Tag: God

From Cynic to Samwise (Rooted & Rising Series, Week 1 of 4)

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10, Year C)

Click here for the service BulletinDownload

Back in the 1990s, we used to have a famous TV show called Seinfeld. On that show, there was a character named George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander. If you’ve never seen the show, all you need to know is that George was a miserable and selfish little man.

One day, during a child’s birthday party, George noticed that a small fire had broken out in the kitchen. Rather than reach for a fire extinguisher, George screamed at the top of his lungs, “Fire! There’s a fire!” Naturally, the whole room of kids erupted into chaos at that moment. And George, rather than calmly directing people to the nearest exit, proceeded to shove the kids to the ground and step over them as he ran out of the apartment.

Later, when the parents of those children confronted George about his selfish behavior, George proceeded to defend his actions and twist the facts, claiming that he was not a coward, but a hero and a leader. George was cynical, fearful, and completely indifferent to the needs of other people.

After his pathetic attempt at self-justification, a firefighter stepped up and asked George, “How do you live with yourself?”

George replied, “It ain’t easy.”

If you’ve seen the show, or even if you only know George through the story I’ve just told, you’re probably shaking your head in disgust right now. But the truth is that there is a little bit of George Costanza in each of us. In the very least, I am absolutely sure there is in me.

When I turn on the daily news, I often feel terrified at what this world is becoming. In a vain attempt at self-protection, I take up the shield of sarcasm and fasten the breastplate of cynicism over my heart. And then, when I am thoroughly suited up, I turn a blind eye and an apathetic heart to the suffering of those around me. I pretend that, if I can’t feel it, it isn’t real.

Fear, cynicism, and indifference claim to be the defenders of human life, but in reality, are the enemies of the human spirit. Thankfully, there is a better way to defend both our lives and our souls from the onslaught of danger that the world sends our way.

Scientists have recently discovered that biological evolution is far less random and competitive than they previously thought. To be sure, random mutation and competition still play a role, but they are not the only factors that matter. As it turns out, evolution seems to be moving in a direction: toward greater and greater complexity of life. Single-celled bacteria gave rise to multi-cellular organisms. These multi-cellular organisms formed complex ecosystems and organized societies, which leads to the second stunning realization: That cooperation is at least as important to the progress of life as competition. We previously thought that evolution was only about “survival of the fittest,” but it turns out that it is also about “survival of the friendliest.” A single Neanderthal hunter cannot bring down a wooly mammoth by himself, but a cooperative hunting party can! It’s like they say: Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime; teach a community to fish and everybody eats! We can do more together than any of us can separately.

This is not just a biological fact; it’s also a biblical truth.

Today’s epistle reading, from the New Testament book of Colossians, shows us how to counter the negativity of cynicism, fear, and indifference with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

To begin with, we need to look at the context in which the book of Colossians was written. The author claims to be St. Paul the Apostle, but was probably just a student of his, writing in his name. This was a common practice in the ancient world.

In today’s world, we would call that forgery, but the ancient Greco-Roman world called it respect. It was common for a student to write in their teacher’s name as a way of saying, “Anything I know, I owe to my teachers, so I give all credit to them.” The great Greek philosopher Plato did the very same thing in relation to his teacher, Socrates. Modern historians have a hard time distinguishing between the sayings of Socrates and the sayings of Plato because the student wanted to give all honor and respect to the teacher who taught him everything he knows. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but one that also creates problems for modern historians who value accuracy over honor. Unfortunately, the ancient world does not play by modern rules, so we have to work with what we have. The author of the epistle to the Colossians was probably a student of St. Paul who loved their teacher very much and wanted to preserve his legacy for future generations.

The letter itself was probably written sometime after the year 80 CE, about 20 years after St. Paul is thought to have died. St. Paul himself wrote as if he was expecting Jesus to return and the world to end sometime before next Tuesday, so he didn’t bother too much with setting up sustainable systems of church government that could last for several generations. The author of Colossians, on the other hand, writes as if they expect to be here on this earth for a while, so they’d better figure out a way to live that is consistent with their Christian values, but also realistic for the world they have to live in.

It’s kind of like those times when you’re going out to dinner with your kids, and they want to bring their iPad into the restaurant, but you know that you’re about to be seated, so you tell them to leave it in the car. But then, after you check in with the greeter, you learn that there is a thirty-minute wait to be seated, so you begin to consider letting the kids get their iPads from the car. That’s what the author of Colossians is thinking about.

Thankfully, the author of Colossians is wise and knows how to compromise with reality without sacrificing the core ideals of their faith. They don’t start by complaining about what’s wrong, but by pointing to what’s right.

The author, writing in Paul’s name, says, “In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”

The author starts with thanksgiving for what is already there. Namely: faith, hope, and love. These three moral values are the antitheses of cynicism, fear, and indifference. Taken together, they form the polar opposite of everything that George Costanza stands for in Seinfeld. The author is not trying to instill these values in the Colossians, but giving thanks that they are already present.

What the author does pray for is an increase in wisdom, patience, and joy for the Colossians, so that they might remain faithful to what they already believe to be true.

Throughout this passage, the author repeatedly returns to the agricultural image of “bearing fruit.” They envision the spiritual life as a tree that is both rooted in love and rising to bear the fruit of love in the world.

Over the next three weeks, we are going to stick with this agricultural metaphor of being “Rooted and Rising in Love,” as we explore the epistle to the Colossians and consider what these ancient writings might mean for us today.

For now, I would like to invite you to consider the negative example of George Costanza from Seinfeld, as a person who is consumed by cynicism, fear, and indifference and acts accordingly in relation to his fellow creatures in the world.

On the other hand, I would also like to invite you to consider the positive example of another fictional character from literature: Samwise Gamgee from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Samwise, or Sam (as he is known to his friends), is the exact opposite of George Costanza in many ways. You need not have read The Lord of the Rings novels or seen the movies to understand what Sam is like. Unlike George Costanza, Sam is not concerned with his own self-preservation, but wants only to support his friend, Frodo the Ring Bearer. When his friend is in danger, Sam rises to protect him. When his friend is hurting, Sam rises to comfort him. When his friend falters in the task that has been given to him, Sam rises to carry him toward its completion.

In all things, Sam is Rooted and Rising in Love. He embodies the wisdom, patience, and joy that the author of Colossians prays for in the readers of this epistle.

In the film version of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo declares, “I can’t do this, Sam,”

And Sam then says to his friend:

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something… That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Kindred in Christ, that’s the message that the author of Colossians means for us to hear today. Over the next few weeks, we will unpack that message in greater detail.

Until then, I want to encourage you to hold on to these words from Samwise Gamgee. Hold onto them when you read the news headlines and are tempted to give in to the demons of cynicism, fear, and despair. Hold onto them in those moments when George Costanza seems wiser than Sam Gamgee. Hold onto them because the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ trumps the sinful despair of this world.

Hold onto what the author of Colossians knew, what Sam Gamgee knew, and what you know to be true. Don’t be deceived by the lies of this world, which is passing away. Hold onto the truth that is eternal, the truth that holds you in the strong arms of love itself. Hold onto the truth of Jesus in the midst of the lies of this world, so that you too might be “rooted and rising in love.” Hold onto it because it is already holding onto you with a love that will not let you go.

Amen.

You Are Loved, Now Act Like It!

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9, Year C)

Click here to read the biblical texts.

When I was in the seventh grade, I used to get picked on a lot. And I mean a lot. It was a hard time for me. Like many teenagers, I was lanky, awkward, and definitely didn’t have much in the way of social skills. Eventually, things got so bad that the vice principal of my school sat down with my parents and gently suggested that I take karate lessons for self-defense.

So I did. I signed up for a local dojo, and it turned out to be a great experience. I got active, I made a few friends, and I really liked my teacher: Shihan Jessie Bowen. He was a fifth-degree black belt and the founder of the school. On the dojo wall was a picture of him shaking hands with action movie star Chuck Norris. For a twelve-year-old boy, that’s about as cool as it gets!

I, on the other hand, was very much not Chuck Norris. I was barely good enough to show up to beginner-level sparring class. So you can imagine how much anxiety I felt when, one night at the end of class, Shihan Bowen called me up to fight him—one-on-one—in front of the entire group.

It was a five-point sparring match. We danced around each other. He threw a kick; I dodged. I lunged; he parried. Somehow, by sheer grace or fate or dumb luck, I managed to land the final point. I had beaten Shihan Bowen—Grand Master and founder of the school—by one point!

I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in my life, I felt powerful. I was used to being the one getting pushed around in hallways. But now, something I did made an impact on the world around me. I wasn’t invisible. I wasn’t powerless. I was victorious.

