Sermons | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Epiphany 2 Year B RCL January 14, 2018

Posted on January 14, 2018 by Beth Crane

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

In our first reading today, the young man Samuel is receiving instruction from Eli, the priest at the temple in Shiloh. God calls Samuel, but Samuel does not yet know the Lord and thinks it is his teacher, Eli, calling him. Three times Samuel goes to Eli, and finally Eli realizes what is happening. He tells Samuel that it is God calling and tells Samuel how to respond.

Then a tragic story unfolds. Eli’s sons have engaged in all kinds of unethical behavior. Eli has tried to correct their behavior, but to no avail. God is going to remove Eli and his sons from functioning as the priests at Shiloh. Unfortunately, Samuel is the one God has chosen to tell Eli about this.

Morning comes. Samuel opens the doors of the temple. Eli calls to him and insists that Samuel tell him what God has said. Samuel tells the truth, and Eli accepts God’s judgment. Eli has been a faithful teacher to Samuel and has helped Samuel discern his call. But Samuel’s first task is to share this terrible news.

Our reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians begins with some quotes from some of the other teachers who have spent time with the community. One has said, “All things are lawful.” Another has said that “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food.” Some of these teachers have convinced some of the people that they can do anything they want to do, that they no longer have to follow the Jewish law. Others are saying that the material world and the spiritual world are separate. Neither of these things is true. As Christians, we give all of ourselves to God.

Promiscuous behavior was prevalent in the first century Roman Empire. Paul says this is not acceptable. As Christians, we commit our whole selves to our Lord. Christ came to fulfill the law, and, for us, that means that we are called to obey not only the letter but the spirit of the law.

In our Gospel, Jesus is calling his disciples. He finds Philip and says those words which change lives, “Follow me.” Philip finds Nathanael and tells him that he has found the Messiah. But Nathanael is dubious. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he asks. The prophets said the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem.

Then Jesus sees Nathanael and says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Scholars tell us that this is a reference to Jacob, who was full of scheming and deceit before he underwent a transformation and became Israel. Jesus is able to look into the heart of a person. He knows that Nathanael is straightforward and tells the truth. Nathanael wonders how Jesus could get to know him so quickly. In their brief dialogue, Nathanael realizes that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

Jesus tells his followers that they will see great things. They “will see the heavens opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” That is a reference to Jacob’s experience of seeing the angels ascending and descending on the ladder between earth and heaven, an experience that opened Jacob’s mind to the presence of God.

Nathanael is also known as Bartholomew. When Philip first asked him to meet Jesus, he was full of questions, perhaps even scorn. But, when he actually talked with Jesus and intuitively sensed that Jesus had the ability to look into his heart and to love him, he wanted to follow our Lord.

All of these readings are about being called by God and responding in faith. We have not held services for the past two Sundays because of the record-breaking cold weather and snowfall. During this time, one of our beloved members has had a close call. Thanks be to God, Bryan, and many skilled medical folks, she is with us.

Our readings today speak to us in many ways. We are all called by God to love and serve others. We all try to carry out our ministries faithfully with God’s help. But events like this remind all of us that each moment is precious, each person is precious, and we are all vulnerable. We are not invincible.

Our psalm today speaks to this awareness. God has made us. God knows us. There is no place we can go where God is not, God is everywhere. At every point in our lives, God has been there, loving us and sustaining us. Sometimes, God has carried us.

We are vulnerable. yes. But God is faithful and loving to us. I would suggest that we read this psalm, 139, this week and meditate on it. The love of God is present in every word of this psalm.

God is holding you in the palm of God’s hand. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Samuel 3, Bartholomew, Eli, Epiphany 2, John 1, Nathanael, Nazareth, Philip, Psalm 139, Shiloh | Leave a comment »

1 Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord January 7, 2018

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Beth Crane

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

Today is the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the day we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. All of our readings tell about new beginnings.

In our first reading, from the Book of Genesis, God begins with a “formless void.” God makes a wind come up over the waters, and then God says, “Let there be light,” and the light comes into the world. Epiphany is the season of light and the season of mission.

In our reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, which gives us the account of events in the early Church, Paul arrives in Ephesus. He finds that Apollos had been there before him. Apollos was a Jewish man from Alexandria who had been deeply impressed with the teachings of John the Baptist and had traveled around the Mediterranean Sea with a group of other followers of John spreading the word about John the Baptist just as Paul had traveled with his helpers spreading the Good News about Jesus.

