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    • Sunday service - Holy Communion June 4, 2023 at 9:30 am – 11:00 am Grace Church 215 Pleasant Street, Sheldon, VT Website: www.gracechurchsheldon.comTime:  09:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)        Every week on Sun.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83929911344?pwd=alZQTWZMN0ZkWFFPS1hmNjNkZkU2UT09Meeting ID: 839 2991 1344Password: Call for detailsOne tap mobile+13126266799,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (Chicago)+19294362866,,83929911344#,,1#,816603# US (New York)Dial by your location        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)        +1 929 436 2866 US (New York)Meeting ID:…
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Easter Day  April 12, 2020

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Beth Crane

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1=2. 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:11-10

It is dawn. We are going to the tomb together. We have to make sure to get his body to a safe place. It is always better to do these hard things together. 

Suddenly there is a great earthquake. An angel of the Lord catapults from heaven and rolls away that huge stone. We were wondering how we would ever move it. The angel pulsates with light and power. We are terrified.

The first thing he does is to tell us not to be afraid. And then he tells us that Jesus has risen and is going ahead of us to Galilee. We start to run back to tell the others. Never have I felt such fear and yet such deep joy.

Suddenly, right in front of us there he is! Of all things, he says, “Greetings!” as if we had met him on a Sunday stroll in the park. We hug him and tell him how much we love him.

And then he says the same thing the angel said, “Do not be afraid.” Then he tells us to go and tell the others to go to Galilee and we will see him

As we run to tell the others, we’re babbling away, “He’s alive! He was dead. We saw it. But now he is truly alive! We’re going to see him again in Galilee!” We keep saying it over and over until we get to the others. Then we tell them. And then we head to Galilee.

Vermont is a lot like Galilee. Out of the way. Small. Of little account. Away from the centers of power. Sensible. Independent. A place where good ideas can flourish. A place where people take care of each other as our food shelf volunteers are doing so faithfully.

Jesus’ ministry began in Galilee. Galilee was a relatively safe place for Jesus. And that is where he gathered his faithful followers after he had risen. He had a fish fry with them on the beach. He appeared to them here and there until they realized he had conquered death and every kind of brokenness, and that he was alive. He is alive. He called them and he calls us to be his living body here on earth. He calls us to share his love with everyone—his love, his hope, his forgiveness, his healing.

We’re still doing our social distancing and all the other things that our wise leaders and scientists are telling us to do. It’s the only way we can beat this pandemic. When people ask me how I feel in the midst of this, the only word that comes to me is that it is weird. I would love to be with you all and hug each and every one of you. I imagine each of you is feeling the same way.

That can’t happen today. It may take a long while before that can happen. We need to trust the science. Once again, I thank God for Governor Scott and Dr. Levine.

In spite of the pandemic, and social distancing, we are together. Beth and jan have taught us to Zoom, which has been a great help. Even without Zoom or Face Time, we are bound together by his love and his life. We are alive in him. He is alive in us. Nothing can get in the way of his love. Nothing can get in the way of the new life which he gives us every day. 

There are at least two major messages from our gospel today. The first one is, “Do not be afraid.” Both the angel and our Lord remind us of this crucial message. Faith is the other side of fear. Faith is fear that has said its prayers. Our Lord is calling us not to be afraid and to have faith. And the other message is the power of Easter, Nothing can or will ever change the meaning of Easter.  Our Lord has conquered death itself. We are following him We are an Easter people.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia. Amen.

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Pentecost 8 Proper 13C August 4, 2019

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Beth Crane

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

Last Sunday, Our Lord taught us how to pray. He told us to call God “Abba,” which translates not as “Father, “ or “Mother,” but as “Dad” or “Mom.” We are called to address God just as Jesus does, in an intimate, familiar way.

In our reading this morning from the prophet Hosea, we have the opportunity to meditate together on God as our loving, divine parent.

God says “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” God called God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, but after they reached the promised land, they began to worship alien gods such as Baal. a fertility god, and other idols as well.

