Author: Mark Nabors

A sermon for the First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
May 28, 2023

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day we celebrate and acknowledge that we serve and worship a triune God, three in one, one in three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. The Trinity is not just a way we seek to understand God. Rather, the Trinity is Who God is in God’s very Being, as revealed in Holy Scripture and through tradition. 

Consider our reading from Genesis. There we see all three Persons present. The Father, who orders all things. The Son is there, too, although he is not called the Son. The other name for the Son is the Word–the very Word that speaks all things into being, moment by moment. Finally, we see the Spirit, or ruach in Hebrew. Ruach can also be translated as breath or wind. The Spirit, or wind from God as Genesis says, hovers over the waters at the beginning of creation. 

We see the Trinity present in the reading from II Corinthians. This passage commonly called the Grace, says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” All three, present and accounted for. 

And, of course, we see the Trinity in our gospel reading, as Jesus ascends into heaven. He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Unlike in Genesis where we must analyze the text to see all three Persons of the Godhead, Jesus reveals the language of the Trinity to us. 

Perhaps more than any other mystery of the faith, the Trinity has the potential to lull us to sleep, to make us ask who cares, and to engender some misunderstandings about God’s Nature. The Trinity isn’t an easy concept to grasp–after all, God is no concept to be grasped at all, but the fullness of reality beyond our grasping. We can err too far on one side or the other–overemphasizing the differences in the Persons to the point of making them sound like three gods instead of one, or overemphasizing the unity in the Persons to the point of making it seem like there aren’t three separate Persons at all. Too much of that theologizing, and we walk away confused, and frustrated, or maybe just ambivalent about it all. 

But it’s important because it is about who God is. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three distinct Persons, a community of perfect, self-giving love. And God is one: One in power, one in glory, one in majesty, one in love. It is in this three-in-one, one-in-three God that we live, and move, and have our being. 

This past Wednesday, I announced that Molly and I will be moving to St. Luke’s in Hot Springs this summer. My last Sunday with you will be July 16. God is calling me to serve as their rector after four wonderful years as your vicar. Molly and I are so thankful for our time with you, for your friendship, for your love and kindness shown to us. You will always, always, hold a very special place in our hearts. While we are excited about what God has in store in a new place, we are still brokenhearted, and we leave a piece of our hearts behind with you. But we all must follow where the Spirit leads, in joy and in sorrow, trusting in the grace of God. That’s what we are seeking to do. 

Here is what the mystery of the Holy Trinity has to say to us today: Our God is not one who is so high that he cannot be touched, so lofty that he does not care for us. No, our God is One who is ever-present, closer than our own breath. Our God is One who has taken on our flesh and understands our sorrow, our anxiety, our frustration, our worry. Our God is One who fills us with his very Spirit, who strengthens us and carries us by that Spirit, and who will never abandon us. Our God is the One in whom we live, and move, and have our being. And not only us as individuals, but also us as the Body of Christ at St. Peter’s/St. Alban’s. I am just one in a long succession of faithful priests who have had the honor of serving our Lord here, just as you are only one in a long succession of faithful lay persons who have had the honor of serving our Lord here. We can trust that even in transition, our God is with us, lifting us, supporting us all the day long. As we turn the page to see the next chapter in this parish, we remember that the priest is not the main character in the story. Nor are you. God, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, is the main character in the story of this church family. We serve God, we trust God, we seek to be faithful to God, and we follow where God leads. 

In his play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote those oft quoted words: “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.” This life is full of goodbyes, and those goodbyes come with sorrow, often sweet sorrow. We say goodbye to places and people; goodbye to jobs and communities; and in the end, goodbye to life on this mortal plane. Goodbyes hurt, even if there is sweetness in them. 

Molly and I feel that sweet sorrow: sweetness, as we look with joy and anticipation at what is to come in following God’s call, but also deep sorrow, because we love all of you more than we can say. But even as we transition, we remember that we are simply moving to a different part of the same Body. And while we may part for a time, we know that we never say goodbye forever, but only for now. We will all arise on that promised morrow, as eternity eclipses time, as the Son of God descends to establish the Kingdom, as the One in whom we live and move and have our being fully and perfectly envelopes us in that loving Totality. Together, on that morrow, goodbyes shall cease, and with them their sorrow; and we shall rise with alleluias on our tongue. 

