Sermons | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Maundy Thursday March 29, 2018

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Beth Crane

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin Mandatum Novum, meaning “new commandment.” Jesus said, “ I give you a new commandment,that you love one another.” Jesus did two other revolutionary things on that day. He took the bread and wine that they had shared before, and he said the usual blessings, but then he said of the bread, “This is my body” and of the wine, “This is my blood.” And he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”” The word translated as “remembrance” is anamnesis. Literally, “un-forgetting.” Do this for the unforgetting of me. Do this to call me into your midst.
And then, after supper, he washed their feet. He did a thing that servants, slaves would do. Peter could not bear this. Martin Smith of the Society of St, John the Evangelist has a wonderful meditation on this. He says that Peter’s difficulty in accepting Jesus as a servant mirrors our own. He points out that it is much easier for us to look up
to Jesus as our Lord and Master that it is for us to look down at him as he washes our feet. We have been trained to be self-sufficient, and it is extremely difficult for us to accept the unconditional love that we receive from our Lord this day and every day. It is that unconditional love that is touching me very deeply this year as we gather for this service. Martin Smith says that Jesus is telling us that, if we don’t let him wash our feet, we will be cutting ourselves off from him. That is why Peter asks Jesus to wash his hands and his head as well.

God’s unconditional love is so beyond our earthly imaginings that I believe we have to spend our whole lives gradually learning to accept that love. In a profound sense, Maundy Thursday is about learning to allow our Lord to minister to us, to serve us, to wash us. At the end of his meditation, Martin Smith offers this prayer: Spirit of yielding, Spirit of consent, Spirit of Yes, Spirit of letting-go, Spirit of acceptance, Spirit of humility and openness, Spirit who trains my eyes to look down at Jesus looking up to me, ever ready to wash and serve me—I need you, I need you to give me a fresh receptivity to the unconditional love of God, to make my embrace of the Cross real and not just a matter of words.” (A Season for the Spirit, p.154.)

And my prayer, Beloved Lord, open our hearts to your love. Amen.
Beloved Lord, open hour hearts to your love. Amen

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 11, anamnesis, Exodus 12, John 13, Martin Smith, Maundy Thursday, Psalm 116, Society of St. John the Evangelist | Leave a comment »

Palm Sunday Year B March 25, 2018

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5=11
Mark 14:32-15:39

At the beginning of our service on Palm Sunday, we welcome our King. We throw palms in his path and shout Hosanna, as well we should. Isaiah describes the suffering servant as one who listens to God so that he can “sustain the weary with a word,” and how many times has our King sustained us with his word and presence. Writing to his beloved congregation at Philippi, Paul tells us that our Lord “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,” and humbled himself to the point of suffering death on a cross.

Why would our King do such a thing? Why didn’t he summon a huge army and destroy those who wanted to destroy him?

First, our King knows all too well that empires defeat empires and it goes on and on, endlessly. Earthly power is not the ultimate solution. Yes, sometimes earthly power has to be used, as in World War II when Hitler had to be stopped. But there is another way, and that is the way of love. Our sequence hymn beautifully expresses this.

The only way God could get through to us was to come among us as one of us—someone who grew up the son of a carpenter, truly loved everyone he met, healed and taught many people, and they loved him and followed him, and so have we, and here we are, two thousand years later, still loving him, still following him.

But he made some people very angry, people who had a great deal of power but did not use that power in the way God wanted them to. And they tried to destroy him with the worst they could do. With unwavering courage, he endured their torture. Yes, they killed him.

And here we are, two thousand years later, following him. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Isaiah 50, Mark 14, Philippians 2, Psalm 31 | Leave a comment »

Lent 5B March 18, 2018

Posted on March 18, 2018 by Beth Crane

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

In our opening reading, which dates back to 587 B.C., over twenty-five hundred years ago, God tells the people that God is going to make a “new covenant” with them. Scholars tell us that this is the first time the term “new covenant” is used in the Scriptures.

God speaks these words from a position of deep intimacy. God says that God is the husband of the people. This gives us some sense of the love God has always had for us. And God says something that is almost too difficult to grasp—that God is going to put God’s law within God’s people, within us. God is going to write the law on our hearts.

