and rulers are different, but the living conditions are the same. Picture the circle around Jesus: male, female, young, old, mostly poor, mostly Jews, immigrants, slaves. What attracts them to Jesus? Their life situations are best described as desperate. They are trying to survive in a society ruled by a puppet king and his religious cronies whose power and authority depend on a vicious Roman occupation force. Daily arrests, disappearances, forced labor, prison, executions, poverty and illness. They've given up on religion.

Jesus is a new experience of hope for them. “The law and the prophets,” he has said: “they still offer us hope.” The Torah, the teachings the covenant between God and the people, and the prophets who speak truth to the power-mongers that defame the Torah. In these is our capacity for not just survival but for new strength and growth toward justice. Well how should we pray, then? Jesus repeats age-old daily prayer phrases.. “Awe and praise to you, Eternal. Our hearts are humbled. We yearn for your presence among us as we struggle for the essentials of life. We seek release from our wrong doing as we release all who have wronged us. May we not be tested beyond our endurance.” He stops talking. Silence. They stare at him. “That's it, that's all!”

I recall a televised interview that Bill Moyers has in 1991 with the Dalai Lama, who states his view on the essential path to world peace. “The essence of any good religion,” says the Dalai Lama, “is the good heart….There are many philosophies and systems of thought but they mostly can be obstacles for good heart.” He stops talking. Silence. Bill Moyers then says, “Is that all?” The Dalai Lama answers, “Well, what's wrong with that?” “Nothing,” says Bill Moyers, “but when I look around the world…..”

Just before he dies, Jesus sums it all up for those closest to him, as they share the last supper. “Love one another. Exactly as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” The power that frees us to forgive and to be forgiven...the courage to breathe deeply in quietness and humility and kindness...the joy and awe over the goodness and beauty of the gift of life given to us...And: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.” A theologian from South Africa once made a statement in a sermon that stays with me constantly. She said, “Jesus' resurrection began well before his death.” This path we are on, before our deaths, is potentially a opening of the risen life in us. There's an outside world of conflict, strife, oppression. The people rise above and beyond that, transformed into what Martin Luther King calls “the beloved community,” or, in Jesus' words, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Luke himself, in the Book of Acts uses the primary word to describe how the disciples live during the years after the crucifixion of Jesus--”koinonia,” the commons, sharing all with each other and caring for others in need.” “Church.” And then change in the world emerges as a result.

But of course this doesn't happen without effort, without persistence. “If you, who are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Holy Spirit be given to those who are open to receive it!” Do you believe that? Do you trust that that is true, that it can happen to you? It means paying attention, spending time, making an effort, going deeply into yourself. It means trusting that there can be new hope, “hope with teeth.” (D Lama: sleep in a room with a mosquito.) The Lord's Prayer: “Eternal, reveal yourself, please. Set the world aright. Keep us alive with the essentials. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe enduring what we face.” Spirit, dwell in me. (Spirit means breath—the name of God.) Jesuit philosopher Teilhard De Chardin:“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." Jesus is not shouting when he says: “Keep knocking on the door until it opens, and it will.”

That's where all this is going for us as we agonize over this world we live in. persistent care within each of us as relationship in community. In our nation right now is a distortion a distortion of Christianity itself has become politicized. I've come across the work of a man named David Skeel, a professor of law in the University of Pennsylvania and an active member of a Presbyterian congregation in Philadelphia. He appears in the Wall Street Journal. “When Christians seek to usher in the kingdom of God through law,” he writes, “they are denying Christianity's teachings, not promoting them.” And: “Complexity is not an embarrassment for Christianity; it is Christianity's natural element.” The laws that are the most successful are those “that actually help to create relationships in our communities.” Christians seek “the flourishing” of others.

We are being reminded about the daily need to live into the possibility that the Spirit can come into every human heart (the “good heart”) We do not choose the alternatives to win in politics by any means necessary as promoted by “religious nationalism.” In the nourishing to relationships. In the cost and joy of discipleship. And let's stress that gift of joy. Keep knocking—Rumi says, “sooner or later you become the door itself.”

I give the last word to poet Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate.

Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.

We are not wise, and not very often kind.

And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way fo fighting back,

that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.

Anyway, that's often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

John Snow 7/11/22 John Snow 7/11/22

July 11, 2021 - Rev. Ralph Moore

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (year B proper 10)

Sam 6.1-5,12b-19; Ps 24; Eph 1.1-14; Mk 6.14-29

When we read certain parts of the Bible we can get agitated. The discord and conflict in the situations described, the agony in human lives, the intensity of the historical period. This morning. David acclaimed king by all the tribes, the result of a lot of violent conflict. Now they are making their way to the holy hill that is known as Jerusalem. The Ark of God, that ancient container of the tablets of the law made by Moses that represents the presence of God is being moved to a new location to a tent that David sets up. Upon its arrival a great ritual celebration erupts, complete with sacrifices and wild noisy music and dancing, led by an exuberant David. Michal, daughter of former king Saul, is displeased by David’s exuberance. That’s the reading. But...

This lesson by itself is sanitized. The hill city is ruled by Jebusites, a Cannanite tribe that refuses to allow David and his people to settle there. Rather than fight, David establishes a new location in what is called the City of David; (to this day it is being fully examined by archeologists). Over time the Jews finally inhabit Jerusalem through negotiation and inter-marriage. Omitted from our lesson is that strange incident while the Ark is being carried. As it’s about to tilt one of the leaders touches it and is struck dead. (By God?) And, Michal, identified here only as Saul’s daughter, is David’s wife. Her disgust over David’s wild dancing reveals a family feud. When David gets home she yells. What a glorious day for the king, when he exposed his person in the sight of his servants’ slave-girls like an empty headed fool! To which David replies, this was done in God’s presence…he choose me instead of your father and family and I will dance forever for the Lord and cause you and whoever else more disgust!Then, Michal, Saul’s daughter, had no child to her dying day. The back story is that David earlier longed for Michal and Saul demanded a high cost for her down 100 Philistine foreskins; David brought him 200. As Saul began to lose his mind, he tried to have David killed, and he took Michal back and gave her to another man, and David then got her back. The environments of these narratives are conflict, violence, and death.

Mark’s gospel doesn’t let up. We don’t have to go into all the details of violence in the Roman occupation of Jesus’ day. Here we have a local puppet ruler called œKing Herod. He’s not a king at all but the son of the late Herod who was king when Jesus was born. He is overseer of the northern region of Galilee. Though he has tolerated the teachings of John the baptizer, he finally can’t stand the prophet’s criticism of his having divorced his first wife and then married Herodias, wife of his late brother. She hates John. So, at Herod’s birthday feast Herodias’ daughter (Salome) dances and he asks what reward she wishes, and goaded by her mother she asks for John’s head. Disciples take John’s body. The location of that and his head are still unknown. Richard Strauss’ opera œSalome presents the gory tale quite adequately. More conflict, violence, and death.

Well, aren’t we glad that we live in a world where those kinds of things don’t happen anymore? And, of course, we really do. Not exactly the same, but maybe much worse. The genius of the biblical stories ”for Jews, Christians, and Muslims ”is that they are preserved not as idealized portraits of saints, but as reports of real people whose decisions and actions result in suffering and defeat and sometimes blessing. There is some insight, perhaps some humility. Perhaps, some trace of the Creator. Through all of these centuries of narratives and poems is a thread, a reality, of human heart, as our ancestors discover their destructiveness, and their humility, and truth, identified as grace. Somewhere in all of these stories are prophets. Samuel himself is one ”early on he tried to talk the people out of having a king. Watch out for Nathan, who announces the decisive judgment of David himself. The Ephesians lesson ends in a phrase that translates: œthere is a pledge in our inheritance as people of God that we will be rescued. Jesus upholds the centrality not of the canonical histories as though they are pure, but of the law and the prophets (including the poetry of the Psalms): Micah’s seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly; today’s Psalm: œWho can ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who have not pledged themselves to falsehood, nor sworn by what is a fraud.

The pandemic and unique crises of hostility and disunity that we’re living right now lands us in the same uncomfortable place as these stories. If we’re smart, we will discern and learn from the new revelations of who we have become and are yet to become, as a country and as neighbors of human beings in the total world. High levels of poverty, homelessness, displaced people, refugees, hate crimes ”what is the normal being mentioned as desirable to recover? Individually, each of us knows unfinished business of our lives. As people of the Beloved Community formed by Jesus, maybe we can commit ourselves to new normals–new support for adequate public health systems; a new sense of our place among sisters and brothers of every other nation; new behaviors in relation to our neighbors of other races and classes. And, most of all, new acceptance of the gift of hope, freedom from despair, faith in the goodness of soul that’s in us.

Last week frequent references were made to the speech Frederick Douglas delivered to the Republican Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester on July 5, 1852, entitled What to the slave is the 4th of July? He makes all of the truthful points with unerring accuracy, and then, after such a rehearsal of unvarnished reality, he closes with words of hope and optimism and recites a poem by William Lloyd Garrison:

œGod speed the day when human blood shall cease to flow/In every clime be understood

The claims of human brotherhood,/And each return for evil, good,/Not blow for blow;That day will come all feuds to end,/And change into a faithful friend/Each foe.

The members of an investment firm recently completed a self-study and came up with a list of values and qualities that they’d like to apply to their work: œAgility, Consistency, Collaboration, Compassion, Justice, and Compassion. That’s impressive ¦..

Maya Angelou says, œWhen we look to the past we do so with forgiveness, when look to the future we do so with deep prayer, we look into the present we do so with deep gratitude ”the beautiful actions follow ¦..

So may it be with us.

John Snow 7/18/21 John Snow 7/18/21

Sunday, July 18, 2021

A Sermon
The Reverend Richard E. Greenleaf St. Georges Chapel

18 July 2021
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 11B
Morning Prayer II

2 Samuel 7:1-14a Psalm 89:20-37 Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

God, make thy word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may thy word, but accomplish that for which it is given. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do so for thy blessed Sons sake, in whose sweet name we pray. Amen.

George Herbert, 1593-1633

I once was acquainted with a man, an accomplished man, a learned man,

a clergy-man who was elected bishop of a diocese

that included a number of Indian reservations, and the Episcopal Churches therein, which were many.

Once installed, the new bishop set off on a tour of all the churches in his new diocese, churches great, but mostly small, and prepared a paper to deliver on the phenomenology of pastoral care in such places, a subject on which he had done doctoral work and wanted to use as his personal mission statement for his work among reservation parishes. At one of these small parishes, the bishop entered, vested in cope and mitre, carrying his Episcopal crosier, and began the service in the usual way.

When it came to the time for the homily, the bishop introduced his subject on the phenomenology of pastoral care and his intentions for how it applied to reservation parishes in his diocese.

But as he launched into his sermon,

a man in one of the front rows slowly stood up, a man who was an elder in the community, an elder in years,

but more importantly

an elder in church and tribal standing.