It wasn’t until almost fifteen years later that the truth of the situation finally dawned on me: Shihan Bowen was a grown man—a martial arts master. I was a twelve-year-old novice. Obviously: He let me win.

But here’s the thing: it still mattered. That moment changed something inside me. I stood a little taller after that match. I walked a little differently in the world. For the first time, I had tasted what empowerment felt like. And even though it was a gift, it was a gift that stayed with me.

Shihan Jessie Bowen
Image Source: LinkedIn.com

This week’s gospel reading from Luke is all about that kind of empowerment. Jesus sends out seventy of his followers in pairs—no supplies, no money, no backup plan—just each other and a blessing of peace. He tells them to cure the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the nearness of God’s kingdom.

This isn’t the first time Jesus does this. Back in the previous chapter of Luke’s gospel, he sent out twelve disciples with a similar mission. But here, the number is bigger. And in Scripture, numbers always mean something. The number twelve symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel—Jesus sending out the Twelve was like saying, “This mission I’m on? It’s not just about me. It’s for all of God’s chosen people.”

The number seventy, on the other hand, is the number of nations named in Genesis, chapter 10. In the ancient Jewish imagination, it represented the whole world. So when Jesus sends out the Seventy, it’s not just an expansion in logistics—it’s a cosmic statement: “This isn’t just about me, and it’s not just for Israel. It’s for everyone. Every nation. Every people. Every one of you.”

This is Jesus deputizing the Body of Christ.

He empowers them. Just like Shihan Bowen empowered me. They go out, they do the things he told them to do, and they come back ecstatic, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

You can almost hear the excitement: “We did it! We really did it! It worked!”

But then Jesus does something surprising. He doesn’t throw a party. He doesn’t say, “Great job, team!” Instead, he says, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

It’s kind of a buzzkill, isn’t it? It’s like scoring the winning goal and having your coach say, “That’s fine, but it’s not the point.”

But actually—it’s a beautiful moment of truth. By saying, “Your names are written in heaven,” Jesus is reminding them, and us, that their worth does not lie in their victories or their usefulness. Their worth lies in their belovedness.

Jesus is saying, “Do not rejoice in what you can do for God. Rejoice in who you are in God.”

That’s the heart of the gospel. Everything else flows from that.

You see, we live in a world that constantly tells us our value depends on what we accomplish. Your job title, your productivity, your bank account, your social media following—those are the metrics that define worth in our culture.

But the gospel tells us otherwise.

You are not the sum of your successes. On the other hand: You are also not the sum of your failures. You are not defined by the worst thing you’ve ever done. You are not your resume. You are not your criminal record. You are a beloved child of God, cleverly disguised as an accountant, or a teacher, or a retiree, or a sleep-deprived parent, or a seventh grader in a sparring match.

Your name is already written in heaven. That’s not just a metaphor for some far-off afterlife. It’s a present-tense truth about your identity right now.

What you can do flows out naturally from who you are. Empowerment comes from belonging. Jesus doesn’t say, “Go do this so that God will love you.” He says, “You are already loved. Now go act like it.”

Your identity—the deep, unshakeable truth that you are loved—is what empowers you to go out into the world and do the work of healing, reconciling, casting out the demons of hatred and despair, proclaiming peace, and planting flags of hope in a broken world.

In psychological terms, we might call this “self-efficacy”—the belief that you can take meaningful action, that your choices matter, that you are not powerless in the face of overwhelming odds.

That belief doesn’t just come from inside your head. It comes from the heart of God. You are internally anchored and outwardly faithful. Your power comes from your belovedness.

That’s why this passage ends not with fireworks but with a steady, grounding reminder. It’s not about demons submitting. It’s about walking through the world knowing your name is already written in love.

And from that place, you go.

You go to meet whatever lies ahead—not because you have to prove your worth, but because you carry it with you.

In 1955, a seamstress named Rosa Parks decided not to give up her seat on a segregated bus. A young pastor—only 26 at the time—named Martin Luther King Jr. joined the cause. Together, they sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the early fires in the movement for civil rights.

At the end of that long protest, someone asked an elderly woman if she was tired after walking instead of riding the bus for over a year. She famously said, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”

That’s what it looks like to be loved and to act like it. Tired feet. Rested soul. Internally anchored. Outwardly faithful.

Not everyone is called to make history. But all of us are called to make peace. To bear one another’s burdens. To plant a flag of love in our corner of the world.

So where is Jesus sending you?

You might not be called to march in Montgomery or cast out demons on command. But there is still injustice to confront. Still healing to offer. Still Good News to proclaim.

You might be called to speak peace in a family dispute.
To walk gently with someone in grief.
To show up for someone who thinks they don’t matter.
To bring your quiet presence to a place aching for hope.
To speak your “yes” or your “no” with courage and clarity.

And maybe most of all: to believe again that your life matters, and that your presence, however small it seems, makes a difference in the unfolding of the kingdom of God.

You don’t have to be dramatic. You don’t have to win.

You just have to show up.

Show up with your name written in heaven. Show up with nothing but love in your pocket. Show up knowing that even when the demons don’t flee and the healing doesn’t come, even when the sermon flops and the email goes unanswered, you are still loved.

That’s your true power.
That’s your unshakeable dignity.
That’s how you make a difference in the world.

One act of faithful presence at a time.

Amen.

Is Ketchup a Smoothie? A Sermon on (Not) Understanding the Holy Trinity

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Service Bulletin:

sermon and liturgy trinity c 2025Download

There are several different kinds of knowledge.

First, there’s book smarts, like knowing that tomatoes are a fruit and not a vegetable.

Then there’s practical wisdom, like knowing that it’s not a good idea to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.

And then there’s philosophy, like wondering whether that means ketchup is technically a smoothie.

Today, we’re going to be talking about that third kind.

Today, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, conventionally known in the Episcopal Church as “associate rector appreciation Sunday” because this is the week that senior rector’s most often take as their vacation. They would much rather leave the explanation of complicated and abstract concepts to those younger clergy who have more up-to-date seminary training. Since we don’t have an associate rector in our parish, and I failed to accurately calculate the week of my vacation, this enviable task has now fallen to me.

So, instead of building up to a conclusion, I’m going to cut straight to the chase. Here’s the main thing I’m going to say about the mystery of the Trinity:

If you think you understand the mystery of the Trinity, you do not understand the mystery of the Trinity; if you do not understand the mystery of the Trinity, you understand the mystery of the Trinity.

Got it? Good. Amen. Let’s all get out of here before the Methodists get the good lunch tables at the diner.

Of course, the problem is that this little riddle leaves us right back where we started, so we end up going around and around until our heads fall off… and that’s the point of the whole thing.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the primary Christian concept of God. According to the historical documents of the Anglican theological tradition, “we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor diving the Substance” (The Creed of St. Athanasius, BCP 864). The three Persons of the Godhead are “of one substance, power, and eternity” (Articles of Religion, BCP 867). Don’t worry, I can hear all of you mentally checking out, as we speak.

This is why I started with my main statement: If you think you understand it, you don’t understand it; if you don’t understand it, you understand it. It’s like wondering whether ketchup is a smoothie. The question itself supposed to break your brain, not to break it down, but to break it open and leave you slack-jawed in awestruck wonder at the unknowable mystery of ultimate reality.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly outlined in the Bible. It gradually came together, over the course of several centuries, as the greatest minds of the early Church contemplated their experience of God. Beginning with the monotheism of the Jewish tradition, the earliest followers of Jesus realized that they were, in some way that they couldn’t understand, experiencing the very presence of the God of their ancestors through this individual human being. How was that even possible? They had no idea; they just experienced it to be true. And then, just as mysterious, they continued to experience this Jesus as a living presence in the midst of their community after his death. How was that even possible? They had no idea; they just experienced it to be true. Their knowing had neither the categorical certainty of book smarts nor the effectiveness of practical wisdom. Their knowing was a knowledge of the heart: more like falling in love than solving a math problem. As the philosopher Blaise Pascal famously said, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”

After almost three hundred years of contemplation, the bishops of the early Church finally settled on the mystery of the Trinity as their non-answer to a question that, by its very nature, can never be answered. Whenever some innovative theologian claimed to have solved the mystery, the bishops of the Church were quick to stand up and pronounce that answer as a heresy, not because they thought that they had a monopoly on the truth, but because they believed that the main thing is to keep the question open.

If you think you understand the Trinity, you do not understand the Trinity; if you do not understand the Trinity, you understand the Trinity.