A sermon for the Feast of Pentecost: Whitsunday
May 28, 2023

“Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart I will pray.” So says the African American spiritual. It’s an appropriate song for today, the feast of Pentecost, because it is today that we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on those first apostles. This Holy Spirit is the promised comforter, the promised Advocate, the third person of the Holy Trinity, sent to support, strengthen, and sustain them. This is the One who gives them power to accomplish what they have been called to do. 

But did you notice that we are given two versions of how the Holy Spirit shows up? In Acts, we read about the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit shows up like a violent wind, like tongues of fire resting on them. But we also read in John about the Holy Spirit coming to them as Jesus breathes on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus says. It’s far from a violent wind; it’s a gentle breath. 

What’s going on here? Why the different stories? From the beginning of the Church, we have understood that anytime there are seemingly conflicting stories in the Bible, God is trying to tell us something through them. So what is God trying to tell us through these two stories of the Spirit showing up?  

In Acts, we read that the Holy Spirit gives the apostles the ability to speak in the languages of the diverse people around them. These are just fishermen, but they are sharing the good news of God in Christ with people from around the known world. They are telling them of the love of God, about how Christ came as an infant, how he healed and taught, how he died on a cross for their redemption, and how he was raised on the third day. They are telling them that because of that, they can be reconciled to God. They can be children of God, God’s very beloved. The Holy Spirit enables them to share this message. Without this gift, they could not share this good news–at least not as effectively. 

That’s what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit comes to strengthen us, to give us power. But this strengthening and this power always has a purpose: We are strengthened and empowered to do the work God has given us to do. To share the good news of Jesus Christ, in big ways and small ways. And sometimes it feels like a violent wind, a holy fire. Jeremiah called it a fire shut up in his bones. The Holy Spirit shows up and drives us to action, pushes us to do the work we have been called to do, and it’s all clear as day. 

I remember talking with someone about this passage once. He told me, “You know, Mark, I wish I could feel the Spirit moving like that in my life, like a violent wind, like a fire. But I’ve never felt that.” I reminded him of today’s passage from John, when the Spirit descends gently as Jesus breathes on his beloved ones. It feels more like a still small voice, a nudge. He had felt that before. 

Several years ago, I knew a woman named Jane. When her husband died, I could see she was in a kind of fog. His death had been expected and a long time coming, but that doesn’t lessen the shock or the pain. That doesn’t help the grief. 

Several months went by, and I heard through the grapevine that Jane was starting something. She had had time to grieve, and now she wanted to do something. She had gone to the priest, and she was starting up a pastoral care team. This team would serve not only the members of the church, but also the people in the community. You see, she had noticed that when her husband was in hospice, there were so many people who didn’t have families, and so many families that didn’t have anyone to turn to. She had been blessed with a caring church family, but not everyone has that. Well, not yet anyway. She started a team up, just a few folks, all widows and widowers, who took care baskets down to those on hospice and their families. They said prayers with them. They gave them a church family. 

When I asked Jane about it later, she said that the idea came to her about a month after her husband’s death. And it just stuck. It was like a constant nudging, like a still small voice that wouldn’t leave her alone until she did something. It was the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit comes to us in many ways. It’s important to remember that. Pentecost Sunday is not only about remembering this mighty manifestation of the Spirit on that first Day of Pentecost, but also about seeing how the Spirit is speaking to us in our lives, even now, gently leading us in the paths that we should go, like Jesus breathing on his disciples. Believe me, the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. You just have to be willing to listen. You have to be willing to open your eyes and look for the Spirit in your life. 

“Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart I will pray.” How is the Holy Spirit moving in your heart? Maybe it feels like fire, like a violent wind, or maybe it feels like that gentle breath. However the Spirit is showing up, remember this: The Spirit is in your life to strengthen you, to give you power, in order that you may do what God is calling you to do, no matter how big or how small. Our job is to pray–to answer, here I am. Today, this week, how will you respond? 

