Dogs at the Table

A Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: St. James 2:1-17; St. Mark 7:24-37

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who came to feed the children of God. Amen.

We’ve seen something like this before.

Jesus is staying at a home in the area near Tyre when a woman comes to him, asking that Christ might cast a demon out of her daughter. There’s a familiar pattern for healing stories and exorcisms like this. There will be some little exchange, the disciples will get annoyed, onlookers will scoff at the entire situation, and Jesus will tell the woman that she has great faith and the daughter will made well. Standard enough fare for the Gospels.

We see these healing narratives over and over again. So much so that we get used to them and, to be honest, we stop paying attention until the end. Oh, hey. Jesus healed the person with…what was it this time? Another leper? Leprosy! Jesus healed the person with leprosy. Yea. Alright. They get a little boring, we lose focus, and the details often evade us as long as it’s a happy ending.

Usually, any sort of disturbing details are floating just under the surface; they demand a close reading of the text to really get at the real point of the story.

But not this time.

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The Trinity

A Homily for the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17

Grace to you and Peace in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To what can we compare the Most Blessed Trinity?

God’s existence as three persons united into one being is perhaps the most confusing belief in the Christian faith.

How Christ can be present in heaven and here at the Altar? That’s easy enough – he’s God.

How can water do such marvelous things? It’s not water but water with the Spirit and Word of God.

Ok, we’ve the Sacraments down.

What’s the deal with the Crucifixion? Well, through his death and resurrection, Christ destroys the power of death. That makes sense. We that every year when spring brings green life out of the barren death of winter.

But the Trinity? One-in-Three and the Three-in-One? That brings with it all sorts of caveats to try to clarify it, and it just makes it more confusing.

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Come Out From Behind Your Locked Doors

A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter

Text: St. John 20:19-31

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, the Risen One who has set us free for the Kingdom of God. Amen.

Our Gospel reading today opens on a scene that, until last year’s pandemic Easter, was unfamiliar to most us: in the midst of our Easter joy, as we celebrate these great fifty days, we enter a room full of fear. The disciples, in the wake of the Crucifixion, are huddling in a locked apartment, hiding out of sight. They saw what happened to Jesus, and they are terrified that it might happen to them – that Jewish zealots and Roman soldiers might come after them as well, that they may be forced to bear their own crosses. They have heard Mary Magdalene’s testimony, that Christ is risen, but we can see their doubt. Picture their faces: jumping at every sound, the pit sinking in their stomach every time they hear a group of pilgrims walk by, every time a band of soldiers marches by. In the midst of Passover, the disciples are holed up in Jerusalem, afraid that the crowds outside might turn against them.

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Love, Service, and a Meal

A Homily for Maundy Thursday

Texts: I Corinthians 11:23-26; St. John 13:1-17, 31-35

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who loving nourishes us with his Body and Blood. Amen.

Cast your mind back, if you will, to just before the beginning of Lent – roughly two months ago, on Transfiguration Sunday. Simon Peter, James, and John climb the mount with our Lord and behold the revelation of his glory as Jesus stands, radiant, talking with Moses and Elijah. Do you remember Saint Peter’s response?

He wants to stay, to build shelters for Christ, the Law Giver, and the Prophet. “Lord,” he says, “it’s good for us to be here.”

How much more so do you think he felt that during the Last Supper?

After the emotional high of entering the city in triumph, things had taken a turn. Suddenly, Jesus was in direct confrontation with the religious, economic, and political powers. He had turned over the money changers’ tables in the Temple, had debated with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and his teachings have taken a turn for the apocalyptic. If the Romans hadn’t been paying attention to this Nazarene preacher before, then the parade into the city and the scene in the Temple had surely drawn unwanted attention from Roman soldiers.

Maybe Peter and the other disciples felt the tension, or maybe they were too caught up in the excitement. But had he known everything that was about to happen – the tears in Gethsemane, the betrayal and arrest, the sham trial, his own denial, the torture, the cross – how much more would he have begged Jesus to stay at the table, tearfully pleading, “Lord, it’s good for us to be here.”

Let us stay at this last supper. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. Don’t go unto dark Gethsemane, Lord, because the soldiers are waiting there for you. But here – it’s good for us to be here.

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Rest & Freedom

A Homily for the Second Wednesday in Lent

Text: St. John 5:1-18

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who sets us free. Amen.

What comes to your mind when I say “blue laws?” Usually, banning the sale of alcohol on Sunday, right? Maybe laws about horse racing, hunting, and car sales (and, according to one unconfirmed urban legend, sodas, which through a bizarre bit of marketing and legal loop holes, birthed the ice cream Sundae) but most of us think about those laws that kept the beer aisle in Georgia grocery stores dark on Sunday until about a decade ago (depending on which county you lived in).

