The Third Sunday after Pentecost: Listening to God's Advice

June 22, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

Hagar and Ishmael - George Hitchcock (Public Domain) — *Hagar and Ishmael -* George Hitchcock (Public Domain)

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

—Genesis 21:8-21

Today is Father’s Day and with that in mind I thought we might start off with a father and son story.

A young boy had just got his driver's permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss the use of the car. His father took him to the study and said to the boy, “I'll make a deal with you, son. You bring your grades up from a C to a B- average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut and we'll talk about the car.”

Well, the boy thought about that for a moment and decided that he'd best settle for the offer, and they agreed. After about six weeks the boy came back and again asked his father about the car.

Again, they went to the study where his father said, “Son, I've been real proud of you. You've brought your grades up, and I've observed that you've been studying your Bible and participating a lot more in the Bible study class on Sunday morning. But I'm real disappointed since you haven't got your hair cut.”

The young man paused a moment and then said, “You know dad, I've been thinking about that and I've noticed in my studies of the Bible that Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, and there's even strong argument that Jesus himself had long hair.”

To which his father replied, “You're right, son. Did you also notice that they all WALKED everywhere they went?”

And now in light of Father’s Day I am going to use as my text the first lesson from Genesis. I normally concentrate on the gospel but today I feel compelled to recount a famous story.

I am going to make a statement to you much like one I have made to many a Bible student. The reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, our first lesson read this morning, is a snippet from a larger story that has immense meaning in the history of humanity. It is fundamental in the background, and for the self-understanding of at least four billion people. What is happening in much of the world, and especially the middle-east yesterday, today, and tomorrow traces its roots back to this story. So, let’s take a look at it.

Abraham and Sarah are senior citizens. As the story begins Abraham is 87 years old and Sarah is 77. They have a problem. Abraham does not have an heir. It doesn’t appear likely that he will. Yet God tells him and Sarah something they do not expect. God tells them that Abraham will be the father to many nations and the father to more people than there are stars in the sky. Sarah even laughs at the idea of it, but Abraham has faith and thinks God is telling them the truth.

As often happens in these stories, time passes and it looks like the promise God made will not be fulfilled. So, Sarah comes up with a scheme for Abraham to have a son. It works like this. Hagar, the servant girl, is offered to Abraham as a substitute for Sarah and she becomes pregnant by him and a son is born named Ishmael. Voila! An heir is produced. It looks like the plan has worked.

But something happened to mess things up. God’s prediction comes true. Thirteen years later Sarah in her very advanced age of 90 becomes a mother and a second son is born to Abraham at age 100. Isaac the new son is named.

This is Sarah’s child. She wants him to be the heir, not the 13-year-old Ishmael, the first son of Abraham and the servant girl, Hagar. So, she tells Abraham to run the servant girl and the thirteen year old Ishmael off.

“Get rid of them!” And Abraham does it, giving Sarah her way, sending away his oldest son. I can’t imagine how he must have felt.

As we heard a bit ago God took notice of Hagar and her son in the wilderness and saved the child’s life. God made promises to Hagar about Ishmael. “He shall be a wild ass of a man!” And so off to the Arabian Peninsula they went with God’s good wishes and backing.

And here is the end of the story. Isaac becomes the father of the Jewish people and ultimately the father to all of Christianity. Ishmael, in the meantime, becomes the father to those in the Arabian peninsula and ultimately Islam. All told four billion people, who have rarely gotten along, see Abraham as their father, hence all three are known as the Abrahamic religions.

Now I am not terribly concerned about the historicity of this story. Perhaps some of it is historical and maybe not. But what I do know is this. God speaks to us through this scripture in an important way. Abraham is understood to be the patriarch in all three Abrahamic religions and things would be different in some important way if Abraham and Sarah had been patient and believed God when God told them they would have a son. All the trouble and strife in the region and in many other parts of the world is based in this story and their lack of trust in what God had to say.

The point I am making? Believe God when God says something is going to happen or when God gives us advice. It’s much like the advice from a good father or mother. Pay attention for your own good. If you don’t there may be a price to pay that will be of your own making. It’s sort of an if-then statement. If you do this something is going to happen, good or bad, depending on the choice you make.

I think we often forget the reasons behind God’s advice. We often concentrate on the fact we should or should not do something according to the teachings of God, but we rarely think about why. Why did God give us the advice God did? Was it to make us jump through a hoop or was it meant to help us in some manner?

Think about yourself as a mother or father, or think of yourself as a child listening to the adults in your life. Why did you tell your children to stay out of the street? Why did you advise your children to share what they have with others? Why did you advise them to brush their teeth? Why did your mother tell you to forgive others for hurting your feelings or to play nicely with your friends?

It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? It was done for the good of the children to keep them out of trouble, to keep them from getting hurt, to teach them how to be in meaningful relationship with others.

Well folks that is, simply put, what God does with us. Take a look at the commandments we hear from God and Jesus. Think about how life giving they are, how they are meant to keep us out of danger, how they teach us to have meaningful relationships with others.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Who better to have a relationship with?

Love your neighbor as yourself. What a great way to maintain a relationship with those in your life.

Don’t take other people’s stuff and try not to wish you had what they have. These are after all their things and learn to live with what you have. Maybe this could strengthen you to work to earn what they have.

Tell the truth. It’s the right thing to do. Yes, I know we hear lies constantly and we sometimes think it’s more effective than the truth, but we all know in our hearts lying only works for a little while and makes no friends.

The list of suggestions from God and Jesus, those just mentioned and others I am sure you are familiar with, are worth considering. They are there for our benefit not for God’s. God has already figured this stuff out.

And please remember this. Every one of us is a leader in some sense. People are watching. And just as children compare what their parents say with what they do, so does everyone as adults continue that habit. If you don’t believe it listen to the conversation at the table next to you during lunch.

And so, for every leader, no matter how small or how great, take God’s advice. Be an ethical leader no matter who is watching, even if no one else is there in that moment. Be in relationship with God. Tell the truth. Leave other people’s stuff alone. Take care of your neighbor, those whose life yours touches just as you would hope they would do for you.

Be the best example you can be. Nobody is perfect. But remember, people are watching. Try not to give them an excuse to do the wrong thing more often than you can help.

The Second Sunday after Pentecost: Called to Heal

June 15, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Peter Heals a Lame Beggar - Matthias Gerung (Public Domain)

Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

—Matthew 9:35-10:8

There is a young man named Hector in El Salvador who leads a busy life. He’s a son and a brother to several siblings. He’s a plumber when he can get work. And he is a dedicated servant of God. He’s involved in the worship or his church and welcoming visitors. His vocation is helping the poor in their struggle to obtain basic necessities like clean water and decent homes. Hector is a busy man. There is a lot to do there. Hector, like Jesus, feels deep compassion for those in need of healing through the love of God. He feels called to work the harvest.

It’s no secret that El Salvador is a place where it’s easy to run into a dangerous situation. Many times as Hector is walking or riding his bike home as he must do, he is confronted by gang members looking for to injure him for no reason other than Hector’s presence in their neighborhood.

They’re often angry and looking for a fight. And he would like to talk to them about God. He would like to assure them of God’s love for them. He would like to offer assistance to them. But he says he doesn’t because they are not in a place to hear him. They are saturated in the violence of their lifestyle and cannot take in the gospel message. Unless they are healed of all that tears at them they cannot hear him. And so a man on his bike just tries to get away from the violence, so he can continue to work the harvest elsewhere.

Of all the tasks that Jesus could have given his disciples, we hear today about something very specific. Jesus comes on a group of people whose suffering brings on a well of compassion within him. And in response he calls the disciples to prayer and to mission: he sends them out to heal people. It’s not a mission of teaching or feeding or addressing any of their other needs – and I’m certain there were many just as there are today. It was first of all healing. And so I wonder if Jesus sends the disciples on a mission of healing because it is the first step, it is the foundation of all other missions. If the experience of healing is what opens us up to the gospel message demonstrating God’s love for us in real and tangible ways.

The stories preceding this gospel are familiar ones – Jesus bringing healing to men who are blind, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and a child who has fallen asleep. Jesus brings them to a place where they are whole, free from any ailment. He restores them. And now the disciples are authorized to do the same. They are to do what they have just witnessed Jesus doing.

We may not get very far into this passage before we wonder if anyone other than Jesus is really up for this task of healing. Curing the sick? Cleansing lepers? Raising the dead? Few will feel confident going into those assignments.

When we look at what we’ve heard Jesus do and what the disciples are being sent to do, we anticipate that they will fall short. Remember who Jesus was talking to – a tax collector, a rabble-rouser, some fishermen, an accountant, men who were tradesmen or like Jesus were trained to work with their hands. Average people. Not particularly engaged in healing or even helping professions. No practitioners of the curing arts among them. And yet they were all calls them and strengthens them to be healers.

If we place ourselves among the disciples, we might feel that we would fall short. And perhaps more comfortable among those who were like sheep without a shepherd.

But I think that Jesus helps us out with this task. We have a formula to follow: Compassion with Faith and Action lead to Healing.

To be equipped for healing doesn’t mean that you need to go out and get a medical degree or enroll in nursing school. If you feel called to heal in that way, God bless you and love you through that process.

But just as the disciples were sent out to towns in ancient Israel, we who follow Jesus today continue to be challenged to do this work with little more than the strength of our faith and the deep well of compassion within us. Fortunately, that’s enough. Compassion with Faith and Action lead to Healing.

Have you ever noticed that outside of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus doesn’t often tell his followers what to pray for. In the gospel today he does: ask God to send workers into the fields to bring in the harvest. And as they pray the prayer, the answer becomes all too apparent: it’s them. They are the answer to their own prayers.

What about us? How are we authorized to be healers? I think the answer lies in our faith as expressed in the baptismal covenant.

We haven’t been able to have a baptism lately. That’s truly a sacramental act to be done in community. We hope to have baptisms soon. And when we do the candidates for baptism and their parents will be asked to articulate what they believe. These are powerful and empowering words:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God? The answer is I renounce them.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God? I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? I renounce them.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? I do.

Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? I do.

Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? I do.

Throughout history amazing things – seemingly impossible things - have been done and continue to be done through ordinary members of the church going to people and places bringing healing that opens the way to God for those who are healed. The magnificent, undeniable love of God held tight in faith flows through their action to being healing to the rest of the world.

These are usually big flashy instances that make the news. But for each of these there are thousands that don’t. You’ll never hear about a Soup Hour guest who receives a letter, a pair of socks or a meal and yet they are healed. You’ll never hear about someone who spends the night at the Cold Weather Shelter in a bed with a blanket when it’s raining and cold but they are healed. You’ll never hear about those times at home or school or work when an adult tells a struggling child “I believe in you. I’m proud of you.” But God’s healing presence is surely there.

I’ll finish my story about Hector. He got to know villagers who made four trips a day carrying ten gallon jugs up and down a mountain just to get water that wouldn’t make them sick. He helped them file petitions with government agencies and stayed with them through the ups and downs of the process over several years. He celebrated with them when the first valve was turned on their street and fresh, clean water began to flow. For him and for them this was the healing they needed, this was God bringing healing to their world.

You are the answer to someone’s prayer. Who in your life needs healing today? How does the suffering around you move you to compassion today? How is the God of the harvest calling you? Amen.

COVID-19 Update: Reopening Timeline

June 11, 2020 Andrea Schmid

Front Doors of Saint Matthias - Photo by Nate Warner

In compliance with state and local guidelines and Bishop Taylor’s instructions, Saint Matthias is preparing to gradually resume in-person services. Please bear in mind that this situation is fluid, and the plan outlined below may change. Feel free to contact the church (office@stmatthiaswhittier.org or 562-698-9741) if you have questions.