Webster’s dictionary tells us that a covenant is a “solemn agreement between two parties.” When Moses brought the law down from Mount Sinai, that was a sign of the covenant between God and the people. The law was the glue that bound the people together and bound together God and the people.

For us as Christians, the New Covenant is expressed in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. His life speaks to us. Everything he says and does means something to us. His words and actions, his attitudes and thoughts are like lighthouses guiding us to safety on a stormy sea. They are like springs of water giving us new, fresh lives.

Today, Jesus tells us one of the most important things he has ever said to us. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain: but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We could meditate on this for the rest of our lives, and, in a sense, that is what we do as Christians. Last Sunday, we were talking a bit about the writer Elizabeth Goudge. Her characters think about this statement of Jesus in many ways and in great depth.

Let’s imagine for a moment. Each of us is like a grain of wheat. Each of us is a little seed, enclosed in our protective capsule, our hard little shell. Imagine each of us, a little, self-enclosed seed wrapped in our secure little shell. Each of us is on a big rock. Far below is God’s fertile, loamy earth.

We’re sitting on our rock, but if we stay here, we will always be alone. We will never be part of anything bigger. On one level, it’s great to be on our rock. We are in total control of our little world up here. We can make our decisions and run things the way we want to. But staying up here is not what we were designed for.

We are being called to give up our control. We are called to jump into the earth. And it’s scary. Very scary. Will we disappear? What will happen to us? There’s something big we are called to do, but we’re going to lose control and give ourselves to something much bigger.

Finally, we take the leap of faith. We jump into God’s wonderful earth and bury ourselves in that good, warm soil and let the sun shine on us and warm us and let the rain come down so that we can sprout, and put down our roots, and reach up toward the sun and break through the earth and reach up and up and up to God and to the sun and grow until we are a part of a beautiful field of wheat.

We look around and see all this golden wheat, waving in the wind. And it is beautiful. This wheat will be gathered and made into bread, perhaps Communion bread. In the words of Richardson Wright, “We make, O Lord, our glorious exchanges: what Thou hast given us, we offer, that we may, in turn, receive Thyself.”

As followers of Christ, we are called to jump into the fertile loam of God’s love. We are called to jump into the stream of goodness in the universe. We are called to take the risk of giving up what we think is so important—our thoughts and plans and theories—and jump into the loving arms of God and grow into the persons God calls us to be.

When we do this, we enter a process of transformation. We are caterpillars that turn into butterflies. We are little grains of wheat that become part of something very, very big and very, very good. We become part of God. We become one with God. The grain of wheat falls into the earth and it bears fruit. That grain has died to self and now lives to God.

The cross was a horrible instrument of torture designed to make people suffer untold pain and cruelty and to humiliate them. And to fill them with fear of the power of the Roman Empire. It was a form of death reserved for the lowest of the low. When Jesus breathed his last on that horrible cross, he was propelled into the arms of God. He fell into the good earth of God’s love. The Apostles’ Creed says that he descended to the dead. He went there to share God’s love with those in the underworld.

Nothing in this universe is untouched by God’s love, not even Hell.

If we are going to bear fruit, we have to give up our little islands of isolation and jump into God’s love.

And then we will bear fruit. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s a lifelong journey, and we’re on that journey.

May we continue to take those leaps of faith. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Elizabeth Goudge, Hebrews 5, Jeremiah 31, John 12, New Covenant, Psalm 51 | Leave a comment »

Lent 4B RCL March 11, 2018

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Beth Crane

Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

In our opening reading today, we are journeying with God’s people. God has given them a great leader, Moses, and Moses has led them out of slavery . Now they are traveling in the wilderness toward the promised land.

They are also complaining. The longer they are away from their slavery in Egypt, the more they complain. They think longingly about the great food they had there, but they forget that they were doing the backbreaking labor of making bricks for the Pharaoh, and the quotas kept going higher and higher. This is so like us humans. God is trying to lead us out of slavery into new life and all we can do is complain.