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2023: Mother’s Day

“If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may ‘bide with you for ever: e’en the spir’t of truth.” If you have ever sung in a choir at an Episcopal church, you have likely sung these words from our gospel today set to music by Thomas Tallis, the English musician and composer of the 16th century. His music has, in a sense, defined this text for me. In my mind, I cannot hear the words of Jesus in this passage from John without also hearing the music of Tallis. Such is the power of music. 

Has that happened to you? Is there some song, some piece of music, that holds a special place in your heart, that is attached to a specific memory, a specific person? When you hear it, you are transported to a different place, a different time, to that person yet again? Couples often have songs–some piece of music that reminds them of their beloved, of their courtship, of those first feelings of love. Or perhaps some hymn sung at a funeral that brings tears, but also gratitude for that person you love but see no longer. “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” reminds Molly of her grandparents because it was sung at her granddaddy’s funeral. For Molly, the Rose E’er Blooming is not only the Christ child foretold by Isaiah, but it also speaks of Carl and Estelle Edwards, her memories of being at their home when she was a young child, their love and devotion to her. 

Such is the power of music. Memory rides on melody, piercing the protective shells we construct around our hearts, breaking into our souls, recalling sorrow and joy, erasing the divide between heaven and earth, between the past and the present. That’s why music is indispensable to faith. Music is something we have in worship because it has a special ability to open our souls to the currents of God’s grace. Our music on earth mystically joins the music in heaven, and it bridges the divide between here and there, between now and eternity, between us and God. More on this in a moment. 

Today’s gospel comes to us from the Last Supper in John. Jesus is giving his disciples his parting instructions before his death. They don’t understand what is about to happen, but Jesus is preparing them for it. Over and over at the Last Supper, he tells us to love–love him, love God, love one another, love those who hate you. He says that the world will know we are his disciples if we love one another. Jesus’s teaching, like the very being of God, is love. 

But we are sentimental creatures, and we over-sentimentalize love. We see love as a warm, fuzzy feeling we get. Jesus instructions today correct that. Love is shown in our actions–in how we live and the decisions we make. 

Jesus says we love him by keeping his commandments. We love Christ by serving one another and those around us. We love Christ by forgiving as he forgives us, by turning the other cheek. We love Christ when we are merciful, pure in heart, meek, peacemakers, poor in spirit. We love Christ when we suffer for his sake. We love Christ when we refuse to bicker and be angry with our brothers and sisters; when we refuse to see other people as objects to be used and exploited; when we do unto others as we would have them do to us; when we refuse to judge from a bloated sense of self-righteousness. We love Christ when we care for the needy and the stranger, for the widow and the orphan; when we give and give and give again of ourselves because that’s what Christ did for us. We love Christ when we speak up for those who are abused and neglected, forgotten and rejected. We love Christ when we spend time in open and honest prayer, allowing the Spirit to shape us and mold us and smooth out those places where pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth seek to devour our souls. We love Christ when we allow him to abide within us and help us grow fruit of faith, hope, and love. We love Christ by seeking to live like him. 

To put it another way, our faith must be shown in our lives; it must penetrate our souls; it must bear fruit of virtue and good works in the world; or it is nothing. Our faith must lead to real love–love of God and love of neighbor–that is seen in how we live our lives, or it is nothing. If our faith is only a matter of what we keep in our heads, only a matter of memorized statements, only a matter of intellectual assent, it is nothing. At its deepest level, faith must be a matter of the heart. Faith must be a matter of relationship–of our getting caught up into God–of harmonizing our fractured lives with the perfect Divine life of God. Our lives of faith must be like music: Our lives must be a window into who God is. Our lives of faith, lived out in real love, bridge heaven and earth, now and eternity, the world and God. 

Now, back to music. In the same way that a song on the radio might be forever entwined with the story of you and your beloved; in the same way that “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming” is forever associated with Molly’s grandparents; the words of Jesus today and the music of Thomas Tallis are, for me, forever coupled. Such is the power of music. And such is the power of our lives of faith if we seek to follow Jesus in the real and radical and transforming love he calls us to today. Like that music, our lives can become anthems–windows into the heart of God, expressions of what God is like, melodies of how much God loves us. And maybe, someone, somewhere, will someday say, I cannot think of Jesus without thinking of you, because somehow you have shown me what following Jesus looks like, at the level of the heart and soul. I cannot think of the love of Jesus without thinking of you, because you have loved me, and you have taught me what love really looks like. I cannot think of who Jesus is without thinking of you, for your life has been so harmonized with the life of heaven that I have been pulled in, compelled to join in the music myself. 