June 21-28

Our clergy, along with a limited number of musicians and readers, will resume livestreaming the 10:00 a.m. service from the church.
The congregation will be able to watch online at https://www.facebook.com/stmatthiaswhittier. A Facebook account is not necessary in order to watch.
For those who prefer to continue watching or listening via Zoom, the live video will also be shared at https://zoom.us/j/91597283264. (Dial-in by calling 669-900-6833 and using the webinar I.D. 915 9728 3264.)
The worship bulletin will continue to be published on the church website and in weekly emails.

July 5

The congregation will return to the church. Services will be offered at 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. We will practice social distancing, and masks will be required.
The 10:00 a.m. service will continue to be livestreamed on Facebook and shared on Zoom as described above. The worship bulletins will continue to be provided online.

The First Sunday after Pentecost: Remembering Who We Are and Whose We Are

June 7, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

—Matthew 28:16-20

The Great Commission, at the Cathedral Parish of Saint Patrick in El PasoPhoto by Lyricmac at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) — The Great Commission, at the Cathedral Parish of Saint Patrick in El Paso
Photo by Lyricmac at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

I want to talk about our own self-understanding this morning. After all it is Trinity Sunday and what day could be better to attempt to figure it out? Who are we? What does it mean to be who we are?

But first before we get too serious, I want to relate to you a funny regarding the Trinity I haven’t told in a few years. You remember, I am sure, when Jesus asked the apostles who the crowds were saying he was and then asked them who the apostles themselves said he was. Well here is another version of that same conversation with the Trinity in mind. We begin.

Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?”

And his disciples answered and said, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, and others say one of the prophets within the Hebrew Scriptures.

And Jesus answered and said, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, with each acting inseparably, interpenetrating every other member, with an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”

And Jesus answering, said, “What?”

Ok, let’s take a about a twenty-five-hundred-year trip through time to the sixth century BCE. We find ourselves in Judea, the southern portion of what had been Israel before the Northern Kingdom was carried into captivity, never to be heard from again.

The leaders in Judah were getting nervous because some of their neighboring countries were becoming more and more powerful and aggressive. They were afraid that the fate of Judah was going to match that of the Northern Kingdom. They became convinced that their problems related to their loss of relationship with God, and if they fixed that relationship, they might protect themselves from danger.

Unfortunately they were wrong. They were conquered by the Babylonians and carried into captivity over a ten-year time span around 590 BCE. They were taken hostage to Babylon. Let’s listen to a portion of Psalm 137 which expresses their pain.

By the rivers of Babylon—
   there we sat down and there we wept
   when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
   we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
   asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

How could we sing the Lord’s song
   in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
   let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
   if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
   above my highest joy.

Their priests were beset with a problem. What could they do in this strange land, among these strange people, to ensure that the people of Judah remember who and whose they were? So, they came up with a plan to help them. Celebrating the Sabbath had fallen into disuse and the priests encouraged that it be reinstituted in every home. Kosher eating had also fallen to the wayside and the priests insisted that the people reemphasize it in their daily lives. Interestingly our Hebrew Scriptures lesson, the story about the creation of the world which was read a little bit ago, was reimagined during this time to emphasize the six-day pattern of creation and the seventh day of rest, the Sabbath. The priests stressed to every Judean the importance of ritual behavior in life, remaining together as a chosen people to help them remember who and whose they were.

And it has worked incredibly well. Over the next 2500 years as others sought to destroy them those ritual habits became the reason for their continued survival as the chosen people of God. One of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, said in the nineteen forties that the Jewish people’s continued existence might be God’s greatest miracle. I personally have had two Jewish people close to me in my life. They brought into our friendship their history and their people’s history. I give thanks for them every day as I celebrate the joy and insights, they have given me, and how they have impacted my understanding of the world.

And so here we are, 2500 years later. I would submit to you we are faced daily with the same issue. Who am I and who are we as a people of God? How do we remember who we are in these turbulent times?

For me, and I hope for the Christian people, I turn to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. I don’t do so in order to be like him. I know that is not possible and God created me to Bill not Jesus. How does the life of Jesus inform my own life? I recognize my own is a work in process.

Jesus was a man of compassion. He felt deeply for those around him. He even forgave those that took his life. He went where he was invited, even to the homes of those generally rejected by society. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He told us that when we aid someone in need, we are helping him.

He was a man of common sense. Famously he asked the question, and I paraphrase it now. Is the Sabbath created for humankind or was humankind created for the Sabbath? Which is more important, the rules or the people? He asked those in power in that day to think about that.

He prayed and took time to be alone with God. He knew he needed refreshment and companionship with God. He encouraged those around him to do the same.

He knew who he was and what he stood for. In the words of another Jewish thinker and therapist, Dr. Edwin Friedman, he was a non-anxious presence. The winds of fear, stress, and the need to conform to other’s wishes were not factors in his life. He was immune to the gasoline of anxiety that so often surrounds us.

These are some of the attributes of the historical Jesus. I am grateful for the gift of eternal life, but I am equally grateful for the roadmap he laid out for us to follow. No, we can’t be him, but we can learn from him as individuals and adopt his truths as best we are able.

For the church Jesus was completely clear in his hopes for us. Ours is to tell his story to everyone that will listen. Ours is to reach out and help when we are called on to do so. Ours is to teach and to baptize all people, not just a special few who may or may not be like us. Ours is to worship and in our worship recount and memorize the things that make us who we are. We are to teach our children about God and the nature of God. Ours is to be in community. We, like our Jewish brothers and sisters, are people of the book. We open it. We read it.

So, our invitation this morning is to remember who we are as individuals and whose we are as a church. St. Matthias is an address for the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is our savior and our guide. We are not perfect and we are not going to be perfect. But we know who each of us are and we know whose we are as a people. We will do the will of God as we best we understand it as witnessed in the life of Jesus Christ.

Growing Up

June 5, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by J.D. Neal

This article is about our youth group at St. Matthias, I promise. Stick with me for a minute.

Let's start with some numbers. For most of the last two decades, anywhere from 60-70% of young Christians have left the church after graduating from high school — that's roughly two-thirds. Why do they leave? When asked, most of these young folks described the church as 'childish,' 'arrogant,' 'narrow-minded,' as the place where they were treated like children.

During the latter half of the twentieth century, evangelical and mainline churches got really good at getting young folks to show up to church. Youth groups boomed, middle and high school ministries became their own industry, and churches started spending a lot of energy making themselves look and feel like whatever was 'cool' at the time. And it worked. Thousands and thousands of young folks started coming to church who wouldn't have otherwise. It still works, in fact.

So why don't they keep coming?

Starting around middle school, we stop being children and become... something else. A fourteen year-old isn't usually a mature adult, but they're not a kid anymore either. We enter into a strange state I'm going to call 'youth' — the transition between childhood and adulthood. During this time, we begin to explore our world, acquire and exercise new liberties, feel the first burdens of responsibility, and encounter the rich complexities of romance, grief, and mystery. In short, we start getting a taste of the wonders and depths of mature, human life, and we start forming the attachments that shape our adult identity. The things that we love and identify with during this time hold a special place in our hearts because they become a part of who we are for the rest of our lives. I remember the songs on the radio in high school much more clearly than whatever has been popular on Spotify the past few months.

Our young people stop coming to church because church has become just a part of their childhood. The youth group that got them to show up by playing to whatever they thought was cool at 13 or 14 isn't relevant when they're encountering rich, mature beauty elsewhere in their newly forming adult lives. Simple answers and explanations they got in Sunday school and had reinforced in high school don't stand up to the test of their mature questions and fall apart in the face of real grief.

If we want our youth to stick with us, the way of Jesus has to become a part of their forming adult identities. If we want our youth to become wise, good, vivacious Christian adults, then we have to show them that Jesus can handle their deepest questions, that he can sit with them in the sharpest griefs, and that the fullness of life in Christ is abundant and eternal.

So, what's going on at St. Matthias with our youth on Sunday morning?

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels — Photo by **Kelly Lacy** from **Pexels**

Each week, we pray and read the gospel together. Each week, Sam & I ask a question about the passage — a real question, that we're actually curious about — and we lead them in a discussion where they do their best to answer the question using our text. We do this because a good question is one of the best ways to take the Bible out of Sunday school and lead students into the strange, new world of the Scriptures. When they are the ones thinking hard, asking difficult questions, discovering truth in the Scriptures, then the truths that they find and the One they encounter there are far more likely to stick with them as a part of their adulthood.

This is a slow process, where victories are small and there's plenty of awkward silence. It feels counterproductive at times to not just give them an answer — answers are good, after all. Sam and I know, however, that in this way our youth might catch a glimpse of a faith that is bigger and more beautiful than they knew and a God who they just might want to follow into adulthood.

Pentecost: Making Space for the Holy Spirit

May 31, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

—John 20:19-23

It’s Pentecost! Today we continue talking about the Holy Spirit and hear about the Spirit’s call to Jesus’ followers, startling them and then energizing them to do the work of being the church in the world.

The good news of Easter that we leave behind today was not just about assurance that God had conquered death. It was always also a about mission. Jesus’ resurrection implicated the disciples and us in building the King of God on earth. It draws us into the realm of God’s love for the world and empowers us by the Spirit to love each other as God loves the world.

Bishop Mary Glasspool once told me something important about the Holy Spirit in the context of ministry. Remember, she said, that the Holy Spirit is always at work – always moving, stirring us up, always revealing opportunities for us to participate in God’s dream of creating. The job of ministry, she said, is to go into a place and figure out what the Holy Spirit is already doing there. So your job is to discern what the Holy Spirit is doing. And then figure out what you can do to help the Holy Spirit along.

Her advice isn’t just for clergy and not just for tasks we think of as “ministry,” it’s for all of us all the time.

It’s about living our lives expecting and looking for how the Holy Spirit is moving in the world.

This is where this particular gospel is so important: we are reminded that we do not stand alone in our attempts to follow Jesus. We, too, are given the Holy Spirit that transformed the disciples from a motley collection of followers into an energized and committed troop of missionaries that transformed the world.

Jesus links the coming of the Holy Spirit to forgiveness of sins. Of all the things Jesus could have talked about in this most powerful moment, why forgiveness?

Remember who he’s talking to—his closest friends who have witnessed the trauma of his death. So in telling them to forgive, he wants them to make space in the hearts for the spirit to work in them and through them. Jesus knows the hard emotional work that is ahead of them. How can they do this hard work of building up the kingdom of God on earth with hearts full of pain, blocked with thoughts of anger, anxiety and revenge?

Jesus on the cross asked God to forgive those responsible for his murder. Now Jesus wants his disciples to let go, to make space in their hearts to receive the Holy Spirit and let her guide them. Be strong, be fearless. Be unencumbered to build God’s Kingdom in the World. Allow God to be the forgiver of sins – both our sins and those of others. Our responsibility is not to judge but to let them go into the realm of God. So that we can focus on the work that we have to do.

What did they experience? John’s description of the coming of the Holy Spirit is limited. It’s actually Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians that describes what the experience for us.

Remember that Paul was a contemporary of the disciples, that he spent time with them after his conversion. It’s easy to imagine that he heard from those who were in the room when Jesus appeared and heard them describe the experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Paul says:

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

Paul goes on to talk about gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, performing miracles, prophecy.

The experience of the disciples and their sharing that experience is important for us. Theologians can talk endlessly about God, postulate various ideas about God’s role in the universe. There is just as much conversation about interpreting Jesus’ his words and actions trying to understand as best we can what they meant. These heartfelt attempts are all fine.