The elder stood and slowly but deliberately began to make his way forward

while the new bishop –pretending not to notice–

continued with his learned sermon.

To the bishops surprise,

the elder mounted the few small steps to the pulpit,

circled the bishop, reached over,

lifted the script

of the bishops carefully crafted sermon,

and just as slowly walked down the steps on the other side of the pulpit.

When the elder got back to the floor,

he turned back to the astonished preacher

and simply said, Speak to us, Bishop. And then he took his seat.

Speak to us.

I have taken the liberty of telling you this story because the bishop in question told it to me, and he told this story in public not a few times.

I also tell you this story because it is a good admonition for every preacher, especially so-called learned preachers of which I, by training and vocation, supposedly am one.

But more importantly, I tell you this story because

I believe it touches something at the heart of todays Gospel,

and that is the ravenous hunger of people

–of all of us for a word.

A ravenous hunger to be truly,

authentically , and personally

spoken to.

And Scripture tells us that wherever Jesus went that is exactly what he did.

Earlier, in the Gospel of Mark:

Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught, and They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. (Mark 1:21-22)

A little later, after Jesus had delivered a man supposedly possessed,

They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.(Mark 1: 27)

After Jesus stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee, his disciples, were filled with great awe and said to one another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:41)

And then, in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus at the well and after that left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! (John 4: 28-29)

Or in the words of another translation,

Come and see a man who told me everything that I am!

And the woman concludes

with the wide-eyed question,

He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

Speak to us!

Speak to us as one with real authority.

Speak to us with words that even the sea and winds obey. Speak to us with words that tell us all that we are.

This past week,

I was hungry for such a word.

Last Saturday, I attended a party for an old friend and colleague that was a combination birthday, house-warming, and retirement party. Family, friends, and colleagues came from near and far to celebrate my friend,

and the toasts and testimonials were many.

What was left mostly unsaid, though, was that my friend had retired early because he had developed not one but two neuro-muscular conditions that left him unable to continue working.

The following day, last Sunday, my wife Jenny and I traveled to Yarmouth, Maine to attend the celebration of the life of my late cousin, Kathy Greenleaf. Four years ago, following the death of her husband, my late cousin Peter Greenleaf, Kathy had been diagnosed with a virulent cancer

for which she was, fortunately, treated in a drug trial that worked quite well for her, at least for a while.

But last fall the cancer returned, and it was angry, and just before Christmas it took Kathy.

And then this past Monday, Jenny and I moved her 90 year old father

from a family members home in Massachusetts to a memory care unit near us in southern Maine, all because of the effects of a stroke he had suffered some eight years ago that left him blind and with mild dementia.

In each of these moments I had a moment

where I thought, What do you say?

What can you possibly say

that would make a bit of difference?

In todays gospel,

there are a number of such moments.

And what does Jesus do?

He first and foremost speaks to the people and situations as he found them.

He gives them a word.

And only after that does he . . .

feed them,

heal them,

and give them rest.

And because Jesus speaks to them in his Jesus way, everything is changed, transformed, redeemed.

And he is still speaking in this way today .

At last Saturdays party just when the tributes were about to get maudlin, and I was beginning to wonder What should I say? my not-obviously-religious friend quite unexpectedly introduced his new good friend the very young local rector, who proceeded to hug my friend and then, with pine bough and holy water, to bless the new house and all who lived in or visited it with the healing, life, and rest that Jesus came to bring.

And in this, Jesus spoke.

At last Sundays supposedly non-religious gathering to honor my cousin Kathy, her older brother, a veteran of the foreign service and a cranky Yankee if ever there was one, began his remarks by saying we weren’t there to get all religious or mystic and I started to wonder What should I say?

But then he went on to remember Kathy in terms that were profoundly religious, if not mystical, and deeply expressive of a Christian love and hope that, I dare say, seemed to be shared by all in attendance.

And in this, Jesus spoke.

And on Monday, when we were settling my father-in-law, Bob, into his new room in the memory unit, there were moments quite good and more than a few when we found ourselves wondering if this was going to work. One of those questionable moments came when the nurse was asking Bob, in front of a team of caregivers, how he wanted to handle going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I again found myself wondering, What should I say? But at the nurses question, Bob suddenly brightened, screwed up his lips, and let go a piercing whistle. And then sat there beaming, proud as a peacock, at which the assembled caregivers laughed and applauded. And in this, Jesus spoke.

The Christian writer Anne Lamott says that there are really only 3 types of prayer: Help! Thanks! Wow! But to this I would add a fourth type of prayer: Speak to us. Give us a word.

In answer to which God speaks his word Jesus. And if we would see who God is we need only see who Jesus was and what he did, and what he is and does even now.

Jesus is Gods word to us.

The Word God spoke long ago and continues to speak to us today in our every situation.

And so let us conclude the way we began with the prayerful words of George Herbert.

O God, make thy word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may thy word, but accomplish that for which it is given. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do so for thy blessed Sons sake, in whose sweet name we pray. Amen.

George Herbert, 1593-1633

John Snow 7/11/21 John Snow 7/11/21

Sunday, July 11, 2021

It all begins with an idea.

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (year B proper 10)

Sam 6.1-5,12b-19; Ps 24; Eph 1.1-14; Mk 6.14-29

July 11, 2021

Rev. Ralph Moore

œGod speed the day when human blood shall cease to flow/In every clime be understood

The claims of human brotherhood,/And each return for evil, good,/Not blow for blow;That day will come all feuds to end,/And change into a faithful friend/Each foe.

So may it be with us ¦.

John Snow 8/25/19 John Snow 8/25/19

August 25, 2019 – The Archdeacon Mimsy Jones

It all begins with an idea.

It 's wonderful to be back in this pulpit, although I 've also loved being in the pews with you most of the summer. I’ve said this before and I 'm sure I will say it again, but there is no church, or chapel, or place of worship I know of to equal this one! There is a mixture here of intelligence and compassion, tradition and edginess, devotion and deep, resounding humor.

This time last week, most of us sitting in the pews had doubled over with laughter more than once. The Rev. Tom Pike, the beloved priest who was familiar to many of us led the service of Morning Prayer, while Renny Stockpole 's inimitable group provided the music, starting with a rendition of Satin Doll ' that had us humming and tapping our feet as the tall, elegant figure of Tom Pike appeared from a side door to begin the worship.

Our programs indicated that we were to begin by singing a hymn so we were a bit startled to hear Tom say: Let us say together the Confession on page 79, and knowing many of you as well as I do, I 'm sure we need to say it ¦Most merciful God, we confess ¦.

THE HYMN! The HYMN! someone shouted from the back row; YES! echoed another voice. We are supposed to sing the hymn first!

Unfazed, and with great dignity, Father Pike bowed to the musicians: Gentlemen, I apologize. Of course, we are to sing a hymn ¦

So we sang the hymn, and THEN said the Confession, and by this time my visitor, a semi-retired priest from Memphis and New York named Buddy Stallings, turned to me and said, This is my kind of church! I love it. '

According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the Nones, ' – the people who mark None ' on the survey that asks for religious affiliation. In 2014, there were almost 56 million of them, roughly 23% of the adult population, and, Lord knows, that number has done nothing but increase. Lately, another category has been added by those who study statistics on religion: the Dones, ' those who have been there, done that.

The Nones and the Dones have made a decidedly negative impact on traditional church attendance, for sure. But after experiencing that worship service last week – participating in the warmth and deep laughter, listening to a preacher who spoke with emotion about God 's unfailing love for us and the value of being together in prayer and worship, I 've decided that this institution I 've served for decades is well worth preserving, albeit with some much needed transformation.

Which brings me to today 's gospel reading, the story of a healing but also of a synagogue leader in great need of lightening up! Talk about a vivid contrast to St. George chapel last Sunday – here it is, in the gospel according to Luke.

While Jesus is teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath, he notices a woman on the edge of the crowd. Luke describes her as a woman with a spirit that has crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight. '

In case some of you are wondering what the significance of the number eighteen is, the answer is that nobody knows for sure. What we do know is that in the 1st century, the life span, particularly of women, was considerably less than today 's, so eighteen years could be half of her life. A long, long time, in other words.

The woman is used to being ignored; she does not ask for healing; she does not recite a creed or profess her faith in Jesus. She just stands, bent over, at the edge of the crowd.

But Jesus sees her, calls her over and says, Woman you are set free from your ailment. ' Then, Luke tells us, Jesus lays his hands on her and immediately she stands up straight and begins praising God.

You 'd think that would be the end of a lovely story of healing and restoration, but NO! The synagogue leader, a consummate bureaucrat, proceeds to have what my grandmother would have called a conniption fit, ' raising his voice (and maybe his fist) and shouting, There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.

He is not shouting at Jesus; he 's shouting at the woman! Bully that he is, he doesn 't have the courage to rage at the rabbi who has attracted quite a following in towns and villages healing people and preaching about the coming Kingdom of God where the last will be first and those who appear to be first, like this synagogue leader, will be at the end of the line.

Jesus must have had a mild version of a conniption fit himself, firing back, You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the manger and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?

My friend Buddy Stallings who was here last Sunday is a marvelous preacher; in fact, he 's preaching at the Episcopal church on Fishers Island for the next four weeks.

Here is a portion of Buddy 's sermon for today, about Jesus ' confrontation with the synagogue leader 's strict adherence to the Law: the primacy of law, though often depicted by us as singularly rigid and unforgiving, in fact brought order and goodness into what otherwise would have been chaotic.

We cavalierly suggest that Jesus, in a rush of free love, turned a righteous nose to the law. Not only is that not true but also it misses the finer point of how Jesus understood sacred scripture. He loved and knew the Law – on this very day teaching in a synagogue built in devotion to the Law. But Jesus understood it as a guide to truth, not the ultimate container; as a roadmap for life but one that was spacious and humane ¦

Though he had encountered it before, Jesus, it seems, was utterly dismayed by the position taken by the leader of the synagogue and angry enough to resort to calling him out. You hypocrites! How dare you stand in the way of healing for this suffering soul?

I can almost hear Jesus say, Do you really believe that the God whom we are taught to love with our heart, soul, and mind would quibble over what day one of his beloved children is returned to health and fullness of life?

And on this day, Buddy concludes, Jesus ' reaction carries the day: When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. '

As we know all too well, that is a day that has to be won again and again, throughout our lives. The synagogue leader attempted to preserve his power and control by using his title as synagogue leader to discredit and weaken Jesus, and to shame the woman.

In vivid contrast, Jesus employed the greatest power in the universe, the power of love, to heal the woman, to release her from whatever had worn her down. He used that power of love over and over again, to bring healing, to release people from bondage, to offer God 's mercy and justice to the least and lost ¦that is why he, and only he, is called The Chosen One. '

As her encounter with Jesus enabled the woman to stand up straight, so our encounters with the Holy can equip us to stand up straighter and with more conviction, when justice, mercy, and love are called for. If standing up for those things causes a crisis, as it did in the synagogue long ago, so be it. As followers of Jesus we can do nothing less.

