Category: Sermons

12th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 14, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51:

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning friends, and welcome to Holy Family on this 12^th Sunday after Pentecost. On this Sunday when we hear another in a lovely series of references to the bread of life, invoking a theology of abundance, it is important to think about our responses to this invitation, and about the meaning of discipleship which flows from those compelling images and invitations.

“You are what you eat.” Most of us have heard this in one form or another all of our lives. As a life-long athlete, I get this. I know that when I am eating well—that is, when I am paying attention to what, how much, and when I eat—this is typically reflected in my performance. We try to instill in our children and loved ones wise eating habits, and we endeavor to set good examples for those whom we love. In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers his listeners one of the more perplexing of his sayings, the one about the need for people to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and he talks about the challenges involved for anyone who wanted to follow him. And we know that just a few verses later we find these words: “Many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” I find it intriguing that John uses the term “disciples” in this passage to describe those who turn back. These are not, as John Ortberg has noted in the Christian Century, just casual listeners. Rather, “these are the folk who have been teaching Sunday school and working in the nursery…and when long-time pillars of the church start leaving,” he writes, “we get restless.” So Jesus calls a meeting. And he puts the remarkably poignant question to them with an unsettling directness: Do you also wish to go away? I find myself wondering how Jesus asked the question. Was there sadness in his voice as he asked this of the disciples? Did the question have an edge to it—a hint of anger or disappointment? No doubt it was hard to see people upon whom he had counted as followers decide to leave

I found myself wondering this past week how I would have responded to the question. What does it mean to leave something one has come to believe in? And, how do we make judgments about leadership…the adequacy or inadequacy of it? How do we know when it is time to go away—to break, as it were, a covenant we have made, or how to respond when we feel betrayed by others in that covenant relationship? How do we know when to throw in the towel…to simply give up? These are difficult questions. And one wonders what they may have to do with Jesus’ invitation to drink his blood, and eat his flesh. Was Jesus speaking literally, or metaphorically? Those among his listeners who heard this as a literal command seemed most offended and confused. I think this is because they simply didn’t get the truth of what he was saying to them. This coming week we celebrate the Feast Day of Jonathon Myrick Daniels, who died while taking up the cross of justice in Alabama. He wrote, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown…I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection…with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout…We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

As a runner, I have a strict code of ethics, if you will, about entering races: If I start one, short of injury or illness, I will finish. But what was at stake in this passage is much more than an athletic endeavor. It is about discipleship, and courage, and commitment, and faith, and it also speaks to the Gospel text for today, because it reveals that while the literal food we eat is important, the Bread of Christ is the most important source of sustenance in our lives.

Recently I read a wonderful book by Laura Hillenbrand, entitled “Unbroken,” about the life of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini. He was the son of Italian immigrants and Louis spoke no English when his family moved to California. A young man with behavior problems, his older brother Pete got him involved in the school track team as a way to divert his energy to something productive. In 1934 Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 00:04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships. The following week he won the championships with a 04:27.8, and that record helped Zamperini win a scholarship to the University of Southern California and eventually a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in the 5000 metres, at 19 the youngest U.S. qualifier in that event. Zamperini finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Olympics. Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record which held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname “Torrance Tornado”.

Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941 and earned a commission as a second lieutenant the following August. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier assigned to a B-24 Liberator bomber. On May 27, 1943, he and his crew were assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and its crew. While on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles west of Oahu, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.

The three survivors, with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish. On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. Both Phillips and Zamperini were held in captivity and severely beaten and mistreated until the end of the war in August, 1945. Zamperini was held in the Japanese Prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). He was especially tormented by sadistic prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Zamperini wrote up Italian recipes keep the prisoners’ minds off the food and conditions. Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, killed in action. When he eventually returned home he received a hero’s welcome.

In 1946 he married Cynthia Applewhite. After the war he suffered from what we would now call severe post traumatic stress disorder. Clinically depressed, and drinking too much, Zamperini attended a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham. Graham later helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. His wife Cynthia was instrumental in getting him to go to Billy Graham’s meetings. In an Olympic related interview I saw last week, the interviewer asked Zamperini how he had turned his life around, and what kept him from giving up. He said: “forgiveness.” Over the years has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony and preached. The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Gospel of forgiveness to them. “You can spend your life swallowing hatred and bitterness, and it will kill you,” he said. “I chose the Bread of Christ. I chose forgiveness, and it has given me life.”

Saying “yes’ to Jesus may not always be easy, or pleasant, or make sense, but it is who we are called to be. Christian discipleship  is embodied in our Baptismal prayer when we ask for an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and persevere, and a sense of joy and wonder in all God’s works . Today’s Gospel reminds us that the Body of Christ is food that will not leave us hungry and unfulfilled. It is nourishment for the long run. It is Bread of life, for Life. If we hear Jesus’ words in the Gospel for today as a life-giving image, it can allow us to be fed in all times and in all places. So, just in case we haven’t “gotten it” after four weeks of bread-themed lessons, Jesus invites us into a way of living and being that is at once both wise and somewhat strange. It is wise by divine standards; in fact, it is not only wise but also “the way” to life abundant and everlasting.

Try to hear the words of Jesus from John’s Gospel without your “church” ears on, and the bare language is more than a bit challenging. “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”? Consuming Jesus doesn’t happen only at the altar rail. Living, breathing, and abiding in Christ’s body each hour of every day is our countercultural calling as Christians. We are to show Christ to the world through our words and actions, every day of our lives both individually and as worshiping communities. Having been fueled by Christ into full communion, we in turn offer the experience of his grace and boundless love to others. We become part of the heavenly food chain and the circle of endless and abundant life. Yes, dear one’s, we are what we eat. Yes, we feast on Christ at the table, but we must make our very lives a banquet of hope, grace, and love. We are stewards of the Good News and consumers of Christ. Together, let’s endeavor to live with a radical gratitude and a holy hunger, always willing to pull more chairs up to the table. If we are what we eat, then we have an opportunity to become that grace, ask for seconds of that abundant love, and pass the promises of God on to others. Amen.

11th Sunday after PentecostProper 13, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:24-35

The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

…Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen.

Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this 11^th Sunday after Pentecost. Thank you, to each of you, for being here this morning as we take another step together on the journey toward finding our next rector. We welcome Canon Sally Ulrey here this morning, and we are so grateful to her for helping to shepherd this process. Sally, we thank you so much for being here today, and for your ministry in the Diocese. We have two Hebrew Bible texts available in the Lectionary for today, one from Samuel, and one from Exodus. Both involve complicated men—David and Moses—who were perhaps paradoxically called to lead. David was a narcissist and misogynist who, against all odds repented, confessed to Nathan, and grew to become a leader, despite his horrific acts in relation to Uriah. In the reading from Exodus this morning we find a people in transition and a leader, in Moses, also in transition or, perhaps in a process of transformation as he faced the wrath of the whole congregation of the Israelites who complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. “Why did you bring us here,” they lamented…saying it would have been better to die as slaves in Egypt rather than starve in the desert. Change is hard indeed. Walter Brueggemann, my erstwhile colleague from Columbia Seminary, teaches about three kinds of journeys: journeys of Orientation, Disorientation, and New or re-Orientation. And, we know this pattern well as Christians and Episcopalians in our journey during Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter… and on into this long, green season of Pentecost. This sequence is part of our liturgical DNA.

This familiar pattern is one about which Richard Rohr and other authors have written as part of—indeed essential to—our spiritual journey. It is also about our “salvation,” understood here as healing, because we are indeed “healed” by knowing and surrendering to this universal journey of reality. Knowing the full pattern allows us to let go of the first order, accept the disorder, and, sometimes hardest of all—to grieve our losses and trust the new reorder. In some ways during this season of our lives together at Holy Family, we are living out our own version of that Exodus journey.

St. Ignatius, one of our spiritual forefathers and mothers, wisely said that we must learn to practice what he called “Holy Indifference.” When we encounter those liminal, transitional seasons where we must let go of our illusion that we can order and control the world through whatever means we seek to do so. Release of control and giving control over to God will show itself as increased attention to compassion and generosity, and less attention to rules and regulations and “the way we’ve always done things.” This will normally be experienced, Rohr says, as a move toward humility and real community. It may also mean that we can find new and previously undiscovered leadership abilities in ourselves, and new ways of being in community; perhaps in ways that are surprising.

“Leadership” is a broad topic, and we may be tempted to think it doesn’t apply to us on a personal level. I want to challenge that notion, and invite us to think together about leadership, and about how we might lead ourselves and others on this Exodus journey during this season. The origin of the word “leader” means, simply, to guide. So let’s think together about how we might guide one another as we move out of disorientation, and on toward reorientation. As some of you have heard me say in other contexts, a growing paradigm in the Episcopal Church places increasing importance on lay leadership. Indeed, the new mission statement mantra in the Diocese of Colorado is “Lay led…clergy supported.” Now, there are many reasons for this change, realities shared by sister denominations in mainline Protestantism. But the basic reality is that we are in a profound paradigm shift in our corner of Christendom. More than half of our congregations cannot afford to pay for a full-time priest. It is simply not sustainable. And this is true in dioceses bigger than ours and smaller dioceses as well. Across the country we have a LOT less full-time jobs. And some of those that are “full-time” are the results of partnerships that mean the priest is serving two positions—two or more congregations, to make one full-time job. This helps to explain why young clergy are frustrated when they hear there is a “clergy shortage” and yet still can’t find a suitable call, and especially when the system we’ve inherited assumes that transitional deacons become curates. I hear people say that this means “we need more bi-vocational clergy.” That may be right. But the system we have inherited isn’t built that way and we still are relying on seminary-trained clergy. I know an associate rector who is a pharmacist and a pastor, and after three years of searching our sister parish in Clarkesville has now hired a part-time priest who is also a Licensed Counselor: it isn’t as simple as it sounds to manage those competing demands, but with lay leadership it may actually be enlivening and even prophetic. Regardless, these changes will take vision and purpose and time to make that shift. In the meantime, what seems clearest to me is that lay leadership is more important than ever. Along with many who study church history and read the tea leaves looking ahead, I think we are in the early stages of a reformation. I may be wrong, but the old model of a full-time seminary-trained priest in every congregation is not coming back. We are learning, growing, changing, adapting, hoping, trusting, and loving our way into a new reality. And always, as our Prayer Book reminds us, with God’s help. 