But I believe the Holy Spirit is different – the Holy Spirit is personal and intimate for each of us. We are given gifts as Paul said “individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

I think we know if we’re doing that, I think we can discern the presence of the Holy Spirit if we see the Fruits of the Holy Spirit that Paul talks about later. He describes the qualities we experience as the Holy Spirit is working in and through us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Holy Spirit works in us in big, spectacular ways that bring on those Ah-Ha! moments. And also in quiet ways, that rescue us, comfort us, nudging us along.

Whenever I’m a little short on Joy, as happens sometimes these days, I remember the day this photo was taken. It was my ordination day. I’m surrounded by so many of you on the steps of St. John’s cathedral. During the ordination service, I clearly heard the Holy Spirit speaking to me that day as I lay prostrate on the floor. “You have done everything that was asked of you,” she said. “Your fears, your anxieties about the future – leave them on the floor. I’ll sweep them away. Make space in your heart for me. Get up.” And I have this photo to remind me of the joy generated by the Spirit that day. I keep in it my office at home and look at it everyday.

Saint Matthias Group Photo at Rev. Carole’s Ordination - Photo by Bob Howe

Rev. Carole’s Ordination Service - Photo by Bob Howe

If we take this call to follow Jesus seriously it quickly becomes clear that we as mere humans are not capable of doing so on our own. The powers of sin arrayed against us are too great. We need the Holy Spirit and we need each other.

The events going on around our country that have unfold in the last few days that led to the death of one man and the response of thousands to it are disturbing. The reasons for it are complex and deeply rooted in generations of behavior that clearly never had even a passing acquaintance with God’s dream for the world, with the teachings of Jesus or the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

As followers of Jesus Christ, our call today is to figure out what the Holy Spirit is stirring up in our lives, and to live out that call in lives saturated with those qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control so that they may pass through us to others. Make space for the Holy Spirit. And get up. This is our Holy work. Amen.

Book Review: “Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife"

May 29, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Ben Corbitt

“Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife” by Bart D. Ehrman (2020)

What happens to us after we die is one of life’s oldest mysteries, and has spawned countless answers through the ages. In the Western world, we are most familiar with some version of the following: Good people (or believers in Christ) experience eternal bliss in heaven, while wicked people (or non-believers) are doomed to never-ending torment in hell. The ideas are so familiar that many people likely never give much thought to their origin.

In his newest book, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman casts a scholarly eye toward heaven and hell. Where did these beliefs come from? Are they the undisputed teaching of the Bible? What did Jesus say about the afterlife? Ehrman’s thesis is perhaps less conclusive than we would like, but endlessly fascinating in the details that get us there: Heaven and hell were never handed down on stone tablets, but emerged slowly from an ancient world that held room for many views of the afterlife.

Ehrman begins his study in the pre-Christian world, where many believed in life after death, but didn’t especially look forward to it. There might be a continued existence beyond the grave, but it was a pitiful reflection of the living world, with its vibrant colors and warm sunlight. One version of the ancient Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic casts death as a “dark house,” a place “where those who stay are deprived of light.” The Greek Odyssey (8th c. BCE), traditionally credited to Homer, describes a visit to the underworld Hades. This was a place where souls were reduced to flitting wraiths, vapor-like and pitiful. It was a dreary, colorless realm, and while nearly all were destined to go there, it was far better to stay alive for as long as possible. The dead warrior Achilles, speaking to still-living Odysseus, sums up the situation by lamenting “I’d rather slave on earth … than rule down here over all the breathless dead.”

Centuries later, the Roman poet Virgil (1st c. BCE) takes readers back to Hades in the Aeneid, but the place has seen a massive remodeling. Instead of Homer’s bland kingdom of cold tea and elevator music, Virgil’s Hades has been spruced up with postmortem rewards and punishments. The dead might be allowed to frolic in the “fresh green fields” of Elysium, or be sentenced to Tartarus, with its fearsome “river of fire.” Even in the pagan world, a one-size-fits-all afterlife had fallen out of fashion. Fairness demanded some system of ultimate justice.

As Ehrman shifts to the Jewish scriptures (the Christian Old Testament), readers might expect our modern heaven and hell to leap off the pages. This is not the case. Ehrman points to a variety of afterlife views in the oldest parts of the Bible, including the stark contention that nothing waits for the dead at all. The writer of Psalm 115 laments that “The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down in silence.” Ehrman contends that for many ancient Jews, death was the final word. In the grave, one could not even hope to praise God.

A more hopeful view develops throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and one of Ehrman’s more intriguing claims is that the political concerns of ancient Israel deserve much of the credit. Ehrman notes that the Jewish prophets were fixated by the idea that Israel – not individual Jews, but the nation itself – would be destroyed (or “killed,” in a sense) by God’s punishing wrath. But intermingled with this idea was a hope that the nation could one day be restored (or “resurrected”) through divine mercy.

Ehrman contends that this view of national death and restoration gradually evolved into a view that individuals would be resurrected for a final Day of Judgment, in which God would reward righteous Jews and destroy the wicked. (Note that in this view, the wicked are not tormented forever. They are simply wiped out.) By the time the book of Daniel is written in the 2nd c. BCE, this idea has found its way into writings that would form part of our Bible.

One of Ehrman’s more surprising claims for many might be that this view, of imminent resurrection and judgment, is the only authentic afterlife teaching we can trace to the historical Jesus. Our Gospels contain clear references to interim states of reward and punishment for the dead, most vividly in the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. But Ehrman argues that this story is not literal to begin with, and likely not an actual saying of Jesus in any event. For Ehrman, our modern heaven and hell did not develop from the actual words of Christ.

The words of the Apostle Paul get us closer to a modern view. Paul’s letters predate the Gospels, and thus serve as our earliest intact writings from the Christian period. While Paul affirms Christ’s teachings about a future resurrection and Judgment Day, he also offers some innovations. These include an interim state of happiness for dead believers, poetically expressed in 2 Corinthians, where he says to be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord.” As more and more of the earliest Christians died without the awaited return of Christ, a focus away from the future Day of Judgment – and toward what would await believers at the moment of death – was a natural shift.

By this point, we have made progress toward a modern view of the afterlife, but a clear scriptural teaching of heaven and hell remains frustratingly out of reach. Surely Revelation will settle the question, with its shimmering New Jerusalem and its horrifying lake of fire. Ehrman again urges caution, using clues within the text of Revelation itself to argue that the book was written as a political treatise for its own time, using symbolic imagery to illustrate the coming destruction of the Roman Empire, not the fate of all living souls.

Ehrman concludes that it is not in the pages of the Bible that heaven and hell achieve their modern form more or less intact. Instead, this occurs in the crystallization of Church doctrine during the first 400 years after the life of Christ. Here, he again makes an intriguing claim: The development of hell as a place of eternal bodily torment was not a theological necessity derived from scripture, but likely owed much to the horrific tortures served up by the ruling Romans and their client-kings against early Christians. Martyrdom was intended to do more than kill Christians; it was also meant to leave a deep psychological impact on those who witnessed it. That is exactly what it achieved, Ehrman argues, but not in the way intended. For some early Christians, contending for a minority faith meant undergoing horrible agonies in this life. It only made sense for them to expect God to exact equally terrible punishments from their oppressors in the next. (A writing by 3rd c. CE church father Tertullian imagining his future laughter at the fiery torments of God’s foes illustrates this posture perhaps a little too well.)

We know the end of this story, of course. Christianity grows from a fledgling underdog to the dominant religion of the Western world. Heaven and hell are firmly established in Church teaching. But even this does not end the development of the Christian afterlife. Teachings about the fate of dead souls continue to evolve in response to new challenges, most notably with official Church recognition of the middle state of Purgatory in the Middle Ages. Ehrman notes that this was likely a response to a problem that upstart Christianity, with its tight band of dedicated converts, didn’t face: How to deal with throngs of people who were less than saintly in their adherence to a dominant state-sponsored religion. The righteous and the wicked early Christianity could deal with, but the masses of the middling? New problems call for new solutions.

And so it continues for us, Ehrman suggests. Ideas that were once stamped out as heretical, such as universal salvation, have gotten a fresh look in our own times, when ex-evangelical authors can upend Christian orthodoxy with statements like “Love Wins.” The Christian afterlife has always been a work in progress, Ehrman demonstrates, while suggesting that it will continue to be.

Ehrman’s prose is witty, engaging and easy to follow throughout the book. Even while delving into some fairly weedy disputes (e.g., the precise physical nature of resurrected bodies), he is able to continually make relevant and interesting points that aid the overall development of his thesis. Bart Ehrman might not be able to tell us what happens in the next life, but with this insightful book, he has provided one more enjoyable way to use our time in this one.

The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of Ben Corbitt and do not necessarily reflect the views of Saint Matthias, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, or the Episcopal Church.

The Seventh Sunday in Easter: Looking forward to the Coming of the Holy Spirit

May 28, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

One of the things I do each week, early in the week, is send a little something about the scriptures for the coming Sunday to the Sunday school teachers to help them in their lesson planning. I looked at the scriptures for today and honestly none of them appealed to me as the subject for today’s sermon or the subject of Sunday school. And then I began to think about next Sunday, Pentecost, and the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. And I thought, what if we thought about the nature of the Holy Spirit?

We are familiar with the theological concept of God we call the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We think a lot about God and Jesus Christ, but not so much about the Holy Spirit. I think many of us do not have terribly well-developed notions about the Spirit. So, I want to share some of my personal thoughts with you today on the subject.

But first here is a funny, one I don’t believe I have told in this forum for a few years. It’s about being an “advocate,” one of the names Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit. And this little story is about a terrific advocate.

During a game of little league baseball, Coach Rogers called aside little Jimmy and asked him this question. “Tell me Jimmy, do you understand the words co-operation and teamwork?” Jimmy nodded in the affirmative.

The coach asked again. “Do you agree that what matters is whether we win or lose together as a team?” Jimmy nodded in agreement.

Coach Rogers continued, “Then I am sure you would agree that when a batter is called out on strikes, we shouldn't shout at or argue with the umpire, or call him names. Do you agree to that?” Little Jimmy nodded in the affirmative again.

Coach Rogers went on, “And when I take you out of the game so another player gets a chance to play too, it's not good sportsmanship to call your coach a moron or lunatic is it?” Jimmy shook his head “No.”

“Good”, said coach Rogers, “Now could you go over there and explain all that to your grandmother?”

Now one thing we don’t need to worry about is whose side the grandmother is on do we? I imagine Jimmy knew full well how much his grandmother loved and supported him.

As we begin our study of the Holy Spirit, it would be wise to recognize a couple of things. The Holy Spirit is just that, spirit. We cannot see the Holy Spirit. Just like the wind we can only see the impact of her actions. The wind moves the branches in the tree and blows away your hat invisibly. The Holy Spirit involves herself in our lives the same way.

And let me also explain to you my own most basic way of understanding the Holy Spirit. I see the Spirit as feminine. I am not alone in this viewpoint, but I respect your own viewpoint if you cannot see the Holy Spirit in this way. I do this because Wisdom in the Old Testament is presented as feminine and I see Wisdom and the Spirit as the same. I also see her in this way because it balances the books of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Spirit. But please, if this raises your hackles, I respect that. Think of her as you will. When I say she, referring to the Spirit, during the rest of our time on the subject today insert your own preferred word if you like.

So, let’s use some metaphors to describe and understand her. Jesus said “advocate.” We might think of attorney, but I think even more than that. The Holy Spirit is in our corner. Perhaps not like the young man we discussed a bit ago, but she is on our side. In fact, think about Jesus and how he had compassion for people and prayed to God on the behalf of people. He said the Holy Spirit was coming. He wasn’t going to leave the people as orphans. To me this means the Holy Spirit represents us to God, converses with God about us, just like Jesus did. The Holy Spirit cares about us and advocates on our behalf.

