Author: Rosemary Lovelace

18th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv, ThM

Proper 21A

Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” – Matthew 21:31b

The Religious Leaders and John

This short passage comes from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem. Jesus is teaching in the temple when the chief priests and elders come to question him. These are people charged with the worship of Israel. They know the Scriptures. They are dedicated to the temple and deeply cherish the sacrifices, prayers, and traditions that have held their people together for generations.

The temple was the nexus of religious life for the Jewish people—the place of sacrifice, prayer, pilgrimage, and teaching. It was a magnificent sight, filled with crowds who had come from all over the country and beyond. Even what remains of the Temple Mount today gives some sense of its immensity. For a pilgrim coming to Jerusalem, being greeted by a gleaming temple rising on the landscape must have been overwhelming.

Now the chief priests and elders were not bad people because they cared about worship or took religion seriously. Jesus himself took the worship of God seriously. He went to the synagogue. He kept the feasts. He taught from the Scriptures. The problem was that, when God was doing something the religious establishment had not imagined, they could not see it.

John the Baptist had the same problem. He came preaching repentance. He was not polished or respectable in the way the religious establishment understood respectability. He was out in the wilderness wearing rough clothing and eating locusts and wild honey. Still, people came to him. They heard his call to turn around, confess their sins, and prepare for the coming of God’s kingdom. The religious leaders heard John too. They even saw people responding to him. But they could not bring themselves to believe that just maybe his message was from God.

That is the danger Jesus is talking about. It is possible to know a great deal about God, have the right forms and say the right words, and still fail to recognize what God is doing.

The Two Sons

By the time Jesus tells the parable we just heard, the conflict in Jerusalem is already growing. Jesus has entered the city to the shouts of the crowd, disrupted the commerce in the temple, and begun teaching publicly in its courts. So the chief priests and elders demand to know by what authority he is doing these things. One of Jesus’ responses is the parable we hear today.

A father comes to his two sons and asks them to go work in the vineyard. One son says “no,” but later changes his mind and goes. The other says “yes.” He gives his father exactly the answer his father wants to hear, but then he does not go. Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” There is only one possible answer: the first son.

Then Jesus makes the meaning of his parable painfully clear. The tax collectors and prostitutes had said “no” to God in all kinds of ways. Nobody was holding them up as examples of righteous living. But when John came preaching repentance, Jesus says, “they believed him.” The chief priests and elders did not. Worse, when they saw others responding to John, even then they would not change their minds and believe.

The contrast is not simply between bad people and good people, or between people with religion and people without it. The contrast Jesus is drawing here is between those who are willing to repent and those who are not. One son had a bad beginning but a better ending. The other had the right words but never followed through.

Neither son is exactly what anyone would see as a perfect child. Certainly, it would have been better if both had said yes and gone into the vineyard. But Jesus does not ask which son gave the right answer. He asks which one did the will of his father. The first son changed his mind, and then he went.

When Yes Becomes More Than Words

The point of this little parable is simple: God wants your heart—but not just as a feeling. God wants us to have the kind of heart that can hear, trust, and follow him.

You can read your Bible every day and attend every church conference that comes around. You can refuse to smoke, drink, dance, cuss, and play cards on Sunday. You can know the most obscure rituals and the reasons for all of them. You can worship in the largest, grandest, and most beautiful church in the nation. You can sing in the choir, serve on the vestry or board of elders, or be a priest yourself. You can be the most learned, theologically polished scholar around. But none of those things amount to a hill of beans without a heart open to Jesus and a life that follows him.

This parable tells us that even if we have been ignoring him for a while, repentance is still open to us. While the first son had already said “no,” that was not the end of his story. And that is good news for people who have made a mess of things, wandered far from God, or said no to him over and over again. His refusal was wrong, but it was not final. He changed his mind, and he went into the vineyard.

But this parable is also a warning to those of us who are comfortable around religion. We can come to church, say the prayers, sing the hymns, give our money, and serve on committees—and still refuse to go into the vineyard. We can say yes to forgiveness and keep nursing a grievance. We can say yes to loving our neighbor and look the other way when someone needs us. We can say yes to following Christ and keep putting off the thing we know he is asking us to do. At some point, our “yes” has to become more than words.

Like the chief priests and elders, we can become so sure that we have God figured out that we leave no room for God to surprise us. We can become so certain that our way is the faithful way that we stop listening. When we put God in a box and confine him to our narrow categories, we risk worshipping not the God of the universe, but the god of our little box. Without a modicum of humility, we can end up worshipping a god of our own making—the most insidious kind of idolatry.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians that now we see in a mirror dimly, but one day we will see face to face. That ought to make us just a bit humble. None of us sees everything clearly or understand everything perfectly. We need to be willing to listen, to learn, and to repent when God shows us that we are wrong.

This does not mean that striving for the best in worship, doctrine, symbols, discipline, or right living is meaningless. But if God has our hearts, we are going to want to give him our best. Our worship ought to be reverent. Our lives ought to reflect what we say we believe. Our symbols ought to point us to Christ. Our learning ought to help us know and love God more deeply. But none of these things can take the place of hearing Jesus and following him. At their best, they point beyond themselves to him.

The Door Is Still Open

And there is one last thing in this passage worth noting… Jesus tells the chief priests and elders that the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of them. Ahead of them. These are hard words, but the door is not closed. Jesus is challenging these religious leaders because just like “those others,” they can still repent.

That means we should be careful about dividing the world into people who are in and people who are out. The tax collector can repent. The prostitute can repent. The priest can repent. The elder can repent. Whether we have spent years running from God or years saying “yes” with our lips while refusing him with our lives, the Father is still calling us into the vineyard.

Maybe, like the first son, you have said “no” to him. Maybe, like the second, you have said “yes” but never risked venturing into the field – whatever that may be for you. Either way, that does not have to be the end of your story. The first son had already said “no.” Then he changed his mind, turned around, and went into the vineyard. By the grace of God, so can we.

Amen.

17th Sunday after Pentecost – the Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv,ThM

Proper 20A

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” — Philippians 1:21

Jim Elliot and the Question of Suffering

Those words could just as easily have come from the mouth of Jim Elliot, the missionary who was killed while trying to share the gospel with an isolated people in Ecuador. I first heard about Jim through his brother-in-law, Tom Howard, a professor at my college who was influential in my own spiritual journey. Through him, I came to know the story of a man remembered for his courage, devotion to Christ, and desire to share the gospel.

Jim and Elisabeth went separately to Ecuador as missionaries in 1952 and married there the following year. Together with other missionaries, they served among the Quichua people, providing medical care, working at translating Scripture, and sharing their Christian faith. But Jim and several others also hoped to make peaceful contact with the Waorani, a people who had had very little peaceful contact with outsiders. After months of trying to communicate their peaceful intentions, five missionaries established a small camp along the Curaray River. Their first encounters with Waorani people seemed promising. Then, unexpectedly, the five men were killed. Jim Elliot was twenty-eight years old.

Years before his death, Jim had written words that would later become famous: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And that raises a difficult question. Where was God? Their wives had prayed for them. They believed God had called them and that they were doing his will. And they were killed. So did God abandon them? Did God somehow fail to answer those prayers?

It is hard to see how anything good could come from what happened on that riverbank. Five young men were dead. Five women had lost their husbands. Children had lost their fathers. The mission they had risked their lives to begin appeared to have ended almost before it started. God did not keep those men physically safe, and we should not pretend otherwise.

I cannot explain why God did not prevent those deaths. Nor can I explain why one person comes home safely and another does not, even though both have been surrounded by prayer. Those are questions that faithful people have carried through terrible grief. Paul’s words do not explain why a particular tragedy happens. They do tell us something about our relationship with Christ when it does.