God says, “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love, I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.”  

These words describe God’s unfailing parental love for God’s children, in this case the people of the Northern Kingdom. But the people are not following God. They are straying far from the law. During the ministry of Hosea, the gap between the rich and poor continued to widen; people did not take care of each other; there was constant war with the Assyrian Empire, and finally, the Assyrians conquered God’s people. Our reading reminds us that God guided the people home from that experience of exile.

God is upset about this to the point of anger, but God says, “I will not come in wrath.” Even though God’s people are being faithless, God loves them. As they suffer, God suffers with them. Biblical scholar James D. Newsome writes, “The suffering God of Hosea anticipates the suffering Christ of Gethsemane and of Calvary’s cross  (Newsome, Texts for Preaching Year B, p. 452.)

Our reading from the letter to the Colossians calls us to set our minds on things that are above, not on earthly things. We are called to get rid of things like anger, malice, slander, abusive language, and lying. In making the choice to follow Christ, we have stripped off the old self and have clothed ourselves in the new self. Elsewhere in the epistles, we are called to put on Christ, to clothe ourselves in Christ.

 What a difference it makes when we speak the truth, when we act from compassion, when we lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 describe the qualities that we show when we are truly following Jesus—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our reading concludes by saying that, as we grow into Christ, as we become more and more like our Lord, differences of race, religion, class, and national origin dissolve and we become one in Christ.

In our gospel for today, Jesus is preaching and teaching and someone from the crowd asks our Lord to settle a dispute over a family inheritance.

Our Lord takes this opportunity to warn us to be careful about greed. Greed was one of the things tearing up the society in the Northern Kingdom and leading to its fall, and, of course, it is one of the seven root sins. In our own society, we also have a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and we receive constant messages that tell us the accumulation of wealth and power are what life is all about.

Jesus tells a stunning parable. The land of a rich man—notice Jesus says “the land of a rich man” not “a rich man.” The land, God’s creation, God’s gift to this man, produces great abundance. There is so much that he runs out of buildings to store the produce of the land. Does he think of giving anything to those less fortunate? Apparently not. Does he thank God for God’s many blessings? No. He does not talk with God at all. His entire dialogue is with himself. 

He decides to tear down all his buildings and build new ones to hold this bountiful harvest. He says, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” Is it wrong to relax and eat, drink and be merry? Not at all.

But where is God in all of this? Where is our Lord’s call to us to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves?” This man tells his soul that there is material wealth to last for many years and it is now time to celebrate, but material things are not what nourish the soul. The man dies that night.

Jesus says, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” What does it mean to be rich toward God?

Biblical scholar Richard P. Carlson writes, “Being rich toward God entails using one’s resources for the benefit of one’s neighbor in need as the Samaritan did. Being rich towards God includes intentionally listening to Jesus’ word as Mary did. Being rich toward God involves…giving alms as a means of establishing lasting treasure in heaven. Life and possessions are a gift of God to be used to advance God’s agenda of care and compassion, precisely for those who lack resources to provide for themselves.” Feasting on the Word Year C Vol. 3, p. 315.

What are our readings telling us today? Our lesson from Hosea expresses God’s tender and unfailing love and care for us, even when we are straying far from God. As St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Romans, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.” Our reading from Colossians calls us to focus on the things that are above, becoming more and more like our Lord. In our gospel, our Lord calls us to treasure every moment of this life and to live lives that are cross-shaped. We are called to reach up toward God and to reach out to share God’s love with others. Amen.

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Easter Day Year A April 16, 2017

Posted on April 16, 2017 by Beth Crane

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18

Alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

During the fifty days of the Easter season, all three of our readings will be from the Greek scriptures, or the New Testament. Christ is risen, and we take time during this special festive season to devote all three readings to events that happened during and after his ministry here on earth.

Our first reading is from the Book of Acts, which traces the very early history of the new faith. Peter had always believed that followers of the new faith in Jesus would have to follow the Jewish dietary laws and other parts of the law. But he had a vision of all kinds of food which were forbidden by the law and he heard the voice of God telling him it was all right to eat these foods. Peter also got to know some Gentiles, among them Cornelius the Centurion, and God still caused the Holy Spirit to fill these people.