Photo by Daria Obymaha from Pexels — Photo by **Daria Obymaha** from **Pexels**

I think of the Holy Spirit as “Comforter,” a term Jesus also used. When things are hard, when we find ourselves in physical or psychic pain, the Holy Spirit is right there with us. That feeling of warmth that suddenly comes on us out of nowhere is her seeking to comfort us. Think back over your lifetime and I am sure you will find times when during the worst of times suddenly you unexpectedly felt better, comforted.

I also think of the Holy Spirit as friend, a companion if you will. We are never alone. This is one of the things I tell folks before a baptism. We receive the Holy Spirit and no matter what happens in our lives, no matter how alone we might feel, we are never by ourselves. Being aware of our companion, the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference, every day, but especially when we need a friend.

Another way I experience the Holy Spirit is as a playmate. When times are great the Holy Spirit celebrates with us. When we are happy the Holy Spirit shares in our happiness. When we are experiencing joy in our lives the Holy Spirit is joyful with and for us. It’s like being out having a great time with your best friend, which in essence you are.

And this is going to sound a little weird, but I experience the Holy Spirit as the first search engine. Think Google. There is nothing in all the cosmos that God does not know. The creator knows everything. I mean literally everything. So, when we have decisions to make, or are trying to understand an issue, the Holy Spirit, if allowed, will lead us to the truth. It may not be the truth we expected, but we almost immediately get a glimmering of the reality of a situation the moment we ask for help for help from her.

I am sure we could come up with many more metaphors for the Holy Spirit if we sat down and began to list them. A couple of times I have led groups who were attempting to describe the attributes of Jesus. We came up with over one hundred key terms on each occasion. I have no doubt the Holy Spirit would lead us down the same path if we went there and we would list just as many. She is after all the third part of the Trinity, that impossibly difficult concept of God. Martin Luther said that attempting to understand the Trinity could make a person insane. So, I think it is enough just to say that She is God, is one third of the Godhead, and leave it at that.

So here is our invitation today as we get ready for Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Think about her. What does she mean to you? Do you know her as your advocate, your companion, and your friend? Do you feel that your relationship with her could be enlarged? Would that be a good thing? Would you like to know her better? Some things to ponder – relax and enjoy the possibilities.

The Sixth Sunday in Easter: Loving God, Loving Others

May 18, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

—John 14:15-21

We just heard a relatively short but meaningful gospel. It takes place towards the end of Jesus’ last evening with his friends. Judas has gone out to betray him. Jesus has told Peter that he will deny his friend three times before the cock crows. The Passover candles are burning low. Jesus is reaching out to them for one last time. He talks about the Holy Spirit, the advocate, who will be coming to comfort and be with them in his absence. But more than that he talks about love, love for each other. This is the direction we will be heading this morning. But first a couple of funnies about love. First up here is a letter to a lady’s husband.

Dear Herbie, I know it was our joint decision for you to go off to the army for the year, but it’s so hard not having you here. We are married. Doesn’t it make sense that we should be together? I’m so miserable without you. It’s almost like you are still here. Love, Anne

Now a story about what not to do when the love of your life is mad at you.

Bob was in trouble. He had forgotten his wedding anniversary. His wife was angry. She warned him. “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!"

The next morning, he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand-new bathroom scale. Bob has been missing since Friday.

Ok, time to get serious.

Love is a central theme in the New Testament. It is a central theme in the theology of Christianity. It often is thought of as the primary answer to every question.

I, along with a great many members of the Episcopal Church, listened to our Presiding Bishop speak about love a week or so ago. This is a man I have the highest respect and regard for. He has appeared on the national news many times and is one of the leaders sought out on matters of national interest. In fact, I relatively recently saw him interviewed regarding churches that were choosing not to follow distancing and rules relative to the size of groups meeting. He handled himself well as he always does. I am quite proud of him as a spokesperson for the church.

Anyway, those of us in attendance recently listened to him talk about the importance of love. He said that every decision to be made in life would best be made if run through the lens of love first. And I think he is right. I just don’t know how to do it with any kind of consistency. Do you?

One of the things in life I am convinced of is that God loves us. In fact, God is crazy about each one of us. We are after all God’s creation and God has proven over and over again the incredible love God has for us. It abounds in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it is the primary point in the Christian Scriptures. Just two weeks ago we talked about the 23rd Psalm as a metaphor for God’s love for us. And the words of John say it all. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” That’s a pretty awesome gift, even more so than something that goes from zero to two hundred in six seconds.

And God did even more than that in the person of Jesus Christ. He gave us a blueprint for living. He taught us about the importance of compassion, of common sense, of relationship with God and one’s neighbors, about servant leadership, and most of all about love. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And Jesus even left us a commandment about love. We are to love each other as he has loved us. In this way others would know we are his disciples he said.

Now I will confess to you I often feel a great burden of guilt over all of this. I know my life and the life of those around me would be greatly enhanced if I could follow his commandment as he did. But so far in my life here on earth I have come up short on a continuing basis. I guess that’s one of the reasons we have saints. They don’t seem to fail at loving others as much as the rest of us seem to do.

What saves me is my recognition that I am not Jesus Christ. I am not fully human and fully divine. Jesus is and I am not. I cannot do this alone with any kind of consistency. I need help. And that is where the Holy Spirit, the advocate, comes into play. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would be here to help us and if we are willing to acknowledge the spirit’s presence, we can begin to make some progress in the “loving others” area. Note please I said progress, not completion. We must reconcile ourselves to a lifelong struggle in this area.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels — Photo by **Artem Beliaikin** from **Pexels**

So here is my suggestion. Loving is easier with people we like or already love. But even with them loving can become an impossible chore at times. People we don’t love, like, or know is just that much more difficult. The Holy Spirit can help us. For me I try to make a triangle out of this loving issue. Me on one side, them on another, and the Holy Spirit on the other. Things change when God is truly involved. God is crazy about this person and crazy about me. With that in mind all things become possible. God can intervene and help us.

And this brings me to the most important issue of the day. Do we love ourselves? I don’t know that loving others is even possible very often unless we do.

Now I am not a psychologist. But I am going to posit that self-regard is incredibly important to the formation of a well-integrated person. So many of us, in fact I imagine most of us, struggle with our own self-image to one degree or another. Dealing with that is just as important as learning to love others as Jesus loved us.

In 2008 during the economic debacle of that time I was involved with a group of folks attempting to find a new job after having lost their last one due to the economy. We talked a lot about the interview process. I used a metaphor that seemed to hit home with them. We talked about asking another person if they would like to go out on a date with you. I gave two examples. In the first the asker said something like this. “If you have nothing to do Friday night, and you probably do, but if you don’t what would you think about going to dinner or something with me? I mean I hope I am not offending you in any way so please feel free to say no if you don’t want to but I thought I would ask.”

Now here is the second example. “Hi. I have to tell you that I am completely taken with you and find you one of the most intriguing people I have ever met. I really would like to get to know you better. Would you like to get together Friday night? I think we would have a great time together.

I think the answer to which is the better approach is pretty obvious don’t you? Today we have a different context we are dealing with but the metaphor still applies. Today I want to tell you that second example is God contacting each of us. God is constantly in contact with each of us asking us for a date.

Let me continue. See if you can wrap your head around this truth, one you have heard several times before but probably could use a booster shot about. God loves us, each of us, in ways we can’t even imagine. Think of how you feel about a brand-new baby, an important baby to you, one that makes your heart feel like it might burst. The love you feel is a drop in the ocean compared to how much God loves you. And if God is that crazy about you doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that mean something important?

God is the creator of the cosmos and the creator of each of us. We are the apple of God’s eye. Can’t we understand God sees something we don’t? Perhaps it’s just that we are, that we exist, that God thought it worthwhile to create us and thinks we are pretty cool. If God feels that way about us perhaps it would be a good idea to reconsider our self-image. And if we do that, then working with the Holy Spirit we might have a chance to fulfill the commandment of Jesus, loving others as he loved us. Hmmmm. What do you think?

Where Jesus is Especially Present

May 14, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Samuel Hayashida

The following article was written in April for the May edition of the Saint Matthias Messenger.

A few weeks ago I was in my kitchen microwaving a plate of leftovers. Mindlessly watching the green numbers count down. And thinking philosophical thoughts, as I usually do when making lunch.

My phone started buzzing. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. I pulled it out of my pocket, and was relieved to find that it was not another telemarketer wanting to sell me cruise tickets to bora bora - but it was Father Bill. I picked it up: “Hi Father Bill! What’s up?”

He shared the unfortunate news: because of COVID-19, volunteers over the age of 40 could no longer run St. Matthias’ soup kitchen. Because they were considered “high-risk” people. And after he shared the news, Father Bill asked if my housemates and I (we’re all in our 20’s) would be willing to help serve meals.

I talked with my housemates. Then called Father Bill again and told him we would help. And a few hours later, I found myself putting on plastic gloves, rolling a cart with bagged lunches out into the church courtyard, and facing a small sea of faces - of the people I was about to serve lunch to.

Since that day a couple weeks ago, I’ve seen a few things I’d like to tell you about. The first of them being, it’s true: COVID-19 is hitting the vulnerable the hardest. While the local Starbucks shutting down has meant less matcha lattes for me… it has meant no bathrooms, charging ports, drinking water, or warm space to escape the rain from, for these our neighbors. Pray for them.

Second, I’ve been reminded of how much I take for granted in life. Every day in which I do not thank God for the roof over my head, a place to shower, and the stove on which I can make hot food… is a day which I have walked through blindly. Blind to the countless, amazing gifts which God has given me.

And perhaps most importantly, I’ve been reminded of just how wrong we are when we call a place “God-forsaken.” Because it is precisely in these places - the seemingly forgotten corners of the neighborhood, and of the world - where Jesus is especially present. In a way that is hard to explain. And so if I want to meet Jesus, I really ought to spend more time here…

… listening to this elderly couple talk in anguish, about how they were unfairly evicted from their apartment, and how they have no idea what to do next. Laughing with this man who is my age about how “we just ran out of sushi and caviar, and so you are going to get PB&J again today.” Watching as this woman opens up her monthly social security check with trembling hands, and she nearly breaks down crying she is so happy to have a little money again.

Every time I come here, I can breathe a little easier. Because Jesus is here. Yes, there is a lot of pain here. A lot of need. But Jesus is here. And when Jesus is here, my heart knows that it is all going to be okay. Yes. I want to come here more often.

The St. Francis Patio, home to the Soup Hour

The Fifth Sunday in Easter: Jesus Reassures His Followers

May 12, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

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Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

—John 14:1-14 (NRSV)

Our gospel today is a flashback. It takes us back to Holy Week and the night before Jesus’ arrest when he is at table with his closest friends. He getting ready to leave them. He doesn’t have much time. And he chooses to spend it by reassuring them of his continued presence with them.

Just for a minute let’s imagine together another flashback, a scenario that might bring up something from your childhood or your more recently your own experience as a mom or dad. Imagine that you’re a little kid sitting in the backseat of your family’s car. Your dad is driving, your mom is there too. You’ve left home not long ago. You know you’re on a long trip – maybe to visit your grandparents or maybe it’s a summer vacation. Whatever it is you don’t have a choice. You’re on this trip whether you want to be or not.

Photo by Johannes Plenio from Pexels — Photo by **Johannes Plenio** from **Pexels**

And it’s not too long before the scenery is pretty much the same. You’ve got books or games or videos but it’s pretty much the same too. You’re bored. You’re tired of it. And there’s a pressing concern, a serious question you really want to know, so you ask your dad, “Is it much further?” “Are we there yet?”