Now, you may see yourself as a leader, you may not…. But Quaker Educator Parker Palmer says that “Leadership” is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.” No matter who or where we are, we may be called to lead in this threshold season, and to practice resurrection in ways that may surprise us. Leadership is not an identity; rather, it is a role; leading is not who we are; leading is what we do – at least some of the time. 

And I don’t believe that leaders are born any more than great violinists or runners, or teachers, or surgeons or football players are born. I believe that leadership can be learned – primarily through practice and experience—and that it can take an infinite variety of forms. Indeed, it may be that when we bump up against our own limitations, and those things in relation to which we are afraid, we can discover in ourselves the capacity to lead in ways that may surprise us. And we have both the text from this week and last featuring David, and from Exodus, excellent examples, because both David, a flawed leader if ever there was on, and Moses with his own limitations, were leaders, sometimes in spite of themselves… So I want to invite us to think through some of the key elements of leadership; to do so, I’m going to invoke someone we all know: Moses, was both flawed and called. Moses reminds us we do not have to be heroic or have special charisma; he did not seek the job – there was no ad on Linked In saying “prophet needed to lead exodus – forever reshape relationship with YHWH”; Moses was attuned to the problem (they were slaves) and attuned to the sacred (he saw a burning bush); he was present and awake…he was willing to show up, and pay attention; he responded to the need and the opportunity; he did the job that had to be done, despite being flawed and called…He articulated a vision, and let’s remember that imagination and resilience emerge out of liminal, transitional times and spaces.

Moses mobilized the people, and persevered to realize/achieve that vision: Moses’ leadership… and ours, has a pastoral quality because leading helps others claim their own leadership. And let’s remember that Jesus always helps grow people up; does not infantilize them. Today’s Gospel is followed by a scene of anxious disciples uncertain what to do about more people coming to be fed…and he says to the disciples, “You give them something to eat!” thus empowering their ministry. Moses acted; he took next steps even with limited info and a willingness to experiment and take risks. He was willing to go through immediate discomfort for a greater good; the “acting” of leadership is hard, sometimes messy, and harrowing. Moses heard the lamentations of the people, and pushed on. And here’s a bit of wisdom based on my own hard-won experience…we must each be aware of our need to be liked and our need to make everyone happy; these will cripple us every time. There is no need to become a quivering mass of availability. My friends, leadership is messy work, spiritual work & creative and imaginatively prayerful work…Being a leader in this or any season asks of us that we be willing to go deep within; it is a spiritual journey on which we face our own shadows and light, our own gifts and graces, as well as our limitations. Leading can be hard, and it can be lonely; we need to take care of ourselves. It asks of us that we let go of control enough to trust God and improvise. The truth is that many of us will be called to lead the church into new territory; in a season of uncertainty and change. We are all priests of the church by virtue of our Baptism. We are all called to lead. And we never know how our efforts to lead, no matter how small, my touch the lives of others. Near the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is telling Joshua: Be strong. Be courageous. Do not be afraid. God is with you. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. Do not be afraid! Mostly, Moses sees God choose people in ways finally about abundance, an abundance made manifest in today’s Gospel, which also refers to Moses and the Exodus journey. And so here is this heart-grabbing wisdom that Moses offers with open hands: Do not be afraid because we know that the God who guides us is the One who goes before us. Perhaps, in this season of change, even our smallest gestures of compassion and grace, reaching out, choosing to be in relationship, are all forms of leadership each of us can practice. This is leadership that requires only our willingness to take the first step…to reach out in faith.

The wonderful poet Seamus Heaney’s last words in this earthly life were written, not spoken. From his hospital bed he texted to his wife, Marie, two words: Noli timere. Don’t be afraid. These were words of courage for his beloved at a moment when God was about to do a profoundly new thing that she did not yet fully perceive. Noli timere. Fear not. Words of courage for us and for all of God’s beloved, uttered throughout Holy Scripture by prophets, poets, angels, and Jesus, himself, whenever God is about to do something new. We are to be unafraid, even in the face of that new thing we do not yet quite perceive; that new chapter that will inevitably draw us from the security of the familiar, that new thing that will undoubtedly change us in ways ultimately life giving, and flourishing, and hopeful.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he says:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

I don’t know about you, but those are core values of leadership with which I can live, and upon which I can act, unafraid to lead. Please join me, won’t you? Leadership is best shared with grace, compassion, and hospitality. And that’s who we are, together.

Amen.

10th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 12, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:14-21

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:1-21

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” …

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Grace to you and peace, to each of you this morning, on this Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, and welcome to Holy Family. If you are visiting with us we are so very glad you are here. Welcome, and be sure to introduce yourselves to us!

Today we hear a heartfelt and deeply compelling prayer from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and a lovely, well-known story about the feeding of the 5,000. Both are reminders that we can choose between scarcity and abundance, and the Gospel does call us to err on the side of abundance. This is especially true in a culture of scarcity, anxiety, and increasing polarization in which we measure ourselves and others by comparison, fear, and either/or ways of being in the world.

I suppose we each have moments in our lives that seem timeless—moments in relation to which we look back and say “From that time on…” as if we are simultaneously participating in and observing events as they unfold. Often such moments, though simple, contain bits of clarity and wisdom. Occasionally, they are moments of transcendence. We might even say of them that in relation to a particular issue, we see things in a way we had not before. I think this is what Paul is saying to us in his lovely prayer, to which we bear witness this morning. Begging the question, what might it be like to live as if we believe, in wholehearted ways, when Paul tells us that God’s power, working within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can imagine or ask? What if the story of the feeding of the 5,000 is really an invitation to practice abundance, and let go of our fears, as the Gospel text suggests? I am ashamed to say how often I let my own fears be at risk of taking over, and guiding my actions. This is why some version of “be not afraid” is the most frequent phrase in the New Testament. A few years ago I stumbled upon this poem by Truman Cooper, entitled “See Paris First”:

Suppose that what you fear

could be trapped,

and held in Paris.

Then you would have

the courage to go

everywhere in the world.

All the directions of the compass

open to you,

except the degrees east or west

of true north

that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare

put your toes

smack dab on the city limit line.

You’re not really willing

to stand on a mountainside

miles away

and watch the Paris lights

come up at night.

Just to be on the safe side

you decide to stay completely

out of France.

But then danger

seems too close

even to those boundaries,

and you feel

the timid part of you

covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend

who learns your secret and says,

“See Paris first.”

I believe both Paul and John, in the Gospel for today, are like friends calling us to live lives not in bondage to fear, but creatively, imaginatively, and abundantly, trusting God’s faithful and abiding love—calling us to “see Paris first.”

When we are afraid, and living out of a theology of scarcity, we are kept in bondage to the past, to our anxious fears of not being enough, and in so doing we are at risk of repeating old narratives not necessarily our own. I recall just such a moment a number of years ago that seemed to bubble up from my own subconscious this week.

It has to do with baseball, a game, as former President of Yale and Commissioner of Baseball Bart Giamatti said, is “Designed to break our hearts.”[i] When our boys were younger, I coached their teams until they began to play for their high school programs. By the time younger son Andrew went off to college I had 30 plaques of teams I’d coached over the years, hung on the walls of my study. On this particular day, our oldest son Justin was 9 or 10. I was the coach of his team, ensconced in the third-base coaching box. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with baseball, the third-base coach is a key position. From that vantage point one has a view of the entire field, and a perspective on the game which includes sending the runner, when appropriate, to home plate. I love this about baseball; the ultimate goal is to make it safely back home, and baseball has no “clock” as it were. Time is so variable as to almost have no meaning…like the distinction between “chromos”—or clock time—and “Kairos”—or spirit time. Our son was the lead-off batter, a duty he maintained all through high school. He could hit to the opposite field with power, and he was very fast. He jumped on the first pitch and drove it into the gap in right center field. As he neared first base, his first-base coach waved him on to second, while the right and center fielders converged on the ball that had rolled against the fence. As my son neared second, he looked toward the third base coach—in this case his own father—who enthusiastically waved him to third. Meanwhile the outfielder—I cannot recall which one—picked up the ball and threw it to the second baseman, who effectively served as the cut-off man. As my son approached third, the little second baseman wheeled and threw a perfect strike to his teammate at third. It was a beautiful play. My son slid in a cloud summer dust, just as the third baseman laid down the tag. The umpire, positioned perfectly, yelled “you’re out.” And it was the right call. My son looked up at me and said “Dad, you told me to go.” And in an instant I thought of my own at times intensely competitive nature, my own father, who would have told me I had not run fast enough or that I took too wide a turn at second, and I thought of the run we needed, now out at third…all of this at once. And I said “I know, buddy, it’s OK. Go on back to the dugout.”

Well, the drive home was very quiet, and I was afraid, out to sea in stormy weather, fearful of a scarcity in my own soul. But then something in me spoke, out from the depths of my being, and I said, “You know, buddy, I am so very proud of you. You did exactly what we taught you to do… we run the bases aggressively to manufacture runs, we do, and we don’t apologize for it. Coach Alexander  told you to go to second. You did that perfectly. You looked down at the third base coach like we’ve taught you. He just happened to be your own dad, and I made the call. They made a great play, and we have to tip our caps to them. But the most important thing is…this is not the last time I will be wrong. As much as fathers wish we could be right all the time, we can’t. But even when I am wrong, even when I make mistakes, I want you to know how very much I love you and how very proud I am of you.” And suddenly, somehow, things between us seemed OK again. The time had come, if you will, for the image I had—maybe we both had—of me being the all-knowing, wise father who was never wrong—certainly not about baseball—to die. I had to decide what was more important: being right, in control, and winning all the time, or dying to my old image of myself, and the father I wanted to appear to be in my son’s eyes, in the service of a new relationship with my son. I had to lose myself, to find a new way of being a father. It is more important to be in relationship than it is to be right…and we can love ourselves and others completely, without complete understanding. I am still learning this, even today, with all of you.