Our opening reading is Peter’s proclamation that God does not show partiality. God loves everyone, and God gives the Holy Spirit to everyone who believes. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “God has a big family,” and it includes everyone.

Our reading from the Letter to the Colossians reminds us that we have been welcomed into new life in Christ, and we are called to live in him and allow him to live in us.

In our gospel, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb while it is still dark.  As she walks to that tomb, she is expecting to find the dead body of Jesus. Instead, she finds the tomb empty. She runs to tell Peter and John what has happened, and, after they leave, she goes in and sees the two angels guarding the place where Jesus’ body had been placed. She thinks someone has taken Jesus’ dead body away.

Even when she turns around and sees the risen Lord, she still does not recognize him. She is still thinking of him as dead. She thinks he is the gardener. It is only when he calls her name that she realizes who he is. She is then able to go and tell the others that she has seen the risen Lord.

Jesus takes death, brokenness, and suffering and transforms it into life wholeness, and joy. Jesus takes death and transforms it into newness of life, life in a deeper dimension for everyone. That is the meaning of Easter. After he appears to Mary, two of his disciples see him on the road to Emmaus. Peter meets him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Three times, Jesus asks him, “Peter, do you love me?” and three times Peter answers, “Yes, Lord. I love you. And Jesus says, “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.”

As Jesus called Mary Magdalene and Peter and so many others, our risen Lord is calling us. Centuries after Jesus walked with us here on earth, one of his most faithful followers wrote a prayer which describes what Jesus is calling us to do and to be. It is the Prayer of St. Francis, found on page 833 of the prayer book. Let us pray this together.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy;. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.  Amen.

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

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Pentecost 11 Proper 13C RCL July 31. 2016

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Beth Crane

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9. 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

Our opening reading is from the Book of Hosea, an amazing prophet from 2,700 years ago. We recall that he had married a woman who was unfaithful to him. This gave him a profound insight into the way God must have felt when God’s people were unfaithful. In last week’s reading, we learned Hosea’s message that God does not stop loving us, no matter what.

This Sunday, we have the opportunity to gain even more insight into the nature of God’s love. God is speaking to God’s children. God calls Israel out of slavery in Egypt. God takes God’s children into God’s arms. God teaches God’s children to walk, leads them “with cords of  human kindness, with bands of love.  God bends down to God’s children and feeds them.

Commentator James Newsome says that God is described in terms that we could call motherly. God’s love for God’s children is described in terms of the greatest tenderness we could imagine. That is how much God loves God’s children. It is the love of any good parent. It is the love of our divine parent.

But then they and we go and worship other gods, like Baal. We lose our way. We do things we should not do and we do not do things we should do. The passage is hinting at some terrible things that will happen to God’s people. They will be conquered by the Assyrian Empire and later by the Babylonians, but, in the end, God will search for them and bring them home in safety.

There are some passages in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament that can make our hair stand on end. They portray an angry God who seems to be like the caricature of a bad, even abusive parent threatening all kinds of punishment. Through his own experience of loving his wife and children, Hosea was able to convey to the people and to us God’s unfailing and heartbreakingly tender love for us.

In the Letter to the Colossians, Paul is calling us to focus our lives on things above, not on earthly things. He calls us to put to death those earthly things, such as anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. He cautions us not to lie to each other. He says that we have “stripped off the old self  and have clothed [ourselves] with the new self.”  And he says an astounding thing. He says that the new self “is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

We are in a process of transformation which began at our baptisms. We are going from an old self to a new self, and that new self is constantly and continually being renewed so that we will become more like Christ. And in that process of transformation, there are no longer any divisions of race or gender or class or anything that can be used to divide us, because we are all one in Christ Jesus. He is everything there is, and he is in all of us and in each of us.