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023

In today’s reading from John, Jesus is telling his disciples goodbye. Our reading comes from the Last Supper. Jesus is giving his farewell discourse, his final parting words before his death. In a few moments, he will pray his high priestly prayer, asking God the Father to care for them, to strengthen them, to make them one as he and the Father are one. Jesus tells them that where he is going, they cannot go right now. He is going to prepare a place for them. But in time, he will come again and take them to his Father’s house, so that where he is, they may be also. This promise is for us today, as well. Christ is preparing a place even now for us. In the Father’s house are many dwellings. This is a way of saying there is enough room for you and for me, enough room for all the creation, within the Creator’s arms of love and mercy. He says, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 

The disciples, not knowing what will take place over the next few hours and day–from arrest to trial to death, to empty tomb–are understandably confused. Thomas says bluntly, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

Jesus replies, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” What does this mean? It means that Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, is the one who is the path to God, who opens up a channel of grace, who reconciles us to God through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus is at the center of our life, of our faith, precisely because of this. Because of Christ, we have a means of grace, we have a hope of glory. Because of Christ, we can become children of God through baptism, through participation in the saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the way to the Father. If we know Jesus, we know truth, for Christ is truth. If we live in Christ, we have life, for Christ is Life itself. 

This is not simply a doctrinal statement about who we believe Jesus Christ is. This is not simply something we confess, only something we know intellectually. If faith is only an intellectual exercise, if faith is only something we talk about, we haven’t come close to understanding what Jesus is saying today. This is about how we live. Jesus tells Thomas that he knows the way, and even though Thomas doesn’t understand it at first, it is true–he does, indeed, know the way. Why? Because he has been living, abiding in Christ. If we live in Christ, if we abide in his love for us, then we know the way, the truth, and the life, because we are living in him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

What Jesus is doing, then, is giving an invitation to all–to you, me, and all the world. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus has invited his disciples and us to abide in him. To live in him. What Jesus is saying today is the same thing. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and he desires more than anything that we should abide in him, that we should abide in him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is an invitation to grace; an invitation to love; an invitation to new life and hope and salvation. 

When we hear this as an invitation instead of a mere doctrinal statement, I think it changes how we understand it. One of my favorite poets, an Anglican priest in the 16th and 17th centuries, George Herbert, said it this way: 

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

Such a Way, as gives us breath:

Such a Truth, as ends all strife: 

And such a Life, as killeth death. 

The name of this poem is “The Call.” God in Christ calls to us. The Way beckons us. The Truth draws us. The Life compels us. All of this is Christ inviting us to new life, to new life in him, not only eternal life in glory, but new life today, right now. Herbert hears this invitation, and so he responds in this poem, inviting Christ to come to him, to change him, to captivate him. To become, once and for all, his Way, his Truth, his Life, the center of his very being. Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life. 

I cannot help but think of someone I met once when I was learning how to do pastoral visits as a seminarian. I bet you know someone like her. She has one of those warm and inviting spirits. Her smile is enough to pick you up on a bad day. But most of all, she knows Jesus. 

I had not known her very long when I went to see her for a visit. I expected the visit to be quick; she did not. She invited me in, made me sit down, brought out food. In the course of our visit that afternoon, she asked me a question. It was something like, “Mark, tell me what you know about Jesus.” I told her my story, and she told me hers. And she, and me, and Jesus had a wonderful afternoon. 

By the end of that visit, I had no doubt, this woman knows Jesus. Not some idea of who Jesus might be. Not a knowledge of Jesus and who he was in history. Not even a conception of Jesus she had picked up over decades of faithful church attendance, teaching Sunday school, and listening to sermons. No, she knows Jesus, because Jesus is her Master and her friend. She knows Jesus because they talk everyday. She knows Jesus because she took his invitation seriously. When he invited her to abide in him, to live in him, that’s just what she did. When he said he was the Way, she followed him on that Way. When he said he was the Truth, she plumbed the depths of that Truth. When he said he was the Life, she gave up her life, she died with him, and she rose to new life in him. He is her Way, her Truth, her very Life. And day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, she rededicated herself to following Jesus, her Master and friend, dying daily to sin, and rising everyday to new life. 