The question put before us in today’s Gospel is this: are we willing to be vulnerable enough to be agents of God? Are we strong enough—not powerful enough or “never wrong enough”—strong enough, to be paradoxically vulnerable in love, and abundant in faith, and wholehearted in relation to fears that might keep us in bondage? Are we willing to become like that which we celebrate in the Eucharist, Christ’s Body broken for us? Are we willing to let our hearts be troubled by the harrowing experience of the suffering of others and ourselves, and yet to persevere nonetheless? Are we willing to trust God’s wisdom and grace without trying to control the outcome, even if it means losing who we thought we were in the process? These are the questions that lead us into the mystery of the Resurrection. And as we relive the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus we experience one of the great ironies of our lives together in this community of faith; that it is not our weaknesses that inhibit the power of God’s love in our lives, but rather, it is our fears.  There, as Paul’s heartfelt prayer suggests, we are called “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Well, dear one’s, “From that time on,” my son and I were on a different kind of journey together. That day, we learned that a father can get his son called out at third, and together they can still make it safely home. That home may be a different place than the one they left that morning, but it is where Love lives, just down the third base line on a sunny Georgia baseball field. In the Gospel for today Jesus is reminding us that sometimes when we lose ourselves, our old lives, for his sake…when we are willing to die with and into him, there he is waiting for us, loving us, feeding us abundantly, with compassion for our weaknesses and limitations. And there we find our true selves and “by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” we let go of our fears of not being enough…fears born of scarcity. And there, no matter what, we are safe at home. Amen.

9th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 11, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you and peace, good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. If you are visiting with us this morning give us a chance to say howdy, and get to know you. This is a parish filled with grace and hospitality, and we are so glad you are here!

And speaking of hospitality, some of you may find the phrase “Come rest awhile” from today’s Gospel reading to be familiar. It was the name of the ministry offered for many years by Diane and Don Wells, who opened their home for rest, reflection, and recreation. When I was a full-time professor I taught a course called “Men in Ministry” which included a retreat at Chez Wells. Diane was a wonderful cook and together she and Don provided lovely meals for our cohort of seminarians. Their ministry was a perfect embodiment of what I hoped the class would instill in these young men—appropriate self-care, Sabbath time as a component of their ministries, and a willingness to seek out and sustain community in a vocation that often bred loneliness and isolation. Diane and Don hosted us for many years, always with gracious hospitality, good humor, and shared kitchen table wisdom. “Come rest awhile” indeed, like the Gospel of Mark demonstrates; they gave themselves away to those sojourners who arrived…the Body of Christ broken, and shared. In our human finitude and brokenness, we need to take a break, to take Sabbath time to recharge, to eat, to pray, to listen for the quiet voice of God and Spirit. We are invited to do this so that we do not become distracted by our busyness and over functioning, and the exhaustion of a world which is, as the poet Wordsworth said; “…too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—Little we see in Nature that is ours…” The work of compassion, to which each is called, takes a focus and energy that is made possible by times of rest, reflection, and prayer. 

In today’s Gospel, one theme is the need for leisure and solitude. Jesus and the Disciples were increasingly being followed by those in need of healing and, as we shall see next week, they were hungry…both spiritually and literally. And, so are we. Moreover, these are challenging times for us all. As I listen to patients, and to friends, family, and many of you, I am hearing fears, anxiety, lamentations about the future both of our country and of churches in mainline Protestantism, including our own denomination. I get it. These are challenging times and we all need opportunities to rest, restore, and focus on what is most important. Perhaps today’s Gospel provides a template for how this is done. And perhaps this season of Pentecost shepherded by Mark’s Gospel during these weeks can be of help to us. On Wednesday evening at our Wonderful Wednesday gathering hosted by Rosie and Cove Lake, a parishioner suggested that I include the pastoral care trail notes for this week in the homily for today. So I have, and I encourage us to think metaphorically and theologically about a very real lesson from nature.

It is deep summer, in this long, green season of Pentecost, and as we speak, in rivers and streams all along the Pacific coast, salmon are returning home to their native waters after journeys of up to 6 years—and thousands of miles—at sea. Some time back, I took a sea-kayaking trip to Alaska, just about this time of year. Our group journeyed to Tebenkof Bay, deep into the wilderness of southeast Alaska, for a week-long sojourn based on Buddhist mindfulness practice. Early one day, we set out in our boats across the bay. A gentle summer rain was falling. Ravens called out as seals and otters followed our flotilla of kayaks, diving playfully beneath our boats. Ducks and loons eyed us curiously framed by snow-capped mountain ranges, their glaciers emptying into the bay. We found ourselves in the delta of a small river. We paddled upriver protected from the rain by spruce forests. Beneath our boats was a river of salmon, coming home to spawn. Our guide gave us a streamside lecture on the ecology of salmon nation. Salmon are amazing members of God’s creation, and this is especially true of Pacific salmon. Leaving their fresh-water birthplaces they journey out to sea where they roam the oceans of the world, returning to spawn at the exact spot they were born years—and thousands of miles–earlier.

Most of you have seen scenes of Chinook and Sockeye salmon making their way up waterfalls to their native pools against tremendous odds. As many as 20 vertebrate species, including elk, deer, and bear, feed directly on salmon, re-cycling those ocean borne nutrients into the soil. Salmon born in Idaho will make their way 900 miles inland and climb 7,000 feet as they return to spawn. More than simply food for bear, ravens, eagles, or humans, salmon are in fact a parable of a complex, and life-giving set of relationships. DNA from Pacific salmon has been found in groves of Aspen at the top of the continental divide. The minerals from their ocean journeys feed salmonberry bushes miles inland. Every level of the food chain will reveal evidence of the gift of salmon.

Indeed, over 137 species of animals in the Northwest rely on salmon as part of their diet. When salmon die they generate the most biologically diverse forests on earth, honoring future generations with the gift the journey that is at the heart of all they are. “They leave branches of streams no larger than a broomstick,” the author Richard Manning has said, “and make their way to the ocean for years, returning weighing up to 60 pounds of biomass harvested from the sea. They bring this mass of nutrients back to the forest to feed it, and the generations to follow.”

I think of this as evidence of God delighting in God’s creation—a cosmic playfulness at the level of ecological communion. The grace in the story of the salmon is evidence of sacred connections of life-sustaining nourishment. As the poet Mary Oliver reminds us, “Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.” On this morning in Alaska, we did just that. Cultures as diverse as Pacific Northwest Indians, especially the Tlingit, Norse, and Celtic mythologies have found in the story of the salmon symbolic and religious power. I see God watching all the permutations and combinations of salmon, and I imagine God laughing with joy. The gift of their living, and dying, and rebirth is moving, and powerful. A salmon is not simply a fish—but a metaphor of the deep ecological mystery of God’s creation—a timeless reminder that in the cycle of life and death lies the abiding connections of all living things…of transformation, and renewal.

It is fascinating to me, then, that on another shore, this time near the village of Capernaum, Jesus gives a sea-side homily on the nature of bread, and a metaphorical lesson on what nurtures and sustains our souls. On this day following the feeding of the 5,000, the impromptu picnic was over, and Jesus and the disciples were looking for a quiet place to rest, and recover. The people, however, had other ideas. They were not inclined to let him fade back into the Capernaum hills without finding out more about what he could do for them. They had been hungry, and they had been fed—more than enough—we are told, and yet they did not know the depth or sources of their hunger. He had given them bread, and they had their fill, but perhaps he could do more in the way of fulfilling basic needs of shelter, clothing, and the ambiguities and uncertainties of daily life. The possibilities were unlimited. And somewhat disingenuously, when they find him they say, in essence, “What a surprise! Imagine finding you here! When did you come here?” Jesus will have none of it. “You worked hard to find me, and I know why. But I am more than a free lunch, and moreover, that is not what you really need. You ate your fill, and now you want more, but you are missing the point. The bread you seek won’t last. I am the bread that endures, and addresses a deeper hunger. All you have to do is believe.” “Prove it,” they say, invoking Moses and the manna in the wilderness; “Give us a sign.” “You don’t get it,” Jesus says to them…”Remember where the bread Moses gave you came from.”

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Our wise Alaskan guide said to us, “Broaden your horizons. Think creatively. The Salmon is much more than a fish—it is a sign of something mysterious, complex, and life-giving in the ways of the connectedness of God’s creation. They live their lives, and they give themselves away.” Jesus says to us, “Broaden your spiritual horizons. I want to be more than a provider of physical bread. I want to fill the hunger of your souls. I want to fill the emptiness you try to fill up with lesser things…to satisfy those Holy longings you often attempt to quiet with substances and material goods; to quiet the anxiety that finally comes to possess you, rather than allowing yourselves to be placed in God’s compassionate, outstretched, open arms. I want you to remember where that bread in the desert really comes from. And then I want you to feed one another, in love.”

Like the salmon that journey so far to come home to their native streams, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared with the world. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. Our river guide said, in essence, “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: salmon may be a first principal of an ecological paradigm of gratitude and abundance. The only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively, imaginatively compassionate, with gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” Come rest awhile, my friends, and let’s find healing, solace, hope, and restoration at the bountiful table prepared for us all. Amen.

8th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 10, year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 6:14-29 King Herod heard of Jesus and his disciples, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised…”  

Grace to you and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today, please introduce yourself to us and thank you so much for joining us this morning. Visitor or regular attendee, we hope you will find Holy Family to be a place of hospitality, compassion, and grace. And, in light of the difficult Gospel text for this morning, we hope we are a place of practicing humility as well, about which, more in a moment.  

First, let me confess that I spent several days trying to find an alternative to preaching on the Gospel text appointed for today. Truth told, it’s an awful story about the misuse of power and about the need for those in power to be aware of the temptation and remain in power at any and all costs. Once I greeted at the door of consciousness my own anxiety and opposition to this story of Herod and John, I became curious as to why I had such a strong reaction to the narrative, other than, of course, the horrific and graphic nature of the story. I realized that what lurked in my own shadow side was a deep fear of the misuse of power, and a profound distaste for narcissism in any form—an emotional reaction of anger, fear, and sadness in relation to narcissists that goes back many years. And to be sure, Herod was a narcissist, and this passage is an example of gas-lighting if ever there was one. I also recalled a time many years ago when I was tempted to let power and status cloud my own judgment…a sure sign of my own capacity for narcissism and control…I had to acknowledge the Herod that lurked in my own soul; but more about that in a moment.  

Let’s remember that Herod was actually drawn to John, had heard him speak and found him compelling, and yet as we heard today, when Herodias’ daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the young woman, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” and she replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.  

