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    • Sunday service - Holy Communion June 11, 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:…
    • Sunday service - Holy Communion June 18, 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:…
    • Sunday service - Holy Communion June 25, 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:…

Ash Wednesday February 17, 2021

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Beth Crane

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

Ashes are a symbol of mortality. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. It is good to be reminded of our mortality and our weakness. Yet within these ashes is a paradox, because these ashes are made from the palms we waved on Palm Sunday, palms we would have placed on the road in front of our Lord to welcome him as our King. We are on a journey to grow into the likeness of Christ our King. We are on a journey to grow from brokenness to wholeness. This Ash Wednesday we will be putting the ashes on our own foreheads. We will be fasting from the sensation of having the ashes placed on our foreheads by a fellow-journeyer in Christ. Some us do not have ashes to place on our foreheads, but we can still be aware of our mortality by tracing the sign of the cross on our foreheads. All of us are here because we want to observe a holy and life-giving Lent. The word Lent, after all, comes from the Middle English word lente, meaning “spring.”

We are beginning a time of prayer, fasting, self-examination, and spiritual growth. Some of us are also participating in the Social Justice Bible Challenge and Lent Madness.

Our opening reading comes from the person we call the Third Isaiah. God’s people have come home from their exile in Babylon and have begun to rebuild the temple and the city wall. They have become discouraged at the huge task before them. They fast and pray, but they argue and treat each other badly. They oppress their workers. The summary of the law calls us to love God and to treat others as we would have then treat us. Their behavior does not match their profession of faith.

God calls them to an authentic fast that includes social justice. And God calls them and us to “Loose the bonds of injustice,…to let the oppressed go free”…to share our bread with the hungry, to give shelter to the homeless, to clothe the naked—in other words, to extend the love of God to our brothers and sisters of all colors and creeds.

In our epistle, Paul calls us to “be reconciled to God,” In order to do that, we need to take the words of God spoken through Isaiah very seriously. As Christians, we are called to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

In our gospel, our Lord reminds us that our spiritual growth is between us and God. We are not focusing on earthly treasure, but on the precious heavenly treasure of God’s love and grace. We are fasting, praying, and giving to deepen our love for God and others.

This year, we have been through so much with Covid and everything else. Bishop Shannon is inviting us to focus on social justice issues, and I think that is a wonderful idea. We need to heal our nation, just as Isaiah’s community needed to heal their nation twenty-five hundred years ago. God is calling us to treat each other as beloved children of our loving God.

During this liturgy for Ash Wednesday, we would normally celebrate Holy Eucharist. We will not be doing that. We have been fasting from Holy Communion for eleven months, except for one Distanced Communion. We have not been together in person inside our church building for a very long time. We have much in common with God’s people who spent several decades in exile in Babylon.

My point is that we have already been engaged in a very long fast from singing together in person, celebrating Holy Communion, talking to each other face to face, hugging each other, gathering for coffee hour and conversation in person. So, as we follow our Lenten discipline, I ask that we try to be especially aware of God’s love for us, God’s love that cannot be stopped or diminished. And then let us be aware our love for God and each other, our love for all our brothers and sisters, and let us work, fast, and pray to increase and deepen that love. Let us work and pray that we may become “repairers of the breach” and “restorers of streets to live in.” Amen.

Meditation and A Prayer of Self-Offering

We have just exchanged the Peace and sung the Offertory Hymn. As we all know, we will not be celebrating Holy Eucharist. This is a huge loss. It has been an extended exile, a wandering in the wilderness. Nothing can replace sharing Holy Eucharist. Nothing can replace greeting and hugging each other at the Peace. But rather than simply reverting to the ending for Morning Prayer to conclude the service, I wanted to acknowledge the fast we have been in and the exile we have been experiencing.

We are not able literally to stand before the altar at Grace and place bread, wine, and money on the altar, to represent our offering of our God-given time, talent and treasure to God, but, at this time of offering when we would normally move into the Eucharistic Prayer, we offer to you, our loving God, our feelings of sadness, frustration, anger, hopelessness, powerlessness, all the feelings that are welling up during this time of exile and pandemic.

Loving and forgiving and healing God, we thank you for keeping us together, for giving us strength to keep gathering virtually. Thank you for your gift of faith, for those glimmers of hope, for the gift of perseverance. Thank you for binding us together with your love.

Lord Jesus, we are not celebrating Communion, but we know that you are here with us, You told us that where two or three are gathered, you would be with us and you would hear our prayers. We cannot literally receive your Body and Blood today, but we know that you are giving us spiritual food and energy. 

We know that you are walking the Way of Love, the Way of the Cross, with us. Thank you for your presence and for your love. Thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit leading and guiding us. Because of you, we are here. You have called us together.

With all our heart, we thank you, and we offer our selves and our lives to your service. Lead us and guide us, that we may observe a Holy Lent, that we may love and serve you with singleness of heart, and that we may share your love with others. In your Holy Name, the Name of Jesus.  Amen.

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Palm Sunday Year A  April 9, 2017

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66

Palm Sunday is such a heart wrenching day. We welcome our king, casting palms in his path to honor him, and then we look on in horror as, step by step, he walks the Way of the Cross.