I love this central commitment of our faith tradition. We don’t claim to have the answers to ultimate questions. We sit in awestruck wonder before the mystery of reality. This is why I like to say that I couldn’t be a Christian, if I wasn’t also an agnostic.

The ultimate unknowability of the mystery of God affords Christians a certain playfulness, when it comes to expressing that mystery in various ways. The language of our tradition tends to default to language that is very personal, very masculine, and very hierarchical. Most of our prayers use words like “Father” and “Lord” to describe the mystery of God, but the witness of our sacred Scriptures point to a wide array of metaphors for expressing our faith in God.

In addition to the exclusively masculine language of Father, the Bible also describes God as a “Mother” (Isaiah 66:3). In addition to the hierarchical language of Lord, the Bible also describes God as a “Servant” (Luke 22:27). In addition to the numerous personal metaphors for God, the Bible also describes God as a “Mighty Rock” (Psalm 62:7), “Living Water” (John 7:38), “Rushing Wind” (Acts 2:2), and “Consuming Fire” (Hebrews 12:29). As I mentioned in a previous sermon, Jesus even compares himself to a chicken in Matthew 23:37.

Therefore, kindred in Christ, since the Bible itself gives us such a wide array of metaphors for the Divine, and since the bishops of the early Church were so doggedly committed to keeping open the question of God’s unknowable nature, we too ought to remain open to exploring a wide variety of metaphors for God.

God is with us always and in all things. Therefore, let us also look for her, for him, for them, for it, always and in all things. How is God like a cloud or a tree? How is God like a chair or a bookshelf?

Jesus, in his parables, often pointed to agricultural metaphors that were common to the everyday experience of ordinary people, when describing the realm of the divine. For Jesus, the realm of the divine was like a woman baking bread (Matthew 13:33), like crops growing in a field (Mark 4:26-29), like a merchant trading in the marketplace (Matthew 13:45-46), like a small seed growing into a great tree (Matthew 13:31-32). This is not an exhaustive list, by any means.

I want to encourage you today to be playful in the many ways that you imagine God to be present in your life. The language we use about God matters, not because we have to be careful to get it right, but because we cannot get it wrong. Everything is potentially a symbol of God, yet nothing fully encapsulates the mystery. Whenever we try to put God in a box, whether that box is Pope-shaped, Bible-shaped, Church-shaped, man-shaped, or colored white, we commit the sin of idolatry and close ourselves off to the great mystery of the divine.

God is with us always, and in all things, therefore let us keep open the question of what God truly is. Let each of us remain humble in our own conceptions of God and tolerant of the expressions of others. As brothers, sisters, and siblings, let us stand side-by-side, following the example of the Bible and the early Church, and maintain a posture of awestruck wonder before the divine mystery that is beyond our understanding.

A Prayer for Universal Oneness

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the seventh Sunday of Easter.

Click here for the biblical readings.

Today’s sermon is going to be a little bit different.

Rather than teach you about the spiritual principles that connect to our gospel reading, I am going to guide you into a meditative experience of those principles in action. If all goes well, you won’t have to have anyone explain these truths for you because you will know them yourself, in the very fiber of your being.

First, a little bit of setup:

Today’s gospel reading forms a kind of climax to the gospel according to St. John. The whole book has been building to this point. It begins with a series of poignant hints that Jesus drops about his true identity. The words he says, the things he does, and the people he meets all gesture toward some mysterious truth that will be revealed later on.

In the next section, Jesus starts to speak more openly about what this truth might be. Most people still don’t get it, but enough of them are scratching their heads enough to stick around and find out.

After that, Jesus begins a very confusing speech on the night before he dies. He seems to be talking in circles about metaphysical ideas that make no sense, even to his closest disciples.

Finally, he stops talking to his disciples altogether and speaks only to God, while the disciples listen in on the conversation.

That is the part of the story where our gospel reading picks up today. Jesus is talking to God and the disciples are listening in. What he says seems to go in circles and makes little sense to the rational mind.

In many ways, this is intentional. The story of John’s gospel starts with a wide view of Jesus and the people who knew him, but then gradually zooms in to Jesus and his disciples, Jesus himself, and finally inside the mind of Jesus to his personal relationship with God, like Father and Son.

Jesus’ words in this passage are mysterious and circular. If you feel dizzy when reading them, that’s good! It means you are paying attention. The mind of Jesus is a baffling place.

What we see, inside the mind of Jesus, is the interconnected web of all existence, going back to the beginning of time itself. He prays, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,” and then, “the glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.”

It’s meant to be confusing stuff. It’s supposed to leave us reaching for the bottle of Advil because we can’t fit the vastness of divine truth inside our tiny human brains. Any God that we could fully comprehend would not be worthy of name “God” and certainly not worthy of our worship.

So, instead of explaining himself to us, Jesus gives us the briefest of glimpses into his mind, so that we can experience the reality of sacred interconnectedness for ourselves.

The concept of sacred interconnectedness is not unique to Christianity or even to the subject of religion. Our neighbors who practice in the Hindu spiritual tradition believe that the Atman, the individual soul, is essentially one with Brahman, the ultimate reality. In the scientific field of quantum physics, subatomic particles are not separate bits of matter, but fluctuations of energy in a common field. What Jesus realized, along with spiritual masters and brilliant scientists of every time and place, is the truth that separateness is an illusion. What lies at heart of reality is an inexplicable and inexpressible unity. This is why he prays to his Father, in today’s gospel, “that they may be one, as we are one.”

The most fundamental spiritual truth of all reality is not that there is a God up in heaven, but that God can be found here and now, in the space between you and me. That is the truth that we get to glimpse in today’s gospel, and that is the truth that I hope you take away from today’s sermon.

If you are willing, I would like to invite you to join me on this journey into awareness of our fundamental oneness. This is a very personal journey that no one must undertake. The reality of it will remain true, whether you choose to join me or not, whether you choose to use the word “God” or not. This will be a journey of facts, not beliefs, so even those who do not identify as Christian can undertake it.

I invite you to begin by closing your eyes or letting them gently drop to a space right in front of you, if that is more comfortable to you…

Pay attention to the rhythm of your breathing. In and out, in and out…

Feel the weight of your body, sitting in the pew or chair where you are…

Notice the feeling of your feet on the floor, your back on the pew, and any other sensations that appear in your body…

If there are any little twitches or pains, just let them be for now…

Notice any thoughts that pop into your mind and then let them go…

Even if your thought is, “This is stupid,” that’s okay. Just let them come and go…

The goal is not to stop your mind from thinking, but to not be attached to these thoughts, as they come and go…

If you have a thought, just notice it and let it go, like a helium balloon floating off into the sky, and then gently return your attention to the rhythm of your breathing…

Recall the sum total of the events of your life that led you to this moment, where you are sitting in a pew…

Maybe you came here out of longstanding tradition or habit, or maybe you came because you are searching for something deeper in your life and are wondering whether this worship service might contain the answer to what you are searching for…

Consider the processes taking place within your own body at the cellular level…

Consider the millions of micro-organisms that exist in your gut and on the surface of your skin…

Consider the fact that there are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells…

Consider the words of the poet Walt Whitman: “I contain multitudes”…

Without opening your eyes or looking around, imagine the people around you in this room, all of them your fellow worshippers, on a common human journey to understand who we are, where we came from, and where we are going…

Each person’s journey is as unique as your own; no two are alike…

If you are comfortable with it, expand your awareness to the people who are not in this room…

Their life journeys, like ours, are utterly unique, but they share many of the same hopes, fears, and questions…

Now, if you are comfortable with it, consider the ground beneath the floor of this church…

Consider the many life forms that live there…

Imagine their connection to the trees, roots, and grass of the plants outside…

Think about the bodies of those plants absorbing moisture and nutrients from the soil and light energy from the sun…

Think about the flowers and fruits that grow from those plants…

Consider the animals that feed off those flowers and fruits…

Bees, squirrels, and other creatures…

Think about the carnivorous animals that feed on those animals, distributing the sun’s energy into the never-ending circle of life…

Consider what happens when those animals die, how their bodies return to the earth and fertilize the plants, thus beginning the cycle of life again…

Now, if you are comfortable, remember that all life on earth is carbon-based…

In all the universe, there is only one place where a carbon atom can be made: In the heart of a star…

All the carbon in your body once resided inside a star that went supernova, scattering the elements of life into the universe, where they were gathered again on the surface of this planet, and now take the shape that bears your name. This is why we can say, without exaggeration, that you are literally made of stardust…

Some worry that evolution means we are related to monkeys, but I say, “Don’t worry; evolution means that your ancestors are the stars themselves…”

Feel the truth of this scientific fact deep down in your bones, where it is literally true…

Feel the vast network of stars and galaxies that stretches out beyond the bounds of your imagination, reaching light years to the edge of the observable universe (and perhaps beyond), encompassing all of creation at distances that you could not begin to fathom…

Imagine each of those subatomic particles bursting into existence at the moment of the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago…

There are parts of your body that are as old as the universe itself…

When time itself began, you were there…

When the atoms of your body were formed in the heart of a star, you were there…

When the asteroid fell that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you were there…

The very same air molecules that you are currently breathing in may have also been inhaled by Abraham Lincoln, the Buddha, or Jesus of Nazareth…

As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “We are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality; what affects one directly, affects all indirectly…”

Keeping the cosmic scope of this meditation exercise in mind, I invite you to reconsider the words that Jesus prayed to his Father in today’s gospel:

“[I ask] that they may be one, as we are one.”