Had Herod been able to find a place of humility and grace in his heart, and some healthy self-differentiation—that is to say, making his own decision in response to this horrible request rather than caving in…and cave he did, essentially saying “I’ll do what my girlfriend’s daughter and guests are requesting”—the outcome might have been different. As Hannah Arendt said so well, “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is one among many reasons that theocracies are so very dangerous. As Marcus Borg and Jon Dominic Crossan said so well, the kingdom—or “Kin-dom” of God that Jesus announced and embodied is what life would be like on earth, here and now, if God were ultimately in charge, and the rulers of this world were not. This is the challenge in relation to Empires of any kind. The political, economic, and social subversions would be almost endless — peace-making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than hubris, embrace rather than exclusion. The ancient Hebrews had a marvelous word for this, shalom, or human well-being. Entrance into this kingdom requires a counter-cultural choice. John the Baptist, Jesus, and his first followers invite each one of us today: repent, confess, and believe that in Jesus God’s kingdom has arrived. That’s the narrow way to the good news. John urged his listeners to prove their spiritual intentions by concrete deeds of compassion rather than by claims of religious or political affiliation. Some among the crowds took John at his word, but neither the political powers in Rome nor the religious establishment in the temple did. To their credit, they understood that his message was not only deceptively simple; it was deeply subversive.  

As Borg and Crossan remind us, about six months after John emerged from the desert like some locust-eating version of Jerry Garcia and baptized Jesus, he was beheaded at the whim of Herod the tetrarch. At the dinner party that night, Herod capitulated to the sadistic demand of his girlfriend’s daughter. “John was a forerunner of Jesus, but he was also a truth-teller to Herod, having rebuked Herod for sleeping with his brother’s wife (Mark 6:14–29). But as with many perverse politicians, Herod reacted with violence to one who had spoken truth to power, so John was murdered. The prophetic word of God from John the Baptist, then, did not originate with the state powers or the religious establishment, nor did it find a receptive audience with them. The claim of God’s kingdom upon my life, John preached, is ultimate. That means that the claims of the state and religious establishments, of race, gender, culture, and money are, at best, penultimate. The earliest and most radical Christian confession was simple: “Jesus is Lord.” By direct implication, Caesar is not lord or god, and neither are all the other many false gods of religion, money, sex, power, politicians who would be theocrats, and so on.  

With his pronouncement and then martyrdom, John counsels us to turn away from anything and everything that might hinder ultimate allegiance to Jesus. As we hear during Advent, he invites us to make our crooked ways straight, to flatten all hilly terrain, and to prepare space for the birth of the Messiah into our own lives. When we do that, we’ll find ourselves in the truly Good News that subverts and transcends all politics and religion. Dear One’s let’s covenant to remember this week’s Gospel text as we consider the text for next week. This is a terrible story. It’s hard to say “Thanks be to God!” after a story like this one. As I thought about our time together this morning I thought that perhaps we should skip this story and read the next one instead…a much happier story about Jesus feeding 5,000 hungry people. In stark contrast, Herod’s horrible banquet runs right into the story where Jesus makes sure that everyone is fed and he empowers the disciples to do so…he invites compassion. Mark is a very careful writer. He wants us to hear these two stories together. Even though we didn’t hear that other story today, I hope we remember at least something about Jesus feeding the 5,000. It’s a story found in all four gospels. But the greatest contrast of all is between Jesus’ banquet of life and Herod’s banquet of death. Mark has placed these two stories side by side. He wants us to see the stark contrasts between two very different banquets. Hard as it is to listen, let’s go back to Herod’s story. This feast was not in a deserted place, but in a lavish palace. There wasn’t a large crowd, but a select guest list of important officials. Herod’s wife, Herodias, was there, even though she shouldn’t have been. Herod had stolen her from his brother. John the Baptist had condemned this unlawful liaison, and for that John landed in prison.  Though Herod was a Jew, Borg and Crossan remind us that the empire had replaced Torah for him. He tried not to think about it, especially at his own birthday dinner. Why, then, did he give in to this terrible request? Wasn’t it enough that John was in prison? One wonders, was there something inside Herod that remembered God’s word, some spark of God that drew him to John’s teaching? But he had promised Herodias’ daughter that he would give her anything she wanted. And this is precisely where Herod’s narcissism and need for power had tragic consequences.  

And here’s where my own troubling narrative reveals itself… I took AP English with Florence Crooke in the fall of my senior year in high school. Ms. Crooke was a formidable presence and did not suffer fools gladly. She was known to be a difficult grader with high expectations. I walked into the class wearing my football letter jacket. She invited me into the hall and suggested I keep it in my locker. “It won’t help you in here,” she said… “You decide.” Then she left me in the hall and closed the door. And truth told, my first response was to walk to the office and register for another class. Besides, I had not been a particularly good student. I was in over my head in an AP English class before the class even began. I suspect Ms. Crooke knew this. She also knew I loved to write. She saw something in me I did not see in myself. And, being a football player in that school in the early 70’s was a source of power I did not want to compromise. It was a terribly stratified culture where role expectations were codified in myriad ways Its really not too much of a stretch to say that football players in that time and place were demigods for whom the rules that applied to others did not apply. This is, of course, a recipe for narcissism—“I can do whatever I want, and the core values and principles that apply to others do not apply to me…and I will not be held accountable when I break those rules.” Ms. Crooke knew this well. She was presenting me with a choice. She was being John the Baptist to my own personal Herod. To this day I cannot explain why I went down the hall to my locker, turned the combination, and put the letter jacket in my locker. I walked back into that classroom and into what was in some ways the beginning of my own, authentic life.  

After my first paper (on Walt Whitman if memory serves) she suggested that I write for the Sentinel (our school newspaper), and I did so (though this was unusual for football players in the social stratification of those days) including serving as the sports reporter for the SSHS Panther basketball games and, in the spring, I covered the track meets though I was on the team. We set school records that year in the spring medley relay and mile relay. Ms. Crooke asked me where I wanted to go to college, and I told her the family script was for me to attend UGA. She asked me what my heart told me, and I said I would prefer a small, liberal arts college where I could continue to play ball in an academically rigorous context. She gave me the courage to do just that. I applied to a host of small D-III schools. My father was not pleased (to say the least) and told me that if I did not go to UGA I could pay for college myself. He wasn’t joking, and he thought I would back down, but we were both two stubborn Irishmen, and I got up the next morning and went to Atlantic Steel Company to ask for a job, where I worked at Atlantic Steel Company for 4 summers to pay for Rhodes College, a place that changed my life. Every time I taught a class, for many years, I thought of Ms. Crooke with gratitude. Oh, and one more thing; my high school hero was Roberto Clemente—who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates until his untimely death on New Year’s Eve of 1992, while delivering supplies to Nicaragua, a country ravaged by earthquakes and starvation. My football number—the number on that letter jacket hanging in my locker—was #21 in honor of Clemente. He could have rested on his many laurels as a baseball player and he chose instead a life of service—and died accordingly—extending compassion to those whom he did not know. My football teammates, in an area still much informed by Jim Crow, gave me grief about my affection for Clemente, a Black man, still relatively rare in baseball. But, you see, he had humility—a sure antidote to narcissism—and as a result he broke down the barriers Herod could not. He gave his power away to serve others. Theologian Miraslov Wolf has written that the Exclusion of the other, the stranger, happens wherever barriers are set up that prevent an authentic encounter with the other. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being, and sometimes our need for power, and control, can blind us to this truth. It is all too easy to assume that difference is to be avoided at all costs including, heaven help me, those who don’t walk the halls of their high school halls wearing their letter jackets. Humility leads to grace, which can save us, sometimes, from ourselves. Amen.  

7th Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 9 Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 6:1-13

Lord, Have Mercy on the Frozen Man

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today please let us know.

In the Gospel reading for today, we find Jesus on what has been a long journey. It is about to get longer. We recall that during his exile of 40 days in the wilderness, and our own Lenten journey, Jesus was tempted by Satan, forced to face his own demons, by virtue of the very power he, and Satan, knew he possessed. When we encounter him in today’s reading he has journeyed to Nazareth, where he is teaching in the synagogue. 

And not just teaching, but teaching with authority, to the astonishment of the people there, who are suspicious of this hometown boy whom they knew as a carpenter, son, and sibling. They question the authority of one whom they knew before he became the prophet standing before them. So, today we continue our journey in Mark’s Gospel, in the long, green season of Pentecost and Jesus, has returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where his reception is less than enthusiastic. In a social system where status was understood as fixed (i.e., your status at birth defined who you would always be) and honor/shame considerations were important, did they simply regard it as impossible for Jesus to amount to anything? The people of Nazareth indicate this negative perception when they identify Jesus as a “carpenter” (i.e., a low-status manual laborer) and as the “son of Mary” (i.e., hinting at a questionable fatherhood). Because people think they know who Jesus is, they end up asking disdainfully, “Who does he think he is? The identity of Jesus is a consistent issue in Mark. In the gospel, we hear the opinions of rulers, religious authorities, crowds, disciples, and family members. For the author of Mark, the important question keeps coming around to “who do you — the reader — say that Jesus is?” And if you do honor Jesus as a prophet (or more than a prophet), who does that make you? Does it mean new allegiances that supersede traditional country and family values? As we answer those questions, Mark is leading us into a confession of faith.

As a former seminary professor, I can tell you that authority and astonishment are not easily achieved in the classroom. The root of the word authority comes from the same Latin root as our word “author,” and this is instructive, because an authority is, in the best sense of the word, someone who creates; one, that is, in relation to whom one finds a life-giving flourishing…a kind of increase in relation to which one feels enlivened. Or, as Irenaeus put it, “God fully glorified is a human being fully alive.” Jesus has that kind of authority—to help us become fully alive—in contrast to an authority which comes by virtue of an office or some kind of rank, such as a political post, or judgeship, or, Lord help me, that of a priest or rabbi. Indeed, the people were amazed by Jesus in part because he was not a member of the Sanhedrin—he held no formal authority of any kind. His authority came from within, and it was a gift from God—and so is our authority…which shares the etymology with the word “authentic” as well. In a real sense in this passage Jesus comes into his own –he comes home—in terms of his vocation as a teacher and healer. Howard Thurman has said “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs most is people who have come alive.”Perhaps as much as anything this passage is about Jesus coming alive that day, in new ways, and inviting us to do likewise.

