Month: May 2022

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
Rogation Sunday
May 15, 2022

The title of my sermon today is “Love Like a Farmer.” It’s not the best title. It sounds more like a country song than a sermon–or worse, like a five cent harlequin romance novel. But bear with me; you’ll see where I’m going. 

Before we get there, though, we need to talk about what today is. Today, on the fifth Sunday of Easter, we are celebrating Rogation Sunday. We haven’t done this as a community before, although I have visited many of your farms and gardens on Rogation days in the last couple of years. Rogation days are an ancient custom of the church, when we set aside a special time to pray for our farmers, our land, our crops, and our communities. At the end of today’s service, before we dive into the pork butts and all that delicious food, we will go outside and we will follow the cross around our property. At each four spots, we will read a passage of scripture and say a prayer, beseeching God to bless our farmers, to watch over our crops, and to give us an abundant harvest for the good of the world. My hope is that our two churches will continue to gather here at St. Peter’s, year after year, to pray these prayers together. 

These Rogation days were once rather common. One of my favorite poets, who was also a priest in the Church of England, is George Herbert. Herbert was the priest at a small rural parish like this one in the 1600s. He writes that “[the Country Priest] loves [Rogation] Procession, and maintains it, because there [is] contained therein […] a blessing of God for the fruits of the field.” As you can see, Rogation days go way back. Over time, however, the Church got away from a regular Rogation celebration. As folks moved off the farm and into the city, the old customs and agricultural prayers were forgotten, even though they are still in our prayer book. We can’t do that here. Other parts of the country may have forgotten about rural America, but we cannot. We have chosen to live here. Many of you have chosen to work the land; for some of you, the very land passed down to you from generation to generation as an inheritance. You have chosen the hard work of agriculture, the work that Adam undertook in Genesis, the work of toil in the soil. If I’ve learned anything over the last three years as your priest, I’ve learned that your work is hard and honest, and that you truly rely on the Providence of God from seedtime to harvest. That means your work is holy. God bless you for it.

Our readings today don’t seem to have a lot to do with growing crops or blessing fields. The psalm is about how all of creation praises God, and that includes our soybeans, corn, and rice. They praise God in their growing. But other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much of a connection to agriculture work. 

That brings me back to my title, “Love Like a Farmer.” It is inspired from today’s gospel passage. Our passage comes from the Last Supper, just after Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet. He comes back to the table, and he gives them a new commandment. “Love one another,” he says. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Our world doesn’t know much about love. We equate it with a warm fuzzy feeling we have while we are holding our beloved. We think of love as those butterflies we get in our stomach at the homecoming dance. In short, we think of love as an emotion. 

Love can have an emotional element. We often feel love that way. Think of your wedding day, or when you first held your child, or when as a child you ran and jumped into your parent’s outstretched arms. All of those are emotional things; we feel love. The problem comes, however, when we stop there. When we say that love is just a feeling. If we stop there, what Jesus says today is shallow and vague. “Love one another,” he says. We can think he wants us to have warm, fuzzy feelings in our hearts when we’re around one another. 

But that’s not what Jesus means. Jesus is talking about something deeper. Jesus is talking about love as a decision–a decision to show up for one another, to fight for one another, to sacrifice for one another, to lay down everything for one another. That’s the type of love Jesus showed us. For Jesus, love is a concrete action: It’s washing feet; it’s hanging out with the outcasts and sinners; it’s forgiving someone when they’ve hurt us; it’s laying down our lives so that someone else can live. 

Farmers are called to love like that. They love the earth. They must take care of their land; make sure it has what it needs to grow; pay attention to the health and composition of the soil; think about how what they do today will impact the farmers who are caring for this land in 100 years. That’s love–real, concrete love. 

They have to love their neighbor. They love the neighboring farmer–not their competitor, but their neighbor. When they’re in trouble, they show up to help in whatever way they can. I’ve seen it happen, and so have you. Farmers also love people they haven’t even met, working hard so that people everywhere will have something to eat, so they don’t go to bed hungry. That’s love–real, concrete love. 

And in doing all of that, they love God. Not abstractly, but concretely. Caring for God’s creation. Caring for their neighbor and the total stranger they will feed. That’s holy work. That’s what it means to love like a farmer. 

In whatever we do, whether we farm or work in an office or work on the road or build houses or volunteer or spend some well-earned time in retirement, Jesus tells us we must love. We must love concretely, with actions. We must love the world God has made and care for it. We must love our neighbors as ourselves and care for them. In doing so, we love God. 

Love concretely. Love like a farmer. Because loving like that makes our work and our entire lives holy, offerings to God. 

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 8, 2022 – Mother’s Day

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” We know these words from Psalm 23. Attributed to King David, himself a shepherd at the beginning of his life, this image of a shepherd continues to enliven our imaginations and teach us about who God is and what God is like. Jesus, who calls himself the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, says in our reading from John, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

Granted, we don’t know a lot of shepherds today. We don’t have them in our world in the same way they were in Jesus’s world. Shepherds were often a metaphor for kings. Shepherds were overseers, watching over and caring compassionately for the sheep, or the people. And yet, even with this princely association, they were despised, held at arms’ length, rejected and excluded and marginalized and kept in their place. The shepherds at Jesus’s birth, smelly and lowly as they were, were not welcome in royal palaces. 