Do you get it?

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the sixth Sunday of Easter

Click here for the biblical readings

It’s always annoying when someone walks into a movie late and asks, “What’d I miss?”

My wife and I share equal blame for this particular crime against convenience. Not wanting to be a burden, one of us will say, on our way to the kitchen, “You don’t have to pause it; this will just take a second!”

Inevitably, the all-important snack retrieval process will take longer than expected and the kitchen-goer will miss some pivotal moment in the plot, leaving the other person with the unenviable task of rewinding the video or explaining what just happened. It would have been easier to just pause it, but we will probably never learn.

Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that’s exactly what has happened to us in today’s gospel. The editors of the Revised Common Lectionary (i.e. the three-year cycle of biblical readings that our church follows in its Sunday worship) decided to cut out the beginning of the scene that we read this morning. In this scene, Jesus is answering a question posed by one of his disciples, but we never get to hear what the question is!

So, for the sake of clarity, I would like to pause the movie and explain what happened while we were out of the room. (If anyone needs to go to the kitchen for a snack, now would be a good time.)

So, the verses we read this morning come from a section of John’s gospel called “The Farewell Discourse.” It takes place on the night before Jesus dies, just after he washes the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.

In the Farewell Discourse, Jesus answers three questions from three of his disciples: Thomas, Philip, and Judas. The passage we heard today is from Jesus’ response to the third disciple, Judas. The author of John’s gospel goes out of the way to let us know that this Judas is not the infamous Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, but another disciple of the same name.

Jesus had just finished explaining, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me” (John 14:19). Judas asked in reply, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world” (John 14:22)?

Today’s gospel picks up with Jesus’ response to this question:

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me” (John 14:23-24).

The context of Judas’ question is important for understanding Jesus’ response.

For centuries, many have wondered: Why do some people seem to “get it” when it comes to matters of faith, and others don’t?

Many potential answers to this question have been suggested. Some say that those who “get it” are those who are able to suspend their faculties of critical thinking and “just believe” without question. I can understand the appeal of this approach for those who aren’t constitutionally inclined toward philosophical discourse, but for those who are, this is a violation of their intellectual integrity. Belief without evidence, for such people, would be like asking any of us to betray our core moral convictions. If faith requires suspension of our moral reasoning, then faith is evil. I can understand why intelligent people of good conscience would reject faith on these grounds.

Others have suggested that the inability of some people to believe in Christ is due to the fact that God chooses some people to be saved and others to be damned. The so-called “elect” are predestined for salvation while the “reprobate” are doomed, no matter what they do, say, or believe. This was the view taken by John Calvin, who inspired the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions of Protestant Christianity. I don’t mean to be too harsh against our brother Calvin (or the Reformed/Presbyterian churches), because they too are our kindred in Christ, but I must protest (pun intended) that such a reliance on the sovereignty of God does violence to the loving character of God, who “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

The final answer to the objection that some seem to “get it,” when it comes to faith in Christ, while others don’t, comes from the atheists, who say that it is the atheists who fully realize the fact that there is no God, therefore those who believe in God are victims of a mass deception, designed to imprison credulous believers in a jail of their own imagination.

I deeply respect the commitment of said nonbelievers to their intellectual integrity, but I also question whether they have placed too much faith in their lack of faith. True skepticism must become skeptical of itself, if it is to remain true to its core belief in the power of open inquiry. The “maybe not” of the skeptic must also be the “maybe so” of the agnostic, if the principle of free thought is to be maintained.

It should come as no surprise that I reject all three of these explanations, though I can see the individual merits of each. The answer that Jesus gives, in response to Judas’ question in John 14, does little to address the doubts and conclusions of any of these groups.

The answer that Jesus gives is rooted, not in philosophical arguments, but in the principle of love. Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word.” Jesus’ word is his command. What is his command? He answers in chapter 15, verse 12: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Love for one another is his commandment.

What is the result of his commandment? He says so in today’s gospel: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).

To love our neighbor is to love Christ, and to love Christ is to love God, therefore the only way to love God is by loving one another. The New Testament makes this even more plain later on, when it says, in 1 John 4:20, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

Therefore, kindred in Christ, the answer to Judas’ question is not knowledge but love. We may never know, with any certainty, whether the basic tenets of the Christian faith are literally true, but we can prove the efficacy of our faith in the way that we treat each other, our neighbors, and even our enemies. I can’t prove to you the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, but I can hopefully demonstrate, in the way that I live my life, the truth that the meaning of life can be found in loving one another the way that Jesus loves us, without condition or proviso.

I dare to proclaim to you this morning that the meaning of life is love itself, and I have come to experience the ultimate expression of love through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray that my actions toward you will be a testimony to this love, and I pray furthermore, that your actions in this life will be a similar testimony to the living love of the risen Christ, who continues to love this world through you.

There is no proof I can offer of the truth of Christ, except the evidence of a life lived in love. I pray that you and I will be faithful in our living witness to the love of Christ. If I am right, then a life lived in love, in the name of Christ, will be all the proof we need.

Amen.

What is this world coming to?

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the fifth Sunday of Easter

Click here to read the biblical texts.

Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs.

That is a tenet of faith in which I wholeheartedly believe. I believe it because I have lived through it on multiple occasions.

One such occasion occurred when I was about thirty years old and still serving as a pastor in my previous denomination. A local news station in upstate New York, where I lived at the time, wanted to interview me on their morning show because they had heard that I was a clergyman who supported equal marriage rights for couples of the same gender. I gladly did the interview and went home.

Later that night, the hate comments started to appear on the internet. All kinds of people were calling me a “heretic” and a “false prophet.” Some said I should be stripped of my ministry credentials. A rescue mission, where I had been a regular guest preacher for years, called to inform me that I had been banned from speaking in their chapel ever again.

I realized in that moment, as I was hearing so many angry voices shout Bible verses at me, that my understanding of the Bible had shifted dramatically from the perspective I had been raised with. I had come to appreciate the Bible as a collection of voices, reporting on their spiritual experiences, and pointing our way to God, but I no longer “believed in the Bible” as the absolute and infallible authority on historical and doctrinal matters. The people lobbing these hateful comments in my direction believed the Bible to be something fundamentally different from what I believe it to be. Therefore, I could no longer consider myself to be a member of their ideological tribe.

This realization threw me into a mental tailspin. If I no longer believed the Bible to be the literal “word of God,” then what did I believe? Could I still call myself a Christian? Did I even believe in God? Was my faith dying because I had sold out to secular fads, instead of clinging to spiritual truths? These were questions that kept me up at night.

Thankfully, I had a wise spiritual director who guided me through my crisis of faith by listening without judgment and recommending good books like The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. Through my director’s companionship, I came to realize that my faith was not dying, but evolving. I was eventually able to say, “Yes, I am still a Christian, and yes, I believe in God,” even though I now understand both of those things in very different ways than I had before.

That was one of my many breakdowns that later led to a breakthrough. Your personal breakdown might be similar, but then again, it might be very different. I think particularly of my many friends in recovery from addiction who had to “hit rock bottom” before they finally got sober. I think of those who have lost jobs, relationships, or health, through no fault of their own, but simply because life doesn’t always turn out as planned.

In moments like these, it’s very normal and understandable for struggling people to look at life and see only the chaos of disaster and tragedy. Even if the chaos isn’t impacting you personally, it’s easy to simply watch the evening news and wonder, “What is this world coming to?”

I think that’s a great question to ask, so long as we don’t presume the answer before we’ve even finished asking the question: “What is this world coming to?”