Now dads are experts at things having to do with driving and being on the road. And dad is likely to tell you the number of miles or how many hours there are to go or the next rest stop coming up. Whatever the answer, as a little kid it doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t make sense. It’s certainly not what you’re longing to hear. What you want to hear is, “We’re almost there. Five more minutes. Which for a little kid is about 4 minutes and 50 seconds too long. But dad never says even that.

Now what does your mom do? She senses your restlessness. And offers a distraction. “Take out one of your books,” she says. Or offers to play a game of “I Spy” with you. Even so, the trip goes on. And you might be distracted for a short while. But you’re still confined in the car. And you can’t see the end.

This is the best metaphor I can think of for where we are right now. We’re kind of like kids on a long car trip, powerless to do anything but go along for the ride. We’re wondering, we’re praying, “Are we there yet?” and “How much further?” We are so longing to return to the lives we had. We are eager to get back to January 2020. What I’m hearing from people that I talk with and that I’m feeling myself it that we’re all just over it. For those who are in despair about their health, about lost income and mounting expenses it’s serious business.

For a child, the offer of that distraction that minimizes the discomfort is a reasonable way to go. But for those of us who are a all grown up on this journey of isolation and deprivation, in a place of anxiety about the future and longing for what has been, praying for a return to our normal lives, distractions that try to minimize our discomfort won’t benefit us any more than they would have helped Thomas or Philip. Jesus provided them and us with a way to cope with and navigate through the transitions in our lives. Jesus invited them to follow and believe in entirely new and uncomfortable ways.

So instead of searching for and retreating into places of familiar safety, what can we do in this time to help us grow closer to the heart of God?

I wonder if we do so by taking purposeful steps into our discomfort. This is counterintuitive for most of us. Why in the world would we embrace discomfort? Because I believe that if we do, we will meet Jesus there and know the fullness of his care for us just as he describes it to the apostles. Resurrection only came after Jesus died on the cross. Life came out of death. New life – what you may have heard called “a new normal.”

The practice of Ignatian Spirituality has something to offer us. It allows us to see the sacred in the ordinary. Our daily lives become the text and context for our prayers revealing what is life-giving. You don’t have to be an expert. Its beauty is in its simplicity.

In the prayers called the Examen, we are asked to spend quiet time focused on God’s presence, to review our day with gratitude and pay attention to our emotional responses to the events of the day. Where did we experience joy? Where was our faith bolstered? What happened that drew us closer to God? These are the evidences of Jesus continued love and concern for us and of God creating opportunities for us. This is what we keep. These are the things that give us life.

The opposite also reveals truth. We are asked to pay attention to times we felt self-pity, despondency and other negative emotions. We are asked to discern what happened in our day that pushed us away from God. And this is what we let go of, what we let die.

I think this type of discernment will guide us along this journey and help us recognize what we can do to come out of this energized and prepared to move into the future in closer relationship to God and one another.

Ironically, this gospel is the one we frequently hear in our funeral liturgies. In this 14th chapter of John, Jesus provides assurance that the disciples will have an on-going relationship with him not severed by death even though they cannot follow him now. Jesus encourages them to believe in God and in him not just after our death but right now. And its effect now is the same as it is in those difficult times: Jesus loves us, advocates for us, champions our cause no matter what.

When our body dies, we say that life has changed not ended. In times of transition such as the days that stretch out before us, the same is true. Life is changed. Not ended. Visions of who we are and who we are becoming will emerge if we allow them to even as a previous sense of ourself changes and disappears.

Jesus tells them and us: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in me.

Believe in all we have seen as followers of Jesus – God’s compassion, healing, mercy and love;

Believe in the power of resurrection in which God continues to create new life in us and around us;

Believe that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ will continue to thrive even as it changes;

Believe that we are not forgotten and never alone.

Amen.

The Fourth Sunday in Easter: The Good Shepherd

May 4, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

Stained glass: Alfred Handel, d. 1946[2], photo:Toby Hudson / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

—John 10:1-10

It’s Good Shepherd Sunday. Today we are going to talk about the relationship between a shepherd and the sheep under his care in order to better understand the 23rd Psalm and the Gospel just read. Part of that understanding is that the sheep recognize the shepherd’s voice. And in that light I thought I would tell a quick funny about hearing voices.

The time is right after this pandemic and a popular donut store is reopening. On each table is a nice table cloth and some donut holes as a special gesture to the customers. Towards the end of the day a fellow came in and sat down after getting a cup of coffee. Mulling over his day, he heard a high-pitched voice say, “That shirt looks great on you!”

The man looked around, doesn’t see anything, and returns to his coffee thinking nothing more of it. But then, a moment later, the voice returns, this time offering, “You seem like a really cool guy!”

Again, the man looks around, sees nothing, and returns to his cup of coffee, meanwhile wondering if he should get checked out by a professional. Finally, when his nerves have settled and he believes the voice is gone, he hears, “I bet your parents are really proud of you!”

He slams down his cup and looks around wildly. Frustrated and finding no possible source of the voice, he calls over to the clerk saying, “Hey lady! What’s that voice I keep hearing?”

“Oh, those are the donut holes,” she replied, “They’re complimentary.”

It occurs to me that perhaps it was time to think again about what a good shepherd is all about. It is knowledge that would have been common place in ancient times, but today most of us our removed from tending sheep.

Let’s take a look at a couple of the lines in the Twenty Third Psalm you may find interesting. As we think about this psalm it is also important to remember that Jesus would have read it often too and he was undoubtedly completely familiar to him with its cadence and meanings. It might even have inspired him to use the metaphor of the shepherd as often as he did. The thought of that fascinates me.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.” The good shepherd takes his flock out early and begins their day feeding on forage that is the most difficult for them to eat, knowing that in time the sheep will need to rest as the day progresses. As it gets warmer and later in the day, the shepherd will guide his flock to the best grass, the green grass, and rest his flock in the shade as they contently lie down and chew on the most nutritious of meal for them.

“He leads me beside still waters.” The good shepherd knows that his sheep will not eat from water that is bubbling, or running too swiftly. They will become afraid. So he finds quiet waters where his sheep are comfortable and will drink. He cares about their welfare.

“You have anointed my head with oil and my cup is running over.” The good shepherd is attentive to each sheep. At the end of the day as they enter the sheepfold, which we will talk about in a minute, they are closely inspected by the shepherd. He will lay his crook over the top of the gate and if he sees a sheep with a cut he will pull him to the side. He will take some oil and put it on the cut. Then from a stone jar containing water to keep it cold the shepherd will fill a cup to overflowing and allow the sheep to drink from it till she is satisfied.

I just love this metaphor of sheep and shepherd. It tells us so much about God and God’s love for us. And so Jesus continues with it in his metaphor of the sheepfold we find in today’s gospel.

As many of you know the sheepfold is an enclosure made of stone or wood in which the sheep are kept at night to keep them safe from harm. More than one herd may be placed inside the sheepfold. There is only one way in and one way out. Usually the shepherd sleeps in the opening to safeguard the sheep during the night.

There are no identifying marks on the sheep to tell one herd from another. None are needed. The sheep know the shepherds voice. The shepherd knows each sheep as an individual. The sheep will follow only their shepherd, no one else.

In the gospel today Jesus says he is the gate. Through his death and resurrection he has opened the way into the sheepfold for each of us. It is a place of safety. With our shepherd close we can rest comfortably, and be unafraid of those things that assail us in our daily lives, those other voices that compete for our attention, suggesting to us that our shepherd is not the right leader for each of us.

I think this morning we miss our sheepfold don’t we, our church home? There we are consciously close to God. We can easily hear God’s voice. We have each other. We have the Eucharist. We hear the voice of God in the scriptures and so many other ways. Our paths are made clear as they are not in any other place. We understand our lives there as we can only understand them in the presence of the Good Shepherd.

But then again we do eventually have to leave. We can’t stay there forever. This is one of our longer absences from our place of security for sure. We find ourselves out in the loudly dangerous world outside the gate of our sheepfold, with all the voices that will once again compete with the Good Shepherd for our attention. And the question becomes how can we pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd amidst all the competition?

I remember as a kid waking up in the morning on the farm. The window right beside my head would be open with only a screen between me and the outside. There was a special quiet. I would hear the rooster’s crow. Maybe a dog would jog by. The slightest breeze could be heard as it brushed through the grass and the flowers beside the house. Maybe a flying insect would go by and I could hear that distinctive hum. I could feel the warmth of the sun as it came through the window heating the day. I might hear my grandmother softly walking in the kitchen, already well into her day. And then the stillest, smallest sound of all, the voice of God within me not really saying much at all, just being there with me, agreeing with me that everything was ok, that all was right with the world.

God speaks with us all the time if we will but be aware and listen. We are not alone in the world existing within a cacophony of bad advice. God speaks with us in our prayers for sure, but God also speaks with us in other ways too.

Where did that idle thought come from that gave you an insight into a thorny situation? Why did your friend choose just this moment to say what she did, or choose this moment to give you a hug when you needed it the most? Why did the sign up ahead just take on new meaning when you have seen it for years in another way? Why did that word in scripture or the passage in the book or the character in the movie seem as if they were speaking directly to you? Why, when you were sitting alone did it suddenly feel that you were no longer alone, but that in fact you suddenly just feel great about your world and your life and the loneliness has left?

Every day we encounter God in the everyday. We need only be aware. This is the voice of our shepherd we are hearing. This is the true source of our advice as we attempt to make our daily decisions and live our daily lives.

So my invitation to all of us who miss the sheepfold is this. Enjoy the memories of being there where we knew we were safe and loved and cared for. We have followed our Good Shepherd out through the gate into the world knowing the Good Shepherd is leading and caring for us as only the Good Shepherd can. We are never alone. We will never be alone no matter what. We can hear the voice of God every day in the everyday.

The Third Sunday in Easter: Recognizing Jesus

April 27, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

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Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

Now on that same day two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

—Luke 24:13-35 (NRSV)

“The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road” - James Tissot (Public Domain)

The gospel today is well known to anybody who has spent any time in church. Please bear with me as I quickly summarize it. A couple guys were walking down the road away from Jerusalem. They met a stranger which turned out to be Jesus walking along who apparently hadn’t heard the big news of the day. They told him it was widely rumored that Jesus of Nazareth had been resurrected from the dead. After telling this stranger the news the stranger who we know to be Jesus used scripture to let them know that this event had been preordained. Then as it came to be late in the day they invited Jesus to have supper with them which he did. During supper he took bread and blessed it before breaking it. It was then they recognized the stranger as Jesus and went back to Jerusalem to tell everyone they had seen him.

The story asks some important questions. Here are a few. Why didn’t these men recognize Jesus since they apparently knew him on some level? Do we find Jesus or does Jesus find us? How important was it that they invited Jesus to have supper with them? What part does Eucharist play in the story?

Let me address the last three first. In scripture Jesus appears to always accept an invitation to someone’s home. On a couple of occasions he invited himself, but generally Jesus is a true gentleman. He usually only goes where he is invited. That’s a key for us. Jesus has “found” these men on the road and they had the good sense or manners to invite him in. We can do the same. These men found Jesus through simple hospitality and friendship. That is where we will find him too.

And then the reference to these men recognizing Jesus the moment he breaks the bread is important too. This is an obvious reference to Eucharist, our breaking of bread during the celebration of communion. This is where we can discover Jesus again and again in the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup.

Then there is the first and most obvious question. Why didn’t these men recognize Jesus, especially since they had known him on some level? Why didn’t they recognize him? I am going to tell you a story I last told six years ago that I think addresses the question. I hope you find some meaning in it.