When Paul talks to the people in Ephesus, he learns the they had been baptized by Apollos into John’s baptism, that is, a baptism of repentance. They knew they had to change their ways and turn to God. But they had not received the baptism of Christ and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

As he learned these facts, Paul did not criticize Apollos. He simply shared the information that there was another, deeper baptism. Once they heard about this, the people wanted to receive that baptism. When he laid his hands on them, they received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is another new beginning. The congregation in Ephesus, composed of twelve people, has taken a giant step in faith, They have become members of the Body of Christ. They have now been equipped to carry out their ministry as ambassadors for Christ.

In our gospel, Mark tells us about John the Baptist, who so eloquently and powerfully called the people to repent and to turn toward God. Thousands of people flocked out into the wilderness to hear him preach and to receive his baptism. He made it clear that he was not the Messiah but that his job was to prepare the way for the Savior. He also made it clear that he baptized with water, but the Savior would baptize with the Spirit. So, when the congregation in Ephesus heard about this from Paul, they could relate it to the teaching they had received from John the Baptist.

To fulfill the word of the prophets, and to begin his formal ministry, Jesus came from Nazareth to be baptized by John in the Jordan River. At that time Jesus was completely unknown and John was a spiritual rock star attracting huge crowds. Yet John, with true humility, knows exactly what is happening. He has done his work. He has called the people to repentance, and they have responded in droves. Now his work is done. He must decrease, and Jesus must increase.

John immerses Jesus, and, when Jesus comes up out of the waters, he sees the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. He also hears the voice of God saying, “You are my Son, the beloved, and with you I am well pleased.” Now the Savior is beginning his ministry. The true light has come into the world. This is the greatest new beginning the world has ever seen.

The true light has come into the world. We are following him. We are patterning our lives after his life. How can we help his light to shine even more brightly? How can we help him to build his kingdom, his shalom, this Epiphany? How can we bear the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness. and self-control? How can we help Him to make the world a better place? As we discover the answers to these questions, we can be sure that he will be with us every step of the way and that he will give us his grace and love to light our path. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Epiphany, Acts 19, Apollos, Baptism, Ephesus, Genesis 1, John the Baptist, Jordan River, Mark 1, Psalm 29 | Leave a comment »

The First Sunday after Christmas December 31, 2017

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:10–62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-35; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

Our readings today are filled with joy. In our opening reading from the prophet known as the Third Isaiah, we are with the people of God as they are returning home from their exile in Babylon. The mood is that of a wedding feast, and the images are of growth and faithfulness. Isaiah says, “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

Righteousness means right relationship with God. The people are going to have a new and deeper and truer relationship with God and with each other. The radiance of this renewed relationship will cause God’s people to shine as a light to the world.

In our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, an impressive amount of theology is condensed into just a few words. Paul, a Pharisee, tells us that before faith came, God’s people were imprisoned in the law. The law was the disciplinarian—we could say the law was the warden of the prison. We were all stuck in this prison because, as Paul says elsewhere, the things we didn’t want to do, we did; and the things we wanted to do we did not do—and we felt miserable and asked God to free us from this bondage.

Then, faith came, or, more accurately, Christ came. Jesus was born just as Paul was born, just as all of us are born. He came among us as a baby. He was one of us. And because of him, we are all now God’s children in a new and deeper and more loving way than ever before. And the Spirit of Christ is in our hearts. God has come among us and has lived a human life. The wonder of this is absolutely amazing. Only a loving and caring God would do such a thing. And what a gift! We are not alone. Our Shepherd and Brother, Jesus, has come into the world just as we did and is now living among us. He is with us to lead us and guide us.

The law is no longer a prison. It is a helpful guide. And now we have the gift of grace to follow the law.

John the Evangelist tells the story in yet another way. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word- the logos in Greek—the Plan, the Pattern for life. The Word, Wisdom, Christ, was with God at the very beginning. The Word was the one who called the creation into being. God imagined the creation, Christ and Wisdom called it into being.

We can imagine total darkness and the vastness of the universe but nothing else—a void. And then we can imagine stars and galaxies coming into being, and then this one solar system, this one star surrounded by these planets orbiting, and then this one beautiful gem of a planet, all blue and green and tan.

Then comes John the Baptist telling us that the ultimate light was coming into the world. And then Jesus, our light, came into the world. The people in his own hometown did not accept him, but to those who did see him as he really was, he gave new life and a deep, loving relationship with God.

As Isaiah has said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Jesus is our Light. Here in Vermont during this very cold week, the light is increasing. The days are growing longer, and our Light is among us. As John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

John says so much in so few words: “From his fullness,” John writes, “we have all received, grace upon grace.” It is like a waterfall of grace. Each of us has received so much from our Lord. Grace upon grace, overflowing love, forgiveness, and healing.

There is a beautiful hymn, number 84, that sums up the meaning of our readings.

Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the godhead, love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus, but wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.

