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    • Sunday service - Holy Communion February 22, 2026 at 9:30 am – 11:00 am Grace Church 215 Pleasant Street, Sheldon, VT Website: www.gracechurchsheldon.comTime:  09:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)        Every week on Sun.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83929911344?pwd=alZQTWZMN0ZkWFFPS1hmNjNkZkU2UT09Meeting ID: 839 2991 1344Password: Call for detailsOne tap mobile+13126266799,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (Chicago)+19294362866,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (New York)Dial by your location        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)        +1 929 436 2866 US (New York)Meeting ID:…
    • Sunday service - Morning Prayer March 1, 2026 at 9:30 am – 11:00 am Grace Church 215 Pleasant Street, Sheldon, VT Website: www.gracechurchsheldon.comTime:  09:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)        Every week on Sun.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83929911344?pwd=alZQTWZMN0ZkWFFPS1hmNjNkZkU2UT09Meeting ID: 839 2991 1344Password: Call for detailsOne tap mobile+13126266799,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (Chicago)+19294362866,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (New York)Dial by your location        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)        +1 929 436 2866 US (New York)Meeting ID:…
    • Sunday service - Holy Communion March 8, 2026 at 9:30 am – 11:00 am Grace Church 215 Pleasant Street, Sheldon, VT As of January 16, 2022 our service online only (via Zoom). Website: www.gracechurchsheldon.orgTime:  09:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)        Every week on Sun.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83929911344?pwd=alZQTWZMN0ZkWFFPS1hmNjNkZkU2UT09Meeting ID: 839 2991 1344Password: Call for detailsOne tap mobile+13126266799,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (Chicago)+19294362866,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (New York)Dial by your location        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) …

Easter Day  April 21, 2019

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Beth Crane

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Luke 24:1-12

“Jesus Christ is risen today,” the joyous hymn proclaims. For the next fifty days of the Easter season, all our readings will come from the New Testament, the Greek scriptures, proclaiming that we are an Easter people.

It all begins with the women going to the tomb. They have brought the spices so that they can give Jesus a decent burial. They find the stone rolled away from the tomb. Two angels tell them he is risen. These heavenly beings remind the women that Jesus had said this would happen, and, with this prompt they recall what he had said. They go back and tell the other disciples. The others do not believe them. But Peter gets up and runs to the tomb. He sees that it is empty, and he also sees the linen cloths lying there. Jesus’ body had been there, but was there no longer. The text says that Peter went home, amazed at what had happened.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the women go to the tomb. In Mark it is Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome. In Matthew, it is Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” Here, in Luke, it is Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James and “the other women.” In John’s gospel, of course, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone, while it is still dark, and has a dramatic and life-changing encounter with the risen Christ. According to John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalene is the first person to meet the risen Lord. According to the other gospels, Mary Magdalene is one of the first witnesses to the resurrection.

To borrow a phrase from Fulton Oursler, this is “The Greatest Story Ever Told,”and at first it was passed on by word of mouth. Different people were struck by different aspects of the story. But always, these women are the first to see that empty tomb, these women from Galilee who followed Jesus every step of the way.

Peter was a fisherman from Galilee, that out of the way and free- thinking area north of the big city. Jesus asked him to follow him and become a fisher of people, and Peter left everything and followed our Lord. Jesus chose Peter to be the leader of the apostles. Peter denied Jesus three times, something he deeply regretted. The Risen Lord met Peter on the beach. Jesus asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me?’ and Peter responded, “Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus said, “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.” That was a forgiveness and a commissioning of Peter to spread the word. Jesus is asking us to do that, too, feed his sheep.

The good news about Jesus spread, and new converts flocked into the new community. Peter had followed the law and thought everybody else should do the same until he had that vision while he was praying on the roof. All kinds of animals came down on a big sheet, and God said, “Kill and eat.” It was no longer necessary to follow the dietary laws. And in our opening reading he is telling a crowd of people gathered at the home of Cornelius, all Gentiles, that everyone is included in God’s family.

Paul, the writer of our second reading, did not have the opportunity to  be with Jesus during our Lord’s earthly ministry. Paul was a Roman citizen, a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, and a persecutor of the followers of Jesus. After witnessing a crowd stoning Stephen to death, Saul of Tarsus, soon to be Paul, was rushing to Damascus to encourage further persecution when the risen Christ confronted him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul was blinded by the light of Christ. He was transformed. He began planting communities of faith around the Mediterranean Sea.

He founded the church in Corinth, and he is telling his beloved Corinthians and all of us that our Lord has conquered every force of brokenness and darkness and death, He has risen and we will rise with him. He will transform our lives.