I find myself curious, though, about the relationship between his authority—this excellence as a teacher as exhibited by Jesus—and the journey he had been on. I find myself wondering if there might be some connection between his exile in the wilderness, for example, and the suffering he encountered there, and his ability to teach with authority. Moreover, he is not just a teacher in this Gospel reading, he is one who casts out demons—a theme in much of Mark’s Gospel. He is in this sense a wounded healer who struggled with his own demons. Now, I don’t know about you, but discussions of demons don’t occur much in my line of work as a professor who often taught clinical courses, and as a psychotherapist. And I have no idea what Paul is referring to in the Epistle today about the “7^th heaven.” In the circles I run in, we are so thoroughly imbued with Western scientific rationalism that talk of demon possession and mystical references to heaven simply don’t occur in polite company. We talk instead of mental illness, and “diagnostic” categories, and neurological substrates contributing to neuro-plasticity, and so on. Is this a more appropriate way of looking at the encounters Jesus had in the synagogue—rejected as a prophet in his hometown—and in numerous encounters with unclean spirits? Were these souls suffering from what we would call a mental illness? I do not know. But I find myself curious about these encounters nonetheless. And what kind of journey had these possessed souls been on? We don’t hear from them at all. In none of the passages about demon possession do any of them speak in these passages, just as many of our homeless mentally ill persons are marginalized, and have no voice. Were we to talk with any one of these individuals, I imagine they were sojourners too…and clearly suffering. Today’s text describes the disciples, now empowered by Jesus, “casting out many demons and healing many who were sick. How did these souls find themselves there on this day? Were they there in the temple, ignored, day after day? Did they once have a family, a job, and a home? Or, were they rather life-long homeless persons whose life had taken a turn for the worse—like a veteran with PTSD, or those dual diagnosis souls compromised by mental illness and addicted in some way? Did these souls even want the kind of transformation Jesus offered? I see people in my clinical office who are ambivalent about the very changes in relation to which they are seeking help. And I get it. Change is hard, and sometimes scary.

Whatever we might say about these references to demon possession, I think we are safe to say they were a form of evil… that is to say, the spirits in those who are suffering are called “unclean” because, whatever the affliction, and however we understand it, it caused a separation from God, and others, and from the worship that was going on around them. It was a form of deprivation, of loss, of being cut off from the ability to be his true self and from full relationship with others, in community. I don’t mean to suggest that they are themselves evil, but that, for whatever reasons, their spirits had become frozen and hard…and perhaps those who questioned Jesus that day in Nazareth had become hardened too. And aren’t we seeing more of this in our time as well? Are we not somewhat jaded, and suspicious of authority? Perhaps those who are “possessed” have in some sense shut down; something alive in them has “gone away.” And this certainly happens in mental illness, including more serious, chronic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia—for which, by the way, there was no “diagnosis” back then—but also in cases of depression, and anxiety, and alcohol and drug addiction.  Gerald May, a colleague whose work, like mine, lived in the interdisciplinary spaces where listening to stories is essential, has said that “God’s grace through community involves something far greater than other people’s support and perspective. The power of grace is nowhere as mystical or brilliant as in communities of faith. Its power includes not just love that comes from people and through people, but love that pours forth among people, as if through the very spaces between one person and the next. Just to be in such an atmosphere is to be bathed in healing power.” How might the power of stories, and of communities of grace where those stories can be told, teach us about healing, and wholeness in our little corner of God’s creation? And it is precisely Irenaeus’ experience of being fully alive, manifest in each of us, which is threatened by evil. And this evil, however it was described back then, was a particular form of bondage; a binding, choking, life-suffocating bondage. I suspect that– whatever form evil takes– it has its own peculiar manifestation for each of us. The end result, however, is always the same: it threatens to separate us from the Creator, and from relationships with others whom God created to share this journey with us. And so our experience of life, though potentially one full of vitality and wonder, is, instead one of being in bondage. And isn’t this what Satan used to threaten Jesus in the Wilderness? “Use the power you know you have,” Satan told Jesus, “in order to have authority and control over all others, and to have everything you need”? Had Jesus consented to this, I suspect the end result have been the end of his true and fully- alive authority, based on authentic relationship with God, and come to that, with us.

It is Jesus’ own experience of suffering that allows him to act with compassion in the reading for today… compassion, from the Latin com-passio, to “suffer with,” means that one takes action in response to the encounter with suffering. Jesus encountered his own demons, faced them down, and by virtue of that suffering reached out to others, and healed their broken spirit. Most often what threatens to cut us off from God, and self, and other is the experience of our own finitude and vulnerability…those real human limitations our awareness of which put us most at risk for idolatry and bondage, to use these old-fashioned words, when we seek to secure our souls in ways destined to fail. Alternatively, we can experience the possibility of a summons, an invocation, a claim or call to commitment and relationship. It’s as if Jesus is saying to us “Remember me? Something has occurred between us… I know who you are…you are one who comes to take me to church… you are the one who worked at the food pantry… who helped build the Habitat House….you participated in Serve Pickens…you called me when I had not been around and you missed me… you cared for me when I was sick… you saw my face in the face of the stranger…you had compassion.”

Some time back the singer /songwriter James Taylor wrote a clever tune in response to the discovery of the very well-preserved, 5,000-year-old body of a hunter in found it the Tyrolean Alps. I’ve followed this story with interest since this man emerged from a glacier in 1991. The most recent article I saw was in National Geographic, and based on additional research we now have a rollicking good murder mystery to add to this narrative. But I digress… The refrain of Taylor’s song is “Lord, have mercy on the frozen man.” Yes, “Lord have mercy indeed,” because when faced with our demons, each of us—men and women alike—can become frozen in spirit. We face one of the vulnerabilities of being human—namely, that in reality authority and idolatry are intimately related. We must choose carefully, dear ones, when seeking to claim power and authority before gaining humility, and before wresting with the shadow side of who we are.

This is the gift Jesus offers. The Gospels imply that anyone who casts out demons cannot be a stranger to them. In today’s Gospel vignette, C.S. Lewis suggests, we see Jesus clearing out the emptiness and offering instead, a relationship with God. Jesus hears our suffering, and suffers with us, and offers the compassion of relationship and redemptive healing. And this takes place in community. Anything that would rob us of being fully alive, in life-giving ways, limits our ability to fully glorify God. “Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” And so we recall the Collect for today… Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. As Wendell Berry has written; The question before me, now that I am old, is not how to be dead, which I know from enough practice, but how to be alive, as these worn hills still tell, and some paintings of Paul Cezanne, and this mere singing wren, who thinks he’s alive forever, this instant, and may be. How to be alive, forever, this instant, in Christ…now that’s a casting out of demons I can understand, and for which I pray. Amen. 

6th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 8 – Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day 

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 5:21-43 

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” He went with him. 

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. 

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning…and welcome to Holy Family on this 6th Sunday after Pentecost, the long green season of Ordinary Time. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting us this morning, please do let us know so we can get to know you, and give you a proper Holy Family welcome!

Today we hear two stories about healing, the story of Jairus, and the story of the woman who touched Jesus’ robe. They suggest, among other things, that Jesus’ authority was something beyond the established authority of the state or some other institution. Rather, it was an authority that came from God and as such, it was an “aura of love” and an “emanation of the spirit” that drew people to Jesus. In all the stories of healing in scripture, Jesus never sought out people to heal. The initiative lay with those seeking healing and reconciliation. And here is where this story connects with ours. How often do we ask for what we need in the way of healing? How often are we even aware that we need it?  

Jesus’ life grants life-changing healing. It is a healing authority that crosses boundaries, both ethnic and gender. Jesus chooses not to leave people in the conditions in which he finds them. How about us? Can our small community alter the conditions of people’s lives? Can we, too, bring healing into troubled circumstances? Must our efforts not also cross boundaries — whether they are related to ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, politics or any other boundaries that divide our society — and advocate life-giving meaning and change? Ask anyone from Parish Life, Outreach, the DOK, the intrepid Grounds Crew, and on and on, and the answer is yes! May God grant us the courage to continue to do so! 

We wonder what might have happened if Jairus had listened to his self-doubt instead of taking action? What if the influence of the status quo—and we recall here that he was an elder in the local temple—had triumphed in his heart, and he had backed off from asking this unconventional holy man named Jesus into his home? These questions are not, my brothers and sisters, philosophical or rhetorical. One of my seminary professors once told us: “Always remember that many—if not on some days most—of the people you face on Sunday morning almost decided not to come.” We have to show up—we have to “be there,” to get what Jesus has to give. Sometimes it means learning things about ourselves we’d rather not know. The story of Jairus’ daughter is not about some sort of cosmic quid pro quo in which if we have enough faith, then our child will not die, or we will not die, or bad things will not happen to us, or we will acquire riches beyond imagination…and I have heard all of these preached. This story, and others like it, has been used as a way of saying that life is a theological contest, where everything depends on you, on whether you have enough faith, or the right sort of faith, to win the prize of Jesus doing something good for you and yours. The seductive attraction of this is that it appeals to our desire to have all the answers… for the absence of ambiguity… for everything to fit together. Sometimes things happen for no reason whatsoever, and that’s when our faith comes alive. This thinking also appeals to our childlike desire for omnipotence: that everything that happens somehow happens because of me…if I’d only had enough faith this bad thing would not have happened, or because I had so much faith I am blessed with riches…and so on. The question is what kind of a story do we find in today’s Gospel? Is it a miracle? Or a story primarily about the healing power of relationship? Or, is it perhaps both?