Christina Rossetti

God has come among us as one of us. God has given us the gift of God’s very self, God’s loving presence. May we be ever thankful for this wondrous and amazing gift. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Babylon, Christina Rosetti, Christmas, Galatians 3, Isaiah 51, John 1, John the Evangelist, logos, Psalm 147, Third Isaiah | Leave a comment »

Advent 4B RCL December 24, 2017

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 11:1-1
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
Romans 16:25-17
Luke 1:26-38

Today, because we are thinking about Mary, the Mother of Jesus, we are also going to think about giving birth to Jesus.

Meister Eckhart wrote, “What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not also give birth to the son of God in my time and in my culture?”

Francis of Assisi wrote,
“We are the mother of Christ when we carry him in our heart and body by love and a pure and sincere conscience. And we give birth to him through our holy works which ought to shine on others by our example.”

Mechtild of Magdeburg wrote, “Mary, you birthed to earth your son. You birthed the son of God from heaven by breathing the Spirit of God.”

And, once again, Meister Eckhart: “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”

Here we are beholding a paradoxical, mysterious truth that takes us right into the heart of God—beyond the prison of logic, beyond our tendency to go to our frontal cortex and limit God’s truth.

We are all called to give birth to God. We have a wonderful example, a courageous, wise young woman named Mary. The angel Gabriel told her she was going to give birth to the Son of God. He also told her that her cousin Elizabeth was going to have a baby in her old age. And Mary had the wisdom and the presence of mind to go and visit Elizabeth. She went to offer and receive support on this life-changing, world-changing journey they were now making, a journey that would change millions of lives including ours.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And the Word was full of grace and truth, and the Word, the logos who called the creation into being, dwelt among us. Jesus was God walking the face of the earth. He taught, he healed, he loved everyone, and I mean everyone, even lepers, even tax collectors. And, of course, he is calling us to do the same thing. He is calling us to follow him and to be like him. He is calling us to give birth to him in our lives and to grow into the likeness of him.

As we take that deep breath, and our lungs expand, and our hearts fill with the awareness of his presence, our lives open to embrace the vision of his shalom of wholeness and harmony. The creation is made whole. Lions and lambs and calves and wolves and everyone and everything else live in peace. Everyone and everything is one. Everything and everyone is nurtured.

Matthew Fox asks, “What would it mean to live in a nurturing world?”My answer would be, the shalom of God would be here, which brings us back to Advent.

Here we are, between the beginning and the completion of the Kingdom, the realm. the shalom of Christ. God is building that shalom, quietly and inexorably. And God is calling us to help.

As we look around, we can see the gap between the vision and the realization of the plan. Between the current situation and the ultimate hope. There seems to be a long way to go.

That’s where the giving birth comes in. We take a deep breath. We fill our lungs with God’s holy and whole-making oxygen. We fill ourselves with God’s presence. We recall that Jesus tells us, “My kingdom is within you.” We breathe out that peace into the world, We breathe out that harmony, that healing, that wholeness.

As Kenneth Kirk would say, We try, with God’s grace, to “cope from the presence of God” in everything that we do. In every action, we try to give birth to God. In every word, thought, everything we say or do or think, we give birth to God. It’s a work in process. We are not perfect, but we were created good, and the creation was created good. Jesus is right in the midst of us and even within us, and we’re following him. He is walking with us, and we are walking with him.

The shalom of God is full of peace and nurture. (Isaiah 11:6-9) The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

As we take that deep breath, every breath, and give birth to Christ, to God, and to the Spirit, we are giving birth to God’s realm of peace and wholeness. We are giving birth to God’s shalom. We live that wholeness and that harmony.

Matthew Fox asks, “What would it mean to live in a nurturing world?”

What would it be like to have “this fragile earth, our island home” wrapped in peace? What would it be like to have no war, no conflict of any kind, with all of us seeing the God in each other and with all of our energies devoted to things that are creative? Things such as nurturing our planet, raising and sharing food and all the other things that bring life? And none of the things that bring death.

What would it mean to live in a nurturing world? Each of us has a vision of that. Each of us has been given gifts to help God to bring that vision to fruition. As St. Francis says, “Each of us gives birth to him through our holy works.”

Right now, we are taking a deep breath in this most holy place, this thin place where God is so present. Here in Sheldon, where there are more farms per square mile than anywhere else in Vermont, we are close to the earth. We are close to God’s humus, God’s good nurturing earth. This is a good place to practice humility. Humility is not groveling or denying the gifts God has given us, Humility is openness, like the openness of a field that has been prepared for planting. Humility comes from humus, God’s good soil, earthiness. So, we are open, we are humble, we are ready for planting, for the planting of the Word, the planting of the new life, the planting of Christ’s shalom.

