Sermons

No Map Required

Sun, 03 May 2026 18:29:00 GMT

From Confusion to Confession

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 20:08:06 GMT

Once when a certain preacher launched into a children’s sermon, she was confronted by a visiting child, an eight-year-old friend of a regular member. The boy was new to this church but was a regular attendee at another congregation that did not have children’s sermons. Nevertheless, the visitor tried his best to follow the line of the preacher’s effort to connect with the children. Attempting to hook the children with something familiar before making her point, the priest asked the children to identify what she would describe.

“What is fuzzy and has a long tail?” No response. “What has big teeth and climbs in trees?” Still no response. After she asked, “What jumps around a lot and gathers nuts and hides them?” the visiting boy could stand the silence no longer. He blurted out, “Look, lady, I know the answer is supposed to be ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”

Today’s Gospel reveals to us St. Thomas – who was put in a situation similar to that of the boy at the children’s sermon. Thomas was the one who had not seen the risen Jesus when he first appeared to the disciples. The others told him they had seen the Lord, but he was skeptical. He doubted. Still, Thomas must have wanted to fit in. He might have said, “Look, friends, I know the answer is supposed to be that I acknowledge that you saw Jesus, but it sure sounds like a ghost to me.”

Aren't we all a little like Thomas? Thank God for that! Because, as Elton Trueblood once said, “a faith that is never questioned isn't worth having.” Thomas remained with the others until his doubts and uncertainties were transformed into a dynamic faith. Doubt is a universal human experience. We have all felt the pain, the harassment, and the threat of it. Doubt comes in different depths. The deepest form denies that we can believe anything at all. The other extreme is the mind of the dogmatic that sails along with unquestioning confidence on a sea of tranquil certitude. While there is a certain appeal in dogmatic tranquility, there is also the danger that we might overlook the possibility of error in our most familiar beliefs.

As much as we might like to think of eliminating any trace of doubt in our life, the truth is that it would be undesirable, even if it were possible.

When someone tells me that he has never had a moment of probing religious doubt, I find myself wondering whether that person has ever known a moment of vital religious conviction. For if one fact stands out above all others in the history of religion, it is this: the price of a great faith is a great and continuous struggle to get it, to keep it, and to share it. Faith is a fight as well as a peace. I find myself thinking of my task as a Pastor and Teacher in the way described by Paul Tillich, when he said, “Sometimes I think my mission is to bring faith to the faithless and doubt to the faithful.”

Tuesday of this week is the annual remembrance of the Holocaust, Yom Hashoah. As we recall that tragic chapter in human history, we are painfully reminded of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was an atheist. We usually think of atheism as ultimate doubt. But when you think of it as a religion, you can see how helpful it would be to have a system of doubt to correct it. Hitler had no religion to cast doubts on his approach to life. But there are other problems besides Hitler's form of atheism. There is, for example, practical atheism. Practical atheists believe in God. He just doesn't have anything to do with their lives. Martin Luther once wrote, “There is the person who has never doubted that God is, but who lives as though God were not; and there is the person who doubts whether God is, or even denies that God is, but lives as though God were. In the latter, the grace of God is at work.”

Look at the lives of the saints. According to holy legend, doubt appears as a temptation which increases in power with the increase of saintliness. In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is overcome not by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern – a concern that impacts our lives and how we relate to the world around us and the people in it. Courage does not need the safety of unquestionable conviction. It includes the risk without which no creative life is possible.

The Christian faith is stronger than our doubts. It is like the Chinese proverb, which says, “Chinese sails, though full of holes, still work.”

Suppose a half dozen of us were seated around the walls of a darkened room. We are told that somewhere in the open, middle space, there is a chair. It is not just any chair; it is an antique, the creation of a noted designer, worth several thousand dollars. Which of us will find that chair? Certainly not those who sit still and philosophize about where the chair might be placed, about its existence, or about its value. No, the chair can be found only by those who have the courage to get up and risk stumbling around in the dark, using whatever powers of reason and sensation we might have until the chair is discovered.

Or in our relationships with those we love. I have faith that my wife loves me. I feel her kindness, her caring, her loving touch - all these I interpret to mean that she loves me. Not every moment of our relationship has been perfectly romantic. We went to high school together and during that time I thought she hated me. I was wrong; she was just shy. But I came to see that her acts of love are such that, while I cannot claim absolute certainty now or about the future, I have a deep faith in her love for me. We cannot ever “know” or “verify” the experience of love with the same probability as sunrise or a lab experiment, but we have faith that love is real, is what we know to be the case, is the explanation which correctly interprets certain “scientific” experience. Those who are familiar with the scientific method know that the point is not to set out to prove a theory but to attempt to disprove it. Doubt is an essential element in the advancement of science, in the pursuit of truth, and in critical thinking. As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures on the planet, perhaps in the cosmos, endowed with the privilege and responsibility to exercise reason.

Once a young man said to the philosopher, Blaise Pascal, “Oh that I had your creed, then I would live your life.” Pascal replied, “let me tell you something, young man. If you will live my life, it will not be many days until you have my creed.” In other words, Pascal is saying it is easier to act your way into belief than the other way around. And when we see Thomas after the resurrection, we follow the trajectory of his faith from confusion to confession. The risen Christ, at last, confronted him in the presence of the others and together they dealt with his doubt until it gave way to affirmation. He does that for us, too. In an era when many people in power have a view of Christian faith that is very narrow and contained in a very confined context, I am grateful to be in a Church that has room for doubt and is open to questions. Those who come to us with those doubts and questions receive a genuine welcome and are lovingly embraced so that we can journey and grow together in faith, hope, and love.

Called By Name

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:05:51 GMT

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 03:09:44 GMT

Between the Palms and the Cross

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 19:47:39 GMT

New Life For Dry Bones

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 21:01:27 GMT

How Certain Are You?

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:02:34 GMT

Leaving the Jar Behind

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:07:51 GMT

In 2017, I visited Jacob's Well. We stood in a circle and read today’s Gospel text. John tells us what happened when the women encountered Jesus. But, as I worked with the text this week, I wondered what the story might sound like if it was told by the woman, rather than a narrator.

So imagine, for a moment, that she is the one telling the story. As you listen, notice the conversation is like a chess match—each question invites the conversation to deepen.

I did not go to the well that day looking for God.

I went because the jar was empty.

You know how life is. Morning comes, the sun climbs higher than you expect, and before long the ordinary tasks are piling up: Bread to bake; Water to draw. Work that does not ask what kind of person you are—it simply asks to be done.

So I took my jar and walked the familiar road to Jacob’s well.

It was the middle of the day. No shade, no breeze.

I preferred it that way.

If you go early in the morning, everyone is there. The conversations begin before the bucket even touches the water. People talk about crops, about marriages, about children. And sometimes about other people’s lives.

My life has been the subject of those conversations.

So, I go at noon. Alone.

But that day there was a man sitting beside the well.

At first, I thought he must be a traveler resting his feet. The dust on his robe said he had come a long way. But when I looked more closely, I saw something else.

He was a Judean.

Now you have to understand something about that. Judeans and Samaritans do not usually share wells, cups, or conversations. We have our mountain, they have their temple, and between those two places lies a long history of arguments.

So I lowered my eyes and went about my work. If I kept quiet, perhaps he would too.

But then he spoke.

“Give me a drink.”

I looked up. Surely, I had misunderstood.

“You are a Judean,” I said, “and I am a woman of Samaria. How is it that you ask me for a drink?”

He did not apologize. He did not withdraw the request.

Instead, he said something even more strange.

“If you knew the gift of God,” he said, “and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Now I have drawn water from that well since I was a kid. My parents did. My grandparents did. The well is deep, and the water is good, but no one

draws it without a rope and a jar.

I looked at his empty hands.

“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get this living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well?”

He did not laugh at my question.

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never thirst. The water I give will become a spring inside you, giving eternal life.”

A spring inside me? That was a bold claim. And if it was true, it would change everything.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Then he did something unexpected.

He said, “Go call your husband.”

Now that is the moment when most people begin telling my story as if it were only about my past.

I answered him honestly.

“I have no husband.”

And he looked at me—not the way people in town look when they think they already know who you are.

He looked at me as if he could see the whole of my life at once.

“You are right,” he said. “You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”

He said it plainly. No accusation. Just truth.

This man knew my story.

All of it.

And yet he was still speaking to me.

“Sir, I see that you are a prophet.”

And if he was a prophet, then there was a question I had always wondered about:

“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,” I said, “But you Judeans say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

I still don’t fully understand his answer. But I remember the way he said it—as if the world we thought we understood was already passing away:

“The hour is coming,” he said, “when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth.”

Not here. Not there.

Something larger.

I thought of the promise our people had always carried.

“I know that Messiah is coming,” I told him. “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

And then he said it.

“I am he.”

Right there beside the well….in the middle of my ordinary day.

In that moment the world shifted.

The God our ancestors argued about on mountains and in temples was not far away at all. He was sitting beside me, asking for a drink.

About that time his disciples came back from town. They looked surprised to see him talking to me, though none of them said a word.

But by then I had forgotten why I came.

Somewhere beside the well my jar was still sitting on the ground.

Because suddenly the water I came for no longer seemed like the most important thing in the world.

I ran back to town….to the same people who gossiped about me.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Can he be the Messiah?”

They came.

Many believed because of my testimony.

But later they said something even better.

“It is no longer because of your testimony that we believe,” they told me. “Now we have heard for ourselves.”

And that is how encounter works.

You come to the well carrying whatever jar life has given you—your history, your reputation, the ordinary work of your days, the burdens that seem overwhelming…

And Christ meets you there.

He speaks your truth.

He offers living water.

And before you know it, the jar that once defined your life is sitting forgotten beside the well.

Because the water you were looking for is no longer something you carry in your hands.

It has become a spring within you.

God is alive.

God is among us.

God is here.

God is now.

Come and see.

For God So Loved the World

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:57:30 GMT

Wilderness Moments

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 17:33:31 GMT

Does Jesus Still Speak to Us?

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 20:42:16 GMT

The Feast of the Transfiguration is August 6th of each year. The Transfiguration is also celebrated each year on the Last Sunday After the Epiphany as the culmination of a series of events in which Jesus is manifested as the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Son of God. And that is fitting, for it is indeed an epiphany, a manifestation or showing forth of God in Christ. It is, perhaps, the most vivid such manifestation in the Gospels, at least prior to the Resurrection.

Indeed, it seems to be a prefiguration, or a foretaste, of the resurrection appearances, and even a foretaste of the more direct vision of God that we hope to enjoy for all eternity when, as St. Paul tells us, we shall see him not as through a glass, darkly, but face to face. It must have been quite an experience for Peter, James, and John; one that they would never forget. In fact, Peter refers to it in the passage we read in today's Epistle. Very likely it's a story Peter often told to the early Christians. It was really something to see Jesus talking with those long-dead heroes of the faith, Moses and Elijah. Did you ever stop to wonder how they knew it was Moses and Elijah? How could they have known, except that God must have inspired them with this knowledge.

But then, seeing Moses and Elijah wouldn't have been half as awesome as seeing the transfigured Jesus Christ – someone they knew well, with whom they had traveled and shared meals and conversed day after day. No wonder we are told that Peter didn't know what he was saying! And then a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they heard the voice of God: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

Well! There couldn't have been a clearer manifestation, a clearer statement from God of just who Jesus was. “This is my Son, the Beloved.” Just in case they hadn't understood this before, God makes it perfectly clear. Let's focus now on what God said next: “Listen to him!” Our NRSV translation has an exclamation point after that sentence – as well it should. These three words could form the basis for numerous sermons and countless meditations. Listen to him. We can't go wrong if we just listen to Jesus. We would do well to make these words our focus: “Listen to him!” How do we do that? Does Jesus still speak to us? When and where does Jesus speak to us? There are probably a lot of answers to that question, but here are just a few.

Jesus speaks to us in the words of Holy Scripture, and especially in the words of the four Gospels, which tell us about his life and teachings. Spending a little time each day with our Bibles – reading, praying, and thinking about what Jesus is saying to us in these words – will certainly contribute a great deal toward our ability to “listen to him,” to hear his voice. We are fortunate to belong to a Christian tradition that encourages us to search the Scriptures for meaning and that embraces the possibility that there may be many different meanings for a passage from the Bible. We should take advantage of that freedom and open ourselves to the possibility of transfiguration. Jesus also speaks to us through other people. Our

Christian friends have much to say that can inspire us. That’s why we study in groups and worship in groups and often carry out our ministries in groups. Jesus also calls to us through people who are in need. He said, “Whatever you do for the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do unto me.” He also says whatever we don’t do for them, we don’t do for him. We can help in many ways but God sends people into our lives each day. The child in the detention center, the woman who was abused as a child, the veteran struggling with PTSD, those who rely on 4Saints & Friends Food Pantry, families whose hearts are made glad by Laundry Love, those suffering from leprosy who are cared for and fed because of Hopewallah. The “least of these” might be one who says, “I was down in the dumps and you smiled at me?” I had the privilege of serving as Interim Rector at St. John’s Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. St. John’s Church owns about an acre of land in Grand Teton National Park and on it sits The Chapel of the Transfiguration.

Gay was commissioned to write an icon to be displayed on the wall of the chapel. She had several patterns she was considering. I took the examples with me to the weekday Eucharist on day and asked Lou, one of our regular attendees at that service, which one she liked best. She looked at them and pointed to one with some enthusiasm. “That one!” she said. “What is it about that one?” I asked. She said, “In that one, Jesus and the disciples are not only ascending the mountain, they are also coming down.” I told Gay and that is the pattern she used.

You see, Lou’s husband was a mountain climber. He ascended Mt. Everist with Jim Whitaker. But he didn’t come down. He lost his life there. For Lou, it was very personal and very important to remember that Jesus, Peter, James, and John came down, came back, continued on their journey. Jesus spoke to Gay and me through Lou! And here's one more way that we might hear Jesus speaking to us: in the silence.

Do you remember the story of Elijah waiting for God in the cave? “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.” What kind of a sound does sheer silence make? I think we all remember an earlier translation that said: “a still small voice.”

We know what that sounds like, don't we? And perhaps it is the same thing, because it is all too easy to drown out that still small voice with wind and earthquake and fire and the like. Maybe we need to tune out and turn off before we can begin to listen. Turn off the TV for a while, sign off on the Internet, and, most of all, tune out the internal noise that is the hardest of all to still.

To put it bluntly, we need to shut up once in a while, even in our prayers. The kind of prayer where we talk to God and tell him about our life and how it is going and the things we are worried about and so forth, is good, but there comes a time when we need to stop even doing that, and just listen. Is it possible to sit still and listen for five minutes? Then do that.

Then maybe you can go for10 or 15 or even 20 minutes. If the internal noise starts up again, bring yourself back to the silence with some small word like “Listen” or just “Jesus.” What sound will you hear in the silence? When our ears are opened to listen for the divine voice, what we hear may be an epiphany we ne.

The Holy Spirit is actively at work in the world, our SaviorJesus Christ is with us every moment, until the end of the ages, just as he promised he would be. We must simply take the time to listen, and to look for the one who is the light of the world, the one whose light we shall one day see face to face. As St. Peter tells us in today's reading: “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” Amen

How not to get a letter (from St. Paul): Become what you receive

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 21:30:27 GMT

How not to get a letter (from St. Paul): The measure of faithful witness

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 20:05:12 GMT

How not to get a letter (St. Paul): The Other Shoe Dropped

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 16:26:55 GMT

How not to get a letter from St. Paul: Before the Hard Words

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 15:38:14 GMT

Trusting God with the Next Step

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 01:23:06 GMT

Everything changes

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 13:52:16 GMT

Listening for the Call

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 03:05:21 GMT

Potholes, Gargoyles and Grace

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 13:10:41 GMT

Be Careful What You Wish For

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 22:57:25 GMT

We all look for something to steer for us.

My mom often said, “Be careful what you wish for”. She never explained what it meant…she didn’t have to. Often, when we wish for something, there are unintended consequences.

I’m an early-adapter with all things technology. When self-driving cars became a thing, it was at the top of my wish list. And then one night, my car downloaded a software update that allowed me to try fully self-driving mode for thirty days. Free. They were speaking my language.

Much of the time, that software worked beautifully. But one night I was driving home from the church…through the Fort Worth mix-master. At the best of times, the mix-master is a test of faith. That night, I realized…a little too late…that my car didn’t “see” vehicles merging from my right at highway speeds. A car darted in front of me at 55mph. My car panicked. It slammed on the brakes, forcing everyone behind me to do the same. Tires were squealing and I may have said a few choice words.

Then a calm robotic voice came through my speaker: “What just happened?”

Without thinking, I answered, “We’re all going to need clean clothes!”—a reminder that trusting the wrong kind of power can create more chaos than good.

Three thousand years ago, the Israelites faced a similar challenge. They had judges—and they had Yahweh—but they were not satisfied. The nations around them had kings and queens…and Israel longed for a visible symbol of power: a government that looked strong and invincible to their neighbors.

“Give us a king,” they said, “like other nations.” [1]

Samuel warned them: “…in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” [2]

Be careful what you wish for.

God’s warning is clear: the king you want will take more from you than he gives. And history shows it. Saul and David and their successors ruled.

But, human power systems fail…they always have…we are no strangers to that in our own time. After Solomon, the kingdom split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Leaders often sought their own gain instead of tending to the people, especially the most vulnerable.

By Jeremiah’s time, Judah itself teetered on collapse. Yet God speaks through the prophet, offering hope, promise, and vision of restoration.

“I will gather the remnant of my flock…I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” [3]

Jeremiah is speaking God’s words here—a promise of a king unlike any human ruler. Not a king who exploits or coerces, but a shepherd who tends the scattered, who watches over the vulnerable, and who leads with justice and care.

Luke shows us that shepherd in the most unexpected place: on a cross. Even there, Christ gathers the lost and welcomes the outsider—the very people no one expects to matter.

Colossians describes the cosmic dimension of this shepherd—the One who reigns over all creation and reconciles all things through love.

This shepherd’s kingdom is not defined by force—but by mercy; not by fear—but by reconciliation; not by scarcity—but by eternal gift.

And here is the Advent connection: the King we await is already among us—reigning in ways that the world does not expect—and has never expected. Christ’s reign is not deferred to the end times. It is now.

For those who long for a dramatic return of Jesus…scrutinizing hidden messages and timetables…be careful what you wish for. Christ’s reign is not waiting on a cosmic clock. It is already present, entrusted to us --the mystical Body of Christ-- in this world, in this moment.

And that realization is sobering. Because if Christ reigns through mercy, reconciliation, and self-giving love, then we—his Body—are called to reign in that way too.

In our families, we are called to speak truth in love and care for one another. In our workplaces and communities, we are called to act justly, to lift up the vulnerable, to speak for those without voice, and to forgive the one who has wronged us. In the simple moments of everyday life—offering a kind word, feeding the hungry, welcoming the outsider—we participate in the Shepherd’s reign.

Advent invites us to practice that reign, to trust that heart, to embody God’s kingdom in the everyday moments of our lives.

We all look for something to steer for us. Christ the King reminds us: the safest driver is not me…or a throne…or even a Tesla. The only true driver is God. In Advent, we learn to let go, trust God, and follow, even when the road ahead is uncertain.

Thanks be to God.

[1] 1 Samuel 8:5

[2] 1 Samuel 8:10-18

[3] Jeremiah 23:3-5

The Cross of Love

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 18:00:49 GMT

It has only been a few months since we last heard this particular Gospel reading. While I was driving up and down Highway 35 last week, I thought about how we might approach the text differently…especially on All Saints Sunday. This is the day we remember all the faithful people who have gone before us…ordinary and extraordinary folks who lived lives of love, mercy, courage and hope.

I began with questions: Who is a saint? Who is not a saint? The second question is much easier to answer. We can all think of people throughout history who would definitely not fit any definition of sainthood. But the other question is harder.

It brought to mind a character who wears a red suit, big white beard, moves around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Santa Claus is an icon of generosity. But is that the fullness of a saintly life?

We often admire people for what shines outwardly: strength, beauty, power, fame, athleticism, traveling the globe on Christmas Eve delivering millions of gifts…because that stuff is easy to see and easy to glorify.

But Luke is reminding us that true blessedness looks very different…it is found in the poor, the hungry, those who mourn. Blessed are those who are rejected or marginalized because they embody love…feeding the hungry, forgiving enemies, speaking truth to power.

Paraphrasing Jesus: Blessed are you who are living in such a way that your life looks like mine.

So what are the signs of a Christ-shaped--or saintly--life? To answer that, I drew from Jesus’s sermon on the Plain and a few well-known saints.

1. Humility —Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Richard Foster devoted his life to guiding Christians into deeper spiritual formation. He described humility as the freedom to see ourselves truthfully, to rely fully on God, and to serve others without seeking recognition. [1] Humility reflects the blessedness of those who recognize their dependence on God.

2. Courage —Jesus said, “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer devoted his life to following Christ faithfully in a world that was in moral and political crisis. He said that moral courage is nurtured in the context of faithful Christian community. Courage is faithfully doing what is right, trusting God’s guidance, even when it costs us. [2] His moral courage exemplifies living faithfully in the face of evil.

3. Joy —Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied…Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

Henri Nouwen devoted his life to helping others encounter God’s love through prayer, presence, and compassionate service…especially alongside the most vulnerable among us. He said that joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based in the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. [3]

4. Love and mercy in action — Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Mother Teresa devoted her life to making Christ’s love tangible through service to the poorest, sickest, and most marginalized people in the world. For her, love was not an abstract idea—it was what you do with your hands and heart every day. She incarnated mercy in action, making tangible the call to bless and serve others.

5. Faithfulness in difficulty —Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted his life to pursuing justice and equality through nonviolence and love rooted in faith and moral conviction. He said, “The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy.” [4] His nonviolent witness and moral perseverance reflect Jesus’ promise of blessing for those who are persecuted and remain steadfast in their faith.

There’s something of a paradox here that drew my attention. Each of these Christ-shaped lives emerged in response to real suffering, injustice or need.

If Christianity had not moved through a period of superficial evangelism in the 20 ^th Century, we would not know Richard Foster.

Without Adolf Hitler and the evil that surrounded him, we would not know Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s name. He would be a little-known academician teaching systematic theology.

Without societies that toss aside people with disabilities, Henri Nouwen would have been a Roman Catholic priest none of us knew.

Without human class systems that devalue whole groups of people, Mother Teresa would not be a household name.

Without systemic racism, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been a Baptist preacher in an Atlanta Church. We would not know his name.

Each of these people responded to the wounds and injustices they saw in their own time in their own backyard. They took up the cross of love and carried it just a little farther.

And I wonder if that quality is the benchmark of sainthood?

As I look around this congregation, I see 100 saints: people who walk into classrooms every day, prepared to teach growing minds; people who walk with friends going through difficulties like loss of memory; people who feed the hungry: with meals on wheels, Union Gospel Mission, food pantries in Fort worth, and in leper colonies far away; people who make bed rolls for the homeless; Sunday School teachers who faithfully prepare to help children, youth, and adults grow in faith. People who extend hospitality to us and to St. Matthew’s and to families who gather here to celebrate the lives of their saints.

Friends, we live in a very challenging era of American life. Everywhere we look, we see signs of division, misunderstanding, and an inability to work together for the common good. It is, I think, a reflection of a deep dysfunction in our culture….an incapacity to listen well, to negotiate in good faith, and to compromise for the sake of the whole.

In times like this, the calling of the Church is extraordinary. We are called to embody the values of God’s reign: faithfulness, humility, courage, joy, and love---showing the world what it means to live differently, even when society struggles to do so.

We, too, must take up the cross of love in our own lives, carrying it just a little farther each day. And as we do, we join the great communion of saints who have walked before us, who have borne witness to God’s love in times of trial, and who now cheer us on as we continue the journey.

[1] Richard J Foster; Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Life Together

[3] Henri Nouwen; Spirituality & Practice

[4] Martin Luther King, Jr; Strength to Love 1963

Lord, have mercy

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:11:50 GMT

We Keep Showing Up

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 17:56:01 GMT

All That We Have

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 22:36:05 GMT

Eyes Wide Open

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 22:26:04 GMT

The Wastebasket Gospel

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 21:51:00 GMT

Tapestry of Hope

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 03:19:19 GMT

St. Christopher’s new banner is not simply art — it is a story, stitched in silk. It tells of churches that lost their homes, of people who carried on in borrowed spaces, and of a church that has grown into something new, together.

A symbol of grace and welcome, the banner weaves together congregations once scattered, each with its own story of loss, survival and redemption.

“The meaning of the icons really tells a story of extraordinary hospitality and welcome,” said Jeanneane Keene, chair of the banner committee.

A Church Divided

The story behind the banner begins in 2008, when the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth fractured over disagreements about the ordination of women and same-sex marriage. The breakaway sparked a bitter legal battle that dragged on for more than a decade.

The split left deep wounds. Churches lost their buildings. Parishioners were displaced. Entire communities were forced to reckon with grief, dislocation and spiritual uncertainty.

But over time, many found their way to St. Christopher’s.

“It represents the welcome that St. Christopher provides,” said committee member Marti Fagley. “When we were hurting, when we were homeless,

St. Christopher’s became a safe and welcoming place that helped us rebuild a new community.”

A Vicar’s Vision

The Rev. Paula Jefferson, the church’s vicar, said the idea for a new banner came during a diocesan council worship service. As she watched other congregations process proudly with their colorful banners, she felt a longing.

“I’ll confess — I wanted one of our own,” she said with a smile.

In August 2024, she formed a committee with representatives from each of the congregations that had joined to form St. Christopher’s.

“A banner felt like the perfect way to honor our journey, celebrate who we are today, and look forward to what’s ahead,” she said.

She turned to Keene to lead the project. At 91, Keene is the church’s oldest living original member, having joined just a week after its founding in 1957. She raised her family there, served multiple times as senior warden, and now acts as the church’s historian.

“Jeanneane brought everyone together,” said committee member Di Hall. “She was the moderator — making sure every voice was heard.”

Stitching Memory Into Fabric

The committee provided the vision, but the craft fell to Helen Ferguson, a longtime parishioner at All Saints’ Episcopal Church who had sewn vestments and banners for years.

All Saints, too, had lost its building in the schism. Ferguson had to leave behind many of the banners she had created and even disinter her parents’ ashes from the church columbarium.

“That’s still hard,” she said.

When she first heard about the project, Ferguson thought it would be a simple, elegant piece. Instead, it became one of the most intricate works she had ever attempted.

Each congregation had to be represented. At the center, St. Christopher would carry the Christ child.

“It took a while to find what I thought might be appropriate depictions for each of the congregations,” Ferguson said. She agonized over details, backing each delicate silk piece so it wouldn’t fray, puzzling over how to depict St. Christopher and the Christ child.

“I would dream about it at night,” she admitted.

The final design included:

A cross for St. Simon of Cyrene
A crown for Christ the King
A dove for St. Francis
A rose for St. Elizabeth

The banner, made of Italian silk with embroidered lettering and symbols, consumed more than 100 hours of Ferguson’s labor.

“I think of it as e pluribus unum — out of many, one,” she said.

On the back, stitched in gold, is a quote from former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

Ferguson is also looking forward with hope. All Saints recently purchased a building once occupied by a Methodist congregation. “I want a parish-wide demo day,” she said with a laugh. “After the last five years, I want to break something.”

Stories Behind the Symbols

Etta Atkinson was raised Baptist, but her faith journey shifted when she married her Episcopalian husband in 1981. That marriage brought her to St. Simon of Cyrene, a historically Black Episcopal congregation, where she found a spiritual home. At St. Simon’s, she served faithfully on the altar guild and as a gifted lector – a gift she brought with her to St. Christopher’s.

Another lifelong member of St. Simon’s was Edwardean Harris, who had worshipped there since she was 8 years old. When the diocese split, Harris and others were, as she put it, “clapped out” of the church they had called home for decades.

“It was painful,” she said. “But one door closes and another one opens.”

For a time, Harris and fellow parishioners worshipped independently before eventually being invited to join St. Christopher’s. Years earlier, artist Ferguson had created a banner for St. Simon—an image of the saint carrying the cross on his back. For Harris, it felt deeply fitting that Ferguson would also be the one to design the new banner for St. Christopher’s.

“St. Chris is home to me,” she said.

Diane Batterson was a longtime member of Christ the King, joining in 1976 and serving on the vestry, altar guild, and flower guild. In 2008, she arrived to arrange flowers and found a large “Stop” sign on the door, along with a notice that no one could enter without permission from a priest appointed by then-Bishop Jack Iker. “We were locked out,” she said.

Batterson cried for days but soon threw herself into rebuilding. Her congregation worshipped at a Lutheran church, using a makeshift altar. Later, she and her late husband joined St. Elizabeth, only to lose that building too in 2021 after the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling.

She eventually made her way to St. Christopher’s. “I probably won’t ever leave St. Chris—not unless they make me,” she said.

Marti Fagley and her husband relocated to North Texas in the early 2000s.

“When I found out where we were moving, I thought, ‘God, what have you got in mind for me?’” she said. With the brewing split already on the horizon, “I realized my job was to be the ‘no’ vote.”

They became active at St. Francis of Assisi in Willow Park, where Fagley served on the vestry and led the diocesan Daughters of the King. Even before the split, she sensed what was coming and drove to Wichita Falls with another member to prepare.

When St. Francis joined the breakaway diocese, she and others formed a new Episcopal congregation, worshipping in an elementary school with a portable altar her husband built. They eventually called a priest, but over time decided to disband.

By then, Fagley was leading an Education for Ministry group at St. Christopher’s. “I had a key to the building,” she said. “And I thought—why don’t we just go there?”

In 2021, when St. Christopher’s lost its building in the litigation, she was serving as senior warden and helped secure a temporary worship space at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, where the congregation still gathers.

Di Hall, raised Roman Catholic, came to St. Christopher’s in the late 1990s after someone left a “welcome to the neighborhood” pamphlet on her door. She sent her son to the pre-school and became active in parish life.

Though she left for a time to attend a Bible church, she eventually returned.

“I enjoyed the Bible church, but I missed communion weekly,” she said. “I missed the liturgy and the mass and everything. I missed being Episcopalian.”

For her, the banner represents “a group of people that didn’t really have a home — kind of like me.”

“St. Chris, it’s family,” she said. “It’s my heart.”

Today, the finished banner rests in the same stand once used by St. Simon of Cyrene’s banner — another thread in the tapestry of shared history.

For Jefferson, it stands as both memory and promise.

“It honors our journey,” she said, “but it also celebrates who we are today and who God is calling us to become.”

The rest of the story

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 22:40:15 GMT

Aug. 32, 2025

Planted in Hope

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 18:14:32 GMT

I had a déjà vu moment this week. When I began thinking about the passage in Luke, I had a vision of Canon Joann Saylors, bent over, telling us about the woman in this story. Three years ago, she came to preach at St. Christopher’s on this same Sunday in the lectionary. And because of the way our lectionary repeats on a three-year cycle, it’s déjà vu all over again.

The story hasn’t changed, but our lives—and our context—have changed tremendously. So I wondered: what is this story inviting us to hear differently today?

The setting in the text is important. It happened on the Sabbath, in a synagogue.

In Jesus’ time, the Sabbath was observed religiously (pun intended). The Sabbath was a day to disengage from all work, to remember Yahweh’s intervention in the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt and their deliverance through the desert. It was a day to gather and worship in the synagogue, to hear again the stories of Yahweh’s engagement with his people.

There were rules about the Sabbath and rules about who was allowed inside the synagogue. People who were unclean—like a woman with an eighteen-year infirmity—were not allowed inside. Touching an unclean person was strictly forbidden, because it made the one who touched

unclean as well.

There were many things happening in this story that simply should not have happened.

An unclean woman walked into the synagogue. Jesus laid his hands on her. And it was the Sabbath—Jesus healed on the day of rest.

Until the woman arrived, it was just another Sabbath in just another village synagogue. Jesus was abiding by all the rules about the Sabbath and worship. And then he saw the woman. He could have handed her his business card and said, “Come see me tomorrow…I’m free after lunch.” It seems like the obvious thing to do. It had been 18 years—6,570 days—what’s one more day?

Jesus was not willing to wait one more minute.

Why the sense of urgency?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote a reflection on the Sabbath that, I think, sheds light on why Jesus responded as he did:

“Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else…. The Sabbath as a day of rest, as a day of abstaining from toil, is not for the purpose of recovering one’s lost strength and becoming fit for [more] labor. The Sabbath is a day of rest for the sake of life.”

For eighteen years, the woman was bent over. She went through her days looking at the cracks in sidewalks, unable to greet anyone face-to-face, to exchange a smile, or to lift her eyes to the sky. She was isolated. Untouchable. All the gifts of community that feed our soul were denied to her.

Luke said, “Jesus saw the woman.” He saw much more than an object. He saw suffering: a woman alive physically who was dying spiritually. And to Jesus, that was urgent.

Three years ago, when Canon Saylors preached on this text, St. Christopher’s was beginning a new chapter in its life. It was my third Sunday with St. Chris.

We didn’t have a choir or lovely bulletins.

We didn’t have Christofolx, J2A, Rite 13, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, or Adult Sunday School.
We didn’t know that one day we would support immigrants trying to make a new life in Texas…or that many of us would form bonds with fourth-grade students, mentoring them and helping them make good choices.
We didn’t know how many lives we would touch through pastoral care—inside and outside our congregation.
We didn’t know that we would meet Mary Magdalene or Peter in such meaningful ways.
We didn’t know that we would present twenty-four people to the bishops of our diocese for confirmation, reaffirmation, and reception. Or that we would baptize ten more people.
We didn’t know that we would be able to have a curate and participate in the life of the Church in such a remarkable way.
We didn’t know that we would send children—who weren’t yet even at St. Christopher’s—to Camp Allen for an unforgettable week.
We didn’t know that our congregation would grow in so many profound ways. That we were being equipped to meet the suffering of real people in our world.

This week, I thought about the events in my life that have, figuratively, weighed me down. All of us have those experiences—and St. Christopher’s did too. How we carry the weight of our broken world differs from person to person, and from organization to organization.

St. Christopher’s legacy is to meet the world with both feet planted in hope. We are inspired to look beyond the brokenness of the moment—to see suffering and to respond.

Three years from now, we will be as different from today as we are now from three years ago—because God continues to prepare and equip us, so that we can see the suffering in our community and lay our hands on it.

If our past is any indication of our future, buckle up, buttercup. The best is yet to come.

Holy Wrecking Ball

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 16:12:38 GMT

JESUS WANTS PEACE FOR US, DOESN’T HE?

He wants us to live together, in harmony, right?

Remember that song from the Youngbloods in the ’60s:

Come on, people now, smile on your brother.

Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.

That’s what Jesus wants, right?

If today’s readings are any indication, I’m not so sure. This Gospel lesson in Luke is, as my mother would say, “hot as blue blazes.”

It would seem that Jesus almost relishes giving the people the bad news: not peace, he says, but division. Not harmony. Mother against child. Brother against sister.

How can this be? This isn’t the Jesus we learned about in Sunday school, is it? So I had this question: division between what? What is being divided from what? To my mind, it is our comfortable views of Christ that are being divided from who he really is.

Sometimes I think Jesus ends up being like one of those inkblot tests they give you in therapy. Ultimately, you project onto the random ink what you want to see. For some folks, Jesus is the great King. For others, he’s a wise and sage prophet. For some, he is but one of a number of choices in philosophical teachers.

Mostly, I think, it has become rather common to believe that following Jesus is mostly about being nice—about going along to get along.

People of God, this is a false proposition. To this, Jesus said a firm no.

The kingdom that Jesus proclaimed was the world turned upside down.

Religious authorities: bankrupt. Temples: not necessary. We are told to walk two miles when only one is demanded, to turn the other cheek, to give our cloak. Sinful thoughts can be just as bad as sinful actions.

If you think about a home renovation project for a minute, the message of Jesus is that a new coat of paint or just sanding the floor is not at all what he’s about. He’s looking for something deeper in the human heart. Indeed, Jesus is a veritable wrecking ball, and when he gets into your heart and mind, he is going to do a gut job and start rebuilding a new house.

This level of change and renovation is hard. It’s scary. I’ll never forget the time Stephanie and I decided to add a new bedroom in the attic of our

house in Mont Vernon, NH. Stephanie was pregnant with Drew. We were bursting at the seams with two kids already, and so we decided to do this project. We always went to my parents’ house in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, so we gave the keys to the contractor, piled in the minivan, and took off across the country.

When we returned on Sunday, I walked upstairs and looked out into a black sky full of stars—where my roof once had been. As a young father, I felt in that moment as though I had made the worst mistake of my life. Two kids, a pregnant wife, and a house in New Hampshire with half a roof on December 1st. What was I thinking?

This is the feeling I had when Jesus first got a hold of me. Oh God, what have I done? I can’t do what Jesus is asking me to do.

As it turns out, you’re right. You can’t do what Jesus is asking you to do. But God can. The Holy Spirit, working through us, can, in fact, tear the roof off that convenient and conventional way of thinking about what it is to be a Christian and redirect us in the kingdom way.

In the end, we have two choices. We can allow Jesus to do that work in us and prepare to be at odds with what passes for normal in the world. Or we can hold on to what we know and insist on doing things the way we’ve always done them.

What happens when we hold on to things as we’ve always done them? Ultimately, the way we’ve done it becomes more important than the thing we’re doing. The fruit is not human flourishing, but human process.

What happens when we let Jesus do that work? Ultimately, the widow is cared for and the orphan has a home. The hungry receive food, the homeless are sheltered. God’s name is proclaimed in all places as the source of human dignity. We take care of those who have been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.

If we insist on doing things the way we’ve always done them, then I think it is more likely that we end up like the vineyard in today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah tells the story of grapevines that bear only sour grapes. In Hebrew this story is a poem. The vineyard represents God’s people, and the farmer is God.

God laments that he expected justice … but sees only bloodshed. He looked for righteousness to spring up from the pleasant plantings he had made, but he heard only the cry of the oppressed.

There’s another vineyard story in Isaiah, though, and again, we didn’t read it. In chapter 27, the prophet tells about a day of redemption, a day when the world is remade. In this world, there is a pleasant vineyard, with the Lord as its keeper. He waters it every moment. He guards it night and day, and it clings to him for protection. In that day and the days that follow, Jacob takes root and Israel shall blossom, putting forth shoots and filling the whole world with fruit.

Jesus is calling us, my brothers and sisters, not to the vineyard of how we’ve always done things. Jesus is not satisfied with the sour grapes that that

vineyard produces. Jesus will uproot, he’ll tear the roof right off your house, and remake the landscape of your heart, your home, and your land—if you let him.

It will be messy.

It will scare you to death.

You will look out and think: Oh Lord, what have I done?

Jesus said he was the vine and we are the branches. He knew the prophet’s words. Wonder which vineyard he was talking about. What vineyard do

you want to grow in?

For me, I see Jesus as the one demanding righteousness and the one who sings of justice. My hope is to take root and blossom and fill the earth with good fruit.

The Gift That Endures

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 20:11:59 GMT

Being a priest at St. Christopher’s has brought some amazing people into my life. Over the past three years, Joan and I shared many conversations; it was a privilege to get to know her and make the journey with her.

Last week, Kim and Elaine spent a couple of hours with me. We talked about today’s service and reminisced about Joan and Ed…how they met, how they lived, and how their way of being influenced their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

For folks who know Fort Worth well, the fact that Ed and Joan somehow became a couple is unexpected. Ed attended Paschal High School and Joan attended Arlington Heights High School. In the 1950’s, those schools weren’t exactly chummy. I asked Google to paint the picture for us:

Paschal and Arlington Heights shared a strong and often intense athletic rivalry, particularly in football. The rivalry extended beyond the playing field! The most infamous event between the two schools was the Great Bonfire Incident of 1963. [Just a few years after Ed and Joan graduated].

During a Heights spirit rally at Benbrook Lake, Paschal students staged a chaotic attack, deploying an airplane to drop toilet paper, setting a car on fire, and engaging in ground assaults with weapons. There were 46 arrests…and, miraculously, only one injury.

The Paschal/Arlington Heights rivalry was real. But, one day Ed was rolling with a car-full of boys and saw a car-full of girls. Joan was among the girls…and Ed spotted her. He was smitten….where she attended school was not a problem. On their first date at a club, Ed was trying to introduce Joan and forgot her name. As the family story goes, he never forgot it again…even throughout his dementia.

It is impossible to tell the story of Joan without also telling the story of Joan and Ed. Their lives were deeply connected. They married in 1957…if my math is good, Ed was 20 and Joan was 18 years old. Over the past few years, I visited Joan’s apartment often. There was always a photo of Ed next to her favorite seat; we talked about him, the life they shared, and how much she missed him.

They loved life: church, family, friends…all of it was core to who they were as a couple. They were gifted at the art of relationship.

Joan was always interested in learning. One year, Joan and Ed received a gift—a kit for making beer. They soon realized that finding the supplies to make the next batch of beer was not easy. And so Joan did some research and began buying and selling supplies out of her kitchen. The little business began to grow. Joan needed more space. The business moved to the family’s antique store, and eventually to its own store front.

As the business developed, Joan began purchasing hops and grains directly from vendors and grinding them herself. She expanded the products being sold to include foodstuffs and winemaking kits.

I’m told every grandchild served unpaid internships running the cash register in the store. Joan ran the business for more than 40 years.

She and Ed loved to entertain. She was known for all-day parties. When her grandson introduced beer pong at a family gathering, Joan was first in line to say, “I want to play!” She was the life of the party.

One of the family said, “Joan never met a stranger” and I know first-hand what it felt like to meet Joan and become part her life. She was a patient listener—trained as a Stephen Minister—she remembered the things that mattered to people.

To her children, grandchildren, and great-children, Joan was a cheerleader. If there is one thing you remember from today, I pray that you believe in yourselves the way she believed in you. Joan loved all of you in the way Jesus taught us to love one another…without condition.

That kind of love is uncommon in our world. Far too often, we settle for conditional love. And far too often, we offer conditional love.

Conditional love was at the root of Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. Chapter 13, the beautiful essay on love, is the middle of Paul’s 3-chapter rant. The Corinthians were embroiled in a rivalry over who had the best and most desired spiritual gifts. They’d established a pecking order for spiritual gifts. Speaking in tongues or prophesy were considered marks of status and superiority.

Paul said, “that’s an interesting rivalry you have going on….but, y’all have missed the point”. No matter what gifts you have…without love, they are worthless. And then he wrote this beautiful chapter describing what love looks like:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

That is the kind of love Joan chose to cultivate through her life.

A love that can bear the pain of a child’s death, or the loss of a young child’s hearing, is a deep, battle-scarred love. A love that can hold hope while dementia overtakes the love-of-your-life is a strong and enduring love. A love that celebrates others’ accomplishments without ever tooting its own horn is a humble love.

A love that anticipates resurrection with joy is a faith-filled love.

Paul closed the chapter on love saying that gifts (like speaking in tongues or prophesy or wealth or status or prestige…all that stuff) will fade away in time, but love will remain forever.

When we are touched by love that is patient and kind, we know it. We are changed by it. Joan gave every one of us an incredible gift. But it is not a gift we are meant to keep. It is a gift we are meant to pay forward….so that Joan’s legacy, and our own, continue from age to age.

With thanksgiving for the love and life of Joan,

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 17:58:23 GMT

Who needs your yes right now?

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 19:15:00 GMT

Until I was 40 years old, I had the luxury of being able to call my grandmother. One evening, I was logging some extra hours at the office. The phone rang, and I answered, “Hello, this is Paula.” It was my grandmother. We chatted about this ‘n that… and then she asked, “Why are you working at 8 o’clock in the evening?” “I’m catching up on projects, Grandma.” There was a pause, and then she said, “You can’t take it with you.”

She knew how to “cut to the chase.” Her wisdom is reflected in Luke’s parable this week.

We already know that a parable is a story that reveals a moral or spiritual truth. So, we always enter a parable looking for meaning that is more than skin-deep.

On the surface, this story seems to be all about my grandmother’s warning.

A rich man’s land produces so abundantly, he has no place to store all the excess food. His plan is to tear down his barns—making space for bigger ones capable of storing years’ worth of food. And then, he says, I’ll have so much stuff, I can relax, eat, drink, and be merry for many years. It sounds like a retirement plan.

You can almost hear Frank Sinatra singing in the background, “I did it my way”!

Then Jesus shifted the tone of the parable: God said to the rich man, “You fool! This very night you will die… and all that you have stored… to whom will it belong?” There’s Grandma’s wisdom: you can’t take it with you.

It is a common interpretation of the parable. What else might this parable reveal to us?

I noticed that the rich man used the words “I” and “my” 11 times. It’s all about him. My land. My crops. My barns. My grain. My goods. My retirement. He sees everything through the lens of possession. My sweat. My stuff.

The rich man’s perspective reminded me of our summer book study. Last week, the author introduced the acronym W.E.I.R.D…. it describes societies like our American culture: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. The WEIRD-er a society is, the more it reflects an ethic of autonomy. In WEIRD societies, moral concerns revolve around individuals harming, oppressing, or cheating other individuals.

Through our WEIRD eyes, the rich man is respected for his hard work and financial independence—and he is abhorred because he shows no interest in sharing his wealth to help anyone else. The cultural moral we hear is that we should share what we have because we can’t take it with us.

But Jesus did not tell this parable to a WEIRD community. 1stC Judeans were not Western, educated, industrialized, rich, or democratic. Their social moral code was based on the ethic of divinity—the idea that people are, first and foremost, vessels within which a divine soul exists. Our modern moral concerns are based in individualism, but their moral concerns were rooted in the ethic that all of us are children of God and should behave accordingly.

To the audience who first heard this parable, the rich man’s failure is not his wealthiness.

The problem is that he does not see himself as a participant in God’s gift economy. He doesn’t acknowledge that the land he is working ultimately belongs to God. The seed, the rain, the labor, the health he enjoys that allows him to work… all of it is a gift. It is God who invited us to participate with God in the stewardship of creation. (Not the other way ‘round.)

The rich man is a good manager of the land and all that it yields. But his “Why”… his reason… is rooted in greed. He does not pay forward the divine gifts he received.

I had the most extraordinary experience last Friday. It was the third anniversary of my start date with St. Christopher’s. All day long, videos and messages were posted to our FB page. There were messages from bishops, the dean of my seminary, many of you, friends, people who’ve participated in our Zoom classes… it was truly amazing to hear from so many people.

It meant a lot to me. And of course, I was writing this sermon as all of it was happening. I began to think about the experience through the lens of the parable.

God’s presence is palpable in this congregation. That is not because of Paula Jefferson or any other individual. It is because of who we are—and how this body of Christ inclines its ear to hear God’s voice—and how we say “Yes!” to God’s vision.
We are rich… in all that the world around us craves… we are rich. We feel joy in this community. We know peace here. We work hard to be a community who welcomes God’s people in God’s way.

The moral of the parable is that we cannot hoard all of this goodness for ourselves. We must share all of that joy and peace with the world.

Next Sunday, we will worship at 9:30 and then make our way to Rex’s on S. University. There we will celebrate the beginning of a new school year and enjoy the company of this community. The cost of the meal has been covered by the Bingo De Mayo fundraiser.

Just as the rich man was called to share his abundance, we are called to share the joy, peace, and love we experience through St. Christopher’s. Who in your life might need that gift right now?

The Imperfect Now

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 16:06:13 GMT

The Gospel reading reminded me of a Saturday afternoon many years ago. David and I were in a hurry—church started at 5 p.m., and I was scheduled to serve as an acolyte. We had a busy evening planned. After church, we always went to the local BBQ place with our church friends.

But that weekend was especially challenging. David’s grandmother was in the hospital, and we were walking and feeding her dog every evening. Nana had raised her dog to eat only chicken and rice, which she cooked fresh each night. I knew there would be a quiz at the hospital, so I had prepared the same meal—leaving my kitchen a mess.

We were heading to the garage with the dog’s supper when the doorbell rang. I ran back to answer it, and there stood David’s very good friends, Charlie and Judy—luggage in hand.

I was shocked to see them because they lived in Kingman, Arizona. Charlie had recently retired, and they had purchased a Greyhound “See America Pass,” which allowed them to trek across the United States, getting on and off the bus wherever they wanted to spend time. When the bus got to Fort Worth that Saturday, they hired a taxi and came straight to our home.

We had no idea they were traveling—let alone coming to visit.

Luke tells us a story—or perhaps a parable—about Martha and Mary. The story doesn’t appear in any other Gospel. There’s something in it that uniquely reflects Luke’s message to us.

Jesus and the disciples are “on their way”—we’re told nothing about where they’re going, or even if there is a destination. Along the way, they enter a village, where a woman named Martha welcomes Jesus into her home.

And that’s the first of several revelations in the story: Martha owned a home. Today, it’s not unusual for women to own homes. But in her culture

and time, women had very limited property rights.

The story gives no indication that Martha is married or under the provisional care of a kinsman—again, quite unusual in her context. Luke is going out of his way to tell us that Martha is a woman of independent means.

When Jesus knocked on her door, Martha wasn’t expecting company. Still, she welcomed him in. I love her willingness to embrace the unexpected.

She rolled out the welcome mat for Jesus. While Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his teaching, Martha got busy with hospitality.

Every time I’ve crossed the threshold of a home in Israel or Palestine, I’ve been offered fresh bread and olive oil. Breaking bread is still a cultural expression of welcome. Martha was busy getting all of it together to properly host a houseguest.

It’s hard to take issue with Martha’s work. Her hospitality was intended for Jesus’ benefit. But the sight of Mary, sitting on the floor, chatting with

Jesus while she was working like crazy, did not sit well. So she asked Jesus to intervene—to tell Mary to get off the floor and do her part.

Jesus said, “Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.”

Jesus didn’t criticize Martha’s hospitality. He gently reminded her—and us—that Mary prioritized sitting in the presence of God over the busyness of the moment. And that was the better part.

We welcomed Charlie and Judy into our home, put their luggage in the guest room, and then we took off. They went to church with us, joined the church crew at the BBQ place, walked the dog with us, and visited Nana with us.

When we finally had a moment alone, I asked David if there was something he’d forgotten to tell me! But he had no idea they were coming—he was as shocked as I was.

The next morning, we all watched a Formula 1 race with cinnamon rolls and coffee. We always hosted family dinners on Sunday afternoons, so Judy and I got groceries and started cooking while David and Charlie picked up David’s mom and uncle.

While we were at work during the week, Charlie and Judy borrowed a car and toured D/FW.

A week later, the Greyhound adventure resumed.

A lot of household chores didn’t get done while they were with us. The laundry piled up. The ironing and gardening went untouched. And on and on.

I’d like to tell you I was the calm, well-prioritized Mary through all of this, but like most of us, I also have a lot of Martha in me. The mounting chores got under my skin. There were times when I reminded David that it was his turn to do the dishes or walk the dog.

Seven months later, we received a Christmas card from Charlie and Judy. Their annual form letter was inside. We knew Charlie had retired the previous May—but they hadn’t told us he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Their epic trip was an intentional way to visit all the places and people that had been important in their lives.