Of course, the situation gets worse. They hit a point on the journey where there are poisonous snakes. When people are bitten, they die.

The people ask for God’s help, and God instructs Moses to make a little statue of a poisonous snake, put it on a pole, and lift it so that, by looking at the snake, the people can be healed.

In our gospel for today, the lifting of our Lord on the cross is compared with the lifting of that bronze snake which saved the lives of God’s people. Our Lord was also lifted high when he rose from the dead and when he ascended to be God. I love looking at our window which depicts the ascension. God so loved the world that God gave us Jesus. God so loved the world that God came among us. Jesus gave us a new commandment—that we love one another as he has loved us.

This gospel comes after the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus in which Jesus talks with Nicodemus about being born again, not literally, but through the power of the Spirit. We are now in that new life.

Today is Mothering Sunday, a time when the penitential tone of Lent is lightened somewhat. It is also called Laetere Sunday, from the Mass text, “Rejoice, O Jerusalem.” There is a note of joy on this day. In the ancient Church, a rose was sometimes used in the liturgy as a symbol of the coming of spring. Some churches use rose vestments on this day.

In our readings that note of joy is struck mostly in our reading from Ephesians. Paul brilliantly traces our spiritual journey. Once we humans lived following the “desires of the flesh.” When he speaks of the flesh, Paul means that we lived totally self centered lives. We thought about our own needs, our own wishes, our own plans. There was no place for God in all of this.

But God, in God’s infinite love, as Paul says, “made us alive together with Christ.” Paul tells us that God raised us up with Jesus and in God’s amazing generosity, God shows us “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Then comes that passage which we love so much: “For by grace you have been saved by faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God….”

Paul was the first Christian theologian, and he outdoes himself in this passage. He has given us the history of the human race and our own history. We humans were living lives centered on ourselves, and those lives led nowhere. God, in God’s great love, came among us and became our Good Shepherd, leading us to the good pastures and the still waters where we can find peace, and leading us into life that is rooted and grounded in him. He calls us to love and serve others in his name. As we focus on God’s love and the wonderful gift God has given us, we can certainly rejoice.

Gracious God, thank you for your healing, your unfailing love, your grace, and the gift of new life in you. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Ephesians 2, John 3, Laetere, Moses, Mothering Sunday, Numbers 21, Paul, Psalm 107 | Leave a comment »

Lent 3B RCL March 4, 2018

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Beth Crane

Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22

This is the Third Sunday in Lent, and our readings give us so much food for thought that we could go on for hours thinking about these words and how they apply to our lives. I’m happy to tell you that I am not going to preach for hours.

In our opening reading from the Book of Exodus, Moses brings the Ten Commandments to God’s people, who have escaped slavery and are on their journey to the promised land. Scholars tell us that this was really a worship service, a solemn ceremony in which the people accepted God’s covenant.

These commandments provided an ethical structure for God’s people, and they still do that for us. If we were to summarize these rules for living, we could say, 1). There is one God. 2).Don’t worship idols, These days, our idols are not Baal or Astarte. They are things like status, possessions, and power, but they can lure us far from what really matters. 3). Use the Name of God only in sincere prayer. Use the Name of God for good purposes. 4). Take time to rest and be with God on the Sabbath Day. These first four commandments are about our relationship with God.

The next six commandments are about our relationship with our family and others. 5) Honor your father and mother. Family is important, and those relationships are very special. Let us put God’s love in the spaces between us and our family members. 6). Don’t commit murder. That includes the kind of murder we can commit with our tongue, with a nasty comment or with malicious gossip, or posts, or tweets. 7). Don’t commit adultery. We are called to be faithful to our marriages and committed relationships and to honor the marriages and committed relationships of others. 8). Don’t steal. That includes other people’s ideas. We give credit for the thoughts of others which we quote. We pay royalties when they apply. We honor copyrights. 9). Don’t lie. As we look at the world around us, it would be so refreshing if we would all simply be honest in all our statements and in all our dealings with each other. 10). Don’t covet. In our society today, there is such a pressure to keep up with the Joneses, to have the right clothes, the right car, and on and on. That is not what is important to God. These commandments are as helpful and relevant today as they were over three thousand years ago when God first gave them to our ancestors.