One of you recently shared a portion of your spiritual journey with me which goes like this: The mystery of Jesus as Lord, Son of God, is to me as powerful and incomprehensible as my own existence, the directives of my conscience, and the yearnings of my soul for God. The existence of Jesus as man is not a mystery but a master plan, a map, for me to emulate. Like all master plans and conscious efforts to improve our lot, Christ is often forgotten, and our vision of Him in our neighbor's face is often blurred by our selfish needs.

The existence of Jesus as a man is a master plan, a map, for us to emulate. I like that. Some days, we (or at least I do) identify with the stooped over woman, weighed down by the weight of our world; other days, we try to emulate Jesus as best we can: by standing up, speaking up, for what we believe is right, paying attention to those on the margins, to heal at every opportunity.

Remember that in doing those things we are never alone: God told the young Jeremiah: Do not be afraid for I am with you to deliver you. Jesus told his disciples the same thing as they gathered around a table in Jerusalem on the night before he died: Do not be afraid; love one another as I have loved you. 

They shared a loaf of bread and a cup of wine that night, and Jesus sent them out to do the work he had given them to do, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit. May we leave here today, empowered to do the same, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

AMEN.

John Snow 8/4/19 John Snow 8/4/19

August 4, 2019 – Reverend Susan Flanders

It all begins with an idea.

Sermon For St. George's

Aug. 4, 2019

Susan Flanders

Today's readings pose a challenge – all of them together offer a clear message, both of condemnation and of hope, but the message is not easy – especially for you and for me, affluent and comfortable here on our coastal peninsula, ensconced in our summer homes, far from the poverty and w s of so much of the world.

Hosea depicts a God who mourns the infidelity of Israel, its chasing of other gods – a message of condemnation met with mercy. So d s the psalmist;God's mercy endures despite people's wanderings. In Colossians we have a list of sins – all manner of evil behavior – some of which may apply to us. And finally Jesus' parable about the rich man and his dependence on his treasures – the material wealth he has stored up for himself – basically a teaching about greed.

I'll start with the easy response to this challenge. We can look at all the sins cataloged in the Colossians passage and point the finger of blame away from ourselves and straight at an obvious target. Listen again and notice who might come to mind: whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)¦all such things – anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another. Well, one target of blame emerges instantly.We can rest that case and deplore that person – and easily forget to even wonder, however reluctantly, whether God's mercy extends to him as well.

But what about us?What is on our conscience?What in us is idolatrous or greedy or mean-spirited?

I recently finished reading the columnist David Brooks' latest book,The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. If you read Brooks' column or watch him on the PBS Newshour, you may have noticed that he has moved into a less political, more sociological or even spiritual kind of commentary. Well this book is a kind of memoir explaining this change. Brooks has gone through a conversion process – not from the Jewish background of his upbringing to a born-again Christian faith, but a far more nuanced process of exploring both traditions and very gradually moving from a stance of unbelief or atheism to one of belief. And that has brought David Brooks to a passionate embrace of commitment to moral values, not just intellectually but in practice. He sees our moral failings as in part carelessness about our desires, and he uses a brilliant quote from the author David Foster Wallace to illustrate the importance of our wants.Brooks quotes from a commencement address given by Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005, saying this:

in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship“be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles“is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough¦Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you¦ Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

I quote Foster at such length, because what he has to say gets at the crux of whatever culpability we bear for our own moral short-comings. They are so often unconscious – our default settings, unexamined and unrecognized. And whether or not we are religious, even if we call ourselves atheists – we do worship; we do turn to one thing or another, one person or another to make our lives work out, to make us feel secure, and surely money is one of those things. The things we turn to are saviors for us, even if we don't call them that.

I remember way back, when I was just starting seminary, an encounter with George at some fancy party. George was a rich, successful businessman, handsome and confident, with a wife and two daughters who were just like him. When he learned that I was headed for the ministry, he told me that although he attended church,he really didn't feel he had need of saving or forgiveness – that his life was really going well and he had nothing to regret, no need for confession. He'd made it on his own. And it threw me because I think there are lots of Georges, but back then,I didn't know what to say.

If I met George today, now that I'm forty years older and after a divorce and a late miscarriage and money and career crises and an early stage cancer, I would know what to say. George, we can't do it on our own. We can never make all good choices; we can never be sure that if we get things right, everything will be fine. We depend on our relationships, our vocations, our savings, our fitness practices, our real estate, a drink at the end of the day, all of our beloved familiar rituals – and that is fine, and normal, and good. But we can't worship them – we can't rely ultimately on any or all of these things and expect that by doing so, we'll ensure a happy life and a peaceful death.

Well, so – we need help, and what the Bible passages tell us is that we need God, we need Jesus. But what does that mean?How do we even think about that in terms of our own experience rather than as some supernatural savior who stands ready to save us? Maybe at first read the scriptures seem to say this, but I believe there's a deeper message buried within them. These ancient writings about God's mercy and love, God's care for God's people are not just false promises. To me they suggest something at work in the world that is worth desiring and striving for – something that gives meaning when all our little saviors fail us.

When I suggest that love is that thing, that savior, that source of meaning and purpose we yearn for, that sounds too easy, too pat – oh yeah, that whole God is Love thing, but hear me out.If there is an actual power and presence underlying all of creation and expressing itself in all forms of love, then we can be part of that expression – each one of us can be a bearer of love, to one another, to our communities, our country, our whole aching planet. And we can call that presence God, as I do, or just stick with Love. Perhaps this is our purpose – to be part of the force that is love in this world, to commit surely to love – and to bet our lives on it – perhaps in so doing, we find, or make meaning. And maybe that's another way of saying have faith in God.

But I hasten to add – having faith includes action. Love is a verb, not a noun,as one of my favorite song writers, sitting right over here, wrote in a song years ago. And just this past week, Deanna Hollas, the new Presbyterian minister especially ordained to work against gun violence said this, While all that we do as Christians should be rooted in worship and prayer, it should not stay there.It is like breathing – worship and prayer is the in-breath, and action is the out breath.Love must express itself in action; it is more than a feeling.

What David Brooks discovers after his own life falls apart is his need for actual practical commitments to something beyond himself, and most of his book is about that. He writes at length about the importance of relationships and community, and of course these are the incarnations, the embodiments of love – the appropriate objects of our commitments.

But somewhere in all of his advocacy for our committing ourselves to something bigger and beyond, Brooks really got my attention with this: Consider the possibility that we are the ones committed to, the objects of an infinite commitment, and that the commitment is to redeem us and bring us home. What if:

Which brings me back to the ancient writings from Hosea and the Psalm about a God we really might worship:

This God says to the prophet:

I took them up in my arms;

but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of human kindness,

with bands of love.

I was to them like those

who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down to them and fed them.

And the Psalmist says of this God:

He put their feet on a straight path *

to go to a city where they might dwell.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy *

and the wonders he does for his children.

For he satisfies the thirsty *

and fills the hungry with good things.

Whoever is wise will ponder these things, *

and consider well the mercies of the Lord.

Consider indeed:What if God's love comes first – love poured out that we might learn to love?

Can we commit to love, to the love that commits to us?Mercies indeed – what will be our response? Amen.

John Snow 7/28/19 John Snow 7/28/19

July 28, 2019 – Reverend C. Waite Maclin

It all begins with an idea.

St. George Chapel

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

July 28, 2019

There once was a funeral for a man named John. The preacher asked for someone in the congregation to speak kind words of the deceased. No one spoke. After several pleadings from the preacher for a comment about John, someone in the back of the church shouted: Well, John was not as big a loser as his brother, Bill!

As we are not here on All Saints Day, November First “ when we remember all who have gone before us in the Spirit of God's Grace “ It seemed to me that it would be a good thing to take a moment to call forth the love, the companionship,the creativity, the brilliance and the energy of all those who have been a part of this wonderful and blessed chapel.

In a moment I will read the memorials to members of the congregation on the plaques around the walls. Following that I will ask you to share the names of those you love who have died and you would want us to remember.

As the artist, Steve Lindsay reminded us last week when we dedicated this beautiful granite cross : St. George's Chapel was begun to answer the religious needs of the residents of Long Cove, most of whom were of English or Scots background and were of the Anglican faith. Almost all of the men worked in the large granite quarry that occupied much of the Long Cove land,

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For the First Lesson Lucy Banks read a portion from the Apocrapha.The14 books of the Apocrapha, were written in Greek in the time period between the Old and New Testaments. There was great controversy over whether to include them in the canonical scriptures. The word Apocrapha means hidden wisdom. It is still read for its insight and wisdom. We might say that it is not unlike the redacted portions of the Mueller report.

Ben Sara, who translated the original Hebrew, called the Wisdom of Sirach, asks people to remember both those who are famous and known throughout the community, but also just as important the countless numbers who

have no memorial but are just as much at the center of what and who the community is about.

Ben Sara speaks of those who are celebrated:

Let us now praise famous persons and our ancestors in their generations. The Lord apportioned to them great glory, his majesty from the beginning.

There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and were people renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and proclaiming prophecies;leaders of the people in their deliberations and in understanding of learning for the people, wise in their words of instruction;

those who composed musical tunes, and set forth verses in writing;(Our dear friend, Margaret Neeson)

He speaks of those who have faded into history:

And there are some who have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived; they have become as though they had not been born, and so have their children after them. But these were persons of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their prosperity will remain with their descendants, and their inheritance to their children’s children.

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And finally, Ben Sara says of those both known and unknown:

Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives to all generations.Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise

I find these words so stirring and comforting as I reflect on those we love who are no longer with us.

Jesus Christ called the Church into being. Now it is our task, through His grace to do this worship and mighty work.

Here is something to ponder:

Do we create this community or in fact, ds the community create us. Are we here because this chapel has called us, or is this place here because we have agreed that it is a good thing to worship together. It is not unlike the question Michael Pollan asks about nature: Do bees pollinate the flowers on their own or do the flowers call the bees to themselves in order to live?

Therefore this day, we remember with the utmost gratitude many known and unknown. You can rightly say that we are sending them a love letter of our joy and immeasurable thankfulness that they have been in OUR lives as well as in this place. Around the chapel walls are plaques with the names of many who have been memorialized by those who have loved them. In addition some sent me additional names. After I have shared these names I invite all of us here to call out the names of loved ones you wish remembered as well.

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These memorials on the walls of the chapel are given by those of us who wish not only to remember someone dear and close, but to keep us all in remembrance that we are in this holy place because of those who have gone before.