The story of Martha and Mary reminds us that life often pulls us in many directions. Like Martha, we feel the weight of responsibilities, the pressure to serve, and the noise of daily life. Jesus calls us to pause—to set aside our busyness and choose the “better part”: to be fully present in the moment with him.

Mary’s choice to sit at Jesus’ feet wasn’t about laziness. She recognized the importance of being in the presence of God. In the same way, Charlie and Judy’s visit reminds us that life’s interruptions may be hidden opportunities to focus on what truly matters: relationships, connection, and unexpected moments of grace.

St. Christopher’s Facebook reflection yesterday summed up this parable beautifully:

It’s easy to live in the “when.”
When things calm down.
When you feel more ready.
When it all makes sense.
When you’re not so busy.

But grace doesn’t wait for perfect timing.
It’s already here—
In this moment,
This breath,
This imperfect now.

You don’t have to chase it.
Just open your eyes.

Maybe this is your week to begin your days with stillness—to know that God is.

The Parable Happened Here

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:58:39 GMT

Jesus was an amazing storyteller. Sometimes he used parables. All parables are stories… but not all stories are parables. A parable always illustrates a moral or spiritual lesson.

Today, Luke told us up front that the story of the Good Samaritan is a parable. There’s more to this story than doing—or not doing—a good deed. This is a moral lesson about what it means to love our neighbor.

The story begins with a lawyer who wants to test Jesus. “Who is my neighbor?”

This lawyer makes me think of all the times I pressed my parents’ buttons with questions… like… why are you giving me cow milk? Cow milk is for cows. Why would you give milk from another species to your child? (It’s a miracle that I’m alive.)

Testing authority seems to be a human trait… one that Jesus experienced many times.

He began the parable: A man was on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

In biblical times, the road between these two cities was a winding, dangerous path through the Wadi Qelt… a desert. In 2017, I spent a morning in the Wadi Qelt watching the sun rise. To this day, there are caravans of gypsies who live in the nooks and crannies of the desert. When you enter the desert, there are warning signs that read: Go back! You are entering an unsafe place.

Two thousand years ago, everyone knew that the area was dangerous. Jesus intentionally chose a danger zone as the backdrop for the parable. It was not unusual for someone to be robbed, beaten up, and left to die on this road.

Three characters enter the parable, one at a time.

The first character is a priest. Priests were responsible for temple rituals and sacrifices.

The second person is a Levite… Levites also worked at the temple, but not as priests. As with our parable: all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.

The first two characters pass by the wounded man. Their neglect of a human in need emphasizes the hypocrisy of religious leaders who prioritized ritualistic purity over genuine acts of mercy and love.

The third character is a Samaritan. He comes from Samaria, a small region between Nazareth and Jerusalem. Jesus would have traveled through Samaria many times. But the dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho is not in Samaria. It is in Judea. The Samaritan is a foreigner traveling on a dangerous road.

He sees the wounded man in the ditch. Without any thought of his own safety, he walks toward the man. He tends the wounds, takes the man to an inn where he can recover, and pays for all of it from his own purse.

Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of these three characters was a neighbor to the wounded man?” And the lawyer answered, “The one who showed him mercy.”

This week, I’ve been wondering how the mercy and generosity of the Samaritan changed the wounded man’s life.

We all know people who’ve gone to the hospital for emergency care… and then, six or eight weeks later, got an unbelievable bill.

The Samaritan anticipated the financial help this man would need. He prepaid the medical bills… and committed to pay whatever additional costs were incurred. There were no boundaries placed on his generosity.

When they first arrived at the inn, the Samaritan personally tended to the man’s care. After the trauma of being beaten, the consistent kindness of a familiar person would be very comforting. The Samaritan anticipated the impact of that trauma… he changed his own schedule so that he could be the one to care for the man’s wounds.

It’s as if the Samaritan empathetically put himself in the wounded man’s shoes and wondered, “What does he need to be restored to wholeness? To flourish as if this event never happened?”

Loving our neighbor comes with a standard of care that not only meets the immediate needs of our neighbor but also anticipates a path to restoration and wholeness.

To reach that level of care, you must know your neighbor.

Some of us are reading Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. His work challenges us to see morality not as a single, universal code, but as a tapestry woven from different cultures and values.

The Samaritan didn’t ask the wounded man to fit into his worldview before helping him. He simply loved him as he was.

To love our neighbor in the 21st century, we must do the same—recognizing and respecting the moral frameworks that shape others’ lives, even when they differ from our own.

Here’s a 21st-century version of today’s parable.

A lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” And Jesus tells this parable:

A church was involved in litigation and lost. Its building and most other property were taken in satisfaction of the court proceeding.

Church leaders began calling nearby churches… seeking shelter… a place to gather and worship together.

Most of their calls were not returned. Some churches didn’t have enough space or time to be helpful.

The Good Samaritan church was a different denomination, but it was filled with mercy. The Samaritan learned that the church lost its property because it was unwilling to live only the easy parts of the Baptismal Covenant. Respecting the dignity of every human being is not easy.

The Samaritans welcomed the stranger into their home. They made space in the sacristy for another altar guild, space in the kitchen for another hospitality committee, space for staff, storage, and Sunday school classes. They shared everything they had.

The Samaritan anticipated the financial hardship of the stranger, and so they did not charge rent… just a fee to cover incremental costs.

This parable should sound familiar.

The parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us that loving our neighbor is not just about responding to immediate needs—it’s about walking alongside, anticipating struggles, helping others flourish.

We’ve experienced this kind of love first-hand. We were met with mercy and generosity by neighbors who saw us as we were and chose to love us.

So now, the questions for us are: How will we be Good Samaritans in the lives of others? And who are the neighbors we are called to love—not as we wish them to be, but as they truly are?

May God give us the wisdom and courage to be that Good Samaritan.

The Lens of Love

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 18:41:34 GMT

Last week, Kelly and I visited. I wanted to know Doris better—not just her biography, but who she was and how she showed up in our world.

At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Kelly, “What are the first three adjectives that come to your mind when thinking about your mom?”
Loving, loyal, and non-judgmental.

Those aren’t just words. They are the values Doris lived.

But as a young child, she had a mischievous streak. Much to her sister’s embarrassment, Doris didn’t care about how her hair looked—she would not comb it. Sometimes, when her sister was entertaining friends, young Doris would pop out of a closet, hair a mess and an impish “I’m up to something” smile on her face.

Doris was born in 1931—a pivotal time in world history. The 1930s and early 1940s were hard years for American families. The Great Depression and World War II changed America—and Americans. Doris grew up with a hard-working mom who labored long hours to keep the family afloat. But she couldn’t take her children to her workplace.

So, when Doris was five years old, she and her sister were enrolled in a Catholic boarding school. That would be her life until she was eleven. It was the beginning of Doris’ education and an opportunity to learn about God, liturgical worship, and daily prayer. The rhythm of a God-centered life began in that place.

When it was time to choose a career, Doris knew she wanted to be a nurse. But nursing school was expensive. She was working at the corner grocery store in her neighborhood and was known to many of the shoppers. An anonymous group of women pooled their resources and paid for Doris’ nursing school education. Her employer created time in her workday—on the clock—so she could study and not fall behind in her homework.

When she began nursing school, Doris had her own room for the first time in her life.

The women who chose to underwrite her schooling empowered Doris to flourish. They recognized something special about her. And they were right. Thirty years later, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences and then a master’s degree in Public Health Administration. Her career was extraordinary.

As a mom, Doris was fully engaged. I loved Kelly’s stories about Doris joining her in reading Harlequin romance novels and taking piano lessons together. They loved sharing the theater and museums and simply being with one another. Doris was always curious about Kelly’s thoughts and opinions. They shared a lovely balance of being mother and daughter—and friends.

When she moved to Texas, Doris developed special relationships with each of her three grandchildren. She loved who you are and who you are becoming.

She was curious and empathetic—and when you pair those attributes with the gift of being non-judgmental, the soil is ready for beautiful relationships to grow.

Doris embodied peace. Even in her final days, her peacefulness was palpable.

In the reading from Romans, Paul reminds us that we all have two ways of seeing the world—through a worldly lens and a spiritual lens.

Doris’ worldly focus was evident in her dedication to her career in nursing, her commitment to her family, and her involvement in her community.

She used her worldly lens to see the needs around her—and she responded to them. She cared for patients, was present for Kelly and Patrick, served as the chauffeur and Snack Lady for her grandchildren and their friends, and served in organizations like the NAACP and church guilds. Doris showed up.

The spiritual lens gives us clarity, purpose, and hope. It helps us see beyond the surface of daily struggles and joys, focusing instead on eternal truths. This is the lens that helps us find meaningful peace—the capacity to be non-judgmental, loving, and loyal—even when life is hard.

Throughout her life, Doris held both a worldly and a spiritual perspective. She lived out her faith in tangible ways while balancing her responsibilities with deep faith.

As I thought about this homily, I found myself asking the same question Thomas asked in the Gospel reading: How can we know the way?

When someone who has been a constant presence in our life is suddenly gone, how can we know the way forward?

In some ways, all of our lives parallel the story in John’s Gospel. Jesus knows that he will die. He has shared that news with the people he loves. And they are freaking out. He has been the cornerstone of their lives—they’ve been together every day. He brought them into ministry, taught them, and empowered them to go into the world. Because, like a parent, he knew from the beginning that he would leave them one day.

The disciples could not understand—or maybe they didn’t want to understand. And now the time is here. Jesus will not change the outcome of his physical life.

Instead, he will do the loving thing—he will reconnect them to the very reason he is among them: physical death is not the end of his story. It is the beginning of a new chapter—for him, for Doris, and for us.

Doris is a tough act to follow. But for those of us who have been blessed by her presence in our lives, her legacy is ours to carry into this world. Her love, her grace, her peace—all of it resides in you.

No Buts About It

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 16:08:57 GMT

Today’s Gospel is a particularly difficult passage. There isn’t very much wiggle room in the last verse, when Jesus reminds us that “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I wonder if you see yourself in any of the characters in this passage. Are we like the Samaritans, who would not receive him because he was intent on going to Jerusalem?

This is an interesting piece of the puzzle in this story. At this point, Jesus is heading to Jerusalem to be taken up into heaven. This is post-resurrection, right?

And yet the Samaritans… who presumably know that Jesus has been raised from the dead, nevertheless say you’re not welcome here. Why?

The Samaritans believed that proper worship of God happened on Mount Gerazim, which is in the present-day West Bank near Nablus. More importantly, they believed that proper worship of God did not and could not take place at the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

In short, the Samaritans would make the Savior of the world not welcome because, they believed, he worshipped wrong.

Seems to us a little silly, right… unless we get to thinking about the things we put up as differences between us. You know, I can’t worship with those Methodists, they sing too much. Or, you know those Baptists, they don’t believe Jesus is really there at Communion. No, no, no. We can’t have that.

When you think of it like that, it kinda sounds like we’re still fussing about mountains and temples.

In the end, when we see something we’re not sure, we cry out… but wait, but first, or, sometimes, just but.

As Jesus travels along, many profess their willingness to follow him. I’ll follow you, Lord, anywhere. Jesus seems to know that not all of this is sincere. The foxes have holes and the birds have a nest, but I’ve nowhere because people are always saying “but first.”

If it wasn’t explicit in the first example, Jesus says to another, “Follow me,” and the fella says: I will, Lord, but first let me bury my father.

At first glance, this seems reasonable, right? I mean, the poor guy ought to be able to bury his father before picking up and following Jesus.

Instead, Jesus responds in what seems like a kinda cold-hearted way.

Let the dead bury their own dead. You have to proclaim the kingdom of God.

Harsh.

Another one says: I’ll follow you, but first let me say goodbye to those at home.

Jesus again gives a stone-cold answer: that no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

I’ve been thinking all week about how I am going to reconcile this passage for myself so I can preach it to you.

And here’s the thing.

I don’t think I can.

Jesus is being just as stone cold, hard-hearted as you think he is in this passage.

The question to my mind is why.

I’d like to propose at least one simple answer: God isn’t looking for second-string players. He’s not looking for part-time workers. There are no mothers-and-fathers hours in the work being done to proclaim God’s kingdom.

To be sure, you can have children. You can have fathers and mothers and guests in your house.

But if you let things of this world get in the way of your charge to proclaim God’s kingdom, you’re not fit for the work.

Period.

Now Paul, I can hear some of you saying, that’s kinda hard. I mean, we all have houses, and children, and work, and things we have to take care of. You can’t expect us to drop all that all the time for church.

Ooohhhhh. That’s a tough call. Maybe I can’t, but I think Jesus is.

Well, I think he is after a fashion.

Of course, it’s okay to see to your parent’s funeral or the guests in your home.

What’s not okay is to let things of this world get in your way—to cloud your sight about what your purpose in this world is: to proclaim God’s kingdom.

The writers of the lectionary are really helping us to hear this today.

In the passage from Second Kings, Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit right before Elijah gets taken up.

By the way, did you notice that? Here we have a great prophet of God being taken up in a whirlwind of fire and chariots.

And in the Gospel lesson, we have Jesus headed to Jerusalem to get taken up.

Both men are at the end of their ministries on earth. And both say the same thing. Elijah responds to Elisha: You can have a double portion, but only if you keep your eyes on the prize. If you look away, it won’t come to you.

If you say, “But first,” you won’t get to go headfirst toward God. Elisha kept his eyes on the prize, and we are told he picks up Elijah’s mantle and separates the River Jordan so he crosses on dry land.

The psalmist echoes this when he says, “I will meditate on all your acts and ponder your great deeds. You are the God who works wonders.”

And the Galatians are told to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. If you live by the flesh, Paul writes, you will get yourself into trouble. And then he lists his famous no-nos of fleshly living: strife, jealousy, idolatry.

Spirit-living, on the other hand, produces peace and love and joy. If you focus on one, you get into trouble. If you focus on the other, you have joy.

The Gospel—and indeed all the readings today—crystallize an important point for us: no buts. “But first.” “Yes, but.” All these buts put you on the wrong end of the stick.

If, on the other hand, you lead with your heart and not your butt, then you’ll head in the right direction. You’ll get a double portion of Spirit. You’ll realize the fruit of Spirit-living. You will naturally proclaim the kingdom of God in the Good News of Jesus Christ.

God himself will take care of burying the dead, and God himself will ensure the hospitality of your house.

Amen.

Jesus and the Man Everybody Loved to Hate

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 01:48:49 GMT

Once upon a time there was an agricultural community called The Land of the Gerasenes. This country was on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and was Gentile territory so the people there had no problem with raising pigs and eating pork. There was a Gerasene man who was different from other people. As people reacted to him his differences grew worse and worse until, finally, he was ostracized from the community. They bound his hands and feet so he had limited movement. He could not live among the others so he lived in the cemetery. To the people of the community, this man, whose name was Legion, represented everything that could go wrong in everybody's life, all rolled into one person. He was their worst nightmare. He was the manifestation of all their secret shame.

He was the man everybody loved to hate. Now, the man's existence served a very important function in that community. For example, whenever somebody felt like they were going crazy, they could always compare themselves to Legion and say, “It could be worse. I could be like old Legion out there.”

Having Legion as a bad example was useful in rearing their children. They would say, “If you don't stop that, you could grow up to be like Legion.” Anytime anything went wrong, they could always blame it on Legion. Legion played a vital role in maintaining a kind of equilibrium in the community. They projected their own problems onto him so they didn't have to deal with them. Marginalizing Legion made them all feel better about themselves. They improved their own self esteem by stealing it from him.

Then, one day, something happened that completely upset this delicate balance. Jesus sailed across the Sea of Galilee, a trip of only about 5-6 miles. When his boat landed on the beach near Gerasa, this wild man broke his bonds and went rushing at Jesus. Perhaps it was the lack of an expression of fear or maybe it was a look of compassion, but Jesus stopped Legion in his tracks. According to the text, the many demons living in Legion cried out through him, “Jesus, Son of God, what do you want with us?” Jesus knew that when you can name something, you gain a kind of power over it. So, he asked, “What is your name?” The man said, “Legion.” Then the demonic voice cried out for mercy. Jesus commanded the demons to leave the man. When they did, they invaded a nearby herd of pigs. The pigs rushed headlong to the water and drowned.

The pig herders were so shocked by all this that they ran to tell all their neighbors, and the entire community ran out to see what had happened. When they arrived, imagine their surprise at seeing Legion, washed and dressed in clean clothes sitting with Jesus. Now, some have argued that they were upset about the economic calamity that had befallen them when their pigs drowned and that was the reason they asked Jesus to go away. But the gospel says they were seized by great fear. I suspect their fear was grounded in the fact that the exorcism of this man had completely upset the equilibrium of the community. They wouldn't have Legion to kick around anymore. Their own secret demons would now be exposed. The man wanted to go with Jesus. But Jesus did an interesting thing. He made the man a missionary to his own people. Why? I believe it was because Jesus was concerned that the healing work he had started among these gentiles be carried to completion. The healing of Legion was only the beginning. If the mighty power of God could heal the sickest of the sick, the craziest of the crazy, he could heal everybody in the community. Here was an opportunity for a new, healthy equilibrium to be established.

An equilibrium based not on harboring the demonic influences in the community and projecting everyone's self-loathing onto a single outcast individual or getting self-esteem by stealing it from another. But an equilibrium based on the saving, positive effects of the power of God at work in human lives and in the life of a community of people. That was Jesus' way: he always went to the victims of society's ills. He cared for the least, the last, the lost, the most vulnerable, the outcast, the marginalized people. Their amazing testimonies to the power of God, which brought life out of death, joy out of sadness, health out of sickness, changed entire towns. And that is Jesus' way today. Today as then grace is never so amazing as when the recipient is totally surprised to receive it. When we are feeling self-righteous and smug in our relationship with God, we usually are in serious danger and we usually have someone we can point to who is, in effect, our community Legion. Maybe our Legion is that homeless person we saw living in squalor in the doorway of an abandoned downtown building yesterday. Maybe our Legion is residents of the county jail. Could our Legion be somebody closer to home? Somebody who may have made a mistake or violated some community standard and we won't let them forget about it. Somebody who is of another racial or ethnic group we can look down upon. Somebody of a different sexual orientation who makes us feel more secure in our own sexuality when we condemn them. Somebody who is an immigrant. Somebody who isn't washed and scrubbed.

Consider the opening acclamation for the baptismal liturgy: “There is one Body and one Spirit; There is one hope in God’s call to us; One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; One God and Father of all.” Scholars believe these words from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians are from a very early baptismal creed. Stephen Patterson writes, “The creed was originally about the fact that race, class, and gender are typically used to divide the human race into us and them to the advantage of us. It aimed to declare that there is no us, no them. We are all children of God. It was about solidarity, not cultural obliteration.” Later in the liturgy are these questions: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” And, what is our answer? “I will, with God’s help.”

Healing is not only for the marginalized, but for us as well. We need God’s help to heal us from our hatred, our discrimination, our revulsion, our prejudice, our racism, our sexism, our xenophobia, so that we can reach out and be the healing hearts and hands of Jesus Christ as extensions of his incarnate love, participants in the ongoing redemption of creation itself. Jesus’ way with our marginalized people is to accept them and heal them in ways we can't imagine and send them back into our midst to tell us that if God could do it for them, he can do it for us. This is frightening at first because it threatens the sense of equilibrium we have constructed for ourselves. It is frightening because if Jesus Christ ever got hold of our lives we'd have to change. We'd have to come face to face with our personal demons, and actually name them: fear, greed, prejudice, lust, hatred, ego, antagonism. We can't imagine life without our pet demons.

But Jesus says such a life is not only possible, it is better. He's in our midst today, the Healer. He's reaching out to the one among us who feels there is no way on earth to ever live in a right relationship with him, with other people, or with himself or herself. He speaks to those demons, calls them by name, takes power over them and says, “Come out of her, come out of him.” And, then, he sends the one he has embraced and healed to tell the rest of us how much God has done. Does it frighten you? Do you want to send him away? Go ahead and try but let me warn you; Jesus Christ won't give up on you that easily. He continues to set a feast for us. We can try to tell him not to. We can turn away from his offer. We can run, but we can't hide. He pursues us and sends people he's healed to pursue us so that we too might live the abundant life. Is it scary to you to be loved by such a love?

Turning to Grace

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 04 May 2025 16:38:31 GMT

The story of Saul’s conversion is extraordinary.

Saul was Jewish—a Pharisee, in fact—a Roman citizen, well-educated, and well-traveled. And… he was a vigilante. Saul took it upon himself to protect his religion from the heretics who were spreading stories about Jesus’ resurrection.

Some even proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah or the Son of God. The followers of the Way were the enemy he sought to destroy.

And he was good at it. There was blood on his hands.

In today’s reading, Saul is heading to Damascus to capture more followers. As he neared the city, a light suddenly blazed around him—he was blinded and fell to the ground. Then he heard a voice speaking:

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Let’s hit “pause” on the story for a moment. Imagine that you’ve committed your life to rooting out the “bad guys.” And in one flash of revelation, you learn:

a. Jesus is resurrected.

b. The people you’ve been chasing—those “bad guys”—belong to Jesus in a way you don’t yet understand.

c. Jesus is obviously aware of everything you’ve done.

Jesus isn’t finished speaking:

“Stand up, go into Damascus, and there you will be told what you must do.”

Saul goes into Damascus. He is still blind. And he stops eating and drinking. He has no timeline. He does not know what will happen next—or when or how. I have a lot of empathy for him during these days. His way of life, his belief system, his physical abilities… all of it has been laid bare. Three days is a long time to sit in darkness.

While Saul was waiting, God called Ananias to heal Saul’s eyesight. Ananias knew the name “Saul,” and he was not excited about meeting him. But God said, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

God chose the vigilante to be his Spirit-filled instrument of love.

Ananias healed Saul’s eyesight. Saul got to his feet and was baptized. And then he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, declaring that he is the Son of God.

What an amazing turnaround.

On the road to Damascus, Saul had an encounter with divine truth. Encounters with Truth change us.

Those moments are not only recorded in Scripture. They happen in our lives, too.

Before I attended seminary, I lived in a 3,500 sq. ft. home with a three-car garage filled with an SUV, an electric car, and a hot yellow sports car. And I lived alone.

During seminary, I lived in a 420 sq. ft. one-room apartment. There were cinderblock walls painted beige, a camp-sized stove, three kitchen cupboards, no dishwasher, one bathroom, four dresser drawers, and one closet. And I shared that space with a roommate.

At the end of our second year, I locked the door to the apartment… and then stopped. I unlocked the door and just stared. Everything we had needed to live well during the past two years was contained in that space.

It was an encounter with truth for me. That moment has shaped every decision I have made since.

We all have those moments—when something stops us in our tracks. We become profoundly aware that what we are chasing is smoke and mirrors. It is not of God.

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott wrote, “I do not understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

It was Grace that met Saul after his encounter with God. Grace lifted him to his feet and walked with him into new life.

Grace met me when I realized that I had been chasing material things. Grace walked with me as I reshaped my life.

Four years ago, St. Christopher’s had to leave behind a church building that had been home to this congregation for more than 60 years. Somewhere along this journey, we had an encounter with truth: the church is not a place we go on Sunday. We are the church. That profound truth has reshaped our imagination for our next home.

Grace met us right here—through the people of St. Matthew’s and St. Christopher’s. Grace lifted us to our feet and walked with us through grief and into this joyful time of growth and reinvigoration.

God has called St. Christopher’s to be a Spirit-filled instrument of love—to cast God’s vision of heaven on earth in our community, to love our neighbors.

To borrow a phrase from Karen Carpenter: “We’ve only just begun.”

What's doubt got to do with it?

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:06:43 GMT

I wonder sometimes if a person’s one big mistake often haunts them, while all the good they do gets forgotten.
A "Doubting Thomas" has become synonymous in our culture with one who does not believe easily, who requires proof, and we are reminded, aren’t we, that Thomas is the counterpoint to the kind of faith we’re supposed to have: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We may have read this story too simply for too long, and I want to say a few words in defense of Thomas.
Does anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that the Apostle Thomas is from the great state of Missouri? Missouri’s nickname is the “Show Me” state, and the people have a reputation for honesty and integrity, but they’re not pushovers. If you want to convince them of something, you have to “show me.”

First, Thomas is the kind of guy you want in your group. He’s a bit sarcastic, but in the end, he’s got your back.
When Lazarus died and Jesus tarried across the Jordan, the disciples were astonished that Jesus would go back to Bethany. They are planning to stone you over there, they said, why should we go back?

When it became apparent that Jesus intended to go back despite this risk, it was Thomas who said: Well, if they’re going to stone him, we might as well go and die with him.

Sarcastic, yes? A bit of an Eeyore, maybe. But loyal, to be sure.
Here’s a man who knows the odds and is willing to stand behind Jesus even to the end.

Thomas was, it seems, a practical man. He demanded plain speech and wasn’t afraid to ask the Son of God to be direct.
Jesus, in John 14, is trying to assure the disciples of eternal life, and says, “I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you.”

Thomas was having none of it. What nonsense is this? he seems to say. Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?

Thomas is a realist — the kind of man who requires evidence before making a decision.

All things being equal, I think most of us would prefer to have that kind of man on the team. There are plenty who go off without a plan, but Thomas wasn’t one of them.

When we say Thomas doubted, we have to be clear about what kind of doubter he was: Thomas was an honest doubter. He wasn’t disposed to unbelief — he just needed proof. Some folks are dishonest doubters — they don’t believe, and there isn’t much you can say to convince them.

We all doubt. And there are points in our faith life that are demanding of us: the virgin birth, any one of the miracles.
You may be forgiven if you doubt the resurrection. As far as we know, it has only happened once in all of recorded history. A probing mind would, indeed, look askance at someone who claims to have seen the risen Lord.

Christ, in fact, does not blame Thomas for wanting to be sure.
Jesus knew that once Thomas fought his way through the wilderness of his doubts, he would be the surest disciple — just as he had been on the road to Bethany.

Jesus appears again and gives Thomas what he needs: Look at my wounds, Jesus says.
And at that moment, Thomas’ doubts disappear: “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas is not one to be condemned. He is, in fact, an example of faith.
Too often in this world, it is seen as a weakness to reconsider, to examine further, and then, based on the evidence, to change one’s mind.

Not so with Thomas.
He is willing to see.
He is willing to reconsider.
And he is willing to believe.

This kind of tested faith is a stronger faith.
When we test our beliefs and really think about what we believe is true, we become more empowered to do what God wants us to do, to advance the Kingdom, to work at what God has called us to do.

Church tradition teaches that Thomas, a simple Judean, traveled to India and formed a mission to that beautiful country.
To this day, the Thomist Christians are known in the area of Kerala.
A beautiful novel called The Covenant of Water details their community in the 20th century.

Thomas was martyred in Chennai in about AD 72, but some traditions have him traveling to China and as far south as Indonesia.
Here’s the thing about a call: A nice Jewish boy from Galilee isn’t going to travel beyond the known world and take a spear for an idea.
No one is willing to die for anything less than the truth.

Whatever Thomas’ doubts, he was willing to see the truth when it came to him, and that truth fundamentally changed his life.

I struggle with my own doubts, and I am sure you do too.
Thomas is an example to us because he teaches us to be open to the truth — and to act accordingly.
We wait on God to reveal Himself, and when He does, we emerge victorious.

Doubts? Yes.
But keep doing your best, right where you are.
Keep the faith.
Trust that God will reveal Himself — that He will show you the nail prints in His hands — so that you too can say:

“My Lord and my God.”

The Empty Tomb Ride

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 20:49:04 GMT

During my teenage years, I was at Disney World with a group of friends. Disney had opened a new ride called Space Mountain. All my friends wanted to ride it. We didn’t know it was a roller coaster.

I’m one of those people who experiences motion sickness in the bathtub, so roller coasters are not something I seek out. Space Mountain has the added drama of being indoors…without light. It was pitch black.

Unable to see the track, we couldn’t anticipate when the roller coaster would summit and begin to plunge…or when it would lurch left or right around curves. It was the longest 3 minutes of my life.

In a way, Space Mountain is a metaphor for life. We don’t know what lies ahead. We plan. We anticipate. But many times, we are thrown into moments of uncertainty…and we just hold on for dear life. Those are the moments when faith is front and center. It is faith that calls us forward—to step into the unknown, trusting that God is guiding us even when we cannot see the path.

When Jesus called Peter into ministry, and Peter stepped out of his boat onto dry land, I wonder what he thought tomorrow would be? Surely, he could not have imagined feeding thousands of people with one child’s lunch, walking on water…recognizing Christ in Jesus of Nazareth…seeing Jesus transfigured…being sent out 2x2 into the world…to realize that he…Peter… was empowered to heal in the name of God…seeing with own eyes Lazarus walk out of a grave.

You can feel the crescendo of faith, strength, and confidence building in Peter.

And then the cross.

Space Mountain cannot begin to capture the free fall from Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

In Luke’s Gospel, Peter disappears from the text until today.

Mary Magdalene and other women went to the tomb. It was open…and it was empty.

JB Phillips’ translation reads, “While they were still puzzling over this, two men suddenly stood at their elbow, dressed in dazzling light.” Luke said, “The women were frightened” … I’m sure they were--this wasn’t a Disney World event. It was an unnatural spectacle in the natural world.

The men spoke: Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here: he has been raised!

Then they remembered: Jesus told them he would be crucified and … and on the third day…he would rise. Immediately, they turned their backs on the tomb.

They have not yet seen the risen Christ. But they know.

They went to the grave expecting to find Jesus’ body. Instead, they experience a supernatural event and, by faith, know that Jesus has been raised. They’ve gone from grief and fear to joy and hope….in a matter of minutes.

The women ran to the disciples and told them everything. The disciples did not believe their testimony. “Only Peter got up and ran to the tomb”. He got out of the boat and stepped out in faith. He saw the empty tomb….he saw the linen cloth. And he went home…amazed at what had happened.

He has not yet seen the risen Christ. But, he knows.

Christ is risen.

In just a few moments, we will welcome a new member into the life of St. Christopher’s. As Rozlyn commits herself to Christ, we also renew our own Baptismal covenant. We say these words together—as the Body of Christ. We commit ourselves to a life of learning, fellowship, communion; to repentance; to living the Gospel “out there”…in the world; to loving our neighbor as ourselves; to striving for justice; to respecting the dignity of every human being.

We make the commitments as a community for a reason: we don’t all fall at the same. When one of us stumbles, others are there to help us up.

Together, we navigate both the joys and challenges of life, supporting one another in faith. Along the way, we become more than just a congregation. We become a family.

The bonds we form are strong because, through baptism, we are united in the eternal life of Christ. We are siblings in Christ.

Our shared commitment is the foundation of St. Christopher’s legacy: to live out our Baptismal covenant, together, no matter the cost. Even when we lose it all. Or we think we have lost it all. It is a reminder that we are never alone in our journey of faith; we are held together by the love and strength of this community. And we are guided by the Holy Spirit.

Together, this community of faith has strength for the journey. We have demonstrated that over and over again.

At the empty tomb, God met the women with boundless hope and grace. And God continues to meet us-- at every valley and mountaintop of our lives-- with boundless hope and grace.

Just as the women at the tomb turned their backs to grief and fear to embrace joy and faith, we too are called to step forward, trusting in God’s guidance even when our path is unclear.

When my Space Mountain ride ended, I had tears running down my face. I couldn’t wait to step out of the building into the light of day. And then I turned around and got in line to ride it again.

Alleluia!

Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Alleluia!

Immeasurable Love

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 20:09:25 GMT

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Faith on Cinder Blocks

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 15:57:36 GMT

During the final days of seminary, one faculty member said to my class: “Each of you is called. What were you called from?” I had some time to think about the question before it was my turn to speak. I remember the word coming to mind...and realizing it was the right word. I was called from complacency.

This week, I wondered how Saint Paul would answer that question. Clearly Christ called him to a new vocation. But what would Paul say he was called from?

In the Philippians text, he gave us a partial answer. He was called from his rightful place in the line of Benjamin, from a life of righteousness under the law, from persecuting followers of Jesus. He was called from everything that was admired in his culture. They were the very things that brought him privilege, status, and power.

Yet, these same gifts created a blind spot for him. He could not see the Holy Spirit moving through the early church. And so, Paul used his gifts to slow the spread of Christianity.

One day, on the road to Damascus, Paul encountered the Risen Christ.

He experienced physical blindness, restoration of sight, forgiveness, redemption, and Grace.

He was changed.

True North was no longer measured in material wealth, influence, privilege. True North was life in Christ. Period.

The conversion was costly.

Walking toward Christ meant walking away from everything Paul had valued. All of it, now, was rubbish—an impediment to this new way of being. He wrote today’s letter while imprisoned for preaching the Gospel and spreading the good news. It was not the first or the last time he would be in prison for the sake of the church.

Even from a prison cell, Paul pressed on—with the work he was called to do and with his own deepening relationship in Christ.

In the 1960s, I can remember my neighbors putting their cars on cinder blocks, starting the engine, shifting the car into reverse, and then letting the car idle in reverse all weekend. They were intentionally running the odometer backwards.

This week, as I watched my retirement account balance, I felt like someone had put my 401K on cinder blocks, started the engine, shifted the gear into reverse, and then floored the accelerator.

Volatile markets are one more sign that we are in the midst of a disorienting shift in culture. The shift is not just local or just national…it is global. It is disorienting, in part, because we don’t know how this story will end. Will it be a Hallmark ending? Or will it be something else?

In a way, we are imprisoned by our changing culture…because we cannot “opt out” from what is happening. Like Paul, we must stand firm and press on with the calling each of us has received from Christ.

How do we do that?

Our Saturday Lenten reflection was titled, “Anchored in Hope”. It read, “Even in the midst of uncertainty, hope holds us steady. Not because we know what’s next—but because we know Who holds it.”

Our neighbors are hungry for that kind of Hope. But, it takes work to remain anchored in Hope in anxious times.

We need Spiritual Workout Programs …activities like reading, praying, exercising, gardening, sending thoughtful cards, delivering meals on wheels, and on an on. Those are all spiritual disciplines that strengthen our faith, and our capacity to be with others who are suffering.

Last week, I visited with Joe, who’s been cutting my grass for several years. I asked how things were going for his family and his business. He had lost two workers because they feared cutting grass along neighborhood streets. He had gone to purchase a new lawnmower for Spring. In the past that was a $300 outlay. This year, the same equipment was nearly $600. He couldn’t afford to buy it. His daughter is studying to be a doctor. His son is in college. And he’s wondering if he can continue to support their education. When we shook hands, he said, “Thank you for caring”.

On Friday, I got my hair cut. Before Richard began cutting my hair, he asked if I would pray for his co-worker. She was upset because her mom is very ill. It’s not unusual for someone to ask if we’ll pray for their friend or a loved one. But it was first for me to have my stylist say, “She’s in the kitchen, this way…”.

As we walked he gathered more co-workers. And then I was in the staff kitchen, leading a prayer circle with people I did not know…holding hands and praying.

So much for complacency.

Our community needs us-- to be present, to listen empathetically, to hold space for others’ anxiety, to be anchored in Hope.

In the middle of Paul’s ministry, he was able to look back across time and articulate what he was called from. His calling demonstrates the human capacity to hear God’s call, to move through extraordinary change, and to press on in adverse conditions.

Like Paul, all of us are called. What are you called from?

Sit at my table and feast

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 16:05:34 GMT

March 30, 2025

I will send you

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 16:13:42 GMT

March 23, 2025

It has to be us!

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 03:10:17 GMT

Paula, a little over four years ago, we gathered in the Nave of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to ordain you a Priest. Because of the pandemic, only a handful of worshipers were present. I had the honor of serving as Preacher for that service. I’ll never forget the neck-snapping reaction of Bishop Mayer when I cited Jerry Garcia’s summary of the feelings just about everyone God has ever called. Jerry said, “Somebody has to do something. It is a pathetic thing that it has to be us.”

That sermon was mostly about your vocation and the work of a Priest. Today, since you have again honored me again and invited me to preach, I want to take that thought to another level and focus on the ministry you share with those given into your care. The readings appointed for the celebration of your ministry as Vicar of St. Christopher’s call for that.

In the record of God’s Commission to Joshua, his adherence to God’s call and God’s ways are intended to advance God’s purpose for God’s people as they prepare to enter a new era in a new land with a new leader. It should not surprise us that God chose Joshua to succeed Moses. When God commanded Moses to enter the promised land, Moses sent out 12 spies on a recognizance mission. When the spies returned, ten of them reported that the land was indeed fruitful but that the people were big and strong, and their cities were well fortified. Joshua and Caleb gave the minority report and urged the people to do as God had commanded. The people said the report of the ten had discouraged their hearts. Moses bent to the people’s lack of faith and faltered in his leadership. As a result, Moses and an entire generation wandered in the wilderness until they died. Of that generation, only Joshua and Caleb were allowed to enter the promise. And God called Joshua to lead them when the time came.

God’s call to Joshua was not to be a nice guy. God’s call to Joshua was a lead the people. For that purpose and for the sake of the people, God equipped and commissioned Joshua. The same God still has a purpose for us and this particular people has a Vicar whom God has equipped and commissioned to lead them in God’s mission. It may be a pathetic thing that it has to be you, Paula, but today we whole-heartedly agree with God that it is you. So, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul expands upon the work of the leader of a faith community. He writes, “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-12)” Sadly for the Church, some of our colleagues and some of our laity think the leader’s role is to do the work of ministry themselves rather than to equip the saints to do it. It’s also sad for the clergy who understand their role in that way because they miss the joy of seeing the fruit born of the collaborative labor of God’s Spirit-filled people.

For me, that has been the greatest reward of ordained ministry. Sometimes, I feel like John Hannibal Smith, the character played by George Peppard in the TV series The A-Team. The series ran for 98 episodes in five seasons. In every episode, toward the completion of their mission, Hannibal would chomp down on his cigar, look into the camera, and say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” I do! I love it when, with a little bit or a lot of guidance from me, the People of God develop a plan, execute the plan, and experience the satisfaction of seeing it come together for the glory of God and the sake of those who need it. It is especially gratifying when everybody knows going into it that we’re not entirely sure we have what it takes to accomplish what God is calling us to do. Like in the Baptismal Covenant when we are asked, “Will you…” and the answer is not, “Yes” but instead, “I will, with God’s help.” After all, God never calls us to do holy work by ourselves. It may be a pathetic thing that it has to be you and the people of St. Christopher’s, Paula, but today we whole-heartedly agree with God that it is. So, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

According to the teachings of our Church, there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. God’s primary call is to faithful living in communion with others. We are on a journey and a journey is always better when it is shared with others. As we travel together, we grow in our experience of God. We learn to trust God. We learn to be loved by God and thus to love others whom God loves. Perhaps that is why St. Christopher’s logo includes the invitation, “Walk with us.”

Our Gospel reading recounts a portion of the story of Jesus sending out “the seventy” in their mission. I encourage you to read the entire chapter when you have a few moments. Several things strike me about the seventy and the story they told upon their return.

Firstly, they are not sent out alone. Jesus sent them out in pairs. Maybe workers are more diligent and accountable in pairs. Often, we are safer, less vulnerable, when we have someone with whom to travel. There is wisdom in sending pairs with diverse gifts. Perhaps the mission of the wider Church today would be better served by seeing how we can “pair” ourselves in ministry and in mission.

Secondly, the seventy are likely not trained religious leaders. The seventy embody God's reign, with the many accompanying signs and wonders helping them to reveal it. The sharing of God's peace, the curing of the sick, the casting out of demons are all signs of the breaking in of God's future reign into our present world and reality. All of us are called to this ministry, and we carry it out in any number of ways.

Thirdly, the seventy are wildly successful, or so they think. They come back amazed. But Jesus is not surprized. He knows that they will do these things and more. But he also knows that it is not the seventy that do these things. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not about us. It is always about God and what God is up to. That God chooses to use flawed, fallible human beings as witnesses to God's reign is testimony to God's power, God's vulnerability, and the risks God takes for the sake of the world God loves. It may be a pathetic thing, but in God’s administrative policy, it has to be us.

This installation is another moment of transition for all of us gathered here. My ministry during the past decade or so has been leading churches through transitions in leadership. One of the things I have learned is that all churches are in some kind of transition most of the time. Sometimes, those transitions are wonderful and sometimes they are horrible. Sometimes the transitions are transformative and sometimes they are traumatic. In every case, it seems to me that we are called together to engage in a continuous missionary enterprise in which we and others can find the way into the life of God.

In Anne Lamott’s book Traveling Mercies, she tells the story of a little girl who decided one day she was going to see what’s out there in the world. She went downtown and saw the lights and heard the horns blaring and all the people. She was amazed by it all until she realized she didn’t know how to get home. A police officer drove up and saw her, and said, “Are you all right?” She said, “I’m lost, and I don’t know how to get back home.” He said, “Get in and we’ll drive around and see if you see anything that looks familiar.” So, he drove her around until suddenly she cried out, “Stop! There’s my church. I can always find my way home from there.”

The people of St. Christopher’s underwent the trauma of being tossed out of your church building not so long ago. But God gave you the grace to turn your scars into stars. You were welcomed and given a place to gather by St. Matthew’s. The Episcopal Church stood alongside you. Paula was sent to you. In response to your request, Bishop Doyle has made her your Vicar. He has sent Bishop Seage to provide even more oversight and support in the work you are called to do. You have become a stronger and even more outward-focused community. And you have learned that the Church is not a building but a beacon, a light-bearing people helping others find the way to all the things that mean “home.” So, people of St. Christopher’s and Paula your Vicar, our prayer for you today is that you may continue that journey together, learning from the past, embracing the present, reaching in hope for what lies ahead, and with each step proclaiming the nearness of God’s reign.

Our theologian du jour Jerry Garcia once said, “If you’re able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you.” Or, as God said to Joshua at his installation as Vicar of the Israelites, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” For that, we are grateful.

Claiming our citizenship: No passport needed

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 02:19:44 GMT

I grew up in Appalachia in a village of 750 people. My parents’ families have lived in the same place for 225 years. The village was, and is, closely-knit. There was no one in town that I did not know and vice versa. They knew my sister, my parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and on and on.

At a young age, I cashed in my piggy bank to buy a treasure trove of candy at the local Rexall. Unfortunately, the owner was my mother’s math teacher when she was in high school, and he felt absolutely no dishonor in calling Mom to rat me out.

All of us in the community were connected through invisible lines of relationship.

I haven’t lived in Knoxville, Pennsylvania since 1982. Yet, even now, when I visit the area, they’re glad I’m “home” they ask about my life in Texas, and the work that I am doing in the church. Some of them are more up to date on my life than many of my Texas friends.

By my birthright, I will always be a citizen of that community.

But it is not my only citizenship.

Last week, I had a lot of driving time. And so I began listening to an audio book that St. Christopher’s reading group will discuss in a couple of weeks. The book is titled, “How We Learn To Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith”.

In chapter one, the author reflected on a decisive moment in Abram’s life. She quoted verse 6 from today’s Genesis reading, “… [Abram] believed the Lord…and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized…righteousness is an undercurrent in today’s readings. Righteousness means to be in right relationship with God—both in the way we live in this world and in our personal walk with God.

Abram’s walk with God spans 15 chapters in Genesis.

The story began when Yahweh first called Abram: Leave your homeland and go to a land that I will show you. [1] Abram was 75 years old when Yahweh called him. He did not know where he was going. There was no forwarding address for his stuff. But he packed everything and began to walk.

According to Google, Abram, Sarai, and all their livestock and servants walked at least 1,500 miles before God settled them near Hebron. [2] There, Abram built an altar to the Lord and gave thanks.

Every time Yahweh called Abram to move, he went.

Along the way, we learned about Abram’s way of being. At one point, his nephew Lot was taken into captivity. Abram led a force that freed Lot. And, when the King of Sodom offered Abram money for coincidentally freeing him as well, Abram declined. He had taken an oath with God: he would not take anything belonging to the King of Sodom.

Instead, Abram gave a tithe of his own possessions to God in thanksgiving. Abram lived in a violent, broken world. His path led him to cross borders into foreign and sometimes hostile countries. Throughout the adventures, he dealt with others justly and fairly. And he believed God.

Paul issued the clarion message in our readings: For those who believe God, our citizenship is in heaven. He did not say, “We will have citizenship in heaven”. He put it in the present tense, meaning, we are citizens of heaven…here…and now.

And we are also citizens of our own physical geography.

Like Abram, we are called to live in a violent, broken world. Every day, we are faced with a hard question: Do we believe in God? (Which costs us nothing). Or do we believe God? Do we believe God’s words that we are called to love others as God loves us? It’s a hard question because believing that we are called to love others as God loves us is costly.

One of the many benefits of being in a congregation is that everyone knows when you break the piggy bank to make a candy run. Said differently, we are accountable to one another, and we support one another. Trust is deeply embedded in a loving community. We are connected through visible and invisible lines of relationship…they bind us together in the Body of Christ.

We need the Body of Christ to help us navigate living in this world, while trying to lean into right relationship with God. It isn’t something we do solo. We do it faithfully and together.

On Ash Wednesday, we began our Lenten journey by preparing a bit of soil---we weeded, we pulled out rocks. We planted seeds. We watered the seeds. On the first Sunday in Lent, just three or four days later, we had tons of seedlings. Now, it is time to thin the seedlings so that the best seeds will flourish.

The best seeds are the ones that come from God…the ones that help us live into our Heavenly citizenship….the ones that help us believe God…and live God’s dream for Creation.

[1] Gen 12:1

[2] https://www.biblecartoons.co.uk/maps/map-of-middle-east-abram-abraham-s-journey-from-ur-to-canaan#:~:text=Bible%20Reference%20%26%20Map%20Description,show%20the%20route%20he%20took

Ready, Set, Grow

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 15:59:29 GMT

March 9, 2025

Spring Cleaning

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 04:04:06 GMT

March 5, 2025

What's Next?

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:04:25 GMT

March 2, 2025

Living Beyond Ledger Books

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 16:54:47 GMT

Did anyone watch the Saturday Night Live Anniversary Special this week? Fifty years of Saturday Night Live. In preparing for this sermon, I was reminded of one particular character that Mike Meyers developed on SNL in the 1990s. Linda Richmond was modeled on Meyers’ mother in-law. Her famous line was The prince of Tides was about neither princes nor tides. Discuss.

I can hear Linda Richmond’s observation about today’s Gospel reading: Jesus is talking about neither cheeks nor walking. Discuss.

I propose that in this passage, Jesus is trying to teach us what it’s like to live as a child of the most High. This is about Life in the Kingdom, not a list of moral guidelines; it’s a call to transform our everyday lives.

Jesus lays out this challenging and revolutionary way of living even though it flies in the face of the world’s teaching. He invites us to embody love, mercy, and generosity, even toward those who do not deserve it. In short, Jesus is asking us to love others – everyone -- just how God loves us -- fully, radically, knowing our limitations, precisely because we don’t deserve it.

Jesus’ kind of love is radical because it isn’t based on what others do for us or what we do for them, but on the grace of God working in us as God’s children. This is how God loves us. Think about it: God didn’t wait for us to fix ourselves before He sent His Son to show us the way. While we were still lost, He loved us enough to offer us grace.

The African American theologian Howard Thurman reminds us that Jesus’ radical love doesn’t mean we condone their actions. Jesus went to the cross condemning the religious and political authorities who were set to kill him AND, he begged God to forgive them because they didn’t know what they were doing. He broke the circle of retaliation.

I have had three distinct reactions to this teaching. When I first heard it, I thought it was quaint, but not realistic. You know me well enough now, you can see me responding to Jesus, “Now, Lord, you know that isn’t the way the world works.”

My second reaction, later in my life, was one of anger… I’m not playing this game in which people get a free pass, or tyrants get to win.

This morning, though, I don’t feel caught up in my reaction, in my responses, in the details of the cheek and the coat and the walking two miles. What I stand in awe of is that despite the many times that I have denied God, rejected him, refused to follow, ignored his voice, cursed him to his face, God nevertheless loves me and offers me his own self in love.

In every human relationship I have and I suspect you have too, I create a ledger book of credits and debits. Strangely, all my friends and family seem to overdraw their accounts. Left to my own devices, I may or I may not forgive the debt, but most likely I declare them insolvent and write them off.

Jesus reminds us that there are two things fundamentally wrong with our ledger books. First, God’s Kingdom operates on grace. He wants us to show mercy, not because it will benefit us, but because it reflects who God is. Red marks and black marks in a ledger book are meaningless scribbles.

Second, God doesn’t write anybody off. Jesus is clear: don’t judge others and you won’t be judged.

This is another radical statement in a world full of criticism and judgment. We live in a culture that loves to point fingers and condemn others, but Jesus calls us to refrain from judgment.

Why? Again, this is who God is. The Apostle James reminds us that there is but one judge, and it is God, not us. When we judge, we place ourselves in the role of being God.

Forgiveness is powerful stuff. When we choose to forgive, we release the hold that bitterness has over us. In the same way, when we withhold judgment, we open our eyes to who God really is: both the ultimate judge, who can see the whole picture, and the God who loves without measure.

This Kingdom teaching in this passage turns our natural instincts upside down and it calls us to be true to our Baptism and to act like the children of God that we have become in Christ Jesus.

Why? Because this is who God is. Having been the beneficiary of this kind of love, the only thing God is asking from us is that we give to our siblings what God has given to us.

No one said this is going to be easy. To live according to Kingdom principles, we have to see the person who is wronging us as a child of God and then we have to really see them for who they are. The person yelling us is the same person who was yelled at. The person judging us was judged. The one who oppresses us was oppressed and hurt.

But she is still God’s beloved child, worthy of the love we have received.

Don’t get caught up on offering your cheek to the violent or giving your coat away. This week, just ask yourself: How can I love someone who has hurt me? How can I extend mercy and forgiveness? How can I reflect God’s generosity to me in the people I encounter even if they don’t deserve it.

God did, and does the very same for you.

When we live this way, the cheek and the coat will come naturally because we are living out the very heart of the Kingdom of God.

May it be so in my life and in yours.

Love Without Qualifiers

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 22:41:45 GMT

I am real

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 22:41:29 GMT

Feb. 9, 2025

How long, Lord? How long?

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 17:44:57 GMT

Feb. 2, 2025

The Grace of Calling

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 06:02:54 GMT

Jan. 29, 2025

Called for such a time

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 17:11:38 GMT

Prophecy is difficult work. The events of this week make it clear that speaking truth to the powerful, even if it is to beg for mercy for those who are powerless can be hard.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel lesson, also engages in the difficult work of prophecy.

We are told that at his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. He then retreated into the wilderness full of that same spirit to endure temptation. And he returns to his hometown in Nazareth with the spirit of the Lord upon him.

Jesus’ return to Nazareth appears in Matthew, Mark, and, in today’s reading, the Gospel of Luke.

But only here, in Luke, does the story appear in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Why, do you suppose that is?

The Gospel of Luke and its second volume, the Book of Acts, are presumed to have been written by the same person; and, they share many common themes. One of these themes is that human beings do amazing things when the spirit of the Lord is upon them. Ordinary people understand while the wise are confounded. Men who used to fish for a living speak in languages they could not have otherwise known. People are healed, prisoners are set free, god’s realm proclaimed even in the face of terrible power.