As we think about our gospel for today, we need to keep in mind that Jesus knew these commandments very well, and it is because of his knowledge of what God is truly calling us to be and to do that he is as angry as we will ever see him when he looks over the travesty of the moneychangers in the temple.

I can still remember the tone of my beloved mentor, David Brown, when he was Rector of Christ Church, Montpelier. He talked about the cult of “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” syrupy terms that were almost funny, except that this is such a serious issue. Jesus was not always meek and mild. He had a steely determination; he had fortitude and courage like no other. And in today’s gospel, he is enraged. He is angry beyond belief.

Why is he angry? It is the time of the Passover. At the Passover, everyone was supposed to offer a sacrifice at the temple. If you were rich, you would offer a lamb. If you were poor, you would offer something cheaper such as a dove. So, first of all, this offering was a burden on the poor. They had no money to spare for buying a dove to sacrifice. They were trying to feed their children.

But it gets worse. In order to buy these animals for sacrifice, you had to convert your Roman coins to the temple coinage. To do this, you had to go to the moneychangers. Scholars tell us that the moneychangers could charge any kind of fee they wanted to for this service. This placed a double burden on the poor.

So, when Jesus walked in to this place that was supposed to be a holy place, this place where people were supposed to be able to have an encounter with God and “worship God in the beauty of holiness,” he saw these moneychangers robbing the people, and he got so angry that he threw over their tables. If we had been there, we would have been deeply impressed by his attitude. Possibly, we would have been scared.

The temple officials challenged Jesus on his behavior, and he made a rather mysterious statement, “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” He was talking about his body, because he knew that they were going to have him killed.

Jesus was angry because the religious leaders were putting barriers in the way of people who were trying to worship God, people who were trying to be faithful. These barriers were a great hardship especially for the poor. We need to remember that Jesus was the champion of the ordinary people. Like so many of our brothers and sisters today, they had to work night and day just to provide the necessities for their children. The religious leaders should have made it easier for them to worship, not harder. But they refused to hear what our Lord was saying. It is a tragic day when religious leaders cannot hear God’s truth being spoken to them.

Our Lord is calling us to honor the dignity of every person and to make worship accessible to everyone. By the time of Jesus, legal and religious scholars had expanded the ten commandments to over six hundred and thirty rules that one was supposed to follow. This was so difficult that only the leisured class had the time to follow these rules.

This kind of thing made Jesus angry.

Here at Grace, this is why we stop and make sure that everyone has the books and handouts we need for the service, and why we help each other find our places. Accessibility is so important.

Gracious and loving God, give us grace to hear what you have to say to us. Jesus, our Savior and brother, lead us and guide us so that we may follow you faithfully. In Your holy Name we pray. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 1, Exodus 20, John 2, moneychangers, Psalm 19, Ten Commandments | Leave a comment »

Lent 2B February 25, 2018

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Beth Crane

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

In our first reading today, we meet Abram. God has called Abram to leave his comfortable home, pack up all his belongings, and travel with all his livestock to a land Abram has never seen. At this point, Abram has traveled hundreds of miles. This is all happening around 2,000 years ago, and all this traveling has been done on foot. When this journey began, God promised that God would make Abram the father of a great nation.

As the scene opens, Abram is 99 years old. His wife, Sarai, is also far beyond the age when folks normally start a family. Many things have happened since they left their comfortable home years and miles ago. Some of those things have been very difficult. And they still have no child.

God comes to Abram, and Abram falls on his face and worships the Lord in an attitude of complete trust. After all these years and all these challenges, Abram is still faithful. And God tells Abram that he and Sarai are going to have a son.

Sarah is listening in on God’s conversation with Abraham, and after God leaves, she bursts out laughing. She rolls on the floor laughing. So does Abraham. Just when we think all hope is gone, and we’re 99 years old, God tells us we have a future . There is hope after all. Abraham and Sarah were faithful to God. And God made a covenant with them that they would have descendants as numerous as the stars or as the grains of sand on a beach.