– The windows in this chapel, were given to the Glory of God and in loving memory of Anne Howell Monahan, Mary Helen Monahan, Viola James Wathen. In their light we shall see light

– Always remembering The Rev, Edward Felix and Olivia Kloman, Olivia Cis Kloman Chappell.And He Walks with me.

– In loving memory of Jack McHenry Neeson (1918-2001) and Margaret Graham Neeson (1918-2010

– in loving memory of Charlotte Baker (1924-2012)

– In loving memory of Churchill Gibson Carey ((1912-1981) and Juliet McAdams Carey (1918-2008)

– Forester Clark Smith (1931-2007) God is Love

– In Loving memory of Kathleen and Charles Bingham and Aubrey Gorman. Let There Be light.

Alice wrote me the following: It was given by Heidi Bingham Stott, my former sister-in-law, and me, for her parents and for my husband Aubrey Gorman.

In Loving memory of Christine Anderson Maclin (1941-2016) Thanks Be to God.Christine, The love of my life.

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Also, Betsy Scott wrote the following;

I have given a pledge towards the purchase of the cross in memory of my parents who loved the chapel, Bob and Betty Hunter. My mother was born in far away India, the daughter of missionaries, but her mother was from Tenants Harbor. Tenants Harbor was my mother's true emotional home and this chapel in particular was very special to her.

John Snow wrote the following:

In a shameless plug, I might suggest you mention my grandfather Harold Dunne and his son Richard Dunne, both were Episcopal priests who served at the Chapel.My understanding is that grandfather (with his kids helping) re-opened the Chapel after World War II.It's a special memory to me, even though he died before I was born.My Uncle Dick was my godfather and a bit of a hero to me as well.

And now I invite you to mention anyone you wish for us to remember this important Day.

Prayer:

Almighty God, with whom still live the spirits of those who die in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We give you heartfelt thanks for the good examples of all your servants, who, having finished their course in faith, now find rest and refreshment. May we, with all of have died in the true faith of your holy Name, have perfect fulfillment and bliss in your eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.

We have one last task.

Since none of us can be at our own funeral or memorial service and hope nice things will be said of us, (not like poor John in the opening story), take a moment for your own personal inventory. Contemplate what you wish to be said of you, by your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, by those who wait on you, and the whole community where you live.

Amen

John Snow 7/14/19 John Snow 7/14/19

July 14, 2019 – Reverend Anne Cox

It all begins with an idea.

What must I do to have life?

A Sermon preached at the St. George Chapel

July 14, 2019

I have always liked walking along with the prophet Amos, with his plumb line and his calls for justice and righteousness to flow like an ever flowing stream. As much as the message, I think I like his imagery. So when I saw that Amos was one of the readings for today, I'd thought we would be strolling through Judah with Amos. But no, it was that well-known, potentially overly familiar story of the Good Samaritan in Luke's gospel that kept grabbing me to meander instead from Jericho to Jerusalem. Oh well. So let's take a stroll.

This is probably one of the most guilt-producing passages of scripture out there. How many of us have not passed on the other side of the street to avoid a panhandler asking for money for food, or turned a blind eye to a neighbor in need. I know: there are often all sorts of good reasons for turning away, ignoring, not engaging ” I know, I am an introvert; I don't really want to engage much of the time. But I also know, as one formed in the Christian tradition, whose sister is the director of the Samaritan Relief Center in her town, I know that I have all sorts of little niggling guilty thoughts about how I really ought to act, on account of this story. Before I go on my justified way.

So let's look at it, shall we.

A lawyer stood up, to test Jesus: œTeacher, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? It's the same thing that in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, the rich young man asks Jesus: œWhat do I have to do to align myself with God, with life?

Jesus says to the lawyer, œWell, what's written in the law; what do you read? What's in the law of Israel? Do you think he was just irritated with this question? œYou are a lawyer; you are educated; you know the answer. Are you asking me just to show off? Or to trip me up?

The lawyer answered: œYou shall love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind; and your neighbor as yourself. He recited the catechism.

œOK, you are educated; you do know the tradition. Do it and you will live.

The laws, the traditions of Israel were very clear. The lawyer knew them. And even the elaborations on the laws, as only a lawyer would.

In Deuteronomy: the Shema: œHear. O Israel: The LORD our God is one God; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

In Leviticus: œYou shall love your neighbor as yourself¦. and then later on, œ When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do that person wrong¦.and you shall love that person as yourself.

Pretty clear. That's in the Torah, something the lawyer knew.

But no, he had to push a little more: œAnd, just who is my neighbor.

So we get the story of the Good Samaritan.

œWhich of the three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man?

œThe one who showed mercy.

“Well, then, go and do likewise. Clear. Not difficult.

I think it is somewhat easy to get a handle on what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves, this cross-cultural golden rule. We may not do it (and that's another whole question about why we don't do it), but there are clear injunctions in our scriptural traditions, ethical traditions, and in our legal systems. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, educating children, cleaning up the environment, doing what is just, speaking truth. It doesn't always happen. Clearly. But we can figure out what loving our neighbor means, even when things are fuzzy. And they are often fuzzy: for instance, how do we decide about floating wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine, with the competing claims of our different neighbors? What is the right decision regarding inland salmon farming? What about that power line from Quebec to Massachusetts? It's complicated, without answers as easy as just who showed mercy to the man lying by the side of the road, but I think we can slog through figuring these things out. Not all of our neighbors may be happy, but collectively, we can slog through figuring out answers. And maybe we can slog through best when we couple this love of neighbor, and who our neighbor is, with love of God.

So what about loving God? That one is not as obvious. Or maybe it is.

Loving God is where religion I think gets tripped up, even though at least nominally, it's supposed to be all about loving God. But God, God is out there, a construct, open to all sorts of interpretation. I can see my neighbor; can I see God? Can you see God? What do you know about God? God the Father. Really? Literally? I don't think so. Metaphorically, maybe. Omniscient, omnipotent, morally-perfect? Not really. Is it just a warm fuzzy feeling? What is this God we bandy about and appeal to? And how do you know if I love God. I say I love God. You can't touch that. Because it's my own personal thing, right? Who, what, where is this God in whom we live and move and have our being? Oh there are times and times of theology, gallons of ink, gigabytes out there about God. And we're not going to solve it all on this summer morning.

But here is just a little piece I glean today, from our story. A little piece that might help as we think about what it means to have life. Because that is the question: œWhat do I have to do to have life.

First, the lawyer's answer: œYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; AND your neighbor as yourself. œDo this, Jesus says, œand you will live.

Both. Love God AND love your neighbor. Not love God OR love your neighbor. AND. Somehow that's important. They are parallel. You can't love God and not your neighbor, or your neighbor and not God. They are linked. For life.

So how do you love God? Here's the one clue I see in today's story that might help tease at least a little thread out. Our story is about loving the neighbor, answering the œand who is my neighbor's question, but there is also something about loving God. In the story we have the man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among robbers who left him half dead. Then we have a priest, a religious leader, going down the same road, and when he glimpsed the half dead man, he passed by on the other side; likewise, a Levite, also a religious leader, passed by on the other side. The Samaritan, a foreigner, and a non-religious person to boot, came along the same road to where the man was, and when he saw him, he had compassion and tended to his wounds.

Both of those who passed by on the other side were part of a system, the religious system of the time. I can imagine them thinking that their task, whatever was taking them into Jerusalem, was far more important, holy, justified, than taking the time to examine the man who had been beaten, to stop and pay attention to what was in their path. It was the one with nothing to do with the purity of religion who stopped. Jesus probably chose a Samaritan for his story because the inhabitants of Samaria were known to be ne'er do-wells, impure, beyond the pale; Samaria was where many crooks and thieves were sent, out of Israel. No one ever expected any good to come out of Samaria.

Well, I am wondering if loving God is not all about paying attention, observing, attending to what is put before us. It's about getting outside of the social constructs that might tell us that our systems are more important than paying attention to what is in our path. Instead, it is about shedding these identities so we can actually see what is in front of us, shedding our religious, national, economic, social, political identities and allegiances, putting them aside.

Taken this way then, maybe loving God is about close observation, attentiveness: Paying attention to life in all its incredible richness, the beauty of this land, the miracle of life and growth, the ecology of life and death. Maybe our scientific impulses, with close observation of smallest atoms, largest galaxies, patterns and laws of nature, maybe these impulses are mostly about loving God. Likewise, our artistic impulses, to understand the life we see and reflect it back, describing and interpreting the world: these are about loving God.

To love God is to look closely, to engage with this fragile earth, our island home.

Today we have an entire world that has fallen among thieves who have extracted resources, human and natural, in the pursuit of progress and growth; we have a world that has been beaten up and left by the metaphorical road. Politicians glimpse this situation and hurry back to attend to political expediency; business people glimpse this situation and turn back toward bolstering the GDP and satisfying their stockholders. Maybe it is only a child, not yet fully inculcated in the systems that consume us and keep us from seeing what is in front of our noses, maybe it is only a child who can look at rising temperatures and sea levels, who can see the plastics clogging our oceans, maybe it is only a child who can truly observe what has happened, and have mercy. Or at least, perhaps it is those able to break out of the systems that bind them to actually see and examine this beaten up world and have compassion, tending to the wounds.

Today, the writer of the gospel of Luke tells us that showing mercy, behaving as the Samaritan, is how we are to have life. The writers of Mark and Matthew are more stringent when they have Jesus respond to the young man who asks what he should do to have life. In their telling of this encounter, Jesus tells him to go and sell all that he has, and come, follow him. And the young man went away very sad, for he had many riches

So for what it's worth, that is what I have been thinking about. Life, a full life, is about observing the world we encounter, outside of our conventions, AND responding with compassion and mercy to what we encounter. It may mean selling all that we have. I have a suspicion that it is less about becoming impoverished and more about putting aside the blind adherence to our different social constructs, and paying attention and responding to the realities in our paths. We do this, and we will live.

And I dare say, that should we not put away our conventions, those things that keep us from seeing the state of this planet, this world with receding glaciers, violent storms, disappearing bees, dying coral reefs, acidifying oceans, mountains of non-degradable plastic trash, I dare say that if we do not stare at this reality and tend to these wounds, none of us will have any life at all.

May we all love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. Our lives depend on it.

John Snow 7/7/19 John Snow 7/7/19

July 7, 2019 – Dr T Richard Snyder

It all begins with an idea.

Again?

T. Richard Snyder, PhD

July 7, 2019

This morning I want to talk with you about the word again. It is one of the most overused and misunderstood words today.And so I have put a question mark after it. Again?

There are several ways to think about the word. again.

It’s an important word because it can point to new possibilities, new beginnings, second chances.As someone deeply involved in Restorative Justice, I want to claim that word again once again. It's like the lyrics of the old song, I’ll never say never again, again, cause here I am in love again. I’m reminded of the person whose spouse had died after a fifty year marriage.In grief, the words inscribed on the tombstone were, the light of my life has gone out. After a few years, however, a new relationship blossomed, so the inscription was added, but I have struck another match. Sometimes again can be about a new beginning.