David knows this negative side when he calls the LORD his shepherd. But he calls God a shepherd anyway, because God, like a shepherd, gives himself, cares for the sheep, sacrifices his very body if necessary. Jesus, also, leans into this metaphor, knowing full well both sides of this shepherd image–the good and princely, the bad and despised. But he calls himself the Good Shepherd, the watchman, the protector when enemies are around, the provider in the valley of death, the One who leads us to what we need for life, the compassionate One who lays down his life and gives up everything for the sake of the flock, the Church, us. 

Shepherds: both princely and despised. It’s a powerful contrast. Christ the King is mocked as a criminal. The Sacred Head is sore wounded with grief and pain weighed down. The Word who calls creation into being is rejected by that very creation. The Good Shepherd, the pinnacle of princely images, is despised, marginalized, cast out, slaughtered.

Today in the secular calendar, we commemorate Mother’s Day. It’s not a church feast, but it’s a good day to give thanks for and celebrate the mothers in our lives. Mothers of all kinds: biological, adoptive, foster, emotional, spiritual. It is also a day to remember and care for those who desire to become mothers or who cannot become biological mothers. We remember and support those who have difficult relationships with their mothers or their children. We remember mothers who have lost a child, and children who have lost their mothers. For all of these, this day can be supremely painful. If that’s you, I hope you’ll hear this: God loves you, and so do we. 

On this Mother’s Day, I wonder if something from what I have said about shepherds sounds familiar. I cannot help but to see some parallels. On this day of all days, motherhood is extolled as a princely estate, a pinnacle of human vocation. And while not all mothers are good, if you had a good mother, you can identify with that. Mothers give of themselves wholly. Indeed, they give of their very bodies to give life, sacrificing who they are, sometimes painfully, for another. 

I was once at a lecture with a renowned theologian, a very learned, wise, and holy man. During the Q&A, he noted something along the lines of how mysterious it was that God would sacrifice himself, his very life, his very body, in Christ Jesus, and all for us. A profound theological thought. Later, I heard a classmate of mine, at the time nursing her child, respond. It didn’t seem so mysterious to her. She was, after all, sacrificing her very body for the life of this infant. What was perhaps mysterious for the theologian was natural to this mother-priest. Perhaps that is why some say, if you want to know more about the love of God, look at the love of a mother for her children. 

This insight was also shared by St. Julian of Norwich, an English mystic and the first woman to publish a book in the English language. In her Song of True Motherhood, she said this: 

God chose to be our mother in all things
and so made the foundation of his work,
most humbly and most pure, in the Virgin’s womb.

Christ came in our poor flesh
to share a mother’s care.
Our mothers bear us for pain and for death;
our true mother, Jesus, bears us for joy and endless life.

Julian of Norwich, “A Song of True Motherhood” (EOW 1, 40)

And yet, just as with shepherds, mothers, this pinnacle image of goodness and nurturing love, can be vilified, marginalized, despised, cast out. As with shepherds, mothers receive both messages. Consider how women are sometimes ridiculed for nursing their children in public. Or take, for instance, my own mother. When I was a toddler, we took a trip on a Greyhound bus. I was fussy, as you might expect a toddler to be on a bus or, indeed, anywhere. After about an hour, another woman on the bus rushed forward, grabbed mother by the arm, and shouted, “Get that baby to shut up! Mothers these days don’t know what they’re doing!” Something embedded in the bedrock of our society gave that woman permission to do that–to approach another woman struggling with a toddler in the middle of the night on a bus, not to offer help, but to accost her. Not one passenger said a thing. 

Side bar: If I ever hear of something like that happening in this church, we’re going to have a problem. This church belongs to our youngest members just as much as it belongs to you or me. And if they want to praise God by making some noise, we had better not stop them. I hope we can all be like Bebe Townsend, who reportedly said to Leah Carter while she was trying to sootheFinley, then an upset infant, “That baby is not bothering anyone.” 

If you want to know what the love of God is like, look at the love of a good mother. Look at her compassion, her care, her selflessness, the way she won’t give up on her children. Look at how she sacrifices herself, her very body, to feed her children, to protect her children, to help her children grow. Christ, the Good Shepherd, is also like a mother. Jesus gives us himself, sacrifices everything, to redeem us and to feed our souls: This is my Body, this is my Blood. Do this in remembrance of me. And all because of love–a mysterious yet natural love. As Julian of Norwich said, “Christ came in our poor flesh to share a mother’s care.” 

A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter
May 1, 2022

Have you ever been to an old fashioned testimony service? You know the ones, where folks stand up and tell the story of how they came to Jesus. I have to tell you, I hated them growing up. Sometimes they can turn into a sort of game, a competition to see who among us was the worst before they found Jesus. Who had fallen the lowest? Who had sunk deepest into the mire of sin? Who was the hardest, in our human eyes, to redeem? Perhaps I didn’t like those testimony services because I could never win at that game. I’m pretty vanilla. My sins are pretty normal, boring even. 