On Tuesday, April 30, we will be traveling to the United Church in Newport to meet Shannon, Hilary, and Hillary, three women who, like us, have been to the empty tomb this morning. We will meet these three followers of Jesus who feel called to be our Bishop. The Holy Spirit will guide us in discerning which of these three faithful servants of Christ will serve as Bishop of Vermont.

We all are part of the current generation of folks who have heard this wonderful story, who have met our risen Lord at various times in our lives, and have allowed him to lead us into the light of his love, the joy of new life in Him.

The story goes on. The story of newness of life. The story of his infinite love, The story of his endless and eternal healing.

And he asks, “Will you follow me?” And we say, Yes, Lord, we will.”

Amen. Alleluia.

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Good Friday Year C April 19. 2019

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Beth Crane

Last night, we sat in shock as our Lord, our King, washed our feet. Now, we stand at the foot of the cross and watch him suffer and die a criminal’s death.

Jesus could have called in legions of angels. He could have destroyed that hate-filled mob. But he did not. He suffered, he took in all that hate, and he answered it with one thing, the most powerful force in the world—love.

Barbara brown Taylor writes, “Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. …By entering into the experience of the cross, God took the manmade wreckage of the world inside himself and labored with it—a long labor—almost three days— and he did not let go of it until he could transform it and return it to us as life. That is the power of a suffering God, not to prevent pain, but to redeem it, by going through it with us.” And then Taylor writes, “Some of us like it better the other way. We would rather have a God who makes everything happen, including the cross, than a God who hangs there with us.”(God in Pain, p. 118-119.)

Jesus, God walking the face of the earth, washes our feet, loves us, gives us the choice to love him in return—or not—does not create us as puppets, does not force us, does not try to control us. When we are going through very difficult times of brokenness, confusion, agonizing choices and decisions, times full of fear, loss, and darkness; when we realize more and more that our Lord went through all of that and came out the other side; when we realize more and more that his love has more power to bring wholeness than we will ever be able to imagine; when we realize that he is at our side, walking through the darkness and brokenness, leading us through because he has been there, and he knows the way, something happens within us. On deeper and deeper levels, we know in our heart that he is with us and that his love is more powerful than hate, more powerful than fear, more powerful than any force on earth, and his love will lead us to light and life.  Amen.

 

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Maundy Thursday

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Beth Crane

The word ”Maundy” comes from the Latin Mandatum Novum, meaning “new commandment.” Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

Jesus did another revolutionary thing on this night, He gathered with his closest followers to eat the Passover with them, but he added to the traditional blessings. He took the bread and wine and said, “This is my body; this is my blood. Do this for the remembrance of me.” The root of the word translated as “remembrance” is anamnesis, literally an un-forgetting, an un-amnesia. The Eucharist, from the Greek for “thanksgiving,” is an unforgetting, a remembering, a special way of calling the risen Jesus into our midst.

Most shocking of all, he washed the apostles’ feet. He said that he was among us as one who serves, but when he rolled up his sleeves and knelt down on the floor and acted like a slave, a servant, it was too much for Peter. He couldn’t stand to see our Lord, our King, acting like that.

But Jesus tells Peter and us that we have to let him serve us. We have to let him wash our feet. If we don’t let go of all our illusions of power and control and trust him to serve us and help us and cleanse us and heal us, he says, we will have no part in him. We will not be one with him. We will not be allowing him to live in us and we will be closing ourselves off from being alive in him, because we have to trust him with our lives. We have to let him lead us. We have to turn ourselves over to his infinitely loving and wise leading.

Our God comes among us and washes our feet, and we feel so close to him and to each other. Not only our feet, Lord, but our hands and our head, our every action and every thought, cleanse us and heal us, lead us and guide us, O Lord.

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Palm Sunday Year C April 14, 2019

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14-23:56

in our first reading, we hear that God’s servant has “the tongue of a teacher, that [he] may sustain the weary with a word.” The servant suffers but is not disgraced.

In our reading from Paul’s letter to his beloved Philippians who are enduring persecution, we have an ancient hymn about Christ.  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave….”

Jesus calls us to be servants. He calls us to follow the example of the courageous servant described in Isaiah, and, of course, he calls us to follow his example. He emptied himself. And so we are called to empty ourselves. Why do we do this? We empty ourselves so that God’s spirit can come to live within us and so that our every action and thought can be in harmony with God’s will.

Paul prays that we might have the mind of Christ, each of us individually and all of us together as a congregation. Whatever we learn as we relive the events of this day and of Holy Week and Easter, whatever we perceive as our Lord’s call to us, individually and corporately, that is the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ for us includes our intentions, our guiding principles, our motivations for our actions. We are called to pray the prayer of Christ, learn the mind of Christ, and do the deeds of Christ. Individually and corporately, it all begins and ends with love, the love of God in Christ, so freely given. May we empty ourselves that we may receive God’s love, forgiveness, and healing.  Amen.