Here in Grace Church, where people of faith have prayed for years upon years, where we have met God over and over in new ways each time we visit. Here in Grace Church, here in Vermont, here on planet earth, in the presence of our loving God, we will grow more and more open to the new life God is planting in us. Our humility will grow. We will be more and more open to God’s gifts to us and God’s call to us.

And we will give birth. We will grow closer and closer to God and to each other. And God will continue to build community. And God will continue to build God’s shalom. And we will be transformed. “And the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.” Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Francis of Assisi, Isaiah 11, Kenneth Kirk, Luke 1, Matthew Fox, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart, Psalm 72, Romans 16 | Leave a comment »

Advent 3 Year B December 17, 2017

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Canticle 3
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me….” These are the stirring words of our first reading this morning. Herbert O’Driscoll writes, “Every time I read or hear these words, I have a strange sense of being in the immediate presence of Jesus.” O’Driscoll reminds us that these are the words Jesus read when he was handed the scroll in his home synagogue in Nazareth early in his ministry. As Christians, we feel that these words describe Jesus and his ministry.

Isaiah had returned from exile In Babylon, and God was speaking these inspiring words to the people as they prepared to begin the daunting task of rebuilding everything. God’s people then and God’s people now are called to “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.” God assures the people that they will rebuild.

And God tells them and us what God’s values are. “For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing,” And God tells us, “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

In other words, Advent is a time to think about God’s kingdom of peace, harmony, justice, and compassion. And Advent is a time to renew our commitment to help God to bring in hat kingdom, that shalom.

In our reading from Paul’s First letter to the Thessalonians, we receive good counsel: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” We have so much to rejoice about, because we are following Jesus into his kingdom.

To pray without ceasing, to pray constantly, is a life’s journey. Not an easy thing to do. The nineteenth century writer of The Way of a Pilgrim devoted an entire book to this. He had heard this passage and was trying to live this command from Paul. This is the book that tells us about the Jesus Prayer. As we breathe in, we say or think, “Lord Jesus Christ,” and as we breathe out, we think, or say, “Have mercy upon me, a sinner.” This is a prayer much used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. It can be condensed, On the in breath say or think, “Jesus;” on the out breath, think “Mercy.”

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” This advice is coming from someone who was able to give thanks even when he was in prison, which happened several times in his life. But there is always something to give thanks for. Paul encourages us to “Hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.” And Paul prays that our spirit and soul may be kept blameless until Jesus comes to complete the creation. A powerful reading from a person who had walked the journey of prayer and faithfulness.

In our gospel for today, we hear John’s account of John the Baptist. Last Sunday we heard the account from Mark. But John the Evangelist begins, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”

The days are so short and the nights so long, we yearn for the light, And our Light, Jesus Christ, is coming into the world. We will celebrate his presence on Christmas.

As in Mark’s gospel, John makes it very clear that he is not the Messiah. He says, “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” John knows exactly who he is, He is the forerunner, the one who calls us to “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Although he has a very large following and people are flowing out of Jerusalem to come out into the wilderness and hear him, none of this goes to his head. He is here to prepare the way, and that is his ministry.

The light is coming into the world. We are moving ever closer to Christmas. Yet we know that he has already come into the world and that his kingdom is growing even now. We are all doing as much we we can to help his shalom grow.

Yes, we are aware of the darkness; we are aware of our sin, and we are asking his help in growing more and more like him as we prepare to celebrate his first coming among us, his loving and healing presence among us, and his second coming to complete the work of creation.

Dear Lord, thank you for your light and love and healing. Give us grace to prepare room for you in our hearts and lives. In Your holy Name, Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Thessalonians 5, Canticle 3, Herbert O'Driscoll, Isaiah 51, John 1, John the Baptist | Leave a comment »

Advent 2B RCL December 10, 2017

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2,8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Our first reading for today comes from a point in history when the exiles were still in Babylon.They have been trying to go on with their lives, deepen their understanding of the scriptures, continue their prayer life as a community of faith. They have been in captivity for almost fifty years.

And now, they are receiving the news they have been hoping and praying to hear. At last, they will be going home. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” It is difficult for us to grasp how they must have felt to hear those words.

As we listen to these words, we cannot help calling to mind the beautiful music of Handel’s Messiah. The people are going home! It seems almost impossible, but it is true. Yes, we humans are like grass, here today, gone tomorrow, bending with every breeze. But God’s word will stand forever. “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.”

The power and gentleness of this passage touch our hearts so deeply. This is the love of our God. No, we are not living in exile in Babylon as God’s people did fifteen hundred years ago, but we are living in difficult times, times of division and hatred and violence that seem very far from God’s shalom. In this passage, we are reminded that God is eternal and faithful, and God will lead us into God’s kingdom of peace and harmony.