I do enjoy these stories because they, too, invite us into relationship with Jesus. I confess that the science-loving part of me does not know what, exactly, happened here. But the most significant part for me is where Jesus takes the girl’s hand and says, “Talitha cum”—”Little girl, get up”—and suddenly we ourselves are the little girl. Little girl; old girl; old boy; old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis, and lower back pain, who are themselves at times caring for aging parents…who have recently lost someone they loved… who are having challenges at work, or with their children…and on and on; all the ways we human beings are vulnerable to those places life may take us. Those who believe; and those who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything; and those who would give almost anything to believe if only they could; you happy ones, and you who can hardly remember what it was like once to be happy; You who know where you’re going and how to get there and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere. “Get up,” he says, all of you—all of you!—and the power that is in this invitation is the power to give life not just to those who may or may not be dead, like the child in today’s text, but to those who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and miracle of things, including the miracle of what Mary Oliver called “your one wild and precious life.” Can we ask Jesus to act in the name of love by healing and reconciling all that is ostensibly un-loveable in each one of us? Jesus made wholeness his priority and as such, sought to bring together those who were divided, separated, or left out of the whole. He gathered together what was divided and confronted systems that diminished, marginalized, or excluded human persons. He challenged others not by argument, but out of a deep center of love. It is a life-giving power at the heart of this story about Jairus and the daughter he loved, and the woman who reached out to him, that I believe is at the heart of all our stories—the power of new life, new hope, new being; that whether we know it or not keeps us coming to places like this sacred space, year after year in search of it. It’s about how faith itself has the capacity to make the woman whole; faith itself is healing. And this is certainly not about what here in America we know by the name of the Prosperity Gospel. That’s a heresy that makes God into a used-car salesman, selling health and wealth and a ticket into heaven in return for the payment of our belief. What I mean is something more mysterious, harder to quantify. The theologian James Alison—who spoke at the Cathedral some years ago–says that we often misunderstand faith. That we make faith about frantically following rules, about creating borders, about calling out people who are doing the wrong things, who are believing the wrong things, about feeling guilty. But faith, Allison says, is actually about relaxing. Faith is about being with God, being with someone whom we trust, with someone who knows us absolutely and, as Mr. Rogers used to say, likes us just the way that we are. That sounds like healing to me. Your faith has made you well. In this Gospel text we see a man of power and wealth who is made to wait for an impoverished woman. A woman, what’s more, whose medical condition makes her ritually unclean by virtue of the cultural standards of her time. What is being interrupted here – by Jesus, by the woman to whom he gives his full attention – is not just Jesus’ journey to Jairus’ house. What is being interrupted is patriarchy; it is economic privilege; it is a societal system that values some human beings more than others. In this moment, Jesus and the woman embody what Jesus will say elsewhere: The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And, Jesus says to Jairus, Be not afraid. Believe. So, this is a short story interrupted no fewer than six times. Each interruption takes us further into possibility, into faith, into compassion, into love. Each interruption takes us into resurrection, and this is where science may help us…it happens every day.

Some of you may have seen the Disney film “Encanto,” a favorite of our grandchildren. When Disney decided to nominate a song from the movie for the Oscars, it submitted “Dos Oruguitas.” It is the first Oscar-nominated song written entirely in Spanish. Dos Oruguitas translates into “Two (Little) Caterpillars.” The song is performed beautifully by the Colombian singer Sebastian Yatra. The song describes two caterpillars in love. They rejoice in their togetherness, holding each other, staying together constantly through good and bad weather. But somehow they know that, very soon, they will need to let go. It will be time to turn into larvae and re-emerge some time later, each as a butterfly. There is nothing the caterpillars can do to stop the inevitable. The song is gorgeous, and the images it evokes are emotional beyond words. Scientists have long been astonished by the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies. Milton Packer, MD, is currently distinguished scholar in cardiovascular science at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and visiting professor at Imperial College in London. Packer is an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has made seminal contributions to the field of heart failure. After the loss of his wife, he wrote a lovely essay about Encanto, and the science behind the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly—a resurrection narrative. The caterpillar eats voraciously during its entire lifespan, presumably to accumulate sufficient nutrients for the coming transition. When the time is right, the caterpillar spins itself into a silk coverlet (a cocoon) and digests itself. During the larval phase, the release of enzymes kills the caterpillar and destroys all its organs, turning it into a mushy soup, with nothing left of its former self. If one opens a larva, there is no sign of the original caterpillar; it is gone — except for a few cells (known poetically as “imaginal cells”) that survive.

Then, by some miraculous sequence of events, a new set of instructions takes hold, and the amino acids in the larval soup are rearranged, carefully and meticulously, into an entirely new organism. The imaginal cells emerge, armed with the genetic instructions for the transformation. Initially, the caterpillar’s immune system rejects the imaginal cells, but they continue to multiply with abundance. Finally, the cells begin to clump together, forming the organs of an entirely new organism with completely different anatomical features, with long legs and wings. The fact that the caterpillar’s immune system attacks the new cells of the butterfly demonstrates that — biologically — the two insect forms are entirely distinct life forms. So essentially, the caterpillar dies and is resurrected. Dr. Packer writes that when he cares for patients who have died, “Perhaps grounded by religion or some personal philosophical perspective, some relatives or friends would say, “We will see her/him again soon.” They proposed there would be some future meeting between those who loved each other deeply during this lifetime, perhaps in a spiritual sense or even in some alternate physical world. When these predictions were made, I always agreed with them. But I did not believe them. I was trained to believe that death had absolute finality. There was no scientific basis for resurrection. There was no way a living form could die, dissolve away, and be reassembled into another creature… Yet, it happens every day. Caterpillars die and are resurrected as butterflies, using the same juices as the original life form.”

Well, make of this what you will, but consider this truth from today’s Gospel: Jesus is ready, willing and able to heal the body, mind, and spirit of anybody – regardless of their station in life, their religious affiliation, their economic status, their popularity, their perceived flaws – doesn’t matter. The common ingredient in both these stories is faith! Jesus says “Don’t be afraid; just believe…your faith has healed you.” As a priest and pastoral counselor I can say this…some of the “whole-iest” people I have known have been terminally ill, or facing what seemed insurmountable challenges. So let us follow in the footsteps of Jairus. Let us go forth with courage—with vitality and wonder—into the unknown new creation made possible by our saying “no” to a narrative of scarcity and anxiety, and “yes’ to the world to which this Gospel text points. It is a Resurrection world, in which there is meaning and hope in each of our lives and, yes, in each of our deaths, both small and large. God promises that God’s word of love will be the last, best, and strongest word. God promises that God will make all of creation new, and that we will be a part of that new creation. Amen. 

5th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7 Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving ­kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 4:35-41

When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you and peace, and welcome to Holy Family as wecontinue our journey into the season after Pentecost. It is a journey of trust, and of the challenges of being faithful. I was reminded this week by an old, dear friend of the words of TS Eliot, from Little Gidding: We shall not cease from exploration…And the end of all our exploring…Will be to arrive where we started …And know the place for the first time. These are such lovely, even hauntingly beautiful lines, and they remind us, dear one’s, that some journeys are less Odyssean than Abrahamic. Odysseus wanted nothing more than to return home to Ithaca, and Penelope, and all that he knew. Sarah and Abraham, on a journey of faith ending we know not where, arrived at a place they called home, and knew that place for the first time.

Today’s Gospel story might be seen as primarily about authority, or faith, or grace, or healing. It is, of course, about all of these. And as I thought about this story over the course of this past week, I began to place it in the context of our observance of Juneteenth, and I found myself wondering whether, in this age of polarization, systemic racism, and conflict, we have made much progress. On my more difficult days I identify with the disciples in the boat who are frightened, and feeling that things are out of control. I wonder if this is not the nature of many of our journeys. And I wonder when to trust God’s provenance, and let go of my need to control things I cannot control—a central theme of any 12-step process. Today’s Gospel prompts in me some very human questions about fear, and control, and trusting God. When do we allow our fears to inform and guide us to calmer seas, and when do we face our fears and proceed on the journey despite them?

A number of years ago I joined my sons on a trip to climb Mt. Baker, in the Northern Cascades. We spent several days on the mountain, training in glacier and crevasse techniques, preparing to summit this lovely jewel of the Cascades. On the day of our summit attempt, we arose at 2am, put on our crampons and roped in together, and began climbing up the glacier through the night. We came within 500 feet before encountering storms we saw moving in off the Pacific, and, after consulting with our wise guide, we made the group decision to return to camp. I was so disappointed, and told my sons as much the next day. Our older son, a gifted and experienced climber, said “Dad, the first rule of mountaineering is that you never intentionally climb into a storm. We made the right call.” His wise younger brother nodded his agreement. “Besides, he said, just look around.” And he was right. I had almost allowed my desire for the mountain top to blind me to the moment at hand. Mt. Baker, high above us, glistened in the sunlight and seemed alive after the storm—and indeed it was alive—and the Roosevelt-Deming glacier lay stretched out below us, glimmering like a sea of diamonds in the clear mountain air. The meadows spread around us fulsome with wildflowers, and marmots called from their mounds, alert sentinels in this glorious mountain aerie. For a while we were silent, listening only to the wind, and I was able to be fully present with my two sons. What I most needed was right there all along…connection, love, a small taste of heaven. And in order to see it, I needed to give up my over-functioning agenda. I needed to “deny myself” in order to find myself, and to be present with my sons.

The disciples were of course sailing into a storm, rather than climbing into one, and it would not be the last time. They must have thought “this is not exactly what I signed up for on this trip,” and, “what was I thinking?” When Jesus told them that he was to be rejected, abused, and even murdered, Peter rebuked Jesus. Peter could not imagine such a thing happening to a Messiah. Perhaps he envisioned the great and powerful things that Jesus would do when his “Messiah-ship” came to its fruition. Perhaps he imagined himself standing beside Jesus as a trusted assistant, sharing the glory. Surely, suffering was not a part of Peter’s dream for Jesus, or for himself or the others. And that humanity is, I suspect, one of the reasons we are drawn to Peter throughout the Gospel accounts. We can easily see ourselves acting likewise. We know that taking up one’s cross is no easy task. They were all weary, and afraid, and uncertain. Jesus asks that we become disciples too, and we have his promise that nothing can separate us from God’s love. I was focusing too much on myself and my agenda atop Mt. Baker. Perhaps the best way to “deny ourselves” as a form of spiritual discipline, is by getting ourselves off our hands, doing the work we have to do, handling our tasks joyfully so that when we are called to do God’s work our issues do not get in the way.

I think we made the right decision that day on Mt. Baker in returning to camp. But, I wonder, when is God calling us to proceed in the face of uncertainty, and risk, and possible danger? How do we know when to climb into the storm? In 1986-87 I was doing a chaplaincy internship at Egleston Children’s Hospital at Emory, now CHOA, and Vicky and I were trying to decide what to do next. I had been accepted to law school, and into a doctoral program in psychology and religion, and I hoped the year of chaplaincy training would help me decide. I was as confused as these choices might suggest. I had worked in a psychiatric hospital with children and adolescents, where Vicky and I met, before heading to Vanderbilt Divinity School, where I continued to study psychology and ethics, took a few courses at Vanderbilt law school, got my Master of Divinity degree, and pondered next steps. In late December of 1986 a small group of civil rights activists marched in Cumming, Georgia, to protest a long history of racist housing, economic, and educational practices in Forsyth County, and they were assaulted with rocks, bottles, and racial epithets. On January 25, upwards of 20,000 marchers filed into downtown Cumming in support of the first marchers, and I was among them. At one point we slowed to a standstill, and through the helmeted National Guard troops I saw a group of young white men, screaming at us words I cannot repeat here, and throwing rocks and bottles over the phalanx of troops.   