In Nazareth, the Spirit directs Jesus to Isaiah, as it often did in Jesus’ public ministry.

His reference to the prophet’s words are not an exact quotation. Instead, he combines them into a kind of an overture to the great symphony that will be his public ministry.

Before he goes on to preach, or teach, or perform any other miracle, the first words he utters are “the spirit of the Lord are upon me.”

It is tempting, I think, to view this is a Jesus story.

It is easy to read Isaiah as only identifying the messiah,

That it is only Jesus that God has anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and the recovery of sight to the blind.

And to be sure, Jesus’ role in God’s plan is … pretty special.

And I believe Jesus’ citation to Isaiah is not just a Jesus story, it is an “us” story – a you story and a me story – too.

As a community, we share the baptism of water and spirit with Jesus.

Jesus’ work of prophecy at Nazareth is also our work of prophecy today. By virtue of our baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own and the holy spirit finds a dwelling place in us.

Luke, in the second chapter of Acts, confirms this by quoting the words of the prophet Joel in Peter’s mouth:

“It shall come to pass in the last days, saith god, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams

The spirit, though, rarely calls us to the easy, to the convenient, or to the comfortable.

Prophecy is difficult work.

Isaiah, himself, when called to prophesy, said that he was not worthy because he was a sinner. Jeremiah hedged by saying he was too young and moses claimed a stutter kept him from the lord’s work. Jonah ran away – he actually tried to hide from God – and prefigured Jesus with his three days in the belly of a leviathan.

Interestingly enough, only our beloved Mary acceded to god’s work when the angel appeared,

And even she had some basic questions.

Prophecy is difficult work. The folks from Nazareth at first liked what Jesus had to say.

But it didn’t take long for them to turn on him when he started saying things they did not agree with.

If you keep reading, Jesus declared that the good news, the release, and the restoration were for all people, not just a select few. The people who just a few lines ago thought Jesus was so great moved quickly to run him off a cliff when he called their privilege into question.

Prophecy is difficult work indeed.

What would it look like if we spoke when the spirit of the lord is upon us? When Jesus did it, his thought was for the poor, the prisoner, the blind. If this story is any guide, a message of radical love and inclusion, will still offend those who would prefer to remain comfortable in the blindness of this world.

Make no mistake: God will establish justice and mercy with us or without us. Mordecai said to Queen Esther that even if she stayed quiet in the face of persecution, relief and deliverance for her people would arise from another place.

But, he said, you and your place were made just for such a time as this

My brothers and sisters, we too are made for just such a time as this. Are you ready to prophesy? Are you ready to dream dreams and see visions? Are you willing that the spirit of the Lord be upon us.

Remember, Jesus said after he read from Isaiah that “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today. He did not pine for yesterday and he did not fantasize about the days to come. Today the scripture is fulfilled.

Because, while prophecy is difficult work, it is what we are called to.

Today, we must proclaim God’s realm, sing the good news, and offer a place for the outsider.

Today is the day.

Because, as we read in Nehemiah today, this day is holy to our Lord; be not grieved, for the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Throw Away the Spreadsheets

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 20:17:23 GMT

Last year, I pondered whether I should adopt another dog to be a playmate for Dursey. So, I prepared a spreadsheet and measured the costs and thought about the extra time needed for walking and training. And, well, we all know, there are a lot of responsibilities with pets.

And there was another issue. Dursey is a vizsla--his breed is known for its boundless energy, trainability, and loyalty. They are Velcro dogs because they sit where you sit, sleep where you sleep, eat when you eat, and expect to go with you everywhere you go. The dog sits on the bathmat while I shower.

It is a closely-knit relationship. A partnership.

I wondered how Dursey would feel if there was another dog vying for attention. All year long, I thought about the pros and cons but did not take an action.

On Jan. 2, a neighbor sent pictures of a vizsla mix who needed a home. The dog was 2-years-old and had never had a forever home. Scrappy, as they named him, had lived in animal shelters all of his life.

So, on a whim, we set up a speed date for Scrappy and Dursey. A one-hour test. How would they do?

They played together, non-stop. At the end of the hour, I asked the rescue group if they’d bring Scrappy back on Sunday afternoon for a 2-day trial. Monday evening, we adopted Scrappy.

The wedding story in Cana is well-known. Mary will nudge her son to perform his first sign—a miracle that will manifest Jesus’ relationship to God and his own identity as the Son of God. She said, “They have no wine.” And he responded: ‘not my problem’ but, then he added, “My hour has not yet come.”

Once the cat is out of the bag, there’s no going back. Once people see who Jesus is everything will change. In that moment, Jesus hesitated.

Mary persisted. She said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Week 1 with two dogs in my life was a roller coaster. There were manifestations of Scrappy’s prior life—a fear there won’t be enough food, a fear of riding in the car, a desire to run away with my dinner guests and neighbors in hot pursuit. Twice. We didn’t have shared language. Basic commands like sit, down, off and leave it were not part of his vocabulary.

There were disagreements between the dogs.

At the end of the week, we went to a dog park. I sat on a bench watching the dogs to see how they would interact with other dogs. A group of dogs were picking on Scrappy. One large labrador got on his back and was crushing him to the ground. Dursey took action -- he wrapped his front paws around the lab and pulled him off Scrappy. And then positioned himself between the bigger dogs and Scrappy.

In the span of a week, they became a pack. Dursey welcomed this unexpected newcomer into his life. All the way. He trusted that there was enough love to freely share his life.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” There were six jars—some held 20 gallons of water and others held 30 gallons of water. So, somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of water were brought to Jesus. Every gallon is equivalent to 5 bottles of wine. That means Jesus provided between 600 and 900 bottles of wine for a wedding banquet that’s almost over. It is wildly extravagant.

He told the servants, “Draw some out, and take it to the chief wine steward.” The steward tasted it and was amazed. This was the very best wine served at the banquet, not at the beginning of the banquet when people are still discerning about the quality of wine, but at the end when consumption has dulled our senses and we can no longer distinguish between good and bad, between needs and wants. Even then, God’s offers a new wine. A cup from God’s very life.

Jesus’ first sign hallmarks the overflowing, abundant love of God. God’s love is not just adequate to finish the banquet or just adequate to sate our human desire. It is more than we can imagine in every conceivable way.

There was one other thing that kept me from adopting a second dog --.something that did not fit on my spreadsheet -- and something I hadn’t really owned until I was thinking about this sermon.

I love the relationship Dursey and I share. We are hiking partners. We communicate through words, whistles, sign language even a smile or scowl. I was afraid that our relationship would change.

It took a couple of weeks for us to make the adjustments needed for Scrappy. And it is different for Dursey and me. Yet our lives are fuller than before. We have been changed in a good way.

Today, we’ll gather for our annual parish meeting. We’ll celebrate the abundant generosity and love showered upon St. Christopher’s and the ways that we have shared that love with our neighbor.

We are growing in so many ways.

Throughout 2024, we focused on our stickiness quotient—our desire and ability to welcome people into our congregation and help them connect their passion with the ministries of our church.

I saw that in action last week. A group of leaders presented an idea for 2025. They had a game plan for new leadership of existing committees, and a game plan to develop successor leadership for those committees -- new people, with new ideas, and energy. These folks were not walking away from the committee work. They love it. They are welcoming new leadership and allowing new vision to emerge.

It is that kind of forethought and leadership that helps us thrive.

Every time we open our arms and welcome people into the life of St. Christpher’s, we are changed. We taste the extravagance of God’s love. And our lives are fuller than we could have imagined.

Leaving Nazareth

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 17:00:13 GMT

As a child, I was a sleep walker. During dreamtime, I’d act out the content of my dreams. Our family didn’t watch a lot of TV before my bedtime—because, if we watched something that was just a little bit disturbing, scary or sad, I’d be re-enacting the scenes during the night.

When my grandmother moved away for a few months, night after night, I’d search through our home—looking in closets, behind doors, calling out “Grandma, I can’t find you.” Eventually the dream would end, and I’d go back to bed without ever waking.

Our brains are designed to use dreams—they help us process the world around us. Mostly, we don’t remember them. Sometimes, a dream is so vivid that we awake still aware of it.

Many years ago, I woke one night after dreaming about an estate tax return (as one does). These tax returns are due exactly nine months after a death—so the timing of the filing is irregular. When I woke up, I realized that I hadn’t seen the file since we accepted the engagement – eight months earlier. At the office, I checked the taxpayer’s date of death. It was exactly nine months earlier.

Sometimes our dreams are providential.

Immediately before today’s Gospel text, the three wise men offered their gifts to the holy family -- and then left town. We don’t know how many days have passed since Jesus was born; but we do know the family is still in Bethlehem.

Matthew added a few red herrings to our reading: Geography (Egypt, Israel, Judea, Galilee, and Nazareth); and worldly power structures (Herod and Archelaus). They are red herrings because they distract our attention from all that is holy in the text: Joseph, God’s way of engaging in our world, and spiritual gifts.

In the first dream, God spoke through an angel: “Joseph, get up—take the child and Mary and flee to Egypt…remain there until I get back to you.” I googled the distance from Bethlehem to Egypt: 429 miles. That’s the distance from Fort Worth Texas to Jackson, Ms. Imagine walking to Jackson with a newborn baby and a woman who’s recently given birth.

They weren’t prepared for that trip. When they left Nazareth for Bethlehem, they expected a quick round-trip. They left behind all their material stuff, family and community.

Joseph and Mary were dislocated from the life they knew—and relocated with a new life. A life entirely centered on Jesus the Christ.

It is remarkable that Joseph never spoke in this text. The angel said, “Joseph, get up and go” and Joseph got up—and went.

Matthew doesn’t tell us how long they’d live in Egypt, and Joseph didn’t ask.

In the second dream, Joseph was told, “Get up, take the child and Mary and return to Israel.” Joseph got up—and went.

While they traveled, he had a third dream: a warning to avoid the region of Judea. And so he did.

From the very beginning, God orchestrated the birth and life of Jesus through Joseph’s dreams. Remember when Joseph first learned that Mary was pregnant? He was prepared to break off the engagement. But God spoke through his dream saying, “…the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…she will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.” When Joseph awoke, he took Mary as his wife. [1]

Matthew painted a portrait of Joseph for us. Like Mary, he is deeply connected to God. He had an unusual spiritual gift—the ability to interpret his dreams and discern correctly, when God was speaking to him. Joseph was a man of action. He didn’t question God’s guidance—he humbly followed God’s Word. Every time.

All of us have dreams for our lives. Before we leave grade school, we have answered the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” at least one hundred times. Throughout our lives, we are constantly honing and refining our dreams. Sometimes our dreams become so fixed that its difficult for God to interrupt our dream and invite us into God’s vision.

When I first came to St. Christopher’s, there were about 60 people and all of us had a dream for St. Christopher’s future home. The scary part (for me) was that there were 60 different dreams! No two dreams were the same.

Over time, we allowed God to interrupt those dreams—we began focusing on ministries like immigration, mentoring, food for the hungry. Together, we helped Hopewallah begin a program to feed those who are severely affected by leprosy. We watched as Laundry Love expanded its ministry by two-fold.

Christofolx, hospitality, Advent and Lenten learning programs, choir, acolyting, a curate, and on and on. We are building the foundation for a church. Not the bricks and mortar kind -- rather a foundation for the kind of church Christ imagined.

As our ministry expands, so does this community. We are growing in discipleship, in faith, in patience and we’re growing in numbers. One of the characteristics of this community that I love is our connectedness to one another. We are siblings in Christ—and it shows.

Mary and Joseph were dislocated from their lives in Nazareth. The journey to Bethlehem and beyond changed the meaning and purpose of their lives. The family that resettled in Nazareth was different than the one who left.

Nearly four years ago, St. Christopher’s was dislocated from its life on Southwest Loop 820. We were dislocated from the idea that the church was a structure, that the color of the carpet mattered.

We have been relocated to a new way of being, to knowing that we are the Body of Christ, that our calling is to ministry beyond the front door, and to becoming the people God desires us to be.

The journey was not easy. We have been changed—because we allowed God to interrupt our dream and lead us to something new.

This year, we will revitalize the building steering committee and move toward a permanent home for St. Christopher’s—a home that is aligned with our ministries, our calling, and the growth of this Body of Christ.

The challenge for St. Christopher’s is to not return to Nazareth as if we never left.

[1] Matt 1: 20-25

The gift of belonging

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 19:24:01 GMT

Throughout Advent, we heard a consistent theme from the prophets and the psalmist—a deep longing for a Messiah. Their words spanned hundreds of years. But the message remained the same across all that time. An intervention from God is coming--a Messiah who will deliver Israel from oppression and restore her to right relationship with Yahweh.

Luke gave us a beautiful backstory for Mary and Joseph. Through them, God will do something new. We walked with Mary to the home of Elizabeth…where they celebrated together…and waited for this new life to come.

Tonight, Luke shifted from this sense of longing to belonging.

Before Mary placed Jesus in a manger, Luke placed the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem…the ancestral home of Joseph’s people. Jesus belonged in this tribe—the descendants of David.

Once Jesus was born, the story shifted abruptly from Bethlehem to the countryside. The very first people to learn of Jesus’ birth were shepherds. An angel appeared to them saying, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Jesus belonged to the shepherds.

The words of the angel are for us, too: Unto you, unto me, is born this night a savior, who is the Lord. Jesus belongs to us, too.

The gift given this night is beyond words…beyond comprehension. God chose to give God’s self to the world. In that moment, a new way of being in relationship with God opened for all creation….Not just a select group of people, or a select era of history. This gift is for all creation—across all time and place.

Through the child, redemption is possible—an invitation to participate in the body of Christ is given.

Last week, as I moved through bronchitis, I ate a lot of chicken noodle soup. When I’m not feeling well, it’s my go-to food. I can’t really explain why…but there’s something more to chicken noodle soup than just the noodles and the chicken.

And there’s something more to longing and belonging than just the face value of those words.

Over the past few years, I’ve met a lot of visitors here—folks who moved away from Fort Worth long ago, but wanted me to hear their stories of belonging to St. Christopher’s. “I grew up at St. Chris….I was in the St. Christopher’s Campers…I was part of St. Christopher’s EYC…..one memorable gentleman told me, “St. Christopher’s EYC saved my life.”

Recently someone returned to St. Christopher’s after years of being away and said, “It feels like coming home.” 20, 30, 40 years after leaving St. Chris, the sense of belonging is still palpable.

When the body of Christ is functioning in a healthy way, belonging is much more than just a membership card.

The early church in Corinth drifted away from that connectedness---and so Paul wrote to them saying, “In the Spirit we were all baptized into one body…..Now, he said, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”[1]

Each of us brings spiritual gifts and talents that complement the gifts of the body.

Some are noodles, some are chicken.

The Holy Spirit grafts our individual lives into this body of Christ…we become much more than the sum of our parts.

The sense of belonging we feel here is deep. It is rooted in our shared participation in the life and work of Christ. God’s presence within us is kindled…awakened as we do the work we’re called to do.

Tonight, our service will conclude with the hymn Silent Night. After the blessing, the house lights will be dimmed. Acolytes will light candles from the Christ candle and pass the light to those sitting on the aisle. As we sing Silent Night, each of passes the Light of Christ to the person next to us.

It is beautiful to watch the Light as it spreads among us…and to hear our voices …not as soloists…but as a choir. It is a living illustration of the body of Christ…and the impact we have in our world—not just as individuals, but as a community of faithful people…people who long for a better world, for justice and peace, for the realm of God in our life.

And it illustrates our belonging—for the Light we hold is eternal. It is the Light of those who have gone before us, the Light of those we walk with tonight, and the Light of those we will leave behind one day.

The Light lives within you….for the child in the manger is born unto you.

[1] 1 Corinthians 12: 13; 27

God's Promise Fulfilled

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 16:55:03 GMT

We began Advent earlier this month with a call to contemplate both the revealed and the concealed joys of our journey. On Wednesday evenings in this season of wonder and reflection, we have learned about St. Nicholas, who is not Santa Claus, but a miracle maker and a wonder worker; and we’ve learned about Julian of Norwich, who reminds us that no matter how crazy the world is, “all things, all manner of things, will be well” when we trust God.

Today, on this last Sunday in Advent, the lowly manger where the very Word of God is to take on human form, is no mere distant image. The star is high over-head, Mary’s first labor pangs have probably already started, our Savior is nearly here.

I wonder if you noticed a theme in all the readings for today. I hear two things:

First, the readings reveal a powerful sense of restoration, of completion, and a sense that all that God has promised us will find its full expression in the birth of a child.

Second, that revelation is concealed in the very small, the seemingly insignificant, in all that the world ignores.

God is restoring, Creation is made new AND God is completing these promises in the most unlikely ways.

The prophet Micah wrote in a time of great trial, in which the Kingdom of Israel had been defeated and the Kingdom of Judah had been reduced to a client state of the Assyrians. There were refugees fleeing south, taxes were high in order to pay the tribute, and God’s people clearly had a sense that disaster was right around the corner, that they were vulnerable in a dangerous world.

God’s people were tiny, living in a tiny spit of land sandwiched between the Egyptians and the Assyrians, two immensely powerful empires that were rich and getting richer, hungry for power and greedy for more. And yet, Micah predicts that out of a little tiny place called Bethlehem, a name that means fruitful, but a town so insignificant as to not even be counted as a place, the one who is to rule in glory as from time everlasting would come.

The Psalmist also pleads for restoration. We are a derision of our neighbors, he says, Restore us oh God of Hosts.

Hebrews offers us some troubling messages, but the author reminds us that our notion of what God wants (burnt offerings, sin offerings) is not necessarily what God wants. Those who heard that letter are reminded that it is Jesus who restores us to an understanding of what God wants.

The Gospel lesson is full of restoration. Elizabeth, although old, is to have a son. That son will challenge kings, proclaiming the One who is to come after Him, all from a barren wilderness in which the only thing to be had is locusts and honey.

Elizabeth has a visit from Mary, and asks: who am I that the mother of my Lord visits me. Mary’s response, which we repeated in the Magnificat, declares God’s restoration, a God whose mercy is great, who has shown strength, who has brought down the powerful, filled the hungry, who has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

God, it would seem, favors the poor, the lowly, the meaningless, in God’s plan for restoration as the means by which all things are made new.

As I have walked the Advent road, one question keeps popping up for me. Where do we look for restoration in today’s world.

Like Micah, we see the poor oppressed by a seemingly immense system of things that is designed to gather to itself power and wealth. Refugees pour into our midst, fleeing that same system of things, and looking for shelter.

We are often derided by our neighbors for faith, or the wrong kind of faith, or our lack of faith.

Many of us find ourselves expecting a child we did not plan on, or leading a life we had not anticipated, existing without being seen because of how we were raised, or how old we are, or the mistakes we might have made. And, there are those in our midst who are poor just as Mary was poor, who don’t know where the presents under the tree are coming from.

The good news is that the place from which restoration comes today is the same as it was for Mary, for the Psalmist, and for Micah: the inbreaking of the divine good into our world that reaches its fullest at Christmas and culminates at Calvary.

How?

In the simplest moments, like the birth of a child, God enters into our existence, into the world we live in and into the lives we lead. God’s presence restores our lives to the perfection God intended for us.

The good news is that the restoration that God promised, is promising, and will continue to promise has always occurred in the midst of the poverty, the heartache, the loneliness and the chaos of that world and our lives. God desires to be with us, so much so that God is prepared to pay any price, even the price of living and dying as one of us.

God picks the lowly on purpose.

Perhaps because the lowly are the most open to the miracle of restoration. Perhaps because they are most likely to proclaim it to anyone who will listen.

If you’re feeling a little lowly in these complicated days, Christian I have good news! God’s restoration is at hand … right there at that manger and at this table. And he will complete that restoration in us if we would but echo our Blessed Mother: be it unto me according to thy word.

Amen.

Seeds of Grace

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 03:46:37 GMT

There are many styles of preaching. Some preachers are pastoral. Others are teachers. Some invite participation, and some go past theology altogether and just grab our emotions.

Today, Luke took us to the John the Baptist School of Preaching.

Once John’s congregation gathered, he began with these words of welcome: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

Apparently, John is a “Buckle up, buttercup” kind of preacher. Certainly, he’s not reporting to the vestry about Average Sunday Attendance! There is no pastoral, soft landing in John’s message. There are no shades of gray in his words.

John was called to preach one, very specific message: The Messiah is coming. Repent & Prepare to receive him!

The crowds that gathered around John came to be baptized. In those days, baptism by water was a sign of repentance…a desire to be in right relationship with Yahweh. It also restored people to full participation in the Jewish community. [1]

In other words, the folks who came to John wanted to restore their lives to the way they were.

John said, ‘that’s not enough’. If repentance for you means a ritual to get back to what was…don’t bother.

And, so the people ask, “What then…what else must we do… to truly repent?”

He replied: If you have two coats, share with anyone who has none. If you have extra food, share with those who do not. To the tax collector, do your vocation honorably. Don’t take more than the amount you are required to take.

John was saying, ‘Don’t go back to the way you used to do things. Live the golden rule—treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated’. To John, bearing this kind of good fruit is a kind of proof that repentance has truly taken root in our lives.

He had no patience for religious ritual that did not lead to personal change.

Two thousand years later, a Christian theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a similar vein. He said the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance -- real change -- is cheap grace.

John lived in a religious culture filled with corruption, oppression, hunger, disease. Jewish customs and religious practices were often in conflict with Roman customs and authority. Life in Israel/Judah was like Gotham City without Batman and Robin.

Against that backdrop, John preached a new message, one that flipped the tables on the status quo.

His words were so different than anything the people had experienced, they began to wonder, “Is he the Messiah”? That was John’s cue to preach the crux of his message: The one who is coming is much more powerful than me. I baptize with water (they way it had always been). He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

The Messiah, he said, will separate the wheat from the chaff. The wheat will be gathered unto himself and the chaff will burn with unquenchable fire.

Like many of you, I grew up in a denomination that interpreted this metaphor to mean that Jesus would cull through humanity and set apart the good folks…the ones who matched up with our definition of good…and everyone else would be cast aside, like chaff.

It is human ego that imagines we know God’s mind; and human bias that imagines we know God’s litmus test for right and wrong, good and evil, believer or not.

This week I wondered if we have missed the real point of John’s metaphor?

In every stalk of wheat, there is both the seed and the chaff. And so it is with each of us. There is the good seed that God has planted in us. And there is the chaff, the stuff that gets in our way of being all that God has created and called us to be.

What I like about this interpretation is that there’s no need to point the finger at other people…judging who I think is heaven-bound and who is not…based upon some litmus test that Paula Jefferson has crafted over the past 63 years. Instead, I’m looking in the mirror…owning those parts of myself that God did not plant.

I recognize those parts in me. We all do.

Advent is an intentional time to prepare ourselves to receive a holy gift. Part of our preparation work is clearing the chaff that takes up space in our hearts.

Forgiveness, repentance, confession….each, in its own way, is a surrender of self and an embrace of God’s bountiful grace.

The candles of Advent represent hope, peace, joy, love, and Christ. These are the gifts God has planted in you. The very best part of God’s wheat is in you.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+meaning+of+baptism+in+judaism%3F&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS971US971&oq=what+is+the+meaning+of+baptism+in+judaism%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRifBTIHCAUQIRifBTIHCAYQIRifBTIHCAcQIRifBTIHCAgQIRifBTIHCAkQIRifBdIBCTk5NjJqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Prepare the Way

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 16:58:32 GMT

Dec. 8, 2024

Advent: God's four-week gift

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 03:46:31 GMT

Dec. 1, 2024

Open Endings

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 02:55:26 GMT

Nov. 24, 2024

Hannah's Promise

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 17:07:57 GMT

On Saturday evenings, my parents often entertained friends. My favorites were Edge and Evelyn. They were farmers who lived outside of town. After chores, they’d come for supper and then we’d all settle in the living room for conversation.

Edge had a favorite chair, an original Barcalounger recliner. It was an old, comfortable chair. He’d settle into it, light his pipe, and then the adults would talk about everything going on in the area. Being the elder stateman, Edge always had the final word.

A lot of wisdom was passed down from that recliner.

The story of Hannah has many facets, and many possible directions for a sermon.

Last week, as I revisited the story, something new drew my attention. It kept turning in my mind like a Rubiks cube. I wondered how it might relate to our lives.

To hear Hannah’s story deeply, it helps to know about the culture in which she lived: ancient Israel, thousands of years ago.

In her time, preserving the family lineage through heirs was vital. For men, it was the way of ensuring one’s legacy. For example, in the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is positioned in a long list of patriarchs and a few matriarchs who preceded him in life. His human identity was rooted in his ancestry. Men of means were able to afford more than one wife, giving them a better chance to secure their place in lineage.

For women, children were like ligaments connecting them to the family tree, to their kinfolk. Children ensured that they would be well cared for in later life. Of course, not all women were able to produce heirs—this theme occurs many times in Scripture. Whenever it appears, Yahweh is in the conversation. In ancient times, fertility was sacred mystery—given or taken by Yahweh.

Hannah and Peninnah show us very different ways of responding to adversity.

Peninnah is one of Elkanah’s wives. She has produced several children, and she has a husband who faithfully provides an allotment for her and for each of her children. Her connectedness to the family tree is secure. Yet this woman has a “mean girl” streak in her. Every chance she gets, Peninnah pokes at Hannah. When Hannah’s lack of children is most public and Hannah is most vulnerable, Peninnah provokes her to tears and anxiety.

It's hard to like Peninnah in this story.

But, what if we re-read it through Peninnah’s eyes?

Elkanah (her husband) provides food to Peninnah on every feast day. But to Hannah—his other wife--he gives a double portion because, “he loves Hannah”. Ouch. Peninnah has secured Elkanah’s legacy, she has produced his heirs, she’s raising teenagers, chasing toddlers, and changing diapers. And her husband gives Hannah a double portion. The favor shown to Hannah must sting.

Reading the story through her lens, I have some compassion for this character. But, rather than putting herself in Hannah’s shoes and feeling compassion for another person’s journey, Peninnah only sees the situation from her own recliner. Out of her woundedness, she strikes at Hannah—the most vulnerable person in the story.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve sat in that recliner, too.

Hannah is, of course, bereft. For her, there is no solace in Elkanah’s favor or even his love.

She goes to the temple and presents herself to Yahweh. She begins to pray from the depth of her soul: ‘O Lord of hosts, if you will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you for all of his life.’

In our modern culture it is hard to fathom Hannah’s promise to God.

She asked for a son and vowed to give that son to the temple, where he would be raised by the priests to serve God.

Yahweh did bless Hannah with a son. She named him, “Samuel,” which means, “God has heard.”

Reading Hannah’s story through her eyes, is humbling.

Hannah is comfortable. Elkanah provides for her, and through his kinfolk, Hannah will always be comfortable. She is loved. Elkanah’s love for her is so great, he cannot figure out why she’s not content. What more, he asks, could you possibly want?

Hannah longs to know God’s blessing for her. To know with certainty that God hears her prayers and is present in her life.

We’ve all been in that recliner, too.

What Hannah chose to do with God’s blessing is mind-blowing. Hannah gave her son, the first fruit of her walk with God, to God’s service. She received God’s blessing and paid it forward. In Chapter 7 of 1 Samuel, we learn that Samuel walked closely with God and judged Israel all of his life. He was a good person.

Hannah’s selfless offering to God became a blessing to the world.

Peninnah and Hannah: Both of them had difficult lives. One turned on the other—One turned to God. Both of them were blessed by God. One of them knew it—one did not.

When my parents moved from town to the country, the old brown Barcalounger didn’t fit with Mom’s décor. So the chair went to Edge and Evelyn’s home. In the winter time, I’d ice skate miles on the Cowanesque River from our home to their farm. Edge would meet me at the river with his tractor and bring me back to the farmhouse.

The whole house was heated by a potbelly stove in the kitchen, and the Barcalounger sat by the stove. I remember the hot chocolate, the smell of my mittens drying on the stove, and the love of Edge and Evelyn. They were poor, Appalachian farmers, who knew a thing or two about adversity. In their home, I knew generosity, hopefulness and joy.

Adversity is a universal reality. Everyone experiences it. The question is: how do we respond?

From Peninnah’s story, we know that settling into your neighbor’s recliner and seeing the situation through their lens can help us feel compassion for our neighbor.

And from Hannah’s story, we know that compassion for another is a beginning—but it is not enough. We are called to action to leave our metaphorical recliners and immerse ourselves through prayer in God’s calling.

We are changed in prayer. We acknowledge that we do not control much at all. We need God’s help and wisdom and love.

The Daughters of the King are having a quiet day next Saturday. As we turn toward Advent, their meditation theme is: “For what are you waiting this Advent”?

Hannah knew what she was waiting for. What are we waiting for?

Even Outsiders

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 17:21:50 GMT

Nov. 10, 2024

To Be Blessed: Set Free

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 17:20:35 GMT

All of my grandmother’s bedroom windows were fitted with venetian blinds. Some of you will remember venetian blinds from the 1960’s—the slats were wide two inches or so and made of some kind of pliable metal. I remember playing with the magic wand that closed and opened the blinds. In the morning, the blinds were opened so that light would flood into the room. At night, the blinds would be closed and the drapes drawn.

This week, as I thought about the Gospel readings we’ve heard during our stewardship season— my grandmother’s venetian blinds—as a metaphor --kept returning to me. With each story, Mark’s gospel opened the blinds just a bit—and shed more light on our human tug of war between the desires of this world and God’s power, God’s authority, and God’s love.

Today’s story cranks the venetian blinds wide open.

Jesus was traveling with the disciples. He received word that his friend Lazarus was very ill. The message to him: Please come. Jesus told the disciples this news and then he intentionally delayed his return to Bethany. By the time he reached Mary and Martha, Lazarus was dead for four days.

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were siblings. They were like chosen family to Jesus—Mary anointed him early in his ministry, Jesus often stayed in their home and dined with them. They witnessed, first-hand, many of Jesus’ miracles, healings -- signs of his divinity.

As the story began, the venetian blinds for all of the characters—even the ones who knew Jesus well—were just half-open.

Mary met Jesus as he was coming into Bethany. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

People who were there to mourn Lazarus’ death said, “He opened the eyes of the blind man…couldn’t he prevent Lazarus from dying?”

Everyone in this story believed that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ death.

No one in this story understood that death is not an end-point in God’s life. It is a point of crisis: a moment of change.

Jesus went to the tomb. The stone was rolled away. And everything changed.

“Lazarus, come out!”

“Unbind him, and let him go.”

The word unbind can also be translated “release”. Lazarus was released or un-bound in many ways. He was called out from a closed tomb—released into this world. He was un-bound from the cloth that held his body in death. Lazarus, and all those who watched this miracle, were unbound from the belief that there are limits to God’s power, God’s authority, and God’s love—in this world.

Along our stewardship journey, we met the Pharisee who wanted to test Jesus on the law. Is it lawful to divorce? We met the rich man who wondered, “What must I do to have eternal life?” We heard the disciples tattle on someone who was doing God’s work without their approval. We heard disciples vie for places of honor in heaven. We heard the voices of the crowd trying to silence a blind man.

Each of these stories was an example of our human nature and how we can become bound to the desire of this world and blind to God’s call in our lives.

The Pharisee had knowledge. Yet, he needed to prove himself wiser than Jesus.

The rich man’s wealth was not his problem. His problem was that he was unable to part with it.

James and John want to sit on the throne of God.

Jesus restored Lazarus—and all of us--to new kind of life. One where it possible for us to be set free from the stuff that binds us to this world.

On Halloween, I gave out 600 pieces of candy…well, 592…someone had to be sure it was safe for the children.

I live down the street from an elementary school. A lot families parked there, and then walked the neighborhood with their children. As the kids explained their costumes to me, I began to notice a consistent theme.

While there were some last-minute goblin costumes, most of the children were dressed like Spiderman, Aqua Man, Wonder Woman, Cat Woman. There was one policewoman (with an actual citation pad), three little firemen, a garbage collector with a smaller version of a recycle bin—he used it to collect candy. There were two Robinhood characters. And on and on.

The character identities the children chose to emulate were those of public servants. Even the fictional characters like Spiderman and Wonder Woman are people who serve those in need, and work for justice and peace. The real-life heroes, first-responders and garbage collectors, also serve people – sometimes risking their own lives for others.

These kids were dressed like saints.

What stood out to me was that not one child was dressed as a billionaire or a CEO or any other cultural icon of “success”.

Young children are able to see sainthood all around them—and they embrace it. The blinds are wide open for them.

Our culture wants to close those blinds—and slowly replace their untarnished vision of the peaceable kingdom with worldly values.

Jesus called Lazarus from old life to new life. Lazarus walked from the darkness of a closed tomb into the light of day. He was surrounded by community who mourned him in death and loved him in life. A community of saints who, like Lazarus, were changed by those words: Unbind him. Set him free.

Life, on the other side of that tomb, is changed.

We are invited to this same life—life that is redeemed, restored, and immersed in the witness of saints: those who’ve come before us, those who journey with us, and those who will follow us.

Jesus is calling to us. Come out! Be free of those things which bind you. Live fully in the Risen Body of Christ.

Alleluia!

Taking a Second Look at Faithful Stewardship

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 19:36:58 GMT

Oct. 27, 2024

To Be Blessed: To See Like a Blind Man

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 15:52:49 GMT

First, a word about stewardship.

Giving a tenth of your income to the Lord is known as a tithe, and it is a good thing—something I’ve practiced since I was a child—but that is not stewardship.

Stewardship is about how we care for or look after All that we have been entrusted with.

What kind of stewards are we of our money and our possessions?

What does the stewardship of our bodies look like?

How are we looking after our neighbors?

How are we caring for this church we have been entrusted with?

How are we stewards of our community at large?

And how are we taking care of our World?

During this Stewardship Season, yes—be open to how God is calling you to pledge a portion of the money you have been entrusted with—to the work God is doing in this place.

But also, let us be open to how God is calling us to be faithful stewards of ALL that we have been entrusted with.

And now, on to our sermon for the day.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher. We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

These are the words of a very wise man. Jesus is no fool. He is going to find out exactly what is being asked of him before giving his response

So, the disciples James and John tell Jesus what they want. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” And Jesus responds, “You have no idea what you are asking!”

We can see the picture that the Gospel writer has drawn so clearly, and we may find ourselves ridiculing James and John, “Why do they think they should be able to make such a request of Jesus?” “Who do they think they are?”

But before we get too judgmental, we need to consider a few things. First of all, it was not unheard of for kings to issue “whatever you want ‘ kind of statements to indicate their favor towards an individual. And James and John perceived Jesus as one who was preparing to set up his kingdom, and they already knew they had preferred status. They were part of the inner circle after all. Jesus often called them out or set them apart, along with Peter.-you know it was Peter and James and John in the sailboat, Peter , James and John at the transfiguration, it would be Peter , James and John that Jesus would ask to go with him to pray in the garden. They may have felt that favored status was a real possibility.

Whatever their motivation , Jesus response to them is clear, "You do not know what you are asking.."

But, Jesus doesn’t leave them there. In response to their original request, and the rising anger of the other disciples, Jesus reminds them all,

You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³ But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Jesus reminds his disciples that in the kingdom of God the way to honor and greatness are through humility and service. In the kingdom of God we are called to serve one another as Christ serves us, with a deep and profound love.

In studying scripture, it is always insightful to read the texts that surround a designated reading. For they are not isolated incidents, but rather are part of a much larger story, a much larger literary piece

The passage that comes just after this reading opens our eyes to a deeper understanding of this text.

Just after this incident, Jesus and his disciples arrive at Jericho and as they are leaving, they hear a blind man calling out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” When the blind man is hushed, he cries out even louder, and Jesus tells people to bring him near. And then, we hear that question again: “What is it you want me to do for you?” This is the same question that Jesus put to James and John. But whereas James and John replied, “grant us places of honor when you come in glory,” the blind mans response is, “Rabbi, let me see again.” And to him Jesus responds "Go; your faith has made you well." And Immediately he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.

In both situations, Jesus asked the question, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

For Bartimeaus, Jesus response was “ your faith has made you well”, and his eyes were opened. And he said, come and follow me.

For James and John, he said, “you do not know what you are asking”-- but then he opened their eyes so that they could see—not only what they were really asking, but also how their true desire could be granted. They wanted to have places of authority in the kingdom and Jesus told them how that really works. He did not laugh at them or ridicule. He invited them to be part of the answer to their prayer. He told them how it should be done and then with his life he showed them how to do it.

As we read the scripture, we see in Jesus one who is intensely interested-not only in meeting people’s needs, but also in listening to the desires of their hearts.

This is part of the Good news of God.

God calls to us as we are walking on our way. He calls to us when we are sitting by the road. He calls to us when we are surrounded by our friends, and when we are all alone.

And he says, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

And we can have the courage to answer God plainly, knowing that no matter how outrageous or improbable our request is, God can take it all in stride. Our requests may be for healing of broken bodies or broken spirits or broken relationships. They may be for deliverance from old fears or old habits or old addictions. Our requests may be for new jobs or new friends or new hopes and dreams. And God’s response may be “Your faith has made you whole.” Or it may be, “You have no idea what you are asking.”

But if that is so, just as he did with James and John he will not leave us there. God will begin to open our eyes and reveal to us the precepts of the kingdom. God will say, come, follow me. And as we follow we will see God showing us the way.

And so as these words were proclaimed in the gospel today

And as they resonate from the deep places of our hearts-as the Lord speaks to us within.

We are called again, afresh and anew to give our own answer to this question that others have heard before

And Jesus said to them

And Jesus said to him

And Jesus says to us

“What is it you want me to do for you?”

To Be Blessed: The Gift

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 16:08:03 GMT

Oct. 12, 2024

The Inclusive Way

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 16:36:10 GMT

Many of you have heard my sermons before and are aware that they are often inspired from movies and films. Today, I am going to do something a bit different: I am going to highlight a Broadway musical. Last Saturday I had the exciting opportunity to attend a Broadway musical that I have been wanting to see for a very long time. What was even more special is that I attended the show with one of my co-workers – along with her mother – for what was her first ever Broadway musical. It was a truly delightful experience.

This particular production of the musical centers around a young woman named Bobby on her 35 ^th birthday. She is single and most of her friends are married. Her friends surprise her with a birthday cake and tell her she must make a wish before blowing out the candles. But before that, the musical takes us through various scenes in which Bobby interacts with all her friends. She has friends who have been married for a long time and are still very much in love. She has friends who are about to get a divorce and are okay with their decision. She is also friends with a gay male couple that is about to get married even while one of the partners is getting cold-feet. And then she is friends with a woman who has been divorced several times and helps Bobby realize that she should not be pressured to be a certain way; that life is worth living whether you are single, married, or divorced.

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what Broadway musical I am spotlighting, you should know that I am discussing the musical titled Company that was first performed back in 1970 and was composed by one of the greatest Broadway composers ever: Stephen Sondheim – who died three years ago. Now, it is the ending of this musical that might help us understand our Gospel lesson for this morning. Right before Bobby blows out the candles and makes her birthday wish, she recognizes that the most important thing in life is to celebrate and cherish being alive – and more significantly, being alive so as to give of oneself to others in some capacity. But as Bobby blows out the candles, the musical leaves us as the viewers to decide whether Bobby wishes to become married or to remain single. That question seems to be precisely the point of the show. To give of oneself to others and to share in life with another does not necessarily mean that one must be married. Society places many expectations on everyone that we are all supposed to find “the one” and then get married. But for a lot of people, our experiences are definitely not as cut-and-dry. Society’s rules often do not make sense to many people’s lived experiences.

In the Gospel text, Jesus is presented with the “rules.” Here, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees who question him regarding a law from Moses regarding divorce. Now the Pharisees already know the law; they are the legal scholars. They are not so much concerned about what the law says, but rather in trying to condemn Jesus in some way. Jesus – in all His infinite wisdom – sees right through their trap. Before he recites the actual law of Moses to them – which he knows they already know – he begins by explaining that because of the hardness of their hearts, this law was given to them.

Now what on earth does this mean; hardness of their hearts? To answer that question, perhaps the Holy Spirit invites us to consider a different and unique perspective on this text. It is an outsider’s perspective – which is to say, it is a take on the text from the viewpoint of people whom this Gospel passage has often been used to ignore and reject. To begin, let’s look at two figures in the Bible: Jesus and St. Paul. When we read about Jesus in our Bibles, we read of a man who apparently never married. The fact that Jesus Himself did not get married reveals that his own life did not fit quite neatly within the prevailing standards of the day under this law and this seems to be large part of the reason why the Pharisees question him. St. Paul, whose writings make up much of the New Testament – some of which actually predate the four Gospels – wrote that it was better for individuals to remain celibate and never marry. He is another New Testament figure whose life did not accord 100% with this particular law from the Hebrew Bible.

The fact of the matter is that this particular law was not written to speak to the lives of many, many human beings: celibate people, divorced people, women who are treated secondary to men – and unfortunately, we must wrestle with the fact that this law does make a presumption that women are somehow secondary to men – and also for those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Regrettably, this law and this particular Gospel text has been used throughout Christian history to marginalize, reject, and ignore people whose lives might not conform to its particular context. Yet, in the passage, Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is telling. He essentially tells them that they are not able to see God’s way, that they have a hardness in their hearts, and that they only see the human way. God’s way is to include people, rather than to exclude; a love that is boundless. The real purpose and spirit of the Law of Moses was to highlight the reality that life is not to be lived in isolation; that we are supposed to give of ourselves to others. This giving of ourselves to others and thus being a blessing to others is what stewardship is all about. Holy stewardship does not begin with the question of what amount of money to pledge to the church and it is not like some sort of investment portfolio where we should expect returns on our stocks and mutual funds. Rather, the starting point is recognizing our own potential to be a blessing to other human beings. Naturally, the most intimate of human relationships in which we give of ourselves to another is the intimacy within the confines of a marriage. But we certainly need not be married, or a man, or straight, to give of ourselves to others; all of us are included in this. Considering this, we might see Christ as presenting the Pharisees a choice: to choose the human way that is exclusive and leaves a lot of people out, or to choose the way that is inclusive. God’s way – the one that Jesus seems to wish they would choose – is the inclusive way; a holy and inclusive stewardship that values all human beings.

As we read this Gospel lesson, we are also presented with the same choice Jesus was presenting the Pharisees. It is the same choice that comes at the end of the Broadway musical Company: is there only one way to fit into the world and to be included? Or is life more expansive than that? God’s gift of life demands that we recognize how we are to live our lives as a blessing to others – and in a way that is more inclusive and welcoming, rather than rejecting. As Christians, when we uncover this reality we can begin to discover what Holy Stewardship is – giving of ourselves to others – and in so doing, we can bring forth the Kingdom of God on this earth in the here and now.

Throughout this stewardship season here at St. Christopher’s, may the Holy Spirit reveal to each of us the inclusive way of Christ to give of our selves to others and be a blessing to other people.

And I have said these words to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

To be a blessing: Count your blessings

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 15:57:13 GMT

For 10 years, I served on my church’s green team. We gathered on Saturday morning to trim trees and cut the grass—all 12 acres of it. There weren’t many women on the green team, but I had grown up mowing my parents’ 3 acres. From the time I was quite young, I was able to service a riding mower and use it.

But at the church, the riding mowers were reserved for the guys. I was always given a push mower to cut the grass near the front of the church.

One September, I was working through a difficult office problem—and I needed some quiet time to find a solution. So, I took Friday off from work and, instead, cut the church grass—all 12 acres. I fueled up a riding mower, and began. The mower blade was set too high. So, I lowered the blade…one notch.

For most of the day, I rode in circles … both on the lawn mower and in my head.

By the end of the day, the lawn looked great, an interesting solution for the problem had presented itself, and I just knew that when the green team gathered the next morning, they would be thrilled to finish the job in short order.

High 5s all around.

What could go wrong?

Today marks the beginning of St. Christopher’s stewardship season. It is a 6-week period in which we will be attuned to the gifts God has given us– and how we steward those remarkable gifts through our individual lives…and through our shared life as a congregation.

We’ll look closely at characters in Scripture --How did they wrestle with God’s blessing….and how did it flow through them into the world? We will celebrate the in-gathering of our gifts and pledges for 2025 on the day we celebrate all the saints who’ve made this journey before us.

So, here we go.

Today’s Gospel reading is the first in a series of 4 episodes in which Jesus will hold the human struggles of this world in sharp contrast to life in God’s realm.

The first episode is a doozy.

The disciples were out in the world without Jesus. In their travel, they witness the unthinkable: someone—not one of the 12—was casting out demons in Jesus’ name.

A believer, who understood Jesus’ work, was doing it.

The disciples saw it happen. But they weren’t happy. They were indignant. This person is not one of “us.” Rather than rejoicing, they try stop him. Or, as Jesus said, they tried to put a stumbling block between people who needed healing and the one God chose to be a healer.

The green team assembled as per usual on Saturday morning. They saw that all 12 acres had been cut.

But they were not happy…and certainly not thankful. First, I did not have their permission to use a riding mower. Second, I had lowered the mower blade and, in their assessment, cut the grass too short. “The grass will die! The grass will die!” The grass did not die. It continues to thrive lo these many years later.

The length of the grass wasn’t really the problem. I had usurped their authority.

Rather than rejoicing, they were angry.

The disciples walked closely with Jesus: There are many occasions in Scripture when Jesus retires to a quiet place, away from the public, and teaches the disciples privately. They travel together, they know one another’s families, they break bread together, they face danger and triumph together.

The bond they share with Jesus is real.

But relationship with Jesus is not a members-only club. The disciples were not the first—or the last—to believe they understood the mind of Jesus well enough to stop fruitful ministry happening in his name.

Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Holy Envy, says, “The minute I believe I know the mind of God is the minute someone needs to sit me down and tell me to breathe into a paper bag.” [1]

The disciples thought they understood and that they were the chosen ones – they were certain that God would not authorize someone outside their group to do God’s work in the world. Trying to possess authority that did not belong to them created a stumbling block.

In God’s realm, there are no stumbling blocks. The blessing that flows from God to Creation, flows through Creation back to God. It is an endless, eternal flow of God’s love and goodness.

Jesus’ story illustrates that Creation—humans—do not always participate in this flow fully. Stumbling blocks get in our way. Pride, unhealthy desire, competitiveness, and on and on.

Our own stewardship journey begins with humility and self-reflection: what are the stumbling blocks I’ve place in my own path? What are the gifts God has placed in my life? How can I be a conduit of God’s blessing in my community?

The character I love most in today’s story is the person casting out demons. He recognized the gift that God had given him. Through his faithful belief, he used that gift, in God’s name, for God’s purpose. And when the disciples tried to stop him, he pressed on. He received God’s blessing and poured that blessing into the world. That is faithful stewardship.

[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown; Holy Envy p 108

Faith is an Action Verb

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 15:50:31 GMT

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

So, I gotta tell ya, I’m really appreciating God’s wry sense of humor this morning.

When I was in seminary, I took a whole class on James. my professor, a Presbyterian and an expert on this short book, assured me that our work would be mostly academic. “You don’t actually preach on James much,” she said. “For you Episcopalians, it hardly comes up in the lectionary.”

So here we are with James two weeks in a row.

Last week, Rev. Paula led us through a reading from the book of James, powerfully reminding us that we have choices in these anxious political times about how to spend our time. We can listen to – or even participate in – the political rancor that holds our nation in its grip or we can refocus our citizenship’s attention on God’s realm and the work that God has given us to do.

Last week, the question posed in James’ Epistle was what?

This week, we have another reading from James that seeks, I think, to ask us why?

James is a difficult book for Protestants. Our beloved host, Martin Luther, hated the book of James. He called it an epistle of straw and opposed to the Gospel.

Protestants, after all, often fall squarely in the camp that all God requires of us is faith.

James’ view is more nuanced. Believing is an essential and necessary aspect of faith, but without the works that arise as a natural consequence of our relationship with Christ, that faith is dead.

In other words, faith is not a noun. It is an action verb.

The question is what kind of action.

The wrong kind of action leads to dissension and quarreling

What is the source of your quarrels, he asks, but the cravings at war within you.

Cravings is an interesting word. We might be tempted to conclude that cravings means just what it means in English: our desires

Certainly, I think that is part of what James is saying. If you are focused more on your appetites, then you are less likely to care about your brother or sister, and you might be happy to shove someone out of the way to get a need met.

The lectionary leaves out a part of the reading that O think is actually pretty important. Right after cravings, James says this (and I’m reading from the Common English Bible):

“Doesn’t God long for our faithfulness in the life he has given to us. He gives us more grace. That is why the scriptures say God stands against the proud but favors the humble.”

I think part of what James is trying to get us to see is that it isn’t mere desire that causes us to be in conflict with one another, it is pride.

Desire is just the smoke; pride is the fire.

One of the reasons I think that craving means pride is that James points us to that quote from Proverbs 3: God stands against the proud but favors the humble.

Today’s Gospel reading suggests that pride is the problem. These disciples were arguing about who is the greatest … their pride them think that they were better-than.

Jesus sits them down and puts an end to that right quick: They who want to be first have to be last, a servant of all.

Once when, I was serving as a chaplain at a hospital, I stopped by a patient’s room. He asked me who I was, and I said I was the chaplain. He said, oh no, no. No thank you. Not interested. I left and went on my way.

I went back the next day. He didn’t remember me, but he asked me the same question: Who are you. I said I was the chaplain.

No, no, he said. No thanks. I’m not interested.

The next day, I went back again. This time he remembered me. Look, he said, I don’t no what part of it. No, thank you. You don’t understand.

Needless to say, I left. I was hurt. And if I’m honest, I grumbled a few choice words in my mind.

My supervisor asked me later, "Paul? Why did you keep going back?"

Well, I said, "Because I wanted to help him. I figured if I could just get him to talk …"

She replied: "But he said he didn’t want to talk. He wasn’t ready."

I said, "Maybe he was gonna change his mind. I was only trying to help."

See how subtle that is. I’m a nice guy. I’m just trying to do the right thing.

My supervisor asked: "How was the patient being served by what you did? What were you getting out of it?"

That is a kind of pride, isn’t it?

And its a pride that takes up a lot of space in the room because it starts off with the best of intentions, and rests in a desire to be good.

But unchecked, it takes up so much space that it ends up trying to crowd God out of the room. It becomes the Paul show, not the God show.

By contrast, scripture teaches us that God loves those who are humble …

Those who empty the self,

Those who give up an attachment or expectation of result,

Those who have the servant’s heart.

Why? Because humility opens up space for others to see and hear God. John the Baptist said: He must increase, I must decrease.

Humility is hard, though, right? There’s nothing wrong about feeling good about doing what God has called us to do. So, how can we know we are humble, and guard against pride.

My supervisor’s question is, I think, a good place to start. What am I doing here? Does it mostly serve me, my need to be competent, or to be correct, or to prevail, or to be powerful or does it serve the one in need, the hungry, the lonely, the sick?

Jesus calls us to God’s work, rather than our own.