Scientists have the beginning of an answer to that question. Many of them have noticed that the universe, over the course of its 13.8 billion year history, seems to be moving in the direction of increased complexity and cooperation. In the beginning, there was only physics. Immediately after the Big Bang, there were lots of elementary particles, which later formed into atoms. Atoms bonded together to form molecules, giving rise to the science of chemistry. On this planet (at least), chemical reactions gave rise to the emergence of biological life in the form of single-celled organisms. Life then evolved to the point of more complex organisms, that had brains. Brains evolved to the point of developing consciousness. Human consciousness developed to the point of organizing itself into small groups. Those small groups organized themselves into large, complex societies with laws, technology, medicine, and artistic expression.

It is, of course, undeniable that the course of history has often been meandering, with many fits, false starts, and backsliding along the way, but if we take a step back to look at the big picture of the universe, we can see objects and organisms organizing themselves into increasingly complex patterns of cooperation. Cosmologist Brian Swimme says, “Four billion years ago, the earth was molten rock; now it sings opera.”

Scientists, by virtue of their profession, do not claim to know for certain whether this evolution of complexity, from atoms to opera, is the result of random chance or intentional design. Their job is just to describe what they see, but humans can’t seem to stop themselves from asking the question. Our brains are neurologically hardwired to search for patterns of cause and effect. When that search for a cause takes us past the limits of pure reason, we naturally begin to engage our imaginations and speak the language of the heart.

About a hundred years ago, there was a paleontologist named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who studied the evolution of life in great detail. It just so happens that Teilhard was also a Jesuit priest. He undertook his own search for truth with the head of scientist and the heart of a mystic.

When science could not answer Teilhard’s burning questions about life’s origin and destiny, he found himself meditating on Revelation 21:6, which we heard this morning in our second reading, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

It seemed clear to Teilhard that “Alpha,” the first letter in the Greek alphabet, was meant to refer to God as the creator of the cosmos. But what did the text mean by saying that God is also the “Omega,” which is the last letter in the Greek alphabet?

Meditating on this question through the lens of his Catholic faith, Teilhard came to believe that, just as the universal Church comprised members from “every tribe, language, people and nation,” so the entire universe itself was being drawn toward eventual unity in the cosmic Body of Christ.

We naturally ask the question in chaotic times, “What is this world coming to?” For Teilhard, with his scientific mind and mystical heart, the answer was, “Christ.” The Church, in his mind, is only the beginning of the unity that will eventually incorporate the entirety of human society, planet Earth, and even the cosmos itself. This, for Teilhard, is what it means to believe that God is both “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

For us, as people of faith and people of science, it is no small task to trust that the universe is headed in this direction. As we have already noted, there are setbacks and disasters that threaten to overwhelm us with chaos. Moreover, the entire project is so huge that we cannot possibly complete it under our own power.

Today’s reading from the Revelation to St. John paints a picture of the end of history as a beautiful garden city where all things are made new and death is forever swallowed up by life. Our psalm this morning develops that idea even further, envisioning a symphony of praise that incorporates, not only all people, but plants, animals, and cosmic forces as well.

Do we dare to believe in this utopian vision? If so, then how on earth do we get there?

Obviously, the task is too big for us to complete ourselves. We human beings cannot do much to affect the progress of distant stars and galaxies. After all, we even feel helpless to resolve the problems that beset us on this “tiny blue dot” called planet Earth.

So, what can we do and how do we do it? There’s more than one answer to that question, but I think Jesus starts us down the right path when he says in today’s gospel, “Just as I have loved you, you also ought to love one another” (John 13:34).

Obviously, this is a very general statement, even vague, if we leave it undeveloped at the level of pious words and sentimental feelings. But love, as those know who have tried to do it, is always simple but never easy. Love only exists at the level of concrete action. As finite beings, we cannot adequately love the entire universe, but we can make a difference at the local level in the way we treat ourselves, one another, and our fellow creatures on earth. Through our acts of love toward one another, our love for the universe and God takes on flesh and becomes a concrete reality. In short, we love God through our neighbors.

This is the secret to transforming breakdowns into breakthroughs that inch the universe closer to its final destiny of unification in the Body of Christ, as Teilhard understood it.

This love asks much of us. It continually takes us outside of our comfort zones and challenges our previously-held assumptions. We can see the early Christians doing just this in today’s first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles. In this passage of Scripture, St. Peter is being called on the carpet by his fellow leaders in the early Church. Up to that point, Christianity had been an entirely Jewish movement. But now, a group of Romans, led by Cornelius the Centurion, had become interested in following the way of Jesus and even began to have mystical visions and other kinds of spiritual experiences. St. Peter saw this happening and decided to go ahead and baptize these non-Jews into the Church, even though that had not first converted to Judaism. It was a controversial decision on St. Peter’s part that almost split the church. After much discussion and debate, the Church decided to extend the boundaries of love to include all people, no matter what their culture or ethnicity of origin. I imagine the council’s eyes going wide with wonder after they heard Peter’s story and said, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18). They had realized, in a flash of spiritual insight, that God’s arms are big enough to embrace the whole world.

Kindred in Christ, we live in a world that often seems to be on the brink of tearing itself apart. I don’t want to minimize the pain that comes with the question, “What is this world coming to?” But I do want to encourage you with the faith that trusts that this universe is indeed going somewhere good. In the language of science, it is proceeding toward patterns of ever-increasing complexity and cooperation. In the language of our faith, the whole creation is being drawn to unity in the cosmic Body of Christ. We cannot get there on our own, but each of us can do our part to love one another as Jesus loves us, and so build up a new world from the ashes of the old.

Amen.

My Sheep Hear My Voice

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

Click here for the biblical readings.

Some of you may have seen the classic comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which came out exactly 50 years ago last month. There is a scene in this movie where King Arthur and his knights have to correctly answer three questions before they will be allowed to cross a bridge. Sir Lancelot the Brave goes first. The gate keeper asks him: “What is your name? (Sir Lancelot.) What is your quest? (To seek the Grail.) What is your favorite color? (Blue.)” After answering correctly, he is sent on his way. Next comes Sir Robin the Not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot. The gatekeeper asks him: “What is your name? (Sir Robin.) What is your quest? (To seek the Grail.) What is the capital of Assyria?” When Sir Robin responds, “I don’t know that,” he is immediately yeeted into the ravine. 

Obviously, having quick, clear, and certain answers was beneficial to King Arthur and his knights in this situation. There are times in life when the same is true for us, as well. Sometimes, it’s just convenient (What’s 5 times 2?). Sometimes, it’s important for solving an immediate problem in a crisis (When your clothes catch fire, what do you do? Stop, drop, and roll). But then there are some questions which simply do not lend themselves to quick, clear, and certain answers. 

For example, let’s consider a philosophical question about the nature of good and evil. The Bible clearly says, “Thou shalt not murder.” Did God command this because murder is wrong, or is murder wrong because God commanded it? (The philosopher Plato explored this question in his dialogue Euthyphro.)

If we say that God forbade murder because it is wrong, then we must admit that there is a force in the universe that is more powerful than God, because God cannot go against what is right. Therefore, God is not almighty. 

But if we then turn around and say that murder is wrong because God commanded it, then God’s will is arbitrary. God could have just as easily commanded, “Thou shalt murder,” and we would be morally obliged to obey it. Therefore, God is not good. 

I won’t get us bogged down in this philosophical question because it’s not the point of this sermon. I only mention it to point out the fact that there are some big questions that do not lend themselves to quick, clear, and certain answers.

Today’s gospel presents us with just such a question. 

The religious authorities come to Jesus and ask, “”How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” This is a very big and complicated question.

The concept of a Messiah was actually a fairly recent development in Judaism at the time of Jesus. The word itself simply means “Anointed” and could refer to any prophet, priest, or king who was chosen by God. It was only in the years leading up to Jesus that the title of the Anointed came to refer to a coming leader who would liberate the Jewish people from foreign occupation.

It made sense that the religious leaders of Judea would be wondering about the Anointed in this passage because the text tells us that this conversation takes place during “the festival of the Dedication.” The word “Dedication,” in Hebrew, is “Hanukkah.” 

So, this conversation is happening during the holiday season. [By the way: This fact is worth remembering the next time you hear a fellow Christian getting upset that not everyone says “Merry Christmas” in December. You can tell them that, in John 10:22, Jesus Christ himself celebrates Hanukkah, so we Christians should gladly say “Happy Hanukkah” to our Jewish neighbors.]

The festival of Hanukkah celebrates a time when God raised up the Maccabee brothers to liberate the Jewish people from oppression and genocide. That’s why it makes sense that the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were pressing him to tell them plainly whether he was the Messiah. 

In response to their question, Jesus says, “I’ve already been telling you, but you haven’t been listening.” He goes on to say, “Look at the things I do; my actions speak for themselves.” After that, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.”