Belen, New Mexico is a sleepy little town of about seven thousand people just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s primarily a bedroom community. Most people live in Belen and work in Albuquerque, making the short drive of just a few miles back and forth. The only business in Belen from a quick glance out the window as you pass through at seventy five miles per hour is the church business. You can see several spires from the freeway.

One of those churches is St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, an easy two blocks off the freeway. St. Joseph’s is a pretty impressive white stone structure with a capacity of about one hundred sixty people in its beautiful old sanctuary. Like most churches, attendance has fallen off from the hay days of the sixties, but for its’ two services at eight and ten the combined Sunday attendance is probably in the neighborhood of one hundred twenty people, not too bad in these days of shrinking churches. For Christmas and Easter they often push two hundred.

St. Joseph’s is famous for its outreach. They have a number of groups that meet there regularly like AA and the Boy Scouts, the sort of worthwhile groups most Episcopal Churches host. In addition, they have a food program providing canned goods during the week and sack lunches every Saturday. There is even a small amount of money available to help the homeless out with funds for bus rides and, once in a while, an overnight stay in a local motel.

St. Joseph’s is known throughout the area as an exemplary House of God, living out its Christian principles. Every place the Bishop goes she brags about St. Joseph’s and often suggests to other churches that they emulate some of the things being done there. And this is where our story begins.

On the third Sunday in September, Homecoming Sunday in fact, there were a couple new faces scattered about in the congregation. As most visitors do, they arrived without a lot of fanfare a few minutes before the beginning of the ten o’clock service and quietly found a place to sit. They even managed not to displace any regular members who, although there was no sign indicating so, seemed to believe that they owned a certain seat in the pews.

After the service the visitors were invited to that famous Episcopal tradition, the coffee hour, and some of them went. One visitor, a Latino fellow with a certain quiet confidence about himself, chatted with several of the longtime members, who later seemed to clearly remember him and the manner in which he spoke and carried himself. The Rector and his associate both chatted with him too and, though they would never admit it to anyone else, found him to be a little intimidating in some way they just couldn’t quite put their fingers on. Maybe it was the fact his name was Jesus, but then why would that have bothered them? Lots of Latino men are named Jesus.

As time passed Jesus kept coming to church and became more and more well known in the congregation. Both men and women were drawn to him and his welcoming personality. He was invited to any number events, many of which he attended. He especially seemed to like the pot lucks and he was a regular at Bible study.

He did have one character flaw though. He almost immediately started bringing unsavory people with him to church. This made everybody a little uncomfortable, especially at coffee hour. Some of them looked like they hadn’t changed clothes in a while. A few others weren’t always as quiet as you might expect a person to be in church. A couple of times he brought known community outcasts with him, people who were known trouble makers or had a bad reputation of one kind or another. Many of the congregants urged the rector to speak with Jesus about this issue but the timing never seemed right. Besides, Jesus was such a great guy and his friends never seemed to be a problem while they were at church with him. So the rector figured no harm no foul and left Jesus alone about this one issue for the most part. Ok he did ask Jesus a couple of times why he was associating with these people but it never went too far beyond that.

Here is where some of the real trouble probably began. You see Jesus knew his scriptures. It was almost eerie how well he did. It was much like he had been there for the actual events the stories were retelling. He pointed out things that were not in the center of the story, little things on the edges of the passage that turned the meaning just slightly and somehow made the scripture more personally meaningful to everyone in the room. If you didn’t know better you could almost sense that the Rector was becoming angry with Jesus, or maybe jealous with what he thought of as Jesus’ know-it-all attitude. He suddenly seemed a little stiff, and sometimes his words became a little sharp and snippy.

But it just couldn’t be true that this wonderful and popular rector was having problems dealing with his feelings about Jesus. He was just too nice a guy and being a Rector is a pretty serious and stressful business and that was probably the root of the issue. After all who could ever get mad at Jesus?

It all seemed to come to a head one Sunday, the third week in November, during the second service. A real pillar of the church was reading the second lesson in his normal, wonderfully schooled, baritone voice when he suddenly looked around wildly, made some strange strangling noises as he grabbed at his chest, and fell backwards from the lectern, to the horror of the entire congregation who looked on the events happening right in front of them in open mouthed wonder.

For a moment the place was frozen and time almost stood still, and then out of that silence, several people came back to reality and rushed to his aid. One of those was Jesus, who appeared to take charge of the situation, put his hands on Tom’s chest closed his own eyes as if praying, and then told Tom he was ok.

I kid you not. That’s what he said. “Tom you are ok.” And then he was. Tom sat up and glanced around with the strangest look on his face. He would swear later to anyone who would listen that he had been dead. He claimed he had died instantly of a heart attack, seemed to be traveling serenely toward the most beautiful light he had ever seen in the distance, and then suddenly found himself jerked back to St. Joseph’s and the lectern where the excitement had begun.

Jesus, for his part, asked people not to talk about what had happened and what they had seen. This, of course, did no good at all and the stories about him began to spread like wildfire throughout Belen and into Albuquerque.

From that moment people began to see Jesus in another way. Just who was this man who did the things he did and acted the way he acted? People were split. Some believed him to be really special, maybe someone sent by God. Others thought of him as perhaps some sort of magician. Others said he was talented, a really nice guy, but come on, he was nothing extra special. Everything would eventually be explained and the world would move on to the next attention grabbing sound bite. And yet his fame continued to grow.

One thing for sure was that folks in the area were lining up on one side in support of Jesus or the other thinking him to be some sort of a menace. The local clergy in Belen became upset as folks left their churches and started going to St. Joseph’s hoping to meet this fellow Jesus. Local businesses, on the other hand, were happy to welcome the new visitors to Belen because it meant new income streams for them. There were even street venders selling little trinkets commemorating all the excitement that was building.

Jesus however seemed pretty unfazed by the whole thing. All the questions he was being asked seemed to amuse him more than anything else. Even when the bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and some of her cronies, came to see him and grill him on his interpretations of scripture he just kept on keeping on. When the Bishop seemed to get a little miffed with him and stormed back to Albuquerque he took it all in stride.

And then one day he just up and left town. He didn’t say goodbye. His parting words to his closest friends were just asking that they love one another, and remember him once in a while when they sat down to have a meal. Perhaps he would return one day.

And so the story ends. They are still telling it in and around town. Just exactly who was that guy? Isn’t it incredible they never really figured it out?

The Second Sunday in Easter: Doubting Thomas

April 19, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

Doubting Thomas, Giovanni Serodine (Public Domain) — *Doubting Thomas*, Giovanni Serodine (Public Domain)

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

—John 20:19-31 (NRSV)

We are one week after Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday. The day we celebrate God’s gift to us of eternal life through the resurrection of God’s son Jesus Christ. It’s the ultimate good news of the gospel. And what do we have today? We have another story of witness to the resurrection. It’s quieter and intimate but startling and it is relate-able. We get to hear the story of Thomas, someone who puts some significant parameters around his acceptance of the resurrection.

This is where our own experience might overlap with Thomas and what makes him so relate-able. As much as we have celebrated the resurrection, we want to accept fully, we want to believe with every bit of our heart and mind, it’s so overwhelming that we too can fall into a place of having doubts. This too is good news. The freedom to doubt and wrestle with ideas about God and our relationship with God are important to our own formation just like it was for Thomas.

We are creatures who crave certainty. We search for order to make sense of things, to understand the world, to organize all the data that comes to our awareness. We want a logical explanation to solve the problems that we encounter.

Faith defies that process. Faith is a mystery of the heart that the mind wants to solve. Still, we want faith to be shored up by certain evidences so that the leap of faith is a manageable one.

In Easter season we celebrate the biggest mystery of faith: that Jesus died for the sins of the world and that he rose from the grave. This last fact is the hardest one for us to grasp even compared with all the other stories we know about Jesus healing miracles, walking on water, evading danger from those out to trap him – the resurrection is the hardest thing for our minds to take in. Nothing in life is more certain than death. Or more permanent. For Jesus to be raised from the dead bogles the mind. It just can’t happen. This is where Thomas is coming from.

History has not treated this disciple kindly. Thomas is routinely thought of as a spiritual ne’er do well because he placed conditions around belief. But that’s not giving him a serious look.

Earlier in the gospel of John, we read of Thomas at his best. In John Chapter 11, Jesus’ desire was to return to Judea to raise Lazarus from the dead. But the apostles were afraid for Him to go back, because that would likely mean His death — and their death. However, it’s not Peter, James or John who rallies the troops. It’s Thomas: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Loyal and courageous Thomas would rather risk death with his Teacher than live without him.

And Thomas is the one we most often hear from in our burial liturgies. When Jesus tells the disciples on their last evening together that he is going to prepare a place for them he says “you know where I am going and you know the way.” How many of us have heard those words and thought “what does he mean? What way?” I wonder if the other disciples that night sat by quietly and wondered the same thing. Thomas had the courage to speak up and say “what do you mean? We don’t know the way.” Jesus answers him. I am the way, Jesus says, and the truth and the life. To know me is to know God.

What we see in Thomas are acts of sacrifice and commitment. Is this is the same Thomas we’ve come to know as “doubting Thomas”? It is. He didn’t always have the answers. He wasn’t afraid to voice his doubt. But Thomas was a great servant. A better moniker for him might be Demanding Thomas, Defiant Thomas or Spiritually Ambitious Thomas. What he wants here is a first-hand experience of Jesus’ presence and he describes that experience as both visual and tactile.

If we think of Thomas as a model for a certain way of believing then he is a follower who craves intimacy with Jesus.

And how did Jesus respond? Jesus’ invitation was to touch, not just look and certainly not to belittle Thomas or deny him that intimacy that Thomas craved. Jesus sets for the disciples and for us the example of generosity by his offer of touch. And Jesus’ offer to come and touch made real for Thomas the resurrection of Jesus and the reality of eternal life. This is the resurrection story that we hear today.

Physical touch is often taken for granted, but scientists are finding it plays a vital role in healing. For some, physical touch is a welcomed gift. Hugs are a great way of offering hope and reassurance. It's a way of connecting without saying a word. Physical touch can communicate, "I feel your pain. I see you. I understand what you're going through."

I love Frederick Beuchner’s description of touch: “I hear your words. I see your face. I smell the rain in your hair, the coffee on your breath. I experience you within myself just as you within yourself experience me. But we don’t entirely meet until something else happens. We shake hands perhaps. We pat each other on the back. At parting or greeting, we may even go so far as to give each other a hug. And now it has happened. We discover each other to be flesh and bone, 3-dimensional, solid creatures of reality. Through simply touching, more directly than in any other way, we can transmit to each other something of the power of the life we have inside us. It is no wonder that just the touch of another human being at a dark time can be enough to save the day.”

There have been many studies performed on the healing power of touch. Doctors have found, through laboratory tests such as MRIs, that there are evident changes in the patterns of brain activity during touch. Certain types of endorphins are released resulting in a sense of relaxation and peace.

It occurs to me as I was reading this in this time when we are together electronically that we are in a position of imagining touch and connection and connectivity with one another in a new way. And that many of us are grieving that lack of ability to physically touch. There’s no doubt that God made some of us huggers and the huggers are especially grieving right now.

Part of grieving is the process of finding a new normal. Those of you who have been through loss understand this. It’s finding what in you is essential and feeding and supporting that essential part of you.

Bishop Jake Owensby had some interesting thoughts on this. He pointed out that each individual life consists of habits. Habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. It’s our normal. And some of that normal—even good and beloved parts of it—must be left behind to allow something more to emerge. An old self must die so that a truer, more loving self can emerge.