This Holy Week, we will be walking the Way with him as we gather on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Hymn 84 begins with the words, “Love came down at Christmas.” That is true. “Love came down at Christmas,” and now Love is going to pour itself out on the cross. Love is going to take all sin and darkness and brokenness and wrestle with it and labor with it and transform it into new life. He will wash our feet and share a meal with us, a meal which he will give us as a sign of his presence among us. And then, we will stand with his mother Mary at the foot of the cross.

As we walk with our Lord and spend time with him and learn from him and pray with him, we become closer to him. Our diocesan mission statement calls us to “Pray the prayer of Christ, learn the mind Christ, and do the deeds of Christ.” Our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, calls us to “Let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ Jesus.”

Significant events have happened in the past few days and are continuing to happen. For six years, Syria has been in a humanitarian crisis, and this tragic situation is connected with and surrounded by a web of political alliances and power dynamics. As we walk the Way of the Cross with our Lord this week, I hope and pray that we will seek the mind and will of Christ and that we will follow our Lord as faithfully as we possibly can. Dear Lord, help us to follow where you lead. Help us to seek and do your will.  Amen.

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Palm Sunday Year C RCL March 20, 2016

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Beth Crane

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

Palm Sunday is one of those days in the Church year which we moderns might call “intense.” We welcome Jesus as our Savior and our King, and then we walk with him through all he endures, and we stand at the foot of the Cross feeling helpless as he suffers for us.

This is a day full of paradoxes. Were are so happy to welcome him as our K  ing. Then we plunge to the depths of despair as he dies on the Cross. And, as we walk with him, we hope that we would not deny him, as even Peter did. We hope that we would see him as who he really is. We hope that we would not join in the mob mentality and yell, “Crucify him!” at the top of our lungs.

Even Pilate, the great Roman governor, can see no guilt in our Lord.

The soldiers and the priests mock him. One of the criminals admits his own sin but says clearly that Jesus has done nothing wrong and asks our Lord to remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom. And Jesus tells him, from the Cross, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

The Centurion has the last word. Here is an officer in the Roman army who commands one hundred men.  he is disciplined; he knows the chain of command; he serves in the legions of the powerful emperor. And yet, he has the courage and the insight to say, “Certainly this man was innocent.”

Jesus, our King, our savior, “set[s] his face like flint,”goes to Jerusalem, empties himself, gives his life for us so that we can realize, at last, that he loves us and that he will lead us into new life.   May we follow him.     Amen.

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Palm Sunday Year B RCL March 29, 2015

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Beth Crane

Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:32-15:39

Today, we welcome Jesus as our King and then we journey with him to his crucifixion. It is a heart-wrenching day, and each year we learn something new about our Lord and about ourselves.

Every Palm Sunday, we read the amazing passage from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Paul wrote this letter from prison, and we know that the congregation in Philippi was suffering persecution.

Our passage begins, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” When Paul says “mind,” he does not mean just the intellect. Charles Cousar writes, “[Our] entire identity—[our] intuitions, sensitivities, imaginations—is to be shaped by the self-giving activity of Christ.”

Jesus upset the secular and religious authorities of his time so much that they felt their only option was to kill him. He also upset many of the ordinary people because they wanted him to conquer the Roman Empire. And so, he was sentenced to one of the most horrific deaths the human mind has ever imagined, a death reserved for the worst criminals. He did not meet violence with violence.

Jesus trusted that God could bring a greater good out of this disaster, and Jesus knew that God loved him and loved everyone of us humans and the whole creation. So Jesus allowed himself to be nailed to that cross.

Twelve step programs have a saying—“Let go, and let God.” When we are in a really tough situation, we let go of our own will and our own plans and thoughts, and we turn the whole thing over to God, knowing that God can do things we could never imagine. That’s what Jesus did on the cross. He suffered agony. He kept trusting in God’s love and power. He forgave those who were doing this awful thing. He died. Like a grain of wheat, he fell into the ground of God’s love.

Sometimes when situations are way beyond anything we can handle, we have to do that. We have to let go and let God. We have to get out of God’s way and let God take over. When we do that, I think we are very close to our Lord. When we do that, we allow God to work.

Amen.

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Palm Sunday Year C RCL March 24, 2013

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Beth Crane

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

Our lesson from Isaiah describes the suffering servant. St. Paul tells us that Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.

At the beginning of today’s gospel, we sit at the Last Supper with Jesus and the disciples. Jesus shares the bread and the cup with them and then he says that one of them is going to betray him. In shock, they wonder who could do this. Then they begin to argue among themselves about who is the greatest.

In response to this, Jesus contrasts his kind of kingship and power with the world’s view of power. He says, “I am among you as one who serves.” If we are going to follow our Lord, we, too, must be servants.

This past Tuesday, on the feast day of St. Joseph, Pope Francis I celebrated his installation mass. In his sermon, Pope Francis said that “authentic power is service,” and he called all of us to protect God’s creation and to protect each other, especially those who are the weakest. He said that, “caring, protecting demands goodness, it calls for a certain tenderness.” The sermon was all the more moving because Pope Francis lives these principles in his daily life. I thank God for this inspiring leader of our faith who is such an example of servanthood.

During Holy Week. We will see again and again Jesus’ love for us, and his giving of himself to lead us into a new way of living. As we walk the way of the Cross, may we become more and more aware of Christ’s love for us, and may we answer his call to serve others in his name.

Amen.

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