That the World might be Saved

A sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2024

Christ Church Riverdale, Bronx, New York

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

As we journey through Lent, we recall that the whole thing is about the overwhelming mercy of God. Our salvation is not mostly about God and a little bit about good things that we do, and it is definitely not about God, plus making some good choices, and being nice, and pretty good-looking and saying a few of the right words, either. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that the whole world might be saved through him. It is God’s mercy; God’s love for every one of us that makes life and hope possible.

The text for today’s sermon is the Gospel of John, chapter three, verse seventeen. Why didn’t I choose John 3:16, like those guys write on the signs they wave at the football games and anywhere they can get in front of a TV camera? Because if we stop at the end of John 3:16 without including the next verse, we misunderstand completely what Jesus is saying. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. . . . Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Some mistakenly think that John 3:16 is about believing, and earning eternal life through believing. That couldn’t be more wrong. We who believe know that God has come into the world to save this world, through his life, his overwhelming mercy brought to us in spending that life with us and for us, even to being lifted up on the cross. But when I say us, I don’t mean this congregation gathered here this morning, or some people who wave signs in front of cameras. I mean that God sent his Son into the world—that the whole world is saved by him.

The Gospel passage does talk about condemnation. Condemnation is real. Most of us have felt it, experienced it. Indeed, the question of God’s mercy and salvation wouldn’t be very meaningful to us, or at least not very compelling, if it were not for the reality of condemnation. What is that condemnation, where does it come from? The Gospel says this: “The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come into the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” People condemn themselves and one another by turning from the light and running away from the truth.

The Old Testament lesson is a story from the fourth book of Moses, the Book of Numbers. It is another grumbling in the wilderness story—there are a lot of those, perhaps because people grumble a lot. Here is their complaint: “There is no food… and we hate this food that God has given us.” The food available for the Israelites back then probably did not compare with the grandest of feasts we may share with family and friends here in this prosperous corner of the Bronx, but God had been providing manna from heaven to sustain them all along.

Have you ever noticed that the people who complain the most and pity themselves the most are those who are used to having the most and being the most privileged? So in this story, God basically says, “Oh you don’t like the food? Try snakes.” For some reason they did not like the snakes either. Of course, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?” I don’t think my kids would have liked the snakes either. But somehow, in this story, the children of Israel end up knee-deep in snakes.

Somehow, a lot of people end up deep in trouble, deep in condemnation, and they don’t see that it is the result of their own self-pity and anger; or in accepting the hurt and anger of other people and letting that define them. While we do this, God has something else for us. God’s way is mercy, not condemnation. God’s way is constant love from the beginning and healing of our hurts.

And that’s where those snakes come in. God had Moses lift up a snake, and the people focused on something beyond their self-condemnation and they were healed, they were saved. And so our Gospel lesson begins: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” It is the mercy of God, the gift of God, that heals us, that heals this world.

We are invited to live in the light of Jesus—by living a life of welcome and acceptance, of generosity of spirit, of being merciful and leaving self-pity behind. We are called to proclaim God’s love for the entire world, to live together as a body building one another up, not as individuals competing against others for a reward they can’t have.

He sent forth his word and healed them; and saved them from the grave.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy; and the wonders he does for his children.

Let them offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving; And tell of his acts with shouts of joy.

Psalm 107:20-22

Mercy … in every Generation.

A sermon for the final service at Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, NY

Fourth Sunday of Advent/Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

In today’s Gospel the angel announces to Mary what God is about to do. And, according to ancient theology, this is the very moment of the Incarnation, the moment when the Almighty, the Infinite and Unknowable Source of All enters into the womb a woman and becomes flesh—one of us. The Orthodox churches call Mary “Theotokos,” which means God bearer. And God bearer IS truly the most awe-inspiring thought possible: a woman carrying the wholeness of God within herself. And what our story today makes crystal clear is that Mary, Theotokos, God-bearer, is not someone of rank, of wealth, of importance.

After the angel’s visitation, Mary went to the hills to visit her older cousin Elizabeth and that’s when she sang the song that I quoted at the beginning of this sermon. She praises God for God’s greatness and favor—favor not to the proud, or the powerful, or the wealthy, but to the lowly, the hungry, and the poor—those to whom God has particularly granted mercy. She was bearing a child within her, and that person was to deliver God’s mercy into this world—to be our savior.

How do we know that Mary didn’t talk about experiencing God’s mercy to the lowly, the hungry, and the poor merely as an intellectual exercise? Well, we know it because, when this woman, this God-bearer, this Theotokos, was getting near to her due date, she was forced, because of the Emperor’s decree, to walk many miles to Bethlehem. There’s no evidence in Scripture that she even had a donkey to ride on like you often see in paintings. No, she walked those many miles while pregnant and when she arrived, there was no hospital, no hotel, not even a bed in a small inn. Mary, the God-bearer, Theotokos, gave birth in a stable and Jesus—God come among us—was laid in a manger.