In our reading from the Second Letter of Peter, the theme of God’s eternal presence is sounded again. In God’s sight, a thousand years are like one day. God is patient with us, and God is building God’s shalom and calling us to help in that work. Christ will come again to complete the work of creation. The letter calls us to remain faithful to our Lord and to be ready for his coming again.

Our gospel for today focuses on John the Baptist, who appears in the wilderness calling us to “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” John offered a baptism of repentance. He called people to sincerely ask God’s forgiveness for their sins and turn their lives around. He invites us to turn to God and ask God’s help in our process of transformation, in Greek, metanoia.

John definitely did not follow the current fashion. He had a coat of camel’s hair, lived very simply, and when he said something, you knew he meant it. He was a great prophet and religious leader, but he did not base his ministry in the city of Jerusalem where all the power was centered. His home base was the wilderness, where there is no sky glow. Out there, you can see God’s stars and planets very clearly and gain a divine perspective on things. It is also quiet out there—no distractions, no human power struggles, just you and God.

For all these reasons, John had a completely clear idea of who he was and what he was about. He knew he was the messenger foretold in the prophets who had gone before him. He knew he was called to let people know that they needed to prepare for the Savior.

Thousands of people were attracted to John. He was the equivalent of a rock star in his time. People followed him everywhere. They left the big city to go out into the wilderness and be with him, so powerful was his message. But it never went to his head. He knew exactly who he was. He said, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John is a shining example of singleness of heart, the ability to focus on Jesus with every part of his being—spirit, heart, mind, intuition, everything. This Advent and every day, we can learn so much from John the Baptist.

Here we are, on the Second Sunday in Advent, in the year of our Lord 2017. What are these readings telling us?

Among many other things, our lesson from Isaiah tells us there is always hope. Just when we think it’s over, those little flickering fingers of a new dawn appear and the thing we had hoped and prayed for finally comes to be. And God will shepherd us every step of the way on the journey home, or closer to God, or wherever it is that God is calling us to be.

One thing our epistle tells us is that God is patient with us and with everything else, which is a great blessing because we can all can try God’s patience at times. And God is eternal. God takes the long view. But when the time finally arrives, God is going to build new heavens and a new earth. The creation will be made whole.

And our gospel? It tells us more than we can absorb. But we can say this. Here is this fellow, dressed as the great prophet Elijah was dressed, out in the wilderness attracting hordes of people. But there is no glitz, there are no lights or cameras. There is just this man, John, who absolutely tells the truth straight from God and who is here to lead us to the One we have waited for all our lives, the One who loves us so much that we are willing to follow him on the hard and joyful journey of transformation, the journey to his shalom. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Peter 3, Babylon, Isaiah 40, John the Baptist, Mark 1, metanoia, Psalm 85 | Leave a comment »

Advent 1B RCL December 3, 2017

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

Advent is here. This is the New Year’s season of the Church. We change from Lectionary A to B. For Morning and Evening Prayer, we change from Lectionary 1 to 2. From the green of the Pentecost season and the white for Christ the King this past Sunday, we move to purple, symbolizing penitence and also the royalty of Christ our King.

Advent is that paradoxical time of penitence, preparation, and joy. We look back to the first coming of our Lord as a baby, and at the same time we look forward to his coming again to complete the work of creation and bring in his kingdom of peace, harmony, and wholeness.

His kingdom has begun but it is not yet complete. As we look around our world, we can see clear evidence of that sad fact. Walter Brueggemann writes, “Contrary to the manner in which it is often celebrated in the churches, Advent begins not on a note of joy, but of despair. Humankind has reached the end of its rope. All our schemes for self-improvement, for extricating ourselves from the traps we have set for ourselves, have come to nothing. We have now realized at the deepest level of our being that we cannot save ourselves and that, apart from the intervention of God, we are totally and irretrievably lost.” (Texts for Preaching Year A, p. 1.)

Our opening reading from Isaiah sounds that note of despair. How often do we wish that God would come down from the heavens and help us set things right, clean up the messes we make. Scholars tell us that this passage was probably written when Isaiah and the other exiles returned from Babylon. They had prayed for the coming of this day. Yet, when they arrived home and found the temple completely destroyed and so much work to do, they began to lose hope.

At this low point, Isaiah wishes that God would tear open the heavens and come down to earth. Isaiah praises God for all the ways in which God has guided and helped the people. Then he confesses that he and all God’s people have sinned. They felt God was hiding from them when the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem, and they drifted farther and farther away from God. In fact, some of the people felt that the military conquest by Babylon was a punishment for their lack of faith.