They were looking at me and my colleagues, waving their Confederate flags—the flag of my own ancestors…one of whom was wounded at the Battle of Atlanta—and their faces were filled with rage. I remember feeling both scared, and a bit self-righteous, and I began to say things, in my heart, about them, that were just as uncharitable as those things they were saying to and about me. You can use your imagination here. And then I realized what I was doing. I was relegating these young men to the status of the “other”—just as they were doing to me—and I was engaging in the very behavior we were marching to protest…the very hatred and injustice that resulted in the Juneteenth narrative. If I called them “white trash”—and worse—was I not in fact committing in my heart the same injustices we sought to end by marching through the snow on that cold January day? I was. And this was hard for me to hear, even if I was the one saying it… maybe especially because I was saying it…to myself. And this revelatory self-reflection, this confession of things done and left undone, could not have happened had I not chosen to show up authentically on a stormy sea of epic proportions. I had to ask God’s forgiveness for this. I needed some healing, and I had to ask for it. I needed to ask Jesus to calm the sea of brokenness born of fear, just as the disciples in today’s Gospel.

Compassion means to do “Hesed”—love and justice—in relation to the suffering we encounter. It means to take action: and faith-in-action is the key here. This is different from “belief,” which is an act of intelligent assent only. “Faith”, however, is a verb—an act of the whole person. It is an attitude of wide-open, expectant trust that moves toward action. This is the same kind of both/and faith that impelled Jesus to calm the storm that day, and also to proceed into Jerusalem knowing full well what the outcome would be. I recall once in college, while on a track and field trip, the conditions were, frankly, awful. The track was old and poorly maintained. The infield, where field events would take place, was overgrown with tall grass, and pitted with rocks. We voiced our complaints to our coach whose true vocation was that of a classics professor at our college. He paused, and told us the story of runners from Crete who visited the island of Rhodes for competition. In similar fashion, they complained of the conditions of the playing field. Laconically, the Coach from Crete said, “Hic Rhodos, hic salta.” Translated, this simply means, “Now you are in Rhodes, you will do your jumping here.” Put another way, the writer Frederick Buechner has said that the grace of God means something like this: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party would not have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and difficult things will happen. Do not be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can by yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.”

Both of these desires occur in what my colleague Walter Brueggemann has called a “narrative of scarcity”…in which the past is barren of miracles and the only way to get anywhere is to invent and reinvent yourself and scramble for whatever you can get. A past without gifts and a future without hope give us a present as an arena for anxiety— anxiety endlessly stirred by those who generate the theology of scarcity. This anxiety paralyzes us so that we cannot act, and we do not reach out for the gift of grace that is ours. Let us go forth with courage my friends—with vitality and wonder—into the unknown new creation made possible by our saying “no” to a narrative of scarcity and anxiety, and “yes’ to the world to which the Gospel text points. It is a Resurrection world, in which there is meaning and hope in each of our lives and, yes, in each of our deaths, both small and large. On both that day on Mt. Baker, and in Forsyth County, I had to die a little to myself. I had to give up a self-righteous need to be “right,” and make a choice to be in relationship. I needed to be curious about what form that might take, but I was clear that name-calling and stereotyping was no longer an option, even if I believed I was on the right side of an issue. God promises that God’s word of love will be the last, best, and strongest word. God promises that God will make all of creation new, and that we will be a part of that new creation. Dr. King said that the moral arc of the universe is long, and bends toward justice. I hope that is true. In one of my favorite of his poems, a poem ultimately about resurrection, Wendell Berry says:

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer’s end. In time’s maze

over fall fields, we name names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

What we need for our long Pentecost journey is here, and when we find that place in ourselves of peace, and pay attention to this moment of grace, no matter the storm, we arrive back home, and know that place for the first time. What we need is here. Amen.

4th Sunday after Pentecost

Year B Proper 6 – Father’s Day – Bill Harkins

Mark 4:26-34

4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,

4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.

4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?

4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;

4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;

4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. If you are visiting with us this morning, we welcome you and hope you will let us know who you are. Regardless, we are so glad you are here today! And Happy Father’s Day to those for whom this applies in any way—those of you who have mentored, parented, and been paternal in any way, in so doing, caring for others along the way. Thank you to each of you!

Some of you may have heard me tell stories about my paternal grandfather, whose hardware store in middle Georgia was a magical place for me growing up. In my mind’s eye I can see myself as a young boy, following along behind him as he assisted his customers with grace, and humor, and care. On this Father’s Day I remember with deep gratitude his presence in my life, and his quiet, graceful presence. Whatever needed building, or replacing, or repairing, I believed he had the answer, and it could be found somewhere in the mysterious recesses of his store. It was filled from floor to ceiling with anything needed to supply the county seat of an area of Georgia still deeply agricultural in orientation. It smelled like mystery in there, a wonderful combination of leather, cottonseed oil, hot coffee, and fresh apples on an early fall day, or peaches in summertime, which could also be purchased in season near the cash register.  

My favorite spot in the store was atop his roll-top desk, where I could survey the entire store, and go largely unnoticed. From this vantage point, often armed with a small bottled coke from the cooler and a comic book, I could pass away an entire summer afternoon. Motes of dust rose in beams of sunlight as they moved across the store, marking time in a timeless, magical world that exists only in my memory now. I remember the way my grandfather treated his customers with dignity, and respect, many of whom were local farmers—black and white alike—who brought their stories and their business. In the Jim Crow south of those days, he practiced business by casting a wide net of compassion. After we anonymously delivered a bag of groceries on a cold December day near Christmas to what I suspect now was a poor sharecropper’s family, he said “A random act of kindness is always a good thing, and you never know where it might lead.” He never spoke of it again, but the lesson did not fall on barren soil. I suppose this was his way of both doing good business and living out his life in a small town where, one way or another, we were all connected.

One of the items he sold in his store was a disc harrow, a large cylindrical blade designed to dig into and turn over the soil in late winter. To “harrow” the soil is to prepare it for planting, new growth, and eventual harvest. Indeed, the Latin root of our word “harrow” is “harve,” from which we also get our word “harvest.” In this sense, then, our normally culturally pejorative word “harrowing”—meaning to vex or distress—can also mean to prepare the soil for harvest.  I never talked with my grandfather about the parable in the Gospel text for today, in which there is no mention of harrowing the soil. I do know that he appreciated good stories—they were always in the air one breathed at his store, if one took care to listen—and he would have acknowledged that a good story can often reverse our expectations, and reorient our ways of looking at the world. Today’s Gospel mustard seed parable does just that, by, well, harrowing our souls, and Jesus, who takes special care to tell us to listen, wants us to pay attention not only to the story, but to the power it has to transform our lives. He wants to pull us out of our entrenched patterns of relationship and ways of being in the world—to dislocate us in ways that may be harrowing in the more culturally familiar sense of that word. A parable doesn’t inform, so much as transform those who really listen. This can be distressing.

So, what do we make of a sower of seeds who indiscriminately spreads seed everywhere? How do we learn from this and similar agricultural parables, including the parable of the mustard seed? All the best agricultural practices aside, one wonders at the wisdom of throwing seeds on paths where birds eat them, or on rocky ground where they likely will not grow, or among thorns that may well choke them. Whether one is a farmer, or businessperson, or new-church development expert, one may hesitate at the potential waste of precious resources and lack of planning. What happened to harrowing the soil? Where are the demographic studies, branding and marketing strategies, maximizing of available capital, and so on? Why not simply find the best soil, and plant there, and support the local economy by buying a new disc harrow at J.W. Harkins and Son’s, while you’re at it!

Well, as is often the case, Jesus turns these expectations upside down. Mark tells us we do not know how it grows, but it does. No one can anticipate what the harvest might be at the time seeds are sewn and scattered on the ground. Even the sower does not know how it happens. But when the grain is ready, it is harvested. We see that things happen, but we don’t know how, we simply trust that they do. Jesus tells these parables not for explanation but for exploration. Not for answers but so as to engage the imagination. Not for certainties about faith but for discoveries about how faith works. In this regard, Jesus asks us to talk in parables, too. Because something happens in telling parables that cannot occur in just listening to them. Figuring out a parable to tell is a different experience than securing its purpose.

Perhaps in this story, parabolic and paradoxical as it is, the sower throws the seed anywhere, everywhere, to suggest that anywhere and everywhere are ultimately the provinces of God’s compassionate, grace-filled, redemptive activity. Even in the rocky, barren, broken places we may find God. When I was a first-year student at Vanderbilt Divinity School I began visiting an inmate named Phil Workman who was on Unit VI at the Tennessee State Prison, also known as death row. Even back in 1982, I suspected that some form of pastoral counseling focus would engage my life’s work. So, in addition to visiting Phil, I spent part of one summer helping in the Chaplain’s office where, along with other mental health professionals, we worked with prisoners who were approaching parole. We gave them a simple battery of tests such as a vocational inventory, a simple intelligence survey, and a modified form of the Myers-Briggs. Later, we scheduled appointments with those interested—and not all of them were—to go over the results and offer suggestions about next steps. We had no way of knowing what, if any, difference our efforts would make. You might say we were spreading seed on many kinds of soil, and not doing much in the way of harrowing it in preparation. It was a pilot program whose funding ran out, and it was not repeated. That summer eventually got lost in those frantic years of education, parenting our two sons, and vocational formation. I soon forgot about our efforts, but I did not forget about Phil, whom I continued to visit long after we returned to Atlanta.