Churches that have testimony services focus a lot on conversion–change–how someone came to know Jesus. Testimony services ask us to tell our conversion stories. When was the moment that God grabbed you out of the mire and set you on a new path, they ask? Churches like ours don’t tend to ask that question. I think we’re missing out. Not because I think we should engage in this game of who-was-the-worst, but because I think it’s important to tell our stories, to tell how God has come into our lives and picked us up. Elaine Murphy likes to ask that question. One afternoon, sitting on her back deck, she asked it this way. “Mark, tell me what you know about Jesus.” 

Conversions don’t all look the same. Some are dramatic. Some are boring. But they are all conversions. Nor is there only one conversion. No, we all have many conversions, many changes that happen to us over our lifetimes. And as long as we’re on this planet, our conversion stories don’t end. God is always converting us, changing us, all the time in all sorts of ways, if we allow the Spirit to move in our lives. 

Sometimes we’re converted from. Converted from a life of sin, taken off a path of destruction. That happens to all of us, whether it’s dramatic or not. It was certainly dramatic for St. Paul. In our reading from Acts, he is still known as Saul, and he is hunting down the early church. He is merciless; he is mad. He’s on his way to Damascus to do his worst when God shows up. A light shines, a voice speaks, Saul is knocked from his horse and struck blind. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” St. Paul would win that testimony service game of who-was-the-worst. But he wasn’t too far to be reached by God. No one is ever too far gone, too far out of bounds to be reached by God’s loving hand. Nor is anyone ever too good not to need God’s hand reaching out for them. We all need God. We all need Jesus to show up in our lives, to set us free from the power of sin and death.

Peter learns something about that today. Hi conversion here in John 21 is far less dramatic than Saul’s. It happens while they’re on a fishing trip, over breakfast. While they’re out, the resurrected Christ shows up. Peter, who denied Christ three times, swims to Jesus. Jesus makes breakfast for them. While they’re eating, Jesus picks Peter up and restores him, forgiving him for his past denials. “Peter, do you love me?” He asks this question three times, one for each time Peter denied him. It’s Jesus’s way of calling him back. 

Sometimes we’re converted from, and sometimes we’re converted to. Converted to new life, to a new path, to a new way of living, to a new way of seeing, to a new way of thinking, to a closer walk with Jesus. Ananias could tell us something about that. He shows up in today’s reading from Acts, too. He is already a devoted Christian, a faithful man, and he has heard about Saul. He knows Saul is coming, and he knows he wants to stay away from him. But then Jesus calls. Jesus needs Ananias to go to the very man he feared, this persecutor of the church, to lay his hands on him and pray for him. Ananias pushes back a little: In case you haven’t heard, Lord, this man is not good. Jesus tells him again: go. So he goes. When Ananias shows up, he calls Saul something unexpected: “Brother Saul,” he says. “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” A conversion has happened again, this time to Ananias. It wasn’t dramatic, like Saul’s; Ananias wouldn’t win that testimony service contest; but this is still a conversion, a change. Ananias has been given a new way of seeing, of seeing this persecutor of the church, not as an enemy, but as a brother in the Christian fellowship. He has been converted to newness, brought closer to God. 

Peter, too. In our gospel lesson, Peter is first converted from, taken from that path of denial he had been on. Then he is converted to–to newness of life, to following Jesus again. Jesus tells him, “follow me.” “Feed my lambs.” “Feed my sheep.” Be a disciple and walk a new path with Jesus. 

God is calling us to the same kind of conversion to that Ananais and Peter experience today. It may not be dramatic, but it’s still a conversion to new life, to a new way of living, of seeing, of thinking, of being in this world. But we have to be open to it. 

Sometimes we’re converted from; sometimes we’re converted to; every time, we are converted by. In other words, conversion is not something we do to ourselves, but it is something done to us. We are converted by God, who is reaching out to us, calling us, and whose power is able to bring us closer no matter what. It is Jesus who knocks Saul from his horse. It is Jesus who tells Ananias to go. It is Jesus who shows up on the lakeshore, makes breakfast, forgives Peter, and tells him to follow. It is all Jesus. Conversion, change, isn’t something we can do for ourselves. It must be done to us and for us by Jesus himself–but we must allow him to work and let his grace in. 

Tell me what you know about Jesus, Elaine asked me. I’ll tell you what I know: Jesus shows up in our lives; he loves us as we are; but he doesn’t leave us the way he found us. He changes us. He converts us. He makes us more like him–if we will allow him to. 

So tell me what you know about Jesus. What’s your story? Believe me, you have one, even if you don’t think you do. If you really examine it, you will find it’s a story of one conversion after another: conversion from our own way; conversion to the way of Christ; conversion by Christ himself, grace. Maybe it’s dramatic, and maybe it’s boring. Maybe it’s a little bit of both at different times. But it’s your conversion story nonetheless. It is a story that will not end, as long as we allow God to keep working on us. For God will never stop drawing us in, bringing us closer in relationship and in love.