Paul’s Confidence in Christ

Paul was well acquainted with the cost of discipleship. He wrote his words in today’s lesson to the Christians at Philippi from prison. He does not know exactly what is going to happen to him. He may be released, remain imprisoned, or even be executed. Yet his words express a remarkable confidence. Whatever fear he may have felt, he is convinced that his future belongs to Christ.

“For to me,” Paul says, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Think about what Paul is saying. He does not know whether he will be released or executed, but he is convinced that he belongs to Christ whatever happens. If his life continues, there is work to do for the people he loves. And even if he dies, his life with Christ will continue.

Paul is not saying that death is meaningless or that suffering does not hurt. He had lost his freedom, been beaten, imprisoned, and rejected. He knew what suffering could take from a person. What he is saying is that none of those things, not even death itself, can finally take Christ away from him.

“For to me, to live is Christ.” If Paul lives, his life no longer belongs simply to himself. It belongs to Christ. He says that remaining alive means “fruitful labor” for him. In other words, if God gives Paul another day, he intends to use that day in the service of Christ and Christ’s people.

And his concern for those people is very real. Although he desires to depart and be with Christ, he believes that remaining alive is more necessary for their sake. He wants to help them grow in faith and joy. Even from prison, he is thinking about how they will live together, stand beside one another, and remain faithful to the gospel.

To live is Christ means that my life is not simply about how long I can preserve it. It means that the days I am given belong to him, and that the people he has placed in my life matter.

To Die Is Gain

But then Paul goes even a step beyond that: “To die is gain.” How can Paul possibly say that?

Because Jesus Christ is risen. The Christian hope is grounded in the conviction that Jesus Christ entered fully into death and that God raised him from the dead. His suffering was real, and so was the grief of those who loved him. On Good Friday, they had every reason to believe that everything had ended. But the grave could not hold him.

If Christ has conquered death, then those who belong to Christ need not believe that death is the end of their life with him. That is why Paul can sit in prison, facing an uncertain future, and say, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” Whether he lives or dies, he belongs to Christ.

That confidence does not require us to feel calm about dying. We may be afraid of pain, of leaving the people we love, or of what we cannot yet understand. Our hope rests in the risen Christ, who holds us even when we are afraid.

Belonging to Christ

The deaths of those five missionaries were not the end of the relationships between their families and the Waorani. In time, Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, whose brother Nate had also been killed, went to live among them. Dayuma, a Waorani woman who had become a Christian, and other Waorani women helped make those relationships possible. An invitation came for Elisabeth and Rachel to enter the community. People who had once been strangers learned to live alongside one another, and the gospel continued to be shared.

Those relationships became an expression of grace, courage, forgiveness, and reconciliation. But none of it makes the deaths less terrible or means that God needed five men to be killed. Nor should we conclude that every tragedy will be followed by some good outcome that we can recognize.

Some grief remains unresolved throughout a lifetime. Some prayers leave us with questions we cannot answer. The Christian hope does not depend on our being able to look back and explain how everything worked out. It rests on what God has done in raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and on his promise that our life with Christ will endure.

So what about us? Will God always keep us safe? If by safe we mean that nothing terrible will ever happen to us, the answer has to be no. Faithful people suffer illness, accidents, war, and violence. People who are deeply loved and earnestly prayed for do not always come home. Whatever physical security we possess in this world is temporary.

But can anything that happens to us finally separate us from Christ? Paul’s confidence is that it cannot. We may suffer and be afraid. We may lose people and things we cannot imagine living without. Yet even in those losses, we remain his.

And that gives the church a responsibility. When someone among us is frightened, ill, or grieving, our calling is to stay close enough that they do not have to carry it alone. We cannot always explain what has happened or make it better. We can listen, bring a meal, offer a ride, pray, and keep showing up after the first weeks have passed. Through that care, we help one another know the love of Christ.

Living for Christ

Our circumstances are very different from Jim Elliot’s, but we still have to consider what it means to belong to Christ in the life we have been given.

For some of us, the answer will involve work we are able to do: caring for someone who is hurting, forgiving an old injury, speaking truthfully, or sharing our faith with someone who needs good news. There are people who need our time and attention, and responsibilities through which we can serve Christ.

For others, illness, age, or exhaustion may have made life much smaller. We may need help with things we once did easily for ourselves. Belonging to Christ does not diminish when our strength does. There is faithfulness in receiving care, in allowing another person to help, and in offering whatever prayer we can manage. Our worth to Christ has never depended on how much we can accomplish.

Paul wanted to remain with the Philippians because he loved them. That love gives us a way to understand the life we have been given. Whether we are offering care or receiving it, we share a life in Christ in which we need one another.

We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can give our attention to the life God has entrusted to us today and to the people with whom we share it. There will be times when we are able to help and times when we need help ourselves. Through all of it, we belong to the Christ who died and rose again. As Paul writes to the Romans, “So whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Amen.

16th Sunday after Pentecost Year 19A – The Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv,ThM

Forgiveness After September 11?

Friday, our nation paused to remember the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001. Do you remember how you felt that day, 25 years ago? I do.

Like the rest of the country, I was angry. This was our generation’s Pearl Harbor. And like many of us, a part of me wanted revenge. With that desire for revenge against the extremists who had attacked us came an awakening of my old distrust of Arabs in general, buried since the Gulf War. My head told me that we could not blame an entire people for what these men had done. My heart was having a harder time catching up. I wanted the perpetrators brought to justice, but I also knew that some of what I was feeling went beyond justice.

Somehow, I knew that there was a need to forgive. Forgiveness would not relieve us of the responsibility to protect others or to bring those responsible to justice. But what would it mean to do those things without allowing hatred to take over our lives? Was this too much of a crime to forgive? So how much forgiveness is too much?

How Much Forgiveness Is Enough?

That’s exactly the question Peter brings to Jesus in this passage from Matthew’s Gospel. How often must I forgive someone who sins against me? How about as many as seven times? Peter’s suggestion sounds generous. Most of us would feel we had gone a long way if we forgave the same person for the same offense seven times. At some point, certainly, we’d be entitled to say we had done enough.

But Jesus tells Peter, “Not seven…but seventy-seven times.” Some translations say, “seventy times seven.” Either way, the point is that Peter is asking for a number, and Jesus is calling him to a way of life which no longer keeps count.

Then Jesus tells a story.

A Debt No Lifetime Could Repay

A servant owes his king ten thousand talents, an almost unimaginable amount of money. A single talent represented thousands of days’ wages for an ordinary laborer. Ten thousand talents would be a debt that no amount of work over a human lifetime could repay. The king orders the servant, his family, and his possessions sold. The servant falls on his knees and begs in desperation, “Give me more time and I will pay back everything!” But realistically, more time won’t solve his problem. But then the king, moved with pity, goes far beyond the servant’s pleas. He cancels his astronomical debt and lets him go.

Imagine what that would mean to him. The servant had faced the loss of everything – his home, his family, his freedom – and now he is free. The debt would have dogged him the rest of his life. This is the picture Jesus gives us of God’s mercy. The servant didn’t do anything to earn his freedom. He had absolutely nothing to offer that could make things right. His freedom comes purely from the compassion of the king.

As Jesus’ disciples came to understand his death and resurrection, they would begin to grasp what that mercy meant. Paul writes in Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Each of us has broken God’s commandments. Each of us has things we would rather excuse, minimize, or forget. We may be able to make amends for some of the harm we have done, and we should. But we can’t undo the past or put ourselves right with God simply by promising to do better.