It is important to note that many of the people kept the faith during the Exile. They studied the scriptures; they increased their sense of worship and community. Isaiah is one of those people, and he is addressing God as a member of that community of the faithful.

Following the confession, Isaiah prays to God as the father of the people. He says that we humans are the clay and God is the potter. He asks God to have mercy on the people. Following this process of acknowledging God’s care for the people, then confessing his and their sinfulness, Isaiah is able to realize that God still cares and that God is a God of mercy.

Most of us have had low points like this in life. There just seem to be too many challenges. We feel as though God is far away. But we know that we really need God’s help. As we look around our world and see all the brokenness, the wholeness of God’s shalom seems impossibly far away. This makes us doubly aware that we need to turn to God.

As someone once said, when we fall far away from God, we need to ask, who moved? Not God. God has been right here all the time. Back in the time of Isaiah, the people realized that God was faithful, God had never left them. They began the mammoth task of rebuilding, but they also focused on rebuilding their sense of community and deepening their faith.

In our epistle for today, Paul thanks God for the life of the congregation in Corinth. God has given them many gifts, and they will be exercising those gifts as they wait for Christ to come again.

In our gospel, Jesus is describing the day of judgment as it is pictured by some of the prophets. But his main message is, “Stay awake. Be ready.”

Walter Brueggemann’s comments strike a wonderful Advent note. As we proceed with self-examination, we come to a screeching halt and realize that indeed, as he puts it, “all our schemes for self improvement… have come to nothing.” Without the intervention of God, all is lost.

Isaiah wanted God to “open the heavens and come down.” As Christians we know that God has done exactly that. God has come to be with us. After his baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus began building his Kingdom. We see it in every event in his ministry. He showed us how to do it. Love God and love people.

During Advent, we are called especially to make room for Jesus in our hearts and lives. This is a season for giving generously to organizations such as UTO and ERD, and other groups which help people in so many ways. It is also a time to take stock of our spiritual lives, to make or update wills, to set things in order.

But, most of all, it is a season to make even more room for Jesus. For each of us that may look different. For some of us, it means taking more quiet time. For others of us, it might mean more time with family and friends. For many of us, it is a both-and.

God did respond to Isaiah, and the rebuilding happened. How blessed and fortunate we are that God has come to be with us. We can walk with the risen Christ. How blessed that we can go and visit him in the manger. How blessed that we can be with him here and every day because he is among us. God has come to be with us, and God’s kingdom is growing even now. And God invites us every day and every moment to help to build that kingdom, that shalom. And he calls us to be ready to meet him again when he comes to complete the creation. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: "Texts for Preaching Year A", 1Corinthians 1, Babylonian Exite, Isaiah 64, Mark 13, Psalm 80, Walter Brueggemann | Leave a comment »

Christ the King — November 26, 2017

Posted on November 26, 2017 by Beth Crane

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-14
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

Our first reading today is from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a priest who served among the people of God exiled in Babylon from about 593 to 563 B.C. The powerful Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem in 597 B.C. and sent many of the leaders and others into exile. Then, in 586 B.C., the Babylonian armies came back and totally destroyed the temple and many of the surrounding buildings. Scholars tell us that this is the point when Ezekiel wrote this passage. Not only are the people in exile, but now the temple, the center of their worship, has been turned to rubble.

At this darkest hour, God calls Ezekiel to speak God’s word to the people. And God is telling the people that God will gather them up. God will gather all of God’s people from wherever they have had to flee, and God will bring them home. God will feed the people with good pasture, and God will be their shepherd.

God will bring back the ones who have strayed. God will bind up the wounds of those who are injured, and will strengthen the weak. But the fat and strong, that is, the leaders who have hurt the people and have prospered at the expense of the people, will face a time of reckoning. God speaks directly to these leaders, who in essence have bullied the people. God says, “Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scatted them far and wide, I will save my flock….”

God says that God will set over them one shepherd, God’s servant David. We know that David had ruled several hundred years before this time in history, so, as Christians, we take this as a reference to the kingship of Christ, who was from the family of David.

In this prophetic writing, from twenty-five hundred years ago, God is calling all leaders to care for their people, not to hurt them.

In our gospel for today, as we celebrate Christ the King, Jesus speaks about the values and actions of those who are following him and bringing in his kingdom. He tells us that, if we feed the hungry or give water to the thirsty or welcome the stranger or clothe folks who have nothing to wear, or take care of those who are sick or visit those who are in prison, we are doing those things to him.

Our king identifies, not with the rich and powerful, but with those who need help, those who are weak, those who have no power, those who are at the margins of society. When he tells his followers that they have done all these things to him, they are astonished. They had no idea. They were just trying to help a fellow human being.