In our gospel for today, our Lord is also cautioning us against the values of this world, including greed. A man’s farm is producing so much that he plans to tear down all his barns and build bigger ones, so that he can store his growing bounty.

As we read this, we notice that he is not taking any time to thank God for all his blessings and for the abundance of his crops. Nor does he ask God’s guidance about his plans. Also, he says nothing about sharing all of this abundance with others. As Jesus puts it, this man is “Storing up treasures for himself,” not for others, and not for God.

This is the opposite of what we are called to do. If we are in a process of transformation, growing more into the likeness of Christ, and if Christ is in us, that means that all our decisions are made in an attitude of prayer, what the great moral theologian Kenneth Kirk calls, “Referring all questions to God.”

If there is an abundant harvest, the first thing we need to do is thank God. The next thing we need to do is return a portion to God in thanks, and the next thing we need to do is share that bounty with others. This poor fellow is a striking example of what not to do, with his attitude of me, me, me.

An anonymous writer puts it this way. “Not what  you do so much as what you are, that is the miracle-working power. You can be a force for good, with the help of God. God is here to help you and to bless you, here to company with you. You can be a worker with God. Changed by God’s grace, you shed one garment of the spirit for a better one. In time, you throw that one away for a yet finer one. And so, from character to character, you are gradually transformed.”(Twenty-four Hours a Day, April 2.)

To paraphrase the wording of our Alleluia!Fund slogan, “Christ is alive in us. Christ is risen in our deeds.”

May we show forth his love. May we grow more and more like him. May we love him with all our hearts, and may we love others as he calls us to do.  Amen.

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Easter Year A RCL April 20, 2014

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Beth Crane

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18

They said I had seven demons. All I know is that I was very ill. I met Jesus and he gave me my life back. I had to follow him.

It was amazing to watch him. He truly loved people, and they knew it. He met them as they were, rich and poor, young and old. He taught them, healed them, treasured every one of them. People flocked to him. But his love was a threat to the people in power.

We went with him to Jerusalem. Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. Peter felt awful about that, but later he and Jesus had that wonderful reconciliation on the beach. There was the questioning by Pilate and then one horror after another.

We stood at the foot of the cross. I don’t know how his mother endured it. She is so courageous. And, at last, he died. Two members of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, had been secret followers of Jesus. They risked their lives and asked permission to take his body down off the cross and place it in Joseph’s new tomb.

We all gathered to cry and pray. Now it was really over. All our hopes were gone. We would never see him again. I cried most of the night.

Then I realized I just had to go to the tomb. I could not stay away any longer. I had watched him die. I couldn’t do anything then and I couldn’t do anything now, but I just had to go.

When I got there, the stone was rolled away. I ran and got Peter and John. Jesus’ body was gone. We were devastated. Peter and John went back to where we were staying.

I stayed and the tears flowed. It broke my heart to think that some thing had happened to his body. Two angels asked me why I was crying. I suppose they were trying to comfort me. I tried to put it into words.

And then I saw someone I thought was the gardener. I thought maybe he had taken Jesus’ body away. But then he called my name. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him until that moment. Anyway, I finally realized that it was Jesus. He was alive! There he was, standing right in front of me!

I wanted to hug him. But he asked me not to hold onto him. Oh, that hurt! I was so shocked I could hardly breathe.

Much later, I realized that, now that he is risen, he is with all of us all over the world. I couldn’t hold onto him. We couldn’t keep him in Jerusalem or even in Galilee.

Then, I went to Peter and John to tell them, “I have seen the Lord!” He had journeyed all the way through the hatred and brokenness and darkness and transformed it into love, wholeness, light, and new life.

He is with you. He is with me. He is with each of us and all of us in a powerful way that can transform our lives. I have spent my life absorbing that reality, and I imagine that you have done the same.

When darkness surrounds us; when hope flickers and fades; when all seems lost, let us remember that moment when we are standing in front of that empty tomb and Jesus calls our name and we know that he is risen; he is with us; the light is showing over the horizon, and he is here among us.

We have seen the Lord. He is risen! Amen.

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