We have to unpack that sentence a little bit. First of all, the word “sheep” is a bit of a loaded term these days. Jesus uses the term “sheep” to describe his “flock,” which is the community of believers. There are some ornery people on the internet these days, a few of them claiming to be Christians, who use the word “sheep” to describe docile people who lack critical thinking skills. Given Jesus’ use of the term, I think “sheep” is an inappropriate insult for Christians to use. Also, and much more importantly, I think that insults are an inappropriate thing for Christians to use. So, maybe let’s not do that.

Second of all, there’s the issue of what Jesus meant by, “hear my voice.” 

Obviously, the people physically standing around Jesus in that moment could understand the words that were coming out of his mouth. They could “hear his voice,” in the literal sense, but I think Jesus was talking about a different kind of hearing. 

The kind of hearing that Jesus was talking about is a hearing with the ears of the heart. When we listen closely to someone that we know well, we can sometimes hear the deeper meaning of what’s not being said. My wife can sometimes communicate with me by simply giving me a particular look. I can sometimes figure out when my kids are lying to me, just by looking at their faces. That’s the kind of communication that can happen when two people know each other intimately, and that’s the kind of “hearing” that I think Jesus is talking about in this passage.

Hearing the voice of Jesus is a complicated thing. Some of us imagine that it happens like it does in the movies, when the clouds part, a beam of light shines down from heaven, and a booming voice tells the main character exactly what they’re supposed to do.

The truth is much more subtle that that. Allow me to give a personal example of a time when I think that I may have heard the voice of Jesus.

It happened several years ago, when I was working at a job that I did not particularly enjoy, and to which I was not particularly suited. The voice came, not as a direct command, but as a question.

I kept at the job, day after day, because I thought that I, as a husband and a father, needed to be a provider for my family. One day, as I pulled back into the parking lot after my lunch break, I was trying to steel myself up to back into the office. I kept repeating to myself, like a mantra, “I have to provide for my family! I have to provide for my family!”

It was in that moment, as I sat in my car with my forehead on the steering wheel, that I heard an imaginary voice pop up in the back of my head. I was still repeating, “I have to provide for my family,” and the voice said, “Provide what, exactly?”

That was a really good question. My job was providing a paycheck to my family, but it was also robbing them of my presence and my peace. 

To make a long story short, I decided to leave that job before I had found another. The financial cost was certainly significant to my family, but the fact is that, for the next year when I was out of work, my wife and kids got the best of me. That year changed the way I parent. I went from being an authoritarian rule-maker to the kind of father who listens to the emotional needs of his children. I learned how to cook and clean around the house. My wife began to grow, personally and spiritually, in ways that led to us saying that we are now “in our second marriage to the same person.” 

By the end of that year, I had run a half-marathon, been confirmed as a member of the Episcopal Church, and enrolled in a chaplain training program that shaped my career for the next six years. It was not at all easy, but it was worth it.

The voice I heard was just a simple question in the back of my mind, but the effect was life-transforming. Looking back, I truly believe that I heard the voice of Jesus speaking to me as I rested my head on the steering wheel of my car that day.

The voice of Jesus is not merely contained to the recorded words of a man who lived two thousand years ago. The voice of Jesus is the voice of our risen and living Lord, who continues to speak to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. As the old Sunday School hymn says: 

“He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today! 
He walks with me and talks with me, along life’s narrow way. 
He lives! He lives, salvation to impart. 
You ask me how I know he lives? 
He lives within my heart!”

Kindred in Christ, I want you to know today that Christ Jesus lives today, within your heart. He walks with you and talks with you. The risen Christ is always with us and is always speaking. The only question is: Are we listening? Truly listening with the ears of our hearts?

There is no formula for how to listen to the voice of Jesus with ears of your heart. Each person’s relationship with the risen Christ is deeply personal, therefore it takes as many different forms as there are people in the world. Nevertheless, there are some tips that many have found helpful across the ages, and I would like to share them with you today.

First and foremost, I want to encourage you all to read your Bible and pray every day. There is no better way to grow in your faith, as a Christian. In the Episcopal Church, we have a wonderful resource for doing this well: in the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer, as it is found in the Book of Common Prayer. This systematic way of praying touches on all the major points of the faith and leads you through most of the Bible, once every two years. If you don’t have a Bible or prayer book, please come to see me and I will get you one for free. There are also many online apps and podcasts that do the heavy lifting for you, so all you have to do is press play and listen. 

The Daily Office is a most excellent way to grow in your ability to hear the voice of Jesus, but it isn’t the only one. There are a number of other devotional guides, like Forward Day by Day for example, that provide a way for us to slow down and focus on what matters most. If you have found another source of insight that speaks to you, then by all means, use that. 

There are also several meditation techniques, like mindfulness practices or centering prayer, that can help us to slow down, quiet our racing thoughts,and pay attention to what is happening within us and around us.

Keeping a journal can be a way for us to sort through the scattered events of our days, organizing our thoughts and feelings into a coherent whole. Recording our dreams can provide insight into what is happening in our subconscious mind.

Mutual support groups, like Twelve Step recovery programs, book groups, or Bible studies, can provide us with the opportunity to hear God speaking to us through other people. Likewise, a trusted therapist, spiritual director, mentor, or clergyperson can be a vessel for God to speak truth into your life.

All of these are just suggestions and ideas. The way that God speaks to you will not be exactly like the way God speaks to anyone else. The main thing is that you trust that God is indeed speaking to you, and that you do the best you can to listen to that voice. 

You will never do it perfectly; I promise you that you will mess it up on a daily basis, just as I do, but I also want to encourage you to keep trying. In time, you will learn to hear God’s voice more and more clearly, which will remind you of the promise of Jesus, who said, “My sheep hear my voice,” and “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Where I Stand Is Where I Fall

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.

Click here to read the biblical texts.

Imagine, if you will, a presidential motorcade coming into town. People line the streets, waving American flags. Secret service agents and police officers surround the limousine on all sides, ready to jump into action if there is a problem.

Now, imagine that, on the other side of town, another kind of parade is happening. In this procession, the leader is riding in a little clown car. People still line the streets, cheering. They are playing Hail to the Chief on kazoos. If we saw this silly demonstration, we could easily understand that it was meant to be a parody of the bigger and more serious motorcade happening elsewhere. This was exactly what was happening on Palm Sunday, as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

In Jerusalem, during the time of Jesus, it was customary for the Roman governor to make a military parade through the city during the week before the holiday of Passover. The Roman province of Judea was known for being a troubled place that frequently experienced violent insurrections. The risk of uprising was especially high during the Passover season, when the Jewish people celebrated their deliverance by God from slavery, tyranny, and genocide in Egypt. Governor Pilate’s annual show of force at that time was intended to nip those thoughts in the bud, before people got any bright ideas about acting on them.

Jesus’ triumphal entry, on the other hand, was a deliberate lampoon of the governor’s bravado. He based his demonstration on the words of the prophet Zechariah from the Hebrew Scriptures:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

By comparison, Jesus’ gathering was quite small, filled with the most obnoxious riffraff in town, and was obviously poking fun at the powers-that-be. It’s no wonder then that the authorities were anxious that this little demonstration might attract the wrong kind attention from Pontius Pilate and his soldiers. I can hear fear in their voices as they say, perhaps while glancing nervously over their shoulders, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” Jesus responds, rather poetically, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40). Paraphrasing Jesus’ words, I imagine Jesus shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Yeah, sure… Good luck with that!”

The serious point that Jesus was making with this little demonstration of political theater is that the so-called powers-that-be in this world are not so powerful as they think. They show their strength through competition and violence, but Jesus shows us another way to live.

Our Epistle reading this morning tells us something about how that other way looks. St. Paul tells us that Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself” (Philippians 2:6-7a).

This “emptying” that Paul talks about is the self-giving love that Jesus radiates from every cell of his body. It stands in stark contrast to the competitive systems of domination that tend to rule the world, both in Jesus’ time and ours.

The “way of the world,” as we are socially trained to accept it, is the way of the zero-sum game, where there are winners and losers, us and them, insiders and outsiders. We see it everywhere: in military conflicts, sporting events, political elections, and business deals. We get so accustomed to this way of thinking, it even finds its way into our families, neighborhoods, and churches. But this way of thinking comes with a downside: When left unchecked, it destroys the very communities that it depends on.