God’s goodness demands that he does not dismiss evil or treat the suffering it causes as unimportant. Yet his response to our sin is to come among us in Jesus Christ and bear its cost himself. As Paul writes, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That is why the cross stands at the center of our faith. Our hope rests not in what we do for ourselves but in what God has done for us. Through Christ, we receive forgiveness and the freedom to serve God as he meant us to.

Mercy Received but Not Extended

In Jesus’ story, the king releases the servant from judgment and gives him an unearned chance at a future he could never have bought for himself. The question is: what will the servant do with that freedom? But as soon as the newly freed servant leaves the royal court, he finds another servant who owes him one hundred denarii – about one hundred days’ wages. That is real money. Most people would certainly feel the loss of several months’ pay. Jesus is not saying that what the second servant owes is unimportant. But compared with what the first servant has just been forgiven, it is a pitifully small amount.

The first servant grabs him by the throat and demands his money. His fellow servant falls down on his knees and begs for patience, using almost the same words he himself had spoken before the king. “Give me some more time,” he says, “and I promise to pay you.” Now one would think those words would at least make him pause – given that he has just been on his knees making that same plea. But he refuses to listen and has his fellow servant thrown into prison. When the king hears what has happened, he summons the first servant and confronts him: “Having received such mercy from me,” the king asks, “why couldn’t you have shown the same mercy to your fellow servant?”

And that’s the point of Jesus’ story. The king’s generosity should have changed the way this man saw his own life and the lives of those around him. Instead, he accepts the benefit and continues to treat others as though mercy has no place in their dealings with him. He wants forgiveness for himself while stubbornly insisting on payment from everyone else.

The conclusion is severe. The king holds him accountable for the debt, and Jesus warns his disciples about refusing to forgive from the heart. And Jesus means for us to take that warning seriously. We cannot ask God to deal mercifully with us while deciding that another person is permanently outside the reach of our mercy.

What Forgiveness Does – and Does Not – Mean

Still, there is a difference between struggling to forgive someone and deciding that we will never forgive them. That struggle may be the very place where God is beginning to change us. A person can bring anger and hurt to God, asking for help. That distinction matters because the wounds people carry are real. Some have been betrayed by someone they trusted. Some have been abused. Some have lost people they love through another person’s cruelty or negligence.

Nor does forgiveness mean pretending the wrong never happened or giving someone another opportunity to hurt us. Protection and accountability may still be necessary. Trust may take a long time to rebuild, and a relationship may never be safe to resume. We can forgive someone and still tell the truth about what that person has done.

The Long Work of Forgiveness

I know something of that struggle myself. Before I joined the Navy or met my beloved KC, while I was studying for the priesthood in seminary, my first wife left me for another man. Joining the Navy was a bit like joining the French Foreign Legion – a chance to start a whole new life. Eventually, though, God blessed me with my lovely bride, KC, and I came to realize that God hadn’t changed his call of me to ordained ministry.

I also gradually began to grasp that if I was going to assure others of God’s forgiveness, I needed to face my own unwillingness to forgive. How could I honestly speak about God’s mercy while not extending it in my heart to my former wife? That didn’t mean I could simply wake up one morning with the hurt gone – and it took me seven years to feel I could forgive her. There was no way to change the past, but there was a way for God to change the hold it had on me.

I believe God has used that painful experience to help me understand and care for others. I’ve also been blessed with a wife who loves me and has managed to put up with me for 39 years! After a lot of pain and healing, I can honestly say I have arrived at a place where I can forgive my former wife and pray for the best for her.

Mercy Experienced, Mercy Demonstrated

The need to forgive is not just for priests. Bitterness can become like a cancer poisoning every corner of our lives. Before long, the person who hurt us can occupy more of our thoughts than the people who love us.

If that is where you find yourself, begin with an honest prayer. Tell God you’re angry, that you’re still hurt, and that you don’t know how to begin to forgive. Little by little, as you come to understand the mercy you’ve received, you may find yourself able to offer it to someone else. Mercy experienced will produce mercy demonstrated. That is the change the king expected to see in his servant, and it is the change Jesus calls us to allow in ourselves. Is there someone who wronged you years ago against whom you still hold a grudge?

Is there someone whose name immediately brings back an old anger? Those are places to bring before God. Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. God’s mercy and our own go hand in hand, so we ask for the grace to grant forgiveness to those who have wronged us as God has immeasurably forgiven us. Such grace cannot help but transform us and flow to a world so badly in need of God’s grace. Amen.

15th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. Mark S. Winward MDiv, ThM

Proper 18A

A Nation – and a Church – Divided

This Friday marks 25 years since the 911 attacks on New York and Washington – a day we vowed to never forget, but have predictably begun to. Our initial response as a nation to those horrific attacks was extraordinary. At that moment, across this land, people weren’t Democrats or Republicans, black or white, gay or straight, one religion or another. We were first and foremost Americans. What a different time we live in now. Instead of defining ourselves by what we hold in common, the prevailing mood is to define ourselves by what separates us. Social media has only intensified this. Increasingly, we see those who disagree with us not merely as mistaken or misguided, but as threats – as evil. 

The Scandal of Christian Division

Christians are hardly above this. More often than not, we define themselves by what divides us rather than by what unites us. Of course we have different styles of worship, different traditions, and different ways of interpreting Scripture. And, indeed, the way we shape our faith does matter – and I am not suggesting that every disagreement is trivial. But churches and denominations sometimes divide over things that are really not going to matter a whole lot when “the role is called up yonder.”

I firmly believe that the division of Christ’s Church is one of Christianity’s greatest scandals. On the night before he died, Jesus prayed for his disciples, and for all who would follow them, “that they may all be one.” Paul expresses the same vision in his Letter to the Ephesians when he writes, “There is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.”

Despite this, Christians remain divided into thousands of separate denominations and communions. The fact is, our divisions hamper our mission to the world and tarnish our witness to the risen Lord. Now, you may be thinking that most church divisions really boil down to politics. And, of course, if you are anything like me, you are completely above politics – right? Get three people together, and you will have politics. Get three Christians together, and you may have four opinions. Conflict is inevitable wherever people live, work, or worship together – and churches are no exception. As a result, people often leave a church because they were offended or wounded. Some go to another congregation, some form a congregation of their own, and some give up on church altogether.

It hurts my heart when someone’s experience with a particular congregation leads to them giving up on God altogether. At the same time, we should not underestimate the damage we can do to each other. Churches are supposed to help people see Christ, but sometimes the conduct of the Church makes it harder for people to trust him. That is one reason the New Testament takes conflict within the Christian community so seriously.

Jesus’ Way Through Conflict

Jesus deals directly with this problem in today’s Gospel: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” The guiding principle here is that God has freely forgiven us; so, consequently, we demonstrate that grace by granting it to others.

Notice that Jesus places the responsibility for taking the first step on the person who has been injured. That may not seem fair. At first glance, we might think anyone who has injured us should have to come hat in hand to us. But in the same way that God sought us out when we were alienated from him, Jesus tells us to seek out one another when a relationship has been broken. Jesus does not give us any options to nurse our grudges, complain about our wounds to everyone else, or quietly resist healing. He tells us to go to the person involved, speak honestly, and listen carefully. The purpose is not to prove that we are right or to embarrass the other person. Jesus says the purpose is to “regain” a brother or sister. Reconciliation, rather than winning the argument, is the goal.

There is, however, an important qualification. Jesus’ words should never be used to force someone to confront an abuser alone. Where there is abuse, coercion, a serious imbalance of power, or a threat to someone’s safety, church leaders or civil authorities may need to be involved immediately. Christian reconciliation does not mean pretending that nothing happened, protecting an institution at the expense of a wounded person, or placing someone back into a dangerous situation. In the ordinary conflicts that crop up between Christians, though, the first step should usually be a private conversation. I suspect a great deal of church conflict could be avoided if we spoke to people rather than aboutthem.