If faith is not a noun, but rather an action verb, then the object of that faith is not, cannot be, ourselves.

It must be God.

Lord, may our works find favor in thy sight.

Words Matter

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 16:52:39 GMT

This week, the book of James was calling my name. Have you ever said something and wished with all your heart that you could reel it back in and erase the memory of your words in the minds of everyone who heard what you said?

I am, sadly, an expert in this field. The book of James –in its original Greek version-- was addressed, “Dear Paula….”

The funny part is that even as I’m speaking something crazy, I know the words coming out of my mouth are just wrong. And then I start digging an even bigger hole, trying to explain whatever train of thought left the station without an engineer on board.

All of us do this occasionally. And we’ve been on the other side of it, too.

Many years ago, during an employee review, an employee kind of lost it and shouted, “Any moron would know that I should not be doing the filing”. Of course, I was the moron in question. And the one signing the paycheck. I know that employee wished those words could be reeled back in…or that the Harry Potter spell OBLIVIATE would erase my memory.

Regardless of why those moments happen, or what we say, or what is said to us, words carry meaning. James is saying, ‘When you are speaking as a leader, a teacher, a preacher, a parent, an official, anyone in a place of perceived authority, your words --and their meaning-- are amplified…for better or for worse.

Most of the time, we are consciously thoughtful about what we are saying and the audience to whom we are speaking. But we are not perfect.

Last week, I participated in a study of this text. After we read the version printed in today’s bulletin, one person asked, “Where is the grace in this?”

And then we read the same Scripture as interpreted in The Message.

"Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths."

None of us is perfectly qualified.

All of us are in need of grace.

We have entered a challenging time in our nation—a presidential election season. Advertisements and memes and podcasts fill our TVs, ipads, radio stations, and cell phones. While I was writing this sermon on Friday, I had four political phone calls—in the span of 8 hours. It will be relentless until it is over.

And here’s some good news: it will be over in 50+ days.

During that time, James is whispering into our ears: You are followers of Jesus. Your words…your actions…carry meaning…and that meaning will be amplified because you are followers of the way.

We have a distinct opportunity to set ourselves apart from the rancor of this moment, and to refocus our energy on the Kingdom of God on Earth.

We can turn off the television and volunteer at the West Side Food pantry or Southwest Food pantry. We can choose to not engage with Facebook posts and instead spend time helping low-income families do their laundry next Saturday at Laundry Love. We can choose to go visit a friend, or call someone who’s alone. We can ride with Ben and deliver Meals on Wheels.

We can choose to have our words and our actions carry meaning that points toward the Risen Christ. It is, in my opinion, the most authentic form of evangelism….no door knocking required. Together, we can be that Light in our community, in our families, and in our friendships.

A few days after my staff member’s evaluation, I received a request to sit down together and talk. I really didn’t want to sit down with someone who had erupted in a tirade and called me names. My administrative assistant, who knows me well, said, “You will do this.” [Me:] “NO I WON’T” “Yes you will…because you need to forgive her and she needs to experience that kind of grace.”

We did meet; and our relationship as both friend and colleague was restored.

None of us are perfectly qualified. All of us are in need of grace.

James asks: Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Or does a fig tree produce olives? The answer, of course, is no.

We cannot profess to be followers of Jesus and immerse ourselves exclusively in the divisive political ways of our time.

He is challenging us to live, speak, and act in ways that reflect and amplify the Love and grace of Christ in us. He is challenging us to participate in the Kingdom of God on earth.

And here’s some good news: This is a kingdom will not be over in 50 days or so. God’s kingdom is eternal.

Amen.

The Story of St. Christopher

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 19:08:59 GMT

There are two different things that I’m going to talk to you about this morning and the most significant one that I’m going to focus on is St. Christopher himself. Now we know that our church is called St. Christopher but there was a saint whose name was St. Christopher, who also is for whom we have named our church.

And there is a beautiful painting there. That’s called an icon that’s going to be given to our church today and blessed and it is St. Christopher and so we are going to talk about that and we are also going to pull in a little bit from our Gospel story today.

I’m sure for those of you who were listening to the Gospel story. It was a little disturbing. Don’t know if you heard it or not, but you heard there was a woman asking for healing for her daughter and there was some words used about should we give the children’s bread to dogs. And yet the woman said well even the puppies eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table and in that moment, Jesus said to hear, “You have spoken truth.”

Now we don’t know if Jesus changed his mind of if he was simply declaring so that every one around could hear and know that God’s love is bigger than all the lines that we draw. When we say those people are outside, they are outside God’s grace, they are at the edge. This woman was a Canaanite and it just so happens so was Christopher.

So I’m going to pass around some pictures and I want you to look at those Christopher and tell me what you see. What do you see in that picture? What is odd Giovanni? … You see a kid on top of St. Christopher and I’m going to explain who that kid in just a second. Do you see that ya’ll pictures have a dog’s head?

Many icons of St. Christopher actually have a dog’s head for St. Christopher and the reason is because he was a Canaanite and the reason is because it was believed that the Canaanites were beyond, they were outside. They were those people that we really can’t accept. And one of those reason that those icon are painted to help all of us see that God sees it different, that when God looks at people he doesn’t see the other, the outsider, those dog headed people. God sees beloved people who belong to him.

St. Christopher was a Canaanite. He was one of those people. He was huge. He was seven and half tall. He was a massive man. And they say he didn’t look too attractive. He was kind off scary, the big strong warrior and he was working for the Canaanite king and one day he thought I notice that the king trembles when he hears Satan or the devil mentioned so the devil must be more powerful than this king so I’m going to go looking for the devil and serve him. So off St. Christopher to find the devil.

Well, he ran into a group of thieves that called themselves the devil and he says, “I think I found them” so he started working with them and they would rob people. Remember he’s big and he’s strong. Well, one day he noticed that when they passed a cross on the side of the road that the thieves went away from them. They kind of were scared of it. And he went hmmm, well who is this that even the devil is afraid of and so he began a journey to figure out who this cross person was, who this Christ person was.

He found an old hermit who was a Christian and the hermit began to teach him and tell him about the love of God. And in that learning, he became a Christian. He realized that the love God had for him was bigger than all of that outsider business that everyone else talked about it. It was bigger than all of the evil and the darkness. So here is St. Christoher, he’s a big strong tall man and you know they actually called him Reprobus because Reprobus means a reprobate, a reject that’s how he was known. But he said to the hermit, “What must I do to serve Christ?” and the hermit thought, “Well, I fast and I pray every day. Maybe you do that.”

I don’t know if any of you have had big strong tall men in your life but big, strong tall men generally like to eat a little big. And Reprobus said, “I don’t know if I can do that fasting thing.” So the hermit thought with him and I have another idea, There is a river that passes here and back in that time they didn’t have bridges over every river. They didn’t have easy ways to get across the river. And so people would have to walk through the river and sometimes the river would get high and they would get washed down the river and so the hermit told Reprobus, he said, “You’re big and you’re strong and so when those waters come and they rush you can stand firm.”

And so Reprobus took his place on the side of the river. And when a visitor would come he would hold on to them and hold them steadily across even when the waters got rough and lead them to the other side. And that became his service for Christ.

So here’s where the child comes in. One day Reprobus was standing at his place on the side of the River and a very small child came to him and the child said I need help crossing the river. Reprobus, said No problem. He picks him up puts him on his shoulder and begins to cross through the river and he gets into he river, all of the sudden the child becomes so heavy like lead, like he’s not going to be make it and he struggles and he finally gets all the way across and he sets the child down and he says, “Child, who are you? Why did you become so heavy when I was trying to cross the river” and the child said, “I am the Christ child and I carry the weight of the world.” Christopher said, “How do I know it’s you?” and he said, “Put your staff in the ground and come back tomorrow” and the next day when he came back his staff had sprouted into a palm tree and oftentimes on icons you’ll see and ours has it, too, there are palm fronds at the top. Reprobus knew that that had been the Christ child and from that day forward, he was known as Christopher. The word Christopher means Christ bearer or carrier. Just like the crucifer is the cross carrier.

So that’s where Christoher got his new name. He became a saint in the church and people said I want to be like him because he took all of who he was with his giant stature and strength and he gave it in service to Christ. He became the patron saint of travelers and outsiders and we’ve been called to walk in his footsteps.

I challenge all of us to reflect on who Christopher is and how that affects our call. Who in our community are the dog-headed people that we need to remember that God says my love goes beyond any barriers we draw. And who are the people who are travelers that need help getting the waters of life and the difficulties that might knock that them over and how we can be a Christopher and carry Christ with them out into the world.

Amen.

This world does not have the last word

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 23:23:14 GMT

Your place is right here

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 16:00:31 GMT

Jude and I have learned a few things in our first few weeks in Fort Worth. First, St. Christopher’s is a place where the welcome never seems to end. Thank you again for giving me this lovely stole. I am really grateful for your generosity.

Second, our habit of walking to the restaurants in our neighborhood is one that we have had to break in July and August: three blocks in 105 degree heat will ruin your appetite.

Third, early mornings are really great in Fort Worth for getting outside before the heat of the day begins at 8:00 am.

We’ve taken to walking in Trinity Park with our dog, Annie. We park and walk north along the river, cross at one of the pedestrian bridges and then walk south. Not knowing the city very well, it’s easy to get turned around as to where you are on the larger map … the beauty of the river and the trees and the sound of the birds make it so that it doesn’t really matter.

The other day, we went to lunch and afterward we took a wrong turn out of the parking lot. I got a little spooked as I made my turn. I had this notion that I was going to try it without the computer and try to navigate on my own. To be honest, I hadn’t a clue which way to go. The guy behind me was getting a bit impatient.

Finally, I just went and made what I call one of my “adventure turns” because I didn’t know where I’ll end up.

Interestingly, though, we turned out of the parking lot, drove down a side street, and found ourselves in trinity park, where we walk every morning.

I said: "Huh! I had no idea where we were."

And he said, rather prophetically for this sermon, “Our place was right here, all along.”

In today’s Gospel passage, we come to a crescendo of Jesus’ bread of life speech. Have you noticed over the last few weeks that the readings from the Gospel of John focus on Jesus as the bread of life.

It would be easy to believe that Jesus has been prefiguring the eucharist over the last few weeks, and perhaps he is but keep in mind that the disciples and those who heard Jesus at the time John writes about had no experience with the Eucharist.

I wonder if the climax of this story has to do with something more profound.

Today’s Gospel calls us to remember that Jesus is everything: the message has two equally important parts:

“I am,” he says, using the same name that God identified himself with in the Hebrew scriptures. God’s very word is with us. Emmanuel.

“The bread of life!” The very stuff that sustains us in a world in which regular meals, safety, and security, are assumed but not guaranteed. This bread of life, Jesus tells us, gives us what we need to live a life that God designed for us, not the life the world promises.

It's as if Jesus is saying: if you’re with me, then the insanity around you does not define you, I do. Your crazy family? I got it. The frailty of your earthly body. You belong to me. The worry and anguish about what is to come: be not afraid, it is I!

The bread of life speech that we read today and have been reading takes place in the frame of a bigger story. We are told of things that threaten our calm. Remember, the crowd of 5,000 who were fed on five loaves and two fishes. Phillip was so typical of we humans: How are we gonna feed all these people: six months wages isn’t enough!

And yet, Jesus feeds the crowd with 12 baskets left over. You should read that number 12 carefully because there were 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus is saying that the scraps of his feast will feed a whole nation!

The speech also takes place just after the storm on the sea of Galilee. We the wind and the rain terrify the disciples, but Jesus appears walking on the water and he calms creation itself. Do not be afraid. It is I.

The cares of this world: food and shelter, yes, but also anxiety and family, health, death … these are things that we worry about constantly. They disorient us. They keep us from knowing where we are on the map of the universe that God has drawn for us.

So much of our own story here at St. Christopher’s has also been disorienting at times. What will we do? What is going to happen? And yet, here we are in the midst of a new chapter, with new families and new things happening every week. I felt it the first week I visited here and even before.

This community has long relied on Jesus as the bread of life even during moments of dislocation, in which the metaphorical wind and rain were blowing fiercely. If we had turned to the world for sustenance, we would have gone hungry. If we had relied on our own wits, the boat might have sunk. But Jesus is the very bread of life that sustained us and sustains us at this very moment.

Jesus in his bread of life speeches calls us to focus on our god, and our god alone as we navigate the challenges of this life. He is at the center of a map on which the side streets don’t matter, and from which wrong turns do not exist if we would but orient ourselves towards him. He satisfies our hunger. He calms our anxiety. His life means that we will have life, even life everlasting with God.

Huh! I had no idea where we were.

Yeah, Jesus said, "Your place was right here, with me all along."

Amen.

The Peach Stone

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 02:10:45 GMT

I’m lucky to live near a farmer’s market in North Richland Hills. During the past couple of months, they’ve had an abundant supply of fresh Texas peaches. Every now and then, I stop to buy a few. I never have to ask where the peaches are—as soon as you walk through the door, you can smell them. I’ve had peaches on cereal for breakfast, homemade peach ice cream, sliced peaches with sugar and milk for dessert….and sometimes, I just rinse the peach and bite into it—over the sink!

At the center of every peach there is a pit, called a stone. It’s a hard, gnarly thing. I usually throw them away. But, inside every peach stone, there is much potential.

Solomon seemed to have it all. He grew up in a palace. David, his father, was the king of the Israelites for many years---and now, Solomon is the King. The text tells us that Solomon loved the Lord, and he followed all of his father’s statues….

Except, one.

Solomon offered sacrifices and incense “at the high places.” The places where pagan gods were worshipped. It’s a subtle reference in the text—but it appears both here, and in the parallel text recorded in 2 ^nd Chronicles.

We are meant to understand that Solomon loved the Lord…and he worshipped other gods.

So, it is surprising that while he is still at one of the high places, Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream. God said, “Ask what I should give you.” Solomon asked for an understanding mind to govern God’s people, that he would be able to discern between good and evil.

It was a big ask. Way back in the garden of Eden, God said to Adam, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” [1] Discerning good from evil was reserved for God.

Solomon asked for the very thing Adam was forbidden to take. But Solomon did not ask for this gift for himself—he desired to govern God’s people as God would govern them.

Yahweh was pleased—and said, “I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no like you shall arise after you.”

We have amazing gifts within us—and God has given us the ability to choose how we will use them.

Solomon asked God for the ability to discern between good and evil. God answered, “I give you a wise and discerning mind.” Here’s the thing that really caught my attention this week: nowhere in the text does it say, ‘Then God performed a lobotomy on Solomon”. God did not replace his mind--God transformed the mind already within Solomon.

Solomon asked for the gift he needed to live into his calling as the leader of God’s people. He welcomed the transformation God offered.

Inside that hard, gnarly peach stone, there is a seed. It looks like an almond….but, unlike almonds, we cannot eat it. To most animals, including humans, peach seeds are poisonous. But that same seed can produce amazing fruit that we can eat.

The seed cannot choose its own path. Something external must act on it.

Imagine going to Home Depot for garden seeds—and discovering that all of the seed packets are unlabeled. There are no pictures—so you have no idea what the end product looks like; and there is no gardening information: like, what kind of seeds, how many, how to plant or care for them.

There’s one more challenge: the packets do not have ordinary seeds, …these seeds can freely choose whether they will grow.

In the tiniest of print, you find the words “to be planted August 18 ^th , 2024, St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church Fort Worth.”

We have no idea what these seeds will become in 10, 20, 30 years.

Yet, our mission as a community of faith is to provide the very best soil for every one of the seeds God has entrusted to our care.

Today, Christian Formation begins for a new academic year.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has been coming to life in this church for the last 9 months. This is day 1. For children between nursey school and 11 years of age, there is a Catechesis atrium for you. There are catechists who are ready and excited to walk with you.

Journey to Adulthood welcomes youth from ages 11 to 18. This is our second year with the J2A program and we are excited to welcome everyone back.

On September 8 ^th , Bible Study with Jackie Chambers picks up where we left off last Spring. We will open the Gospel of John together this Fall.

Irreverently Faithful, our online Zoom reading group, will discuss this year’s first book on September 4th. We’re currently reading “The Jesus Heist,” written by Bishop Doyle. It’s a good one to kick off our conversations—and we even have an opportunity to get the author’s signature.

Yoga, First Friday game nights, Advent soup ‘n salad series, and on and on….there are many opportunities here. We are ready to welcome a new season of growth.

None of us know exactly how St. Christopher’s will flourish or the vision God holds for us.

It is daunting to both plan for the moment and live in faith. And so, like Solomon, we pray for God’s gift of wisdom and discernment…not for ourselves, but for the St. Christopher’s of today and tomorrow.

May the decisions we make today, be the ones that God desires for us.

Amen.

[1] Genesis 2:16

Sealed by the Holy Spirit

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 16:56:26 GMT

Aug. 11, 2024

The Whole Plan

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 17:49:57 GMT

Aug. 4, 2024

More than loaves and fish

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 17:24:13 GMT

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Character Counts

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 18:59:54 GMT

Good morning. It has been several months since I have given a sermon at this pulpit for our community. I am grateful for the opportunity to share words of what I hope will be some spiritual wisdom. As I was reflecting on our Gospel lesson this week for today’s worship, there was one theme that kept coming back to me in my mind. It is the theme of character and it is also this theme of character that I want to highlight for us today.

Now, I am going to be true to form here and do something that many of you know that I like to do in many of my sermons: I am going to spotlight a film that can help us make some sense of our Gospel lesson today. The film in question is a much more recent film. It was released in the year 2010 and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. I had the opportunity to rewatch this film within the last month or so.

The movie depicts the period of the 1930s in Great Britain. As the United Kingdom still is today, it was very much under a constitutional monarchy system of government in the 1930s. I think many of us are somewhat familiar with the history of this period, but here is a recap: the UK’s reigning monarch was King George V, who had two sons, both who were grown adults by the 1930s. The oldest, known as David, would inherit the throne and would later become King Edward VIII upon the death of King George V. The second son was known as Albert, the Duke of York, father of the longest monarch in British history: Queen Elizabeth II. Now during this period, it was widely questioned whether the oldest son was up to the task of being the future king. As the film suggests, King George V made it quite known that he thought it would be in the best interests of the UK for the throne to pass to the second son, Albert. But that is not how the rules worked in Britain’s constitutional monarchy; it was the oldest son – David – who would get the throne, despite whether he was prepared for it. Many however, including King George, thought it imperative to get Albert to recognize that he should prepare himself in the unlikely event that David – once he became king – would actually end up abdicating the throne. The film eloquently illustrates that Albert was acutely aware of this possibility and he feared it. Albert was afraid of a stutter he had that made public speaking difficult for him and this fear was an obstacle to him living into his full potential. And what unfolds in the story is the historical reality that Albert eventually ended up having to ascend to the throne, after his brother stepped down from it after a year. Even more importantly, all of this unfolds at precisely the historical moment when Great Britain and the world faced serious threats that would end up beginning World War II. Suddenly, Albert – who takes the throne as King George VI – is tasked with giving perhaps one of the most important speeches in all of human history: a speech that explains why Great Britain has entered World War II. In order to do this he must have the courage to face his fears relating to his stutter and in speaking publicly. With the help of a working class speech therapist who both has a love of Shakespeare and expects to be treated as equal, the King realizes he not only has the character needed to meet the task, but to discover who he truly is. The film in question is called The King’s Speech and it is – in my opinion – a wonderful film that I would recommend everyone watch. It has a lot to say about character and what it means to be a human being who can meet daunting tasks head on with humility, grace, and empathy. And, if any of you are like me, you are looking at our nation and our world today and you are worried about what it all might be telling us about character.

Which brings us to our Scripture texts this morning. As Christians, we should not be swayed by what the world bombards us with in terms of what makes for good character as a human being. No, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to model ourselves after the life of Christ Himself. Let’s take a look at the Gospel of Mark passage. The first thing we get from Jesus is a concern for the well-being of his apostles and followers; he seeks to have them experience some rest by going to a place of solitude. In a way, I guess Jesus was calling for a first century version of work-life balance. He is telling them that they must have a healthy concern for their own selves. The next thing that sticks out to me is that Christ is depicted as having compassion for people. And as the Gospel lesson for today unravels, this compassion is contextualized in a very specific way: Jesus is portrayed as having a great concern for the least of these in society – the sick who were brought to him from all sorts of villages, cities, farms, and marketplaces – and to treat them with love and equality. To sum it up, our Gospel lesson today illuminates for us that Christ was a human being who believed that one must necessarily take care of oneself – such as making time for solitude – and to have care, compassion, and concern for others that is put into action. And it is these two things that bring out the character in each of us that can shine the light of Christ to a world that desperately needs it more than ever.

We are in some disturbing days in our world right now. We cannot turn on the television without having the anxieties of the world stare us right in the face. In many ways, our world today appears to be as anxious and unnerved, as that which is depicted in The King’s Speech. Yet, we as Christians have something that has stood the test of time: we have accepted Christ as the way forward for humanity. Time and time again for the last 2000 years of history, it has been Christians just like you and me who have been called to show the world that God compels each of us to love ourselves, love our neighbors, and to love God – to essentially have the character to meet our moment in time. We are called by God to do so today and there is one thing I will always have faith in: when we have the character to live out the way of Jesus Christ in an often bleak, distressing, hurting, struggling world, we can actualize the Kingdom of God for humanity. It will be our way of touching all of those around us in our lives and in our communities that can bring healing; just like Jesus at the end of our Gospel passage this morning.

As we go forth after today’s worship, it is my hope that each of us will realize our own character as Christians – both individually and collectively – so that we may work to bring healing and transformation in the world all around us. May God fill each of us with the character of Jesus Christ so that we may take care of ourselves, care for our neighbors, and ultimately bring glory to God.

The Dursey Dance

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:14:48 GMT

July 14, 2024

"My grace is sufficient."

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 15:46:31 GMT

It is good to be back.

Today’s readings speak a compelling word about power: earthly power and divine power.

For several weeks, we’ve been following the story of King David through the books of Samuel. We began with God calling David from sheep-herding---and anointing him to lead Israel. David was young when God called him; he was not yet equipped to hold authority. For many years he served Saul, the King who preceded David. When he turned 30 years old, the elders came to David and anointed him to be their leader to hold earthly power.

In the Gospel, Mark has shared many stories of Jesus’ miracles. Last week, we heard the phrase, “Your faith has made you well,” in several examples of healing. Today, Jesus visits his hometown: Nazareth. Like David, he is about 30 years old. Unlike David, the elders of Jesus’ hometown reject him. Their familiarity with Jesus blinds them to the presence of the Divine. Mark said Jesus was “amazed at their unbelief.”

Thirty years after the crucifixion, Paul was suffering with an affliction. He described it as a thorn in his flesh. He appealed to God: please take this away from me. But God responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Power is made perfect in weakness --- not in strength…not in winning…not in triumph…all the experiences we covet. A life of perfect harmony and security does not reveal the depth of God’s grace for us.

Paul said, “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ…for whenever I am weak,” he said, “then I am strong.” These are the moments when we feel the grace and strength of Christ in us.

Earthly power is upside from Divine power.

The good folks of Nazareth just couldn’t see it. They saw a carpenter. A man they watched grow into his father’s trade. They have a box of expectation for Jesus. He will hammer nails, take care of his mother, and be the leader of his family until he dies. End of story. To them, his future is certain. They’ve already nailed the box of expectation closed.

But God was just beginning a new thing.

Jesus called the disciples to him, and he anointed them with authority to heal. His divine power given to them. Then he sent them into the world, two-by-two. And he told them to take nothing with them—no food, no money, no extra pair of underwear. Go –with no safety net-- and change the world.

Divine power is made perfect in human weakness. When we cannot rely on our own reserves — our own resources — our own strength, then we know the power of Christ.

Soon after I came to St. Christopher’s, our choir director dropped by my office. She began telling me about the voices in our newly formed choir and then the tone of the conversation began to shift. I realized she was building a case to purchase new music. Uh-oh, I thought, this must be a big deal---a face-to-face meeting for permission to purchase sheet music. So, I steeled myself for the ask: “How much will it cost?” $15.38.

In the conversation that followed, Shirley said something that I will never forget: “It’s just that we’ve been in survival mode for so long….”

The world had built box of expectation for us — Without a building, without a strong budget, St. Christopher’s will just exist in survival mode. The world nailed the box of expectation closed.

But God was calling us to new life.

Survival mode, or scarcity, was the thorn in our flesh. Through that weakness, we experienced grace — grace sufficient for us.

We began to grow in all kinds of ways: discipleship, stewardship, hospitality, worship, and our mission field began to grow, too.

Last December, I stepped out of the Vestry meeting so that our Senior Warden could make a petition for me: Would the vestry allow me to have an extra week of vacation and take three weeks off in June?

I walked into the fellowship hall and waited for their decision and waited and waited and waited. Finally, Barbara called me back to the meeting. The vestry was all smiles. “Of course you can have three weeks off in June.”

But wait, there’s more….

One of the vestry members had a dream the night before our meeting. In the dream, St. Christopher’s welcomed a curate to our staff. While I was pacing in the fellowship hall, the vestry was debating whether it was right time for us to ask the diocese for a curate. They unanimously passed a motion directing me to investigate the curacy program. One month later, they evaluated the cost of a curate, the diocesan curacy program, and unanimously passed a motion for us to participate in the process.

On July 15 ^th , The Rev. Paul Flynn, will begin his curacy at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church. As of today, we have received gifts and pledges equal to the curate salary for two years.

The vestry’s dream is just beginning.

Like Paul, the hardships and calamities we have endured for the sake of Christ, have opened our eyes and hearts to experience grace that is sufficient for us.

The world wants to define us. Whatever box the world tries to nail you into is not God’s box. There are no walls or certainty in God’s vision for us. Instead, we are welcomed to lives of prayerful discernment -- listen for God’s calling. It is a perpetual, life-long conversation.

We can look back over the past two years and see God’s fingerprints on our path: From scarcity to abundance -- and in many other ways -- we are becoming a new vision. The gift that has been given to us is not ours to keep — it is ours to carry into the world.

We are called, anointed, and empowered to go into this world bearing God’s grace: grace that is sufficient for the world.

When You are Afraid

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 22:06:51 GMT

New Title

In the first half of the Gospel according to Mark, the writer is concerned with portraying Jesus as “the one who is stronger.” One way he does this is by telling of several miracles that are tied together by at least four crossings of the Sea of Galilee. On the western side of this body of water there are the Jews.

On the eastern shore, there are Gentiles. Jesus moves freely, comfortably, among Jews and Gentiles alike teaching, preaching, and performing miracles.

Among the miracles are the calming of the storm, the exorcising of the demoniac, the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage, and, the miracle about which we read in today’s Gospel, the raising of the daughter of Jairus. By this means, Mark is saying, “Jesus Christ is stronger than the cultural differences that separate people from one another, he is stronger than the forces of nature, stronger than the demonic, stronger than disease, and stronger even than our greatest enemy, death. Nothing in the universe is more powerful than him. The One who is stronger is on our side. He is for us. He commands the very power of God. He has come into the world, come to all people, come to remove all obstacles, come to include everyone in his saving, recreating embrace. That is good news. And, because of that, we have nothing to fear.

Remember that our word “religion” is derived from the Latin word ligare, which means to bind together. Our word “ligament” is from the same root. Religion, then, is supposed to tie things together.

As Mark has so artfully tied together the accounts of Jesus’ obstacle defying ministry in the Galilean territory, so Jesus promises to tie our lives together and make us whole. When we place our trust in mim, we do not need to be overcome by fear.

What fears are you grappling with today? Terrorism? The economy? Supreme Court decisions? Im-

migration? Reproductive rights? Personal finances or health? A family problem?

I believe that fear is the basis for so many of our problems. It is the basis of anger, of prejudice, of a host of psychological disorders, of much disease, and it interferes with just about every relationship we have either with persons or with things. We are afraid of that which we do not know or think we know all too well. The Jesus of Mark’s gospel is greater than the greatest threat we know, and his perfect love casts out fear.

One of the most courageous people I have ever known is the Pastor for whom I worked in my first appointment after completion of seminary. J. Kenneth Shamblin was Senior Pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston for sixteen years. He left there to become the United Methodist Bishop of Louisiana. I heard him do and say many truly courageous things in the time I knew him.

But before he came to Houston, he was Senior Pastor of the Pulaski Heights Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He led that congregation in building a magnificent gothic edifice and when it was completed, he had television equipment installed and became the first church in Arkansas to telecast its morning worship services. On the first morning their service was to be seen on the television, Kenneth Shamblin mounted the pulpit and faced the task of not only delivering a sermon he knew would be carried to thousands of people whom he could not see, but also a sermon in which he publicly and fearlessly opposed the Governor of that state on the issue of the desegregation of the Little Rock schools.

Because of that sermon and the subsequent statements Dr. Shamblin made about the need for African American children to receive the same educational opportunities as Anglo children, his life and that of his family was threatened. He received obscene telephone calls and hate mail. He had to move his family to a secret location and live under guard twenty-four hours a day. This went on for weeks until he felt he was at his breaking point. Fear like he had never known before gripped him. One evening, he sat down on the steps of that beautiful church building, beaten, bruised, afraid, and contemplating ways to leave that situation. He felt helpless, hopeless, and very much alone. Just then, the Carillion began to play, and the tune brought to his mind the words, “God is my strong salvation, what foe have I to fear? In darkness and temptation, my help, my light is near.” It was as if God had extended a strong hand and a mighty arm to him in his weakest moment and lifted him up, empowering him to stand firm in his conviction and overcome his fears. And, he and God weathered the storm.

When the professional mourners came to Jairus and told him his daughter was dead, Jesus spoke a stronger word to him, “Do not fear. Only believe.” When he arrived at the house where the little girl lay, he entered that place which death had defiled and spoke a stronger word to her, “Little girl, rise up.” His words are healing words, life giving words, strong words that save us and make us whole. He speaks them to us today. If fear is overtaking you and causing you to hate, to hesitate, to hibernate, or to hyperventilate, he calls you to believe - to trust in him - to consider the possibility that there are other options, other viewpoints, other ways. If you are feeling the threat of your own mortality, if death is washing over you, if something or someone precious to you has been snatched from you, he speaks to you, “rise up.”

I have struggled with fears over the polarization and the rising tide of anger in our country from some time. I am afraid that lies, conspiracy theories, lawlessness, and incivility will be normalized and prevail. The rising tide of Christian nationalism is a threat to people of every faith and to democracy itself. I had hoped that last Thursday’s debate would help calm those fears. It did not. In fact, if anything, it seemed to make matters worse, at least for the time being. I need, and I know I am not alone, one of those obstacle-defying miracles of Jesus sooner rather than later.

It is at moments like this that we need to hear the words, “Do not fear. Only believe.” “Rise up.” These are words that bind our lives together. Bind our times together. Bind our relationships together. And bind all things together in a perfect oneness with the Shepherd and Lover of our souls. And, you know what? These healing words are news, good news, for anyone who needs to hear them. There simply are no limits to what God has in store for you and for me. Hang on to them with all your might in the face of your fears.

When You Are In a Storm

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 18:51:02 GMT

June 23, 2024

A Seed Here, A Seed There

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 19:54:05 GMT

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Oh God.” It is not only funny and enjoyable, but it also reveals a thoughtful consideration of theology and a keen insight into modern religious life. In one of the final scenes, God, who is caricatured by George Burns, and Jerry, the assistant supermarket manager to whom God is revealed, played by John Denver, are discussing the success of their mission in the world. Nobody seemed to listen to the message God told Jerry to deliver. Jerry thinks they failed. “We blew it,” he says.

But God doesn’t see it that way. “Oh, I don’t think so,” God says. “You never know; a seed here, a seed there, something will catch hold and grow.” Jesus likens this botanical process of a seed taking root, growing, and maturing, to the Kingdom of God. The principle involved is that of trust – a trust that the process of the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth will work! This principle of trust is a hard thing for us to learn. We’re a little bit like the child who planted a seed and then dug it up every day to see how it was doing. We want to hasten the process and are frustrated by the mystery of it. We want results. We want them now and we want them big.

The whole process of sowing and reaping has the providence of God behind it. There was a time when many prominent theologians and ministers spoke of the Church’s task as that of “building the Kingdom of God.” This kind of thinking led us to believe that if we could just get everybody educated, everything would be finally fixed. On the one hand, this school of theological thought prompted major advances in the field of education.

Major universities were established, community colleges sprang up across our country, and students were challenged to gain as much formal education as possible. I’m a beneficiary of this movement. I am the first person on either side of my family to graduate from a university with a bachelor’s degree, the first to earn a master’s degree, and the first to earn a doctorate.

But, on the other hand, we have discovered that education is not the key to the Kingdom. We have failed to build the Kingdom of God on earth. The first parable of Jesus in our Gospel lesson today is supposed to help us understand that the coming of the Kingdom is to be more a matter of growth than a construction project. Jesus sowed the first seeds. We are to continue to sow those seeds…in evangelism, in Christian formation, in works of justice and mercy…and, we are to tend to the field, cultivating it, watering it, nurturing it. But only God holds the key to its growth – the transformation of the seed into fruit.

What kind of seeds we sow determines what kind of fruit is produced. Seeds of division, deception, destruction yield bitter fruit. Jesus’ parable tells us that his followers are to spread the realm of God by planting the good seeds of God’s transforming, redemptive, unconditional love in the fertile soil of the lives of the people around us and let God take care of the process. “A seed here, a seed there, something will take hold and grow.” We are also reminded today that we must trust God. I often think we need to replace the word “faith” with the word “trust” in our vocabulary to keep from getting confused.

This morning, I am not speaking of faith as an abstract philosophical concept theologians sit around in ivory towers and ruminate about. I am not speaking of a set of doctrines or concepts or beliefs. I am speaking of faith as a verb. Faith is something you DO. Faith is trusting God enough to act on what you say you believe. Jesus used the horticultural analogy of the tiny mustard seed to illustrate the power of even a tiny amount of faith. In the realm of nature, there are many such illustrations.

It's Father’s Day so I’m reminded of my own father’s role in my faith formation. The greatest lesson I ever learned about faith I learned from him. I had accidentally pitched a ball into a valley on the roof of our house. Instead of getting ladder and climbing up to get it for me, dad picked me up to boost me onto the roof so I could get it myself. When I began to express my fear he said, “Don't worry. I won't let you fall.” His hands and arms felt strong. His voice was firm and confident. He had been on the roof himself. He believed I would be okay. So, I forgot my fears and found my faith and dad didn't let me fall. Through the experience of trusting I discovered that my dad was trustworthy.

I have been able to live my life with an abiding faith, often tested by the things that test everybody's faith. It goes back to that lost ball on the roof, my dad’s strong and loving arms, reassuring voice, and dependable promise, “I won't let you fall.” That has made it easier for me to trust my heavenly father who promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” It’s not always easy. If you really believe that prejudice is an obstacle to the seed sowing, growing, harvesting process of God’s Kingdom, then you have to not only work to eliminate prejudice in others, but you also have to overcome it in yourself. If you believe God supplies the resources to get his job done, then you have to commit yourself, your resources to God and trust that God will never let you run out. If you believe God wants you to help take care of creation, then you’ll have to think twice about leaving on a light or driving a gas-guzzling automobile. Faith means believing God, trusting God, enough to do something about it in the process God has established for the growth of God’s reign on earth. We don’t have to do God’s job, only ours. “A seed here, a seed there, something will take hold and grow.”

There are signs of hope and encouragement if we will look for them through eyes of faith. It is easy to be filled with doom and gloom if we look at people and the world situation only though the eyes in our heads – or perhaps the eyes of the talking heads on our news programs. But God gives us a different set of eyes – the eyes of faith. Through these eyes, we are to discern the new creation emerging all around us and that is to be a source of joy. I am thinking of several who have come seeking spiritual direction during turning points in their lives. Some have postponed or abandoned their quest. But there is still hope because the seeds have been sown. God is silently but powerfully working in their lives.

Others have moved ahead and are now helping others. God’s results are seen more quickly in some. A couple, having failed in previous marriages and after having decided never to marry again, come to seek guidance for they have fallen in love – miraculously – with one another. One who is facing life without a mate finds consolation and courage to carry on in the support of Christian friends and God’s touch upon his life. Another who is ill is restored to health again against the odds. A youth is enabled by the power of God to overcome the peer pressure she feels at school and confront her friends about the drugs destroying the minds the school is trying to train.

A person with a missing piece in his life discovers that God’s love is exactly the right shape. The blind see, the lame walk, the ears of the deaf are unstopped. Signs of the Kingdom, imperceptible if you are looking for something only through the eyes in your head. I know. Sometimes, when we look at things as the world sees them, we feel discouraged and hopeless. We see the great successes of others and feel that our little results are insignificant and trivial. But the good news is that when we do what God is calling us to do for God and our neighbors, our labor is never in vain.

God is at work, silently, sometimes imperceptibly, in the mystery of growth, bringing about the new creation. We are to be faithful, diligent, patient, and to trust God to BE God. Never be afraid to plant seeds because God is working his purpose out and because God is, something will indeed take hold and grow in the fertile soil of human lives.

The Will of God

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 16:44:00 GMT

June 9, 2024

Book of Mondays

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 15:57:59 GMT

A quote from God:

“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ” Exodus 20:8

Many of you know that I’ll be hiking for 18 days this month. The bed in my guest room is overflowing with things going on the trip….dog essentials, hiking shoes, bug spray and sun screen, books, clothes, and my journal titled, “Paula’s Book of Mondays.”

The “Book of Mondays” began last September—a reminder to me that I needed to take one day a week off. Each week, I journaled on Monday evening…what did I do that day? How many hours did I do something other than work? Yesterday, I opened the journal to see how well I have observed a weekly sabbath day. The last entry was dated April 29 ^th .

Keeping the sabbath is hard.

In today’s Gospel, we heard two very different interpretations of keeping the sabbath holy.

For the Pharisees, righteousness –or, doing that which is right--was the path to relationship with Yahweh. God gave 10 commandments to establish right relationship with humans. But by the time Jesus was born, humans had added another 600 [1] laws to the list.

The intention of all these rules was good: the whole Israelite body was set aside to be God’s people. As a body, they were yoked with God. Righteousness of the whole body was essential to remain in right relationship with Yahweh.

But over time, the rules began to take on a life of their own. They became the focus of sabbath.

Jesus, his disciples, and the Pharisees are walking through grain fields on the sabbath. Some of the people with Jesus plucked the heads off grain and ate them. We don’t know why they ate from the wheat. Were they hungry? Were they idly gnawing on a stem as a farmer might?

The Pharisees see an action that is not lawful on the sabbath. This is not a 10 commandments kind of problem. It’s a violation of those 600 human-made rules.

Last week, I was thinking about my time in Colorado. I know that I will hike and read and share time with friends who live there. These are ways in which I experience sabbath. But, then I began to estimate the number of miles I’ll hike, how many books I needed to pack. Next, I was setting goals: 175 miles, an average of 10 miles per day, finish a book every three days, and on and on.

Eventually I stopped—it was beginning to feel overwhelming. All of these goals were becoming my focus—little by little, I was changing a holy sabbath into another kind of work.

And that is sinful.

Jesus entered a synagogue—on the sabbath. He saw a person with a deformed hand. To not have the use of both hands in Jesus’ time was oppressive. The man could not work in the fields, he could not fish, he could not do construction. He had no way to provide food or housing for his family.

The Pharisees are watching---What will Jesus do? Will he cure this man on the sabbath and thus violate the righteousness code? Their focus on the rules of righteousness blinded them to the holiness in front of them.

Jesus healed the man.

The Pharisees watched it happen: a man’s hand—and his life—restored to fullness. A miracle. But they did not see holiness in the moment. What they saw was the violation of a human-made righteousness law.

A quote from God:

"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it." Exodus 20:11

Consecration means: “the action of making something sacred”. It is to take something profane—something of our secular world—and set it apart for God’s purpose. In our tradition—we usually think about consecration in the Eucharist; we bring forth the bread and wine from our world…place them on the Table; the Priest invites the Holy Spirit to consecrate them, to make them holy.

At the dawn of creation, God took something from our world—time—and God consecrated the 7 ^th day. In today’s reading, Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for humankind.”

It is a gift to us from God. A gift we are free to choose.

I wondered this week, why is it so challenging to keep the sabbath? For six days of the week, we make our to do lists, and busy ourselves doing the work God calls us to do. In my generation, productivity and a strong work ethic are desirable. It is tempting to use that 7 ^th day to catch up the things we just didn’t finish. Many are the Mondays when I have done just that.

But we give up something extraordinary.

Sabbath invites us into God’s way of being. To be free of clock-watching and a “to do list”…and, instead, to experience little microbursts of re-creation within us.

I wonder if keeping the sabbath is like training for heaven—where time does not exist; and we are immersed in the love and peace of God eternally.

A quote from God:

“Be still, and know that I am God!

I am exalted among the nations;

I am exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

[1] https://davidtue.com/righteousness-and-the-law/

Beyond the Bubble

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 03:15:43 GMT

There are many wonderful blessings to celebrate as we prepare to receive a curate in July. One of those happy blessings, for me, is that the curate will get to preach on Trinity Sunday in 2025. It’s already on the calendar!

The Gospel reading introduced a fascinating character: Nicodemus. He appears only in John’s Gospel. The first time we meet him, it feels like a secretive meeting, because he comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. The second time (in John 7), he will defend Jesus. And the third time, he and Joseph of Arimathea will lower Jesus’ body from the cross and prepare it for burial.

Nicodemus will make a journey of faith before our eyes.

He is a Pharisee, but not a typical one. Nicodemus is also a member of the Sanhedrin—the high council (sort of a Supreme Court in Jesus’ time). There are very few people in the Sanhedrin. They are the elite—the most knowledgeable, the most influential and the most powerful Jewish leaders of their day.

The story began with Nicodemus saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

It is a profound statement for this man. We grew up hearing the stories of Jesus through a Christian lens. But at that the time of this story, Christianity did not exist. Nicodemus grew up hearing the stories of Yahweh’s work through Torah, and through the prophets. In his religion, Yahweh’s presence is in the Temple, not in an itinerant rabbi.

There is a holy curiosity awakened in Nicodemus—and it draws him toward Jesus. He sees the Signs Jesus performs and he recognizes God’s revelation. “No one can do these signs,” he said, “apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus knows that God is embodied in Jesus. He comes with humility and desire to know, to understand, how can this be?

It is Nicodemus to whom Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

It is impossible, I think, to put ourselves in Nicodemus’ shoes….at the moment of this theological conversation, the name Christ has not been spoken among humankind. There’s no prophetic hint that God incarnate will come among us.

This is chapter 3 of John’s Gospel. Other than Mary, and an unsure John the Baptist, no one knows who Jesus really is…no one had heard God’s promise of eternal life….no one had heard that God, through the Son, will redeem our world.

As I walked around with our lectionary this week, I kept wondering how the story of Nicodemus connects with Trinity Sunday…a day when we grapple with the meaning of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God or as we often say in our liturgy: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the story, Jesus identified himself as the second person in the Trinity. But the Holy Spirit is not specifically named.

Karl Barth, a 20th century theologian, suggested that it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to hear and recognize God revealed. [1]

In other words, Nicodemus, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recognized the revelation of God through the signs Jesus performed. His holy curiosity drew him closer to Jesus where he was welcomed into the life of Christ, into the Trinitarian life of God.

What can we take away from this extraordinary experience of Nicodemus?

First, Nicodemus lived in a first-class bubble. His life revolved around the Temple. He operated in a tight circle of revered leaders—the very leaders who feel so threatened by Jesus that they will conspire to crucify him. This is his social, religious, and political framework. It is their fear of Jesus—and Nicodemus’ fear of his own bubble—that cause him to visit Jesus under the cover of night.

Second, there is something different about Nicodemus. He is the only one in his bubble who open to the Holy Spirit; through the Holy Spirit, Nicodemus sees God revealed through the Son. He leans into his holy curiosity to come closer to God, to be changed by the Mystery that is God.

We also live in a bubble—we may have more freedom to choose our social, religious, and political bubble. But, in our own way, we find the bubble that brings us comfort and perceived stability.

The hopefulness that emerges from Nicodemus’ story is that the Holy Spirit doesn’t care what our bubbles look like. When we are open to the Holy Spirit, we are free to move beyond our comfort zone and to behold the glory of God in our midst.

Like Nicodemus, we bring humility and holy curiosity to know God, to walk with God, to become partners in God’s mission through the Church.

All around us, there are bushes on fire….

The challenge Nicodemus poses to us is this:

Do we stand with folded arms and say, “Wow…look at that burning bush….”

Or, like Moses and Nicodemus, do we see those burning bushes as revelations of God? And if we do, are we drawn closer to the unknowable Mystery of God?

[1] McGrath, Alister E.; Christian Theology: An Introduction; pp314-315

The Gospel of Winnie the Pooh

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 19 May 2024 15:59:18 GMT

Come, Holy Spirit. Come.

A reading from Winnie-the-Pooh [1]

At first as they stumped along the path which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they didn’t say much to each other; but when they came to the stream, and had helped each other across the stepping stones, and were able to walk side by side again over the heather, they began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and Piglet said, “If you see what I mean, Pooh,” and Pooh said, “It’s just what I think myself, Piglet,” and Piglet said, “But, on the other hand, Pooh, we must remember,” and Pooh said, “Quite right, Piglet, although I had forgotten it for the moment.”

This week, as I sat with the lectionary, I was struck by how differently the Gospel of John and the book of Acts tell us about the Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel, Jesus introduced the vocation of the Holy Spirit in the world: to be our Advocate. The Spirit, he said, will guide us into all truth.

Guiding and advocating are verbs that suggest a supporting, nudging influence.

In our tradition, the Holy Spirit is often symbolized by the dove…. birds known for their calm and peaceful temperament. It was John’s text that brought to mind the relationship of Pooh and Piglet…comfortable and caring.

….And then the Holy Spirit enters the scene in the Book of Acts. Wow.

Jesus had told the disciples to expect the Spirit. And they were waiting, together, in a house. I wonder what the disciples thought their encounter with the Holy Spirit would be like? Were they expecting a dove to land on their shoulders, like at Jesus’ baptism?

Whatever they expected surely paled in comparison to what happened.

From heaven, there came the sound like the rush of a violent wind—like the sound of a tornado. Last year, there were two tornados in my North Richland Hills neighborhood. I remember sitting in my closet…listening to 80 mph wind and the creaking of the house. It was scary.

But the sound the disciples heard wasn’t outside the house—it was inside the house. It filled the house. It was inescapable.

In Celtic Christianity, the symbol for the Holy Spirit is not a dove. Instead, it is wild geese. Geese are noisy, demanding, aggressive birds….they are neither calm nor quiet. The Celtic symbolism seems to really fit that first Pentecost experience.

Immersed in the sound of violent winds, divided tongues, like fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

And, again, Wow.

John’s Gospel and the Book of Acts tell us a complex story. On one hand, the Holy Spirit is a peaceful, calming presence and on the other hand, the Spirit is noisy, unexpected, and all about action.

The Holy Spirit entered the disciples and they were changed. They received new abilities—to speak in languages they did not know—and, to be heard in languages they did not know. The experience of that first Pentecost is incredible and alarming. The Holy Spirit did not come with a big roll of duct tape…restoring the disciples to the way things used to be when Jesus was among them.

The author said, “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

And that is the question for us, too.

Like the disciples, we are gathered together on the Day of Pentecost. We’re singing songs like, “Come down, O Love divine” ---and, “Breathe on me, Breath of God”…we are inviting the Holy Spirit to come among us, to change us….to disrupt the status quo…and to guide us toward God’s vision for us.

To extend that invitation means that we are willing to open our hands and our lives to God…and to receive the gifts that God chooses for us.

It is an act of faith to desire and welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives….because the work of the Holy Spirit may not be what we want it to be. It will always be what we need it to be. The Holy Spirit entered our world to walk with us. At times, honking and demanding like wild geese. At times, calm and peaceful like a dove.

From the House at Pooh Corner: [2]

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” he whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

When I went to bed last night, the sermon ended here.

But early this morning, I was thinking about conversation questions for our adult Sunday School…and the connections between our reading, today’s Scripture, and even the sermon began flooding my mind.

And so here is an alternative ending:

St. Christopher’s sidled up to the Holy Spirit from behind.

“God!” we whispered.

“Yes, St. Chris?”

“Nothing,” we said, taking the Holy Spirit’s hand. “We just wanted to be sure of you.”

[1] A.A. Milne; The Pooh Book of Quotations: in which will be found some useful information and sustaining thoughts by Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends.; 1986; p59

[2] ibid p63

Pentecost is Coming

melaniewrightkingsbury@gmail.com (Melanie Kingsbury) — Sun, 12 May 2024 15:49:13 GMT

May 12, 2024

Where Love Abides

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Wed, 08 May 2024 02:53:28 GMT

When I turned three years old, my mom took me to the pediatrician for a 36-month check-up. Dr. Lynn did all the usual things and then he folded arms and observed me for a while. Eventually, he turned to my mom and asked, “Betty, is she always like this?” Mom said, “yes—this is who she is.” Dr. Lynn said, “I think this is ADHD…Ritalin would calm things down for her.”

But, there was a caveat. If Dr. Lynn was wrong, and I did not have ADHD, Ritalin would cause a counter-reaction—and I would be even more hyper than usual.

Spoiler alert: I do not have ADHD.

My parents talked it over and decided that Sunday morning would be a perfect chance to test Ritalin. Of course, my parents didn’t go to church. They sent my sister and I with Grandma. On Sunday morning, my unsuspecting Grandma picked us up and we went to the little Baptist church in my hometown.

By the time Rev. Bolster was leaning to his sermon—waving his arms and shouting for Jesus, Ritalin was coursing through my veins. I wanted to preach, too.

So, I slid off the pew and under the pew in front us. Then I began to army crawl toward the front of the church. And, wow, suddenly I noticed all these shiny dress shoes without shoelaces and I began gathering people’s shoes along the way.

When I popped up in front of the first row, I had an armful of shoes. I dropped them and ran up the stairs to stand beside Rev. Bolster.

None of this activity had affected his sermon. He was still waving his arms and shouting, and was I mimicking everything he did.

Grandma finally had enough and came to get me. My first sermon ended very abruptly.

Because I was so young, I have no personal memory of this event or the rest of the day before Ritalin wore off. The reason I know the story so well is because, in my family, Sunday dinner was a command performance.

After church, my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered at grandma’s home for a big meal. When the dessert plates were finally cleared, the coffee pot came to the dinner table. Everyone pushed their chairs back from the table and then the story telling began.

Stories, like the day of Ritalin, were told over and over again. I heard stories about my parents and my aunts and uncles when they were children, stories about when our family came to America, stories about families in our community. We sat at the table for hours.

Sunday dinner was holy space, a weekly ritual where the real dish being served was relationship.

Today’s Gospel reading places us at the Maundy Thursday dinner table. Jesus has already washed everyone’s feet, Judas has gone into the night to betray Jesus, and now everyone’s pushed their chairs back from the dinner table. It’s that time in the evening when they’re expecting Jesus to teach. Maybe it will be a new parable or a recalling a particular healing or that time when the disciples went out on their own, two by two.