Consider, for example, the “Super Chicken” experiment conducted by evolutionary biologist William Muir at Purdue University. Dr. Muir was interested in improving the egg-laying potential of chickens, so he took the top-producing chickens from each coop and put them together in a “super coop,” expecting this coop to out-perform all the others. What he discovered, though, was surprising. The “super coop” did not perform better than the other coops, but worse… much worse, in fact, because the super chickens all killed each other. Dr. Muir did what he did in the name of improving efficiency, but ended up creating an environment full of aggressive and territorial over-achievers.

This doesn’t just happen with chickens, either. Back in the 1990s, there was a very successful company called Enron. This company had a “rank and yank” practice where they would evaluate their employees and fire the bottom 10% of performers each quarter. Like Dr. Muir, they were trying to increase productivity, but created a company culture where competition led to dishonesty. Eventually, the whole company collapsed under the weight of its own cut-throat practices. The Enron company went bankrupt, thousands of people lost their jobs, and the leaders went to jail.

When we make an unholy idol of winning, we end up losing our souls.

When Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world, he didn’t come to win; he came to love. He didn’t come to seize power, but to give his life for others. The paradox is that this is what true power looks like: Not the power to control, but the power to love without limits.

There is a scene in one of my favorite TV shows where the hero is trying to convince his nemesis to join the hero in a worthy cause. The nemesis complains, “But you can’t win!”

And the hero replies:

“Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works—because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right. Because it’s decent. And above all—it’s kind. Maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me.”

I can’t help but hear Jesus in those words. Not trying to win, but just doing what is right, decent, and kind, standing in love until it kills him, and inviting us to stand with him. That’s who Jesus is; as Christians, that’s who we believe God is.

Christians imagine God, not as an “old man in the sky,” but as a flowing river of love. The mystery of the Trinity envisions the one God as three persons (i.e. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), a community, a network of relationships, bound together in perfect love.

Whenever someone is baptized in the name of the Trinity, we are proclaiming our faith that this person, and every person, is caught up in that never-ending flow of love. The Trinity is why we, as Christians, are happy to say, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). We don’t just attach the adjective “love” to the noun “God,” we go all the way to saying that God is love itself. And love, as we remember from English class, is a verb.

And if love is a verb, and God is love, then God is a verb. God doesn’t just exist; God happens wherever love is happening. If a river were ever to stop flowing, it would cease to be a river and become a lake. In the same way, if God’s love were ever to stop flowing outward in greater and greater circles of community, God would cease to be God.

This is the alternate way of living that Jesus presents to us on Palm Sunday: The way of self-giving love. Jesus does this because that’s who Jesus is, that’s who God is, and that’s who we are called to be.

Jesus didn’t come to win; he came to love. He didn’t ride a war horse; he rode a donkey. He didn’t exploit his power; he emptied himself.

Today, Jesus invites us to stand with him.

So, as we enter Holy Week, let us stand with him, not because we want to beat someone, but because it’s right, because it’s decent, and above all—It’s kind. Maybe it won’t lead to us winning the competitions that the world values so much, but it’s the best that Jesus can do, and he will stand here doing it until it kills him. It’s who Jesus is, and who he is is where he stands, and where he stands is where he falls. We already know from experience that the cut-throat way of the world is doomed to failure, so let us try this other way instead. Let us stand with him in love, through Holy Week and every week, until it kills us. Until that Easter morning when the tomb is opened and even death itself is swallowed up in victory, powerless against the relentless flow of God’s love.

The Prodigal Father

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent.

Click here to read the biblical texts.

In his brief novel, The Great Divorce, Anglican author C.S. Lewis writes about an imaginary bus tour of heaven and hell. One of the many interesting things about this book is how he imagines hell. For Lewis, hell is not a realm of fire and brimstone where the wicked are eternally tortured for their sins on earth. Instead, he depicts hell as a place where people live in huge mansions and get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? Well, the catch is that, with so much space and instant gratification available, people don’t need each other, so they just pack up and move farther away whenever anyone upsets them for even the slightest of reasons. This leaves vast tracts of empty cities where no one roams. Instead, everyone has locked themselves inside their own mansions and pace the empty halls alone all day, muttering about their “rights” and complaining that everything bad that has ever happened to them is not their fault. The real kicker is that the gates of this hell aren’t even locked; people can get up and go to heaven any time they want, except that nobody wants to. They would much rather stay stuck in their mansions, totally alone, and utterly convinced of their own self-righteousness. The souls of the damned in The Great Divorce bear a striking resemblance to the elder son in today’s gospel reading. I begin today’s sermon with this story because I too have a tendency to act like the self-righteous elder son in Jesus’ parable.

Here is my honest confession: Earlier this week, someone greatly offended me with something they said.

(PLEASE NOTE: If you are hearing this and wondering whether it was you, I want you to be assured that it was not. It had nothing to do with anyone in this room, this parish, or this town. I won’t tell the whole story here because it’s not important to this sermon. All you need to know is that my feelings were hurt and I was very angry about it).

I spent much of the week stewing in my self-righteous indignation, replaying the conversation over and over in my head, and losing sleep over it.

When I sat down to write this sermon, I read the passage and froze stiff when I got to the part about the elder son. I realized that, after my week of angry pouting, I could not, in good conscience, stand in this pulpit on Sunday morning and preach about the good news of God’s amazing grace without being a complete and total hypocrite (because that’s exactly how I’ve been acting). Like the elder son in Jesus’ parable, I wanted my enemies to be punished for what they had done to me; I wanted the scales of justice to be set right, only to realize, when I was confronted by the words of Jesus in Scripture, that I am, as my mother used to say, “full of bologna.”

“Holding onto resentment,” as the Buddha once said, “is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die.” That was me this week.

What struck me so hard is that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is not really about the prodigal son. It has more to do with the elder son. Jesus tells this story in response to a group of upstanding and religious citizens who were offended that Jesus was “hanging out with the wrong crowd.” In response to their complaints, Jesus tells three stories. The first and second stories are about a lost sheep and a lost coin, respectively. The third and final story was about a lost son who ran home with his proverbial tail between his legs after going on a bender and waking up face-down in a pigsty.

The part of the story we know best begins with the younger son asking his father for his share of the family inheritance. Normally, this sum of money would only be given out after the father had died, so this request was the equivalent of the younger son saying to his father, “You’re dead to me.” I can only imagine the pain that the father felt in that moment. But, instead of berating his son for saying something so stupid, the father honors the request and divides his wealth between his two sons.

As we know from the story, the younger son squandered his inheritance by partying hard until the money ran out and he fell on hard times. When he finally hit rock bottom, the younger son came to his senses and decided to return home. It’s important to note that this decision was not based on any sense of remorse for his actions, but out of the base desire for self-preservation. The younger son concocted a rehearsed speech, through which he hoped to con his way back into his father’s good graces.

When the younger son gets within sight of his family home, Jesus tells us, in what I think is one of the most comforting passages in the entire Bible, that “while he was still far off,” his father got up and ran to meet him. I love this verse so much. The father did not wait for the son to make it all the way home, but ran to him “while he was still far off.” This verse should be a great comfort for those of us who realize that, even after years of following Jesus, we are still very far away from where we ought to be, spiritually.

The father was not standing on the front porch with arms crossed, tapping his foot and waiting for his son to finally crawl his way up the driveway. No, Jesus says that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran to him and put his arms around him and kissed him.”

The younger son, probably taken aback by this extravagant display of affection, nevertheless starts into his rehearsed speech, but his father doesn’t let him finish. He interrupts the speech with an enthusiastic call to start a party. This interruption should call into question everything that Christians have come to believe about the proper order of confession and forgiveness. The father does not wait to see if his son is sincere about his change of heart. He does not even let him finish his prepared speech.

(I wonder what it would be like if the priests in our church were to interrupt the congregation’s prayer of confession during the Sunday service and pronounce the absolution before they had even finished!)

The son is already forgiven before he even finishes confessing his sins, so great is his father’s love for him. So great is God’s love for you and me, as well, according to Jesus.

God does not forgive us because we repent; God forgives us before we repent. God’s amazing grace is what gives us the strength to repent and amend our lives in the first place.

So, a celebration ensues at the house. But, as we know, all is not well with the elder son, who had stayed home to work dutifully on his father’s farm. We learn a lot from the elder son’s reaction to the news that his brother had returned home. Unlike the father, the elder son was not happy to see him. We learn even more about the elder son’s misconceptions about who his father is.

He says to his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you.” This is our first clue that something is off about the elder son’s perception of his relationship with his father: he thinks of himself as a slave, not a son. He thinks that his father is only interested in obedience, not love. He sees their relationship as merely transactional, not personal. He assumed, quite wrongly, that their relationship would end if the son was not perfectly submissive to the father’s power. The younger son’s return to a celebration would have completely upended the elder son’s faith in a morally-balanced world.