There’s another voyage I want to talk about today because in the Christian church it is the custom to observe the feast of a saint on the day of their death. Saint Wendell Roberts died on December 24, 2005, fifty-five years after he first came to Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania. Father Roberts, who was originally from Jamaica, was called to a church in a neighborhood that was very much in transition, with many new immigrants arriving, especially from the West Indies. Previously a number of old members had encouraged Fr. Theopold to move the church to a more prosperous area, but Fr. Theopold saw many Anglicans among those immigrants and encouraged the church to stay.  When Fr. Roberts arrived, he discovered that New York City’s plan to build the Forest Houses included taking over Trinity’s property. Father Roberts and his congregation were having none of it – he could see all the ministry that would be needed and wanted among the old and new residents. He contacted the bishop and the Diocese of New York and Trinity stood up to Robert Moses and the city housing authority and the church remained.

The church remained. In 1950 Bishop Gilbert appointed Father Roberts as the first Black priest to be Priest-in-Charge at Trinity. Father Roberts tirelessly worked to build up the congregation, visiting parishioners, welcoming new members, organizing and making sure that others organized activities. By 1956 Trinity was sponsor of the Bronx Church League basketball champions. There was a picture in the parish hall of Father Roberts, Mr. Richardson the coach, and that team—it looked like it could have done well against Fordham. The church prospered with a full Sunday school, a boy choir, ranks of disciplined acolytes, and guilds.

Wendell Roberts tirelessly ministered: baptizing, teaching, marrying, and burying; standing courageously with the people of Trinity and the Morrisania neighborhood through both good times and some of the worst times the Bronx ever faced. Wendell Roberts had heard the news of the God who has mercy on all who fear Him in every generation, who has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things. There’s a stained-glass window up by the altar in Wendell’s memory—but it doesn’t focus on Wendell—it shows Jesus the Good Shepherd tending his flock—Wendell was such a shepherd, his service was not about him but about that flock, those people who have worshiped here, and about our One True, Good Shepherd.

Today is Christmas Eve, the feast of the birth of Jesus, of what theologians call the Incarnation—God bursting into this world of everyday experience, the mercy and love of God worked out in real life. In real life the love of God encounters daily the pridefulness and conceit of human beings, the arrogance of the powerful and the self-interested manipulations of the rich. The witness of Jesus in this world is the mercy of God and in the real world it takes shape in those people he sends out into the world.

Our Epistle today is the very end of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is the ending of a chapter where Paul concludes his last, and theologically most important letter, by sending greetings and commendations for people he names, noting their preciousness in the life of the church and for Paul’s own life:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church…help her in whatever she may require from you, for she’s been a protector of many and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila who work with me in Christ Jesus and who risked their necks for my life…”

Romans 16:1-3

And he goes on naming fifteen others, both prominent workers in the church and those Paul mentions simply because of their care and love for others. Paul’s words remind me of the people of this congregation, those who are here and those who have been among us. I commend you all as witnesses of God’s mercy. Especially I commend those who we presented for confirmation just over a year ago: Bryce, Sureya, Omar, Joshua, Samora, Monica, and Mia. For those who have blessed us by their presence, but who have passed on, especially Arthur Lake, a teacher of many here, who was able to be present for his grandson’s confirmation before his final illness. Eileen Emmanuel, our faithful church secretary, or Barry Jones, who I remember tending the gardens outside. But I particularly commend those of you—faithful witnesses of Christ’s mercy—who now go forth into the world and the church to be the incarnation of Christ’s love: Wendell’s daughter Paula, who is our own Phoebe, serving and protecting this church and the people of this neighborhood; Crystal who has taken on so much, to serve the people who she loves and the God who cares for her. And those who have served here so long in so many ways—Lilas, Florence, Ona, Jeanie, Agnes, Judith, Luke, Linda, Gabriel, Eleanor, Marvin, Joe and Chang, Enid, Carol, and Locksley and Albert, my brothers on the altar every Sunday and so many others.

This church is closing … for now. Perhaps forever, as an Episcopal church, though, at this point, only God knows what is in store for our beloved church. We are sad, we are grieving. So many memories are here—baptisms, marriages, funerals—the full cycle of our time on earth. I want to tell you though, being among you as your pastor for these last years, has increased my faith and my hope for the church and for the world. God raised Jesus from the dead, and that life lives right here among you. The caring and goodness of the people here—how you know what Jesus wants and do it—that’s what the meaning of the one holy, and apostolic church is. And I see it in the people of this church, Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania.

I commend you—not only for your service here but for your ministry going forth, your love of all of God’s people wherever they are—wherever God’s mercy is needed. You are and remain the body of Christ.

Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

To Bind up the Broken Hearted

A sermon for the third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.

That’s the beginning of our Collect for this Third Sunday of Advent. God coming among us and stirring things up. That’s what this season is about. The birth of that baby, which we celebrate in less than two weeks—that’s about God coming into this world as a human being. And when Jesus came into the synagogue in his home town to preach for the first time, the Gospel of Luke tells us that he read from today’s lesson from Isaiah:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the broken-hearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

Isaiah 61:1-2

By fulfilling these words Jesus stirs things up. Why did he need to do that? Because people—people in Jesus’ time, and in ours—will resort to all sorts of things to keep their wealth and power. Often, they will not only hold on for dear life to their earthly possessions, even though others are in great need, they will also take from those who are weaker. And they will even lie about it. And those lies become just the way things are. I’m entitled and they aren’t. And that attitude doesn’t stop with individuals, it can permeate whole societies so that oppression of the poor, the weak, or minority groups becomes part of the fabric of those communities.