But tonight’s conversation will not be a trip down memory lane.

Instead, Jesus will speak to them for hours…Chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17 of John’s Gospel are called “the farewell discourses.” All of it happens after the meal. These are the words Jesus felt he needed to say to his family and friends before he moved to the Garden of Gethsemane and the cross.

What he chose to say was all about relationship.

“As the Father has loved me, [he said], so I have loved you; abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

It sounds circular because it is. Jesus is part of God’s life in the Trinity. He has extended his love to us. We are invited to abide in Jesus’ love which abides in God’s love. This is an ever-evolving, never-ending relationship into which the incarnate Christ welcomes you and me.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.

Because Jesus said this at the Maundy Thursday meal, it seems like he is referring to the cross. This week, I wondered if he is also reflecting on all of his life. From the moment of Jesus’ birth, his life invited people to come and abide in God’s love. The shepherds, the wise men, Herod—all of them felt a new Presence in our world.

Wherever Jesus went, he welcomed people into relationship. He listened, he told stories about his relationship with his Father, and he taught us a new way of being in relationship: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

He tossed the keys to his life to us, and said “You are my kin…come, abide in me”.

Many of you know I grew up in Appalachia, where passing down stories from generation to generation is the fabric of community. We know one another’s stories—and we hold them for one another.

We do much the same thing in our congregational life: We read Scripture that tells us about God’s engagement with our world over thousands of years. We recite creeds. We pray as a community for our community. We sing together. We break bread and share the cup of Christ’s new covenant.

And then what?

We pass these stories to new generations of followers through Christian formation, through our welcome of guests who come to see what the Church means today.

We abide in God’s love when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked and bind up the wounds of need. We abide in God’s love when we listen deeply and hold one another’s stories. This is relationship.

It is what Jesus offered to us.

We are called to toss the keys to our life—St. Christopher’s life—to a community of people desperate to know Love.

Amen.

It's all about relationships

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:13:32 GMT

One Flock, One Shepherd

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 16:08:36 GMT

From the 2 ^nd Sunday of Easter to the Day of Ascension, our lectionary presents the same core readings every year. Each of the readings contributes something to our recognition of the Risen Christ.

On the 2 ^nd Sunday of Easter, the story of Thomas invites us to wrestle with human faith and doubt. Last Sunday, the Risen Christ appeared among his disciples while they were sharing a meal. They were startled and terrified because they did not recognize him. And so he asked, “Fellas, do you have anything to eat”. They offered him food and he ate. Through the breaking of bread, the Risen Christ was revealed to them.

Today we heard the story of the good shepherd, and it also contributes to our understanding of Christ—and to our own discipleship as Christians in this world.

There’s a lot of talk about sheep, flocks of sheep, and shepherds in the story. After our service concludes, there will be a petting zoo with sheep and even a few goats.

So, I thought it would be good to start with some fun facts about sheep….

A. Human eyes have round pupils. Sheep have rectangular pupils.

B. Humans have 155-degree peripheral vision. Sheep have MORE THAN 270-degree peripheral vision. They’re able to look straight ahead and see over both of their shoulders!

C. Sheep have an excellent sense of smell.

D. Sheep experience a range of emotion: fear, anger, despair, boredom, happiness.

E. Sheep can differentiate between human facial expressions—preferring a smile to a frown.

F. And a mama sheep recognizes the bleat (or voice) of her lamb. Even if the lamb is not visible to her, she knows the voice of her own.

What can we learn from sheep and the good shepherd that might inform our understanding of the Risen Christ?

The first part of the story is familiar. Jesus will lay down his life for us, the sheep of his flock. He differentiates himself from a hired hand—someone who is watching the flock for a paycheck only. The hired hand does not know the sheep…and is not invested in the safety and nurture of the flock.

When danger comes, the hired hand runs away. The wolf is free to scatter the sheep—they are no longer a flock.

In this part of the story, there’s a heavy emphasis on the redemptive work of Jesus the Christ for his flock. Jesus also named another part of his mission: Whereas the wolf scattered the sheep; it is the good shepherd who enfolds the flock.

Enfolding a flock of sheep is not easy. In places like Ireland and Scotland, sheep herding is still a common way of life. Many times, I’ve waited on a country road while a shepherd moved a flock of sheep from one field to another. It’s like watching a comedy skit unfold.

Herding dogs nip at the heels of the sheep who stray from the flock which is to say that they nip at the heels of all the sheep. The shepherd opens the gates and then stands in the road, holding cars at bay so the sheep can safely cross the road. Sitting in a car watching the procession, it feels like time stops. You can’t make this process happen faster—no matter how late you are for an appointment or how many times you honk your horn, the flock will pass in its own course of time.

The shepherd and dogs work together to keep the flock intact—crossing creeks, roads; moving through fence gates. The sheep seem unaware of the danger around them, or that the shepherd has risked his own life standing in the road between the sheep and oncoming cars.

I often pray that God will be the Shepherd who leads and guides St. Chris toward God’s vision for us. I wonder what dangers we routinely navigate without realizing how we’ve been held together, and safely moved along our journey, by that good shepherd.

As I reflected on the text this week, I kept coming back to a later part of the story where Jesus expanded his mission beyond the flock of believers:

He said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

In other words, Jesus is not only laying down his life for the flock of believers; he is laying down his life for all humanity, across all time.

The message of the good shepherd is daunting because we are the Body of Christ in this time and place.

We are called to know one another—not as acquaintances (like the hired hand). We are called to know one another deeply: to recognize the voice, the wounds and the joys of one another.

We are called to nurture and safeguard our flock, to raise up disciples. That means we invest in programs that encourage us to grow in faith and relationship with Christ.

We are called to welcome people into this joyful community, to create opportunities for people to plug-in and become part of fabric of St. Christopher’s.

We are called to carry God’s love and God’s peace to the sheep who do not belong to this fold. Sheep who may not look like us, or pray like us, or speak like us. Sheep who may not have a roof over their head, or transportation, or medical care, or food. Sheep who may have adopted a secular shepherd—a hired hand—to follow. The kind of shepherd who runs away when life gets hard.

How do we bring the voice of the Good Shepherd to our community?

That Voice is heard every time Laundry Love holds an event, every time a food pantry opens its doors to hungry people. The refugee work we have done—and will do—speaks volumes to people who are rebuilding their lives in a new place.

The community just outside our door is filled with people who are compelled by hope to search for the Good Shepherd. May they recognize God’s Voice, and God’s redemptive love, through us.

Children of God

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 17:44:43 GMT

April 14, 2024

What about doubt?

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 18:01:07 GMT

New Paragraph

Inescapable Love: He is Risen!

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 17:08:09 GMT

Our staff meeting last week was very hectic—there were last-minute details, missing details, and changing details to be reckoned with. As we prepared to close the meeting and pray our way into Holy Week, our choir director shared a Facebook meme with us. Pilate says to Joseph of Arimathea, “Why are you giving your brand-new burial tomb to Jesus of Nazareth?” Joseph replies, “It’s only for the weekend.”

Today’s Gospel places us at the scene of the empty tomb. Through a character—perhaps an angel—the women learn that Jesus has been raised. And then they are given a commission: ‘Go and tell the others.’

Mark describes the women fleeing from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Terror, amazement, fear -- those words held my attention this week.

I began to think about all the out-of-this world, divine events these women had experienced as they walked with Jesus. Miracles. Healings. Feedings. Parables. They saw Lazarus walk out of a tomb…alive.

And yet Mark says this empty tomb caused them to flee from the scene.

There is something quite different about this empty tomb.

Jesus raised Lazarus from human death to human life. Lazarus was restored to the life he had.

God raised Jesus from human death to resurrected life….life that is eternal.

This empty tomb is the beginning of new life, new hope. It is a mic-drop moment: He is risen. Go and tell the world.

The original, written version of Mark’s gospel ended with the passage we heard today—with the women running away, telling no one what they had seen and heard. It was a powerful conclusion because it begged a rhetorical question for every one of us: If I was standing at that empty tomb, if I heard God’s messenger say to me, “Go and tell the world”….What would I do?

Earlier this morning, we blessed a new processional cross for St. Christopher’s. It is a replica of the cross that led this congregation into worship for many years. I chose Easter Day to reveal the cross because it symbolizes our new life at St. Christopher’s. God is calling us to new life—to go and tell the world that Jesus the Christ is risen. As a congregation, St. Christopher’s has walked forward in faith time and time again. And we are flourishing as we faithfully answer God’s call.

In a few moments the processional cross will lead us to the font, where we will baptize 5 people into the Body of Christ—this, too, is a sign of new life.

For those being baptized, it is a new birth into the life of Christ, into the life of the Church of every time and place.

For the Church universal, there is new life. Each time we welcome one of God’s own into the Body of Christ, the Church itself is renewed.

For all of us, there is new life as we affirm our own vow to “do all in our power to support the newly baptized in their life in Christ.” That is quite a commitment. Because to support the spiritual growth and life of these young people, we are committing ourselves to a St. Christopher’s that is deeply rooted in youth ministry, in adult ministry, in worship, in service and in leadership.

There is new life when we acknowledge that we are not raising up a congregation for yesterday’s calling—or even the calling this particular moment. We are raising up a congregation that will say “Yes” to God’s call on this Easter Day and all the Easter Days yet to come.

A few days ago, we talked about Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter being like a triptych—a piece of art with three panels. Maundy Thursday’s panel shows foot washing, a new commandment, and the Garden of Gethsemane. Good Friday’s panel is the cross. And Easter shows us an empty tomb, the pronouncement that Jesus is Risen, and a commission to “Go, and tell the world!”

We have walked through each of those panels this week. And now it time to step back and look at the work in its totality. What is God’s message through this work?

Like art, each of us will interpret God’s work differently. I see God’s unconditional love for Creation, for the broken person that I am. I see redemption—offered freely for all Creation, across all time and place. I see new life—new hope—new joy.

Christ came to reconcile Creation to God. Through his death, resurrection, and ascension, new life is given to all of us—eternal life in Christ. Every day is Easter—in this life and in the life to come.

Today, we stand at the empty tomb with the women who were there first. We, too, hear the pronouncement that Jesus is Risen. We, too, hear the commission, “Go and tell the world!” We, too, feel the amazement and terror. For that rhetorical question is still hanging in the air: What will I do with the good news?

Alleluia! Christ is Risen.

Inescapable Love: A message from the past

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 03:09:09 GMT

It is the custom in many churches to read the Easter sermon of St. Chrysostom at the Great Vigil of Easter. And tonight, we’re going to hear his words.

During the first few hundred years of Christianity, Lent was the season for teaching the lessons of our faith to those who would be baptized during The Great Vigil of Easter. Then, after baptism, they would receive communion for the first time tonight.

The sermon was first given around 400 AD. People have been listening to these words for more than 1,600 years. When I hear the sermon, I remind myself that 1,600 years ago, there were no electric lights. No beautiful organs to accompany our singing. I imagine Chrysostom standing in a pulpit with candles lighting his handwritten notes. Without the aid of a tech team, his voice would rely on the stone walls to carry his words.

This is what he said:

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!
Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

The Easter sermon of John Chrysostom (circa 400 AD)

Inescapable Love: "I am always with you"

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 21:27:26 GMT

Last year, I watched the movie Simon Birch in Barbara Greer’s backyard. Well, I watched 95% of the movie. Simon is a child. He is born with physical disabilities; but he is certain that he is born to do something magnanimous—something that will give his life meaning.

At the end of the movie, Simon gives his life to save children. When it became apparent to me that Simon would die, I left. I couldn’t bear to watch this character, that I now cared about, die. It felt real.

It is difficult to imagine how Jesus’ friends felt on this day. We have the benefit of knowing that God’s story does not end today. But the disciples did not know. Even yesterday, as Jesus washed their feet, they did not fully understand the meaning of his life.

Most of them left the scene of the cross. Were they afraid? Were they devastated that life as they had come to know it had changed? Maybe they just couldn’t bear to watch as he died. Because this death is real.

Mary Magdalene was among those who remained at the cross. She was near him as he writhed in pain, as he asked for water, as the soldiers and people mocked him. She bore his pain with him—not physically of course, but emotionally.

We hold Good Friday in tension:

• Our grief for the tortured death of Jesus

• Our grief for our own mortality

• Our hope for a world that yearns to be reconciled

• Our faith that guides us through this fragile life

• Our joy that rolls away the rock

• Our expectant hearts that await Christ

Good Friday invites us to sit with the disciples, to feel the hopelessness of “the end”. And to hold that feeling in tension with our own expectation of God’s unending story. Jesus said to us, “I am always with you”. Even now, God’s inescapable love surrounds us—here, at this cross—and out there…in a secular world that barely remembers today is the day.

Amen.

Inescapable Love: He loved them to the end

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 03:06:47 GMT

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter are one, connected liturgy. Tonight, this three-part liturgy begins. There will be no dismissal tonight or tomorrow because the liturgy does not end until the conclusion of the Great Vigil of Easter.

It’s like looking at a triptych—a piece of art with three panels. Maundy Thursday is the first panel.

On this panel, the featured elements are foot washing, the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas, Peter. And, because we’ve walked with Mary Magdalene throughout Lent, we’ll add her to the first panel, too. She is there, of course, but she is not mentioned in the text until tomorrow.

Through Mary Magdalene we learned that proximity—geographical and spiritual—is a central theme in John’s Gospel. Mary Magdalene was often at Jesus’ feet, listening and learning. In her time, close proximity—and learning from a teacher-- were unusual behaviors for an unmarried woman.

Nevertheless, she was that eager, intent student mesmerized by all that Jesus was teaching. Her faith allowed her to see Jesus fully. The proximity she shared with him was both geographical and spiritual.

In the Johannine community, spiritual proximity is a means of divine revelation. And tonight, Jesus will use spiritual proximity to leave us with one more sign (or manifestation) of his divinity.

The low-hanging fruit of the foot washing story is the humility Jesus demonstrates. Many books on servant leadership have used this story as an example of Jesus’ leadership style. But humility is not revelatory. It is not a manifestation of the Divine. For those who will be participating in our adult Sunday school class beginning next week, humility is an outward spiritual discipline borne of an inward spiritual discipline—the discipline of prayer.

Close readers of John’s Gospel will note that there are no words of Eucharistic institution in this gospel--Words like, “On the night before he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread….”. The sacrament of Holy Eucharist comes from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is not included in this Gospel. Instead, the Johannine community uses proximity in its sacrament—foot washing.

What is a sacrament? It is an outward sign instituted by God to convey an inward or spiritual grace.

In the words of Eucharistic institution, we invite the Holy Spirit to consecrate the bread and wine—to make them holy…that they may be to us the body and blood of Christ.

In baptism, we use water from God’s creation to convey the sacrament of baptism—to be marked as Christ’s own forever.

In foot washing, Jesus will use water and proximity to convey his eternal, indelible love.

Early in the reading, the author said that “Jesus knew his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”.

During supper, Jesus took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself. He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel.

He knelt before Judas. He took the foot of this man with whom he had walked for three years—a man that had served as the treasurer of Jesus’ ministry—a man who thought Jesus had just plumb gone off the rails. And, so, Judas was going to take matters into his own hands. Jesus knew this.

And he washed the feet of his own sheep, who he loved to the end.

Jesus knelt before Peter. He interpreted Jesus’ action as one of humility. He did not understand the fullness of this moment—faith had not yet opened portal for Peter to see the divine sign as it was happening. Jesus knew this. And he washed the feet of his own sheep, who he loved to the end.

The love Jesus demonstrates this night is inescapable—Judas runs into the night to do the deed. He cannot outrun Jesus’ love. Peter will deny that he knows Jesus. Three times! His denial cannot impact Jesus’ love for him. God’s love is unconditional.

In a few moments, each of us will have the opportunity to participate in footwashing. As we kneel to wash the feet of another, we place ourselves in geographical proximity. It is faith that allows us to experience footwashing as something more than just an act of humility.

Faith allows us to see our participation in the Body of Christ. We are able to see Christ in the one whose feet we wash. And, maybe, we are able to see a bit of Christ’s love in our own participation.

Faith brings us into spiritual proximity with Christ…through the broken mess that every one of us is. No matter how badly we do this human relationship thing, foot washing reminds us that God’s love for us is unconditional and inescapable.

Amen.

Inescapable Love: New Beginnings

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 17:03:57 GMT

In July of 2022, I asked our Senior Warden, Jeanneane, if I could visit St. Christopher’s the Sunday before my official start date as your priest-in-charge. I wanted to sit in the back row, learn your worship customs and see the technology team in action. So I planned to come and fly under the radar so to speak.

It turns out there are no secrets at St. Christopher’s—not then or now. On that morning, there were quite a few more folks here than usual. And the following Sunday, our attendance swelled to twice that of any week during the summer. Tire kicking is real, and a lot of it was going on during our first few months together.

St. Christopher’s was beginning something new. People wanted to know what all the buzz was about.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we heard the lyrics to an ancient hymn known in the early Church as the Christ-Hymn. [1] It describes how the first followers of the Way interpreted Jesus the Christ:

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Two sentences. Just a handful of words to describe the beginning of something extraordinary: inescapable love entered Creation.

Over the past 20 months, many people have joined this awesome parish. But they’re not coming to kick the tires of the priest. They’re coming because of us. Because of the work we’re doing today in our community and beyond.

We come here to worship, share God’s peace, break bread together, and learn. And then we take the love of Christ into the world—meeting the hungry at three food pantries in Fort Worth, providing laundry services for those who need help, putting kitchens together for refugees relocated to Ft Worth, serving asylum seekers at the border, treating and feeding lepers in India. Together, we are rebuilding the legacy of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Southwest Ft Worth.

It is the beginning of something new: inescapable love filtering into our community through us.

The crowds gathered to watch Jesus enter Jerusalem. It must have been quite a moment. People shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”. Wondering if this was, truly, the Messiah. They came to wave their palm branches and kick the tires.

Within a few days, their shouts of “Hosanna!” became shouts of, “Crucify Him.” They did not see that something extraordinary had begun. No matter how loudly they shout on Palm Sunday or Good Friday, the love of Christ for them—for us—was, is, and always will be inescapable.

There is a short phrase that precedes the Christ-hymn in Philippians:

Paul said, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”— that we might empty ourselves of pride and vainglory, that we might humble ourselves to serve, that we might be obedient to God.

Amen.

[1] Jewish Annotated New Testament; Phil 2:6-11; p402

Matters of the Heart

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 16:04:19 GMT

Look up and live

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 16:05:41 GMT

March 10, 2024

The Path Home

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 04:06:52 GMT

On this weekend in 1983, I graduated from Penn State with an accounting degree. After commencement, I rode home with my parents, a long, 3-hour drive. We nattered about the graduation service, about my time at Penn State, and caught up on local news.

The following day, mom and dad invited me to “have a seat” at the dining room table. I recognized the formality of the moment, but I had no idea what was coming. Dad began the conversation:

“Paula, you’ve completed your college degree and you’ve done well. It is time for you to find your way. You will always be welcome here, but this is no longer your home”.

I don’t remember what I contributed to the conversation…but I do remember feeling the weight of those words. One day I was in my parents’ nest … dependent on them for housing, food, and clothing. And then I was sent forth toward a new life.

Our reading from Exodus takes place shortly after God led the Israelites out of Egypt. By this part of the story, they had been camping in the desert for about three months and they were grumpy. Just a few months ago, they had homes…food….water. Yes, it was in a foreign land and, yes they were oppressed and enslaved and yes, they were dependent on Pharoah for everything. But, looking back, it sure felt safe compared to this.

Now, they are dependent on Yahweh. They have all day to grouse about the fact that they used to have a nest in Egypt….but, now, they are itinerant-- in a barren wilderness.

God led his people from their past to a liminal space—a time in which God will wait for them to change…to become a people who are able to enter covenantal relationship with Yahweh.

From the peak of Mount Sinai, God spoke to the people: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

And thus began the path toward a new life.

One of my good friends likes to say, “You do not prepare the path for the child. You prepare the child for the path”.

For 21 years, my parents had been preparing me to leave the nest and begin a new life…on the path to which I was called. The road was a little bumpy in the first six months. I didn’t have car—or, at that moment, a job. It was scary. But in retrospect, they were right: they had prepared me for the adventure of life.

The Israelites will slowly awaken to a new relationship with God. It will require many years for them to make this transition. God began their preparation with the 10 Commandments.

The first four commandments are about our relationship with God:

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol.

You shall not use God’s name wrongfully.

You shall keep the Sabbath.

The last six commandments are about our relationship in community:

Honor your parents…those who nurture you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not cheat on your spouse.

You shall not steal.

You shall not lie.

You shall not covet others’ stuff.

These commandments have been passed down from generation to generation for 3,000 years. And they are still relevant.

God did not prepare the path for the Israelites—or for us. We are free to choose our path. But God did equip the Israelites, and us, for all that was, and all that is, to come.

Over the past year, St. Christopher’s has intentionally built a Christian formation program for all ages. It is our responsibility to invest in the spiritual lives of our congregation—and we are doing it.

Early on, the choir re-formed—some days there are 12 people in our music room after church. They are singing hymns, talking about the lyrics, and forming community. It is an aspect of Christian formation that we experience every Sunday. They support our singing and they raise up the joy in our worship.

Irreverently Faithful is a Zoom-based ministry that intersects current literature with our experiences of God in this world.

J2A—Journey to Adulthood—intentionally prepares young people to make good decisions and become leaders in adulthood.

Our adult Sunday school class is growing….in every way. Last Fall we read Matthew and talked about the culture of fear in that Gospel—and what we could learn from Jesus about living in our own present-day culture of fear. This Spring, we’re delving into Mark, a Gospel of action. We’ll follow Mark with a series of conversations about our own discipleship and action.

And a new thing is coming: for the last few months, many of you have been quietly building and sewing and designing all the props for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This program will invite our youngest Christians into the wonder of God’s story. And because so many of us are participating in the creation of the props, we are part of that story, too.

We are building legacy as a congregation—even now in our liminal moment.

These are just some examples of the ways in which we are preparing ourselves for the path—leaning more deeply into the life of Christ.

The path we walk in this world is not perfect. The Ten Commandments are broken every day. Some days by us. And some days, the path feels lonely, scary.

But there is much good news for us. God is guiding our preparation. We do not walk the path alone—we walk together as a Body of Christ—and we walk with the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to be our Advocate and Guide.

The path we are following is not random. It is the path that leads us Home—to a new life.

God's Enduring Covenant

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 16:56:18 GMT

This week, I thought a lot about the promises I’ve made over my lifetime. My earliest promises were sealed with a very serious pinky-swear—a pact that we would keep our promise to one another. No matter what.

Around the age of 7, my friend Scott and I decided to raid our piggy banks and use the money to buy a huge stash of candy. Between us, we had almost $10.

In 1968, you could buy a whole lot of candy with $10. We loaded our pockets with quarters, dimes, and nickels—and headed to the Rexall drug store.

Mr. Cooper watched as we stacked all the coins on his counter. And then we filled a bag with our favorite candy: Reese’s Cups (which were much bigger in those days), Milky Ways, all of the good stuff.

We headed back to Scott’s house because his family had a garage with a big, wooden boat that had never seen water. We liked to use the boat for our imaginary adventures of sailing the seven seas. Into the hold, we put our stash. And then we pinky-swore that we would never, ever tell.

Mr. Cooper, however, was not part of our pinky-swear.

In a town of 750 people, it should have dawned on us that Mr. Cooper might be acquainted with our parents. In fact, he had taught high school algebra to both our mothers. And that evening, he called our moms to tells them about the interesting purchase of candy we had made. Eventually, we coughed up the story and the candy. A pinky-swear gone bad.

In high school, the signs of a promise were different—the exchange of spoon rings and mood rings were popular in the 70’s or the exchange of letter jackets, class rings, bracelets. All of them were signs to our community of a promise between people.

As an adult, there were new promises--marriage vows, weddings rings, employment agreements, mortgage contracts, car loans, partnerships, client engagements. So many promises. Not all of them were kept.

In today’s reading from Genesis, God makes a promise.

The story began with Abram, who was married to Sarai. God appeared to Abram and said, “Walk before me, and be blameless…and I will make my covenant between me and you.” Abram demonstrated his humility before God by falling on his face, prostrate.

And then God said, “This is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations ….and I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”

I think it’s good to hit pause in the story…and think about the significance of this two-part promise.

First, God said he will cause Abram to be a parent—and through his lineage, there will many nations and peoples. Here’s the kicker: Abram is 99 years old when God makes this covenant. His wife, Sarai, is barren—both of them are beyond child-bearing age. Yet Yahweh said, “I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”

It is already done in God’s time.

The second part of the covenant is that Yahweh will be God to Abraham and his offspring.

Only God can make this covenant with Abraham.

God binds himself in relationship with Abraham and Sarah and all of their progeny.

And it is already done. No pinky-swear.

Many of the adult promises we make with one another are conditional.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the dentist for a standard dental cleaning. I’ve known the dentist for 20 years. But, before his staff would allow me to walk into the service area, they verified my insurance. The implicit message was, “If there will be payment, there will be service.”

For some, even relationship itself is conditional. There are those who decide whether they will like us or ignore us based upon the kind of hair day they’re having. What do we do with that? Walk away? Turn the other cheek? Go past it?

Humans negotiate conditional promises all the time.

But the covenant God made with Abraham had no conditions. Even as God spoke the covenant to Abraham, God said “I have already [done it].”

Where in our lives do we enter covenants the way God does?

For me, the most common place is here—in the Body of Christ.

When we baptize, the Church asks us to make a covenant: Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?

And the people say: We will.

During an ordination, the bishop asks the congregation: Will you uphold this person in their ministry?

And the people say: We will.

There are no conditions in our covenant with the Church.

There are many examples in our sacraments where we enter into covenant without condition. I wonder if that is because we’re being invited to emulate God’s way of entering covenant, a way that is rooted in love and trust, a way that accepts vulnerability, and a willingness to feel hurt when promises are not kept.

We enter into these covenants not as individuals, but as the corporate Body of Christ. We bind ourselves together, through Christ, and make covenants with one another.

And then the deacon gives the dismissal and sends us forth into the world—we are sent to carry the good

news and live the gospel “out there”…beyond this covenantal space. It is not easy.

The world is broken. And so are we.

Every day, we do our best to keep the promises we make and to be the people God calls us to be. And we give thanks, on our knees, for the God whose Covenant with us is unconditional, indelible, and eternal.

Thanks be to God.

Violins in Heaven

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:37:54 GMT

While we were planning this service, I asked Betsy how she and Mark met. Betsy had been thinking about learning Tai Chi. Tai Chi is a practice that involves slow, gentle movements and physical postures, a meditative state of mind, and controlled breathing. When I’m walking through my local park, I often see groups of people doing Tai Chi. Everything about Tai Chi seems like a perfect fit for Betsy.

So one day, she stopped at studio to sign up for a Tai Chi class. But Betsy had walked into a Taekwondo studio. This is not the same thing as Tai Chi. Taekwondo is a martial art with kicking and punching. It is definitely not known for “slow, gentle movements."

The person at the front desk was very persuasive and convinced Betsy to give Taekwondo a try. She did. Betsy worked at Taekwondo and prepared for her first belt test. When the day came, the black belt who called out her test steps was Mark Menikos.

A new thing was just beginning.

From the Gospel of John, we heard the familiar story of the good shepherd. This story occurs in a section of the Gospel where Jesus is trying to telling us who he is through a series of “I am” statements. I am the Light. I am the gate for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life.

Twice, in today’s reading, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd” … and then he says, “I know my own, and my own know me.” That statement stood out to me this week.

Over the past 18 months, I watched as Mark’s abilities slowly deteriorated. With each passing day, his dependence on Betsy grew. It was a graceful transition of strength and determination—and all of it was possible because of their bond of trust.

In many ways, Betsy was Mark’s shepherd. She knew him so well that she recognized and even anticipated his needs. And Mark knew, too, that Betsy had his back. He was calm in her presence. The journey they made together was sacrificial…and holy.

The photos from Mark’s life reflect a focus on relationship and self-discipline. Mark with his sons, all wearing Taekwondo uniforms. Walking with his dog Sadie. Photos of family—and band performances. And there’s a picture of Mark posing in his library, with all his books. As I sat with all these images this week, I thought about the painfulness of Alzheimer's for Mark and for everyone he loved.

Early in our relationship, Betsy sent videos of Mark playing the violin. Sometimes, she’d send CD’s of the family band…and I would listen to the joyful, racing music of the brothers. As I listened and watched Mark play, I knew that every time he held and instrument and played a piece of music, it was an original rendition of a tune playing in his mind.

Every performance was the making of a new thing. Something that had never existed before came to life.

We heard that gift today in the prelude—Mark’s beautiful interpretation of Amazing Grace performed at the National Cemetery in Arlington Va. His emotion flows from within him--through the violin--to us. It’s like he opened the door to his soul and welcomed us into that space.

Mark was an artist, one of those people in whom God planted extraordinary gifts. Gifts that allow them to capture a moment in life—not just intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually—and translate all of that energy and wisdom into music, or drama, or painting or poetry. If we look thoughtfully, we see the creative impulse of God in all of it.

Some people use words to tell you how they feel. Mark used the bow of his violin. As his disease progressed and words were increasingly difficult, music continued to be an outlet for him for a long while.

In this very room, Mark sang with the choir. Betsy said he sometimes sang his own harmonies and even his own words. Until a few months ago, he knelt here every week and received communion. He was, and is, and always will be part of this Body of Christ.

Today, we who loved and cherished him, will commend his soul to God. Mark is now in the community of all the saints—the one flock Jesus came to call unto himself. His life, as we knew it, is changed. The shackles of Alzheimer's are broken. And the soul of an artist has entered eternal life. A new thing has begun.

If there’s a violin in Heaven, there’s a lot dancing going on.

The water and the spirit

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 17:07:27 GMT

Feb. 18, 2024

What's your why?

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 02:19:48 GMT

Soon after I came to St. Christopher’s, Cn Saylors came to visit. I wondered what bit of advice she thought would be helpful to us as we continued our corporate journey. Without hesitating, she said, “Know your why”.

Today, we begin the season of Lent; it is good to think about our “why”… why do we do this thing called Lent? Why do we impose ashes and say those sobering words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return?”

Tonight, we participate in a 2,000-year-old tradition.

During the first 500 years of Christianity, Lent began on the first Sunday of Lent. It was an intentional time of preparing oneself to observe Holy Week. Those who would be baptized on Easter Day began their catechism on the first Sunday of Lent. [1]

During the 6 ^th C, someone—probably an accountant—tallied up the Mondays through Saturdays in Lent and realized, “oops, we’re a few days short of 40.” And, so Lent was moved to the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent to ensure that we could observe a full 40 days of fasting.

What about the ashes? Well, that tradition finds its roots in the Old Testament. Whenever God’s people knew they were not reconciled with Yahweh, as a sign of repentance they put on sackcloth and ashes. Christianity adopted ashes—and the 40-day season of Lent—as both an outward sign of our repentance and an inward discipline to intentionally focus on our relationship with God.

Tonight’s Gospel reading began with Jesus saying to us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” It seems contradictory to the practice of imposing ashes on our foreheads and then walking into the world. We are quite visible.

Jesus did not say that we should not practice piety….or even that we should not practice piety publicly. His warning to us is about our “why.” If we put on ashes—or take on any spiritual discipline--just to be noticed by others, we’ve missed the point.

The ashen cross on each of our faces is a Sign to the world:

A Sign that we remember the triumphant shouts of “Hosanna” as Jesus began his Passion.

A Sign that we remember the pain and suffering in our world.

A Sign that we strive for justice and dignity for all humans.

A Sign that we acknowledge the passing away of this world, and the coming of God’s Kingdom.

A Sign that we need and desire God’s reconciling Grace.

A Sign of our “Why” in a secular world.

The ashes we will bless tonight are the cremains of palms, reserved from last Palm Sunday. They take on new life when they are imposed on us. They become living Signs to the world that we will follow Christ…to the cross…to the empty tomb… to our own Risen life.

Amen.

[1] Mitchell, Leonel L; Lent Holy Week Easter and the Great Fifty Days: a Ceremonial Guide

Pass It On

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:58:51 GMT

Following Jesus

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 15:30:00 GMT

My friend, Phyllis, was an acolyte at the cathedral in Albuquerque when she was a teenager. The cathedral had a lot of Sunday morning services, and it was hard to get acolytes to stay for the last one. So Phyllis recruited new acolytes to join her. On their first Sunday, the acolytes were kind of nervous. Phyllis told them, “Just follow me. If I sit, you sit. If I stand, you stand. If I kneel you kneel.”

It was going so well until Phyllis felt faint. And so she sat down and put head between her knees. When she felt better, she sat up and looked around. All of her acolytes were sitting with their heads between their knees.

Follow me.

We are still in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel—the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Two weeks ago, he called to the disciples, “Follow me”—and immediately they left their nets and followed him. Last week, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and healed people.

Today, we heard the story of one 24-hour period in the life of Jesus. It is a one-day practicum on leadership, discipleship, and following.

The day began at the Synagogue, where Jesus and the disciples heard Scripture, prayed, and worshiped. Mark described the beginning of this time period succinctly, “After Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue” then Jesus began to work.

He entered the home of Peter, where he learned that Peter’s mother-in-law was not well. He went to her bedside and healed her.

People began coming to Peter’s home. The whole city came to Peter’s home: they were sick—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Jesus worked: He healed, cast out demons, restored people to the fulness of their being. We don’t know how many hours he worked that day or how many people he touched. Mark didn’t give us quantifiable details. Instead, he said that after all the healings, long before the sun rose, Jesus went to a deserted place. There, he prayed.

And that was the conclusion of a 24-hour period in the life of Jesus the Christ. It began in a setting like this---in community, listening to God’s Word and praising God. It concluded, alone, in prayer.

St. Christopher’s adult Sunday School class begins a new curriculum today. For six weeks, we will read the Gospel of Mark, deeply — finding examples of discipleship as we go. When we finish Mark, we will read a book written by Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.

The first section of Foster’s book addresses The Inward Disciplines: Meditation, prayer, fasting, and study.

The second section is titled, The Outward Disciplines. Foster says these disciplines are manifestations of the inward disciplines: Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, and Service.

Last week, I was preparing our Sunday school curriculum and, at the same time, working on today’s sermon. And so, Richard Foster’s thoughts on discipleship were front-and-center on my mind. I began to see this story about the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law through the lens of Jesus’ discipleship.

The first thing I noticed: Jesus’ days were rooted in his relationship with God. Whether it meant walking to a synagogue, into a desert, or to a high place, he began each day with God. Prayer is one of his spiritual disciplines.

The second thing that popped out to me was the discipline of service. Foster says a serving heart is a reflection of our inner spiritual disciplines, like prayer. In Mark’s story, the people who came to Peter’s house for healing, came after sundown because the story takes place on the Sabbath. The crowd came after the sun set—when they were not violating the rules of their religion. Jesus served them—he healed them—after the Sabbath.

Except, Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus healed her on the Sabbath.

The actions of the characters in this story reveal their understanding of what Jesus meant when he said, “Follow me.”

The disciples left their boats and followed Jesus. They went where he went. But when Jesus went to the desert to pray, the disciples were still sleeping. When they woke up, he was gone and they didn’t know where he went. This is the point in the text where I can my mother’s voice saying,

“Paula, you had one job. He said to follow him…”

Eventually they found Jesus; he was praying. He waited for them. There is no tone of judgement in his greeting. He doesn’t say, “What took you so long to find me?” or “You had one job…” Jesus knew the disciples did not yet understand that following him was not about finding his footprints in the sand and stepping into them.

Following meant seeing the deliberateness of his life—how his life was rooted in God’s life--how he practiced discipleship, and how his life manifested his calling.

There is one character in this story who immediately followed Jesus’ discipleship.

Peter’s mother-in-law. She was ill. On the Sabbath, Jesus broke the rules of this world and healed her. On the Sabbath, she broke the rules of this world and served Jesus. He did not say to her, “Follow me,” but she did.

At the end of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus gives a commission to the disciples and now to us: Go into all the world and proclaim the good news—of resurrection, of God’s redeeming love for you and me.

There are plenty of followers in this world. There are people who follow social media as if it was Gospel. There are people who follow politicians, movie stars, sport stars. There are people in every age who will follow someone—anyone—over a cliff.

To be a follower of Jesus requires us to be discerning. We have to choose what goes into our minds, our hearts, and our bodies because all of it affects what we proclaim to the world through our lives.

Someone is following your witness of Christ today. Where are you leading them?

The Power of Christ Compels Us

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 23:47:39 GMT

Good morning. It is good to be back in worship. This past month, I have battled a severe case of the flu that was very difficult to get over and this past Friday was the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death from inflammatory breast cancer, which has hit me pretty hard. As a young man, I have learned what I am sure many of us have learned throughout out lives, that grief never really goes away and at various times in our lives it can come cascading back to us – particularly around milestone anniversaries. I am thankful to be back from the sickness and grief and in worship, where we recognize that Christ calls us to abundant life of health and strength.

It is such a call to life, health, and strength that comes from Christ that actually brings us to our Gospel passage this morning. To begin to make some sense of it for our time period today, I would like to begin with a scene from a film. Many of you have heard some of my sermons before in the past and you know that I often find Christian theology in a lot of cinema. The specific film in question is one that I suspect many may find quite controversial and it certainly is not one that everyone will be able to watch.

It was considered so controversial when it was released in 1973 that it was even swiftly condemned by Catholic bishops in the United States. Some of you who know your film history or know your horror films, may already know which film I am talking about. Notwithstanding, the film centers around a young girl in Washington, D.C. who appears to become psychologically disturbed. Throughout the movie, this young girl’s supposed illness gets more and more severe.

Doctors, psychologists, and medical experts try everything to no avail. Finally, the mother of the daughter turns to religion to find a cure for her daughter. She learns that exorcism is a spiritual practice carried out by the Catholic Church and she meets with a priest to discuss one such exorcism for her daughter. The priest in question is himself skeptical and suggests that in Catholicism, the practice of exorcism is so rare, that it has all but been abandoned. Yet, he agrees to examine the mother’s daughter and upon such an examination he comes to believe that perhaps an exorcism could be warranted in the case.

He speaks with his superior in the Church and it is suggested that another priest who has performed such exorcisms throughout he world should assist him in the matter. Both priests then work together to perform a spiritual exorcism on the child and during the exorcism one of the most profound religious statements in any film ever made is declared: “The power of Christ compels you.” If you do not know by now what film I am referring to, it is the 1973 film titled The Exorcist. I must stress again, this is not a film that everyone can watch and it certainly is not for children. I will state, however, that the film is actually one of my favorite films and it is because I believe the film to actually be a powerful affirmation of the role of religion and spirituality in our lives and in world. And to be humorous for a moment: I am delighted that I actually get to use the words from the film – “The power of Christ compels you” – as a sermon title.

When we look at our Gospel lesson, it seems that it really is the power of Christ that compels us. The text in question taken from the Gospel of Mark depicts an actual exorcism that Jesus is stated to have performed in the synagogue. The man who was exorcised basically screams at Jesus in the synagogue and raises a question that implies that Jesus has come to destroy people, to essentially bring death. Jesus then – with power – speaks to this man with an unclean spirit and calls for him to be silent and for the evil spirit to come out of him. In a nutshell, it was the power of Christ that compelled the spirit of death to come out of the man.

Now, we do not live in a world where actual exorcisms as depicted in the film The Exorcist are performed on a regular basis. Modern science has revealed that much of what the Church believed as needing to be exorcised have actually been things that can be cured medically. Notwithstanding, I believe that when we think about exorcism in terms of prophetically calling ourselves and the world away from death and toward life, then we can see that there is so much in our world that needs to be exorcized.

One of the Biblical commentaries on this Gospel text puts it powerfully: “Satan’s power is being broken up because the Lord has come to redeem the people. Therefore, the exorcism indicates what it means for the Kingdom of God to draw near. The kingdom cannot be separated from the person of Jesus, who embodies God’s power.”

What is some of the death in our world that needs the power of the Christian message to compel it back to life? We could look at the rate of alcoholism and opioid addiction in our nation – people dying from so-called deaths from despair. We could look at rising income inequalities. We can see all of the political strife we are stuck in. Across the globe in Israel and Palestine, we can see what is happening in Gaza, where the United Nations is projecting that 500,000 Palestinians could potentially starve. We can see it in the rising antisemitism in our society. We can see it in the fact that today, it is still an epidemic that many LGBTQ children are still thrown out on the streets. We can see it in the apathy that seems to grip many in our own communities to even try to do anything positive and life giving at all. Death and despair abound all around us.

Now, there are some voices in our 21 ^st century world today who believe that religion has no use for humanity. They are wrong. When we begin to understand that the message of Christ is a call toward life, then we know that it is more relevant than ever, in this very world where so much death and despair is rife. Just as the power of Christ compelled that young man in the synagogue to life in the first century, the power of Christ compels us to life in our modern world. And for those of us called Christians, we are called to model Christ. We must therefore call ourselves and our world toward that life that Christ compels us toward. As we go forth in our lives, may we thus be the instruments that God can use to compel life in all that is around us. It is the power of Christ that compels us.

A Story About Fish

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:22:14 GMT

We have some wonderful readings today. The theme is calling…and following.

Usually, I begin sermons with a metaphor—a story that has a bit of humor and speaks to us about the Gospel reading. But today that’s not necessary….because the story of Jonah (and the really big fish that swallowed up Jonah) is a metaphor for calling and following.

The book of Jonah opens abruptly. Yahweh says one word to Jonah, “Up!” And then he tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, a huge city that has fallen into despicable ways. Jonah is supposed to proclaim to the whole city of Nineveh that their wickedness has provoked Yahweh—and now Nineveh will be destroyed. For the people of Nineveh, this was definitely not good news.

Upon hearing God’s plan, Jonah did the logical thing. He ran away.

Jonah’s decision to run imperiled his life—and the lives of sailors with him on a boat. In the midst of a terrible storm, the sailors did the logical thing. They threw Jonah overboard. As soon as Jonah was off the boat, the storm stopped.

Jonah, it turned out, was not a fantastic swimmer. He probably should have considered this before boarding a boat and going to sea.

But, God intervened. A great fish swallowed Jonah…and Jonah remained inside that great fish until he called out to Yahweh.

Once Jonah was on dry land, God spoke again: “Up! Go to Nineveh and preach to it as I tell you.”

This time, Jonah does the illogical thing. He follows the calling and goes.

We will hear the Gospel of Mark throughout this year. It stands out among the four gospels: it’s the first one written, the shortest gospel, and the only one written before the Temple was destroyed. Mark’s worldview is distinct. We will hear a sense of urgency in his words—an implied inquiry, “Are you with Jesus? Or not?”

The historical period between Jesus’ resurrection and the destruction of the Temple was turbulent. There was frustration with Roman oppression. And the Romans were frustrated with the zealots, religious laws unique to Judaism, and this new group of people following the Way. Jerusalem was a ticking time bomb…and time was running out.

So, whereas Jonah’s calling is an elaborate story with colorful characters and even a vomiting fish, Mark presents the calling of the first four disciples in one, brief paragraph.

In the few words Mark chose, he told us much about Jesus, about calling, and about following.

Mark sets the scene: Jesus is walking along the sea of Galilee…he sees Peter and Andrew fishing. He calls to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately, they abandon their nets and follow him.

I’ve often wondered about this scene. ‘Fishing for people’ is unusual imagery. I wonder what it meant to Peter and Andrew? Did they know they were the first two fish in Jesus’ net?

Next, Jesus sees James and John who were working in a boat with their dad. He called them, and they left their dad in the boat…and followed Jesus.

There is something compelling about Jesus that is not obvious from his spoken words. But, it becomes obvious because of the response to his words.

He calls, “Follow me.”

Peter, Andrew, James, and John follow.

None of the disciples speak. They don’t ask questions. We would want to know things….”How long will we be gone? Will we be back in time for dinner? Do I need to pack a suitcase? Should I grab a charger for my cell phone? ....”

Unlike Jonah, the disciples do not run away. They do the illogical thing. They follow.

The subtext of this calling story is important. From the moment Jesus takes up his ministry, some people—not all—hear his voice through a lens of faith. They follow --- even though they are filled with unspoken and unanswered questions.

They follow and the pilgrimage to resurrection begins. We are part of that pilgrimage, too.

Throughout the life of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, many people have walked this pilgrimage. None of us are here for all of it; all of us are here for some it. Our lives are changed by those we encounter as we go.

Along the way, Marshall Amis joined the pilgrimage of St. Chris. His impact in this congregation—and in the lives of those who knew him well—was meaningful and significant.

Early in our relationship, Marshall told me—emphatically--that he did not want to have a burial service when his time came. We disagreed on his reasoning and, therefore, we revisited the topic several times. Marshall died on the eve of his 96 ^th birthday, December 30, 2023.

Today, we are celebrating his life in the midst of our Sunday worship—this is a compromise that meets his desire to not be overly recognized, and it is an opportunity for us to give thanks to God for the time we shared with Marshall.

Without Marshall, we would not be here in this physical place.

At the beginning of his career as a civil engineer, Marshall was recruited by the City of Fort Worth to be its head of engineering. A gentleman named Irwin Kraus imagined a new neighborhood in the southwest portion of Fort Worth. Mr. Kraus formed an entity called, “Wedgwood Enterprises.” He went to the city to obtain permission to proceed with his development. The City’s Engineer, Marshall Amis, turned him down.

Eventually, Mr. Kraus earned the necessary permits to move forward with his project. He was so impressed by Marshall during the negotiation with the city, that—after the deal was done--he hired Marshall away from the city. Eventually, he made him a 50-50 partner in Wedgwood enterprises.

Together, they platted Wedgwood neighborhoods…including the property on which St. Matthew’s is built. They named all those streets that begin with the letter W. In fact, they named so many W streets, the fire department told them they had to stop. It was creating confusion in the emergency response system.

I visited Marshall many times over the past 18 months. We shared stories about our roots and he shared snippets from the Wall Street Journal. Marshall wasn’t one to speak emotionally. But it was clear to me that he cared deeply about this congregation…and this congregation cared about him. Twice, as I was leaving his facility, I encountered Ken Monroe coming to have lunch with Marshall.

To follow Jesus is to see the world differently—through a lens of faith. It is to know that our path leads to a new way of life, to resurrection, to life abundant in the eternal expanse of God’s love.

I am grateful for your witness of faithful pilgrimage.

May Marshall’s soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 17:00:11 GMT

It is good to be here with all of you today.

I wonder what the Spirit of the Lord might be saying to us through these scriptures.

As I prepared for our sharing today, I found that the lesson from First Samuel caught my attention. Lets review together what happened in that reading we just heard.

1. There was a man named Eli who was a High Priest and served God in the Temple.

2. There was a boy named Samuel who helped Eli with things in the temple and also lived there

3. It was no longer common in those days for folks to hear the word of the Lord or see visions

4. Samuel was not familiar with the voice of the Lord.

5. Samuel heard someone call his name three different times and thought it was Eli each time.

6. Eli finally figured out what was going on and told Samuel that God was trying to speak to him—and next time he should stay right where he was and say, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

7. When Samuel did this, the Lord spoke to him and gave him a prophesy.

8. The next day, Eli required that Samuel tell him what he had learned.

9. Eli accepted the prophecy

10. Samuel became known as a trusted prophet.

I did some research and learned that Samuel was likely about 12 years old at this time.

I found that interesting because I was about 12 years old when my Youth Leader shared with me the idea that God wants to talk to us—and in fact talks to us quite frequently—but often times we are too busy to listen—or we simply have no idea that God might talk to us and so we don’t even think to listen.

I thought, that seems weird, would God really be interested in talking to people? So I began exploring this idea—what do we see in scripture?

Well, there was God at the beginning talking to Adam and Eve, and then God spoke to Noah and then to Abraham and to Jacob and of course God spoke to Moses and to Joshua and to Samuel and to Jonah and to Paul.

The more scripture I read, the more I realized that God has been talking to humanity for a very long time. So what does that mean for me and you?

Well, if God is able and willing to talk to all of them—maybe God is in fact talking to me too. So I began trying to tune my heart to hearing Gods voice. I began keeping a journal with me when I was praying and I would listen for a word from God and I would write down what I thought God was saying. And later I would check with people I trusted to see if that sounded like something God might be trying to tell me.

Sometimes like Samuel I would just hear the Lord saying my name. Sometimes I would feel God was asking me to do something like check on my neighbor or send a note to someone I knew. One time when I was about 18 and I was going through a really difficult time and I was trying to figure out what to do and I was trying to hear God about it—the dialogue went something like this

Me--"Lord, I am so confused I don’t know what to do."

Lord—"Melanie."

Me—"Yes, Lord?"

Lord—"Melanie."

Me—"Yes, Lord?"

The Lord—"Melanie, I love you."

Me—"Is that it? Just I love you? Is that all?"

The Lord—"No, Melanie, that is not all—that is Everything!"

And with that it struck home and I began to weep and things shifted inside of me.

So, I have given you each a piece of paper today and something to write with.

On that paper, is the quote from our scripture reading today, “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening.”

Now I am sure that some of you have a variety of ways you listen for God in your life—but some of you may be like Samuel in our story today—

“Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”

I want to invite us all to listen for a moment.

God is not restricted by the capabilities of our ear drums or our hearing aids—God speaks in the stillness of our spirit.

Listen, in the quiet. Listen to God call you by name. And if the Lord happens to also say something more—feel free to jot it down so you can remember what it was you heard.

----------------------Sit In SILENCE for a little while-----------------------------.

And the Fourth time when Samuel heard the Lord calling, “Samuel. Samuel!

He responded, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

The Book of Ken

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 23:52:07 GMT

In June of 2022, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth held a special convention to determine if we would reunite with the Diocese of Texas. We shared a beautiful worship service with all the parishes and missions of our diocese, and then there was the business meeting. After it, we filed into the fellowship hall of Trinity Fort Worth for a celebratory luncheon.

Just days before that event, the diocese issued a press release telling the whole world that St Christopher’s vestry called me to be your next priest. As I was making my way through the lunch line, Jeanneane Keene—the senior warden—asked if I would sit at the St. Christopher’s table and meet more of you.

Of course, I did just that. And what followed was a lot like speed dating. There were questions coming at me from every direction. Folks were learning about me and I was desperately trying to put names and faces together. When the buzz slowed down, I turned to my right where Ken Monroe was sitting and listening.

He faced me with those intense blue eyes and asked, “What do I call you?” I said, “You can call me Paula…what’s your name?” We talked for a while getting to know one another a bit, and then Ken said, “I’d like you to come to my home and meet my wife.” His eyes filled with tears as he told me that he and Ann would soon celebrate their 70 ^th wedding anniversary.

In my first week at St. Chris, he came to the office with a book-- and a CD-- of the history of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church. It was important to Ken that I would know our story, our calling, our mission. It was important to me that I would know him.

As I thought about this sermon, I wondered the same question Thomas asked in the Gospel. How can we know the way? When someone who has been a constant presence in our life is suddenly gone, how do we know the way forward?