The next thing the elder son says is, “I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.” Now, this is a very puzzling statement. Earlier in the story, Jesus remarked how the father had “divided his property between [his two sons],” at the younger son’s request. Presumably then, the elder son would have already received his share of the family estate which, according to the inheritance laws of that time, would have been a double-portion of that which was given to his younger brother. So, when the father tells his eldest son, “All that is mine is yours,” he was not just speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically; he meant it literally. The fact that the elder son still sees himself as a slave, who has never received anything from his father, is incontrovertible proof that the elder son has entirely misjudged the character of his father.

In the end, this is not actually a parable about a lost son, but about two lost sons. The younger wandered away and wasted what had been given to him; the elder stayed home and forgot that he had been given anything at all. The elder son, by Jesus’ account, is the one who is in the more spiritually precarious position.

The real story, however, is not about either of the sons, but about the father. The father comes out to meet both of his lost sons where they are, in the midst of their self-made mess. Traditionally, this story has been known as “the parable of the prodigal son.” The word “prodigal” comes from a Latin word meaning “lavish or extravagant.” The most lavish and extravagant thing in this parable, as I see it, is not the younger son’s wastefulness, but his father’s graciousness and love toward both of his sons. For this reason, I would like to suggest that we rename this story, “the parable of the prodigal father.”

Kindred in Christ, the good news of this story is that our Father in heaven, as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, loves us more than we deserve, more than we expect, and even more than we understand. God’s amazing grace and unconditional love annihilates all of our manufactured misconceptions about who God is and who we are, in relation to God.

The truth is that we are loved and we are forgiven by God. Full stop. No provisos, addenda, or quid pro quo. It is a free gift; we did not earn it, so we cannot lose it. Nothing is required.

The only thing God requests of us, out of love, is that we trust in that love and pass it along to others, through our words and actions. Even this meager request is more for our benefit than God’s.

In a world torn by self-righteous violence, the humble testimony of those who know that they are loved, in spite of our best efforts to prove otherwise, has the power to undo the shackles of our own self-righteousness and liberate us from the hell of our own making.

May each of us trust that we are forever held by this love and do our best to demonstrate it to others, to the end that they too might join us in proclaiming the good news of God’s amazing grace.

The Gardener Who Never Gives Up

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent.

Click here for the biblical readings.

Hi, my name is Barrett and I make poor life choices.

Back in 2013, my family and I moved from upstate New York to western Michigan. We figured it would take a couple of days to pack up our stuff, load the truck, and get on the road. After all, we had made a similar move just a few years earlier, coming from the west coast of Canada to New York.

What we failed to account for, though, is that our previous move involved two broke seminarians in a one-room apartment. Everything we owned fit in the back of a modest U-Haul. Over the course of the intervening years, we had amassed a much larger collection of furniture, books, and kids (with all their accompanying accoutrements). A couple of days and a U-Haul wouldn’t be nearly enough to get the job done this time.

A visitor to my house asked, “Hey, aren’t you moving to Michigan next week?”

“Sure,” I said, “I figure I’ll just throw some stuff in boxes and hit the road.”

My friend very wisely took that opportunity to gently talk some much-needed sense into me, “Listen, you’ve got a lot more stuff in this house than you did when you got here. I don’t think a couple of days is going to be enough time.” Thank God for good friends, because this blessed soul organized a whole cadre of neighbors who descended upon my messy house for the entire week that it took the lot of us to get things packed and cleaned before moving day. In the end, everything came together right on time, but there’s no way it would have if it hadn’t been for the love of these people who rescued me from the mess of my own making. All in all, the stakes were relatively low in this crisis, but I was very grateful for the community that made a safety-net for me, when I needed it.

For other people, the stakes aren’t so low and a safety-net is not always there when they need it. Most of us have made regrettable decisions, of one kind or another, in our lives. Tragedy often strikes when unfortunate circumstances combine with our poor choices to leave us in a real pickle. Some of our unhoused neighbors, for example, could tell us heart-rending tales of woe about how they ended up living on the street, through no fault of their own. Others who have never experienced housing insecurity might be tempted to dismiss such stories as mere excuses. “The poor are poor,” some might say, “because of their own fault. If they had made better choices, they wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Thinking this way is tempting because it provides a false sense of security. Some might think, perhaps unconsciously, that they can protect themselves from disaster by being smart enough, good enough, or careful enough. But the reality is that life is rarely so simple. All of us have known good and hardworking people who nevertheless suffer hardship. The scary fact is that all of us are more vulnerable than we would like to think. Moralizing about the causes of disaster will not protect us when bad things happen to good people, especially since good people are also prone to making mistakes, from time to time.

So then, the real question for us Christians is not, “Why are the poor poor,” but, “What will we do about it?” That is the question that Jesus addresses in today’s gospel.

At the opening of the passage, Jesus talks about two terrible events that had happened in recent memory for his listeners. The first was a violent attack on worshipers at the temple by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The second was a building collapse in which eighteen people had been killed. Jesus answers the question about blame in a very straightforward manner: “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

Jesus typically asks more questions than he answers and often responds to questions with figurative stories, but this is one of the few times when he gives a direct and unequivocal answer: Did these people deserve what happened to them? No, they did not.

What he says next, however, almost undermines what he just said. Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did!” In this moment, Jesus almost sounds like an old-timey southern preacher, screaming through a megaphone while standing on streetcorner soap box. But that’s not what Jesus intends.

It helps to understand that the word “repent” has very little to do with feeling guilt or fear. The Greek word translated as “repent” is “metanoia,” which literally means, “change your mind.” Likewise, the word used for “perish” is not just referring to physical death, which eventually happens to everyone, but spiritual death. The best definition of “perishing,” in the spiritual sense, was given by Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Jesus’ warning about “perishing” is about this kind of spiritual death that we are in danger of experiencing, if we do not change our way of thinking about the misfortunes that befall our fellow human beings.

What then is the alternative that Jesus recommends we follow? To answer this, we need to look at the parable Jesus tells in the next part of the passage. It’s the story of a fig tree that is not performing as expected. The owner of the field wants to tear up the tree and throw it away to make room for other, more productive plants. But the gardener recommends patience and care instead. He says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.” He recommends that more attention, not less, be given to the plant. He doesn’t give up, but gets involved. God, according to Jesus, is more like the gardener than the owner of the vineyard.

Jesus presents us with the image of a God who does not give up on us, but is willing to get the divine hands dirty with hard work. The implication is that, if God doesn’t give up on us, then neither should we give up on each other.

What I find most interesting about this parable is the unresolved ending. We, the audience, don’t get to find out how the story ends. Did the owner agree to the gardener’s suggestion? Did the extra effort pay off, in the end? Jesus doesn’t say, so we just don’t know. The open ending of this parable does not leave us with certainty, but with hope. There are no guarantees in this life, but the stance of getting involved, rather than giving up, is the best hope we have for making a future that is better than the status quo we are enduring at this moment. The ending of this parable is Jesus’ way of telling us, “The ball is in your court. What are you going to do?”

When I failed to adequately plan for my big move from New York to Michigan, my friends could have easily shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, that’s just what happens when you fail to plan ahead!” They could have rightly left me stewing in a mess of my own making. I am so grateful they did not do that. Out of their great love for me, they made my problem their problem and turned a moment of crisis into a moment of grace.

Kindred in Christ, the uncertainties of life and imperfections of human nature mean that we are all in the same boat together. We can choose to give up on each other and say, “It’s every man for himself,” or we can get involved with each other, get our hands dirty, and lean into the hope that we can make a better next year than we had last year.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus gives us some practical advice on the kinds of things we can do to show up for each other. The Church has traditionally called them, “The Corporal Works of Mercy.” They are: To feed the hungry, to give water to the thirsty, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, and to give alms to the poor.

Like the gardener’s suggestions in Jesus’ parable, the Corporal Works of Mercy are not a guaranteed plan of social reform; they are a list of virtues that Christians ought to be practicing, for their own sake. We cannot solve the world’s problems, nor can we protect ourselves from the dangers of calamity and our own stupid mistakes, but we can show up for each other in a spirit of care and concern, willing to get our hands dirty with the kind of work that Jesus Christ calls us to do. By following Jesus, and practicing the virtues he taught us, we bear witness to the loving presence of the God who does not give up on us, who gets involved in helping each of us clean up the messes of our own making, and gives us hope for a better tomorrow than we had yesterday.

Friends, our God does not give up on us, so let us not give up on each other. Let us work together in hope, because it is a hope worth working for. Amen.