It’s also a dangerous word because it has become the foundation for many empty promises and false hopes.We are promised that America will be great again and millions get in line with no understanding of what that again might mean and with no clarity about the future that is to come. Many of my born-again friends refer to Jesus' admonition to Nicodemus that he must be born again., if we want to go to heaven.With that admonition, we are promised something but with no understanding of what that word really means and no clarity about the promise of eternal glory. Yet we are bombarded with promises of again.

Let me set this in the starkest contrast. The word again can be either nostalgic or transgressive.

For some, the word again is nostalgic: longing for a time of paradise lost: a mythic time when all was harmony and concord with others and with nature. Camelot, the Garden of Eden before the Fall, Shangri-La.While there is no historical record of such a time, the existence of these stories reveal a universal longing deep in the human soul. But we must tread cautiously on the notion of a virtuous golden age that stands in stark contrast to the present. There never was such a time.This is what the Tea Party wishes to do, what the fundamentalist religionists wish to do, what those in danger of losing their privilege and power wish to do”namely to go back to the way things were, or at least as they were imagined to be. Make America Great Again conveniently assumes a past that wasn't marred by racism, male dominance, injustice, imperialism and violence.

But for others, the word again has a transgressive meaning.It is a word of resistance.Langston Hughes, the famous black poet and writer penned these words in his pm, Let America be America Again.

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed”

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me.

Nor freedom in this homeland of the free.)¦.

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain”

All, all the stretch of these great green states”

And make America again.

It is not an overstatement to say that the way forward demands a radical transformation; a transformation of our imagination, our consciousness, our reasoning, our behavior, and our social structures. Anything less will fall short. We may be tempted to fix or modify the violence of the past by returning to the old days, but doing so will not address the heart of our problem. So where do we turn? We need a new imagination, a total re-orientation.

We can't go home again, as Thomas Hardy famously wrote,because home never had the complexity, the racial/ethnic mix or the reality of a global world that we now have. We need to distinguish between nostalgia for an illusory past and hope for a new world.

Many Christians interpret the words of Jesus to Nicodemus that he must be born again, as essential for salvation. A closer look at that challenge reveals a better translation and an even deeper requirement.Not, you must be born again but, you must be born from above. You must be captured by a transcendence that goes far beyond mere longing for a lost morality and culture. Nicodemus' response was limited to a return to the past”-to ask how he could enter a second time into the womb. But to be born from above is the promise of something totally new, a transcendence of the past rather than simply a recovery and repetition of what was. What many of the born-again preachers are calling for is a return to a time when marriage was only between one man and one woman, abortion was illegal, the bible was read in the schools, and the church was the center of life.

Whose again are we looking to recover?Is it a time before the #MeToo Movement when rape isn't considered such a bad thing when it is committed by a nice boy who is an Eagle Scout and from a good home.Is it a time when the United States reigned supreme in the world and could insert its will upon other nation's without regard”when we could overturn the democratic election of Arbenz in Guatemala, fund the Contras to stop the Sandinista revolution and support a military coup that removed Salvador Allende. Is it a time when we were waging a just war against the totally evil Nazi's but closed our borders to hundreds of thousands of Jews desperately seeking to flee the killings of the Holocaust? Is it a time before women's suffrage when only men's voices and votes counted, when it was only men who were created equal?Is it a time when the monuments of secessionist hers and the flying of the confederate flag in the name of state's rights sought to disguise their role as symbols of slavery and overt racism?

Whose again are we looking to recover?

And while legislative changes sometimes achieve desirable results, often those changes merely mask an underlying reality that does not change. The ending of slavery, for example, did not eliminate the racist treatment of people of color. There have been legislative changes along the road, as the racism of slavery was replaced again”this time with Jim Crow, and the racism of Jim Crow has been replaced again “this time by the war on drugs and the resultant mass incarceration and criminalizing of blacks.No matter what we call it, racism, is rampant. Again.

While the Civil Rights Act led to some improvement for blacks, it didn't fundamentally change the beliefs, attitudes, and values of many whites. Similarly, the Voting Rights Act has been circumvented by gerrymandering (that the Supreme Court recently voted to allow), identity requirements, and shortening registration and voting periods.Once again, millions of blacks are disenfranchised. And the Equal Rights Amendment, that still has not been ratified by enough states to make it part of the Constitution, once again has not ended the mistreatment of women. Allowing a few women to rise to the top of the corporate ladder ds not change the underlying sexism of a male dominated culture as we have witnessed with the steadily increasing accounts of sexual abuse by men, and lower pay for women for comparable work. Native Americans have witnessed scores of legislative actions to correct their mistreatment, but they remain marginalized on reservations and largely impoverished. No matter what is legislated, Native Americans again and again are oppressed. And while legislation has created more educational programs for prisoners and proven to reduce recidivism, it does little to change our society's perception of prisoners as undesirable men and women who must be kept away from us good people. Again.

New technologies are often praised as the way to a genuinely new future but too often fall short of the promise. This is especially evident in the development of our military technology. Drones have been developed with the promise of surgical strike capacity, thereby minimizing or even eliminating civilian deaths. But again collateral damage of civilians continues and the advent of drones doesn't change our view of the enemy as evil and deserving of death. What we have created is a technologically advanced form of warfare. The technology may have changed, but wars and a war mentality continue, Again.

But there is also a transgressive memory”one that points to an entirely new future”, a new America. We Christians are a people of memory: of hymns sung since childhood, of creeds and prayers recited weekly.In fact, some of those memories are burned into us so deeply that almost nothing can dispel them.I vividly recall the experience with my father who was in a rehabilitation center after having suffered a severe stroke that soon led to his death.His communication had been reduced to unintelligible sounds. He could not speak. One Sunday we wheeled him to the chapel service.To my utter amazement, when the pastor led the people in the Lord's prayer, my father joined in, word for word.He never uttered a word after that.Somehow, the memory of that prayer ran deeper than even the effects of the stroke.

There is no substitute for memory.But one of the truths that I have discovered is that it is possible to remember much and understand little.It is possible to remember the words of scripture and prayers but not experience their power.It is possible to know the history of the church by heart but to miss the heart of its history.It is time to claim a liberating memory.A memory that transcends the limits of the past and points to a new possibility.

I think that is the way it was for the people of Israel during the time of Isaiah's words that we read today.The people were captives in Babylon.They had been forced into exile. The good life was over.Life was a hazy shadow of their former glory.The excitement was gone and rather than living in anticipation they were despondent.And their memory wasn't helping them. They were nostalgic memories of a lost past.They were ephemeral memories. Those memories were not the way ahead.The reality of their exile dominated their thoughts and remembering the past had no power.Their memories were as empty and as meaningless as their rituals.Another prophet, Amos had chastised the people for the emptiness of their rituals, claiming Yahweh despised their festivals and took no delight in their solemn offerings.They were unacceptable to Yahweh because they were empty of the power of justice.Now Isaiah says something similar about their memories.

He tells them”do not remember not the former things or consider the things of old.Stop living in the past.Your history is not going to help you.I suspect that history had become their horizon.Perhaps they had become so comfortable with the litany of the past that they were unable to see the new things that were brewing in their midst.Perhaps they had become like old friends or married couples who spend their time reminiscing and never allow for new developments in their relationship. Sometimes memory can become a tranquilizer.Apparently, for the exiles, memory has become a substitute for the experience of the living spirit.

This is the situation of many of our churches and our nation today.Our memories have locked us into a past that is a dead-end. We are living with a myopic memory. To us, the words of Isaiah are timely.Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.I am about to do a new thing:now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

It's time to cultivate new memories–memories that are transgressive, that point to radically new possibilities. It is time for us to focus on perceiving the news that is emergent.

Watch for the new.Move beyond your memories.It's strange how sometimes even a good thing can become a problem.Just as too much comfort may make us complacent, too much memory may lull us into an assurance that all we will be well when the old days return.

For modern folks like us, memory is even more problematic than it was for the captives in Babylon, because we have idealized history.We have turned biblical history into a spiritualized story devoid of the material content that makes history.We have tended to think of the powerfully transforming events of biblical history such as exodus and return from exile as coming down magically from heaven.For the prophet, that was unthinkable.History always involved actors, human agency–Pharaoh and Moses, Joshua and the Canaanites, Gideon and his three hundred, Deborah and Jael.All of those dramatic changes involved politics, social structures, and economics.Nothing magical there”rather the stuff of everyday life.

We must move beyond a memory that is merely nostalgic–that fills us with feelings of contentment, of warmth. The problem with nostalgia is that it tends to make history over into what feels good to us”it is like comfort food for the mind and soul.A few years back Carole and I returned to Brazil where I had lived for a time in the 60's.For years I had experienced strong nostalgia for the music, the beaches and the beauty of Rio de Janeiro.I was filled with what the Brazilians call saudades” longings of nostalgia.Unfortunately, when we returned, all had changed, including me–and the reality was shattering.Nostalgia doesn't prepare us for a new day. It merely seeks to repeat the old.Perhaps Israel was caught up in nostalgia.

And we must not languish in memories that are merely interesting stories, without the power to move us to action.Memory can be benign.There is a form of memory that doesn't harm or heal, it's just a story. Interesting, but without power–a memory that ruffles no feathers, disturbs no order”it simply recounts what everyone already knows or could know.Perhaps for the Israelites history had become a source of comfort that required neither expectation nor action.

Whatever Israel's problem was with memory, Isaiah tells them to let go of their memories. What is called for now, he says, is not memory but perception.The task now is to perceive the new that is already in process. The prophet exhorts them to perceive the unexpected new thing that God is doing in their midst.It was their dream to be set free.But they certainly didn't see this coming because they were locked into their history and unable to perceive what was already stirring.

If we listen to the challenge of Isaiah, it is time to stop living in a safe past and to take the risk of faith—to struggle to perceive what is already breaking forth.Make no mistake, the dramatic nature of a truly new life and world involves risk, it involves upset, it involves cost. The future will not drop from heaven simply because we want something better, simply because we pray for it.It will involve digging into a marginalized past, careful analysis, strategic thinking and planning, judicious deployment of resources, sacrifices, perseverance, and a willingness to consider the unimaginable. It will involve different allies, not the ones who brought us this mess. The future will not be easy or perfect.

We are offered a different kind of memory”a transgressive memory that comes from the margins rather than the center, that comes from the silenced rather than from those whose voice has dominated, that comes from the least of these rather than from those in power. Only that memory can cause us to perceive a truly new future.

In the words of Langston Hughes, Let us make America Again.

John Snow 6/21/19 John Snow 6/21/19

June 21, 2019 – Rev. Ralph Moore

It all begins with an idea.

St. George Chapel, June 21, 2019

Amos 8:1-13, Psalm 52, Luke 10:38-42

Rev. Ralph Moore

My mother called herself a Martha. She always seemed to have more to do than she could ever finish at church events and at home. Never rested, never time to think, she felt Martha’s fury when Martha went to Jesus complaining that her sister Mary choose to just sit and listen to Jesus. I guess we all have been around this story many times–Jesus sitting in a room or patio with a circle of a dozen or so people adoringly looking at him as he teaches. We’ve grown up with symbolic stereotypes: Mary the devoted learner, Martha the more shallow doer. Mary described by Jesus as concentrating on “the one thing needed,” the core of spiritual life. Martha distracted, preoccupied. And we’ve also had a kind of Myers-Briggs typology: in each of us is a Mary and a Martha, a contemplative tendency and an activist impatience to do things.

The lectionary throws a curve at our interpretations by pairing this story with the scathing words by the prophet Amos. This forces us to focus on what Jesus might be saying to his listeners. Many quotes of Jesus’ teachings are memorizable parables (prodigal son) and contemporary ethics (the golden rule). But over all is Jesus’ constant insistence that everything he says comes from the law and the prophets, the stories of the people’s struggles and the condemnations by the prophets of social injustice and oppression. This is the background for his thoughts and his actions.

In our picture of him this morning he might well be going over the denunciations of hypocrisy made by Amos. Amos the sheep herder and manager of fruit orchards; not of the wealthy class nor the religious elite. About eight-hundred years before Jesus’ day Amos feels called to leave his homeland in the south, travel to the kingdom in the north, and confront royalty and wealth by exposing their violation of divine commandments for integrity and truth, their material greed, their oppression of the poor, their hypocritical religion. Amos wrote these words himself–literary gems. Martin Luther King, Jr. used many of them regularly. And there’s no relief for us in Psalm 52, coming from a couple of centuries before Amos. The Psalm is addressed directly to the tyrant, the merchant, the powerful–who do evil by lying and stealing and forcing the poor into slavery.

So, we here today, might consider ourselves in that room listening to Jesus as he challenges us to ponder the society in which we live. For his listeners, it’s living in the Roman Empire’s occupation of their land; the military oppression, the exploitation of their resources, using their religion and their puppet leaders to maintain the status quo. In our day are huge parallels: the world is a horrendous challenge for any of us who seek to live in truth, to be responsible in the ways we use our power and our privilege, to understand the social costs of consumer choices we make, the suffering of millions in the world, in our own nation the trampling of values by authorities–political and corporate and religious. Jesus outlines the disciplines we must develop to not succumb to simplistic slogan and be silent in the face of bigotry and hate, to serve the common good, love of neighbor and enemy, celebrate life with generosity, exemplify Jesus. Jesus does not put Martha down for her fatigue and impatience, nor does he exalt Mary for her taking time out to ponder and contemplate. He does, however, insist that this moment together be valued, used as precious gift, for growth, renewal, and commitment.

Today, we dedicate a cross for this chapel. We’ll remember as we do so that for many centuries before Jesus’ time and many centuries afterward that crucifixion was a common method of execution for those who were perceived to oppose authority, anyone who fails to bow down in total loyalty to the status quo. One commentator has described the Roman province of Palestine as “littered with crosses carrying the bodies of trouble-makers.” Jesus is one of those, one whose death has, for his people, the meaning of life that does not cease in death but, rather, is lived powerfully beyond death. The fear of death is vanquished. God is in this all the way.

A grotesque example of this in the lives of our African American neighbors is rising in our awareness. In that period after slavery ended called Reconstruction, the mid-1860s through the late 1880s, former slaves were granted farmlands and new means for them to establish their economic independence. The vast majority found new freedom in farming. We now learn that the vicious white reactions, especially lynchings, were mostly designed to drive them off their land. Today it is still going on in modern legal terms–developers and county commissions are still finding “legal” ways to do this. One of our most cherished African American theologians, the late Rev. James Cone, (Union Theological Seminary) wrote a moving description of this just in 2012 entitled The Cross and the Lynching Tree. The cross represents experience; faith and belief begin in experience. The cross is the event that defines how power over death comes alive in us as we encounter forces that destroy and kill. Still, today, the lynching tree is that event and therefore the symbol of resurrection power for African Americans. Still today, each of us is affected by the atrocities suffered by others far away and close at hand. Each of us puts aside the cross as adornment, sign of something that happened in the past, a discovers that it is in the lives that we lead.

Another reminder of sacrifices on the Cross comes from the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Episcopal Bishop of Alaska (1991-96), Dean of Episcopal Divinity School (1999-2008), and currently teaching at. St. Paul School of Theology. He is a full-blooded Choctaw from Oklahoma (which is Choctaw for “red people). Speaking about the indigenous “native American” experience, he writes about the violent history of recent centuries: “It is not about who is a real American, since only a handful of us can make that claim legitimately, but who dominates, who has the power…the same tragic need to exercise power over others….If we seek a Native American view on the sacrifices [the crosses of our current situation] here it is: you all can stay, but let racism and injustice be banished from our midst once and for all. That is what is un-American.”

So, Jesus says to us in this discussion group, each one of you has had, now has, will have, this event in your life–this insane force of evil challenging all that you cherish, this world of indiscriminate suffering constantly trying to rob you of the good, of the love, of the strength of heart, by which you offer your life in serving one another as neighbors. Lift up your cross and follow me as I carry mine–he actually says that! Christ alive in one is the event of the cross in one–thoughts and actions that have consequences. The law and the prophets. The way the world groans onward to renewal and freedom. You shall overcome.

Dedication of the Memorial Cross

(from the Iona Abbey Worship Book, p. 106)

Do we believe that God is present in the darkness before dawn, in the waiting and uncertainty where fear and courage join hands, conflict and caring link arms, and the sun rises over barbed wire?–Do we believe this? We do.

Do we believe that God is with us and in us in Christ, who walks with us and sits down in our midst sharing our humanity?–Do we believe this? We do.

Do we affirm a faith that takes us beyond the safe place into love in action, into vulnerability, into peacemaking in the world?–Do we affirm this? We do.

As we offer this Cross, do we commit ourselves to live according to its power, loving in Christ’s name, bearing responsibility, taking risks, standing with those who suffer on the edges of societies, honoring all who have gone before us (today we name Margaret Neeson), do we we commit ourselves to life over death, open ourselves to be used by the Spirit?–Do we commit ourselves? We do.

As we behold this Cross–may the light of God lead us; the power of God hold us; the joy of God heal us; the grace of God enfold us; the love of God bless us. Amen.

John Snow 9/2/18 John Snow 9/2/18

September 2, 2018 / The Reverend C. Waite Maclin

It all begins with an idea.

ST. GEORGE CHAPEL

TENANTS HARBOR

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

As I was thinking of what I might preach about this morning, our last time together in the chapel till next summer, word came in the news about the not unexpected but still sad news of Senator John McCain.

His death as the death of all people brings us to that universal community of tears.

I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on the life of this brave man for he so represents the challenging words from the gospel:

“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.

And Jesus continued:

“Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

John McCain was a man of integrity, A man who spoke his truth with small concern for the consequences. A man who withstood torture and degradation few of us can comprehend. A man who believed in compromise when many in his party saw it as weakness. A man who gave that iconic gesture of thumbs down during the crucial vote on the Affordable Care Act in the Senate. A man who refused repatriation after his capture in Vietnam until all of the prisoners were released. A man who challenged a supporter when she disparaged the life, religion and even being of Barack Obama

-2-

Now in “full disclosure” – I did not vote for John McCain in the general election and disagreed with him on many of his positions. However I did admired him, particularly in this time of little courage on our political scene. What cemented that admiration was a visit I took a number of years ago to Hanoi, Vietnam and where he was kept prisoner, “The Hanoi Hilton”. The place was stark, brutal, and must have sucked the very breath out of its prisoners.

And you know,

I admire heroes, whether captured or not!!!

Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

As we see in the Gospel reading this morning, Jesus challenged the given wisdom of his day, the given wisdom of his tradition, the given wisdom of his faith – not because they were wrong or evil, but because when misused they, like the Hanoi Hilton, sucked the very spiritual and life-giving breath out of these people whom he loved and came to save.

There were often encounters such as this. Jesus was not challenging them because they were upholding the Law of Moses. Being a Jew, he also believed in the Law. He was going deeper saying that to concentrate on “hand washing in a ritualistic, rigid manner” was to miss the whole point. “It is your attitude, it is your unthinking automatic responses, it is your holding on to what you have been told for generations and never questioned.” There is nothing profound about this unless it goes to the heart of what you have been taught to believe.

Oh, and do we not all have those places in our own lives where we hold on to the symbol and the external, thus missing the deeper truth.

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So, in some sense, John McCain is a model for us as he tried his best to get at the essence of things as he saw them.

Jesus’ point is clear. It is those biases, conscious or unconscious, it is those biases which have been formed from our history, our family lore, our culture, even our religious traditions, our “given wisdom” that causes our problems, large or small.

And sometimes we do not even know they are there. The present discussion of “unconscious bias” is so important because even in the best of times those biases blast out when we least expect them and we are startled when they do.

I want to share with you an event of which I am not proud but from which I have learned a much deeper lesson.

I had a pastoral counseling practice for 29 years. I have always seen myself as open, liberal, egalitarian –

just about a perfect specimen of a human beingJ

One day there was a knock at my office door. The visitor was African American, in a ratty overcoat and shabby clothes. My immediate response before he opened his mouth:

“Sir, if you will come back later I think I can help you out. He replied: “Oh Mr. Maclin, I am not here for a handout, I want to become a client.“

I was embarrassed, chagrinned and ashamed. May I also say, the gentleman and I developed a firm and life giving relationship for us both for two years. Unconscious bias comes out of us when we least expected it, not because we are “bad” people but because it is ingrained, given to us from we not know where. It is in accepting that reality in ourselves that we are made free.

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Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

There is a profound line from “The Rainmaker”, a 1956 Broadway Play by N Richard Nash. Starbuck is a self-proclaimed Rainmaker , a charlatan who comes to this drought ridden western town and promises to bring rain for $100.00. He seduces Lizzie Curry a spinster in a family that is trying to marry her off. Her brother Jim becomes furious and wants to fight Starbuck. His father intervenes and says to Jim:

“You are so sure of what is right, you don’t know what is good.”

The Pharisees, like most of us were so sure of what was right that they did not know what was good. They get a bad wrap from too many preachers who never lived the hard lives of the Pharisees.

So, what do I want for all of us as we leave this holy and lovely place until next summer.

I want us to stay alert to ourselves, our biases, both conscious and unconscious.

I want us to forgive ourselves as we stumble through this journey of living,

I want us to hold before ourselves, models of light such as John McCain. Using their light of integrity to guide our own.

AND . . .