In the Gospel, Jesus knows he will die…he shared the news with his disciples, the people he loves, and they’re freaking out. He had been the cornerstone of their lives. He brought them into ministry, taught them, and empowered them to go into the world. Because, like a parent, he knew from the beginning that he would leave them one day.

Jesus responds to the disciples’ worry by sharing with them the very reason he is among them: physical death is not the end of his story. It is the beginning of new chapter…for him and for Ken and for us.

Jesus’ words—“I go to prepare a place for you…so that where I am you may be also”-- struck a chord with me as I was thinking about Ken’s way of being in this world.

In my first week at St. Christopher’s, he brought the history of the congregation to me in both print and digital formats.

A few weeks ago, Tara and I were going through old office files. We opened a file drawer that was overflowing with pieces of paper. Over the past 65 years, we had retained the warranties and repair receipts for every piece equipment ever installed at our old building. It was a lot of stuff. In the middle of it, we found a special notebook.

As I leafed through the book, I realized it was handwritten by Ken Monroe…. pages and pages of notes. He logged notes on all the equipment in the building, the dates of routine maintenance and the details of crisis maintenance. If we owned it, Ken logged it. If we fixed it, replaced it, upgraded it, Ken logged it.

I’m told that when freezing weather visited Fort Worth, Ken went to the church building to be sure the equipment was weather protected and the faucets were opened and trickling water.

When he retired from General Dynamics, his team asked for Ken’s little black notebook. Throughout his military service and then 46 years at General Dynamics, Ken had kept a notebook with the names and numbers of people who had very specific knowledge to solve very specific problems. He’d pulled out that little black notebook so many times, it was coveted by the younger engineers.

Ken intentionally built a library of knowledge, wisdom, and relationships for those of us who come after him. He invested much of his life in the art of empowering others.

In the Fall of 2022, I finally made it to the Monroe home. As I settled into the living room with Ann and Ken, the woodstove was fired up and the room was warm. I had spent time that day with Marshall Amis. Marshall had told me the story of meeting Bet for the first time. I remarked that she must have been a lovely person. Ken rose from his recliner and began pulling framed photos off the wall, Ann found a book of photos to share.

There were photos of Bet and Ann on the dock at the lake house, and others with their hair wrapped in scarves as they boated across the lake, and, of course, Marshall and Ken enjoying time on the boat. There’s a photograph of a church where the family worshiped when they were at the lake on Sundays.

The lake house was a place of Sabbath for Ken. A lot of family memories and good times were born there.

On the afternoon before Ken died, I visited him in the hospital. I knew he had been through a lot that week, but I did not know his bags were packed and ready for the last trip. I walked to his bedside to take his hands in mine and pray with him. But instead, Ken took my hands into his.

So, when the family chose “He’s got the whole world in his hands” as a hymn for today, I remembered Ken closing his hands around mine. One last time, being the one offering strength and presence.

Jesus wanted to comfort his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled…I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Every notebook Ken filled was an act of faith—a breadcrumb trail to help others find their way.

Every vegetable pulled from his garden and dropped at someone’s doorstep was an act of generosity—a reflection of the abundant life he lived.

Every time his eyes filled with tears talking about Ann, or his children, or grandchildren, he showed us vulnerability and love.

Every time he prepared the church for freezing temperatures, installed a basketball hoop for a 10-year-old boy, or painstakingly cleaned the Christus Rex, we saw a servant heart.

Every time he welcomed us into his home, into his life, we felt the radical welcome of Love.

The Book of Ken etched in our hearts – his way of living and loving and caring for others—that book is grounded in Hope and it points toward the Risen Christ: the way, the truth, and the life.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

The Gift

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 06:00:34 GMT

On December 9th, 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on CBS. Every year since then, Charlie Brown has asked his famous question: “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”

Tonight’s lectionary is filled with answers for Charlie Brown.

Isaiah’s song of thanksgiving is forever remembered in Handel’s glorious Messiah: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath light shined…. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah’s words signaled a new period of peace, justice, and righteousness. His prophesy—700 years before the birth of Christ—was meant for a people who had been conquered, thrown out of their homeland, and enslaved. They had no hope.

Unto them, a child is born.

To this day, Isaiah’s words are a balm to people who live day-to-day, meal-to-meal, without a homeland, without a bed, without work, without a sense of belonging.

Unto them, a child is born.

It is Linus, Charlie Brown’s best friend, who will walk to center stage and recite tonight’s Gospel reading. Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth. The Romans emperor who oversees their homeland, decrees that everyone must participate in a census. There are no exceptions for people who are poor--or ill--or elderly--or in their 9th month of pregnancy.

And, so, Joseph and Mary begin the walk to Bethlehem 90 miles away.

They arrive safely. Luke tells us there were no hotel vacancies for Mary and Joseph. When she begins labor, they find accommodation in a simple dwelling shared by animals. There are no doctors or nurses or clean sheets or running water. It is Mary’s first child. She and Joseph are alone.

Unto them, a child is born.

The shepherds were tending their flock that very night. The darkness of a desert night is different than a modern city nightscape. In Fort Worth, we see just a fraction of the night sky. In Bethlehem, 2000 years ago, the stars were vibrant.

There was no other light competing with the stars. The shepherds’ eyes adjusted to the absence of light.

Piercing the darkness, an angel appears before them. Luke says, “the glory of the Lord shone around them.” Suddenly they are immersed in dazzling light—like nothing they had ever seen. They were terrified.

Unto them, a child is born.

The divine gift we remember tonight is different than the gifts under our Christmas trees. This gift is not in a box---we can’t pick it up, shake it and try to guess what’s inside. Does it rattle like the pieces of a puzzle? Is it squishy like a bag of socks? Is it shaped like a guitar? Or tiny like a jewelry box?

There’s no tag on this gift.

At the end of our worship, we will dim the lights and sing Silent Night together. Without electric lights, the Advent candles will be much more visible to our eyes.

The acolytes will carry light from the Christ candle to those who are sitting on the end of each row. As light passes from one person to the next, the light of Christ will illumine this room. It is a living demonstration of the Body of Christ being Christ in the world.

Along every row, each of us receives the Light of Christ—and shares the Light of Christ with a neighbor. There is welcome—accepting the light; and there is gift—sharing God’s light.

The gift we receive tonight is already inside us.

We are connected through Christ to all people, across all time and place, to all of God’s creation. We are free to choose how we welcome the divine gift and we are free to choose how we share it.

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown:

Unto us, a child is born.

Mary Had A Little Lamb

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 17:21:07 GMT

Dec. 17, 2023

Points of Light

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 02:52:52 GMT

During my first week in college, I met a new friend. Renae is a Pittsburgh native. While the fall colors were still beautiful, we rode a bus from State College to Pittsburgh and spent a weekend with her family.

My parents were big fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Every summer we traveled to the city to catch a few baseball games. I was familiar with the sights and sounds of Pittsburgh.

During the spring, Renae came to my family’s home, in the Allegheny mountains of Appalachia. Tioga County Pennsylvania is about 25 percent larger than Tarrant County. There are well over two million living in Tarrant County. And only 40,000 people live in Tioga County. Fewer people live in Tioga County than the neighborhood of Wedgwood.

In other words, there are very few people and they are spread across a very large area.

On Friday evening, Renae and I decided to go for a walk. As we walked along a dirt road, Renae became very quiet. I asked if there was something on her mind. And she responded, in a whisper, “It’s very dark here.”

She was unnerved by the darkness. We had to abandon the walk. For Renae, it wasn’t the stuff she could see that troubled her. It was what she imagined the darkness hid from her sight that was frightening.

We are preoccupied by the things that go bump in the night. If you Google “shortest day of the year,” Google will tell you that December 21 will be the shortest day of 2023. Yet, we know that all days in our system of time have 24 hours.

Of course, what we really mean when we talk about the shortest day is the day with the least amount of sunlight.

In the fourth century, the Church began celebrating the Incarnation of Christ (Christmas) on the Sunday closest to the shortest day. Into the longest night, the Light of Christ awakens dawn. Not the dawn of sunshine. But the dawn of reawakening: to God’s presence among us.

This is the awakening Advent prepares us to receive. Light enters our world, and the darkness does not overcome it.

As Renae and I walked home, I pointed out the mercury vapor lights that dotted the hillsides. Farmers use these lamps to light their way from the house to the barn. But to me, each of those lights represented a family—the Smiths, the Beards, the Doans. While the lights were too far away to brighten our footpath, they were reassuring to me that I was not alone. I knew that I could walk to any of those farms if I needed help.

For the next few moments, pause to wonder:

Who are the points of light in your life in this moment?

And for whom are you a point light?

Prepare The Way

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 17:09:38 GMT

It is good to see all of you gathered around here. And it is good to see all the rest of you gathered around us. And to know that there are those of you gathered around us via our live cast all over the country.

Welcome.

Today, we will have only one sermon. We are trying out a new idea. I will preach to all of us from here. And so, we begin.

In our story about John the Baptist it says that he was wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Now this is not actually a camel’s skin but it is a sheep skin and it makes us think of folks who use the natural things of the earth to keep warm.

For the people in the story today, seeing someone dressed with a camel’s skin and a leather belt would be a sign. Just like when you see Rev. Paula in her black shirt with a white collar around her neck, or wearing the colorful chasuble in church—what does her outfit tell us about her? Yes, it tells us that she is a priest. For the people in our story this outfit told them that John was a Prophet, not just any prophet, but a prophet like the great prophet Elijah.

Now in our Old Testament reading that Andy read today we hear from another prophet—the Prophet Isaiah. He was alive about 700 years before John the Baptist—and this is what he had to say:

“A voice cries out:

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

The Gospel writer today tells us that John the Baptist is this voice crying out, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Now John was speaking to the people who were gathering around him in the wilderness. But our Gospel writer write it down so we could all hear it, and I am speaking it to all of you who are gathered around me today. I bring the challenge to each of you

Prepare the Way of the Lord—make his paths straight

So what does that mean for us?

Well, how many of you have been preparing for Christmas?

What do you do to prepare for Christmas?

Moving furniture around to make space for the tree? Finding the perfect gift for someone you care about? Writing cards? Baking treats? Practicing songs? Attending special events?

Why do we do all these things?

Because Christmas is important, and we want to share it with people who are important to us. We want them to know we care and we love them—sometimes we even reach out to strangers to share with them.

Or lets think of something else we prepare for—what if you have a special visitor coming to your home to stay for a few days? How do you prepare for them?

Throw out the trash? Tidy up? Put clean sheets on the bed? Maybe buy the special kind of coffee they like to drink or their favorite food to eat? If there is a broken stair, maybe you repair it.

I know when my Mom is coming to stay, we make sure that the paths in the house are clear so she can get around using her walker. I know that when my two-year-old godson comes to stay we make sure there are no small choking hazards and we cover up the outlets to keep him safe.

It makes me think of filling in those rough places that Isaiah spoke about

Leveling the mountains and raising up those valleys to make the path smooth and straight.

So why do we do all those things when we are preparing for people who are coming to stay?

Because we want them to know they are important to us.

We want them to know they matter and we care about who they are and what is important to them. So now we take our reflections and we ask ourselves, what can we do to Prepare the Way for the Lord? In our home? In our room? In our hearts?

Do we need to move some things out of the way? Maybe literally we need to create a special prayer corner in our room so we have a place to meet with God. Or maybe figuratively, we need to move other things that have become too important out of the way.

What would it mean to get God’s favorite food? Would it be bread and wine? Or maybe God would just like to share your favorite food? What would it be like if we set a place at the table for God? And maybe one day a new friend or neighbor might sit in that spot and we could see Christ in them.

What if we wrote God a Christmas card this year? Or spent some time just talking together—sharing our hopes and our pains.

Why? Why would we do these things to Prepare the Way of the Lord?

Maybe because it is what we do when something or someone is important to us. Maybe we do it because we want God to know of our love for God. And we want to care about the things that God cares about.

And maybe when we do the words of Isaiah will be true, “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all the people shall see it together.”

Amen.

Flickers of Hope

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 19:13:28 GMT

Like many people, Amazon delivers to my home on a regular basis. This time of year, it’s not uncommon for Dursey and I to discover several boxes on the front porch. But once a month, there is a box especially for the dog. The box always contains two seasonally appropriate toys and two bags of dog treats suitable for Dursey. In November, Dursey received a squeaky turkey and a squeaky can of cranberry jelly.

Even though these boxes only come once a month, Dursey always recognizes “his” box. I’ve often wondered if they soak the cardboard in bacon grease! He goes crazy with anticipation. Before we can do anything else, the box has to be taken to the kitchen and opened.

It is worth the $20 a month to see him wild with joy.

Today we heard from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth. On his second evangelism tour, he traveled from Jerusalem to the major cities of his time: Antioch, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Athens, and Corinth.

Years later, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth because it was becoming fractious. Several leaders emerged within the community and the people were choosing one leader over another. It was becoming a political mess.

[The Rev. Dr.] Jane Patterson, who taught scripture at Seminary of the Southwest, said that the crux of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is, “The emptying of power for another is the manifestation of Christ-like behavior.” It is a theme that connects to the birth of Christ.

The opening of Paul’s letter is a Christological masterpiece.

He says, “We have received Christ—and in every way we have been enriched in him. We do not lack any spiritual gift as we await the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It sounds like a contradictory timeline: we have received Christ; we are in Christ and we await Christ.

Paul is saying that we are—even now—fully in the life of Christ. We are here, in this messy world of ours, and we are in God. We are at once in a world of limitation and awed to see the limitless within the limited. [1]

In the moment of Incarnation, Christ empties himself, takes on human flesh and enters our world. He does not come with a crown and scepter. He comes humbly. He takes on the limitations of our world even though Christ is limitless.

The monthly dog toys are not durable enough for a bird dog. And so we learned to play hide and seek with them. Every evening, Dursey goes to the mantle where I keep one of his toys. He points at the toy and whine in a shrill pitch that feels like crystal is definitely shattering somewhere. And then our hide and seek game begins.

It is this activity that he craves when the box arrives. The box signifies to Dursey that we will play every evening together. It is a joyful ritual we both anticipate.

The Church begins a new year today. Advent I is a beginning point—we turn our eyes toward the manger and the gift of life. On this day, we light the first candle of Advent—the candle of Hope.

It is Hope that pierces darkness and lights our path toward the manger.

And so I wondered, on a day that we celebrate divine Hope, how does Paul’s message connect with Hope? How do our lives manifest Christ-like behavior now…even as we await the coming of Christ?

Every time I have a deep conversation with the people of our congregation, I learn something new about us. At our last vestry meeting, I learned that one of our members has been involved with a food pantry on the west side of Fort Worth for many years. And another vestry member has been involved with CCA in southwest Fort Worth for a long time. We also have volunteers who participate with 4Saints Food pantry on the east side of Ft Worth.

Through these ministries, we help feed hundreds of people every week. When we pour out our power—our privilege—to feed hungry people, we reveal Christ. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” Matthew 25:35

The people we feed do not know whether you and I speak English, whether we find our clothes at Neiman Marcus or Goodwill; they do not know our sexuality or gender; they do not know the color of our hands; they do not know whether we sing soprano, alto, bass, or tenor.

What they do know is that they were hungry and we gave them something to eat. They come seeking food. They leave with much more. The bags of food signify something much greater—they point toward the Hope that is Christ in this world.

In a world of limitations—where wants and needs are often not met—we manifest Christ through our work and our gifts.

To see ourselves as being in Christ, opens our eyes to the limitless God within our limited world. It opens the door for us to be participants, with Christ, in God’s ongoing work in this world.

For those who are desperate to catch a glimpse of Hope, the flicker of this one candle is powerful. It says: I am not alone.

On Saturday evenings, I send a copy of my sermon to Tanya Eiserer. She uploads the text so that people at home can read it while they’re listening. And, because she is a journalist extraordinaire, she reads the sermons several times and then she titles them.

Yesterday, she was frustrated that I didn’t directly say why I told the story about Dursey and his monthly boxes. There are times when I choose to leave loose ends in a sermon. I believe it allows the listener to make meaning of a sermon through their own life experience.

But as the day went on, I kept thinking about the metaphor and what it means to me.

Dursey’s response to the box was never really about the box itself or even the toys that were in it. Those physical things meant we would share time together. His excitement is a sign of his desire for relationship with me.

As we look toward the Incarnation of Christ, I wonder if the manger – and even Jesus of Nazareth – are physical signs to us of God’s enduring desire for relationship with you and me.

[1] Battle, Michael; Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year B; p 3

The Reign of Christ

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 21:09:10 GMT

Nov. 26, 2023

Nothing to fear but fear

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 17:00:31 GMT

Today’s Gospel reading comes from Matthew chapter 25. It is a long chapter…and it is the last chapter before Jesus turns toward his passion, toward the cross. He has a lot to say, and not much time to say it.

Chapter 25 began with these words: The kingdom of heaven will be like this and then He tells stories and metaphors that give us a glimpse into God’s vision.

We heard the first story last week. There were 10 bridesmaids-- five of them were prepared for the arrival of the bridegroom, five were not prepared.

Today, another metaphor.

A businessperson was going on a trip. He summoned three workers and entrusted all of his property to them. The businessman knew his workers very well. He did not apportion his property equally. He apportioned according to their abilities to manage.

To the one he thought was the most capable, he entrusted nearly 65 percent of his property. To the second, he entrusted 25 percent of his property.

And to the third, he entrusted 10 percent of his property.

Today—and 2000 years ago--when assets are held in trust, it is the trustee’s fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the assets are protected and grown so that the beneficiary of the trust will receive not only the original amount, but also the earnings that have accumulated.

The first two workers were good trustees. They took calculated risk. They invested the property. When the owner returned, the trustees had doubled his value. Well done. The owner affirmed their work.

But the third trustee did something quite different. He was paralyzed by fear of losing the 10 percent and what might happen to him as a result. With all that had been entrusted to him, he did nothing.

Fear is a powerful emotion.

I was born into a musical family. But when I decided to become an accountant, I stopped playing the organ, trombone, and I stopped singing.

For the next 45 years, I sang in the pews at church and that was it. There was not a lot of opportunity to sing in an accounting firm.

Easter Day 2021 was my first Easter as a priest. Ten days before that service, Father Ron began an interesting conversation:

“You’re the celebrant for Easter,” I nodded.

“There’ll be a Baptism that day, too. It’ll be your first as a priest.” That part I did not know.

And then, rather casually, he said, “It’ll be a sung service”. My palms began to sweat, my heart was racing.

I remember asking, “Just to be clear, you want me to chant the Eucharistic Prayer?”

“Yes”.

“All of it?”

“Yes”.

The next 10 days were very busy. I baptized a doll. And I chanted the Eucharist over and over and over. Fear is a powerful emotion.

St. Christopher’s adult Sunday School class is delving into the notion of fear. In September, we began by reading Matthew’s Gospel carefully — paying attention to what it says and what it doesn’t say. We listened for the culture of fear that exists in this Gospel. There are layers of fear just beneath the surface of the text.

Hunger was a pervasive problem in Judea. Disease was common—physical, emotional, and spiritual. There were power conflicts between Temple authorities and the Roman authorities. Regular folks were often caught in the middle. And there were the very public crucifixions meant to terrorize the Judeans and keep them in order.

Then we began a book called, “Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear.” This book was published in 2020. It addresses the culture of fear in our time.

The author talks about God’s calling of you and me -- and how fear affects our ability to follow Jesus: [1]

God calls us to the virtue of hospitality…to welcome the stranger. But our culture teaches us to be suspicious of strangers…to fear them…they might hurt us or take advantage of us or steal from us.

God calls us to the virtue of generosity. But our culture teaches us to be accumulators of wealth and stuff…to ensure our own well-being without worrying about the needs of others.

Fear is a powerful emotion. And it is a vice—fear draws us away from God’s calling in our lives.

I wonder if that is the point of Jesus’ story.

On Easter of 2021, I walked to the Table with a million butterflies. The organist played the opening tone. I looked at all the people who had gathered to worship after a long COVID desert. All of us were hungry for this moment. It did not matter how well I would sing. It wasn’t about that at all.

I drew in breath and took the leap: The Lord be with you.

And the people sang: And also with you.

The fear evaporated, swallowed up by the joy of sharing the Holy Eucharist together again.

Today our bishop’s committee will meet to discuss our 2024 budget. The staff and the finance committee have been working on the budget since August.

This budget reflects the giving all of us have pledged for next year.

It reflects the continuation of every program we have begun and opportunities we imagine for next year.

It reflects our hope for this congregation.

It reflects our sweat, our labor.

It reflects our hospitality—our willingness to welcome the stranger.

And it reflects our generosity—our calling to serve God’s people, in this place, in this time.

There is risk in following Jesus. The third trustee had that right. But to live in fear is to miss the joy of living into the fullness of who God created us to be.

As a congregation, St. Christopher’s consistently demonstrates our capacity to resist fear. We open our hands and hearts to all that God is calling us to be in this leg of our pilgrimage. That is the energy we feel here, God’s calling pouring through us into the world.

[1] Bader-Saye, Scott; Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear: Choosing Trust over Safety in an Anxious Age; p 38

Whom Will You Serve?

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:19:38 GMT

Have you ever stood in a place where something important once happened? Maybe the Alamo or even Plymouth Rock? Or maybe you have traveled further and stood somewhere like the Mount of Olives?

When we stand in these places, it’s almost like there is a collapsing of time. We can imagine those other events taking place around us and somehow nearly see ourselves as participants, it seems in some ways we gain clarity from those other moments in time.

In our story today Joshua has chosen just such a place for his final address to the people of Israel. They have gathered, west of the Jordan River, in Shechem, a place located in a mountain pass heading east/west between Mt Ebal and Mt Geraziim. The pass is not so wide. If you stood at the base of Mt. Ebal where the land levels out and started walking, you would reach the rise of Mt. Geraziim in about six minutes at a good pace. Nearby are the great Oaks of Moreh. And for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, people have gathered here beneath these trees, in the shadows of these mountains, to learn and to worship and to make covenants with God.

Joshua and the people of Israel have been here before.

It was here that Joshua built an altar and gathered all the people as Moses had instructed -- to review the covenant that God made with them and to proclaim the Blessings and Curses—blessings if they remained faithful to the Lord, and curses if they forsook the Lord, according to the law of Moses.

It was here that Jacob, also known as Israel, had set up an altar to the Lord in gratitude for being reunited with his brother Esau.

It was also here that Jacob, had called upon his entire family to give up their idols to foreign gods and consecrate themselves to the Lord and bury those idols beneath the tree at Moreh.

And it was here at the great tree of Moreh, that Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, had first heard the promise of the LORD, “To your offspring I will give this land.” And Abraham had responded in gratitude by building an altar.

So many layers of history and time,

So many journeys and wanderings.

Altars built and idols buried.

Covenants made and broken and renewed.

In this sacred space, Joshua begins by recounting all the many ways that the LORD has been with them—how the LORD called Abraham out of his land and gave him promises, how Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt, how the LORD delivered the children of Israel from slavery, how the LORD gave the law to Moses and watched over the people and provided for them in the wilderness, and how the LORD has driven out the nations before them and given them this land flowing with abundance.

Then Joshua challenges them to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully and throw away their foreign gods, and he says, “but if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose this day whom you will serve…”

The people gathered at Shechem that day respond, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods…he has been there for us…he has seen us through…we will serve the LORD for he is our God”

But then, as if Joshua knows they are just saying the “right words”, he counters them—“You can’t do it! God is holy, and God wants all of you—not just a part. If you say you will serve the LORD and then forsake him and give your allegiance to other things—God is going to challenge you and call you out on your unfaithfulness.” And the people respond with added vigor. “No, we will serve the LORD our God.”

Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

As I meditated on this passage I found myself wondering, “What are those other gods that call for our allegiance in our day? On what altars do we sacrifice our time? Our health? Our children? Maybe they are the gods of Wealth, or Security, or Prestige. To whom do we pay homage by fearing? Do we fear the gods of Poverty, or Rejection, or Illness? I am working through this for myself—what do I fear? What am I willing to make compromises or sacrifices for? And am I willing to throw away or bury all those things and put my full trust in the LORD?

For some of us our sacred places have been taken away, we are unable to return to those places where our ancestors went before to make their vows to the LORD. And yet, we have an experience that bears much the same power and weight.

Last week we renewed our Baptismal Covenant. We renew it every All Saints Day and every Pentecost Sunday and every year on the Baptism of our Lord and every time there is a Baptism in our midst. It was declared at our own baptism and we proclaimed it when our children were presented to the LORD. In Baptism we are reminded of the waters of creation and the waters through which the children of Israel passed. We are reminded of our sin and our redemption in Christ and the offer to be made whole again.

So many layers of history and time,

So many journeys and wanderings.

Altars built and idols buried.

Covenants made and broken and renewed.

And we make our vows and we recite our creeds and we say the words of our confession. But then, as if Joshua knows we are just saying the “right words,” he counters us—“You can’t do it! God is holy, and God wants all of you—not just a part. If you say you will serve the LORD and then forsake him and give your allegiance to other things—God is going to challenge you and call you out on your unfaithfulness.” And we respond with added vigor. “No, we will serve the LORD our God.”

Then Joshua says to us, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And we say, “We are witnesses.” He says, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

And from our Baptismal Covenant we respond, “We will, with Gods help.”

Saints Alive!

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 05 Nov 2023 16:23:48 GMT

Many years ago, I was actively looking for a house. On one of my Sunday afternoon walks, I found the one. Monday morning, I was getting ready to contact the listing agent to extend an offer, when one of our accounting clients dropped in to talk. After 30 years of working for one company, Joe received one of those take-it-or-leave-it early retirement packages. He was young….55 years old.

He quickly realized that he needed to earn additional income. He had done all the work necessary to become a licensed real estate agent. But, six months of marketing had not yet yielded a single listing. Joe was discouraged and worried.

I told him about the house I had decided to purchase and asked if he would be my real estate agent for the transaction. It was a chance for him to learn the ropes without a lot of leg work. He grabbed the opportunity.

A few weeks after closing, Joe stopped by the office again. This time, he came bearing a gift. As I unwrapped it, he told the story of his gift. He had noticed that I collect original art. And so, Joe hired an artist to draw and paint a picture of my new home as a house-warming gift.

By now, I had opened the painting and was staring at it…trying to reconcile what he said with what I saw. The house I purchased, 329 W Pleasantview Dr., was a classic, red brick ranch with white shutters at the windows. But the image on the canvas was a white adobe home. It was, in fact, my neighbor’s home, 331 W Pleasantview Dr.

As I pondered today’s Scripture readings, I wondered, “Who are the saints in these stories? How do we recognize them? What can we learn about sainthood from the characters?"

In the first reading, Yahweh says to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.”

Yahweh will make Joshua a sign to the Israelites: God will be with his people through this leader.

Paul’s letter speaks about how hard his team has labored to spread the Gospel. He isn’t bragging. He deflects all of the accolades to God: “We constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God…you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word.”

In Matthew, Jesus says the Temple leaders offer good teaching, but they do not practice what they teach. Listen to them, but do not follow what they do. The Temple leaders spend their time seeking the limelight. If they do good deeds, it is primarily to gain recognition. If they attend a dinner, they covet the seat of honor. They want to be called “rabbi” but they don’t want to live as a rabbi is called to live.

Jesus states his point plainly: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I have often told the story of the real estate agent to emphasize the importance of details. But the reason I remember the story has nothing to do with the error and everything to do with the Nature of the Gift.

Joe was in my home getting my signature on documents. He noticed that my walls were covered with original art rendered by local artists, artists both of us knew through our community work. He went seeking a local artist to paint an image of my house. And not just any artist. Joe went looking for someone who was struggling, like him, to make a living with his craft.

That kind of giving is thoughtful and humble: He recognized the gift I had given him and he was paying it forward by engaging a starving artist. Joe’s name was not on the painting. His real estate agency wasn’t identified on the frame. His gift wasn’t meant to attract attention to himself, but, boy, did it reflect the character of the one who gave it.

Joe needed and received an opportunity. He could have pocketed 100% of the commission and taken credit for the finding of his first client. But he didn’t.

Joshua didn’t exalt himself. God chose him and God exalted him.

Paul didn’t exalt himself. He exalted the work God was doing through the Thessalonians and Paul’s evangelism team.

Jesus said, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

On the cover of our bulletin is the prayer of peace, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. I chose that image because I think the prayer connects with the character of sainthood described in our readings.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace….”. The author says, here is my life—it is yours. Transform me over and over until I am an instrument of your peace, your love, your hope.

The second verse of the poem is my favorite:

O divine Master,

grant that I 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 pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

This is the prayer of a living saint.

The most daunting thought about the saints of my generation is that I am called to be one of those people too. And so are you. We are called to humility of self and desire for God. We are called to be vessels of grace in this world, in this time, in this place.

Grabbing the Baton

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 15:52:06 GMT

Today is consecration Sunday for St. Christopher’s. It’s an important day in the life of Episcopal parishes, but it is especially important for us, as we look to the future and all that God is calling us to be in this moment.

The stakes are high.

Consecration means: “The action of making something sacred.”

It is to take something profane, something of our secular world, and set it apart for God’s purpose. In our tradition, we usually think about consecration in the Eucharist: We bring forth the bread and wine from our world, place them on the Table, and the priest invites the Holy Spirit to consecrate them to make them holy.

The past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to make our stewardship gifts sacred. I began researching a woman who lived an extraordinary life.

She was born in 1920, the beginning of the roaring ‘20s. After high school, she entered the work force, logging years at Haltom’s, Continental Oil, the Pullman Sleeping Car Co. and General Dynamics. It’s quite a resume for a woman working prior to the Civil Rights Act and throughout the Great Depression, World War II, and many other landscape milestones in American history.

Her life changed dramatically in 1954 when her 6-year-old child was diagnosed with lupus. Doctors thought the child would live only six months. In her autobiography, she wrote, “Without any words being spoken, we drove to our church where [my husband and I] received the blessed sacrament and [our daughter received] unction”.

The child was confined to her bed for 2-1/2 years.

Then an unexpected break-through in the medical community: The child’s particular version of lupus might benefit from a new drug. Today we call it ‘prednisone.’ It was exactly the right drug: The child’s recovery began immediately.

In the Book of Acts, the author tells us about the conversion of Saul—blinded on the road to Damascus, a personal encounter with Christ, restoration of sight, and—as God does—a new name to go with a new relationship with God: Paul.

Now, in the first letter of Paul’s ministry, he’s telling us what this conversion has meant for him. He deliberately walked away from his former life of status, wealth, and privilege to be an apostle of Christ. Paul says, “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves….”

Paul is pouring out his life as a living witness of God.

At the conclusion of our clergy conference last week, Bishop Doyle offered some wisdom in his final address. It went something like this: “Instead of looking for where we can fix the Church, we need to empty ourselves so that the love of God can pour through us into the world.”

It is, I think, exactly what Paul said to the Thessalonians 2000 years ago.

As the child’s fever abated and she learned to walk again, Mom was overcome with a need to thank God for the return of her daughter. In her words, she became “obsessed with the idea [that an Episcopal mission was needed] in the Southwest part of Fort Worth.” She talked about it endlessly—to people in the grocery store—anybody who’d stand still long enough to hear her story.

On Sept. 15, 1957, 13 people gathered to sign a diocesan petition to start a new mission: St. Christopher’s. The first service was held one week later. In the background of the photo, Janis Weinbrenner, the child who recovered from lupus, stands by the Altar. Among the 20 people who attended that first worship service was Connie Weinbrenner, the woman who spearheaded St. Christopher’s, and Jeanneane Keene, our 2022 senior warden.

The congregation grew rapidly — outgrowing every temporary space it occupied. The first building St. Christopher’s constructed was known as the “Tin Building” and the rectory came soon after. Finally on July 2, 1961, St. Christopher’s worshipped in its new sanctuary. As an interesting timestamp for July 2, 1961, I was born two days before that worship service.

There is a connection between Connie and Paul. Both of them had extraordinary encounters with Christ. For Connie, the encounter happened through the healing of her child. For Paul, the encounter is his own conversion.

The deeper connection is how -- both of them -- respond to their encounter with Christ.

Connie and Paul consciously bring the totality of their lives to God’s Table. Their wealth, their leadership, their passion, their energy—all of it is given to God in Thanksgiving. And God consecrates — makes holy — their offering.

Their personal stewardship of self is still bearing fruit.

Paul poured out his life spreading the Gospel, living the Gospel, and nurturing his church plants with letter after letter. His Epistles are like a baton, handed from generation to generation in the Church. His fingerprints are all over our understanding of Christ…of what it means to follow the Way.

We read his words written 2,000 years ago today.

Connie’s child was restored to health and Connie became obsessed with a persistent calling. Struggling with her calling, she remembered being visited by an angel who told her how to move forward. God was inviting Connie to bring a new people, a new ecclesia, to life: St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church.

Her fingerprints are in this very room. None of us would be here without Connie: her encounter with Christ, her offering of self, her faithful walk of obedience to God’s call. God handed Connie a baton, and she passed it to every Saint who came before us.

We began stewardship season by asking the question “Why? Why does God invite us to give back to God?” I hope you gave it some thought. For me, it boils down to this: We worship a living God whose work in our world is ongoing. God created us to be partners in stewarding all that God created: air, water, woods, animals But there are a couple of ground rules: Love God. Love your neighbor.

God did not create us to be couch potatoes. We are all called to be living stewards.

Today, the baton of St. Chris is handed to us. We are St. Christopher’s. It’s our turn to grab the baton and follow God’s call -- in this moment -- to empty ourselves so that God’s love can pour through us, into the world.

Show and Tell

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 16:04:07 GMT

A People Set Free

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 17:29:32 GMT

Oct. 15, 2023

All Things Come of Thee, Oh Lord

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 16:22:44 GMT

There is a prayer we used to pray during the offertory at church—many of you may remember it.

“All things come of Thee Oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given thee.”

In this prayer, we are reminded that those gifts that we offer back to God, were in fact received from God to begin with.

Our Gospel lesson today speaks to this truth.

When reading a passage of scripture, I often find myself looking for two things—the first is the good news that this passage proclaims. What does it tell me about the Kingdom of God? What does it tell me about the love of our Lord? Where is the liberation or the beauty or the healing proclaimed?

The second is the challenge — how is God using this word to challenge us to new things? To grow in our faith or to repent or to live more fully?

As you heard me sharing with the children earlier, I see such good news in this story, despite its rather somber overtones.

The good news I see is that God, God’s self is the Creator of this, our vineyard—and he tends us with care and provides a wall of protection and a watchtower to keep us safe, and in the winepress, God provides a way for the fruit of our labors to be used for such joy.

As I walk through my garden each day I feel a connection with each plant and tree. I long to see each one thriving and becoming its fullest self. And I imagine God seeing each of us in that same way. This is Good News.

But what about the challenge:

In this gospel reading today, Jesus is recollecting a familiar parable the people have heard before—from the scroll of Isaiah.

In Isaiah the story begins this way:

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.

Then Jesus takes a turn. In the Isaiah passage the story is about the grapes themselves and why it is that they are not yielding fruit true to their nature—why they are sour, when they should be sweet, why there is bloodshed, where there should be justice, why there are cries of distress, where righteousness should reign.

But in today’s Gospel, Jesus turns and directs the focus of the story to the Tenants or the Vinedressers or Stewards of the land.

So to whom is it being addressed? Near the end of our Gospel reading it says that the chief priests and the Pharisees understand that Jesus is talking about them in his parable. And often it is preached as the vineyard is going to be taken away from them and given to us.

But anytime I hear about the Pharisees—I have learned that I should give a glance to myself as well. After all, the Pharisees were people who studied the Bible religiously as do I. They were people who tried to separate themselves from sinful actions as do I, and they were often leaders among the people as am I. And I dare to say many of these things might be true about you as well.

But we resist—the Pharisees are known as being a “Do as I say and not as I do” kind of people. They are known as being hypocrites in their walk of faith, judging others, but failing to look closely at their own failings. They are known for feeling proud when others notice how well they pray or how faithful they are in attendance.

I never do any of those things — or do I?

You never do any of those things — or do you?

In fact, I find it is always a good wake up call to check in my own life whatever the Pharisees are being challenged about.

So here goes. The term used in the Greek says that they are the Vinedressers, they are trained and capable stewards of the vineyard. And apparently in the story they are in fact bringing about a harvest of fruit.

So we look in our own lives — what gifts have we been given to use? What opportunities has God placed us in? What vineyard has he carefully built up and carved out and placed us in that we might bear much fruit?

And yet, like the Vinedressers in our story, we start thinking that we are the one working here. We have put in all this time on this vineyard or this job, We are the one who has invested ourselves in these children or this church. This is really ours — we are the ones who should reap all the benefits. We are the one who should get all the praise and all the credit.

Maybe we will just ignore those servants who have come to remind us that this is actually God’s thing — it’s God’s vineyard, or God’s work, or God’s children or God’s church. Maybe we will find a way to silence them so we can go on believing that it is really all Ours.

Maybe that is why the Landowner sent his Son—to remind them and us that it all actually belongs to Him and that God just asks us to tend the part we know how to tend and to listen to the breath of his spirit as he walks through the garden of our lives — to hear his heart rejoice as we bring forth gifts from our labors.

When my two-year-old godson is over at the house he loves to go into the garden — he loves to look to see if anything is ripe enough to pick. He giggles with delight when he finds a squash or a bell pepper that he can harvest — and sometimes he just pops them in his mouth and says, “Yum!” And sometimes he wants to run and show them to his moms or us.

He wants to share what he finds.

He doesn’t want to horde it.

He sees it all as gift and he is learning to be a caretaker of the garden.

To be gentle with the new flowers, to return earthworms to their homes,

learning that each plant needs water and light but in different amounts.

He is learning to respect everything — even the things he doesn’t understand.

I want to follow his example.

I want to be that kind of Steward -- the kind of Steward that rejoices in all that God has entrusted to me and shares it joyously with the world.

All things come of Thee oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee.

A question for God

teiserer@yahoo.com (Tanya Eiserer) — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 15:42:39 GMT

Many years ago, I was closing out my aunt’s estate. I was almost finished when I found the keys to her much beloved car. I thought she had sold it, but she had parked the car in a garage and it sat there for a lot of years. The car was a Delta 88--it was now 15 years old, but it had hardly been driven.

While I was mulling over what to do with the car, my mother-in-law’s car stopped working. The cost to repair Pam’s vehicle was going to be much more than the value of her car. She was looking for a replacement that she could afford. I called Pam to ask if she’d like to have my aunt’s car….Free.

She asked me a question that I did not see coming.

“What color is it, dear?”

Now, this was a woman who now had no car…no way of getting to the hair dresser on Fridays….no way of getting to the grocery store…no way of getting to doctor’s appointments.

Her question “What color is it, dear?” didn’t tell me what the “right” color needed to be. But, it did tell me that the color of the car was very important to her.

In Matthew’s Gospel, there is a great emphasis on the religious customs of Judaism. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes are sprinkled generously into this Gospel—they are often presented as clipboard carriers—people attentive to whether you and I are following all the rules.

Today we witness a confrontation between those who represent the traditions of Judaism and Jesus. The confrontation has been brewing since Jesus began his ministry. The miracles he performs, the parables, and the large crowds who gather around him are stirring concern among Temple authorities.

The prophets of old foretold the coming of a Messiah—the fulfillment of the Law. The people are wondering: is he the One? Herod heard about it, too. And he’s nervous—he doesn’t need an uprising in Israel. And so Herod presses the chief priests and Elders to keep the peace…keep the Israelites under control.

It’s important, I think, that the text specifically identifies the chief priests as the ones who will question Jesus. The chief priests are specially anointed—they are the only priests allowed to enter the innermost sanctum of the Temple, the holy of holies. [1] These are the priests who are in the presence of Yahweh.

In today’s text, Jesus is in the Temple. He is teaching. The chief priests and elders join those who are around Jesus. They ask two questions:

By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?

Aren’t those interesting questions? They aren’t asking why he is healing people. They aren’t asking how he turns water into wine. I’m a pretty big fan of wine. I would want to know that. How did you feed so many people with so little food? How do you restore lepers to fullness of life? What do the parables mean?

The questions of the Chief Priests reveal what they value: authority.

On Friday, I attended a Laundry Love strategic planning session. We were looking at a foundation’s grant application. Like most foundations, if you receive a grant, you have to report measurable results achieved through the use of the grant money.

I sat back and listened as two seasoned grant writers began talking about how Laundry Love could frame questions to its clients and gather the information needed to validate the grant. It was not their first rodeo. They shaped questions that I would have never imagined.

I read an interesting article recently suggesting that questions beginning with the word “What”, indicate the answers are statements of fact. Questions that begin with “How”, indicate answers that represent a process. [2]

Pam asked, “What color is it, dear?” The car was blue.

The Chief Priests asked, “By what authority are you doing these things?” Jesus IS the authority.

While both of their questions revealed what mattered to them, they were asked in a way that delivered insufficient answers.

Throughout most of my life, like many of you, I have completed a stewardship pledge card. This week we began to imagine about what St. Christopher’s 2024 pledge card will become. It occurred to me that every pledge I have ever seen began and ended with the questions: How much? What are you committing to each budget? When will your gift be received?

I’ve even seen those cards with little tables on the back…the way restaurants “help” you figure out the tip. The whole card is about money…even though we believe that money is only one way we give to God.

After wrestling with today’s sermon, I’m wondering if a better opening question is “Why?”

Why does God invite you and me to give? When we ask that question in prayer, our hearts and minds are open to God’s inspiration.

Once we know our “why”, then the questions of “what” and “how” become meaningful…because they are rooted in God’s desire for us.

This week, take the question to God: “Why do you invite us to give to you?”

[1] https://www.bibleodyssey.org/?s=&_search=chief+priests&search_type=site

[2] https://performanceexcellencenetwork.org/pensights/the-power-of-why-how-asking-the-right-questions-can-change-the-future-feb-2021/

Desert Journeys

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 15:41:30 GMT

In 1999, the acronym Y2K was known all over the world. It meant Year 2000. And it was the most anticipated and prepared-for non-crisis of my lifetime. Computer codes had crept into banking systems, air traffic systems, and business commerce systems. Computers had changed the way the world transacted business.

But there was a fly in the ointment. Some software and hardware had been designed without imagining the possibility of the date odometer rolling over the first digit in the year. So, 1997, 1998, 1999, all of those were all good. But what would happen when the date was January 1, 2000? Would software programs stop? Would banking stop? Would airplanes fall out of the sky? Would business crash?

The hype over this question was huge. We bought Y2K software patches, upgraded hardware, and, frankly, crossed our fingers.

On Dec. 31, 1999, there were epic New Year’s Eve parties in London, Paris, New York City. As my husband and I pondered how to spend that night, we decided to do something quite different—we would camp in Big Bend National Park.

We knew that Big Bend is a desert, so we packed our tent, sleeping bags, blankets, and even threw in ski jackets. Early on December 31, we set off for Big Bend.

As we set up camp, we were wearing t-shirts and shorts and complaining about the heat as the sun beat down on us. We sat in camp chairs and watched as the sun slipped behind a mountain peak. That was the first moment we noticed the chill in the air.

I pulled on sweatpants and a sweat shirt. The sun continued to set. I dragged blankets from the tent. By nightfall, I was wearing the ski jacket and gloves. Eventually, I was too cold to worry about the chaos that might happen at midnight, so we got into the sleeping bag—with ski jackets and sweats.

We awoke to the sun rise, boiled some water and made hot tea. By the time tea was finished, we had shed ski jackets and sweats. After breakfast, we hiked in shorts and t-shirts.

In Exodus, God has been writing an epic tale about God’s work among the Israelites. Moses becomes a leader – an intermediary between God and the Israelites. Moses negotiates the freeing of God’s people. And, God parts the sea and leads them out of Egypt. But, now, they are in a desert: hungry, cold and wishing they were back in Egypt.

For those of us who’ve read the whole story, we know that this desert experience is a liminal space: a place where the Israelites must leave something behind before they are ready to receive something new.

Who are these people God has led to the desert? We know them as God’s chosen people. But here, in the desert, they are refugees. A people with no zip code, no housing, no vocation, no money, no food, no employer. These people have been enslaved for generations. They served Egypt, not as an act of generosity, but simply to survive.

They are spiritual refugees--they understand that power and bondage go hand-in-hand. This, they must leave behind before God will lead them from the desert.

The desert is a time of struggle for the Israelites. Nothing is the way it used to be.

On the night of Dec. 31, 1999 as the world celebrated a new millennium, my husband and I watched the stars emerge on the clear desert sky. Orion’s belt and the Big Dipper were so vivid, I felt like I could reach out and touch them. We weren’t worried about the hands on any clocks that night. Time in that place is measured by the sun’s warmth and the moon’s phase.

For that one night, we were unplugged from civilization and culture. We were plugged into the majesty and Mystery of Creation.

The Israelites are making a different desert journey. No doubt they saw a similar canvas of stars. But they did not pack for one night in the desert. Whatever food they may have brought has long since run out. There’s no water. There is no SUV at the trail head ready to speed them back to civilization, their homes, their old way of life.

I think the darkest hour of their struggle is realizing the fragility of their existence in the desert.

They need Yahweh.

And Yahweh will meet each need with generosity.

This is a turning point in their relationship with God. Eventually, they will be prepared to enter a new covenant with Yahweh.

Y2K was a particular event with a particular timetable. There were tremendous external pressures for us to solve a pending crisis.

But liminal space is different. There are no external pressures—the impetus to move through liminal space is entirely internal.

I wonder if all of us are like the Israelites—if we are all in a liminal space moving from what was to whatever God imagines for us next?

Surely, St. Christopher’s is in a liminal space: we are between homes. We are refugees, who have received the gift of welcome and space from St. Matthew’s.

But the witness of the Israelites is that liminal space is not just about the bookends of where we used to live and where we will live. Liminal space is also about the relationship we used to have with God and the relationship God desires with us now.

God is preparing us for something new.

There is noticeable energy here. I wrote to Canon Saylors this week, thanking her for choosing to worship with us last Sunday. She wrote back: “It is great to see St. Christopher’s thriving."

And we are.

It’s not just about the numbers. Every week people bring great ideas for new programs, new ministries. Everyone here is invested in the ministry of our congregation and the ministries of our people. We are leaning into God’s calling for St. Christopher’s. This is what other people see in us, and they name it ‘thriving’.

It is an exciting time in the life of this congregation.

May God continue to lead us and guide us into deeper relationship with one another, with our community and with God.

Singing a new song

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 15:49:50 GMT

A few weeks ago, I was hanging out with friends on a Sunday afternoon. Our conversation drifted into trading family war stories. We were having a good time one-upping each other with tales of “Who done me wrong’….. Oh, your sibling did that? Well, my sibling did this!” I’ll bet we wrote five country songs that afternoon. All we needed was a guitar and a tune.

Last week—and this week—Matthew puts the notion of ekklesia front and center.

We’ve talked it about ekklesia recently. It is the Greek word for a congregation, a people like us, who are called to be in community, not for just any old purpose but to respond together to God’s calling.

Peter starts today’s conversation: “Jesus, If another member of the congregation sins against me, how often should I forgive?’ Before Jesus can answer, Peter suggests the number seven. Should I forgive as many as 7 times?

Jesus gives Peter a numerical response and then he tells us a story. It’s a story that is as relevant today as it was the day Jesus told it.

A guy, who I’m going to call Joe, owes a large sum of money. Payment is demanded, but Joe has loaned the money to other people and he doesn’t have it. Before the lender throws Joe into debtor’s prison, Joe falls on his knees and begs for patience so that he can repay the loans.

The lender does an extraordinary thing: he releases Joe and forgives 100% of the debt. Clean slate.

What does Joe do with this amazing gift?

On his way out of the lender’s office, Joe bumps into somebody he loaned money to and he demands repayment of the money. Joe no longer owes this money to his lender but he intends to collect it and put it in his own pocket. The borrower falls on his knees and begs Joe to have patience, just as Joe had done. But Joe will not forgive the debt. He will not pay forward the gift of forgiveness.

Amy-Jill Levine says, “In a first-century context, sinners are individuals who have removed themselves from the common welfare, who look to themselves rather than to the community.” [1]

Said a bit differently, when forgiveness is lacking in community, it is comfortable to receive God’s Grace and forgiveness and be unconcerned or even unwilling to give that same gift to those who’ve wronged us.

On the back porch, our “Somebody done somebody wrong” songs were gaining energy like a wild fire until someone said, “The hardest two words to say are ‘I’m sorry.’”

Those words are filled with vulnerability.

Every Sunday, we—as a congregation-- kneel together before God, we confess our sins, and we receive God’s forgiveness. We are a forgiven people.

The question Jesus puts before us today is this: How are we paying forward the gift of God’s forgiveness in our congregation and in our community?

Yesterday, St. Christopher’s had a mutual ministry review. It’s a time when a facilitator helps the vestry and priest evaluate our work together. Early in our day, the facilitator said, “Most conflict within a church is associated with change”.

That’s a scary thought because we’ve had a whole lot of change in recent years. We’ve navigated COVID, loss of leadership, loss of parishioners, loss of stuff, and we’ve welcomed new leadership, new parishioners, and we routinely, intentionally create change: new programming, new opportunities to intersect with our community and on and on.

Every step of the way, we challenge one another’s vision of what it means to be “church”…ekklesia.

Some days we step on one other’s toes.

And those are the moments we are called to forgive over and over until we freely pay forward the gift of God’s forgiveness we have received. Jesus says this is what the kingdom of heaven is like where God’s gifts are received and re-gifted over and over again.

If our community is sitting on its back porch today singing a song about us, what is the song you hope they’re singing?

[1] Amy-Jill Levine; Short Stories by Jesus: the Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi p36.

Be Like Gabby

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 17:12:38 GMT

Last month, Christofolx—our young adult ministry—came to my home on a Sunday afternoon for an Episcopalian summer party. We grilled, swam in the pool, and at 5 p.m., we gathered in my living room for a worship service.

Gabby, who is 5, wanted to watch a video rather than join the worship service. The closest room to the living room is my bedroom. She and Dursey (my dog) hung out together in that room.

After the service, Gabby asked if she could go explore. Off she went, looking in the bathroom and then my closet. When she came back, she made a serious pronouncement: that closet is very organized.

In today’s reading from Romans, Paul lays out a path for following Jesus. The way we live and move and have our being should be different than the rest of the world.

“Let us live honorably”, he says. In case we don’t know what honorable living looks like, Paul gives examples of the things we should avoid. Every item on his list is something that yields a temporary feel-good. They are behaviors that numb us to the pain and suffering of those around us.

Drunkenness, quarreling, jealousy, and all the others get in the way of being able to love God and our neighbor.

I was dazzled by Gabby’s observation.

When I moved into the house a couple of years ago, a lot of friends came by to see what the house was like. Many of my friends noticed that the closet was unusually large. It is the only room in the house without any windows. The builder made the room large for a family to be together when tornado sirens are blaring. Some friends commented on the unusual number of black shirts. Some people talked about shoes or the backpacks and hiking gear.