In our reading from the Book of Romans, Paul writes about Abraham and the strength of Abraham’s faith. He was 99 years old and he still did not lose faith. This is a powerful example for us. The journey may be difficult, things may look dismal, but God is always there, and hope is always there.

In our gospel, Jesus is telling the disciples that the religious authorities are going to have him killed, and he is going to rise from death. Peter can’t accept this. He tells Jesus to stop saying these terrible things. And Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”

What is going on here? Why would Jesus say such a thing? Peter loves Jesus. He does not want anything bad to happen to him. He does not want to lose this friend and teacher who has become like his brother.

Jesus can see the handwriting on the wall. The authorities are watching him. They will go to any lengths to preserve their power. Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine. He does not want to suffer and die. When Peter tells him that this horror can’t happen, it makes Jesus wish that it would not happen, but it is going to. If he is true to the ministry to which he is called, the authorities are going to try to destroy him. So, even though Peter loves Jesus and means well, he is actually tempting Jesus to abandon his ministry and run away to safety. That is why he calls Peter by the name of the tempter.

There were two schools of thought running through the Scriptures about the Messiah. One was that he would be a conquering hero who would overthrow the Romans, and the other was that he would be the suffering servant described by Isaiah. Some of Jesus’ disciples saw him as the conquering hero. James and John wanted to sit beside him in his kingdom. But that was not to be. His is not a kingdom of earthly power. At this point, perhaps Peter did not understand that. Later he did. So did James and John. We are all growing in our understanding of who Jesus is and what he us calling us to do.

Then Jesus calls us to take up our cross. He calls us to stop trying to save our lives and to lose our lives for his sake. This does not mean that he is calling us to do self-destructive things. He wants us to accept his love for us and to take care of ourselves. He is actually calling us to stop doing anything that is self-destructive.

But he is also calling us to readjust our vision. His is not an earthly kingdom. His kingdom, his shalom, is a world of peace, harmony, and wholeness. There may be some things that have seemed really important to us in the past, but in the light of his call, our perspective changes. As we listen to his call to us, as Abraham listened to God’s call thousands of years ago, our values shift. Things that were once important to us become less important in the light of his call to take up our cross.

Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Part of this process is to deny our selves, to redirect our egos into following him. Our self becomes a part of his loving and caring and healing self. We experience newness of life here and now as we follow him and help him bring in his kingdom.

Taking up our cross and following Jesus may involve struggle, and sacrifice, but it will always lead to new life. It will always lead to wholeness and to being true to ourselves. It will help us to become the persons he calls us to be.

It is a journey, like the journey of Abraham and Sarah. It is a journey with our Lord, a journey of transformation, a journey of love, hope, and joy. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Abram, Sarai | Leave a comment »

Lent 1B February 18, 2018

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Beth Crane

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

In our opening reading for today, God makes a covenant with “every living creature.” Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “The assurance from God is not only about another flood. It is, rather, a pledge to creation by the Creator, a pledge of fidelity which will keep the world safe from every jeopardy.” (Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching Year B, p. 193.)

The sign of this covenant is the “bow.” I can’t count how many times I have been driving along and suddenly cars are pulling over to the side of the road to look at a rainbow. The rainbow is a sign of God’s grace and protection. As partners with God in the stewardship of the creation, we are called to work with God and each other to preserve the creation.

In our gospel for today, we are present as Jesus is baptized by his cousin John. The Spirit descends on our Lord, and God identifies Jesus as the beloved in whom God is well pleased. Then the Spirit compels Jesus to go out into the wilderness. Mark does not go into the details of the temptations, but we are told that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness tempted by Satan. The text tells us that he was with the wild beasts, and that angels waited upon him.

Matthew and Luke provide details about the actual temptations. Mark concentrates on the dangers of being out in the wilderness for forty days. In ancient times, cities and villages were protected, often by walls, and the wilderness was a place of chaos and danger. Wild animals such as wolves, bears, leopards lived in the Judean wilderness at that time, and there could be other dangers as well. Mark points out that Jesus had the protection of angels as he wrestled through the process of discerning who he was and how he would carry out his ministry.

Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days. Forty is a highly symbolic number in the Bible. After it rained for forty days and forty nights, Noah, his family, and all the animals stayed in the ark for over a year. The people of God wandered in the wilderness for forty years. The prophet Elijah spent forty days in the wilderness after Queen Jezebel said she would have him killed.

The wilderness is also where Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist carried out his ministry. After John is arrested, Jesus comes to Galilee and begins to proclaim the Good News.

Jesus’ ministry began, continued, and ended in struggle with authorities who either could not or chose not to recognize the presence of God. He begins his ministry by saying, “…the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” Many scholars say that the word translated as “near” could also be translated as “within you.” The kingdom of God is within you.

The First Letter of Peter was written to a community of new Christians in Asia Minor who were finding that it was not easy to follow Jesus. They were surrounded by people who did not share their faith, and they were living in a world that was suspicious of the new faith, a world that tended to persecute Christians.

During Lent, we are following in the footsteps of our Lord. As he wrestled with what God was calling him to do and how he was to do it, we are called to take time in Lent to discern our own ministries, to acknowledge our sins and failures, to ask God’s forgiveness and grace and to allow God to help us to grow into the persons God calls us to be.

Most of us have been on this journey for quite a bit of time, so it’s more a process of steady growth than a dramatic transformation, but it’s still hard work, and we wouldn’t even be able to begin without God’s love and grace.

Our gospel and epistle for today remind us of something that I find a great comfort, and that is that Jesus went through all of this, and we are simply walking the way that he has already walked.

We may not be going out into the wilderness in a literal sense, but we can identify the things that tempt us to be less than we know God calls us to be. There are so many misuses of power in this world that it would be easy to say, “Might makes right,” or “The end justifies the means,” and get off track. These abuses of power can also be downright depressing, and we need to remember that our Lord never gave up. He persevered through everything.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus begins his ministry after his cousin John has been arrested. John was put in jail because he confronted Herod Antipas with his immorality. He was later killed because he had spoken truth to power.

Jesus worked through his process of discernment. He wrestled with his own demons. And he came through it and carried out his ministry in a way that shows us love, courage, and integrity lived in a human life.

Our prayers are with those who died and were injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and with their families and friends and all who mourn this terrible loss. May we also seek God’s guidance and take whatever actions our Lord calls us to take in this matter.

Gracious and loving God, lead us and guide us as we follow you this Lent. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Peter 3, Genesis 9, Lent, Mark 1, Psalm 25, Walter Brueggemann | Leave a comment »

Ash Wednesday February 14, 2018

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Here we are, on Ash Wednesday in the year 2018. Today, we will receive ashes on our foreheads which will remind us that we are frail human beings, and we need God’s help. We are dust, and to dust we shall return.These ashes are made from the palms with which we welcomed our Lord at the beginning of Holy Week.

We are here because we are about to begin another Lent, a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, a time to deepen our relationship with God, a time to confess our sins, ask for God’s healing and grace, and get back on track so that we can follow Jesus as faithfully as possible.

Our reading from Isaiah comes from the time when the exiles had returned to Jerusalem. They were trying to rebuild the temple, their homes, and their lives, and they were becoming more and more discouraged. They were beginning to argue with each other instead of working together. Their worship was reflecting this situation. They were going through the motions but not opening their lives to God. They were forgetting that love of God means that we also love our neighbor, and they were even oppressing their workers.

In this passage, God is calling them and us to worship with sincerity and faith and to trust in God’s response to true worship. As we do our work of self-examination this Lent and as we discover the ways in which we need to grow, God will help us with God’s grace. God does answer prayers. In this passage, God is also calling us to remember that we engage in prayer and fasting and self-examination not only to grow in our love for God, but also to enable us to reach out in love to others.

In our passage from Isaiah, God calls us to “loose the bonds of injustice, …to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke, to share our bread with the hungry,” to give shelter to the homeless and clothing to those who have none. As we accept God’s love and extend that love to others, we are all transformed in the process. As Isaiah says, “[our] light shall rise in the darkness.”