Jesus is so different from our usual ideas of a king. He is not powerful in the world’s meaning of the word. He has no army. He has no palace. He was born in a stable to a carpenter and his wife. Shortly after his birth, his father had to take the family to Egypt to save Jesus’ life, so they became refugees, aliens in a strange land because King Herod was killing baby boys. Our king has suffered, and he has a special place in his heart for those who suffer.

Our king grew up in a carpenter’s home, worked in the shop with his earthly father, studied at the synagogue with the other kids, and eventually he went to the river Jordan and was baptized by his cousin John.

Wherever he went, he lived the values of his kingdom. When he went into the synagogue and reads the scroll of Isaiah, it said that he was coming to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to comfort all who mourn, and to bring God’s peace and harmony. That is what he did during his entire ministry, and that is what he calls us to do.

Today we make our United Thank Offering and we also begin to pray about our pledges. Today and every day, God calls us to help those who need God’s love and caring. The season of Pentecost is coming to a close, and this coming Sunday we move into Advent.

May we take time to reflect on the depth of God’s love for us and for all people. May we help and serve others in Christ’s Name. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Babylonian Empire, Christ the King, Ephesians 1, Ezekiel 34, Matthew 25, Psalm 100 | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 24 Proper 28A RCL November 19, 2017

Posted on November 19, 2017 by Beth Crane

Judges 4:1-7
Psalm 123
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

In our opening reading, the people of God have fallen into the hands of King Jabin of Canaan. The commander of Jabin’s army is Sisera. The people of God have been living under the harsh rule of King Jabin for twenty years, and Sisera has amassed a huge army. He has nine hundred chariots of iron.

In this reading, we meet one of the great women leaders of God’s people, Deborah, who is a judge and a prophetess. She is highly respected, and people come from miles away to consult her. The other hero of this story is Barak, a great military leader.

In this time of crisis, God calls Deborah to lead the people. Deborah is known to have a gift for military strategy. She has the wisdom to ask Barak to make the first move in this military campaign. With the combination of Deborah’s gift of strategy and Barak’s gift of courage and military leadership, God’s people take the important step to conquer King Jabin.

In our epistle, Paul reminds us that we are children of the light. He calls us to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation,” Most of all, he calls us to keep awake. Advent is coming.

In today’s gospel, we hear the beloved parable of the talents. As we know, a talent was a coin that was worth a great deal of money. Thomas Troegher computes that five talents would be worth $156,000.
The person who received those five talents goes out and makes five more. The two talent fellow makes two more. But the poor fellow who got one talent has gone and buried it. And the master is not at all pleased. Caution and prudence are great virtues, but our one talent man carries them a bit too far. He could have at least put the talent in the bank and gained interest.

Matthew’s congregation was being encouraged not to hide their light under a bushel. They were being called to go out and spread the good news even in the face of persecution. We, too, are called to go out and spread the good news every day of our lives, and all of us take that very seriously. Every one of you is out in the world doing God’s work, and I thank God for that and for each of you.

This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving. We are moving toward the time when we make our UTO offering, and I suggest that we bring in that offering next Sunday. This is also the time when we think about our pledges for the coming year.

In that context, I submit that each of us has been given the maximum of five talents. We have been given the gift of God’s love. God loves each of us as the apple of God’s eye. God loves us with a love that cannot be stopped. As Paul says in another epistle, “Nothing can separate us from God’s love.”

We have been given gifts of God’s healing and forgiveness. We have been given gifts of energy and compassion and caring so that we can go out into the world and do good work and care about people and care for our families and make the world a better place. All these gifts are like the talents in the parable, God gives these gifts to us because God loves us.

What is our response? Our response is to return a worthy portion of or time, talent, and treasure to God. All of you devote time to Grace Church. Many of you devote time to the work of the diocese. All of you devote great amounts of time to helping other people, both in your work and in your spare time. In terms of treasure, we make pledges of money that we are returning to God from the treasure God has given us. This includes not only our pledges to the Church but also contributions we make to charities like the United Way, The Red Cross, and so many others.

Someone once said that we Christians know Whom to thank. We know that God gives us everything. We may go out and help people, but it is God who gives us the ability to do that. And so we thank God with all our hearts. That is what stewardship is all about—thanks.

The attitude of gratitude is a powerful thing. We know that all good things come from God, and we thank God by returning a worthy portion. We have so much to be thankful for. It would take us hours to name all of these things. Thank you, dear Lord, for your love, for our families, for our life together, for our country and our freedoms, for those who have fought for these precious rights, for warm homes, food, clothing, health, the ability to help others, and on and on our lists could go.