Stir up your power, O Lord. Jesus brings good news to the oppressed and that stirs things up. It is not that God does not love the wealthy or even the powerful. God loves each of God’s creatures as much as God loves you or me. But God’s love, God’s compassion does not take the form of letting destructive behaviors continue until all of humanity—the beings who were formed in God’s own image—is destroyed. God’s compassion won’t let us sit with this complacency, this attitude of “that’s just how the world is.” God’s compassion makes it possible for those who mourn, or suffer, or are confined, or imprisoned to have hope and justice. Jesus brings good news to the oppressed and that is good news for us all.

The prophet continues:

For I the Lord love justice,

I hate robbery and wrongdoing;

I will faithfully give them their recompense,

Isaiah 61:8

How much robbery and wrongdoing; trickery and lying do we see around us, especially at the highest levels? God is not blind to this. People rationalize and make excuses and explain how the way to fix things is to leave them in charge and comfortable for just. a little. while. longer. God sees through this. God sent the prophets. God sent one of them during Jesus’ time.

Our Gospel lesson today is really sort of a comedy. All the people in charge started asking John to make an account of himself, to put himself in a category so they could, in their wisdom and authority, classify him, put him and his activity in a box, tame it and ignore it.  He was making quite a splash, so he must be something … Are you the Messiah? Elijah? The Prophet? If they could just get him to pick one and say it, then … then they could argue whether he really is that or not, and ignore what he has to say.

‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” ’

John 1:23

Repent! Listen and stop exploiting one another! Extorting, lying, gathering to yourself surplus money from those who don’t have enough. John the Baptist is perceived as radical, but really the things he told people to do were simply to follow the laws and be decent to one another. Maybe that is radical nowadays.

John is about the same sort of stirring up that Jesus is. Building a compassionate and generous world, a world relying on the love and mercy of God, not on power and privilege. John points to Jesus, whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. Yet when we encounter Jesus, is he a powerful political leader? A warrior or a wealthy person organizing great projects? No. Jesus was a healer. He was a truth teller. He taught God’s compassion and mercy to everyone. And that was good news to those who were constantly excluded, who were poor, who mourned as they lost loved ones and children to the ravages of disease and poverty.  Jesus’ message was good news to everyone—but for some the challenge of the truth, the challenge to give and share, to step outside of the complacency of power, was so uncomfortable that they rejected him.

Jesus has come to help us, to deliver God’s grace and mercy. We celebrate the joy and possibility of this wondrous world. We rejoice in the good things of this world: family, friends, community.  The wonders of science, the beauty of art and the glories of nature. God stirs us up, and makes it possible for us to be who we are: God’s generous, loving, giving, caring children. Sure, we can find people who are going to try to protect their power and those people can cause many problems. But Christ frees us to be ourselves, to receive God’s gifts, to rejoice and live in God’s Kingdom.

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,

       then were we like those who dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter,

         and our tongue with shouts of joy.

 Then they said among the nations,

         “The LORD has done great things for them.”

 The LORD has done great things for us,

         and we are glad indeed.

Psalm 126:1-4

Speak Tenderly

A sermon for the second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

He appeared. That’s how the Gospel of Mark begins. The first person to show up is this prophet, out in the wilderness—not a wilderness like the lush forests of the American northeast, or even the pine forested Wilderness Areas of the Rocky Mountains. This wilderness was arid scrub land, not that different from the desert near where I grew up. It was wilderness because you really couldn’t farm there; it was a challenge for animals to find enough grass to eat and water to drink. John was out there beyond the edge of civilization, near that river Jordan, which everyone remembered was where Moses stopped, unable to cross into the promised land. And as the river that Joshua crossed, leading the Israelites on to conquer Jericho and that promised land.

John appeared. Suddenly, according to the Gospel of Mark.  He appeared with the sole purpose of calling the Israelites to repent and reverse the course of their lives. This is what prophets do. They aren’t out there trying predict the future—that kind of person is called a soothsayer. The prophet looks around and sees, listens, and hears the word of God. The prophet knows something is wrong, things are off track, and not just in a way that a little adjustment will fix everything. A total turn-around is necessary—that’s what that word “repentance” means.

The prophet’s call to repentance may be painful and inconvenient to hear, but it is not scolding. Repentance is not about feeling bad and doing less-obviously bad things. Repentance is the opposite of that—it is about hope and giving up on self-serving injustice and cowardice.  The prophet Isaiah speaks this morning to the exiles in Babylon:

Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.