One Saturday in the mid-nineties, during a visit to Nashville, I went to visit Phil, a visit always punctuated by a thorough search by the guards. While waiting to be searched, a middle-aged man in a coat and tie came into the holding area and sat down across from me. He was looking at me intently, and finally said, “You don’t remember me, do you?” I confessed that I did not. He went on to explain that he had been an inmate at the prison in the early 80’s, and among those whom we interviewed that summer some 15 years earlier. “Do you remember what you said to me?” he asked. Again, I said that I did not. “You encouraged me to finish my GED in the year before I left this place,” he said, “and I’d heard that before. It was what you said next that made me sit up and listen.” Now he really had my attention. “What was that?” I asked. “You told me I scored well on my aptitude test. You said I should finish my GED, and when I got out, I could consider going to college. You told me I was smart. I know it may sound strange to you, sir, he said, but I was a 25-year-old headed nowhere, and not once in my life had the words “smart” and “college” been used in the same sentence referring to me. Nobody ever encouraged me to do anything.” “So, what brings you here today?” I asked. “By the time I left here in 1984 I had my GED. I realized I enjoyed learning. I went to Nashville Tech, then TSU, and I got my degree in accounting. Now, I’m a CPA. I volunteer here one Saturday a month, teaching a literacy course and helping inmates work on their finances.” About this time the guards came to take me back to Unit VI, and we parted ways once again. I have thought about this encounter many times in the years since, and while I know his story is very likely an exceptional one—perhaps our efforts most often fall in rocky places, or among thorns—I remembered it again this week in light of today’s Gospel. Perhaps today’s Gospel is not so much about good soil, but rather about God as the good sower; about, that is to say, what God is really like. It is a parable about the abundance of a God not so much concerned with harrowing the soil as with harvesting—and harvesting abundantly. Like the inmate who became a CPA and a prison volunteer, some of the seed sown in today’s parable brought forth an unexpectedly abundant result, against all odds. God is not concerned so much with cautious agricultural strategy as with spreading seed as if all soil is potentially good soil. Begging the question, dear one’s, is there anywhere, really, God’s abundance might not potentially be found…and others might be blessed, you might say, by bearing witness to this blessing, and so often this is how it happens. It makes a difference—this spreading of Gospel seeds—sometimes in ways we cannot imagine and least expect, in a harvest shocking in abundance. “Practice resurrection,” the poet Wendell Berry says to us all. “Say that your main crop is the forest you did not plant, and that you will not live to harvest.” We are called to spread seeds of hope, and grace, and to trust that our God is a God of abundance. In a way, being up here this morning reminds me of the view from my grandfather’s roll-top desk, with so much abundance, so many stories, and so much hope. From up here, I see so many faithful seed sowers, and so much abundant possibility. Thanks be to God! Amen.

3rd Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you, and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Third Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here this morning. In the reading for today from the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus asks the crowd “Who are my mother and my brothers”? This is among a variation on a theme of texts in which Jesus asks questions such as “Who do you say that I am?” and, “Who are my brothers and sisters?” They are questions that have significance for each of us, too. I love these similar gospel readings for a number of reasons. For one, they often show Jesus in a paradoxical light; he is alone, praying, yet with the disciples around him; he is accused of being “out of his mind,” yet he is clear, non-anxious, and resolute; he is curious about what others are saying, yet he shows an awareness of his journey as part of something much larger than can be encompassed by the events and opinions swirling around him—in short, he is being an effective leader. He wonders what others call him, even as he knows that in terms of his earthly fate, it does not matter. Indeed, this awareness of his fate—that he would undergo great suffering—suggests an awareness of the larger divine narrative and his role in it, and is directly tied to the passion narrative. Paradoxes often contain important truths, however, and this is no exception. 

I’m also drawn to these passages because of the questions themselves. Ever notice how we respond to simple, honest, straightforward questions? They have a certain power because they generally reveal something about both the one asking the question, and the one of whom an answer is expected. One reason Jesus asks these questions is so the disciples can learn something about themselves, and so we can we learn about ourselves, and about our relationship with God. Isn’t this the beauty of questions, whether in the scientific method, or psychotherapy, or a good mystery novel? In fact, this was in part the source of Sigmund Freud’s genius. He discovered that paying attention to the ways in which his patients answered the question “Who do you say that I am” was the most powerful clinical tool at his disposal. They often made him out to be someone he was not; someone from the past, in relation to whom healing was needed, or someone they wished he might be; perhaps someone with whom they were angry, or in relation to whom they had experienced some pain. Sometimes they were actually projecting aspects of themselves onto him. Working through this “transference” as Freud called it, is the heart of the therapeutic journey. And the more clear his patients became about who Freud really was, a caring, wise, somewhat strange Viennese psychiatrist who smoked smelly cigars and was just trying to do the best he could, the more they came to accurately know themselves, and this is where the healing began…for it is ultimately self-knowledge in the context of relationships that heals. We inevitably discover possibilities in relationships, and our lives, where previously we had seen none, and we learn something about who we are, too.  

We are all creatures of narrative and naming, and good writers know this too. This is how meaning is found…in our stories of naming, and relationship, just like today’s Gospel. In one of my favorite of Cs Lewis’ books, he has a character say, “When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years…till that can be dug out of us… till we have faces…how can God meet us face to face.” This is what Jesus wants from the disciples and from us: he wants to be in relationship, he wants us to have “faces” and in order to do this, we have to come to terms both with who we are, and who he is. This is an ongoing, daily, life-long task. In response to the first question in today’s Gospel reading….who are my sisters and brother… several possibilities are explored. Our human family, for any of its virtues, is ultimately just too small, too closely circumscribed. As a priest and therapist, I spend much of my time helping people understand their family stories, and how they were shaped by them. When someone steps up and answers Jesus’ call to follow him, the church washes that person in baptismal water, and it is as if the person gets a new name—a new identity that takes precedence over even that person’s family name. The chief act of Christian worship isn’t some mysterious, dark, esoteric rite. It’s a family meal with everyone around the table, the Sunday dinner that we call Holy Communion; family as God intended family to be.

In a world of grandparents without grandchildren close by, and single-parent families, and grandchildren growing up without grandparents, and marriages often under stress, we need a bigger family than the one we were born into. As John the Baptizer said, “God is going to have a family, even if God has to raise a people out of the rocks in this river. To become a Christian, to have your life taken over by Jesus, is to be joined into a family, a people convened by “water and the Spirit,”[ix] a family bigger and better than your biological family, a worldwide, barrier-breaking family that goes by the name, “Body of Christ.”

A sense of curiosity and wonder is essential, too, for learning about ourselves, and one another, in the context of our life’s narrative. One wonders what the answers would be if Jesus asked these question today. For many, the crowds described by the disciples would feel right at home, what with their rather benign view of Jesus. Walter Brueggemann, a colleague of mine at Columbia Seminary, has said that the gospel today is “a truth widely held…but widely reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.” Moreover, Brueggemann suggests, the gospel is for many an old habit, neither valued nor questioned—not really fully alive. And more than that, our sometimes too technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, and takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes and forms. How often do we answer Jesus’ questions and keep the gospel alive in our daily lives? Perhaps these are questions we should seek to answer each day.

One of my roles at Columbia Seminary was as a faculty advisor to students. We had a remarkable diversity of students in those days, including physicians and business/persons, former attorneys, retirees, and students just out of college. One of my advisees was an engineer by training, who after 25 years with an aerospace corporation decided to go to seminary. He was accustomed to going by the book, following the engineering manual, and struggled at times with the fact that there was no extant manual for every act of pastoral care ministry. After his first hospital visit I found him outside my office, visibly shaken Once settled inside, he said “Bill, I want a book that will tell me exactly how to respond to what I saw in the hospital this morning,” “Jim,” I said, “there is no such book, and even if there were, I would burn it. You’ve got to find a way to be present, to show up, and listen to the story as it unfolds, and let your heart, and God, and the other person in the room, guide your actions.” The questions such as, ”Who are my sisters and brothers?” require that we respond in exactly this way, out of our Baptismal Covenant; you remember, the part where we promise to proclaim by word and example the “Good News of God in Christ” and respect the dignity of every human being.

“But who do you say that I am?” and “Who are my sisters and brothers?” Jesus asks, and these are the essential question, aren’t they? Because they require that we get to know ourselves and that we be creative, and have courage in relation to our images of Jesus. Sallie McFague, one of my seminary professors, taught us that the images we use for God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, very much inform how we respond to the question of who we say they are. I believe that what Jesus is doing in this passage is calling us to be in relationship. I am reminded of a wonderful story told by Garrison Keillor in which he recalls a game he played with his favorite aunt Lois. Keillor writes: “My favorite game was strangers,” he said…”pretending that we didn’t know each other. I’d get up and walk to the back of the bus and turn around and come back to the seat and say, ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ And she said, “No, I don’t mind,” and I’d sit. And she’d say: “A very pleasant day isn’t it?”

We didn’t really speak this way in our family, but she and I were strangers, and so we could talk as we pleased.

“Are you going all the way to Minneapolis, then?”

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, I’m going to New York City. I’m in a very successful hit play on Broadway, and I came back out here to Minnesota because my sweet old aunt died, and I’m going back to Broadway now on the evening plane. Then next week I go to Paris, France, where I currently reside on the Champs-Elysees. My name is Tom Flambeau, perhaps you’ve read about me?”

“No, I never heard of you in my life, but I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt. She must have been a wonderful person.”

“Oh, she was pretty old. She was all right, I guess.”

“Are you very close to your family, then?”

“No, not really… I’m adopted, you see. My real parents were Broadway actors—they sent me out to the farm thinking I’d get more to eat, but I don’t think that people out here understand people like me.” She looked away from me. She looked out the window a long time. I’d hurt her feelings. Minutes passed. But I didn’t know her. Then I said, “Talk to me. Please.” She said, “Sir, if you bother me anymore I’ll have the driver throw you off this bus.”

“Say that you know me. Please”… “And when I couldn’t bear it one more second, she touched me and smiled, and I was able to be myself again.”

Who do you say that I am? Who is my family? Who is my mother, and my sisters and brothers? In asking, Jesus is saying…tell me that you know me. Please, say that you know me. He invites us into relationship, and in answering the question, we encounter the possibility of change, and growth, and transformation. And this requires that we die to our old selves- our “transferences” and projections and illusions– and each day take up this cross. For my former engineer student Jim this meant dying to his old engineer self. Change makes us vulnerable, but it is precisely our vulnerability that can be the occasion for growth in relation to God. Growth and life paradoxically require death; transformation requires vulnerability. Knowing God requires being fully alive, even as we die to our former selves. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like Easter…And so we pray in our ordination and Easter services:

Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen