The Third Sunday After Pentecost

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 229

 Texts

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15); Psalm 138;
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

Faith in Action is a Harrisonburg City/Rockingham County multi-faith and multicultural organization that Emmanuel helped to launch. Karen Ford and I are currently our congregational representatives and I serve as Vice President.

What follows is excerpted from Faith in Action documents.

After great deliberation and with the support of its 26 congregations, Faith in Action has committed to work with the relevant policy makers and stakeholders in 2018 to achieve the following in our campaign for local criminal justice reform:

Eliminate the financial burden of the $1-a-day fee currently paid by families of inmates at our local jail and the $3 charge for local inmates transferred to the Middle River Regional Jail (as permitted, but not mandated, by VA Code Section 53.1-131.3).   Engage in a careful and open selection process for the hiring of a well-qualified Community Justice Planner. This person would evaluate all criminal justice programs and practices, make strategic recommendations for the best allocation of resources, and coordinate the legally mandated biennial update to the Community Criminal Justice Board's Community Corrections Plan.   Establish protocols for all juvenile justice cases to be screened for a restorative justice process. We will support transparent and community-based steps in implementing restorative justice alternatives for adults and juveniles alike.

Faith in Action sees these three issues as vital movement toward making the criminal justice system a model for rehabilitation, reducing incarceration and recidivism within the community, and making room for more restorative rather than punitive justice practices.

Here are some of the reasons for these three asks:

Click here to read further.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+

The Second Sunday After Pentecost

O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 229

 Texts

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20); Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17;
2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6

Last weekend's solemn observance of Memorial Day got me pondering the meaning of the word Sacrifice. We honored our men and women who gave their lives for the sake of their country, in defense of its freedoms and peace. The word "sacrifice" came up often as I watched on television the Concert from the Mall.

Sacrifice. An appropriate word to describe people who "in the day of decision," died for our freedom, values, and ideals, as our collect for heroic service says (BCP, p. 839). We owe them and their families constant honor, gratitude, and remembrance.

The word sacrifice does not apply exclusively to dying for others, however. At its root, the word means to make an offering. In Eucharistic Prayer A, the celebrant speaks of the Holy Communion as "this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." Praising and thanking God is an offering, a sacrifice.

In that sense, any time we offer anything to anyone, we are making a sacrifice. Parents and teachers who dedicate themselves to the wellbeing of their children are making a sacrifice. As we come this week to high school graduations in the city and county, I am mindful of the sacrifice that parents, students, and teachers have made to make the day of commencement possible. Offering not only knowledge but also encouragement, discipline, and delight (to name a but a few or their offerings), parents and teachers have sacrificed for the education of their children and students. Young people who have labored to complete assignments on time and to master the material also made a sacrifice -- at times placing their personal desires second to their educational requirements, for example.

A sacrifice then is something that requires effort. That is to say, whether the thing we offer is hard for us to do or not, we make a sacrifice when we choose one course of action over another, such as modifying one's lifestyle in order to save for the children's education or doing homework instead of playing with friends. Intentionality and commitment are part of making a sacrifice.

Making choices then means that letting-go as well as of taking-on are essential dimensions of offering, of making a sacrifice. We let go or give up something in order to take on an activity -- such as a student who curtails leisure time in order to complete homework or a teacher who works well beyond their school hours for the benefit of their students.

I've used examples that focus on students, teachers, and parents. But the dynamics of sacrifice are there for all of us in any facet of life.

At the core, to make a sacrifice is to offer ourselves for the sake of something greater or for the sake of someone else. It's what Jesus calls dying to self. Sacrificial people are not Me First people. We put others ahead of ourselves. Giving our time, our talents, and our treasure for the wellbeing of others represent the offering of ourselves. Sacrifice is an intrinsic component of service -- not only military service but any form of giving and offering to which we may called in life.

May you and I be graced with the gift of sacrificial living for the sake of the world and to God's greater glory.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+

First Sunday After Pentecost: Trinity Sunday

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 228

 Texts

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29;

Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

Holy TrinitySt. Andrei Rublev, c. 1400 Gosudarstvennaia Tretiakovskaia Galereia Moscow, Russia

Andrei Rublev (1370-1430) wrote the most revered icon of the Holy Trinity as Abraham and Sarah's three mysterious visitors (Genesis 18). [Icons are "written," not painted.] The icon depicts three angels in equal dignity as a symbol of the triunity and equality of all three Persons. The angels are engaged in conversation as they bless the Chalice, forming a community of love in full regard of one another.

What are the implications of our being made in the Image of God, who has been revealed to the Church as "the glory of the eternal Trinity" in whom we "worship the Unity"? [Collect for Trinity Sunday; BPC, page 228] Trinity Sunday is an opportunity to reflect on who we are, in light of the Trinitarian Nature of God.

Our vision for community is rooted in the nature of God as One, Holy, and Undivided Trinity, that is, God's revelation as a community of persons, indivisible yet united by the divine nature, which is Love. Human beings, created in the Image of God, are therefore made for community and to be in communion with one another, with the created order, and with God. We are made by Love; we are born to love.

Because of who God is, we celebrate the uniqueness and particularity not only of each of us as individuals but in the multiplicity of the cultural and ethnic mosaic of the one human race as a gift of God, as a sacrament of the Holy Trinity. All people are outward and visible signs that declare the glory of God. Though we indeed "fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23), each individual and each part of the human family in its own way participates in the divine image. The richness and variety of humanity are a blessing to be celebrated, a delight to be enjoyed, and a means of coming to a closer appreciation of God's greatness and goodness.

When we come to worship on Sundays, we learn more about our vocation as a community that glories in the uniqueness and variety of all human beings. Trinity Sunday, in particular, is a time to rejoice and to renew the bonds of affection that unite us to the Father through the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+

The Day of Pentecost

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 227

 Texts

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1;
1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

The following is excerpted and adapted from a letter co-authored by The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. With the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Bishop Curry comments here on the issuance Thursday of a document that addresses the paramount importance of reclaiming the name of Jesus at this moment in our history. -- DDR+

You may already have heard about Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis, which has been commended to the churches by a group of elders from across the traditions of our Christian families. Conceived and discerned during an Ash Wednesday retreat, written and prayed over during Lent, announced to some colleagues and a few publications at Easter, it will finally be launched to the churches at Pentecost -- when the early Christians took their faith to the streets in the public square. Those who have come together did so on the basis of relationships more than formal representation, are all in their sixties or seventies, and are either current or former heads of churches or church organizations. The declaration, as well as a summary version that has been published in both church and secular publications, are here. We also want to draw your attention to a short but moving video here, with several of our elders speaking to the need to reclaim the name of Jesus in a time such as this. The video has just been released. In a little more than a day, it has been viewed by almost half a million people because, we believe, there is a great hunger in the churches and beyond for an alternative faithful Christian voice to what many people are hearing or not hearing at this historical moment. Please join us for a service and vigil in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 24, at 7:00 p.m. It will take place at the National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Circle. Following the service we will lead a candlelight procession to and prayer vigil at the White House. You can find more details about the service and vigil here. We encourage you to share the event details with your churches and networks and encourage them to join you -- either in person or by watching the live stream of the service.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter -- Sunday After The Ascension

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

-- BCP, page 226

 Texts

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1;
1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

"Do not leave us comfortless," we pray in the Collect.  In our church calendar, we are living in that odd time between the Ascension of our Lord and the Descent of the Holy Spirit -- the 10 unusual days when the apostles were, according to the verse immediately before our story in Acts, "constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers." (Acts 1:14)

Do not leave us comfortless. I wonder if their prayer was of the frantic, anxious, and near-panic kind? Forget what you and I know -- that the Holy Spirit came upon them. For all they knew, the Descent of the Spirit could be eons away. It was a time of great uncertainty.

Do not leave us comfortless. Their prayer also takes place in a time of great embarrassment, maybe even shame. They had to come to terms with the fact that Judas, one of Jesus' own hand-picked Twelve, had betrayed their Lord. The community was not at full strength. And the missing one had not honored the cause. I wonder about the urgency in their prayers and their recognition of brokenness and incompleteness.

Do not leave us comfortless. I wonder if we can identify with that? Uncertainty is indeed part of the human experience. We could easily muse philosophically about the vagaries of existence. And there are times in our world -- maybe even now -- when we can identify with the humorist George Carlin's question: "Where are we going? And what's with this hand-basket?"

The reality is that on any given Sunday when we come together to pray, not a few of us are dealing with particular uncertainties or pains or shame or facing hard choices in seemingly intractable circumstances. Or like the disciples, we might be looking at a future without the tangible presence of a loved one. 

The 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost are reminders that our experiences of uncertainty, loss, grief, pain, and even shame are part of the life of our faith community, not just of human life itself. Their euphoria over Christ's resurrection turned to the aloneness that goes with the physical departure of Jesus. There are seasons in life when even God feels absent. The palpable absence of Jesus during those ten days ... I wonder how the apostles and the disciples, including the Blessed Virgin and the brothers of Jesus felt. Have you ever had a time like that? Has God ever felt absent from your life?

Lean into it. Denial does no good. Name the anxiety or loss or pain or uncertainty or embarrassment or shame. Whatever the feelings in our own circumstances, let us name and accept that this is where we are, maybe for more than 10 days. We know not how long.

We can learn from that first band of people bereft of comfort: Name it in prayer. And pray in community. Paradoxically, when we least feel God is when we most need to pray. When we least feel comforted, that's when we need to be together to comfort one another. We need each other. We need to come together Sunday after Sunday to pray. To lay the matter before God. To wait for God's promised Spirit to descend on us with comfort and strength.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 225

 Texts

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98;
1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

The Collect of the Day asks for God to give us the kind of love towards God that we may love God "in all things and above all things." Loving God in all things and above all things -- that is the objective.

Charles Williams, a lay theologian and novelist who was close friends with C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Dorothy Sayers, looked at all creation as embodying something of God's nature. Our human understanding also, however dimly, partook of the divine light. He was not one to discard any thing or notion out of hand but rather took time to look for truth and beauty within them. This collect reminds me of Williams because he had a wonderful saying that can be a guiding post for us in our search for God and all things godly: This also is Thou; neither is this Thou.

This also is Thou: Creation itself is the first Scripture we meet. "The heavens declare the glory of God..." (Ps. 19:1). Nature is our first teacher -- our first awareness of a gorgeous full moon or the sound of the sea or the majesty of mountains -- in these and more the world gives us glimpses of God's glory. Everything created partakes of the heavenly DNA. We experience it when we behold beauty and are awed into silence. The material world discloses the spiritual reality of which it participates.

This also is Thou: Mother and Father's first embrace and kiss when we are born; being loved and affirmed, being provided for and kept safe. Experiencing goodness and compassion from anyone, perhaps even in unexpected places and from unknown persons; meeting people whose morals and ethics lift us up; hearing or reading poetry or experiencing all the arts-so many ways in which through other people we experience something of the One whose self-revelation is Love.

At the end of his letter to the Church in Philippi, St. Paul says: "Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Phil. 4:8) Because This also is Thou.

Neither is this Thou: We do not worship creation but the Creator who is in all things but is never limited to all things. (If you care for the fancy words, our theism is of the panentheistic kind; we are not pantheists). We seek to love God in all things and above all things. Nothing -- not creation itself; not our noblest ideals; not our truest theology; not even our purest beliefs -- can contain God. Flee any religious community or persons who suffer from unassailable certainty in their convictions about what they claim to know. God cannot be put in a box. Any god who could be so contained is not worthy of our worship, allegiance, and obedience. Giving our ultimate commitment to anything other God as God -- who is beyond all our knowing and understanding -- is to fall into idolatry. Neither is this Thou.

This also is Thou; neither is this Thou. May we rejoice in the sacramental quality imbuing all things and all people. May we never mistake anything or anyone for the Divine reality to which they point and in which they participate.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-- BCP, page 225

 Texts

Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30;
1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

This may be the boldest collect yet for Eastertide. Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus, the Christ, ...that we may steadfastly follow his steps. Wow. It asks not that we may believe things about Jesus but that we may so perfectly know him as to be able to follow him.

And how may we do that? How can we know Jesus like that?

In Luke 24:13-35, Jesus, disguised as a stranger, meets two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus on the evening of Easter Day and speaks to them as they walk. In the story, Jesus opened the Scriptures to them, so they could begin to appreciate the pattern central to true life-suffering, death, and resurrection-that the Messiah would reveal.

(Messiah, by the way, is the Hebrew word that means "anointed." Its Greek counterpart is the word Christ.)

We are told that though their hearts were burning inside them, they did not know that it was Jesus. The story goes on to tell us that when they reached Emmaus the disciples insisted that the stranger stay the night with them, even though he looked like he was going to keep on walking.  It was while he broke the bread at table with them that their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. 

He then vanished from their sight and they rushed back to Jerusalem that very hour to tell all the others.

Here is the thing: None of this would have happened had they not insisted that the stranger stay with them.

Our own Carol Sethman pointed this out to me in a conversation a couple of years ago: it was their compassionate action, it was their hospitality to the stranger, it was their insistence that he not spend the night walking in the dark, that gave those disciples the opportunity to know Jesus in the opening of Scriptures and the breaking of the Bread.

How do we know Jesus? By doing acts of compassion.

Compassion is the gate to perfect knowledge of Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. Compassion is not a sequel to knowing Jesus; it is the entryway. Orthodoxy follows Orthopraxis. Right believing follows from right doing. Ours is a hands-on faith, not a set of statements tucked away in a dusty book. Begin by loving the neighbor and you and I will come to the perfect knowledge of the Christ.

Begin by doing that which upholds the dignity and worth of the person in front of you.

Compassion is concrete, not abstract.

Direct and immediate, not postponed to a better time or more appropriate moment. Compassion is embodied behavior, not pure thought.

Knowing by doing. Embodied knowledge.

Rolling up our sleeves and engaging in acts of compassion: This also is, as Eugene Peterson would say, to practice resurrection.

Under the Mercy,

Fr. Daniel+