I want us to know that this Jesus whom we worship in love and hope is by our side holding us in all our perfections and imperfections as Children of God.

Amen

John Snow 8/29/18 John Snow 8/29/18

July 29, 2018 / The Reverend Susan Flanders

It all begins with an idea.

Speaking Truth to Power

Susan M. Flanders

St. George’s Chapel, August 5, 2018

Speak truth to power! We hear this imperative a lot these days. It is the rallying cry at marches and protests; it is the lament of so many outraged commentators and op ed writers. When a person or a group in power is seen to be abusing it, we long for someone to stand up to them, call them to account, convict them with the truth. Who will do this? What is stopping us? Why do we stand by when norms and customs and laws are flouted – we must speak truth to power!

Given this, today’s reading from Second Samuel is a dizzying breath of fresh air, the denouement of a great Biblical scandal, the calling out of King David by the prophet Nathan. In case the details of the story do not leap immediately to mind – here it is. Uriah is married to the very beautiful Bathsheba. While he is away fighting in David’s army, the king comes upon Bathsheba bathing and is so entranced, he has her brought to the palace where he sleeps with her, resulting in a pregnancy – looks like adulterous rape in our own fraught “me too” days.

The story gets worse; now comes the coverup – so often the undoing of a guilty leader. David has Uriah brought back from the front and encourages him to take a couple of days’ leave and spend time with his wife – two nights running he urges this, but Uriah remains with the king’s servants and doesn’t go near Bathsheba. So now, with no way to explain Bathsheba’s pregnancy, David goes for the nuclear option – he has Uriah killed. He tells his general to put Uriah on the very front lines where the fighting is fiercest, and so Uriah is indeed killed – out of David’s way, and the king sends for Bathsheba, takes her as wife, and she bears his son.

This whole sordid tale comes to the attention of the court prophet, Nathan, and here’s where our reading began – with Nathan’s confrontation of the king, one of the great speaking truth to power scenes in all of literature. Nathan appeals to the king’s emotions and sympathy by telling a tale of how a rich man with many flocks steals the one small lamb of a poor man in order to feed a traveler rather than giving up one of his own. David falls for it, and he is outraged at this man who had no pity and who took advantage of the poor man.

At this Nathan pounces! We can imagine him drawing himself up before the king, pointing to him with outstretched arm “You are the man!” His critique is scathing – after all the power and riches God has bestowed on David, he has done this evil, sinful deed, in secret and in cruelty, and God will punish him accordingly. Here, in our story, the confrontation works. David responds, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And most of the rest of the court history of David is concerned with all the ways his kingship, his family and his own status are impaired by his entitled, profligate behavior.

It’s a great story, and given today’s morass of entitled, profligate behavior in high places, I’m of course tempted to draw specific parallels and name names and call out lying and cheating; I’m wondering who are the Nathan’s in our day who will stand up and indeed speak truth to power.

I suspect that some of the rest of you have this same wondering about what anyone, including ourselves, can do, to bring irresponsible leadership to account. I actually had an opportunity to do this a couple of months ago back in Washington, DC where I live.

A young lawyer, a friend of one of my son’s, called me on the phone, knowing I was an Episcopal priest and assuming I would be interested in what he was proposing. He and some of his colleagues had assiduously researched the law concerning alcoholic beverage licensing in the District of Columbia. They had discovered that one of the criteria for granting a liquor license to anyone was that the person be “of good character.” They had also ascertained that the President was the owner of the license for the Trump Hotel in DC. And so they came up with this idea of trying to get a whole group of local clergy to file a complaint, not a lawsuit, but a complaint to the beverage control board, claiming that this license should be revoked due to the demonstrable lack of character of its owner. They felt that clergy were respected as good judges of moral character and their joining together in this complaint might prove effective, if only to generate negative publicity if not to actually get the license revoked.

At first, I thought this was very exciting! As I said to the lawyer, “I’m someone who is always ranting about how no one stands up to all the outrages inflicted by this administration, all the obvious character flaws demonstrated regularly by this president. I’m always criticizing Congress for its passivity, wondering when someone will actually do anything.” So – here’s my chance, I thought, in a small way, to be sure, to be part of at least one attempt to call the person to account, to publicly denounce a lack of good character. I was pretty excited, and even though misgivings began to surface right away, I told the lawyer I’d think about it and talk to some other clergy.

I told Bill about it, and he thought it was a totally bad idea, always a good sign that something really is – a totally bad idea. My reservations began to take shape. This complaint was not actually germane to the many huge objections I have about the way things are going in our country – whether or not the liquor license exists doesn’t really make any difference. The lawyers would just be using this one little clause in a 300+ page licensing law to try to cause trouble. They would not be standing up to the president on the issues that really matter. Further, leaning on clergy as moral arbiters immediately reeks of hypocrisy, given clergy sexual abuse, financial chicanery and often collaboration in the unjust wielding of political power. It would be better if such a complaint were brought by a cross section of well respected upstanding citizens of various walks of life – specific people who are considered above moral reproach. And then there was the whole problem of mixing politics and religion. I work part-time for a church, and to involve myself in a legal matter, clearly based mostly on my political views would seem to be overstepping my role. I also talked to some lawyers, all of whom thought it was an interesting idea that would go nowhere and shared the reservations I’ve just mentioned. So I bowed out, told the lawyer I wouldn’t support him, and why, and felt relieved. He meanwhile went ahead and did find a group of respected citizens, clergy and judges mostly, and filed his complaint a couple of months ago. I’ve heard nothing further.

So much for my so-called opportunity to speak truth to power. But whatever the flaws of that venture, speaking truth to power is still important, necessary and, I believe, totally compatible with Christian faith.

For one thing, speaking truth to power is Biblical. For those who say no, I remind them of the huge tradition of prophets, in the Hebrew Scriptures – not just Nathan, but the harangues about justice from Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Micah, and on into the New Testament including John the Baptist and Jesus himself. Whether these men were court insiders or somewhat eccentric outsiders, they took risks and spoke out and addressed both rulers and citizenry. The truths they spoke were always about fairness and justice and a God whose love encompassed both judgement and mercy. They were all about accountability; they insisted that those who mistreated others would somehow pay for their cruelty. They held the sins of leaders up to the light for all to see. Their witness is to that arc of history that bends towards justice, however glacially. They will not rest with things as they are, but urge us to envision things as they might be, even as they ought to be.

So, we have the entire heritage of Biblical prophecy as our context for speaking truth to power today. But how? Those long ago prophets seem so different, so far from us. What can we do that feels better than sitting by passively, and worse, watching those who ARE in position to speak out and make a difference and take action towards accountability do next to nothing?

Just as I was stuck with this question a couple of weeks ago, right after the arguably treasonous comments of the president after Helsinki, Frank Bruni, the NYT columnist came to my rescue. He wrote, on July 20, a powerful op ed piece entitled “Disgusted With Donald Trump? Do This” Bruni makes the strongest argument I’ve read for the power of voting, calling it “utterly straightforward and entirely effective” and saying we must stay “fanatically focused on…registering voters, turning them out, directing money to the right candidates, donating time in the right places” as well, of course, as voting ourselves. He reminds us painfully that only 40% of eligible voters did so in 2016 and fewer than 1 in 2 voters ages 18-29 did so. Bruni convicted me in what I’ve been doing saying “too many people spend too much of themselves on the shouting and save too little for the plotting.” Bruni challenges us on this – “Does our discipline rise to the level of our anger? Does our will?”

Bruni presents voting, not as the last passive option we have for standing up to this president, but as the foremost tool of our democracy. The vote is the one power we all can and must use, an expression of faith in our system, despite its flaws. Bruni’s belief is that the majority of us will opt for honesty in government and a government committed to the well-being of all of our people, and that the 2018 election will indeed be the most important in a generation.

So I’ve decided to stop ranting, stop watching way too much MSNBC, and get serious about electoral politics. The truth we can each deliver to power is our vote. Election results do stick and are the only guaranteed way to make sure we bring about a change in leadership. It may not sound so big and brave and bold as Nathan’s confrontation with David, or Jesus’ attack on the moneychangers in the temple, but actually, what could be a better way of speaking truth to power than defeat by millions of engaged and outraged voters?

Finally, all this talk about truth to power – how would we define this truth? How can truth be other than subjective – my truth vs. your truth? Again, the NYT helped me out with a recent letter to the editor from one Ann B. Diamond of New York. She lists ten things that she thinks almost all Americans would agree on – the things we should vote for instead of wildly partisan single issues. Here they are:

We deserve a president who tells the truth.
Cabinet members should be advocates for their agency.
Americans want clean air and believe in climate change.
Every citizen should be encouraged to vote.
No child should go to bed hungry.
Canada and Mexico are not our enemies.
Russia is not our friend, and is trying to undermine democracy.
The press is not the enemy.
The tax cut benefits corporations and the wealthy, not the middle class.
Children belong with their parents.

We could say what these things, upon which it’s fair to say most would agree, represent the truth we need to speak to both political leaders and the financial powers that fund them.

There hasn’t been much God-talk in this sermon, although certainly the story of Nathan and David provided a Biblical basis for confronting corrupt leaders. The God part, the Jesus part? Why would faith in God or a desire to follow Jesus prompt us to speak truth to power? For me, faith in God, involves meaning and value and a sense of the world as a precious creation we are called to protect. I want leaders who share that sense, no matter their religion. For me, Jesus, as a human being, signifies God’s presence in our humanity, in each of us. Jesus signifies our capacity and call to be God’s love in the world. Within each of us is the capacity and call to be God’s love in the world. One of the most important ways we can do this is to be faithful citizens, responsible caretakers of our precious democracy with whatever tools we have. As we consider our options in this bleak time for our country, we can ask ourselves this question: what are ways that each of us can embody God’s love in the world, not in hatred, not in tearing down, but in the slow and patient rebuilding and reinforcement of the kind of leadership our founding fathers and mothers dreamed of ? Voting is not nothing, not a pitiful last resort, but something we all can and must do to bring about the kind of leadership we so need and long for today.

Amen.

John Snow 8/12/18 John Snow 8/12/18

August 12, 2018 / The Venerable Mimsy Jones

It all begins with an idea.

SERMON ST. GEORGE 2018

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Irenaeus, the second century priest and bishop of Lyon, wrote, “The glory of God is a man fully alive.’’ If ever a person was fully alive, with all the glory and pain that life encompasses, it was David, the beloved and celebrated King of Israel who is the central character in the Old Testament books of First and Second Samuel.

“It would be no exaggeration,” says Harvard professor James Kugel, “to describe David as the most vigorous, realistic, and in some ways the most human of all the Bible’s heroes. The Bible certainly does not idealize him, but he is all the more appealing for that. No bit of human hope and despair, bravura, foolishness, bitter melancholy, smoldering hatred or deepest love, is foreign to him.”