Followers of Jesus are resurrection people. We’ve staked our lives on the promise that, as Paul puts it, those who are in Christ are a New Creation. And to be a new creation means that we not only accept but look for a new normal.

The Apostle Thomas understood that Jesus was talking about a new normal. Thomas saw that the new normal meant that he would have to let go of the comforts of the old normal. Thomas, it seems, wanted reassurance from Jesus himself before he let go of the old normal. Reassurance that letting go is the way to the new normal.

I’ve spent some time the last few weeks talking to people at St. Matthias. And almost everyone is staying in contact with at least one or two others. People are attending worship, Bible study, just simply calling their friends who they miss seeing and talking to. Checking to see if they need anything. You’re doing amazing ministry with each other. You are finding a new normal – new ways to touch one another. You are making resurrection. Resurrection is a daily celebration over fear; our most powerful enemy. Fear of tomorrow, fear of what shall become of us in these unprecedented crazy times. Resurrection replaces fear with touching in new ways of love.

This story is a great witness to us and for us. We couldn’t be there in the room when the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples. But someone much like us was. Thomas with all his questions and conditions and needs to touch found resurrection that he could hold onto. My Lord and My God. May fearless, joyous resurrection today be every bit as real and compelling for each of you. Amen.

Easter Sunday

April 19, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

—Matthew 28:1-10 (NRSV)

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

We proclaim this every year at Easter and then we get together with family and friends and have a celebration. Here is a cute little story about a grandfather and his granddaughter at an Easter get together.

The little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap. She loved doing that and he loved having her there. After a bit she began to gently touch his face. She followed the outline of some of the lines on his face and forehead. And then she asked a question.

“Grandpa did God make you?”

“Yes, sweetheart he did”, he replied.

“Did God make me too?”

“Yes God did”, he said.

She thought about it for a minute then said, “God is getting a lot better at it isn’t he?”

I have told that joke before. It’s one of my favorites.

Christ is Risen! Every Easter we make a new commitment to ourselves and God. Each year we decide we will do a better job of keeping our eyes on Jesus. And every year the cares of the world take over don’t they? Our commitment is drowned in daily living. You know what these issues are as well as I do.

This year we are especially challenged. We not only have the usual culprits that assail us, we are dealing with a pandemic. We are confined to home. We are afraid of catching the virus. People are sick and dying. We can’t go to the places we are accustomed and unbelievably we can’t go to church this Easter. What a mess.

And yet we know we will go on. We always do in spite of everything going on around us.

Those in the Holy Land at the time of the life of Jesus have a similar story. They spent time with him. They grew to love him. Their expectations of him were immense. He was their way out from under the thumb of the Roman Empire, or so it was commonly thought.

And then their hopes were dashed. Jesus was crucified. Everything had come to an end. Their sadness was deep and painful. Their sense of loss was overwhelming. For two days the world was dark and meaningless. But then God did something incredible, something unheard of. Jesus was resurrected from the dead. He was with them for several weeks afterwards.

And then he was gone again, returning to eternity.

Those that had known him closely or peripherally had a choice to make. They could choose faith, hope, and love, or turn to disbelief. They chose to believe. They chose faith, hope, and love. Why, we wonder?

They made that choice because it was true. Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. They were certain of that fact. They understood by that event everything had changed in an incredible way.

The foundation of my personal understanding of the resurrection is found in the writings of St. Paul. This is because they are historical documents, never meant to be part of some holy tome. They were letters written to communities he had founded speaking to certain issues that had arisen. We were never meant to see or hear them. And it is this fact that allows us to look through the window of history into the first century with great certainty.

My personal faith cornerstone is the First Letter from Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 3 through 8. I quote it now.

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

Cephas, by the way, was Peter’s nickname and James was Jesus’ brother. This passage is a very clear statement of fact. Jesus had risen from the dead and a lot of people experienced that fact. If you hadn’t seen him yourself you knew someone who had. It’s clear and concise. Jesus rose from the dead. The case is closed and the prosecution rests.

Life today is currently tough. This pandemic is taking a toll in so many ways. People are sick and dying. We are stuck at home and don’t know when we will be able to get out. People are going broke, as are businesses. Life is a mess. I won’t sugarcoat it. We don’t know what the future looks like. We can guess, but we only know a few things for sure.

But here is one of thing we do know. Easter will keep showing up. Babies will be born for us to love. Music will fill the air and we will be touched by it. People will laugh and be relieved for a little. Old love will flourish and new love will blossom. The sun will shine. The stars will come out. Plants will grow and flowers will come forth from them. New life will be evident once again. And all these will be Easter moments, evidence that God is still here, the author of all beauty and life. God will continue to love us, and be there right alongside us no matter what we encounter.

And for each of us worshiping today we will continue to discover Jesus. We will find him in scripture. We will feel his presence in worship. We will see his face in each other’s countenances.

And whatever faith you have will be enough. Don’t beat yourself up over the doubts that all of us carry. No matter if it is only the faith of a mustard seed. God will use it and nourish it. God loves us too much to lose any of us.

And finally today I have a personal Easter story. It began on Good Friday during the seven pm service. Now Good Friday is miserable for me. Experiencing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is horrible. Nothing could be darker. But at exactly nine minutes after seven I got a text from my daughter. Please forgive me for having looked at it. Had I been in church I would not have.

You see she was texting to tell me about an Easter event that had just happened in the middle of the darkness. The event’s name is Andrew, a seven pound, five ounce baby boy. Our family has a new member. My first great-grandson, had just been born.

God had caused light to shine in the darkness once again. Alleluia! He is Risen!

Guarding your Mental Health during COVID-19

April 13, 2020 Andrea Schmid

By Ben & Sarah Corbitt

Many of you have probably found yourselves in the same boat as us lately. Life was fairly normal up through mid-March, and then suddenly we had much more free time on our hands due to COVID-19 and the stay-home orders and economic shutdowns the virus has brought into our lives.

As school psychologists, we spend a lot of time advising students about ways to guard their mental health during normal times. During extraordinary times, these concerns have become all the more important. While many of us are spending much more time in close quarters, here are some things to be aware of.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advise to be on the lookout for stress during this outbreak, which can be accompanied by the following signs:

Fear and worry about your own health, or health of your loved ones
Changes in sleeping or eating patterns
Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
Worsening of chronic health problems
Worsening of mental health conditions
Increased use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs

The CDC offers the following healthy advice to combat stress:

Take a break from the news. There is little value in repeatedly hearing the same information.
Take care of your body. This can include breaks for deep breathing, stretching, or meditating; eating healthy, well-balanced meals; getting plenty of sleep; avoiding drugs and alcohol; and exercising regularly. (Get creative with free workout routines on YouTube which require minimal exercise equipment.)
Practice enjoyable activities. Needlework, crossword puzzles, musical instruments, and other hobbies can keep your mind engaged while you shelter in place.
Maintain personal connections. Being at home doesn’t have to mean being isolated. Use phone calls, email, texting, or face-to-face technologies (Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, etc.) to keep in touch with those you love. Also don’t forget the value of an old-fashioned handwritten letter.

If anxiety, depression, or other stress-related symptoms continue to worsen, reach out to someone who can help. This might mean:

Your personal healthcare provider
One of our St. Matthias Stephen Ministers (contact Fr. Bill for more information)
Disaster Distress Helpline (1-800-985-5990, or text TalkWithUs to 66746)
Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255)
In a mental health emergency, call 911

We are all in this together, even if it feels like we are dealing with this crisis alone. We hope to see you all again in person when this is over.

Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels — Photo by **VisionPic .net** from **Pexels**

Is God Mad at Us? Has He Walked Away?

March 31, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

We are mired in a pandemic, stuck at home with probably too much time on our hands. I have been expecting to hear the cries of those who theorize they understand the reason for what is happening and sure enough, they are beginning to make themselves heard. Here is the basic message. “God is mad or God is tired of being ignored and has left us to our own devices. We brought this on ourselves because we are bad people.”

To start our discussion here is a Bible verse speaking to just this subject.

“At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’”

— Luke 13:1-5

Michelangelo’s “God” from “The Creation of Adam”

The message is pretty clear. What kind of people they were had nothing to do with their fate. Stuff happens. All are judged equally. Each of us need the forgiveness of God, none more or less than another. What happens in life has nothing to do with our character or our actions. Life can be wonderful and it can be hard, but God is not pulling the strings.

Instead I would submit that God suffers when we suffer. God cares deeply about us and, as Jesus did at the death of Lazarus, sheds tears in empathy and compassion during our sorrows.

God is on our side folks. God loves us in ways we cannot possibly understand. The pandemic is the pandemic. It has nothing to do with God other than the fact that God joins us in our sorrow for the suffering and those who love them.

The Fifth Sunday in Lent: Waiting for Jesus

March 29, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

The Raising of Lazarus, by Duccio, 1310–11

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

—John 11:1-45 (NRSV)

This morning we are talking about waiting. It seems we do a lot of that but I suppose we are doing even more of that these days. So here’s a funny to start the conversation.

Three fellows were sitting in the waiting room of the hospital where their wives had gone into labor and the nurse walked out and said to the fellow sitting closest to the door, “Congratulations sir, you’re the new father of twins!”

The man replied, “How about that, I work for the Doublemint Chewing Gum Company.” The man then followed the nurse to his wife’s room.

About an hour later, the same nurse entered the waiting room and announced that Mr. Smith’s wife had just had triplets. Mr. Smith stood up and said, “Well, how do you like that, I work for the 3M Company.”

At that same moment the third fellow got up and started to leave. When the nurse asked him why he was leaving, he remarked, “I think I need a breath of fresh air. I work for 7-UP.”

Personally, I hate waiting, for anything. Folks who know me really well recognize that I am more than a little impatient. I try not to be as it’s a particularly unwelcome trait for a priest but there you go. Nobody’s perfect. But then after all these years together you are well aware of many of my imperfections.

Sometimes waiting is just a nuisance and sometimes what you are waiting for is so important that your heart is in your throat by the time the waiting is over. One of the things we all have to do occasionally is wait in a line. These days, even more often than in the past, we are made stand in line. I have now seen on two occasions incredibly long lines of people waiting to get into Costco. So, I thought I would do a little research on the subject of waiting.

Americans spend an estimated 37 billion hours waiting in line each year. On the other hand internet users are an amazingly impatient bunch. They are willing to wait an average of only two seconds for what they are seeking to arrive. After 5 seconds the abandonment rate is 25% and by 10 seconds half are gone.

When we are unoccupied the time seems to go slower. Therefore, waiting in line with nothing to do seems to make the time seem to almost come to a standstill. This promotes impatience, stress, and anxiety. So what do we see these days when people are waiting in line? They are looking at their cell phones.

On the other hand, what if we used these times to take a break and promote our inner peace and happiness? The Japanese have a term called “ma” which refers to a gap, a pause or negative space between things. Thinking about that concept can lead us to use these lulls in our lives for our inner benefit.

Here are some ideas about waiting in line. Smile at somebody. Take a look around and become aware of your surroundings while settling into the space. Let someone who is in a rush cut in front of you. Make a mental list of things you are grateful for. Take some deep breaths. Daydream. Send a kind thought to someone you love. Pray.

But then there are times of waiting that are excruciating. Most of us have experienced them. You have your own examples that are occurring to you right now. Today’s gospel story is one of those, I think.

It’s that famous story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life. We have all seen it on TV and at the movies. No decent Bible flick would be without it. But like in all the miracle stories much gets overlooked. One of those things in this story is the waiting.

In the gospel story Jesus has been asked to visit his sick friend Lazarus. When asked to come Jesus said that he would be ok, that he wasn’t going to die. By that we are led to understand that Lazarus wasn’t going to die.