Isaiah 40:1-2

Isaiah tells the people to make a straight path in the wilderness and go right back home to Jerusalem, to repent of their fearfulness and demoralized complacency in Babylon, and go back to rebuild Zion.  John the Baptist likewise was speaking to a demoralized and occupied people—a lot of what they were doing was contributing to their own demoralization and oppression—ceasing to be generous and neighborly with others, participating in extortion and intimidation of others, using their relationship with the occupying power to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbors. John went into the wilderness to proclaim repentance and hope, to remind people where they came from, out there in the Wilderness by the Jordan River, not far from that city of Jericho. And you bet, that prophet John was scary—especially to those who were comfortable—but the repentance he preached was hope. That hope that he preached was not about some rich, powerful, conquering hero. That hope was in a person who would refer to himself as, “the Son of Man,” an expression in Aramaic that meant, “a human being”—a humble title, emphasizing the ordinariness of the speaker, but also implying “a true human being,” a mensch, as our Jewish brothers and sisters say.

So true, that “I am not worthy to untie his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God’s love, that guides us beyond selfishness and into generosity, generosity of spirit as well as of earthly things. The Holy Spirit that forms us into true human beings rather than demoralized wretches, off track, and winding further down into the hole of selfishness.

We have been through hard times the past few years. Selfishness increases in our society as anger increases, and people seek to address their anger and fear through increased selfishness and then everyone becomes more angry, fearful, and demoralized. The people of Trinity have remained faithful through this time, supporting one another faithfully through the pandemic and struggling to continue to worship together as financial and physical difficulties have increased. We live hopefully in Christ, yet we also live in this country. We are in a country that has been off track for quite some time. The prophet appears and says, “Repent!” Repent of your demoralization and fear. Repent of selfishness and anger. Repent of lying and listening to liars who seek to confuse and further demoralize you. Repent of hopelessness and receive the Holy Spirit—the Spirit that connects us all to one another in gentleness and comfort—comfort to all God’s people.

As Isaiah said this morning:

 ‘Here is your God!’

See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Isaiah 40:9-11

We move each week closer to the feast of Jesus’ birth. We expect him to come among us, to heal us. He expects us to listen to the prophets, to repent and live in hope.

The Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent is a prayer for this. Let us pray:

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent

Came to Visit us in great humility

­­A sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

We live in a time when it feels like everything is shaken, nothing is stable. For several years, there has been political tumult in our country, with accelerating hate and disrespect. In the middle of that we had a great pandemic that prevented people from seeing one another and getting together as they had been doing. It disrupted institutions and patterns of life, not the least church attendance. Coming back to worship in person has been difficult for all churches, but especially for those, who like Trinity had already grown smaller and whose congregations were older and already found it difficult to get out and to the church. And the shaking of the foundations has become literal with the bricks and beams of our parish hall threatening to collapse. And now, for almost two months we have a terrible situation in Israel and Gaza, with terrible destruction and loss of life. Disturbing signs, seen in the times, in the world, perhaps even in the heavens.

And so we begin this season of Advent when the church fervently awaits the appearance of the Messiah and awaits God’s final judgement. We long for a resolution and the coming of peace, stability, and hopefulness. People imagine dramatic images of God’s final judgement—the Second Coming of Christ, as some call it. Many of those images mirror the violence, fear, and uncertainty that are out in the world: dramatic disruptions, violent punishment of the wicked, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The judgement of God is indeed coming and, indeed, it will vindicate God’s children. However, here’s how our Collect for the First Sunday of Advent describes it:

“… give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal …”

Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the First Sunday of Advent

Christ came among us in great humility. In less than a month, we know his first appearance will be as a baby born to poor parents, in circumstances even less comfortable and safe than most people had in those days. And nowhere in his subsequent life was Jesus wealthy or powerful, or in any position to make laws, or oppose armies, or do any of the dramatic things we want to see happen when we’re upset and angry at the bad guys.  God comes among us with great humility, and thereby, we are saved.

In Advent we are waiting. We are waiting not just for the party at the end of the month or even for the baby in the manger. We are waiting for God’s judgement, when the God of Hosts will restore his people, when the poor and the oppressed will be saved. Jesus is both our judge and our companion. St. Paul says in today’s lesson: “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is not in any counterpart to the hatefulness and ugliness of this world that Christ is found; it isn’t in the violence and power that we see people seeking to use to solve their problems nowadays. Rather St. Paul continues: “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is in God’s love, strengthening us to the end, that keeps us diligent during this season of Advent.

During these different seasons of the church year we talk about and focus on different things, different aspects of the Gospel and Christian life. But it doesn’t matter what season of the church year we are currently in: the Gospel and Christian life are true and have been true at all times.

We have much to be thankful for here at Trinity, including the long and faithful ministries of so many here in this place. Such as Wendell Roberts, who spent four decades as rector here, healing souls and standing up for this community, for the many children who have been baptized here and brought up as Christians. Then, there are our own children who go out in the world, carrying the faithfulness and love of the community who gather here in the church and online; truly those children and grandchildren are a blessing to the world. These things, our people, are all witnesses to the power of the humility of God come among us in Jesus. And in Advent we join in the expectation that God will come as loving and merciful judge—eliminating the fear and violence that shakes this world and bringing the abundance of generosity and humility.

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you.”

1 Corinthians 1:4-6

We await the judgement of God this Advent. And what we mean by that is God’s vindication of God’s love. In our waiting we are not panicked or hysterical or apprehensive, but alert, enriched in the knowledge of God’s love, of which we speak and which leads us, always, to live in the love of God by doing good for others.

Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

Mark 13:35-37

Come, You that are Blessed

A sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, November 26, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you…

Today is the Feast of Christ the King when we celebrate Jesus Christ as our Lord and King. Funny thing about that though—the King we celebrate is powerless. He has no wealth, no army, he doesn’t even have much influence with the powerful or the wealthy. How does this king rule? “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger …”

Jesus is a stranger … in this world of ours he doesn’t fit in. Certainly not with those who make it clear that people are to be judged as good people based on their success in making money and fitting in with the “right kind of people.” Jesus was all about hospitality, about welcoming people and attending to their needs. And plenty of the people he welcomed and feasted with were, one way or another, the wrong kinds of people: tax collectors, sinners, women accused of being prostitutes—even those Samaritans, that ethnic group that was just a little bit on the wrong side of the religious and ethnic divide from Jesus’ Jewish heritage.

So, this stranger Jesus is the King we celebrate. But not a foreign king like Alexander the Great, the Greek who conquered the world, or Augustus, the Roman emperor who ruled the world up to Jesus’ time. Jesus is strange because power, prestige, and control are not what he’s about.

The image he presents in the Gospel reading today is this:

The judgment day is presented, and the Son of Man is standing on the plain with all the angels, sorting out people just the way that everybody knew a shepherd would separate the sheep and the goats into separate groups, treating each species according to its own needs and nature.

I read it this way: After it’s all over, after the course of life is run, we’ll just see. The Son of Man comes in glory to invite his people in. It is really the invitation that he has been giving us all along, and the kingdom is not so much different as we have right now, truth be told. It’s just hard to see it sometimes amidst our anxiety and worry—perhaps it’s difficult to see the kingdom while we ourselves are busy producing the problems that the Kingdom of God heals. But Jesus is here. At Trinity I see people who are compassionate and respect one another, who have reach out to this neighborhood—welcoming neighbors, providing clothing and food to people who don’t presently have a lot of resources. Trinity dedicated its rectory for several recent years to a community of volunteer fellows, who experienced and learned from living among the poor. Jesus has been around Trinity a lot over the years, and sometimes he’s been fed and clothed and given something to drink right here.

This story about the sheep and the goats might tempt some to try to keep score: how many times did I help the needy? How many times did I fail to see Jesus? But Jesus’ teaching is not about keeping score. It’s about character. What sort of people are we becoming? You notice that both groups, both the blessed and the accursed, are surprised by their status. The reason for this is not because it is some sort of secret magical trick meant to keep us on edge. The blessed don’t know because it has become so much of their character to respond with generosity and respect to everyone—particularly those who are hungry or thirsty or alone—that it doesn’t even occur to them to do it any other way. And the accursed, their character becomes so defensive and self-centered, that they are surprised that everybody else doesn’t do it like them. “Oh, I’m sure I fed the hungry somehow—didn’t I have that on my schedule in between my spa treatment and foreclosing on those mortgages?”

When the habits of Jesus’ love for us become the habits of our hearts, we are indeed blessed. When we actually look and see what others need, and offer them in generosity that cup of cool water, or that helping hand, it builds us up inside. Our reverence for God’s people builds reverence for God, and it is in God that we live in joy.

As St. Paul said in the Epistle to the Ephesians today:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he called you…

Ephesians 1:17-18

May we all rejoice as we live in the power of the humility of Christ our King.

You know neither the Day nor the Hour

A sermon for the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, November 12, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, NY

Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Today’s Gospel is one of Jesus’ parables. One important thing to remember about parables is that they are not allegories, they are stories. An allegory has the form of a story, but each element of it refers to a particular thing outside the story—in other words that there is sort of a code and if you figure it out, you know who the bridegroom is, or who the wise bridesmaids are, what the lamps represent, and so forth. That kind of interpretation of Jesus’ stories can end up being misleading. Jesus’ parables are stories that deserve to be heard as they are without presuming any key to interpreting them.

The story starts, “Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.” In the ancient world, in ancient Palestine, a wedding was the biggest event that most people ever attended. The Yankees weren’t winning the World Series with the big after-party or ticker-tape parade. The coronations of the Roman emperors or their triumphal entries after winning wars took place way across the sea in a city that was, for the most part, known only by legend and imagination. And, truth be told, only a very few of the ordinary rural folk ever really made it to Jerusalem for the observance of Passover or any other major festival. In a local village, a wedding was huge. It involved virtually everyone. It was the best news and the most hopeful thing that anyone ever had in those places and at those times. I venture that this was the case, perhaps especially, in the less lavish weddings of humble people with few resources for throwing a huge party. Being a bridesmaid was a huge and important honor. And these ten young ladies are there to welcome the star of the show, make ready, and get the festivities started. (I realize that nowadays the bride is, rightly, the star of the show and indeed the bride’s role may have been equally important back then, but this story centers around the bridegroom.)

So this is a big deal, and welcoming the bridegroom is a big deal. You have ten bridesmaids, and in among all the bustle of getting dressed up right and being ready, five of them thought, well maybe we should have some extra oil with us for our lamps in case things get delayed. Apparently the other five said, oh, there’s a big hurry and he’s supposed to be here in half an hour, this lamp will do, help me fix my hair.

Sometimes we expect things to happen on a schedule that doesn’t quite work out, for whatever reason. About 25 years ago or so, when I was working at Union Theological Seminary, one of our doctoral students was the pastor of a church in the northern part of the Bronx, I forget which neighborhood. And she got married, a wonderful woman to a wonderful guy, and the wedding was at the church where she was the pastor. The wedding was scheduled for 2 pm and the church was packed by ten minutes before. I was sitting on a window ledge with my kids. And the word filtered out a while later that there was a little delay with the bride’s arrival. And hymns were sung and love was shared. And more hymns were sung. At 4:15 we got word that the bride was soon to arrive. The wedding took place and we all rejoiced, though the bride was two and a half hours late to her own wedding at her own church.

So, it’s not such an inconceivable thing that a bridegroom might be delayed, in the real world as a well as in story. And as little control as I had over my friend and doctoral student, how much less control do we have over God and God’s timelines, especially when the expectations we have of God don’t come from an engraved wedding invitation but from our own imagination and interpretation of ambiguous signs?

So the story of the bridesmaids continues. And remember this is a story, not an allegory, and there is nothing in here saying that any of this is rules or judgments by God or Jesus or anything. We have the wise bridesmaids and the thoughtless bridesmaids. And the thoughtless ones are the ones who said, yeahyeahyeah, oil, let’s take care of what I’m interested in first. And we reach the critical point in the story, and these thoughtless girls suddenly realize they need more oil and they turn to their friends: “Oh poor me, give me some oil.” What do you think the thoughtful girls are going to say? Of course they are going to say—“uh uh. No way. Go get your own oil.” What were these foolish bridesmaids thinking? Oh yeah, they were foolish, they weren’t thinking.

The kingdom of God is here and is coming, we do not know the hour when we need to be ready. At every hour we need to be thoughtful, ready to celebrate with the joyful and ready to mourn with those who mourn. This living business, especially abundant and joyful living, is not about us, it is about reaching out and respecting others, realizing the possibilities of loving for God’s sake in our lives. We might get frustrated, when the things we hope for don’t happen on our schedule, or when the things that happen are not what we wanted at all. But God has great things for us, we just make sure that we remember to keep a supply of oil for our lamps at hand.

As Mary, the one truly wise virgin says in our canticle:

The Lord has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy

Song of Mary, Book of Common Prayer, p. 91

Salvation belongs to our God

A sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 5, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. That word saint, it means “holy” – people made holy by God. It does not mean somebody who is so pious that they never miss a chance to pray. It does not mean somebody doing amazingly good things every day of their life. Those things may be meritorious in their own right, but it doesn’t make someone a saint. Saints are people held in God’s hand, manifesting God’s love, praising God in the way they live their lives. As I look out at you this morning, that’s who I see: God’s holy people. God’s saints.

But it is not just those who are here. Here’s what our lesson says:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hand.

Revelation 7:9

More than anyone could count—from every nation, all tribes, and peoples, and languages. The company of the saints is much broader and deeper than any of us can imagine. But it’s not just a vague handwave at everything—it’s not just that every conceivable person is a saint no matter what. Here’s how those in the multitude are described in our lesson:

These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Revelation 7:14

At Trinity Church, we know what it is like to go through an ordeal. When COVID struck and we had to stop meeting in person, I became very aware of the saints reaching out to check on whether people were okay—I would get calls telling me when someone wasn’t, when they needed prayers or assistance. The first Sunday—nine years ago—when I first came here, was the day after Father Allen Newman died. The loss of this gentle priest who had spent several years caring for this congregation was an ordeal. There was another saint, who I never met, Keith Warren, who was so generous with his time and energy for this congregation and all of the Bronx. The Sunday after his funeral, I walked Sheila Hinds home. She was very distraught at losing Keith who had always been kind and supportive to her when she felt she had no one to turn to. As we talked, she recited the entirety of Psalm 121 from memory: “I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?” It is an ordeal to lose people we love, especially when we remember their holiness and kindness. But our lesson from Revelation is getting at something more.

Those white robed multitudes are witnesses to the truth—the truth of God’s compassion, healing, and deliverance of the poor and the oppressed. And the powers of the world, the powers of oppression and servants of Mammon don’t want that; it exposes and challenges them. Thus, the ordeal that God’s saints experience. While sometimes it’s the whole nine yards of classic martyrdom, other times it’s gaslighting and disrespect, doling out blame rather than help. But the saints, then and now, rejoice in the opportunity to serve and worship God. We reach out as best we can to people of every language and nation, we rejoice with children and baptize them into the healing power of Christ, we love one another and believe in the healing power and protection of God.