David Plotz, who at age 35 read all the way through the Old Testament for the first time, with the help of no other books or a single expert, and then wrote a fabulous, funny book about it, says quite simply, that King David is ‘the Bible’s Bill Clinton.’

Most of us know the Sunday School version of David as a shepherd boy, a musician, the youth who wiped out Goliath the behemoth with a sling shot, then became Israel’s most famous King.

The Sunday School lessons gloss over his selfish sexual exploits, his torturous relationships with his children, and the fact that although he was irresistibly charming, he was also manipulative and calculating, prepared to do almost anything to survive. David was fully alive, all right; he sang, and danced, and fought valiantly; he also repented mightily, and grieved deeply.

And David, this complicated, most human of all Biblical men or women, full of love and full of dark shadows, was a vessel for God. When Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem on his mule a thousand years later, it was as Son of David that the crowds hailed him.

For all his finery and bravado, David was the quintessential Everyman/ Everywoman. He had deep faults and a loving heart; he had great courage and deep fears. He was a fragile yet indispensable vessel for God.

In short, David was one of us. His name could have been Alice, or Phoebe; John, or, (heaven forbid), Mac. His story spans a long life from his youth to his prime and finally to his old age as the grieving father so poignantly portrayed in today’s First Reading when he learns that his rebellious and treasured son, Absalom, has been killed.

Though David had at least nineteen sons and one daughter, the apple of his eye was Absalom, a fabulously handsome man, with a head of hair that was his crowning glory. (The author records that when Absalom cut his hair every year the weight of it was 200 shekels – or 4 1/2 pounds!)

As you may imagine, there was plenty of palace intrigue, jealousy and rivalry among David’s children. When David’s eldest son Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar and David refuses to discipline Amnon, Absalom quickly takes matters into his own hands. He kills Amnon and flees into exile.

When Absalom returns to Jerusalem three years later, David refuses to see him, so Absalom begins to strut around the city currying favor with the people and becomes almost as irresistible and charismatic as his father. Absalom attracts members of the military, forms an army and stages a successful rebellion against his father David, who is now himself forced to flee Jerusalem, along with his most trusted general, Joab, and a troop of loyal, experienced soldiers.

A battle between the two forces is inevitable, and when the day comes, David is torn between two conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he expects his experienced army to crush the revolt; on the other hand, he openly yearns for the safety of his insurrectionist son.

As Joab and David’s army prepare for the battle in the rugged forest of Epraim, David issues a terse order to his generals that barely conceals his ambivalence, “Deal gently with the young man Absalom,” he says, as he sends the troops off to fight.

David’s army soundly defeats the rebels, but Absalom escapes on his mule and in a bizarre, ironic twist, his head of hair, his narcissistic glory, is the instrument of his entrapment. Hanging there between heaven and earth after his mule runs away, Absalom is killed by Joab, and buried on the spot.

Learning that his son is dead, David is reduced to a stammer of grief and desolation, repeating over and over, my son Absalom, my son Absalom. O that I had died instead of you….Absalom, my son. David, the Cinderella shepherd boy who became Israel’s most celebrated King, mourns as an old man, with all the pathos and nobility of King Lear.

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Was Irenaeus thinking of David when he wrote, ’The glory of God is a man fully alive’? Could be; David certainly qualifies, but somehow doubt that he was the first person Irenaes thought of a fully alive. I picture him looking around Lyon, watching the faces of small children at play, or young couples walking together hand in hand oblivious to others around, or senior citizens sitting on the sidelines laughing their hearts remembering at some old story.

I think of a fully alive woman who told me that the thing she dreaded most had happened: her children had taken her car keys away. “I thought the world would end, but the most amazing thing happened,” she said. “The world came to me! I’ve never had so many invitations, so many rides offered, so many options.”

That woman, whose name is Martha, is the glory of God. Another person I think of that way was a man named Frank, who died recently at age 90.

At his funeral, the parish priest named Scott, who had only known Frank for one year, mentioned a book by David MacCauley entitled The Way Things Work. ‘It’s a children’s book’, Scott said, made up entirely of illustrated descriptions of how everything from cameras to nuclear reactors work, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it in Frank’s library.

“When I entered his well stocked library,” Scott said, “I could see in a matter of minutes that it was not stocked with books about The Way to Put Things to Work for You. No, the books on Frank’s shelves – fiction, essays, theology and just about everything else- these books were clear signposts into the mind of a man who stayed deeply curious about how things really work in this world until the day he left it.

“There is a theologically suspect word from the way Frank seemed to feel about his life: lucky. He felt lucky. Which means he died grateful. And I am increasingly convinced that gratitude is a much better marker of the faith Jesus talked about than any checklist of what we now call ‘beliefs.’

“Frank engaged the Christian tradition the same way he engaged everything in this life: with all he had. With his mind and his heart and his curiosity fully open and intact. He didn’t dismiss the beliefs of others; he just couldn’t say the Nicene Creed and feel like he was being truthful. Because it mattered to him. And he really wanted to know how things work. Even faith.

“So he engaged his friend and theologian Marcus Borg and the two went back and forth for a couple of years. Then one day Frank heard Marcus’s insistence that ‘credo’ doesn’t mean ‘I believe’ as in ‘I believe the sky is blue’; it means ‘I trust’, as in ‘

I am giving my whole self over to this mystery.’ Frank could say that, because giving his mind and heart was something he knew about.

“Friends, I believe that’s the kind of faith Jesus calls all of us to. That’s engaging the wonder and mystery of being alive in God’s world with all we have, even our doubts.

“I don’t know just what Frank encountered when his heart stopped beating; he wouldn’t want me to pretend that I do.

“What I do know is that his ninety-year investigation of the way things work in this beautiful life seemed to yield only more childlike wonder and more gratitude by the year. As if he had struck a goodness that’s eternal in the process…”

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The glory of God is, indeed, a person fully alive…yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. Amen.

John Snow 7/18/18 John Snow 7/18/18

July 22, 2018 / The Rev. Larry Harris

It all begins with an idea.

PRAYER

God is Good.

With this title,

a man from West Africa named George Browne,

one of my seminary classmates for a time,

began a sermon on the 23rd Psalm.

Liberia, the country where George Browne had become the Bishop,

was in the midst of a horrible civil war.

You will recall, said the Bishop,

that on the first Sunday in May,

I asked all of our people to pray,

not to say, but to pray,

the 23rd Psalm.

Carefully.

Meditatively.

And prayerfully.

At least three times a day.

In the morning.

During midday.

And before going to bed.

I asked that you do this for seven days.

Almost all of us did.

And I have received reports of good results in strengthening your faith.

Browne’s sermon included a story about the 23rd Psalm

That’s been around for awhile.

Some of you may know it.

An old man and a young man

were on the same platform

to speak before a large audience.

As a part of the programme,

each was to repeat from memory the 23rd Psalm.

The young man, well-trained in speech and drama,

repeated the words

in the language of a dramatic silver-tongued orator:

"The Lord is my Shepherd…"

When he had finished,

the audience clapped and cheered.

Many rose to their feet with applause.

Then the older gentleman,

leaning heavily on a walking stick,

stepped to the front of the same platform.

In a feeble, shaking voice, he repeated the same words –

"The Lord is my Shepherd…"

When he was seated, there was silence.

No sound.

No applause.

The silence suggested a mood of reflection, and deep respect.

After a minute or so the younger man who had spoken earlier

rose to speak again.

"Friends," he said,

“when I spoke, you filled the air with applause.

Now, following my friend’s words,

you have been silent.

I – think – I – know – why.

You cheered, because I know the Psalm.

What this man knows is the Shepherd.

And the Shepherd-God he knows is Good.”

The abiding presence and goodness of God

are expressed poetically

in the 23rd Psalm.

The metaphor of the shepherd,

in today’s gospel as well as the 23rd Psalm,

together with the Psalm’s other images:

a lush and fertile pasture,

water flowing steadily and quietly,

a well-trodden walkway,

the steadying assurance of a cane – or walking stick,

a festive dinner-table, and a place reserved to honor YOU,

the gentle soothing of cleansing oil,

a thirst-quenching cup,

the sense of divine presence and holiness in a house of worship:

each of these an image of support and affirmation;

and together, conveying warmth, safe-keeping, and abiding care.

God is good – good indeed!

Another a passage of scripture,

this one from the heart of the New Testament,

uses the language of prose

to declare the same theme:

the eighth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

A single verse from that chapter, verse 31:

If God be for us, who can be against us?

A wonderful member of the clergy

writes about how he was embarrassed

about the conditions of the grounds

around his church.

The appearance, he wrote, suggested the appearance of a neglected ball park.

I found I was up against obstacle after obstacle,

not insuperable obstacles to be sure,

but obstacles nevertheless.

The first was the apathy of the people.

The barren ground, neglected, deserted,

had become so familiar

that it was hard to arouse any interest in it.

There was not a great deal of money available

for anything that was not a necessity.

And grass was definitely viewed as a luxury.

Then too, the choir boys had developed a habit over the years

of entertaining themselves before rehearsals

by playing baseball on that area.

And there was a question whether they could be persuaded

to change their habits

so that we could grow a lawn even if we planted one.

And on top of all this, when we got closer to the time of planting,

we realized the area suffered not from a lack of moisture, but from too much;

and the area would have to be properly drained.

Finally, when the seed had been sown by experts

who did everything they could to ensure success

pigeons flocked to the area

and feasted noisily on quantities of the seed.

So it was, he wrote, that I thought deeply about Paul’s words,

If God be for us, who can be against us? (Ferris, This is the Day, p. 112-ff.)

One point which came out of this thought was along these lines:

Is it not true

that in the adversities that come to us

we sometimes find our greatest advancements?

Where would the courage of Jesus be

if the Pharisees in all their legalistic fury

had not consistently challenged him and confronted him?

And how long would Paul be remembered

were it not for the forces in the early church

that so vigorously opposed him?

Or closer to our own time, How far would the Wright brothers have gone

if the wind had not been against them?

Can we not say, then, in genuine honesty,

that it is by learning to persist and to overcome that we rise to our best?

And from here we can go on to say

that the human spirit can indeed rise above

even the most overwhelming circumstances

that sometimes seem almost beyond belief.

This can happen because the very spirit of God resting deeply within

translates into an indomitable spirit:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

And we know and see examples

of people who become “More than conquerors” through Him who loves us.

So whenever and wherever we may be down,

and whatever may stand against us,

we can say take a few quiet moments to say to ourselves,

God has made us.

God is for us.

God knows exactly who we are: the best and he worst.

Whoever we are, God loves us.

And God will give us the power and the spirit

to go through and beyond

just about anything that life puts before us.

This is the assuring reality

conveyed through the images of the 23rd Psalm

when our devotion and faith lead US

to trust the Shepherd

because we, too, know

that God is Good.

Tenants Harbor, Maine | Proper 9A

SERMONS