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Lent 5C RCL April 7, 2019

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

Our opening reading is from the prophet known as the Second Isaiah. The exiles have been in captivity in Babylon for five decades, and God is calling Isaiah to proclaim the amazing good news that the exiles will be coming home. They will be free.

This wonderful news is placed in the framework of another earlier time when God freed God’s people. The people had been enslaved in Egypt, but God moved the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the people, who had only the clothes on their backs, to run over the sodden and mucky ground and get to the other side. The chariots and horses of the Egyptians sank into the mud. Now, many years later, God is going to do a new thing, It is springing forth like water in the desert. God is going to make a path in the wilderness so that the people can follow it and return home from Babylon after all these years.

Our psalm today is a song of praise to God from the exiles who are returning to rebuild Jerusalem. We can hear the joyous laughter of the people who sowed with tears and are now reaping with joy.

Our epistle for today is one of the most eloquent and moving passages in the Bible. Paul is addressing his beloved Philippians. The sentences preceding this text reveal that there are some people in the congregation who still believe that all new converts must be circumcised.

Jesus has come, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. As Paul says,
“The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3:6) Yet some people are clinging to old beliefs and traditions. Paul brings his entire life to bear on this issue. He himself was circumcised on the eighth day. He is a member of the tribe of Benjamin and a Pharisee, an expert in the law. Few people on the planet have more knowledge of the law than he does. His credentials are impressive.

Then he comes to the part that fills him with shame, the kind of shame we feel when we face something we wish we had never done. He persecuted the followers of Jesus. He watched from the sidelines as an angry mob stoned Stephen to death. He was on the way to Damascus to continue this mission when he met Jesus.

Yes, he was blameless under the law, but he had persecuted the followers of the One who was able to lead him into new life.

He lost his entire way of life. He realized that the cause which had dominated his every moment was not a noble cause after all. And yet, even though he lost that former life, he sees everything as gain.

Saul met our Lord on the road to Damascus. Jesus asked him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” No, he had not been with Jesus for several years the way the others had, but, in that brief meeting when he was blinded by the light, Saul began a lifelong relationship with the risen Christ. Like us, Paul never followed our Lord during Jesus’ earthly life, but his faith was just as deeply rooted as if he had spent every day of his life with Jesus. I believe that he did spend every day of his life with the risen Lord, just as we do, and that he grew very close to our Lord.

Paul has lost all the things he thought were so valuable, and he has gained a relationship with the risen Christ, and Paul wants to continue to grow closer to Jesus. Paul knows that by sharing in the suffering of Christ we experience the power of the resurrection. Our Lord takes all of our times of struggle and shame and defeat and transforms them into new life.

Paul admits that he isn’t there yet. He hasn’t arrived. He is still on the journey, just as we are. But he presses on to make the new life entirely his own, because Jesus has made Paul his own. Paul calls us to “forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.” Paul clearly has great faith. Although he persecuted the followers of Jesus, he has come to know our Lord so deeply that he can encourage us on our journey of growing closer and closer to Christ.

In our gospel, it is only six days before the Passover. Jesus is going to die. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who are among his closest friends, give a dinner for him. Lazarus has just been raised from the dead, and there he is at the supper table. The previous verses tell us that folks have gone to inform the authorities, and the raising of Lazarus has propelled them to find a way to kill Jesus. For the powers that be who are squashing life at every turn, the power to give newness of life is a huge threat.

Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with very expensive nard to show her love and respect for him and to assure him that she will be there every step of the way. Judas raises an issue about the expense, which is entirely bogus. Apparently, he wanted Mary to put that money in the common purse, but not because he cared about the poor. The text tells us that he stole money from the common funds. In effect, he wanted more money for himself. Scholars tell us that Jesus’ comment about the poor is simply to point out that his earthly life is about to end. Obviously, he cared about the poor, and in his kingdom everyone has enough to live a healthy and meaningful life.

What are these readings saying to us? There are some themes here about traveling light and letting go of things that do not lead to life.  The heavy chariots and horses sank. Traveling light, God’s people made it to freedom. Paul devoted the first part of his life to the law and to his faith. Yet it had led him to kill people. His shame was almost more than he could bear. His transformation was profound. What is God calling us to let go of? What things in our lives lead to death? What in our lives leads to life?

Mary pours out a treasure of love, faith, and devotion to Jesus. She is going to follow him through death and beyond to new life. Mary and Paul are sterling examples for us to follow. In our Collect for today, we pray that, “among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” May it be so. Amen.

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