If that personal approach does not work, Jesus tells us to take one or two others along. They are not there as our personal reinforcements. They are there to listen, to clarify what happened, and perhaps to help both parties see something they cannot see on their own. Grudges are poison to a church body – or, for that matter, to a family, a workplace, or any other organization. We should not expect them to disappear simply because we ignore them. Forgiveness rarely happens by default, and glossing over a wound is not the same thing as healing it.

If mediation fails, Jesus directs us to bring the issue before the Church. At that point, the community has a responsibility to take the matter seriously, protect anyone who has been harmed, and call those involved to repentance. If the person refuses even to listen to the Church, Jesus says that person should be treated “as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

That sounds harsh because Jesus is acknowledging that fellowship can be genuinely broken. The Church cannot pretend that everything is fine when someone persists in destructive behavior and refuses to accept responsibility. But we should also remember how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors. He did not approve of everything they did, but neither did he treat them with cruelty or contempt. He continued to call them to repentance and invite them into a new relationship with God. So the Church may have to acknowledge that fellowship has been broken while continuing to hope for reconciliation.

The Law of Love

Given all that, I do not think Jesus meant to give us merely a new list of rules for settling church disputes. Rather, he is identifying the foundation of all genuinely Christian relationships: the law of love. Paul writes in today’s selection from Romans, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” He then explains, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

The trap here is that loving everyone can sound like one more impossible burden placed upon us. It is also easy to reduce Christian love to a syrupy-sweet profession that has very little substance in the real world: “Oh, I just have the love of Jesus for everyone!”

Jesus never told us we have to like everybody. He told us to love our neighbor, which is a whole lot more demanding. We can like someone, feel very sorry for that person, and still not do a darn thing to help them. Likewise, we may not particularly like someone and yet give generously of ourselves for their good. That’s because Christian love is not just a feeling. Depending on the circumstances, the most loving gesture may require an apology, a difficult conversation, a willingness to forgive, a firm boundary, or the patience to allow trust to be rebuilt. Love does not ignore the truth, because a relationship based upon avoidance and pretense is not really a loving relationship at all.

What Love Requires of Us Now

Perhaps someone has come to mind while you have been listening. There may be a conversation you have been avoiding, a grudge you have been nursing, or an apology you need to make. There may also be a wound that cannot be addressed safely without the help of others. The question is not simply whether you were right. The more important question is what Christian love requires of you now.

Not every relationship will be easily restored, and some may never return to what they once were. We simply cannot control how another person responds. We can, however, refuse to allow resentment, gossip, and pride to determine our own response. We can seek reconciliation because God first sought us, and we forgive because, in Christ, we have first been forgiven. That is the law of love, and it is only by living under that law that a divided Christendom can begin to resemble the one body Christ prayed we might become. Amen.

14th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. George S. Yandell

Proper 17A

When I call out the name Phoebe, what person springs to mind? Yes, Phoebe from Friends. The singer Phoebe Snow? Maybe another Phoebe will surface for us. Today’s sermon is all about names.

What’s in a name?  In the early history of the Hebrew people, the name for God was ‘El.’ One of the first conversations I had with a man named Elroy in Memphis, was about his name, which can mean ‘child of God.’ Beth-el in Hebrew means ‘house of God.’ From the time of Abraham, about 4000 years ago, the Hebrew people called God ‘El.’ Ancient times.  Then around 1250 BC, a most intriguing change happens. The Hebrew people began to call God a new name.  How and why?

The Hebrew people migrated from Canaan to Egypt @ 1650 BC. You remember the story- Jacob’s 12 sons sold Joseph into slavery. He was carried to Egypt, rose to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command, and then gave sanctuary to all his father’s and brothers’ people.  The Hebrews lived in Egypt for 400 years. Over time, they became slaves to Pharaoh.

Then around 1250 BC, a child was born to Hebrew slaves. His parents were from the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe.  But Pharaoh had decreed that all male children born to Hebrews were to be killed at birth. So the baby’s mother hid him, then built a tiny raft and floated him in the Nile River.  The daughter of Pharaoh spied the little canoe and the baby, and wanted to take him in.  The baby’s older sister happened to be there, suggested to Pharaoh’s daughter she could find a wetnurse for the baby, went and got the baby’s mother, and the baby and mother were reunited.  The mother raised the baby to a teenager, when she presented him back to Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh’s daughter said, “I’ll call him ‘Moses’ (from an Egyptian word ‘Mosheh’ meaning ‘to beget a child’) for I drew him out of the water (from a Hebrew word ‘Mashah’ meaning ‘to draw out.’)”  

Fascinating, isn’t it?  How that name would ring with deeper truth.

The child Moses went in a moment from being a slave of a down-trodden people to living in magnificent privilege. He lived in the household of the world’s most powerful man.  

Then one day, strolling amongst the construction sites, Moses saw an Egyptian policeman beating a Hebrew slave. Moses was filled with outrage.  He killed the policeman, and then had to make a run for it. He fled to the land of Midian, over 400 miles.  Moses identified so strongly with his people’s plight he killed a man, marking him forever as an enemy of Pharaoh.

One day years later, while tending the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro, God appeared in a flaming bush near Mount Horeb. (Maybe this is where Jethro Tull’s parents got his name?!) Moses had to see more. God told Moses “I have come down to deliver my people from the Egyptians, to draw them out –Mashah– from Egypt.” “Moses said to God: Which of the gods will I say sent me to deliver Israel?  When they ask me his name, what shall I say?”

In antiquity, it was believed that selfhood was expressed in the name of a person.  If you knew someone’s name, you gained power over him or her.  In this moment the God known only as “El” told Moses God’s personal name- YAHWEH- a verb.  This verb form can be translated “I am who I am; I am what I am; I will be who I will be; He causes to be; I am who I choose to be.”  What a name! From that moment on, Yahweh hasn’t had a quiet moment.  Just as Yahweh chose. Yahweh chose to relate to God’s people personally.  God chose Moses to draw out God’s people into freedom.  We are descendents of Moses today.  Our spiritual ancestors were chosen by the God whose name means ‘being, change, choice.’  

There’s one more name most important in our spiritual history- the name Yahweh bestowed on Yahweh’s son, born of Mary- Jesus.  Jesus translates ‘Yahweh saves.’  Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, or Yeshua.  We sit here today as the tribe whose members, both living and dead, bear the mark of Yeshua’s crucifixion on our foreheads.  God has claimed us, we have claimed God in the name of Jesus.  Yahweh moved in history to get us to this point. 

Today’s Matthew reading is the turning point in Jesus’ ministry- open the pages of his gospel, and this passage is smack dab in the middle. Jesus tells it clearly to those closest to him- he will suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders in kahoots with the leaders of the Roman occupation of Israel- he will be killed and on the third day be raised.  

He delivered this challenge to those men and women who loved him most- “you must deny yourselves and take up YOUR crosses and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those lose their life for my sake will find it.” “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in HIS kingdom.” 

And today’s epistle is a zinger- this passage from Romans is a directive from Paul on how to serve the resurrected Jesus.   Written about 25 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection Paul wrote: “Let love be genuine- be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Live in harmony with one another; don’t be haughty, associate with the lowly. Live peaceably with ALL. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Overcome evil with good.” 