Jesus talks about this in the gospel. Our spiritual discipline is between us and God. It is not a matter for outward show. As we pray, and as we try to increase our giving to others, and as we ask God’s help in dealing with the sins and flaws that keep getting in our way, God’s light and love will fill us more and more.

Lent comes from the middle English word “lente” meaning “springtime.” Lent is a time of growth. Yes, we fast. We simplify our lives. We give up something as a form of self-denial. We give alms in order to help those who need our help. We increase our prayer time if we can in order to spend more time with God and seek God’s direction. All of this helps us grow stronger in the faith so that we can share God’s love and healing more and more.

In our epistle for today, Paul calls us to “be reconciled to God.” Perhaps the most wonderful part of Lent or any time of penitence and self-examination is that such a season gives us the opportunity to grow even closer to God. As we simplify our schedules and our diet, and as we add more prayer time or whatever we feel God is asking us to do, the spiritual light in our lives grows just as surely as the light is increasing with the approach of spring. We are walking the way of the cross, and that way always leads to lightness and newness of life.

As a part of our spiritual life, the Church offers the sacrament of Reconciliation in which we can make our confession to a priest and receive God’s absolution. Lent is also a good time to seek spiritual guidance. If you would like to explore these, please let me know.

May our loving God be with us all as we make our Lenten journey. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Corinthans 5, Ash Wednesday, Isaiah 58, Lent, Matthew 6, Psalm 103 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 4B RCL January 28, 2018

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Beth Crane

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

In our first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses is giving his farewell address to the people of God. He will not be going with them into the Promised Land. But he is assuring the people that God is going to raise up leaders who will be as faithful as Moses has been.

This is a comforting word at this time in our diocesan life. Bishop Tom will be retiring by September of 2019. Most of us have had an opportunity to know and work with him over the years, and we have grown to love and trust him. He has been a great support for Grace Church, and we will miss him deeply. This reassurance that God will provide a good and faithful leader is a great help as we face this time of transition.

Our psalm today reinforces the theme of God’s faithfulness and presence with us.

In our epistle today, St. Paul is addressing a thorny issue of that time. Corinth was a bustling port city with temples devoted to all kinds of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. If you went to the market to buy meat, chances were that it had been dedicated to one or another of these gods or goddesses.

The issue of whether to eat meat devoted to an idol is not a burning issue for us today. But Paul’s guidance in how to deal with controversial issues is relevant in all times and places.

Paul says that, as Christians we know that these Greek and Roman deities are not equal to God. If we eat meat sacrificed to an idol, it means nothing. It is just meat. But, for someone who is new to the faith, it may not be that simple. We can think with our head, “Oh, that meat was sacrificed to an idol, and it does not matter if we eat it.” But, if someone eats that meat and then their conscience bothers them because some part of them believes that eating that meat is somehow wrong, we should not encourage them to eat that meat. Paul is telling the Corinthians and us to be very careful about pushing folks into positions that are not comfortable for them, positions that disturb their conscience. It does not matter if our position is intellectually correct. What matters is our effect on other members of the congregation. So, if we are at a meal and we know that someone in our community would be troubled it we eat that meat sacrificed to an idol, we need to consider that person’s feelings and choose not to eat the meat.

Paul says,”Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” He calls us to avoid doing anything that might make one of our brothers or sisters stumble on their journey with Christ.

In today’s gospel, it is the sabbath, and Jesus teaches in the synagogue in Capernaum. He is magnetic. His person and his words convey the truth of God’s love and faithfulness. He has genuine authority—auctoritas, authority that works on behalf of people, authority that sets people free from things that imprison them.

Now the focus changes to a man in the synagogue who is possessed by a demon. In our terms, the man is seriously ill, possibly with a mental illness or a seizure disorder such as epilepsy. In those days, folks with such illnesses were thought to be possessed by something evil. They were considered unclean and people did not associate with them.

Jesus has no patience with anything that harms people or separates them from others. In a commanding voice, he calls the forces of darkness to leave this man. The revered Biblical scholar Fred Craddock writes of this passage: “Jesus is the strong Son of God who has entered a world in which the forces of evil…are crippling, alienating, distorting and destroying life….But with Jesus comes the word of power to heal, to help, to give life, and to restore. In Mark, a battle is joined between good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and death, God and Satan.” (Craddock, Preaching through the Christian Year, p. 92.