Gabby didn’t mention even one thing about the stuff she saw. She looked beyond all those cosmetic, material things and saw something about who I am.

Paul is inviting us to be more like Gabby. At five years old, her lens isn’t tarnished by the material values of the world.

To love our neighbors, we have to “see” them:

--as people created by God,

--as people who have holy gifts planted within them,

--as people who are loved by God.

Last Sunday, a young man named Aman was outside the church asking for our help. He was dehydrated. As I talked with him, I noticed that Aman is articulate and respectful. He didn’t want to “make a scene” at the church. I asked him how long he’d been living on the streets. 2-1/2 years. He may be in his early 20s or so and he has spent 10 percent of his life living on the streets of Fort Worth.

All around us, there are people who are alone and suffering in broad daylight. Most days, we walk past them without pausing to wonder if God has made our paths cross so that we could do more than just walk on by.

Paul invites us to put on the armor of light. This is not like Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. It is a cloak of visibility. We are not hidden from the world—but rather living lights that point toward Hope and Love. The cloak of visibility gives us eyes like Gabby’s -- eyes that see beyond the stuff of this world into the soul of God’s people.

May we be intentional about putting on an armor of light and bearing witness to God’s love in this world.

The Writing on the Wall

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 03:30:50 GMT

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for having me here today. Not that I was coerced in any way by anyone you know and love. I really am happy to be here, and I don’t care how the opportunity came to be. That’s forgiveness right there.

I also wanted to mention one of your best ambassadors, Carolyn Law, because she holds a special place in my heart. She gave up a huge chunk of her life last May and June to journey with me through my discernment process. It seems only fair and right that I would come to her turf to offer my first post-discernment sermon!

Let us pray.

Gracious God,

Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change;

the courage to change the things we can change;

and the wisdom to know one from the other. Amen.

As I plowed through commentaries and explanations about this gospel reading many of which started out with, “This is an impossible reading to talk about and Jesus never speaks more harshly than his words to Peter.” Furthermore, we hear tough words about pain and suffering, and it was clear to me the best route would be a sweet sermon on the lovely reading from Romans!

But no, preach the Gospel.

So reading the words and now hearing the words read, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” had me recalling the writings on the wall of the accounting firm where I worked for 13 years. Now, I am not referring to the handwriting on the wall. We had actual writings on our walls. When we entered from the employee parking area, the first writing we saw as we entered and the last we saw as we exited was, “Be the change you seek in the world.” Then on another wall that was down the hall as we approached the breakroom for coffee, which we did numerous times during the day, we saw the reading, that said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

That paradox rang true to me this week.

Those words never failed to make us pause and think, even when we weren’t totally feeling it. There were long, hard days at the end of tax seasons. Sometimes the “service of others” part seemed overwhelming as we got near the finish line.

We are often challenged to be followers of Jesus and to identify Christ at work in our lives and in the world. It can be hard to recognize Jesus even when he stands right in front of us. Maybe we even doubt who Jesus is, like Peter did when he tried to walk on the water. This passage marks a turning point in the story. We’re now hearing Jesus speak of the journey to Jerusalem where there will be suffering and death—his own.

The disciples have witnessed real miracles that they know point straight to God and the certain divinity of Jesus. They are distressed that Jesus was not turning out to be the Messiah they thought he would be, that he could conquer anything. Peter, especially, figured there must be a work around to the suffering and death Jesus described. This was not the future Peter envisioned for Jesus, or for himself as a follower. It is no wonder Peter cried out as he did and got himself crossways with Jesus. Peter did not want Jesus to die. He did not want his life and all that it meant for God’s people to be wasted.

Barbara Brown Taylor offers these words: “The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words to us is that our fear of suffering and death robs us of life, because fear of death always turns into fear of life, into a stingy cautious way of living that is not living at all. The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words is that the way to have abundant life is not to save it, but to spend it, to give it away, because life cannot be shut up and saved.”

Peter’s fear of death, I think a basic fear we all have to some extent if we are being honest, may well be what Jesus meant when he tells Peter that he is “concerned with human things.” We all will eventually face death—death from illness, age or even other kinds of death like the death or near death of a church through circumstances we never even have imagined. And like Peter, we often miss the point Jesus is making—that we must die in order to live. Giving up our lives is the way we gain the life to which Christ calls us. Another more confusing paradox…

Like Peter, we think we have a good idea of what following Jesus should look like, but it is often grounded in things of this world, not the things of God’s kingdom. Our limited human view prevents us from seeing the bigger picture of God’s grace extended to all of God’s people—all meaning all, not just the ones we approve of or like the best, not necessarily the ones who look like us or pray like us, or live like us. Or to use a phrase Paula shared with me some years ago, I have a gush of denominational pride to be a part of a church that welcomes everyone with “no exceptions” and means it.

So here’s the tension—we don’t always see how our actions and words, based on our limited view, impact others. We can’t see the hurt we cause or the doors we close. We cannot see how not bearing our cross can make another’s cross heavier. But, bearing our cross is exactly what Jesus calls us to do. We are not talking about the little inconveniences we jokingly refer to as ‘our cross to bear.’ We are called to real sacrifice of our selves—and as stated in the Book of Common Prayer Rite I, “We offer and present unto thee our souls and bodies to be reasonable holy and living sacrifice unto thee.” We fully surrender and through that act, we find complete freedom. We become free to be the holy people God has created us to be and intends for us to be.

Living into this tension, this paradox of giving up our lives to find them, is where Jesus meets us and calls us to new life. It might be a call to repentance -- to turn away from things of the world that distract and detract and turn toward a new direction fully trusting in God as we put one foot in front of the other.

Life requires risk. We have to walk out the door and face risk. We cannot have love without risking heartbreak, we cannot have friendship without the risk of rejection, so what do we do? We walk out into the crowd where we might bump into someone carrying a cross like ours or a different one-- it matters not. We are invited to follow and the path does not avoid death, it goes right through it. Right through our fears and worries. It may not be an easy road and we risk it all -- just like God risked becoming human and walking with us to give us life.

“…For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.”

It sounds crazy. And perhaps it is. But whoever said that following Jesus would make sense? AMEN.

Along Came a Collar

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 15:47:03 GMT

During 2022, I chose a different Lenten discipline. I wore a collar every day of Lent -- from moment I got up until I went to bed.

The point of the experiment was to be a silent witness of the Church -- at the grocery store, the dry cleaner, the gas station, everywhere I go.

There were all sorts of unexpected encounters. One of them entered my dreams on Friday night. I had gone to sleep pondering today’s sermon, and sometime during the night I began reliving an encounter from that Lenten experiment.

On the Friday before Palm Sunday 2022, I took my dog for a walk, as per usual. Early in the walk, a gentleman I did not recognize stopped to ask about Dursey: “What sort of dog is this? Does he hunt? May I pet him?” -- the usual questions we hear. After a few minutes of chatting, we parted ways.

But 45 minutes later, our paths crossed again. This time, he began the conversation differently: “Seeing you again is sign. What do people call you?”

“My name is Paula. This is Dursey. What is your name?”

He told me his name, and then he asked the question again, “What do people call you?”

The second time he asked the question, it dawned on me that he was not asking about my name. Instinctively, I reached up to my neck and felt the collar. I smiled at him and said, “Most people call me Paula. Some people are more comfortable calling me Rev. Paula. What is the sign you see?”

Today’s Gospel reading happens midway through Matthew. The disciples have been with Jesus for a long time. They’ve heard the Sermon on the Mount, a long series of parables and teachings. They have seen first-hand many signs of Jesus’ divine nature. Peter has already walked on water and felt the rush of faith. Jesus has calmed the waters, fed thousands of people with little food, performed healings—emotional and physical.

In today’s text, he is wondering: Do people get it? Have they put the pieces together? And so, he asks the disciples, “Who do people say I am? Who do you say I am?”

The first question is much easier, telling Jesus what the crowds think doesn’t require any skin in the game. ‘Some people think you’re John the Baptist…Some think you’re Elijah, or another prophet’.

The second question is much more personal. He’s asking the disciples to assimilate all that they have seen, heard, and felt: “Who do you say I am?”

The gentleman on my walk addressed me as Rev. Paula, and then told his story. He and his wife were lifelong members of a church in Little Rock.

They retired at the end of 2019, and them moved to North Richland Hills just weeks before the pandemic. They came for the quality of life in Fort

Worth. There was no family here. And, they hadn’t found a church before everything shut down.

During the pandemic, his wife became ill. She died just a few days before our encounter. He was lost and not in a geographical way. He didn’t know how to go forward and he had no one to listen. He had gone for a walk hoping for a sign.

And along came a collar, not once, but twice. The second time, he stepped out in faith.

Peter is the one who will answer Jesus’ question: “You are the Son of the living God”

It is an extraordinary proclamation of faith.

We grew up with the Gospel stories of Jesus, with Paul’s teachings, with our own life experiences with God.

But in the year 27, when Jesus gives the pop quiz to his disciples, no one on earth has ever uttered the words: “You are the Son of the living God.” It is a brand new thought, completely born in faith. Jesus acknowledges it: Peter, there’s no way you could have figured this out on your own. God has revealed has revealed this to you!

Jesus tells Peter: I will build my church on this rock.

It is not a rock of strength. It is a rock of faith.

In this story, the author used a Greek term for ‘church’ : ekklēsia. (phonetic…ecclaseeya). It’s literal meaning is, “those who are called out.” Putting that together with Jesus’ words to Peter: ekklēsia is all those who have been called out from unbelief—through faith—into new life in Jesus Christ.

We –all believers--are the church.

In our time…

In this community…

In my Lenten experiment, the collar was a visible sign to people. It meant different things to different people.

At the grocery store, some people invited me to cut into the cashier/check-out line. Others openly stared.

On my daily walks, people who had been exchanging ,“Howdy’s” with me began to tell me about a sick sibling or child or parent.

Grocery stores, the walking trails, hospital rooms, a sanctuary, whenever and wherever believers gather, it is a moment of ekklēsia. Church.

Wherever Jesus walked, people were drawn him. He wasn’t wearing a collar. He didn’t have a steeple. He didn’t have a TV Network. Yet people knew there was something different about this teacher.

In a violent world where poverty and disease were rampant, Jesus spoke of Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love. He spoke of eternal life. He spoke of the power of faith.

He founded his church on the Rock of Faith. And the baton is handed to us, in our generation, to share his eternal message with our community.

I wonder if we ask the people of Southwest Fort Worth, our geographical community, “Who do people say St. Christopher’s is?” What will we hear?

And “Who do you say we are”?

Fully Human. Fully God.

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 15:47:42 GMT

As a Baptist child, my Sunday mornings were all about church. After the worship time and then Sunday School, children gathered in the pews to sing VBS tunes and children’s hymns.

"Tell me the stories of Jesus" was a favorite song of mine. Here are the first couple of verses:

Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear,

Things I would ask him to tell me if he were here.

Scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea, Stories of Jesus, tell them to me.

Oh, let me hear how the children stood round his knee.

I shall imagine his blessing resting on me;

Words full of kindness, deeds full of grace,

All in the love-light of Jesus’ face.

These words painted a vision for me of who Jesus was. Someone who loved being with children who was known for his gentleness and kindness. It’s an image many of us share.

When we hear a Gospel story about Jesus rejecting a woman whose child is ill, it feels uncomfortable…disconnected.

It’s tempting to think, well, maybe Matthew got this one wrong. But, this same story is remembered by Mark…And Mark paints an even harsher image of Jesus than Matthew. Both Gospel writers remember a time when Jesus was clearly having a bad hair day.

What is going on in this text? We have to dig deeply to find the fullness of the story.

The person who approaches Jesus is unnamed. Throughout the story, she will be described as a woman, a Canaanite, a gentile, and an outsider. There’s a lot packed into those adjectives.

In her day, women were second-class citizens. She is Canaanite, the very people God cleared out of the promised land to make way for the Israelites. She is not Jewish. And, she is from the district of Tyre and Sidon—not Judah.

The author is going out of his way to say, “She’s from not from around here, folks.”

And, yet, she is…

Jesus is not in his homeland. The text tells us that he and the disciples have left Judah and traveled to Tyre. He is in this woman’s nation—in her capital city. It is Jesus who is the foreigner in this story. Yet, the author, and Jesus, identify her as the outsider.

Some years ago, I was in the elevator of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As we were riding upwards, people were chatting. All of the tourists were Americans. One person asked the elevator attendant what time the last elevator departed from the observation deck. The attendant didn’t flinch…or respond…or make any eye contact with anyone.

I have one well-worn phrase and I used it: “Je suis désolé, j’ne parle pas Français [I’m sorry, I do not speak French]. What time does the last elevator depart?” He said, “11pm.” And then he looked at the other American and said, “You just assume I speak English. Why?”

It’s an interesting trait of human nature. Wherever we go—even 5,000 miles away--we see the world through our own cultural lens, our life experiences.

The encounter between the woman and Jesus begins when Jesus arrives in Tyre; the woman seeks him out…as if she’s been waiting for him. She starts shouting: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Son of David”… she knows the human lineage of Jesus.

Matthew says, ‘Jesus ignored her.’

It’s an extraordinary exchange. A woman approaches a man…and a foreigner at that! She correctly identifies him as a descendant of David, the King of Judah. She knows he is something more than just another guy. He is a Healer…someone with a proven track record of casting out demons.

Her action tells us that Jesus is known beyond the borders of Judah. Even here, in her land, he is known. And though, as a woman, she knows her voice carries very little weight, she believes that he will heal her child.

The woman begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Jesus’ response is rude. It was rude 2,000 years ago and it’s rude today. He doesn’t say ‘No, I’m very busy, I don’t time to do this’. He says to her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” [1] Jesus is saying that his gifts are meant for the people of his homeland, the Judeans. And he refers to the woman and her child as dogs…unfit and unworthy.

The message of scarcity implicit in this story is shocking.….as if there isn’t enough of Jesus for all of us. Scarcity is a human conflict. How does Jesus get caught up in scarcity?

We often focus on Jesus as ‘the Word become flesh who dwells among us’, the incarnation of God; it’s easy to forget that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human.

Matthew and Mark are revealing to us a much fuller image of Jesus.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, author of “Not in God’s Name,” offers this insight about God: “…The most radical of monotheism’s truths: is that God may choose, but God does not reject. The logic of scarcity [he says] has no place in a world made by a God whose ‘tender mercies are on all his works.’” [2]

God does not reject. The woman seems to know this. She pushes back at Jesus. Notice how she starts her response: “Yes, Lord, yet…” She addresses Jesus by a Divine name. And Jesus hears her…He responds, “Woman, great is your faith.” [3]

She has seen both his humanness and his divinity. And her faith is appropriately placed in his Divine nature.

The Healings performed by Jesus are signs to us of God’s presence among us.

Word of these signs traveled hundreds of miles over the 3 years of his ministry. There were no planes, trains, or automobiles. There were no iphones, faxes, or even the US Postal Service. People heard about these signs by word of mouth…from one person to another…across borders, cultures, and beyond the privileged class.

Life by life, the witness of these signs changed the world.

Today, word of these Signs still passes from one person to another.

Last week, St. Christopher’s blessed 36 backpacks for school students, filled them with supplies, and delivered them for the first day of school. We provided uniforms to children at Hazel Harvey Peace Elementary School. We volunteered at a Laundry Love yesterday, helping more than 40 families launder a month of clothing.

Today, we will bless a blanket given by a parishioner for our Second Sunday children’s ministry. When it’s time for the children’s sermon, they will spread out this blanket and have a sacred space to sit and hear the Word of God.

All of our gifts are more than just stuff…more than just time…more than just money.

They are Signs of the divine in a world that is starved for hope and kindness.

May those who receive the gifts of this congregation recognize the human love that made each gift possible and the divine Love embedded in them.

[1] NIV

[2] Not in God’s Name: confronting religious violence; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks p124

[3] NRSV

Allez! Allez! 2.0

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 16:42:44 GMT

You may have heard some subtle murmurings about a celebration happening today.

Over the past couple of weeks, whenever I open Facebook, there’s a new post about the one-year anniversary of Rev. Paula at St. Christopher’s. But, really, what we are celebrating today is the one-year anniversary of our partnership in ministry. And it is good.

The first sermon I preached here (a year ago) recalled a pilgrimage trail I hiked in 2014. The Via Francigena is an ancient trail that led early Christian pilgrims from Canterbury to Rome. I jumped onto the trail north of Siena, Italy.

On the first day of our hike, the trekking company met us and gave us maps, a St. Christopher medallion, and a warning. They presented a picture of the Italian Sheep Dog and explained that these dogs are very dangerous. They protect the family’s sheep from all predators including humans. If we saw one, we were told: “Do not run. The dogs will attack you. But, hey, not to worry, we have never had a sighting of these dogs on the trail.”

Of course, on day one, we would encounter two Italian Sheep Dogs who were ready to take us out.

The shepherd who owned the dogs was running a tractor and did not hear us shouting for help. But, eventually, he saw us. To distract his dogs, he threw rocks at them. And then he pointed down the trail and shouted in French: “Allez! Allez!” Go! Go!

On the Sunday, we are celebrating our one-year anniversary of mutual ministry, Jesus gives a one-word command to Peter, “Come!”

A few years ago, I visited the Holy Land. We stopped at a museum near the Sea of Galilea to look at artifacts from ancient times. One of the most memorable items was a sailboat.

Archaeologists estimate the boat sank around the time of Jesus. It was well-preserved by the water and a good example of the boat in today’s Gospel.

The boat was not a yacht. I’m not exaggerating when I say the boat would fit in my living room. It looked like a big rowboat with a mast for sails.

Jesus sent the disciples in a boat like this to cross the Sea of Galilea. He intended to disperse the crowds and then join the disciples before they had gone far. But Jesus delayed, going instead to a mountaintop to pray.

When he finished praying, it was early in the morning. The disciples had been in the sailboat all night. Matthew says the boat was battered by waves, and still far from land because the wind was against them all night. It must have been a long, sleepless night for them.

Early in the morning, the disciples see Jesus walking toward them on the water. Their first reaction is fear. “It is a ghost.”

Jesus says, “It’s ok fellas. It’s me. Do not be afraid.”

Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

Jesus says, “Come.”

When the Italian Sheep Dogs were running toward my friend, Phyllis and me, I became acutely aware of how unprepared we were for this encounter. I had a backpack with plenty of water and a rain poncho. Phyllis was sporting the backpack her grandchildren had given her: a purple Tinkerbell backpack complete with wings. We had nothing to defend ourselves.

We shouted commands in French, Spanish, and English but the dogs continued to advance. When the Shepherd finally spotted us, the dogs were 5 feet from us. We were frightened.

The Shepherd separated the dogs from us and then he pointed down the trail and shouted, “Allez! Allez!” We hesitated for a moment. Turning away from the dogs meant trusting a shepherd we did not know.

Truth be told, we had no better chance of surviving an encounter with the dogs whether we were facing them or running from them.

By turning away, we surrendered to trust.

The disciples had a rough night at sea. By dawn, they’re still stuck on the water. The wind is bad enough that waves are beating the boat. Suddenly, Jesus appears walking on water toward them. It seems like the disciples would be thrilled to get out of this boating nightmare and take their chances walking with Jesus.

But they hesitated. They do not yet see Jesus through the lens of faith.

Peter does. He climbs out of the boat, and he walks on water. And then a very human thing happens. Peter becomes acutely aware of the danger: the wind, the water. Logic shouts, “Peter you can’t do this.” And he begins to sink.

I love the response as is he sinking. He doesn’t try to swim back to the boat. He’s not going back to where he was before this epiphany, this awakening. Instead, his first inclination is to cry out, “Lord, save me!”

Peter knows who Jesus is. He didn’t figure it out by sitting in the boat. He figured out by walking in faith

Peter has been changed by the experience.

A remarkable epiphany happened in the life of St. Christopher’s a couple of years ago. When the building was taken away, you recognized that the church is not a structure. We don’t “go” to church. We “are” the church: a community of seekers walking with -- and toward -- Christ. Like Peter, you got out of the boat and began walking toward Grace, toward healing and toward a brand-new horizon that isn’t tethered to a boat dock.

Last August, you welcomed me to walk with you on this pilgrimage. My life has been enriched every day of this past year. You are part of me. And I am part of you.

We come to here to worship together, to give thanks for all that God is doing in our lives and our parish. We pray together. We exchange God’s peace with one another, and we come to God’s Table to share in one bread, one cup. This is Jesus’ command to Peter and to us: Come.

But that is only one part of the story.

Jesus also sends us into the world to be agents of his love in our friendships, our families, our community. Allez! Go.

As we continue walking together, may we go with Peter’s Holy Boldness.

May we remember that whether we’re walking on water or sinking in it, Christ is in us. And we are in Christ.

Amen.

Mountaintop Moments

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 06 Aug 2023 16:51:47 GMT

(Note: We had an audio issue at the start of the sermon. There's a note in the text showing when the text begins.)

This summer, we’ve had a steady diet of Gospel readings from Matthew. Today the lectionary hits “Pause” on Matthew and, instead, we hear Luke’s interpretation of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

It’s the second time we’ve heard this story in 2023. You’d think preaching about transfiguration would get easier the more you do it. But, it does not seem that way to me. Transfiguration is divine mystery. We do well to scratch the surface of its meaning.

Jesus leads Peter, John, and James to the top of a mountain. Moses and Elijah appear, and their words foreshadow Jesus’ departure from our world. God’s voice booms from a cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

In ancient times, mountain tops were symbols of proximity—closeness—to God. Then, and now, mountain tops are places of beauty and danger.

My Colorado hikes usually happen at elevations of 8,000 to 10,000 ft. The closer I get to 10,000 feet, the nearer I am to God -- and bears, and mountain lions and lightning strikes. Should something go badly on the trail, I’m a long, long way from help. And so were Peter, John, and James.

Yet, at the top of a mountain, where it seems all of creation is visible, there is an incredible feeling of exhilaration and mindfulness of God’s presence in our world and our own connectedness to God’s unending story.

(Audio starts here)

Jesus reaches the top of a mountain and begins to pray. Moses and Elijah appear and talk to Jesus. A cloud formed all around them and a voice proclaimed Jesus to be God’s Son. When the cloud evaporated, Peter, John, and James were alone with Jesus. There’s no videotape of what happened. All that remains is the change in the disciples who witnessed the revelation of Christ.

The author doesn’t tell us how the disciples felt during this experience or after the cloud lifted. Luke says, “they kept silent and--in those days--told no one any of the things they had seen.”

Amy-Jill Levine co-authored my favorite commentary on the Gospel of Luke. She interprets transfiguration as a revelation of the divine. It’s is an interesting way to think about what’s happening on the mountain top.

Perhaps it is not Jesus who physically changes but, rather, the disciples who are now able to see the fullness of Christ for a moment. God lifts a veil from human eyes and the fullness of God is revealed to us. Peter, John, and James see Moses and Elijah and they hear them talking to Jesus. To them, Jesus suddenly looks different and his clothing looks different. And God’s voice confirms all that they have witnessed, all that has been revealed to them.

In the mystery of Transfiguration, we become witnesses to the kingdom of God in our time, in our world, in one holy moment.

I began to wonder how Transfiguration might be present in this moment…Or, said differently, when does our community see God through the ministry of St. Christopher’s and our people?

During the past year, several of us have given food to one homeless person who comes here regularly for a bag of groceries. He knows that he is welcome in this place. He knows that he is not judged here. He remembers the people who have helped him select food and speaks to us when he sees us around town. Hunger is the door through which we have built relationship and the window through which he has come to know the compassion of Christ.

Every month, Laundry Love welcomes people who cannot afford a washer and dryer or even the $50 needed to do a month’s worth of laundry. But a Laundry Love event is much more than washers and dryers. Children and adults are fed. Children spend an hour or two coloring or solving puzzles with volunteers. Some volunteers sit and listen to the stories of single moms who are trying to make ends meet for families. Poverty is the door through which we are building relationships and the window through which families experience dignity and compassion.

Hopewallah, led by the Babbili family and several other parishioners, has an annual fundraiser that supports people living with leprosy in India. The annual dinner underwrites medical clinics, medical supplies, and it brings hope to people who live on the edges of community. Leprosy is the door through which Hopewallah encounters isolated people and it is the window through which is a window through which

Hazel Harvey Peace elementary school invited us to host a uniform closet for students whose families cannot afford to provide school-approved clothing.

On Thursday night, Melanie, Cindy, and Victoria will have a booth at “Meet the Teacher” night. And St. Chris will have $250 worth of clothing for kids to start the school year. We will work, throughout the year, with the school social worker to keep clothes on-hand for children who need them. Poverty is the door through which we are building relationship with families in our community and it is the window through which children experience hope and love.

All of us know that culture is fluid. When I first moved to DFW, 40 years ago, I visited many churches looking for one that met my needs: location, the message being told, the “feel” of the church—the people, the space. But, today, if I was moving to DFW, I would google from my couch: inclusive churches near me. And, I wouldn’t physically visit those google search results. I would watch them online.

Technology is the door through which we welcome visitors to our worship life today; it is the window through which people can see who we are, hear what we believe, and feel our joy and hope.

What happened on the mountaintop 2,000 years ago would not be significant without Peter, John, and James. They witnessed something extraordinary. And their lives were changed by it. There's a lot of social commentary these days about whether the Church is relevant. Time will answer that question.

But the meaningful question is do we reveal the Kingdom of God in this world? What does Fort Worth see freshly about God through our witness and how is that is that revelation transfiguring lives here. Those are not rhetorical questions. Those are questions we must answer by our actions.

Amen.

Ain't No River Wide Enough

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 15:45:12 GMT

Down the road from my hometown, there’s a farm that every student of Pennsylvania history knows. [1]

In one particular cow pasture, three natural springs emerge from the ground. One spring flows northwest and forms the Genesee River—it eventually empties into the Great Lakes. One spring flows southeast and forms the western branch of the Susquehanna River—it eventually empties into the Chesapeake Bay. And the third spring, well that one becomes a fisherman’s dream.

Where it begins, you can easily step across it. Tree branches and stones change the course of the little trickle of water. But 20 miles south, the river is deep and strong enough to chisel its way through the Appalachian Mountain range.

By the time it reaches Pittsburgh, the Allegheny River is a large, navigable body of water.

In West Virginia, the Monongahela River bubbles up from a spring and begins a 130-mile journey northward into Pittsburgh. There are very few rivers in our world that flow entirely north. The Monongahela is one them.

Some years ago, I stood at a place called The Point. It is the place where the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River come together and form a new river called the Ohio.

Sometimes Paul’s writing is challenging to read. In today’s lesson, there are just 16 sentences but, within them, there are 36 commas or semi-colons. I find myself paying so much attention to the grammar that sometimes I’m wandering in the weeds and miss the point of what he’s really saying to us.

Today’s message is too important to miss.

The church in Rome was not founded by Paul. His letter is written to that faith community based on second-hand knowledge of the troubles brewing in Rome. Scholars believe this letter was written about 20 years after the crucifixion.

The letter to Rome predates all four gospels. And it gives us a window into the early followers of Christ. How they worshipped; the challenges they faced. They were trying to interpret the meaning of Jesus’ birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. And so was Paul. His theology and wisdom helped shape 2,000 years of Christianity. Paul was an extraordinary visionary.

Throughout today’s text, Paul is describing an intimate relationship between us and God. This is not an image of God hanging out in heaven with a whistle and really big clipboard to record our faults and errors.

Paul understands God very differently.

He first describes our relationship with the Holy Spirit:

“The Spirit [he says] helps us in our weakness…and intercedes on our behalf with sighs too deep for words.” In Paul’s experience, the Spirit is so connected to us that the Spirit can communicate our needs without words. The Spirit binds us in God’s eternal love.

Next Paul describes our relationship with God through the Son.

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God…….[for those who love God will be conformed to the image of Christ]”.

There’s a lot packed into this paragraph.

Paul is saying that not all circumstances of this life are good for us. He is not talking about brussels sprouts. He is talking about illness, loss, hunger, suffering, the difficulties we bring upon ourselves through bad choices, and the random, hard things that happen to all of us in life. Amid all the difficult things, God’s purpose will prevail.

Through the good and the bad, we are created to love God, to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to be loved by God. The ebb and flow of love among God and us, through Christ, is eternal.

This is how Paul understands our human relationship with God.

You can hear that it in the beautiful prose that ends the reading:

“For I am convinced, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I knelt at The Point in Pittsburgh, dipped my hand into the river on one side of me knowing that it was the Allegheny River. And then I dipped my hand into the river on the other side -- it was all Monongahela River water. But the water directly in front of me was different.

Once the two rivers meet, the water is neither Allegheny nor Monongahela.

Or, in the language of Paul, no longer Jew or Greek. A new body of water has been formed. And nothing can return that new body of water to its prior state. Just as nothing in this world can separate God’s creation from God’s love.

God’s love for you and me is eternal.

How we respond to God’s love is up to us.

This Fall, we are restarting many Christian Formation programs. Adult Sunday school and our Zoom-based reading group resume in September. Journey to Adulthood for tweens and teens begins in August. In September, we’ll begin “Second Sundays” where children will be invited to participate in our worship and hear a children’s sermon. Choir practice will soon begin.

All of these activities are opportunities to grow in faith as individuals and as a community. They are a means through which we can move more deeply into the life God is calling us to live.

September 15, 1957, a spring of living water emerged in Southwest Fort Worth. It became known as St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church. Early in its life, St. Chris was a tiny source of living water, but it grew and it planted its roots in this community. Over the past 66 years, we have experienced good things and challenging things and, as Paul said, even now we can see that God’s will has prevailed through it all.

Today we are rebuilding, in every sense of that word. We have lived through COVID, loss of property, changes in culture and by God’s grace, here we stand. We are ready to drop our bucket into the well of God’s living water, God’s eternal love, with the certain knowledge that no matter what is next, we cannot be separated from the love of God.

[1] The only Triple Continental Divide east of the Mississippi River

Sowers of Love

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 16:04:31 GMT

In north central Pennsylvania, dandelions were the bane of people who really cared about having picture-perfect yards. Dandelions develop a beautiful yellow flower and then the flower gives way to a feathery packet of seeds. As a little person -- and maybe even as an adult --I loved to pluck dandelions in the seed phase and blow them into the air.

The people with beautiful yards were not fans of the weeds or the seeds being blown in their direction on windy days.

Dandelions, it seems, are sort of the rabbits of the weed world.

World of the text:

Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel is rather long. Last Sunday, today, and next Sunday we hear excerpts from that one chapter. All of the chapter recalls Jesus’ parables about the mystery of God’s kingdom.

What is Jesus saying?

In today’s text, Jesus tells the crowd a parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the good seed…” and the story continues.

When he finished the story, he left crowd and went into the house. The disciples followed him into the house with a burning question…’Hey, what does this story mean?’

Like many of you, I’ve heard this parable so many times that it I can tell story without reading it. We’ve heard this parable all our lives. But the disciples had never heard anything like it. They had no context through which to understand the parable. One day they’re walking through fields of wheat, and the next day Jesus uses wheat fields to describe God’s economy --the mystery of God’s way of being -- and God’s way of reconciling Heaven and Creation.

Until that moment in time, no one had ever said the things Jesus said. How could the disciples “get it”?

Amy-Jill Levine, professor of New Testament at Vanderbilt Divinity says, “Jesus told parables because they serve as keys that can unlock the mysteries we face by helping us ask the right questions: how to live in community; how to determine what ultimately matters; how to live the life that God wants us to live. [Parables] are [she says] Jesus’ was of teaching, and they are remembered to this day not simply because they are in the Christion canon, but because they continue to provoke, challenge, and inspire.” [1]

In the parable, the land owner tells the workers not to gather the weeds because in doing so they would also uproot the wheat…the good stuff. We are not equipped to see what is good and what is not good in God’s eyes. Our vision—our ability to truly see—is limited. The parable says that God alone has the ability to do this work. And in the end, God will.

In my Pennsylvania backyard, some days grandma would gather the green leaves of all the dandelions. She used them in salads. Sometimes she’d sauté the greens and serve them as a side dish. It was a bit weird as a child to see weeds served at the dinner table. And I was more than a little concerned that my dog was using the backyard as a toilet. Yuck. But, grandma went past all my concerns. She knew that dandelions are very nutritious.

My British family refer to dandelions as “volunteer flowers”. When they mow grass, they are careful to preserve dandelions and any other volunteer flowers.

Some people look into a yard and see only the weeds…the stuff that isn’t uniform blades of green grass.

Some people see dandelions and are mesmerized by their beautiful yellow flower.

And others, like Grandma, see dinner.

What you see--and what I see--may be different. Our human vision is shaped by human culture.

And, of course, one lesson of the parable is that only God recognizes the full potential of the dandelion…His own creation. Only God knows what is good seed and what is not.

Amy-Jill Levine says any parable provokes us to wonder: “How should we live in community? What really matters? What is the life God is calling you to live?”.

As I thought about her questions, I began to wonder….what if we…the followers of the Way…are like dandelions sprinkled in communities of sameness….where people are expected to look alike, speak the same language, carry the same passport, desire the same worldly success?

What if the blades of grass are in fact the weeds? And what if the dandelions, the disciples of Christ, are carriers of Hope, Love, and Joy.

Living in community as Christians, our vocation is not to stand on a soap box and shout to the world that my way is better than your way. Our vocation is to be Christ -- to be visible points of Light, to be agents of Hope. We are called to action, that our way of living in this world will bear witness to Christ.

God invites us into partnership in our time and our place. We are not called to blend in with those who work for injustice or inequity. Like the dandelion, we should stand out in this world. And with the joy of a child, blow our seeds of divine love into our community.

[1] Amy-Jill Levine; Short Stories by Jesus: the enigmatic parables of a controversial rabbi; p297

What you doing with your birthright?

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 16:18:08 GMT

July 16, 2023

Let's Get Yoked

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 09 Jul 2023 16:37:54 GMT

In February of 1983, when I graduated from college, the job market was really bad. I was leaving Penn State with an accounting degree and a pretty good academic record. Those two things earned an invitation to visit one of the big CPA firms in Philadelphia. We had a great conversation right up to the moment they extended an offer for me to become an auditor.

Auditing is not my cup of tea. I loved tax law and I was fully committed to becoming a tax CPA but not by taking a two-year detour on an auditing trail.

Without a job, I went back to Lancaster, PA, where I was planting my roots. The local newspaper printed classified ads--I placed an ad in the paper:

"Recent Penn State Grad with BS in Accounting seeks entry level CPA position."

There was room for more words in my advertisement; and the next words I wrote would land a job for me: Minor in Management Information Systems. Computers.

The firm that hired me had purchased a new machine called a PC (personal computer). They had boxes of floppy diskettes, a manual, and nifty computer -- all of it still waiting to be opened.

On my first day, I drove into the parking lot of the firm and smiled at all the hitching posts along their fence line. I remember thinking, “Oh, how quaint." Lancaster is home to a large community of Amish folks. Before the first day was over, I learned that many of our clients were Amish.

The hitching posts were not decorations.

Today’s Gospel reading is a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. Chapter 11—where today’s lesson is found--begins with these words, “Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.”

And then, John the Baptist, already in prison, makes an appearance in the text. He has heard about all that Jesus is doing. And so he sends his own disciples to Jesus with a question: ‘Are you the one we’ve been waiting for’? Jesus responds, “Go and tell John what you hear and see…the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” These are signs of Jesus’ divinity.

When John’s disciples leave, Jesus begins teaching the crowds. In today’s excerpt from Chapter 11, he’s a bit frustrated that people have not understood the meaning of John the Baptist’s ministry or of his own ministry. People think John has a demon, and that Jesus is some kind of party animal.

And, still, he will invite us into his calling…to share his yoke.

Many of the farms around Lancaster began installing computers in their offices. I became a traveling accountant teaching folks how to use farming software and consulting on their tax returns.

I watched a lot of Amish farmers survey their horses and select the team of horses that would be hitched together for plowing and planting fields, for clearing rocks, and for pulling the family buggy when it was time to travel. The animals had to be matched according the kind of work they would be doing, their size, their strength, and their desire to work.

If the animals were unequally yoked, the team would go in circles…

As Chapter 11 is coming to its close, Jesus offers a prayer:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

because you have hidden these things

from the wise and the intelligent

and have revealed them to infants….

God has placed the Truth of Jesus the Christ in plain view: the Signs of his divinity are everywhere. But the so-called wise and intelligent people can make no sense of them. Surely Jesus is drinking too much and hanging out with all the wrong people. What sort of rabbi is this?

A few weeks ago, we talked about a quote from one of our Irreverently Faithful books: “Faith isn’t an act of intelligence, it’s an act of imagination.” [1]

The infants -- those who see by faith -- recognize the hand of God in the signs Jesus performs.

To those who really see him, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart…”.

To be yoked with Jesus, we, too, must be gentle and humble in heart.

The work of the Church in our world is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. We are yoked with Christ in the fulfilling of that mission.

If we come to this work without gentleness and without a humble heart, we will not be equally yoked. And we will travel in circles rather than toward God’s mission of reconciliation.

Today, we will send Marvin into the mission field---working for reconciliation. He will spend time with Annunciation House—a ministry that serves the poor in migration on the El Paso-Juarez border.

Before he was accepted as volunteer, Annunciation House asked if I would offer a reference for him. In their form, they described the work he will do: “Our ministry depends on individuals committed to living and working among the homeless poor—in a spirit of faith and solidarity.”

They are describing the work of reconciliation. And the qualities needed to live with the homeless poor in a spirit of allyship are gentleness and humbleness of heart.

When we nurture these qualities, the yoke of Christ is easy, and the burden is light.

[1] Christopher Moore; Lamb: the Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal; p 394

Throw the ball, God!

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 15:46:22 GMT

My dog, Dursey, is a vizsla. His breed is known as “velcro” dogs because they love to be with their human at all times. They’re prone to separation anxiety when they feel apart from their human.

So, once Dursey was eight weeks old, I began by training him to be separated from me by leaving him in a kennel for 45 minutes -- a blink of an eye to us, but an eternity to a puppy.

The kennel had comfortable bedding, toys, water, food -- all the signs that might Dursey know he is loved and his needs will be met. On day one of our training, I latched the kennel and drove to town for groceries. Forty-five minutes later, I was met in the driveway by neighbors, who had sitting inside their homes, listening to Dursey howl, bark and yelp for 45 minutes. Non-Stop.

I explained the training regimen and I persisted. A week later, I increased our separation time by 15 minutes. The neighbors who lived closest to me went camping for the weekend.

Last week, we heard the story of Abraham and his first-born son, Ishmael. This week, we hear the story of the child born to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac. These two stories are presented back-to-back in Genesis: Chapter 21 and then Chapter 22. They should be read and interpreted together, because they are intentionally parallel stories.

In both stories, God is testing Abraham.

God had entered into a covenant with Abraham and Sarah. Though Sarah was barren and elderly, Yahweh promised that she would bear a son and Yahweh would bless her son. But it didn’t happen quickly enough for Sarah…she began to lose confidence that Yahweh would deliver. So, she convinced Abraham to have a child with her servant Hagar. This child was named Ishmael.

The first story, Genesis Chapter 21, is known as the sending of Ishmael. Sarah tells Abraham that he must send Ishmael, still a child, into the desert. Abraham believes Ishmael and his mother Hagar will die in the desert. He was very upset. Abraham loves these people. God responds to Abraham’s despair: Do as Sarah says. “Because Ishmael is your child, I will make a nation of him.” Abraham sends Ishmael and Hagar into the desert.

The second test of Abraham, today’s reading, is known as the binding of Isaac. After the birth of Ishmael, Sarah and Abraham have a son who was named Isaac. Yahweh tells Abraham to take his only son Isaac, whom he loves, to a faraway place. There Abraham will offer his son as a burnt offering. Abraham gets up the next morning, and begins the journey. The firewood is assembled, Isaac is bound to it, and Abraham is ready to do the deed when God finally intervenes.

During the first three weeks of my dog’s training, when I got home and opened the kennel gate Dursey would pour himself into my arms, whimpering. It was as if he was saying, “Please don’t go away. Please don’t go away.”

But a curious thing happened during the fourth week. One day I came home, opened the gate, and Dursey bounced into my arms, licked my chin and headed for the door. He rang the bells that tell me to open the door and he ran to the flower pot where I keep a tennis ball for play time. He dropped the ball at my feet and started the Dursey dance, “throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the ball.” From that day, this is how I’m greeted every time I come home.

Over the course of our training, the kennel did not change and my behavior pattern did not change. Each time I left, Dursey was surrounded by the same signs of love in his kennel. And each time I came home, I opened the gate and loved on him.

What changed in week four, was Dursey’s response to the experience.

He grew in trust.

In Genesis, there was a change in Abraham’s behavior that piqued my curiosity.

1. In Chapter 21, the sending of Ishmael, Abraham is very emotional. He is distraught. And Yahweh is compassionate…he assures Abraham that Ishmael will be the father of a nation. It will all be ok.

2. But in the second test, the binding of Isaac, Abraham shows no emotion. None. And there is no compassionate assurance from Yahweh.

God calls to Abraham three times in today’s reading. Each time Abraham says the same three words: “Here I am.”

Something happened between Chapter 21 and Chapter 22: Abraham was changed.

He no longer needed God to reassure him that all would be well. When God called Abraham, his only response was: “Here I am”. And then he began walking toward God’s calling on his life.

Like Abraham and Dursey, we are tested on a regular basis. Dursey learned to trust through consistent experience with his human. Abraham learned to trust Yahweh through experience and faith.

Usually, the tests we face are little things. Sometimes, they’re big things. And every now and then, they are life-changing events that we can only comprehend through faith.

We don’t know the future for ourselves or our parish: twenty years from now or even 20 minutes from now. But we do know that God surrounds us at St. Christopher’s with signs of God’s love for us.

God is present here: In us and through us.

There is so much hope in this place. You can feel it. Hope isn’t buried in the walls, or the pews, or the flooring. Hope is inside you…and me. We are signs to the world—and to one another--of God’s hope, love, and peace.

Every time St. Chris meets a challenge with those three words, “Here I am,” we are changed. We grow in faith and courage. This is a place where Holy Boldness is chosen and lived.

We are ready for whatever is next.

Throw the ball, God. Throw the ball.

Here we are.

Repairing the Wreckage

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 15:45:39 GMT

Last Sunday, I departed north central Pennsylvania and began the journey home. Fifteen hundred miles is a long way, and a lot of driving time to reflect on today’s readings. My thoughts kept coming back to the Romans text and, particularly, to the meaning of sin as Paul understood it.

I grew up in a different denomination. My Sunday School lessons were often centered around the many things that could lead me directly to Hell. There were the 10 commandments, of course, but that was just the beginning. Lying, cheating, stealing, copying someone’s homework, drinking (at least in public), and on and on. A lot of attention was paid to the idea of sin. It was as if God had a giant clipboard where each transgression I committed was recorded for eternity.

But, this notion of sin doesn’t resonate with Paul’s writing.

Barbara Brown Taylor is one of my favorite preachers and writers. She has a way of saying things that is often direct and unexpected. Thirty years ago, she wrote a great little book titled “Speaking of Sin: the lost language of salvation”. In the book, she digs deeply into the meaning of sin through the lens of the Hebrew Bible, the Bible that Paul knew.

There are three words used in the Hebrew Bible to describe sin. Barbara noticed that all three of these words share a common thread. In the Hebrew tradition, sin meant going against God’s will—or being out sync with God. These are her words:

“In theological language, the choice to remain in wrecked relationship with God and other human beings is called sin. The choice to enter into the process of repair is called repentance…” [1]

That definition shines some light on what Paul is saying to the church in Rome and to us.

Paul draws the short straw in the field of first century evangelism.

The other apostles and disciples will spread the Gospel message to people who expect a Messiah…people who expect God to be engaged in their particular lives…people who expect to hear prophetic messages.

But, Paul is sent to the Gentiles…to us.

He preaches to people who do not have the Hebrew Bible memorized: people who do not know that a Messiah was foretold, people who do not have a history of prophets calling them back into righteous relationship with Yahweh.

As he grows in ministry, Paul comes to deeper understanding of the Mystery of Incarnation and Paschal Mystery… a theology that interprets the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Romans is his last letter…and Paul is laying down all of his theological cards, face up. He’s out of time. And he wants us to “get it”.

To the church in Rome, he says: ‘Those who have been baptized into Christ must no longer let sin have dominion over them’. Or to say it with Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, “those who have been baptized into Christ must no longer live in wrecked relationships with God and other human beings”.

I don’t know about your life, but mine has its own graveyard of broken relationships. Our community is brimming with wrecked relationships caused by political divisions, injustice, poverty, and fill-in-the-blank.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not going well.

If we aren’t going to let wrecked relationships have the last word then, Taylor says, repentance comes by our choice to enter into the process of repairing broken relationships.

By the time I got to Kentucky on Monday, I was beginning to think about the ways in which St. Chris is working to repair relationships right here in Fort Worth, Texas.

The first connection I made was Laundry Love. One Saturday a month, this ministry helps more than 35 families have clean clothing for school, jobs, and clean pajamas. Last month, I visited with a mom who had spent more than an hour on city buses—with her laundry and three kids in tow—to come to us. There is no other Laundry Love in all of Tarrant County. Every client at Laundry Love knows there are people in this world who care about them—who want to know them by name—who will help them reach for a better path forward.

The second connection I made was the Christofolx gathering last Sunday evening. A dozen people walked the streets where Fred Rouse was attacked and lynched 100 years ago. They listened to the story told by Mr. Rouse’s grandson. I watched our group post comments on Facebook after the evening. And I knew that Mr. Rouse’s life held new meaning for every person who walked in his footsteps. Folks were changed by the experience.

The third connection I made was our outreach work through the lives of people in our congregation. We have begun volunteering monthly at 4Saints Food Pantry—an Episcopal ministry of several congregations feeding hundreds of families every month. We have volunteers who routinely work at Union Gospel Mission. We have parishioners who support Brite Divinity, the Butterfly Society, and on and on.

What I love about each of these examples is that our engagement with poverty and injustice is not just about writing a check and driving to the post office to mail it. We are involved in our community. We come face to face with those who are suffering in ways we cannot imagine. We accept vulnerability: a willingness to be changed by the needs of our neighbor.

Paul desires for us a life of flourishing….of becoming the very person God created us to be. It begins with our Baptism—but it does not end there. And that is his point.

In Baptism, we are grafted into the life of Christ. Through our life experiences, our roots grow more deeply into God’s soil. And then our lives bear fruit that is God’s fruit: Love, Hope, Joy, Light.

We, the Body of Christ, are exactly what our world needs.

Each week, we gather here to worship and to share a Holy Eucharist. And then together we offer a prayer that my friend Fr Ron calls “The prayer of Christian discipleship”.

Eternal God, heavenly Father,

You have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1] Speaking of Sin: the lost language of salvation; Barbara Brown Taylor; p58

3M: Mild-Mannered Missionaries

Sun, 18 Jun 2023 16:32:00 GMT

One of the wonders of history is the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the first century of its existence. In a surprisingly short time, an officially illegal, persecuted minority became the major faith in the civilized part of the western world, culminating with the triumph of Christianity under Constantine.

How was it accomplished? Historians cannot find a missionary strategy or a plan for Christian expansion in the records of the early church. There were no boards or committees for missionary work, and no “theology for mission” or mission statements printed in church bulletins and posted on websites.

From scattered clues, it seems that the rapid spread of Christianity was due in part to the awareness that mission was a total activity involving preaching, teaching, healing, the Sacraments, personal witness, and service to humanity. They managed to leave the impression on pagan observers that they were a “new race” of people, different from any that had lived before. It was the famous African theologian, Tertullian, who gave perhaps the simplest picture of those early Christians in mission in his famous statement, “see how they love one another.”

Their approach to mission was what you might call a “soft sell” or “mild-mannered” approach. Like the children of Israel who were called to be “a kingdom of priests,” the disciples were given instructions to tend to the physical and spiritual needs of persons. In Jesus' apostolic discourse he outlined the missionary strategy not in terms of conversion to some philosophical viewpoint but in terms of ministry to human need. “And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity, and preach as you go, saying, ‘the kingdom of God is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”

Throughout the world, wherever the church is growing, wherever the church is effective, wherever the church is found at its very best, ordinary people have their sleeves rolled up and are quietly going about following Jesus’ own blueprint for mission which was just read for us a few minutes ago from St. Matthew's gospel. Christian missionary outreach has always depended upon such mild-mannered missions as the mainstay of the enterprise. The disciples were such ordinary people made extraordinary by their faith in and witness to the risen Christ. Following their example and the example of early Christian outreach we learn several things about what ordinary people can do.

To begin with, we see that every life can be a significant life. No one need ever think that she or he has nothing to offer, for Jesus can take what the most ordinary person offers and use it to accomplish great things. We fail him when we plead “I'm ordinary” or “I'm just one person” or “I can't afford to” in the face of a need to which Jesus calls us.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. The harvest is God’s. What God needs is laborers who are not afraid of hard work! Every life can be a significant life. Our faith, even a little, can guide our work for the healing of racism, discrimination, injustice, and brutality.

My favorite of all Biblical characters is not one of the strong and influential shapers of the early church but a person who, when the church was in its infancy sold his property and brought his gift to the church. At another time, when the church was facing a very hard time in Antioch, he gave them encouragement and inspiration to continue. It was this man who stood up and spoke on Paul's behalf after the Damascus Road experience, assuring the people that Paul had not come back to persecute them as he had once done, but to join the Christian mission. When Paul sent John Mark away it was this man who received him and loved him and encouraged him until John Mark was once more a fruitful servant of God. I am speaking of Barnabas. His name was really Joseph. They called him Barnabas because the name means, “son of encouragement.” His quiet, unassuming ministry made the supreme difference in four great crises of the early church. He was a blessing to other people and because he was, the church grew and spread out across the face of the earth. Great leaders like Paul were able to go on and do their work because this man was quietly working behind the scenes bringing about a blessing in the Christian community. Every person can be a blessing to others. Every life can be a significant life.

Another thing we learn from the instructions Jesus gave his missionaries is that if we are obedient, God can use even our failures and inadequacies in remarkable ways.

What a pitiful lot those people were standing before Jesus and the disciples. He had compassion, he felt sorry for them. They were “harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.” And look at the disciples, marked by failures and inadequacies of every sort. Imagine how many mistakes they made trying to do what Jesus wanted. But Jesus urged them on saying, “I can use even your mistakes to the good of my kingdom.” Jesus knew that anybody who ever tried to do anything made a certain number of mistakes in the process. Notice that he even gives them permission to fail if people don’t want to hear them and to move on.

Today is Father’s Day. Think of the fathers and father figures in our lives and their influence on us, even when they made mistakes. Yes, some fathers do great harm to their children. And yet there are others to whom we can go who give us the compassion, the hope, and the nurture we need to rise above our hurt and find our way in life.

Let me remind you that one of the important scientific principles of history was given to us because Keppler, the great astronomer and mathematician, made several mistakes in his calculations about Mars. Let me also remind you that Columbus was not looking for the new world when he set sail. He was looking for a new route to Asia.