We might overlook the setting in which this epistle was delivered- there were as many as 6 congregations of Jesus followers from the different boroughs of the largest city in the Empire. They’d been summoned to a gathering where Paul’s letter was to be read- by a woman named Phoebe. That’s who Paul chose to deliver his strongest, longest letter to the bourgeoning fellowship of Jesus at the center of the Roman Empire. This letter was to pave the way for Paul and Peter’s upcoming visit to Rome. (from In Search of Paul- How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, Crossan and Reed, p. 114, 2004). If I were Phoebe, I’d have been reading and rehearsing his letter ceaselessly all the way from the eastern Mediterranean to the massive heart of the empire.  She was to read and explainPaul’s letter. She was likely a deacon. A woman of independent means. She carried this letter from Corinth in company with other leaders of small congregations of Jesus followers from across the eastern Mediterranean basin. She must have been quaking in anticipation of how it would be received. Don’t you know after she delivered it, there were questions after questions about Paul’s meaning and intent? Whew- she had to answer patiently all their questions about Paul and Jesus- it could have gone on for hours. 

What’s in a name?  Identity, being, mystical relationship, salvation. By acting to draw out Moses, by acting through Jesus, in Jesus, God has made us whole.  That’s where our story begins.  

As we live out our lives, we yearn to know God personally.  To grow into a fuller and fuller relationship with God and God’s son.  Yeshua has saved us.  Now we are challenged to carry on what God has begun. And we do it in company with all those others who yearn to know and follow Yahweh as revealed in Jesus. So when we pass the peace in a bit, if you’re seated next to someone you don’t know, you might ask their name- but be prepared- your life may be redirected by getting to know them. After all, this is Jesus’ family all around you- and he means for us to be transformed more and more into the people drawn out to be Jesus to all we encounter. He’s alive you know.

13th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. Mark S. Winward MDiv, ThM

Proper 16A

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…” – Romans 12:2

Souvenir Religion

A few years ago, while my wife and I were browsing a local bookstore, a title immediately caught my eye. Its cover featured a blue T-shirt bearing a typical tourist-style image of a sailboat. Circling the image was the slogan that couldn’t help but make me chuckle: “I became a Christian, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” Written by Vince Antonucci, the book’s subtitle explains its central message: Replacing Souvenir Religion with Authentic Spiritual Passion.

A souvenir tells people where we have been. Christian faith, however, is not merely a souvenir we carry or a label we wear. It is the mercy of God renewing our minds, joining us to Christ’s body, and turning our lives into an offering of love.

Authentic Faith

Authentic faith is the theme I would like us to consider in today’s New Testament readings. A preacher might approach these passages in one of two ways. The first would be to focus on personal faith. In the Gospel, Peter voices the full and decisive confession on which Matthew’s account now turns, proclaiming that Jesus is not only the long-awaited Messiah but also the Son of the living God. In the Epistle, taken from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Paul urges his readers not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by God.

The second approach would be to focus on the Church. In the Gospel, Jesus promises to build his Church—Church with a capital “C”—and gives Peter a foundational role within it. In Romans, Paul concludes today’s passage by describing the different gifts believers exercise as members of one body. In practice, these two approaches can lead to opposing extremes: a Christianity that emphasizes personal faith at the expense of participation in the Church, or a Christianity that focuses on the institution of the Church at the expense of personal faith.

Focusing exclusively on either personal faith or the Church amounts to little more than “souvenir religion,” falling short of authentic spiritual faith. A personal faith that never looks beyond itself can shrink into spiritual self-absorption, while merely going through the motions in church without true conviction becomes the kind of empty religious performance against which Jesus repeatedly warns. Authentic spiritual faith begins with a genuine reorientation of the heart—one that inevitably makes a difference in both our worship and our work in the world.

Peter, got it…

Peter’s confession marks a decisive turning point. In today’s Gospel, we witness an awakening to the truth of who Jesus really is. The scene unfolds in the region of Caesarea Philippi, in the far north, at the foot of Mount Hermon. It was a predominantly Gentile area and an important center of pagan worship, associated particularly with the god Pan and with Roman imperial power. It is worth noting that Jesus asks his disciples about his identity in this particular place—a place filled with competing claims about divine and political power. Here Peter confesses that the true Messiah and Son of the living God is standing among them.

Jesus certainly had followers before this moment, but Peter now brings together the titles “Messiah” and “Son of the living God” in a full and explicit confession of faith. Whenever I hear this passage, I imagine a moment of silence before Peter summons the courage to say, “No, you’re not merely one of the prophets. You’re—you’re the Christ, the Messiah. You’re the Son of God!”

The Greek title Christos translates the Hebrew word for “anointed one.” To many Jewish people suffering under Roman occupation, the Anointed One was closely associated with David, the anointed king whose throne had been promised an everlasting reign of peace and blessing. Peter, however, goes even further. He declares that Jesus is “the Son of the living God.” There, in a city historically associated with the worship of gods such as Baal and Pan, as well as the Roman emperor, Peter makes the astonishing claim that the Son of the living God is standing among them in the flesh.

More Than Saying “I Believe”

This extraordinary confession of faith was the first step toward authentic Christianity. But Christian faith is more than a label we wear or a set of words we recite. Peter’s confession still had to become a life. His convictions would later waver. On the night before Jesus’ death, Peter denied him three times. Ironically, at the very moment Peter’s faith failed, Jesus was preparing to sacrifice his life for Peter—and for each one of us.

Weeks later, after witnessing the risen Christ and being empowered by the Holy Spirit, Peter would lead Jesus’ disciples in establishing a Church that would transform the world. In the end, Peter translated his faith into action and, according to Christian tradition, paid for that profession of faith with his life.

Being “Living Sacrifices”

Authentic faith cannot help but bear fruit. That is why James writes that “faith without works is dead.” An old Christian question asks: If being a Christian were a crime—as it has been in many places throughout history—would there be enough evidence to convict you? The question is not whether we have enough good works to earn God’s love. It is whether we respond to God’s love with good works visibily in the way we live.

Paul shows us what Peter’s confession looks like when it becomes woven into ordinary daily life. He calls us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice.” Notice that Paul speaks of our “bodies.” He is not asking only for our thoughts, feelings, or religious intentions. He asks us to offer our whole embodied lives—our time, our abilities, our relationships, our work, and our possessions—to God.

Paul goes a step further by urging us to respond to God’s grace through action. He calls us to become “living sacrifices.” As Christians living under the new covenant, we no longer offer animal sacrifices as the ancient Israelites did. Instead, out of gratitude to God, we offer ourselves. During the time of the Jewish Temple, animals offered in sacrifice were carefully chosen. They were to be unblemished – the best the people had to offer – and then set apart for God’s purposes.

In Leviticus 11:44, God tells his people, “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” For someone or something to be holy means that it is set apart for God’s purposes. We, then, as God’s people and as living sacrifices, are set apart for God and his good purposes.

As a result, we are no longer to be shaped or conformed by the patterns of this age—by all that trains us in fear, contempt, self-interest, and indifference to our neighbors. Instead, we are transformed from within by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rather than being an escape from the world, this transformation is personal renewal for the sake of the world. Lived authentic Christianity, as opposed to souvenir Christianity, thus becomes an offering to God.

Paul immediately makes the communal dimension of that offering clear. “We, who are many, are one body in Christ,” he writes, “and individually we are members one of another.” Personal transformation draws us into a community in which our gifts are offered for the good of others. Some serve; some teach; some encourage; some give; some lead; and some show compassion. No Christian possesses every gift, and no Christian is meant to live the faith alone.

What This Means

This is a grace-centered way of understanding the Christian life. Authentic Christianity is not about closing our eyes, plugging our ears, and simply hoping that we will somehow be good. Sharing our faith, serving our neighbors, and doing good works in the world is our loving response to God’s mercy. We do not try to be good so that God will love us. Rather, we seek to do good because God already loves us.

The point is that authentic Christianity neither ends in the human heart nor stops at the church door. Churches sometimes become preoccupied with particular styles of worship, but true worship extends far beyond Sunday morning. It touches our hearts, transforms our lives, and lifts up our communities.