There are many things which cripple, alienate, and distort life today. We have only to think of the epidemic of addiction, particularly of opiate addiction, that is taking lives every day all over our country. The sin of greed, which some have called affluenza, infects people to the point where no amount of money and wealth is enough. The pursuit of power is another destructive force of darkness. People will lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their goals. Violence stalks our streets. All of these are distortions of what human life is meant to be. They destroy individuals and they destroy community. In the face of all these, as Craddock says, “Jesus has the word of power to heal, to help, to give life, and to restore.”

We can see from this gospel passage that Jesus has no patience with anything that is destructive to any of his children. This man was not anyone famous, but Jesus confronted and defeated the evil that threatened him.

God is faithful. God calls us to be faithful. God calls us to use our gift of free will with extreme care and profound love and consideration for our brothers and sisters. God calls us to put the needs of others before our own needs. Our Lord stands clearly and unequivocally against the forces of darkness. He is the light that has come into the world.

Herbert O’Driscoll says that we, who know our Lord as the Compassionate One, may be shocked to see the power with which our Lord vanquishes this demon. He writes, “For me, the value of this passage is the glimpse it gives us of the immense natural authority that was clearly present in Jesus’ words and actions.” (O’Driscoll, The Word Today, Year B, Volume 1, p. 86.)

In our readings today, Moses, St. Paul, and Jesus give us sterling examples of leaders with moral authority. May God give us such leaders in our own time. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 8, affluenza, auctoritas, Bishop Thomas Ely, Deuteronomy 18, Fred Craddock, Herbert O'Driscoll, Mark 1, Moses, Promised Land, Psalm 111 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 3B RCL January 21, 2018

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Beth Crane

Jonah 3:1-5
Psalm 62:6-14
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

I am so happy to see you today! We have had to cancel services for three Sundays in a row because of the very cold weather. Welcome back, and Happy Epiphany season!

This sermon will be short because today we have Annual Meeting.

As you know, Epiphany is the season of light and mission. Our first reading today comes from the book of Jonah, one of the so called Minor Prophets whose books are at the end of the Hebrew scriptures.

The story of Jonah actually was designed to tell God’s people that they were supposed to share their faith with everyone. Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian Empire was seen as a sinful city because of its violence. God called Jonah to go and preach God’s mercy to Ninevah. Jonah didn’t want to do this because he thought Ninevah was just too sinful to save. So, when God called, Jonah ran away on a ship to Tarshish. A storm came up, and Jonah ended up in the belly of a big fish. Jonah called to God for help, and the big fish spat him out on the shore.

Now we meet Jonah again. This time he obeys God, goes to Nineveh, calls the people to repent, and they do. His mission is successful. Later on, Jonah pouts because his mission has been a success. God has to reassure Jonah that no one is beyond God’s forgiveness. God cares about all the people in Ninevah. God even cares about the livestock.

In our reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul is telling the people to prepare for the coming of our Lord. He is basically saying, “Act as if it is going to happen today.” Always be ready.

In our gospel, John the Baptist has just been arrested. John was a cousin of Jesus, and Jesus loved him very much. The arrest of John was very bad news. Yet Jesus did not let this deflect him from his mission. He went on calling disciples—Peter and Andrew, James and John answered the call. Jesus had said to them, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

God calls all people together. God’s kingdom of love, peace, and harmony has begun. We are called to help God to build that kingdom. Fortunately, we have been following the example of Peter and Andrew, James and John, rather than Jonah. We have been following Jesus to the best of our ability, with the help of his grace. Today, we will gather at our Annual Meeting to take a look at where we have been and where we hope to go. Our collect for today is an excellent prayer for this occasion.

Collect for today—p. 215: Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 CORINTHIANS 7, Epiphany, John the Baptist, JONAH 3, Mark 1, Ninevah, PSALM 62 | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Content

Pages

Upcoming Events