Look at our ancestors in faith, like Sarah who thought she was too old to bear a child, so she laughed when God told her she would.

And, we are called to live by a focused faith. It is easy today - it has always been easy - for Christians to be distracted. Influences all around us are very appealing. But we must keep our focus on the things that matter. Jesus told his followers to focus on the sick, the lepers, the demon possessed. Keep your heart and mind on what matters!

This process will help the members of this parish identify and focus on what is most important. We will honor the most important things of the past, embrace the most important things of the present, and reach out for what we believe are the most important things that lie ahead – Who is God calling us to be? What is God calling us to do? Who are the sick? Who are the lepers? And where do demons dwell in the world around us? How shall we respond?

St. Christopher’s is facing an exciting future, filled with challenges and opportunities. In the coming months, you will be reflecting on the journey you have experienced thus far and gently setting priorities for the mission to which God is calling you. As you do, I invite you to remember that faith is forever moving forward into the future where God is already waiting with new duties for God’s holy people who are called to be focused on and participate in the greatest enterprise of all - the ongoing redemption of creation. We can learn much from the past. We can be heartened by the pioneering spirit of our forebears in faith. But the past is prologue. The best days of this family of faith lie ahead as each person takes up his or her gifts and employs them in the service of the Living Christ. We have to keep the focus on faith because the tendency in us to fall into fear, to find the flaws, is very, very strong.

Our Collect of the Day sums it up so beautifully: “Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

It doesn't matter who you are or how little you have, God can use your life, even your failures and inadequacies, for the good of his realm. This is the reason Christianity spread across the world during those first years and it is what undergirds the outreach of today's church. Your part is crucial to the whole. And, if you aren’t too sure about this notion of mild-mannered missionaries, just remember that that mild-mannered reporter, Clark Kent, was in reality Superman. Your life and witness counts.

Acts of Imagination

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 11 Jun 2023 22:30:44 GMT

The Gospel reading today introduces three people who are drawn to Jesus. First, we meet Matthew, then an unnamed leader of the synagogue and finally an unnamed woman.

Matthew is known as the tax collector, but this isn’t an H&R Block kind of tax collecting. He was a toll booth attendant. In Jesus’ day, if you wanted to travel on a road that offered some degree of safety, you had to pay a toll and the toll collector decided how much your toll would be. Determining factors included the number of people in your traveling party, the quality and quantity of merchandise you were carrying and whether you were wealthy enough to be traveling by camel.

The worst part: the toll collector rented his toll booth from Rome -- the occupying force in Judea. Once Matthew covered his rent overhead, the rest of the money he collected from his fellow Judeans was profit for his pocket. It’s no wonder tax collectors were despised.

The second character is a leader in the synagogue. He enters a highly charged scene: Jesus is surrounded by Pharisees who are examining him: Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners? The leader of the synagogue walks through the pack of angry Pharisees, kneels before Jesus, and asks for a miracle: “My daughter just died; come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”

The third person is a woman whose been bleeding for 12 years. It’s hard to imagine the physical damage being done to her body. Food was scarce in Judea. There weren’t CVS pharmacies on every corner, where she could get vitamins to supplement her diet and help her body deal with fatigue and lack of energy. In her culture, she was considered unclean. It had been 12 years since she worshipped in the synagogue or was part of the community.

All three of these characters share something in common: They are isolated, and they are suffering in broad daylight. And no one recognizes their pain except Jesus.

Last week, our Irreverently Faithful reading group gathered to discuss a book written by Christopher Moore. In his book, Christopher wrote a bit of dialogue that caught all of our readers’ attention:

“Faith is not an act of intelligence. Faith is an act of imagination.” [1]

As I was thinking about the three characters in our Gospel reading, it occurred to me that these three people are drawn to Jesus by faithful imagination:

1. Jesus says, “Follow me” to Matthew, and Matthew walks away from his business. He has no idea what the rest of his life will be. He only knows what it will not be. Without a word, Matthew follows.

2. The synagogue leader has heard about Jesus’ healings. I wonder if he was one of the Pharisees worried that Jesus would lead people away from the synagogue. But when his daughter dies, he does not go to the synagogue. He walks past his peers to kneel before Jesus. And he asks for something no human can deliver: restore life to the dead. His faith is an act of imagination. No one –other than God—can do this.

3. The bleeding woman has heard the stories about Jesus, too. She’s been unclean—and therefore separated from family, friends, and the synagogue for 12 long years. What hope could she have for a better tomorrow? Somehow, when Jesus comes to town, she knows that if she can just touch him, she will be well.

All three of these characters act in faith:

• faith that is not based on prior experience

• faith that is not based on logic or intelligence

Their faith is an act of imagination. They trust in what cannot be seen, known, or proven and they act.

I feel that kind of faith here, at St. Christopher’s. We are walking forward toward a new home while we grieve all that has been lost. We are reimagining how God is calling us to minister in our community while we grieve the loss of a pre-school and a fellowship hall that welcomed people from all around our community. We are walking toward a new home before we have land, before we have all that we will need to make this dream real. We are walking, together, with faith that is a living act of imagination.

Our world needs people like the man who kneels before Jesus. He knows –only by faith—that Jesus will give his daughter life again. We need people like the woman who knows—only by faith—that if she can just touch Jesus, her life will be restored.

Our community needs St. Christopher’s to be Christ in this world -- to be a people who dream, who act on faith, who can imagine a world where people are not isolated, where suffering is not ignored, where the possibility of a better tomorrow calls us, all of us, into faithful action.

There is a sense of urgency in our movement, but it is not about having a roof over our head. It is about following the voice calling to us, “Follow me.”

[1] Christopher Moore; Lamb: the Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal; p394

One God, Many Persons

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 15:56:28 GMT

Last Sunday was a remarkable day. The Feast of Pentecost brings home the message that God is with us…across all time…across all cultures…beyond our comprehension or imagination … God is with us. More than 90 people joined us for a glorious hour of worship. And the day was just beginning.

During the fellowship hour, our confirmation class began its last session together. It was a longer-than-usual class, and so I invited one of the parents to make a pastoral care call with me. We returned to the church just as the kids were finishing and then I drove home.

As I was driving, the phone rang. Aidan was at the other end…and he had lingering questions from the confirmation class.

What exactly is the Trinity?

I mean, how does it work?

It’s all one God, right?

Those are awesome questions from an 11-year-old! His Holy Curiosity was stirred up…and the timing is perfect for Trinity Sunday. These are the questions that every preacher tries to answer today… preferably without drifting into heresy. Because, historically, it hasn’t gone very well for clergy who drift into heresy.

So, how do we answer Aidan’s questions (without the Bishop inviting us to take a long walk on a short pier)?

Scripture is a great place to start our research. In these ancient stories, humans have recorded their experience with God for millennia. And today’s readings are particularly chosen to give us insight about God as Trinity.

In the Genesis reading, we learn that God creates …out of nothing.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light”.

God creates light, life, and all things out of nothing. Only God can create out of nothing.

Human creativity is not like this. We need the gifts God planted in us and in Creation to be creative. With those gifts, we can create new music, write new literature, build new things. But no human can create something out of nothing.

Human creativity is a partnership with God. We are invited to partner with God in the stewardship of God’s gifts…the gifts given to us, the gifts given to Others, and gifts planted within Creation.

In Matthew, we learn that God redeems…in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel conversation happens after the crucifixion…after the resurrection. It is the very last paragraph of Matthew’s Gospel. The Risen Christ is speaking to us. We are to go into the world, making disciples and baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Baptizing…bringing disciples into the life of Christ through the power of God. In the water of baptism, we are redeemed and born into new life…eternal life.

Christ gives us a great commission: to teach and to welcome in the name of God.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians describes God’s life-giving power.

The excerpt from Corinthians is the last 3 verses Paul will write to the Church in Corinth. And his final message? “The God of love and peace will be with you.” It is powerful farewell from a person whose life has changed by the presence of God. Paul is not speculating. He is telling it on the mountain: God is present in our world, in our lives, in this moment.

Scripture reveals to us that God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in the act of Creation, in the life and work of Christ, and in and through God’s ongoing work in our time.

We are partners in God’s ongoing work: When we gather here and become one body of Christ. Together we hear the Word, we pray, we confess, we affirm our belief. We break bread and share a holy banquet together. We are sent forth in the name of Christ…for we have been changed by the gifts of God.

We are partners in God’s ongoing work: When we raise up disciples through catechism classes, online discussion groups, studying the Holy Scriptures, praying with and for one another.

We are partners in God’s ongoing work: When we are present with one another during difficult times, when we share one another’s burdens, when work together to meet the pastoral needs of our community.

We are partners in God’s ongoing work: When we give our time to the ministries of our parish and our community, when we give our talent to improve the audio/visual technology of our worship, when we give time to help roll out a new web site, when work with others to bring new ministry to life.

We are partners in God’s ongoing work: When we give freely and joyfully from all that God has given to us.

Yes, Aidan, the Trinity is one God, who we know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, who we know as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. In theological language, God is one being and three persons. Using the language of real life, Br. Curtis described the meaning of Trinity this week:

God as Trinity reminds us that we belong to one another. We need to belong to one another. We are complete and whole only as we do belong to one another, all of us different persons who belong to the One God of all creation [1] .

Look around this room…The people sitting beside you, in front of you, behind you. Each of us is created in God’s image. No one more-so or less-so than another. When we work together in the Love and Peace of God, we move toward wholeness as a Body of Christ.

God is in this room…in us…and through us.

One God, many persons.

Amen.

[1] Br Curtis Almquist; Society of St. John the Evangelist; Jan 3, 2023 reflection Trinity

Buckle Up Buttercup

Mon, 29 May 2023 00:53:44 GMT

Eight years ago, I sat in a lawyer’s office signing my name to contracts that would transfer control of a business to the person across the table from me. He was 20 years younger than me and eager to put ink on the paper. Becoming President of a business was a moment he anticipated with excitement.

But, as the person retiring from that role, my inside voice was saying, “Buckle up, buttercup." My outside voice said, “Harmon, I’ll always be a phone call away.”

On the Day of Pentecost, we celebrate a remarkable gift: The Holy Spirit comes among us to be our Advocate and Guide.

Every Pentecost we read today’s passage from the Book of Acts. The scene described by the author sounds like something Universal Studios or Disney World might imagine. Sometimes I wonder how the people who were there that day found words to describe what they experienced.

Without warning, they hear a sound like a hurricane or tornado…and the sound filled the entire house where they were sitting. Each of them was touched by the presence of something they described as tongues of fire. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.

Word of this strange happening spread quickly. Foreigners living in the city of Jerusalem came to see what all the buzz was about. Many of them were from faraway places. When they encountered the disciples speaking through the Holy Spirit, each foreigner heard and understood the Holy Spirit through their own native language.

Amazing.

The disciples are speaking in languages they do not know. The foreigners are hearing in the language of their homeland.

For those who were not followers of the Way it must have been surreal. They could not explain it. And so, they began to suggest that the disciples were inebriated. For them, it is the only plausible explanation.

The disciples experience this moment very differently than onlookers. I wondered why.

In today’s Gospel, John describes an encounter between the disciples and the Risen Christ. Just a few days before the Ascension, Jesus comes among the disciples and says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus prepared the disciples…and us…to receive the Holy Spirit….in the passing of the Peace, in the speaking of the Word, the Spirit comes among us. It is not something for us to capture and hold. The Spirit is part of our sending…our commissioning as individuals and as the Church. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Today, many worship communities, including St. Christopher’s, are honoring high school graduates. These young folks are on the cusp of adulthood, looking toward college or jobs in places near and far. It’s a heady time for those moving toward new adventures.

As I was thinking about how we will send our graduate forth, I revisited an old black and white film called The Bells of St. Mary’s. Near the end of the movie, Fr O’Malley (Bing Crosby) is giving a commencement address. He reminds the students that their families and the people of St. Mary’s have invested deeply in them. And all that they have learned is now inside them…

In communities of faith, our youth gather knowledge, wisdom, and skills… They learn the stories of our faith. They learn to worship. They learn to love our neighbors…all of them. They learn how to be in community. When graduation day comes, they are filled with gifts received in and through worship communities throughout their lives.

But, O’Malley’s point is that these gifts are not our gifts to keep. They are our gifts to give to the community that is around us…wherever and whatever we call “home”.

We nurture young Christians in this place. The Spirit sends them forth, bearing gifts of love, peace, hope, and joy.

One of my favorite Taize songs begins with these words, Ubi Caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. It means, where this is charity and love, there is God.

I think it is what all of us experience in our worship community, the intangible quality of the Church that is so hard for people to name. God is in this place…in us and through us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that gently forms us as we awaken to that rush of wind.

For Hannah, who graduated last week, St. Christopher’s is the soil into which her parents chose to plant her spiritual life. Her roots are deep. She is ready for the world. This does not imply that each day will be easy.

Jesus knew that the disciples, you and I would have experiences we aren’t prepared or able to bear alone. And, so, He sends the Spirit to be our companion and Advocate.

When life presents you with those “Buckle up, Buttercup” moments, remember that you are rooted in the Spirit of Truth, the Love of God, and the life of Christ. And this Body of Christ is always a phone call and a prayer away.

Living Beyond Tribalism

Sun, 21 May 2023 02:04:49 GMT

As some of you may be aware, last weekend I was not here for Sunday morning worship. Last weekend, I was down in Navasota, Texas at Camp Allen – which is a retreat and conference center owned by the Diocese of Texas. Al Pamento and I were both there for what is called the “Discovery Retreat” – a weekend retreat that the Diocese of Texas offers two or three times a year for those who might be discerning a call to some level of ministry in the Episcopal Church – be it an ordained role or even a lay ministry role. It was a very a rewarding experience for me and I learned so much about the Diocese of Texas, the discernment process for ordination, and I even learned a lot about the history of the Fort Worth part of the diocese going back as far as before I have been alive. There were many conversations that I had over last weekend that were truly valuable to me.

One conversation in particular that I would like to highlight is one I had over lunch with 3 other men on that Saturday. We got into some deep theological discussion and at one point, we had a conversation about violence in the Bible. We seemed to be each sharing our opinions on it and since I was part of the discussion, I voiced my own opinion and observation that there are many parts of the Bible that are just downright violent and tribalistic. In particular, I mentioned some of the passages from the Hebrew Bible which depict God as commanding the Israelites to commit genocide against whole groups of people. I made it known that I felt that these types of passages in Scripture highlight an “us versus them” mentality that is all too human and that as followers of Christ we have to take them very seriously and wrestle with the fact that they are in our sacred Scriptures. Of course, we did not reach a definite conclusion on this matter during lunch. But the conversation was rich and deeply enlightening.

I mention this conversation because I was reminded of it when I was looking at our various texts for this Sunday morning. Looking at them together, they crystalize for me part of what I was highlighting about Scripture to these three other young brothers in the faith regarding violent passages in the Bible and what kind of sense we can make of it. Look at our passage from Psalm 68 this morning: it begins with “let God arise and let his enemies be scattered. Let those who hate him flee before him. Let them vanish like smoke when the wind drives it away; as the wax melts at the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of god.” Right here in Psalms, we have the human impulse of “us versus them” written down – and in a very violent way. Thousands of years ago, human beings were dealing with some of the very same things we see in our own time period. The fact of the matter is that “us versus them” is – as Rev. Paula mentioned to me one night during a meeting of Christofolx back in March – part of “what humans do.” I need not list all of the ways in which we see this in our own contemporary society today. Suffice it to say, we see such tribalism all over the place in our modern world. Is it any wonder then that our human ancestors in Bible time struggled with this same human instinct and some of it is even reflected in our Scriptures?

Yet, we know as Christians that tribalism, exclusion, violence, and “us versus them” is not the end of the story. Our lesson from Acts is a masterpiece in how Jesus, the Christ, calls us to shift our thinking and to resist this all too human impulse toward tribalism. It starts out with the apostles questioning Jesus on whether Jesus would restore the Kingdom of Israel at that particular moment two thousand years ago. Now just think about that for a second. Essentially, the primary concern of these apostles was their own tribe – which in this case was the Kingdom of Israel. And what was Jesus’ response? Jesus asserts that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit and that they will be the witnesses of Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth. What a remarkable response. Right here in the book of Acts, Jesus provides the answer to this age old human instinct toward tribalism; and that answer is that God cares about ALL. Jesus did not answer by saying let the enemies be scattered. He did not respond by saying that the Kingdom of Israel is the only group of people who are important to God. No. Rather dramatically, Jesus calls the apostles – and therefore all of us – to question our own tribalism and to see and experience God as a source that calls ALL humanity to God’s self. Our Gospel lesson from John goes further and makes it more explicit when Jesus prays and declares that he is for ALL people and that he is about eternal life for ALL.

There comes a point – I believe – when all of us must question our faith and why it is we believe what we believe. Why am I a Christian? Why is this Jesus stuff so important for me? - Questions like that. As a millennial, I am part of a generation of people who are leaving religion – and specifically Christianity – behind in droves. When I talk to other people my age – and people of all ages really – who no longer identify as Christian, I usually get a very similar response. It is the tribalism. It is the “us versus them.” It is the condemnation, which often comes with violent connotations. Things that – as we have seen – even our Biblical ancestors were guilty of. But the call of Christ is one of life. To heed Jesus’ call to see all of humanity as important to God – to see even those who we might consider “enemies” as just as much deserving of the love of God is to see God as life itself. Jesus told the apostles that with the help of the Holy Spirt that they would spread this message of life to the ends of the earth. And as followers of Christ in the twenty-first century, the task is more important than ever and falls to us. One of the beautiful thing about our sacred Scriptures, to me at least, is that they invite us to encounter the darker aspects of our humanness – such as violence – and then seek to see God as a source of life that challenges us to resist those elements and in so doing, become even more fully alive and human. That is why I am a Christian. And that is my conclusion from the questions raised by my three friends from last weekend. It is also my response to all the people leaving Christianity today. Perhaps, if we all heed Jesus’ call to be his witnesses to God’s love for all humanity and not just for ourselves and our own group, we will be doing our part to make the Kingdom of God a true reality in our own day.

A Living Testament

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sun, 14 May 2023 11:01:24 GMT

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There’s an old adage inscribed over the doorway of many churches around the world, “Preach the Gospel at all times using words when necessary.” Some folks attribute this wisdom to St. Francis, but if Google can be trusted, we really don’t know who coined that expression.

Later in our service, we will be sending one of our Christofolx members into the field of evangelism for five months. Cynthia will be working in a National Park setting -- the kind of place where people often connect with God. She will be preaching the Gospel, mostly by her actions, and sometimes with words.

Our friend Paul is doing the same thing in the Book of Acts.

Paul is a remarkable person. Born about 15 years after Jesus, he was a tent maker in the family business. He was well-educated and well-traveled. And he was a devout, passionate Pharisee.

Prior to his conversion, Saul zealously pursued followers of the Way. He captured early Christians and turned them over to Roman and Temple authorities for persecution. Christianity was a threat to his way of life.

But, on the road to Damascus, Saul will be changed.

He heads toward Damascus, “Still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Then, he comes face to face with Christ and must answer the charge: “Why do you persecute me?” From that moment, everything changes for him. Like the disciples, Paul leaves the past behind him. He enters into the future with a new name and a new calling: He will preach the Gospel.

Paul’s life will become a living testament to his encounter with Christ.

In today’s reading, Paul is visiting Athens. Even in his day, Athens was a major city. The dominant religion there was polytheistic—Athenians worshipped many gods: little g. They were, nevertheless, a religious people.

This was foreign soil for Paul. He noticed a lot of idols scattered throughout Athens. He even found an altar with the inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ There were no signs of Christianity. Paul could have turned around and gone to another place where the message of Christ was not brand new. It would have been safer.

Instead, he begins by walking around their streets and seeing what is important to these people. And he realizes, they are seeking God, too. But they’ve reduced God to material stuff made by human hands: idols.

I wonder if Paul miraculously dropped into Fort Worth, Texas today, what would he notice about us? What would stand out to him? What are the signs of our connectedness to God? What do we idolize?

If he made it to North Main Street, would he stop for a pair of handmade boots and a 40X Stetson? Surely, he’d be dazzled by the presence of so many cars and trucks until he’s stuck in the 35 mix-master for an hour (as I was on Thursday).

The concrete monuments we call roads are huge. Still, there are not enough lanes to handle the traffic. We invest an enormous amount of public and private resources into transportation. But the streets on which we drive bear witness to hunger, lack of housing, and a poverty of compassion.

Would Paul notice?

John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus will send another Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will abide in us. The Spirit will be our guide, to help us follow Christ, to help us grow into the new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.

Paul was filled with the Spirit. He saw the people of Athens as they were yet, he did not put them down or shame them. He met them where they were but did not leave them where he found them.

Paul looked through and beyond the idols of the community to the Mystery of Christ. He explained that the God who made the world and everything in it, does not live in stuff made by human hands. God lives in us. God abides in us. And we abide in Him.

It is God in us that makes a “Damascus moment” possible for every one of us:

• that we might encounter Christ and be changed;

• that we might engage this moment and every new moment with eyes that can see the brokenness of our world;

• that we might see our own idolatry;

• that we might be carriers of Love and Hope through our ordinary lives.

The Church is God’s instrument of Love in the world. You and I are living vehicles of the message.

We are preaching the gospel through our lives. The question is: whose gospel are you preaching?

Walking the Way

Sun, 07 May 2023 02:40:01 GMT

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Early on Friday morning, I was sitting with today’s readings and praying for God’s insight. What is the message God invites us to hear through these beautiful readings today? And then my cell phone buzzed. Much to my surprise, it was a text from a friend — one of those two people who had spent nearly 2 1/2 years diligently making a paten and chalice when I was becoming a priest. I was surprised because I knew that she and her husband are 5,000 miles away in Spain. They are just beginning the Camino de Santiago.

The “Camino” is a pilgrimage trail that leads to the burial place of St. James and Christian pilgrims have been walking that trail since the early Ninth Century, when the apostle’s grave was discovered. On the evening before her first day of hiking, my friend was a little bit nervous. Her starting point is 500 miles from Santiago and on the first leg of the hike, she and her husband must cross the Pyrenees Mountains. On foot.

I would be nervous, too.

The first letter of Peter is written to churches located in Asia Minor. Today, we call that part of the globe Turkey. It was written just 50 or 60 years after the crucifixion so it is written by that next generation of people. Their parents remember walking with Jesus. The purpose of the letter is significant. The author addresses a critical situation in the lives of those who will read it. These are people who once were the movers and shakers of their community and their time. But now that they are baptized followers of the Way, they are outsiders. They are persecuted and they are abused.

The author writes to them a beautiful, theological, and pastoral letter, one that still resonates today: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house….”.

Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house . It is beautiful imagery meant to be translated into life.

My friend, whose 500-mile pilgrimage is just beginning, has never walked a pilgrimage trail. Brandy did not yet know that every morning she will join people who happen to arrive at the trail head when she does -- people who are also walking the Way.

The group will walk together, and then, slowly, smaller groups will form as hikers match up with others walking their pace. And every day she will meet people she will never forget because they have shared a portion of the journey. Even though she will be on this trail more than 30 days, if my experience is any guide, she will probably never meet the people she met today again.

As each day’s hike begins, pilgrims, like living stones, form a spiritual house on the trail. They care for one another, encourage one another when the trail is challenging, they share water, and band aids for blisters. I remember being welcomed into a makeshift tent when hail unexpectedly just began to pour from the skies.

There are no strangers on the Way.

And Church is like this, too, I think. When we gather to worship, we become the mystical Body of Christ. When Church is done well, we like pilgrims care for one another and we encourage one another when life is tough. We share our talents and financial gifts. When it’s hailing in our lives, we find safety and shelter in this spiritual tent.

But, it doesn’t just happen.

The author says, “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house."

We are not inanimate, unthinking, unfeeling hunks of rock. We have been given gifts that allow us to act, think, and feel. We are privileged: we can use our human gifts to resist God’s invitation to stir the pot of discontent, to do acts of violence in the world…Or we can choose the Way.

Am I willing to give up my autonomy: My right to claim Sunday morning as my own. My right to sit in a corner and ignore the needs of the world. Am I willing be part of something that is not just a Burger King where everything is served up my way?

For this—or any--congregation to become a spiritual house, all of us must choose to be part of the whole and to flourish in the pilgrimage of congregational life.

Today, we will share two significant events that bear witness to the congregational life of St. Christopher’s.

In just a few moments, we will celebrate with the Daughters of the King as two parishioners become part of this Order. In our parish life, the Daughters are very active. They pray for us daily. I know that because I’m part of the prayer chain. They show up whenever I call, whenever they're needed. Sometimes I don't even know I need them and they show up anyway. The Daughters form a spiritual house among us because they have allowed their lives to become living stones.

After our worship time, we will gather in the fellowship hall for a transparency luncheon and conversation. It’s an opportunity for the staff and Bishop’s Committee to share with all of you, all the work we have been doing for the past three months and to wonder, together, how God is inviting each of us to be part of the spiritual house God imagines for us.

And then we will break bread together and enjoy a meal together.

On Friday morning, when my friend was feeling nervous, she reached out to a buddy, a relationship that had formed in congregational life many years ago and was 5,000 miles away. But through the magic of technology, I texted back with an excerpt from our Psalm today:

Be my strong rock…

Lead me and guide me.

It is the pilgrim’s prayer that when our lives feel out of control because they spoiler alert our lives are actually out of our control, we know that God is our strength. We do not have to rely on our own human compass to find the path. God is the Way. And, when we incline our ear to God, God does lead and God does guide us on the Way.

Maybe the pilgrimage that all of us will make this year is not a 500-mile hike in some far away place, maybe our pilgrimage is right here, in the Daughters of the King, serving as an acolyte, singing in the choir, helping with Laundry Love, participating in Christian Formation and all the other stuff that makes us a congregation.

Our strength, our life and our very Hope is here—in the community of faithful living stones we call St. Christopher's. Thanks be to God.

Choose Your House

Sun, 07 May 2023 02:32:51 GMT

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Discoveries in Worship

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 03:01:25 GMT

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There are those students of the Bible who believe that Luke's account of the pilgrims on the road to Emmaus is the most dramatic story in all scripture. It certainly is one that gets our attention. Perhaps the drama and simplicity of it is the reason this story has become the one that gives thematic unity to a worldwide movement among Christians, the movement overseen known in this Church as Cursillio. It is a movement of people who are caught up in the surprising discoveries experienced by Cleopas and his companion when they walked and talked and broke bread with the Risen Christ in a village called Emmaus.

All of Luke's accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus have about them the quality of the worship life of the early church. There is a familiar pattern which reflects or is reflected in the pattern of worship among early Christians; disciples experiencing doubt and despair, Jesus appearance and confrontation, opening of scripture, sharing of a meal, followed by rejoicing and witness. There is an integral and unbreakable connection between our worship together and our experience of the Risen Savior. Worship is the center of the corporate life of the followers of Jesus Christ. Worship is the place of surprise and discovery. If we join that pair on the road to Emmaus we will find...

In worship we are discovered by the Risen Christ. While they were walking, Jesus came near and went with them. But they didn't realize it, they were not expecting him or looking for him. It takes a special opening of the eyes to see the Risen Christ because there is an inward blindness that must be overcome. John Newton's line “was blind but now I see” in Amazing Grace refers to this blindness. Fanny Crosby, whose hymns have inspired many, sang about spiritual blindness from the perspective of a person who was actually physically blind. We have a way of seeing what we want to or the way we want to. Jesus discovers us in this condition and desires to correct it!

In worship we discover him. Recognition of Jesus did not occur until they received the witness of scripture and sacrament. It amazes me that so many people are amazed that the Church expects its members to be regular participants in worship. Some say, “attending worship doesn't guarantee that you'll be a good Christian. I can be a good Christian and never darken the doors of a church.” You can be a good person but not a new creature. You can do your own thing, but Christianity is not one's own thing. It is a corporate experience. The witness of Scripture, the teaching of the Church, the experience of millions of Christians for 2000 years is that gathering for word and sacrament on a regular basis is essential because it is in worship that the chief means of grace are offered to nourish and sustain us in the Christian life. It is true that we can discover Christ anywhere. But the normal, primary way, and most reliable way is through word and sacrament with the gathered community of his followers.

In worship we discover our faith. Faith is, first and foremost, trust in God. St. Peter wrote, “Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised [Jesus] from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God” (I Peter 1:21). For most of us, mature faith does not come all at once as a finished product. We grow into it over time. In fact, the most exemplary saints are never sure the process is ever complete. I recall a scene from the movie, Tender Mercies, in which a boy and his stepfather are baptized. Going home, the boy says he doesn't feel much different. He asks his stepfather if he does. And his stepfather replies, “not yet.” In the experience of worship, more than any experience of our lives, we place ourselves in the presence of the Risen Christ and in his presence we discover our faith.

In worship we discover one another. After he broke bread and was recognized by them, he left. Then “they said to each other…” We need to learn to share our faith one-on-one. Faith that is never shared isn't faith. We need to overcome fear that we might reveal weakness or that our insights might be challenged. Faith that is never questioned isn't worth having. We need to make all our meals and all our meetings experiences of shared faith in the Risen Christ.

In worship we discover our feet. After their encounter with the Risen One in Emmaus, those disciples went to the others. The sense of the text is that they couldn't wait to get there. What if this church became that excited about its mission, so that we couldn't wait to get out there and roll up our sleeves? Serving a meal at Union Gospel Mission, getting more involved in the work of 4Saints Food Pantry, working with the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice, or starting a new ministry. What mission takes is people whose experience with the Risen Christ gets them out of their seat and up on their feet and moving. There is energy and power in it. And, it is not our own energy and power but the energy of God that raised Jesus from the dead. He shows us in Jesus that he also desires to give life to our mortal bodies. I submit to you today that our decisions to reach out to others are grounded in worship. What we do in here produces results out there. We are able to bear fruit because we return week after week to make sure we are still grafted into the Vine, without whom we can do nothing.

In worship we discover our voice to witness and praise. When Cleopas and his companion arrived in Jerusalem and found the other disciples, they told what they'd seen. They found the others telling about their experience of the Resurrection also. There was amazement. There was praise. There was energy in that room when all those who'd encountered the Risen Christ got there. That energy freed their voices to go to others and tell. On the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 responded to their witness and joined them in following Christ. In worship we discover the courage to give all and risk all for the sake of his gospel. People need to give and risk in order to experience a growing and vital faith. Through word and sacrament, we are encountered by the Risen Christ, our fears and our faith are put in balance, we discover ways to share faith with one another, we discover our feet moving out to where our priestly ministry is needed, we discover our voice to praise and witness, and we discover the courage to give all and risk all for the sake of this gospel.

Seeing and Believing

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:21:13 GMT

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Doubt is a universal human experience. We have all felt the pain, the harassment, and the threat of it.

Doubt comes in different depths. The deepest form denies that we can believe anything at all. The other

extreme is the mind of the dogmatic that sails along with unquestioning confidence on a sea of tranquil

certitude.

While there is a certain appeal in dogmatic tranquility, there is also the danger that we might

overlook the possibility of error in our most familiar beliefs. As much as we might like to think of

eliminating any trace of doubt in our life, the truth is that it would be undesirable, even if it were

possible.

Doubt clouded that first Easter. Luke says that when the apostles heard the news from the women who

visited the tomb, they would not believe it. Of course, Thomas is the classical example of doubt on the

first Easter. Jesus had appeared to the disciples that night, but Thomas was absent. When Thomas found

the group, they were exclaiming, "We have seen the Lord." Thomas, being troubled with doubt,

responded, "Unless I see the mark of the nails on his hands, unless I put my finger into the place where

the nails were, and my hand in his side, I will not believe it." Thomas may be the patron saint of

Missouri, whose license plates declare is the "show me" state. Thomas needed to see before he could

believe!

But then, eight days later, Jesus again paid no attention to the locked doors, and appeared and showed

Thomas his hands which still carried the prints of the nails and his side with its wound. In that moment

St. Thomas the Apostle experienced the power of the Risen Christ in his life and exclaimed one of the

greatest confessions of the New Testament, "My Lord and my God." Aren't we all a little like Thomas?

Thank God for that! Because, as Elton Trueblood has said, "A faith that is never questioned isn't worth

having." Thomas remained with the others until his doubts and uncertainties were transformed into a

dynamic faith.

The winning over of Thomas, the doubter, prefaces our Savior’s blessing upon all "who have not seen

and yet believe." St. Peter remembered that blessing and wrote, "Without having seen him you love

him; though you do not now see him you believe in him..."; Jesus did not condemn the doubt of

Thomas nor the honest struggles with faith others expressed to him in the New Testament. He invited

Thomas to have his satisfactions of proof by touching him, allowing the dubitative disciple to refurbish

his faith through the touch test.

Beliefs must be checked in some objective manner. Our Anglican heritage gives us four such tests,

saying that our beliefs must be worked out, examined, refined through Scripture, tradition, reason, and

experience. This is especially important in the matter of faith because just as in the world of science

"seeing is believing", so in the realm of faith, "believing is seeing." So, it is important to face our doubts

and let them lead us deeper into faith's certainties.

When people tell me that they have never had a moment of probing religious doubt, I find myself

wondering whether they have ever known a moment of vital religious conviction. For if one fact stands

out above all others in the history of religion, it is this: the price of a great faith is a great and continuous

struggle to get it, to keep it, and to share it...It is a serious mistake to think of faith as a placid lake under

the bewitching beauty of the full moon. It is much more like the ocean in storm, the swift current of the

full river where one must stay alert if he would stay alive. Faith is a fight as well as a peace. I find

myself thinking of my task as a Pastor and Teacher in the way described by Paul Tillich, when he said,

"Sometimes I think my mission is to bring faith to the faithless and doubt to the faithful."

YomHaShoa, Holocaust Memorial Day, begins at sunset tomorrow. We will be painfully reminded of

Adolph Hitler. Hitler was an atheist. We usually think of atheism as ultimate doubt. But when you think

of it as a religion, you can see how helpful it would be to have a system of doubt to correct it. Hitler had

no religion to cast doubts on his approach to life. But there are other problems besides Hitler's form of

atheism. There is, for example, practical atheism. Practical atheists believe in God; God just doesn't have

anything to do with their lives. Martin Luther once wrote, "There is the man who has never doubted that

God is, but who lives as though he were not; and there is the man who doubts whether God is, or even

denies that He is, but lives a s though He were. In the latter, the grace of God is at work."

Look at the lives of the saints.

According to holy legend, doubt appears as a temptation which increases

in power with the increase of saintliness. In those who rest on their unshakable faith, Pharisaism and

fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is overcome not

by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself

as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern. Courage does not

need the safety of unquestionable conviction. It includes the risk without which no creative life is

possible. The Christian faith is stronger than our doubts. It is like the Chinese proverb, which says,

"Chinese sails, though full of holes, still work."

One of the things we are supposed to learn by the time we finish adolescence is that meaning can

function on more than one level. Our schooling has tended to teach us to believe that things are either

true or false; they either happened or they didn't . When this type of reasoning is applied to a sacred text,

one is placed in the awkward position of either affirming the whole thing or selectively denying it on

tenuous grounds, such as one's present world view. What we are looking for is not simply a belief

system, but an identity, a tradition in which we can locate ourselves.

Suppose a half dozen of us were seated around the walls of a darkened room. We are told that

somewhere in the open, middle space, there is a chair. Which of us will find that chair? Certainly not

those who sit still and philosophize about where the chair might be placed. No, the chair can be found

only by those who have the courage to get up and risk stumbling around in the dark, using whatever

powers of reason and sensation we might have until the chair is discovered.

Or in our relationships with those we love. I have faith that my wife loves me. I feel her kindness, her

caring, her loving touch - all these I interpret to mean that she loves me. Not every moment of our

relationship has been perfectly romantic, but her acts of love are such that, while I cannot claim absolute

certainty now or about the future, I have a deep faith in her love for me. We cannot ever; or

the experience of love with the same probability as sunrise or a lab experiment, but we have

faith that love is real, is what we know to be the case, is the explanation which correctly interprets

certain "scientific experience."

Once a young man said to the philosopher, Blaise Paschal, "Oh that I had your creed, then I would live

your life." Paschal replied, "Let me tell you something, young man. If you will live my life, it will not be

many days until you have my creed." In other words, Paschal is saying it is easier to act your way into

belief than the other way around. And when we see Thomas after the resurrection, we follow the

trajectory of his faith from confusion to confession. The Risen Christ, at last, confronted him in the

presence of the others and together they dealt with his doubt until it gave way to affirmation. He does

that for us, too.

The Unexpected Gift

teiserer@yahoo.com (Tanya Eiserer) — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 01:11:31 GMT

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We have shared an epic Holy Week. It is one I will never forget.

One week ago, we celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem by waving palms and singing Hosannah in the Highest! And we talked about all the people who lined the parade route…and the expectations that each of us—then and now—bring to the parade.

The disciples imagine Jesus will come into his authority in this world…that he will be the King to lead the Israelites again. The Temple authorities expect Jesus will die…and that this ‘Jesus movement’ will come to an end.

And, thus, Holy Week began.

Early in the week, Mary will foreshadow Jesus’ burial by pouring expensive perfume over him. Jesus understands the meaning of her action. But, Judas does not. He is the frugal one among them; he sees this lavish treatment of Jesus as wasted money….money that could have been used differently. For him, the Jesus movement is suddenly off-course….and he begins to move against Jesus.

On Thursday, we celebrated Jesus’ last meal with his friends. We talked about the unexpected, radical welcome Jesus extends to Judas and Peter. He breaks bread with the one who will betray him and the one who will deny him. He washes their feet. And he gives us an unexpected, new commandment: to love one another as he loved us.

After the service, we kept vigil with the reserved sacrament…a way of being present while Jesus prays through the night.

On Good Friday we gathered to remember. We prayed the solemn collects reserved for Good Friday. We touched a cross. We reflected on the experience of Jesus’ friends and family—the certain knowledge that his life had ended.

But the story did not end.

The cross is a point of crisis: For the physical death of Jesus; for the hopes and dreams of Jesus’ followers; and for all Creation. But crisis is never an end-point. It is a turning point.

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning (Easter Day), Mary Magdalene and the other Mary walked to the tomb. Matthew says they went “to see it”. We don’t go to a tomb looking for the living. The women expect to see a sealed tomb. They expect to find guards keeping watch at the tomb. They expect to prepare Jesus’ body for burial…physical, tangible confirmation that Jesus is dead.

Their expectations are turned upside down when they are met by an angel of the Lord.

The guards pass out with fear. But not the two women. They listen to the Angel and follow the angel’s directions to a T….that is the first act of faith on Easter morning.

The expectations they had for the tomb are totally blown away. In that moment, there is no proof that Jesus is risen…and yet these women are not rooted to the ground…they’re not holding on to their past expectations. They run toward the unexpected.

As they go, suddenly Jesus appears to them. He starts the conversation with “Greetings!”. They know his voice. They know him. And the women went to him and took hold of his feet…physical, tangible confirmation that Christ is alive.

A new chapter in God’s never-ending story is begun. And this is our story, too.

Soon, the Risen Christ will ascend to take his place at the right hand of God. And we, the baptized followers of Christ---across all time—become the Body of Christ, the Church, in this world.

This is the gift of Easter Day: God raises Jesus to new life, and we are reconciled, through Christ, to God. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we are initiated into the Body of Christ, marked as Christ’s own… forever.

Today we will baptize Raymond and Kimberly into this Body of Christ. We welcome them into the household of God and pledge that we will walk with them through life.

Over the past seven weeks, this Body of Christ has walked with me as I have kept vigil for my mom. On Good Friday afternoon, she passed. You have called me, sent text messages and e-mails, and prayed for my family. You have been present with me every step of the journey. Your faithful witness of love, grace, and kindness has sustained me.

On this Easter Day, all whom we have loved, and all Creation, are raised with Christ. And this Body of Christ receives new life as we welcome Raymond and Kimberly.

During catechism, Kimberly made a piece of art showing the font, the water of baptism, and the Paschal candle. On the back of her artwork she wrote: “To God, I thank you for Baptism”.

Thanks be to God for the Joy of Easter and the promise of Eternal life, and for this Body of Christ, St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Fort Worth.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

Behold, God is on the Move!

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 01:01:33 GMT

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Behold, God is on the move.

It was early morning on the first day of the week and the women had come to see the tomb —to watch over it, to experience it, to keep vigil there.

It was barely first light and they would have carried candles with them so they could find their way. As they walked they probably told stories to each other, sometimes recounting the tragic recent events but mostly remembering his life, things he had said, things he had done over time.

Like those women, we gathered here tonight to keep vigil. We carried our candles and told stories of things God has said and things God has done over time

And then there was a moment of surprise. Behold!!

The lights came on in a flash, the bells shook and the hallelujahs rang out.

A newcomer to our vigil might find themselves startled but it hardly compares to the start the women experienced that morning. Suddenly or Behold! The earth shook. And a bolt of lighting struck the ground and there in front of them was an angelic messenger rolling back the great stone

The Greek word that is often translated as behold or suddenly is idou—but it is a word that has no real counterpart in English

It can mean “something that is unexpected and yet sure, “something that seems impossible and yet occurs,” it means “watch this!” And “pay attention” and “Listen, this is important.”

In our Gospel text that we heard tonight there are four moments where idou is used.

Behold—the earth shook and with lightning there appeared a messenger from heaven

Then twice the angelic messenger declares Behold! Pay attention! Listen up! Something that seems impossible is occurring!

Jesus is going ahead of you!

Behold! You will see him there!

And then again we hear it when the women encounter Jesus on the way, “Behold! Listen up! Something that seems impossible is occurring!

Jesus met them.

They witnessed first hand this truth the angel had spoken of. They were instructed to go…and tell the disciples a message…and as they went…Jesus had gone ahead of them and they saw him there

And then Jesus said to them, “Chairete!” Here translated Greetings! But more fully Rejoice—take joy in God’s grace—in knowing god is leaning towards you

And the women responded with adoration.

And afterwards Jesus reminded them of the mission they were on

He said to the women tell my followers to go to Galilee and they will see me there.

To Galilee—-why did he tell them to go to Galilee? It was about 40 miles away, three days journey by foot. He could have met them anywhere.

But he calls them back to Galilee —to their home town —back to their roots, to the beginnings of this crazy mission they’ve been on. He calls them to go back to where they first heard that call to “Come, Follow Me.”

What about us? Where is our Galilee? Is it a place on the map? Or is it a moment in time?

Where did you first hear Gods call? Where were you when your spiritual eyes were first opened and a fire was kindled in your spirit? For some of you today may become your Galilee that you will look back on.

Where is your hometown or your place of work or the place you have served in ministry? Maybe it is an office job or a public school or a restaurant or a laundromat.

Jesus is saying go and you will see me there.

The angel declared that not only would they see Jesus there but that he was going on ahead of them.

For the disciples, it was Galilee.

But what about you and me.

Is the messenger from heaven saying that God is going ahead of us into Fort Worth and we will see God there?

Or that God is going ahead of us into Crowley and we will see God there?

Or maybe it is a new job or a shifting relationship or a new calling on your life…. And the angel is saying go…God is going ahead of you…and you will see God there.

Wherever it is we are going God is going on ahead of us. God will know the lay of the land, god will know what we are up against, God will have been there before us

And if we keep our eyes open, we will see God there.

And nothing can stop the plans of God from unfolding. The chains have been broken. No force or power or disease or political movement or warring factions or church conflicts , not even death itself can keep God down.

Behold God is on the move.

And the messenger from heaven has declared that you and I are to be on the move as well.

We are to go.

And God is going before us.

Let’s keep our eyes wide open.

So we can see God there.

An Unexpected Command

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:39:23 GMT

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John’s Gospel opens with revelation: The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. Throughout this Gospel, we see people, like Nicodemus, encounter Jesus and slowly move from darkness to light, from not understanding to realization. Like those who walked with Jesus 2000 years ago, we become witnesses to the Divine Signs, the crumb trail, Jesus leaves for us to know Him and believe.

In this Maundy Thursday reading from John’s Gospel, we see a poignant final meal among Jesus and his disciples. When this meal concludes, Jesus’ suffering begins. Only Jesus knows that this is his final meal on earth…that his hour had come.

Jesus isn’t dining at some quaint restaurant with a 5-star menu. He is dining with his friends, those who’ve have walked with him during this 3-year ministry. They have come to know Jesus well. They were with him when he learned that his friend Lazarus died. They watched him weep. Jesus knows the heartache of human death. He knows how his friends will soon feel.

During supper, Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, and ties a towel around himself. In that gesture, he takes off the clothing of a teacher and puts on the towel of servant. For those of us who have the benefit of reading the full Gospel, we see a repeating theme. The Word, God, empties Godself and takes on human flesh to dwell among Creation. The teacher empties himself of status and privilege and takes up servanthood.

Peter, bless his heart, is undone. The Messiah, the one who will rescue Israel, has no business kneeling on the dirty floor, washing dusty feet. What is Jesus thinking? When Jesus comes to Peter’s feet, he says, “no way.” I get what Peter is saying. In my lifetime, there have been a few special mentors. People who have truly influenced my life. It’s hard for me to imagine one of them kneeling in front of me, washing my feet after a long day of hiking. Like Peter, I would be much more comfortable washing their feet.

Whatever Peter understands in this moment, it pales to reality. Jesus says to him, “unless I wash you, you have no share with me”.

On Palm Sunday, our reflection pondered what the people around Jesus were expecting to happen in Jerusalem this week. And, what you and I are expecting.

The disciples expect Jesus to come into his power; yet, still they imagine this power in human terms. Their imagination is in sharp contrast to Jesus kneeling and washing their feet. You can hear the disconnect in Peter’s words: “You will never wash my feet”.

The religious authorities are not participants in this dinner scene….they are busy arranging for Jesus to die. If they were present, I wonder if Jesus would wash their feet? I wonder if they would be comfortable with Jesus washing their feet even as they plot his death?

I wonder what we learn about ourselves as we give our less-than-perfect feet to Christ? What is this servant/love that looks up into our eyes? What is Christ teaching me in this moment? Is it something I’m expecting?

George Burns is given credit for the line, “Love is a lot like a toothache. It doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.”

So, absent an X-Ray, I circled back to Jesus’ last meal, looking for signs of his love.

First, I saw radical hospitality practiced: Judas is among the disciples present for this meal. The others may not know what will happen tonight, Judas may not even know what will happen tonight. But, Jesus does know. And, he welcomes Judas to this Table.

Second, I saw foot washing. Why does Jesus do this particular thing on this particular night?

Foot washing changes us. It is an intimate moment of sharing vulnerability and love—an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. In the Gospel of John, and in our lives, foot washing is sacramental.

When Jesus kneels to wash feet, he washes the feet of Judas….and Peter…and all the others. He loves the one who will betray him and the one who will deny him. He loves all of them, to the end.

Then he gives the disciples, and us, a new commandment: to love one another as he has loved us.

It’s a tall order.

We are called to welcome everyone to God’s Table and to extend this table into the world. We are called to feed people, knowing that some will bite the hand that feeds them.

The cross that Jesus invites us to take up is the cross of Love. The longer I live, the more I realize the depth and difficulty of this invitation. Our lives are not perfect, and neither are the lives of those we love. It is not easy to love those who have hurt us, or to own the hurts we have caused.

Maundy Thursday offers a moment to pause and reflect on the radical hospitality of Jesus. He did not take up this cross for himself, but for the brokenness of Creation, of you, and of me. He did not do this in anger or disappointment. He did this with vulnerability, compassion, and a radical, unexpected welcome for all.

The Neverending Story

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:45:06 GMT

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Growing up in a different denomination, I had very little attachment to Holy Week. We went from the excitement and energy of waving our palms on Palm Sunday directly to the Good News of Easter. And the Mystery of the empty tomb was in competition with the mystery of the Easter Bunny.

When I became an Episcopalian, Holy Week was a remarkable experience for me…

One Friday during Lent, I attended a Stations of the Cross service. We walked from station to station, reading and praying with each of the vignettes about this terrible day. I remember feeling Good Friday in a way I had never known.

Then Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, came out. With a group of friends, I went to see it on a Good Friday. When it was over, we walked to our cars and drove home…not one word was spoken.

We hold Good Friday in tension:

Our grief for the tortured death of Jesus
Our grief for our own mortality
Our hope for a world that yearns to be reconciled
Our faith that guides us through this fragile life
Our joy that rolls away the rock
Our expectant hearts that await Christ

For the disciples, this day feels like the end.

They do not know that there is something amazing to expect.

Good Friday invites us to sit with the disciples, to feel the hopelessness of “the end”. And to hold that feeling in tension with our own expectation of God’s unending story.

Dying to Our Own Expectations

paula.jefferson@ecntx.org (Paula Jefferson) — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:10:51 GMT

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One of my favorite movies is a musical called The Music Man. It’s an older film, set in the summer of 1912. The music is memorable and fun.

There is a great stir in River City, Iowa, when the Wells Fargo wagon comes to town. As the horse-drawn wagon enters Main St, folks are drawn to the excitement….they drop everything-- whatever they’re doing--and line Main street. Their heads are craned toward the place where the wagon will first be seen.

The air is festive and just right for the famous song to begin…. Oh-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ down the street oh please let it be for me…

The Wagon is filled with orders that were placed long, long ago…and, now, everyone in town is waiting for something especially for them.

They are expecting something.

Jesus begins his entry into Jerusalem, and Matthew says that people begin spreading their cloaks on the road before him. As he moves from the Mount of Olives toward the city, crowds went ahead of him…and crowds followed him. All of them were shouting,

Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!

The Pharisees and Chief Priests are watching the parade, too.

The disciples, the crowd, and the Chief Priests are all expecting something.

The disciples and the crowd:

Jesus sends the disciples on a mission, “Go to the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” The disciples go and, as with their many unusual experiences with Jesus, all of it unfolds exactly as He said it would.

Matthew says this event fulfills the word of a prophet: “Tell the daughter of Zion, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey.” The disciples and the crowd still imagine that Jesus holds kingly power. They lay cloaks on the back of the donkey and on the parade path as one might for royalty. For them, this is a triumphal entry into Jerusalem…the One who will overturn the Roman oppression--and lead Israel--has come at last.

This is the moment they expect.

For the disciples, the crucifixion is an unimaginable conclusion.

The Chief Priests:

Jesus has stirred the crowds yet again. The parade into the heart of Jerusalem is the last straw for them. They are looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death. They find no one whose testimony will hold up in court. And so finally they ask Jesus, “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God”. Jesus answers them. And then they tear their clothing and shout, “He has blasphemed!”. It is the moment they expect.

For the chief priests and the council, the crucifixion is an inevitable conclusion.

Jesus:

The author of Creation makes his way toward the cross. He, alone, knows what is at stake for Creation --for all that God has spoken into life --and for each of us along the parade path in this moment.

For Jesus, the cross is an act of divine reconciliation…a continuation of God’s redemptive work in our world. It is neither a beginning nor a conclusion.

Unlike the crowds, the disciples, or the chief priests, we know that this story is not about earthly power or even a cross. It is about the empty tomb—and God’s self-emptying love for us.

As you walk with Jesus this week, what are you expecting?