A transformed life serves when no one is watching, gives without seeking recognition, teaches with patience, encourages the discouraged, and shows mercy cheerfully. It refuses to conform to a culture of contempt and indifference. Instead, it seeks justice, promotes peace, and honors the dignity of every human person.

Authentic Christianity does not end with Peter’s words, “You are the Messiah,” and it does not stop at the church door. By the mercies of God, our confession becomes a living sacrifice: hands that serve, voices that speak truth, gifts that strengthen Christ’s body, and lives that seek justice, peace, and the dignity of every human person.

We do not offer ourselves so that God will love us. We offer ourselves because, in Christ, God already does. A souvenir t-shirt tells people where we have been. A transformed life shows where we are and where we are going. Amen.

12th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 15A – Rev. Mark S Winward, MDiv, ThM

Jesus answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” — Matthew 15:26–27

Introduction

Today’s Gospel, at first glance, sounds pretty rough. Jesus has some pretty harsh words for this woman, who is clearly from a different ethnic group. And given the racial history and strife in our own nation, this doesn’t fall very well on our modern ears. Given wars in the Middle East, Russia pummeling Ukraine, and the mistreatment of immigrants in our own country, I need some good news right now. It is in times like these that our hearts are heavy with the reminder that evil exists and that, for many, their identity is defined by what divides them from others.

I want to suggest to you that today’s Gospel contains the seed of hope for a bitterly divided world. Although, on the surface, we might mistake it for being about sectarian divisions, it foreshadows the beginning of the end of all barriers. On the only recorded occasion when Jesus ventures outside Jewish territory, this account represents the first time Jesus’ message of hope, healing, and reconciliation touches non-Jews on its inevitable journey to transform the whole world.

Jesus in the Land of Tyre and Sidon

Even Jesus needed time to renew himself and prepare for what inevitably lay before him. For Jesus, this was almost certainly a deliberate withdrawal on the heels of the death of his kinsman, prophetic herald, and friend, John the Baptist. There was no place in Palestine where he could be sure of privacy; wherever he went, the crowds would find him.

So he went north through Galilee until he came to the Phoenician territory of Tyre and Sidon—what is now southern Lebanon. At least for a little while, he would get some relief from the scribes and Pharisees and from the fickle crowds. It would have been unlikely that any Jew would have followed him into non-Jewish territory.

This is not, in any sense, a picture of Jesus running away; it is a picture of him preparing himself and his disciples for the final and decisive battle that lay so close ahead.

The Canaanite Woman

No sooner does Jesus’ retreat begin than he is met by a Canaanite woman desperately crying out for him to heal her daughter. At first, Jesus seems to ignore her, until her pleading begins to annoy his disciples. The disciples come and complain, “Now she’s bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She’s driving us crazy” (The Message). This is not exactly a picture of Christian compassion. The reaction of the disciples is not really compassion at all; it is the reverse. To them, the woman is a nuisance, and all they want is to be rid of her as quickly as possible.

If we are going to be honest with ourselves, we have all been there at one time or another. We may eventually cave in just to get rid of this kind of person. But this is quite a bit different from the love, compassion, and outreach Christ calls us to.

But Jesus has a problem here. She is a Gentile. Not only is she a Gentile, but her ancestors were the Canaanites, the ancient enemies of the Jewish people. More importantly, God’s plan for the world was to work through the Jewish people. God’s covenant with them was that, if they would commit themselves to him, he would be their God and they would be his people. Jesus knew his mission was first to the Jewish people so that, through them, God’s covenant could be extended to all people. But before that happened, he needed to concentrate on Israel.

Still, the woman persists, throwing herself before him. So Jesus begins to banter with the woman through a pun that is pretty much lost in English.

Food for the Dogs

Jesus finally turns to her and says, “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” To call someone a dog in ancient Israel, as in today’s Middle Eastern cultures, is a serious insult. Wild dogs were common scavengers in every village—lean, mean, and diseased. Jews scorned non-Jews as “Gentile dogs,” “infidel dogs,” and, later, “Christian dogs.”

But the fact that the woman shoots back a clever response may mean that Jesus’ tone is hardly intended as an insult. I can imagine Jesus saying it with a slight smile that robs the words of any sting. The woman catches on and responds with a pun: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Scholars tell us that the kind of dogs she refers to might better be translated as “pups” or “pet dogs.” Not only does she turn the phrase from “street dog” to “pup,” but she also points to her dependence on him as a pet depends on its master!

I can see Jesus chuckling, amused by her faith, persistence, and sense of humor. Perhaps we can imagine Jesus’ eyes lighting up when he responds, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

This Woman Had Some Important Characteristics

So what does this exchange teach us? First and foremost, she had faith. It was a faith that grew when she was before Jesus. She began by calling him “Son of David.” That was a popular title—a political title. It was a title that looked upon Jesus as a great and powerful wonder-worker, but it saw him in terms of earthly power and glory. She came with a kind of superstition, as she might have come to any magician. She ended by calling Jesus “Lord.”

Likewise, we may come to Jesus for many different reasons. Perhaps we need forgiveness to put to rest guilt we have long borne. Perhaps we are at the end of our rope and need a miracle. Perhaps we just need a change in our lives. But any genuine encounter with Jesus Christ, regardless of what brought us to him, ends in our transformation, as we come to know him as our Lord.

Second, this woman was persistent. She simply refused to turn away. This woman came to Jesus because he was her last and only hope, and she passionately clung to that hope, refusing to be discouraged.

Likewise, many people toss a prayer to heaven, thinking it can’t hurt but not really convinced it will help. Such faith generally does not stand up very well against adversity. Real persistence is ultimately born of love. In the words of Paul, love hopes all things, believes all things, and does not fail. Enduring hope trusts that God will answer our prayer while we place ourselves in his loving hands.

Finally, this woman kept a positive attitude even in the midst of crisis. Her response to Jesus could have been born of despair and anger. Instead, she kept her sense of humor.

Likewise, we can become negative and pessimistic in times of trouble. We can use our words to complain or, out of frustration, tear others down. But then there are those people who, no matter how bad the circumstances, will always find something positive to say. God loves the kind of faith in which there is always a glimmer of hope—a faith that can still find a smile even in desperate times.

Perhaps one of the most notable examples of such faith was Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who harbored Jews during World War II and was later imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. By the way, I had the privilege of meeting this twentieth-century saint at a college chapel service in 1977. Corrie famously wrote, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” This was born of her conviction that “there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”

Conclusion

The Canaanite woman came to Jesus with unwavering faith, indomitable persistence, and an irrepressible spirit. Jesus’ response as a Jew was to cross ethnic boundaries, ignore ancient rivalries, and put aside cultural prejudices to reach out to a child of God in need. In doing so, Jesus foreshadowed a faith on the other side of the cross, where Paul could write, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Many in this broken world may define themselves by their differences. But Christ calls us to break down the walls that divide us and to define ourselves as the children of a loving God. That begins with each one of us living into the hope to which he has called us—with faith, persistence, and joy.

11th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 14A – The Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv,ThM

The Navy Hymn

I selected “Eternal Father” as our gradual hymn today because it’s based on today’s Gospel and because of its longstanding association with worship in the Navy and Marine Corps. That tradition, along with my Navy roots, may explain why this hymn resonates with me – and why you can count on me choosing it anytime this Gospel account pops up in the lectionary.