But he did.

This is the first century. If Lazarus is sick, it’s serious. There are no drugs, no vaccines, no antibiotics. If you picked up a virus or another type of bug as often as not you were in deep trouble. Think coronavirus on steroids.

Now consider Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus and two of Jesus’ best friends. They have had Jesus in their home. They have witnessed some of his miracles. They know he is incredibly special, that God works through him.

Martha and Mary were positive that Jesus would be able to heal their brother. Can you imagine their disappointment when it is relayed back to them that Jesus said he was going to wait to visit them? What! Wait? He is going to die if you wait!

And he does die.

Can you imagine their sense of loss? Can you imagine their regret and, honestly, their anger with Jesus? Please remember the resurrection hadn’t happened yet. The immortality of Lazarus was not assured. The story hasn’t been written. Game, match, set, done. His life is over.

Finally, Jesus did get there. The mourning was in full swing. Martha met Jesus as he approached. Her words were accusatory. I can hear the tone in her voice. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”

Imagine her state of mind. Was she ready to dump Jesus? Had she lost faith in him? Was she angry with him? Was her grief magnified because she knew Jesus had delayed coming, that the death of her brother was unnecessary?

And then Jesus started to weep.

Weeping comes from deep inside. It comes from empathy, compassion, and grief. We are told that Jesus was deeply moved, disturbed in spirit. Jesus, who is the physical manifestation of God, is not some far removed deity, but rather a God that cares deeply, is moved to tears, and empathizes deeply with our pain.

And so we hear the rest of the story. Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. And I think it’s worth asking an important question. Why? Why did he do that?

The first answer is his great compassion. He was deeply troubled by the grief his friends were feeling. He cared deeply about their pain. It was the same compassion he had felt for the woman who had lost her husband and then her son and was alone in a first century world. He brought that woman’s son back to life too if you will recall.

But I don’t think love and compassion are the final reason he did what he did. You see pain and loss are never the end in God’s world. Resurrection is the end in God’s world. We are a people of resurrection, not resuscitation. People suffer a loss they think they cannot recover from but they do and enter a new life. We reach the end of our lives here on earth but find life isn’t over, only changed.

This pandemic is a great opportunity for all of us. We are all waiting for Jesus to get here, just as Martha and Mary were. But our time isn’t God’s time. Our ways are not God’s ways. Yet this we do know. Hang on. Jesus is going to get here. His tears are real for us are real. And we will have resurrection, new life. It’s how things are done in the Kingdom of God. It’s going to be ok.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent: Making Ethical Decisions

March 22, 2020 Andrea Schmid

by Fr. Bill Garrison

Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.

“The Healed Blind Man Tells His Story to the Jews” - James Tissot

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

—John 9:1-41 (NRSV)

For her entire life, 48-year-old Madison Powell heard the constant refrain, “Stop being so indecisive!”

And she tried, she really did. As a child, she practiced making smaller decisions of lesser import, like choosing Cheerios over Raisin Bran for her breakfast - only to find herself plagued with doubts while eating her Cheerios, wondering whether the Raisin Bran, or even Corn Flakes, might have been more enjoyable.

As a single adult woman, her indecisiveness caused her relationships to suffer, as she pored over restaurant menus while on dates, sometimes taking 30-40 minutes to choose a dinner entrée - only to change her mind the moment the waiter asked for her order.

Her indecisiveness affected her professional success, too. “Getting dressed for work in the morning was a nightmare,” she confided. “Should I go with the black dress or the maroon sweater with the charcoal-gray pencil skirt? Patent leather pumps or the adorable ballerina flats? There are always so many wonderful options that, “it was sheer agony to choose just one.”

Things came to a head when, at the age of 45, Madison was forced to choose between two suitors. There was Keith, a successful and powerful advertising executive determined to bring New Age ethics to the business of psychological manipulation for profit. And then there was Greg, an introspective research scientist devoted to studying the habits of Japanese beetles.

“I couldn't do it,” said Madison. “I just couldn't do it. And at that point, I realized that indecisive was just who I was. Why should I have to make a choice?” So, she didn't. In effect, she became anti-choice.

That approach worked out spectacularly with Keith and Greg, who both grew so frustrated at her indecision that they dumped her - leaving Madison so happily single that she realized she'd never truly been in love with either of them (she's pretty sure).

“It's just like the Rush song says - 'If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.' That says it right there! I found that when you don't make decisions, life decides for you. And life sometimes comes up with some amazing ideas.”

For that reason, Madison decided simply to continue being indecisive. Immediately thereafter, though, she wondered whether in doing so, she'd just gone back on her decision. And if so, was that okay?

Madison's not going to decide.

Today lots of decisions are being made about the “virus” and everything surrounding it. Schools are closed along with churches and many businesses and other sorts of organizations. The government on every level is making decisions that impact everyone in society. We are being asked to make choices about staying home, going to work or play, and when to seek medical attention or not. As we think about decision-making this morning we wonder how we might make ethical decisions especially. What is an ethical decision? What goes into the thinking of an ethical decision? How do we arrive at the proper ethical decision?

Carole Horton-Howe and I were talking about seminary classes the other day and we remembered that we shared a professor for our ethics class. We took the class at different times but from the same teacher. I don’t pretend to be an expert in ethics but I am somewhat conversant in the subject, hopefully enough for our purposes this morning. Here is some of what I learned.

To begin with in my mind there are three primary schools of thinking when it comes to making an ethical decision. We will review them in an order that fits our conversation and fits the gospel which we will eventually tackle.

The first would be Utilitarian Ethics. This is making a decision that will benefit the most people with the resources available. As an example suppose this current virus situation outstrips our medical community’s ability to handle it. Who will get medical attention in that event and who won’t? Someone will have to make a decision eliminating some people so that the resources available help the majority. Perhaps those too sick to help will be abandoned. Perhaps those that aren’t very sick will not be treated. Or perhaps the decision will be some mix of each. Maybe another way of attacking the issue will be found.

The second school of ethical decision making is Deontological in nature. This means rules, decision-making governed by rules. We seek a rule for every decision to be made. The speed limit is thirty miles an hour. So stay at a lower speed. No exceptions. Give ten per cent of you income. No exceptions. (I thought that would get a reaction.)

So let’s say in the current virus situation the rule is that patients are served in the order they arrive at the hospital. This would work as the general rule of thumb wouldn’t it? Unless of course we have limited resources or someone has greater need or some other extraneous factor were present. Then we have to decide when to break a rule and what sort of a price we are willing to pay for having broken it. Is it ok to break the speed limit to get a pregnant woman to the hospital? Hmmm.

And then we have the third form of ethics. This is the one in which we have a lens through which we view a situation. The lens might be previous experience. It might be the advice of a respected person or council. It might be a religious leader. It might be a conception of God’s desires. Whatever the lens is that we choose to run our decision-making through we use that lens to help reach a final decision.

For the Christian the lens through which we make important decisions is Jesus Christ. As a result we are led to ask a famous and important question. What would Jesus do? What decision would Jesus make if faced with the same issue?

In the gospel today we heard a story about an ethical decision that Jesus made. Let’s set the story up with a little background, some of the same information we covered a couple of weeks ago. Here is a very quick review.

The Pharisees were students of scripture. They were the founders of what is called the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah was designed to flesh out the true meaning of the written word. It recognized metaphor within scripture and didn’t take everything literally as the Sadducees did.

The example to which we continually refer is the Sabbath day. Scripture says to keep it holy and not do any work, but what does that mean? Through the work of the Oral Torah the Pharisees had decided the answers to this issue and made up a list of does and don’ts. What you are permitted to do and what you weren’t. Referring back to our discussion of a few minutes ago we see that the Sabbath rules were Deontological weren’t they? Ontological ethics is all about rules. Rules work great until they don’t.

Today’s gospel takes place on the Sabbath and Sabbath rules were in effect. No work. Apparently healing someone was considered work and was on the list of don’ts. Jesus had to make a decision whether to heal the man or not. If he followed the rules he wasn’t allowed to heal him. He therefore had to break the rule if he was to heal him. Jesus broke the rule.

Why would he do that? The man had been blind since birth. Was one more day of blindness really going to make any difference?

Apparently for Jesus one more day was one day too many. He made some things apparent. Human suffering is more important than Sabbath rules and when suffering is encountered it is to be taken care of now, not later. Nothing is more important.

We say that if we want to discover the nature of God all we need do is study the life of Jesus Christ. This is also how we develop and focus our ethical lenses. So what do we find when we do study Jesus? Please see if you agree with me. We find compassion for one, and intelligence for another. We find love, an incredible love that’s impossible to wrap one’s head around. Common sense abounds in everything he did. There’s more, but you get the point. Everything Jesus did pointed in the “right” direction.

The temptation would be to make lists of his virtues and use the lists much as the Pharisees used Torah. I am certain doing that would dismay him. And so here is the point. Christian decision-making is best understood as a combination of our intelligence and experience, the input of other human beings, and running all of that through the lens of Jesus Christ, as we ask the big question. What would Jesus advise us to do in this particular instance?

So I think our invitation in this uncertain time is to partner with Jesus all the time in our decision-making, but especially now. These are difficult times. Decisions are being made for us and we are making decisions for ourselves and others. Let’s remember to partner with Jesus for all of them. His input changes things sometimes and confirms things at other times. He is the difference maker as we travel down the road deciding which fork to take.

COVID-19 Update: Services and Meetings on Zoom

March 21, 2020 Andrea Schmid

In compliance with California’s Stay at Home order, we will no longer be live-streaming services from the church. Instead, we have adopted Zoom, a teleconferencing service that offers a more interactive experience. This will allow us to include multiple speakers as well as music during the service. We will also be using Zoom for smaller meetings. (If you have questions about how your ministry or small group can use Zoom, please contact Andrea Schmid at andrea@stmatthiaswhittier.org.) Continue reading for more information about how Zoom works and how you can connect to Sunday services and Bible study meetings.

WHAT ZOOM ALLOWS US TO DO

The church, through our paid account, can host meetings of up to 500 people that last up to 24 hours. We will use this feature for Sunday services and longer meetings.
Individuals can create free accounts and host meetings of up to 100 people that last up to 40 minutes. We can use this feature for one-on-one conversations and shorter group meetings.
Those who sign in using a computer or smartphone with a camera can both see and be seen (though you can also choose to keep your own camera off while you watch).
Those who are unable to connect via the Internet can dial in and listen over the phone.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SUNDAY SERVICE

Take some time to prepare. Print out the worship bulletin for March 22 (though, due to circumstances, we will only use the first half) or look up the readings for the day at https://www.lectionarypage.net/ and have your own Bible and Book of Common Prayer handy. If you plan to use your smartphone, download the Zoom app.
A few minutes before 10:00 a.m., go to https://zoom.us/j/522608831 or dial +1 669 900 6833 and enter meeting ID 522 608 831.
When you join the meeting, your camera and microphone will be turned off.
- Click the camera icon in order to allow the rest of the congregation to see you.
- Your microphone will remain muted throughout the service unless the meeting host allows you to speak.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN WEDNESDAY BIBLE STUDY (START DATE TBA)

Take some time to prepare. If possible, have your own Bible and Book of Common Prayer handy. If you plan to use your smartphone, download the Zoom app.
A few minutes before 10:00 a.m. go to https://zoom.us/j/778461428 or dial +1 669 900 6833 and enter meeting ID 778 461 428.
When you join the meeting, your camera and microphone will be turned off.
- Click the camera icon and microphone icons in order to allow the rest of the group to see and hear you.
- In order to avoid background noise, keep your microphone muted unless you are speaking. The meeting host may mute participants as needed.