These laws date back to a time when Sabbath observance was serious business – in this country, most famously in Puritan New England. Shops were closed and work was strictly prohibited. More than working, though, New England’s blue laws targeted anything that would distract from the Lord’s Day. (This even became a plot point in the novel Johnny Tremain.) The Massachusetts Bay colony enshrined in law:

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One With Authority

A Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Texts: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; St. Mark 1:21-28

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who calls us to proclaim his authority. Amen.

A prophet like Moses. It’s quite a promise for the people so recently rescued from slavery and following the law-giver through the wilderness.

Here he is: their great liberator who has worked mighty deeds in the name of the Lord. How excited the people must have been to hear that there would be more prophets like Moses. And today, we know their names: starting with Joshua, followed by the likes of Deborah, Hannah and her son Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, to name but a few.

These people were not mere fortune tellers, as we think of prophets in modern days, but rather these are the ones who give voice to God’s divine message of redemption and liberation. What a relief it must have been to hear that God will continue to speak to the people.

But this promise is not entirely good news. It comes with a warning: false prophets will arise and attribute to God that which the Lord has not said. These lying prophets are both a curse and accursed, speaking deception and oppressing the people. These liars will “presume to speak for the Lord” while serving only their own interests.

How do we know who’s who? When a prophet proclaims, “Thus says the Lord,” how do we know they are speaking truly? How do we discern the good from the bad?

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Speak, O Lord

A Homily for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Texts: I Samuel 3:1-20; St. John 1:43-51

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who calls us to follow him. Amen.

In seminary, my Old Testament professor would almost always open class with a devotional prayer, and almost always that prayer was a contemporary song based on a passage of Scripture, and almost always one of two songs in particular: “Thy Word” by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith (inspired by Psalm 119) or “Speak, O Lord” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend, which is largely inspired by today’s reading from First Samuel.

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory

We were encouraged to sing along with this prayer, and I have to say, I did not care for it the first time. Or the second. Or the third. By the fourth time, I rolled my eyes. By the time my roommate started singing it in the living room, I would turn up the volume of the television to drown it out. But, what can I say, it did eventually start to grow on me – sappy piano melody and all – and now I can’t read the words Eli handed to Samuel without thinking of Dr. Strawn and a hundred seminarians singing along.

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Epiphanies, Divine and Evil

A Homily for the Baptism of Our Lord

Texts: Acts 19:1-7; St. Mark 1:4-11

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who will reveal all things. Amen.

Our Lord descended into the waters of the Jordan where he was baptized by John, and as he came out of the water, “the heavens were torn apart.”

Saint Mark, usually so direct and terse, here is very descriptive. The heavens are not merely opened, as in Matthew or Luke’s telling, but rent asunder. In this moment, the glory of God is revealed, the barrier between the sacred and profane ruptures, the Holy Spirit descends, and the voice of the Father declares Christ’s true identity: the Son, the Beloved One, with whom his Father is well-pleased.

In his baptism at the Jordan, we see the Epiphany of our Lord, the manifestation of his glory and his divine nature as the Son of God.

And at the Font, we see a little epiphany – the line between death in the waters and new life in Christ is torn apart when our Heavenly Father claims us as adopted children, anointing us with the Holy Spirit and oil.

Oh, that all such epiphanies were so glorious. But too often, when things are torn apart, we see only the sinful and violent chaos of this world.

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Be Not Afraid; Let It Be

A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Texts: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; St. Luke 1:46b-55; St. Luke 1:26-38

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, the King. His advent is close at hand. Amen.

After weeks of waiting, we’re almost there. The anticipation has been building for a while now. The tree is up – and depending on your family traditions, it has been for weeks. The plans have been made. Hopefully, there are only a few last-minute gifts or groceries to buy. All four candles are lit, and even those of us in the self-appointed “Advent Police” are getting antsy.

Can I listen to Christmas carols yet…maybe just one. And maybe I can just lift the box under the tree and try to guess what’s in it. Now hand me some egg nog.

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An Earth-Shaking Advent

A Homily for the First Sunday in Advent

Texts: Isaiah 64:1-9; St. Mark 13:24-37

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of Man who comes on clouds descending. Amen.

It’s that time of year again. Thanksgiving has come and gone, neighborhoods are decorated with festive greenery (I noticed last weekend that Mercer Village and Downtown already had their lights up). Starbucks has been using their seasonal green and red cups for weeks now. And from Thanksgiving Day through Christmas Day, countless radio stations will be playing an amalgamation of actual carols, kitschy seasonal songs from the 1950s, and old wintertime standards that for some reason have come to be associated with Christmas. (Rudolph is hardly sacred music, and surely “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” is just as apt in January as it is in December, but I digress.)

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