The Porter Memorial Window, shown in your bulletins, stands in the chancel of the United States Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis. This beautiful Tiffany window portrays Christ walking on the water. For more than a century, generations of midshipmen have conducted services beneath this image. I wonder how many returning naval officers have looked upon it and heard the words of the Navy Hymn echoing in their ears:

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep;

O hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

Many of you may be unaware that I didn’t begin my Navy career as a chaplain. I started out on track to become a Surface Warfare Officer in 1986, serving as Navigator aboard one ship and later as Assistant Engineer aboard another. During those years, I’ve conned ships through both fair and foul weather. I’ve felt a ship roll to within a couple of degrees of not righting itself, and I’ve seen green water wash over the pilothouse as we plunged into waves that looked like something out of The Perfect Storm.

A Storm on the Chesapeake Bay

But I’ve never been so terrified—not at sea, and not even while taking rocket fire in Iraq—as I was while sailing with my family on the Chesapeake Bay.

About twenty years ago, we rented a sailboat for a family vacation from Norfolk to Tangier Island. As we always do before getting underway, we said a prayer. Christian, our oldest son, closed it by saying, “And, dear Lord, we pray that this will be an adventure!”

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the forecast called for fair weather. But I had enough experience at sea—and was superstitious enough as a sailor—to know that you never pray for an adventure. And an adventure it was…

We were about thirty miles north of Norfolk, near a lighthouse ominously named Wolf Trap, when we saw powerboats hightailing it toward shore. The radar showed a line of thunderstorms heading directly toward us. Our sailboat could make only seven knots on a good day, and the nearest safe harbor was twenty miles away. We weren’t going to outrun it.

The sky grew almost as dark as night, and the storm struck us with a vengeance. Waves crashed over the bow as winds pummeled the boat. It was all I could do to hold her steady. We secured a lifeline to my 16-year-old son, Christian, as he courageously fought his way to the mainmast to reef the sail. At that moment, I was struck with the terrifying thought that I might lose the boat—and my family with it.

Based on my experience, I turned the boat to take the waves at the safest angle. We rode them out, praying as we remained at the mercy of the storm. After perhaps twenty minutes of terror, the storm passed as quickly as it had arrived, and sunny skies returned. We later learned that tornadoes—none of them in the forecast—had struck the Chesapeake region. Exhausted, we anchored in a protected lagoon, where KC prepared what the boys still remember as the best homemade clam chowder they’ve ever tasted. I didn’t see Jesus walking toward us on the water that day. But I certainly understood Peter’s prayer: “Lord, save me!”

Jesus Comes Upon the Water

In today’s Gospel, we find the disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, battered by the waves. Then, early in the morning, Jesus comes toward them, walking upon the sea.

First, Jesus sent them onto the water. Matthew tells us that he “made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side.” The storm struck them while they were going where Jesus had told them to go. Following Jesus doesn’t guarantee calm seas. Sometimes obedience carries us directly into places we’d never have chosen for ourselves.

Second, the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus. They saw a figure moving across the water and cried out, “It is a ghost!” The very one who came to help them became one more reason to be afraid. Fear can cloud our judgment. When we’re scared, exhausted, or overwhelmed, we may overlook God’s presence because he doesn’t come in the form we expect. Jesus immediately called to them: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” He didn’t begin by calming the wind. He began by identifying himself. Before Jesus changed their circumstances, he reassured them of his presence.

Peter answered, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said only one word: “Come.” Peter stepped out of the boat and began walking toward Jesus. Amazingly, for a few moments, Peter did what should’ve been impossible. But when he noticed the strength of the wind, fear overcame him, and he began to sink. It would be easy to get down on Peter, but he was the only disciple willing to leave the boat. It took genuine faith to take that first step. Jesus called it “little faith,” not an absence of faith. Peter discovered that faith can coexist with fear—and that even a courageous disciple can begin to sink. When he did, Peter prayed one of the shortest and most honest prayers in Scripture: “Lord, save me!” Matthew tells us that Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.

The Heart of the Story

Perhaps that’s the point of the story. Faith isn’t freedom from fear. Faith is trusting the presence and saving hand of Christ amid our fear. Faith doesn’t mean that we never become frightened, have doubts, or begin to sink. Faith is knowing whose name to call when the water rises. And grace assures us that Christ doesn’t just watch—he reaches for us.

Only after Jesus and Peter entered the boat did the wind cease. The storm wasn’t calmed before Peter was called to step out. Sometimes Jesus calms the sea before us. Sometimes he asks us to trust him while the wind is still blowing.

Like those disciples, we’re called to go where Jesus sends us, even into difficult waters. Following Christ doesn’t guarantee freedom from suffering. It means that no storm can drive us beyond his presence. 

Faith means being willing to obey when Jesus calls—whether he calls us to leave the boat or to remain faithfully where we are. And when our courage fails, as it sometimes will, faith means crying out with Peter, “Lord, save me!” Our hope rests not in the strength of our faith but in the strength of the one in whom we place our faith.

Listening Together for Christ

Having now been at Holy Family for a year, I know that new programs, a new building, and new ways of doing things can bring both excitement and uncertainty – and occasionally some frustration. Faith doesn’t require us to ignore prudent questions or pretend that every new idea comes from God. It asks us to listen together for the voice of Christ amid the wind.

Are we willing to go where Jesus calls us, even when strong winds stand against us? Can we recognize Christ when he comes in ways we don’t expect? And when we begin to sink, are we willing to trust the hand already reaching toward us? The waters may not always be as calm as we expected. But no storm can carry us beyond the presence of Christ. He comes to us on the waves and says, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Amen.

9th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. Mark S. Winward MDiv, ThM

Proper 12A

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will hardship, or distress, or persecution,

or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” 

            —Romans 8:35

The Prayer Saul Could Not Forget

As Stephen stood resolutely before the Sanhedrin, accused of speaking against the Temple and the Law, his enemies expected him to cower in fear. Instead, he spoke boldly, reminding them how often God’s messengers had been rejected. Then his indictment erupted: “You always resist the Holy Spirit!” As the council responded with rage, Stephen looked upward and exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

That was enough. They dragged him beyond the city walls, tossed him on the ground, and began to stone him, while a young Pharisee named Saul stood nearby, approving of his death. One by one, the stones struck Stephen, but he refused to curse his murderers. Sinking to his knees, he called out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Those were the final words of the Church’s first martyr—the first in a long line of faithful witnesses who would follow.

Those words must have haunted Saul. I cannot help but imagining that Stephen’s words rang in Saul’s ears for many years, even after his conversion. But if Stephen’s final words troubled Saul, he initially answered it with more rage. Saul ravaged the Church, entering the homes of Christians, dragging men and women away, and casting them into prison. Saul relentlessly sought to crush the faith Stephen had died defending. Scripture does not say that Stephen’s death caused Saul’s conversion, but Stephen’s face and dying prayer must have flashed through Saul’s mind on the road to Damascus, when he was blinded by light and heard Christ’s piercing question: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

As a result, the man who had made it his mission to persecute Christians would become the greatest missionary of a faith that he once tried to destroy. In Paul, it gained its most influential missionary, whose writings would profoundly shape the Church’s understanding of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Perhaps Stephen’s dying prayer still echoed in Paul’s ears when, years before his own martyrdom, he wrote these words: 

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

“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.”

What Does It Mean to Work for Good?

Paul’s proclamation was grounded in his absolute conviction that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” But how could Paul possibly profess such faith? He had witnessed Christians tortured and martyred in ways limited only by the twisted imaginations of their persecutors—and he himself had once promoted their persecution. By every ordinary measure, it certainly had not worked out very well for countless Christian martyrs. 

But notice that Paul does not claim all things are good. He claims that they work together for good. Suffering is not good. Injustice is not good. Persecution is not good. Death is not good. God does not require us to rename evil as good before he can redeem it. Nor does Paul promise that every tragedy will produce a recognizable earthly blessing. He does not tell grieving people that if they search long enough, they will discover the hidden benefit of their suffering. Some wounds leave no visible blessing behind. Some questions can not be answered on this side of heaven.

Paul is affirming that even the most outrageous circumstances cannot prevent God from accomplishing his redemptive purpose. Suffering may seem overwhelming, but it cannot wrench us from Christ. Evil may scar us, but it cannot have the final word. Death may be the end of our earthly struggles, but it fails to be the barrier to eternal life that Christ offers through his resurrection.

More than Conquerors

In this, Paul describes us as “more than conquerors.” Paul does not arrive at this by denying suffering. This side of heaven, human experience is often filled with grief, doubt, or feelings of being overwhelmed. Being “more than conquerors” does not mean that we must maintain a brave face while our world collapses around us. It means that none of those experiences—not suffering, not grief, not doubt, not even death—can sever the bond Christ has established with us. Our victory is not that we escape suffering. Our victory is that suffering cannot separate us from Christ.

Death Is Not the Final Word

If death is the final word, then Paul’s proclamation rings hollow in the face of the degradation endured by those who have clung to this hope until the end. But Paul grounded his hope firmly in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He does not claim that injustice, suffering, or death is unreal. Nor does he claim that God wills the evils that devastate his daughter and sons. The cross proclaims that God can take what Evil intends for destruction and, without ever calling evil good, bring about redemption. 

For Paul, the resurrection is God’s answer to the murderous violence of the cross—and to all who mistake death for the final word. The world looked at Jesus hanging upon the cross and saw defeat. God answered with resurrection. The world looked at Stephen beneath a hail of stones and saw a blasphemer silenced. God brought forth a witness whose prayer may have echoed in the conscience of the man who would carry the gospel throughout the Roman world. The world looked at Paul in chains and saw the power of Rome. God brought forth letters that would strengthen the Church for generations after Rome had fallen.

The martyrs did not always live to see the earthly fruits of their faithfulness. Paul did not live to see how far his witness would travel. Yet because they courageously stood for their faith, the gospel was carried forward in a chain of hope from one generation to the next – until it reached us.

Held by the Love of God

This is radically good news! When confronted with adversity, sickness, tragedy, or even the prospect of death, a range of frightening possibilities may open before us. Faith does not require us to pretend those possibilities are not daunting. It does not ask us to discover a silver lining in every cloud or some hidden blessing within every tragedy. It asks us to trust that, even when we can see no good at all, suffering cannot prevent God from completing his redemptive work. Faith does not pretend that a fragment of good cancels the pain of loss. It trusts that from circumstances doomed by death, God can bring life. It trusts that what we endure now is beyond the Christ’s redeeming. Even if we fail to discover the answer on this side of heaven, that hope exerts a subtle pull upon our lives. Over time, it leads us toward a very different destination than despair.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” So, what shall separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? Hardship, or grief, and or sickness, or danger cannot. Even death itself cannot. 

Corrie ten Boom, a concentration survivor, famously said, “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” However dark the moment you are in, God loves you. The question is whether you dare to live as though that love is true. Thankfully, God’s love does not depend upon our grip on him, but upon his grip on us. 

Amen.

8th Sunday after Pentecost – The Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv, ThM

Proper 11A

A Beautiful Mess

This past Wednesday marked one year since we moved into our home in Talking Rock, just over the Gilmer County line. Our house is in a water-skiing community—even though we’re not water-skiers—and sits on the side of a hill looking across two long ponds. On a clear evening, those ponds beautifully reflect the warm orange glow of the sunset.

Between our back patio and our pond-side lawn is a steep berm dotted with black-eyed Susans—and an equal number of every kind of weed North Georgia has to offer. While the weeds are a bit annoying, the black-eyed Susans lend the property a kind of wild beauty. So I’ve given up trying to sort through this beautiful mess myself.

Wheat and Weeds

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the servants not to pull the weeds because they might uproot the wheat as well. He concludes, “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

This is hard for us because we want things to be clear-cut. We want to know who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s faithful and who’s unfaithful, who belongs and who doesn’t. We want a field in which every plant is clearly labeled—a berm full of nothing but pretty black-eyed Susans.

But in reality, wheat and weeds grow side by side, their roots tangled beneath the soil in a less-than-idyllic field.

And certainly Jesus wasn’t naïve about the reality of evil, nor was he a stranger to it during his earthly life. We look at violence, cruelty, injustice, and suffering, and we want answers. We see relationships damaged by resentment, communities divided by suspicion, and people treating one another as enemies. Sometimes we even see weeds growing in places where we expected only good seed—in churches, among our fellow Christians, in our families, and within our own lives.

Jesus acknowledges that evil is real. But the presence of weeds doesn’t mean the field has been abandoned. The field still belongs to the Owner.

Judgment Without Judgmentalism

The world contains horrific evil and breathtaking beauty, often growing side by side. And when we recognize the evil, naturally we want to do something about it—just as the workers in the parable ask whether they should go and gather the weeds. Jesus’ response is, “No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”

Our judgments are rarely as spot-on as we imagine them to be. We see only a sliver of another person’s story. We don’t know every burden they carry, every struggle they face, or the hidden grace and courage with which they may endure their pain.

That doesn’t mean we should pretend that everything is just fine. It doesn’t mean that Christians should ignore wrongdoing or remain silent in the face of evil. We are still called to oppose injustice, defend the innocent, and name oppression.

But while judgment ultimately belongs to God, we are freed from judgmentalism—which is a particular temptation for religious people. We should not presume to know the full journey or spiritual destiny of another person. As I often remind people, “That’s above my paygrade!” Grace doesn’t call us to moral passivity. But it does demand humility about our own authority. God is God, and I am not.

There is a difference between holding someone accountable and passing a final verdict on that person’s soul. There is a difference between opposing what someone has done and deciding that we know who that person will always be. There is a difference between naming harmful fruit and declaring that someone is nothing more than a weed.

Only God sees the whole field. Only God sees what lies beneath the surface. And only God knows what the final harvest will reveal.

Waiting for the Harvest

That also means evil will not have the last word.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul says that the whole creation is groaning in labor pains. And we ourselves groan as we wait for the redemption God has promised. The field is not yet what it will be. Creation is not yet what it will be. And we are not yet what we will be.

Paul calls us to hope for what we do not yet see and to wait for it with patience. But Christian patience isn’t the same thing as doing nothing. It means doing what good we can while waiting for God to do what is beyond our ability and authority. While we wait, we tell the truth, protect the vulnerable and repair what has been broken. And while we wait, we resist the temptation to believe that it is appointed to us to conduct the final harvest.

Our faith is not based on the shallow optimism that everything will somehow work itself out. Our faith is grounded in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross shows us both how seriously God takes evil and how far God’s self-giving love will go to redeem sinners. And the resurrection proclaims that violence, cruelty, injustice, and even death itself will won’t the final word.

The suffering of the vulnerable won’t be forgotten. The wounds of creation won’t be dismissed. In the end, God will expose what is false, heal what has been broken, and set right what we cannot make right. All will be called to account. But the One who judges is also the One who gave himself in love for the life of the world.

Because final judgment belongs to God, we are freed from the burden of issuing final verdicts upon one another. So oppose what is evil without allowing hatred to take root within you. Work for justice without denying the humanity of those who oppose you. And hold others accountable while still praying for their redemption.

The Field Belongs to the Owner

From our back patio, I look out over beautiful sunsets, lovely flowers, and a berm still full of weeds. I’ll encourage the black-eyed Susans to grow, tend what has been entrusted to me, and leave the final sorting to God. The field belongs to the Owner. God is God, and I am not. And thanks be to God, the harvest does not depend upon me. Amen.