When I look at the great saints—people like Francis of Assisi or Desmond Tutu—I see joy. No matter how serious the problems they were embroiled in, how fiercely attacked, they rejoiced in the goodness of God and the beauty of God’s people. I met Desmond Tutu a few times, and he clearly rejoiced in being in the company of the saints—especially those who are not renowned, not noticed—just the regular people of God we all meet each day. God’s holy people are made holy by being blessed by God’s mercy and by dwelling with others who have been likewise blessed. Rejoice in God’s love, one another with all the Saints.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Amen.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Amen.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Amen.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Amen.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Amen.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Amen.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Amen.

Matthew 5:3-12

Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; let us exalt his Name together.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror.

Look upon him and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.

I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me and saved me from all my troubles.

The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him, and he will deliver them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who trust in him!

Fear the Lord, you that are his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Psalm 34:3-9

Love the Lord your God

A sermon for the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, October 29, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

It is fairly common for Christians to think because Jesus says this in a controversy with the Pharisees, that he came up with it, or at least that he was saying something that they disagreed with. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus’ answer was from the scriptural text that is most important to all Jews, and certainly the Pharisees. From the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, it is known as the Shema: “Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Jesus is telling these figures of the religious establishment that he fully shares and agrees with the most essential point of their belief: that it is God and God alone that deserves reverence and obedience.  In fact, in the Gospel of Luke, a young lawyer asks Jesus about how to attain eternal life, and Jesus asks the lawyer what the law says and it is the lawyer who tells Jesus exactly the words that Jesus repeats to the Pharisees. It’s not complicated, it’s not secret, it’s not innovative—it’s just very serious business.

In Luke, the young lawyer tries to justify himself, asking, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. You’ll have to wait until that text comes up for a sermon on the Good Samaritan, however.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Note that he doesn’t say, “Act like you love the Lord with all your heart” or “be really showy with how pious you are” or “tell everybody if they don’t believe and act just like you do that they will be damned to hell.” The command is to live in God’s love—always—at all times and in all ways.

Most people have a god that is far too small, a mascot god that does what they want, makes them comfortable, helps them feel justified in however they do things. That is not the One God of Scripture. The true and only God is no one’s mascot. I once calculated approximately how far a particle traveling at the speed of light would have travelled in the 13 billion years since the Big Bang—80 sextillion miles and change. All of that distance, in all directions, could fit in the palm of God’s hand. God’s love is likewise infinite and it is not subject to manipulation—by magic, or self-serving rhetoric, or use of power over others, or by any attempt to turn the Gospel upside down.

We like to duck out of our responsibility to the one God, who created everything that is and who loves even the poorest of god’s creatures, and find some kind of religious expression that will confirm our prejudices and privileges. It’s always a temptation. The Pharisees answered Jesus’ question about God’s anointed by looking back to when David was the monarch of Israel, a thousand years before. Jesus interprets that scripture by saying that the Kingdom of God is infinitely more and more immediate. Jesus came to hold people to the truth, and ultimately, his speaking the truth was what led to his crucifixion.

That seems like a big jump, but it’s not. Because it is not a matter of words or philosophies or discussion groups. Jesus really meant it and he held people accountable to loving God in their lives and actions.

And what Jesus says after the Shema, wasn’t a controversial or unusual thing to say in his time either. “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That quote comes from our reading from Leviticus today—it’s from the holiness code which lays out how the holy people of God are supposed to behave. Thus, it interprets what it is to love God with all your heart in terms of a person’s behavior. Loving other people and valuing their welfare every bit as much as you value your own is living the love of God.  The God of heaven and earth leads us beyond what is good for us and into what is good. Abundant life is life for others, living in generosity, living in God with our entire heart, soul, mind and strength. Living this way is not a matter of being more religious or better than ordinary people—actually it is very ordinary. And it isn’t optional at all.  Being connected in love is what gives life—being focused only on ourselves and our immediate community is what causes life to shrivel.

We live in a country that has spent far too much of its energy encouraging people to focus on maintaining themselves and disregarding their neighbors. It’s clear to anyone who has eyes to see how this has damaged our country and what a frightening place this has made of our body politic. Honoring God as Scripture directs is essential for the prosperity of a people; elsewise the selfishness of the arrogant undermines those who are ever poor or weak—and that is every one of us at some time or another—the selfishness of the arrogant destroys us all.

In the years that I have known you here at Trinity I have seen how you love and respect one another, reaching out to the sick and shut in; those who are bereaved and those who need encouragement. Trinity has reached out into this neighborhood—a neighborhood which includes many new immigrants and many whose resources are severely limited—and provided a thrift store with free or very low-priced clothing and other articles. From that we gathered a community to share a meal around the table and find spiritual support. It is in such generosity of spirit, in humbly welcoming and supporting the humble that this country—this world even—can survive and thrive. It is not just our family or those we know that are the neighbors—it is all those, poor or wealthy, whom God has called his children.

Our first lesson, from Leviticus defines the treatment of our neighbor—which Jesus observes is the same as our love of God. I’ll conclude by reading a little more from this passage:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:9, 17-18

Whose Image?

A sermon for the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, October 22, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?