The United Thank Offering, UTO, is based on the fact that every day we can put a coin into our UTO box to thank God for some gift that God is giving us or has given us. Incidentally, the UTO is the outgrowth and continuation of the Women’s Auxiliary which was such a key part of Grace’s history for so many years. We continue that tradition in our gifts to UTO.

Please think about all these wonderful gifts from God prayerfully and with full gratitude to our loving God. We will do our UTO ingathering this coming Sunday, and we will also have our pledge sheets available so that we can take them and fill them out.

Thanks be to God for all of God’s many gifts to all of us. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Thessalonians 5, Barak, Deborah, Judges 4, King Jabin, Matthew 25, Psalm 123, Thanksgiving, Thomas Troegher, United Thank Offering | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 23 Proper 27A RCL November 12, 2017

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Beth Crane

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

In our first reading, the people of God are moving into the promised land. Joshua gathers them together and reviews their history. God brought Abraham from beyond the Euphrates River and led him to Canaan and gave him descendants as numerous as the stars. And the people review a more recent part of their history, the journey from slavery in Egypt into freedom in this new land.

But Joshua is reminding them that they are called to choose to follow God. Scholars tell us that now that the people have crossed into this new land, they are probably hearing about the local gods. In those days, it was customary to pay respect to the gods of an area where you were moving in. And Joshua is making it clear that the people are called to follow one God. He says that his family is definitely gong to remain faithful to God. Then, as now, the commitment of a leader usually means a great deal to people. The people make their commitment to be faithful to God.

In our reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, people in the congregation are dying. Many of the early Christians had expected that our Lord would return very quickly, but at the time this letter was written, about 20 years after our Lord’s death and resurrection, he still has not come to bring in his kingdom. Paul is assuring the people that all will rise to new life.

Our gospel for today also addresses the issue of the coming of Christ. Matthew’s gospel was written about 90 A.D., sixty years after the end of our Lord’s earthly ministry. People are wondering when Jesus will come again to bring in his shalom. And so Matthew shares our Lord’s parable of the ten wise bridesmaids and the ten foolish bridesmaids.

Herbert O’Driscoll reminds us that a wedding was a feast for the whole community. If someone in the village was getting married, everyone was invited to the celebration. As dusk gathered, the bridesmaids would light their lamps and the lamps would be flickering as the day disappeared. Everyone knew that if you were a bridesmaid, you needed to make sure to buy plenty of extra oil in advance so that you could bring it with you. You never knew quite when the bridegroom would appear. It was something you could not predict. So, you had to be prepared.

We all know the story. The less than wise bridesmaids run out of oil. As the sky darkens, five of those lamps flicker out. The bridesmaids plead to their wiser companions to give then some oil. But they can’t. They have made their commitment to be prepared. The bridegroom arrives in a flurry of festivity. Five of the bridesmaids go in to the feast, and five are left at the door. Our Lord calls us to “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The call to keep awake is one of the major themes of Advent, which is only a short two weeks away. But this reminder to stay alert and to be ready is wise advice in every season.

Reflecting on this call to “Keep awake,” Herbert O’Driscoll writes, “I never know when God passes by in my experience, when eternity intersects with time, and spirit with flesh. I never know when a door between the worlds opens, and I am invited to a wedding. I may be invited to taste the sweetness of God in a moment of liturgy, in a moment of friendship…in a moment of beauty discovered in art or nature. But if such things are offered, then I must be ready when the offer is made. I must assume that any moment is the potential moment, any place is the potential place, any conversation or encounter is the encounter with God.” (The Word Today, Year A, Volume 3, P. 173.)

Any moment, every moment is a potential encounter with God. We never know when it is going to happen. That is why we need to be ready at all times. We need to be awake to the presence of God in every moment. O’Driscoll mentions Brother Lawrence, who wrote a book called The Practice of the Presence of God. He was a monk who lived in the seventeenth century. He worked in the kitchen, and as he washed dishes, scrubbed floors, and peeled potatoes, he was deeply aware of God’s presence in all of these small and mundane things.

In our readings today, we are called to follow the example of Joshua and so many others and serve the Lord. We are called to have faith and hope because we believe that we are already in eternal life and that our ultimate destination is the heavenly banquet with our Lord and the saints and angels. And we are called to be awake, to be ready to meet Christ in every moment of life, whether we are scrubbing the floor, talking with a friend, or receiving the bread of heaven, the Body of Christ at the Eucharist.

In all of these moments, in every moment, Christ is present. Christ is alive and is among us at this moment. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Thessalonians 4, Brother Lawrence, Herbert O'Driscoll, Joshua 24, Matthew 25, Parable of the wise virgins, Psalm 78, The Practice of the Presence of God, The Word Today Year A Vol 3 | Leave a comment »

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