The Gospel this morning is a question about conflict. In the story of the Gospel, this occurs shortly after Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and cleansed the temple by driving out the money changers and all the dealers in religious goods. These chapters of Matthew explain the heightening conflict that resulted, a few days later, in Jesus being betrayed, arrested, and put to death.

As Matthew tells the story, the people who initiated this confrontation were Pharisees who sent some of their disciples along with some Herodians to bring their question to Jesus. This is an interesting combination of groups. The Pharisees were the devout. Those who were concerned for the purity of the faith of Israel: faithfulness to the God of scripture, to the observance of the teaching of the Torah, and the customs of the Jewish people. While there is a lot that’s known about the Pharisees, the Herodians are a less well-defined group. It’s pretty clear, however, that they are partisans of the Herods, a family that was in political power in Judea and Galilee during this entire period. The thing that characterized Herod the Great and his descendants was that they found ways to accommodate to the Roman Empire, ingratiating themselves to the emperors and their representatives, and doing political favors for them, even when that involved compromising Jewish traditions and faith. So lots of the Pharisees and others saw the Herodians and their supporters as sell-outs and collaborators.

But on this occasion, leaders of the Pharisees reached out to the Herodians for the purpose of entrapping Jesus. Like John the Baptist, Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Herodians uncomfortable. The form of their trap gives a pretty clear indication of why. The disciples of the leaders of the Pharisees come along with a group of Herodians, and those Pharisees start out with a soapy and flattering introduction: “Rabbi, we know you are sincere, and show deference to no one … teach the way of God in accordance with the truth …”  As if they honored him and valued his opinion, which was obviously untrue—they were saying these things to manipulate him, to try to corner him with their pious pronouncements. We see a good bit of that nowadays from people who claim to be the best kind of Christians, and claim to be persecuted whenever they don’t get their way, don’t we?

Jesus asks them about it, and they admit: It is the emperor on the coin. These Pharisees, for all their religious purity were participating entirely and comfortably in the economic and political world of the Roman emperor and yet they are bringing this question about whether paying those taxes is in accordance with the religious law to Jesus. They are only pretending it is a question when really it is a snare.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Butter. Would not. Melt. In their mouths. So Jesus looks at these super-religious guys who don’t want any disruption to their worship and he looks at the political realist guys who definitely don’t want any offense given to the Romans, and he says, “You hypocrites! Why are you putting me to the test?” Jesus, like John the Baptist, was serious about what people did in the real world—not just about interior attitudes or going along to get along. So these groups were posing a conundrum—either go along with the collaborators and pay the tax to get along, or hold to the sovereignty of God and deny the validity of the tax and endanger the life of any of Jesus’ followers who refused to pay the tax. Jesus knew that none of the people talking with him were speaking in good faith, so he says, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” So one of them, probably one of the Pharisees, pulls a denarius out of his purse. A silver coin, worth a day’s pay, kind of like if one of us pulled a fifty or hundred dollar bill out of our wallet. These guys weren’t poor if they were carrying around money like that, rather than spending it for daily bread and hiding the change where it would be safe. Jesus looks at it.  It is a Roman coin with the image of the emperor.

What I think Jesus is doing in his response to them is pointing out that they are the ones in the trap. They were the ones living their lives for Caesar and in thrall to Caesar. Their trap was doing the work of Caesar, the work of death as would become clear a few days later. Then Jesus answers with an answer which perhaps would be typical of a rabbi, a wise teacher of Torah: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the source of Life, that which is God’s.” They were astounded and went away. Lots of people interpret this as the Pharisees and the Herodians being impressed at how facile Jesus’ response was and going away because he had fooled them. I read this differently. They are astounded because of how Jesus called them out—“you have Caesar’s thing there in your pocket and that’s how you’re going along; render to God what is God’s due.” Jesus said this another way in the Sermon on the Mount, in the sixth chapter of Matthew:

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, and what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Matthew 6:24-25

Serving Caesar and serving Mammon were the same. For Jesus, the question wasn’t the taxes or parsing out what was required and what was allowed for people who were trying to survive and get by. It was about the entrapment his adversaries were bringing, entrapment in death by serving Mammon and the occupying armies of the Romans rather than serving the God of life. I think Jesus’ adversaries understood this—he wasn’t backing down and that amazed them. They went back and continued to plot and Jesus continued to teach the Kingdom of God. The conflict continued until Jesus was crucified … and the God of Life raised him from the dead.

Nowadays, there is a lot of service of death, a lot of religious people working with the modern Herodians to use power and wealth to secure quiet and privilege for the rich and powerful at the expense of those who are poor and oppressed. God calls our country to repent of this way of death. Jesus invites us to the Way of Life. It’s not simple, it’s not the way of the politics of this world. The Way of Life requires courage in the real world, denying alliances with the selfish and living in compassion—the way that Jesus lived, including his resurrection.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth; Deliver us, we ask you, in our several callings, from the service of mammon, that we may do the work which you give us to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as your servants, and to the benefit of our fellow people; for the sake of him who came among us as one that serves, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

1928 Book of Common Prayer, p. 44 alt.