Can you hear Jesus’ invitation today? The invitation to follow him on this Way, to learn from him who is the Truth, to live in him who himself is Life? That invitation, that grace, reaches out to each and every one of us today and everyday, waiting for us to respond, waiting for us to say, Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life.  

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2023

A friend of mine in seminary once said it best. We had a big test coming up, and we were worried and complaining. I remember my friend saying, “Listen, y’all, we can do hard things.” “How can you be sure about that?” came the reply. My friend said, “We can do hard things because Jesus is risen from the dead.” 

That’s a silly example, sure. In hindsight, finishing up a term paper and preparing for an exam were not hard things–not really. We did just fine. And if we hadn’t, the sky wouldn’t have fallen in. But her point still stands: In life, we are able to do hard things, not by our own power, but because Christ has risen from the dead and the Holy Spirit is within us, giving us power. 

In the book of Acts, they were doing some hard things. Our reading today is from the end of the second chapter, after the first Day of Pentecost. The Church has been formed. Her leadership has been established: a motley crew of fishermen and tax collectors and ordinary folks without any extraordinary abilities. Overnight, thousands have been added to the parish register. Thousands have been baptized by water and the Spirit, and the Church is in full gear. Acts tells us that this group “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” In order words, they came together united by the apostles’ teaching about the death and resurrection of Christ; they celebrated Eucharist as Jesus commanded them; they prayed for one another and the world. Acts tells us they also held things in common and distributed proceeds to those in need. They spent time in the temple. They lived with happy and generous hearts, thankful for what God was doing in their midst. 

Perhaps after reading that brief passage, we are tempted to think, “Oh, how nice.” Perhaps we are tempted to move quickly. But when we do that, we miss some things just in the background, some difficult things stirring, some darkening skies and incoming storms. 

We can forget that the religious authorities and the Roman authorities are still on high alert. The early church was not just an unusual religious phenomenon. In proclaiming that Jesus was King, and not the emperor, the early church was a potent political threat. We don’t have to read much further into Acts before Stephen is stoned for declaring the gospel, before Saul starts hunting down Christians near and far. 

We can forget that Jerusalem was a powder keg about to explode, with zealots and rebels pushing against imperial authority. It would only be a few decades before the Romans would have enough of it, destroying the city and its temple, scattering peoples abroad for centuries. 

We can forget that to be part of what they called the Way was controversial. It divided families. People dear to you might shun you, cast you out, exclude you from the community. 

And we can forget an important fact about this Jerusalem church, a fact that will become apparent in the letters of St. Paul. The Jerusalem church was full of folks at the end of their ropes, folks without economic security, folks at the bottom of the food chain. When Luke tells us in Acts that they shared what they had and held it all in common, we should know that it wasn’t much at all. 

This church faced some hard realities: persecution on every side, political and religious violence, hatred from loved ones, poverty and insecurity. With that context in mind, what Luke tells us about them is even more incredible: “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”

They could have taken my friend’s comment as their motto: We can do hard things because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can live faithfully in an unfaithful world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can be forgiving in an unforgiving world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can be generous in a greedy world–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can have hope even when we are threatened and hunted down–because Jesus is risen from the dead. We can love and have joy and live in peace–because Jesus is risen from the dead. Because Jesus is risen from the dead, we know that sin and death are defeated, so we can live differently. We can live boldly. We can live with our eyes looking for that city whose builder and maker is God. And no matter what comes, come hell, come high water, we will make it. All because Jesus is risen from the dead. 

This is not just optimistic thinking. This is not having a positive attitude. This is not living life with rose-colored glasses on. No, this is hope–real hope. This is living a transformed life because we know that the world is different because of Christ’s death and resurrection–and we are part of that new creation. 

I wonder what hard thing God is calling you to do? What difficult challenge is present in your life? What do you have to endure for the sake of the cross? It can be tempting to give up, to throw our hands in the air in surrender, to set our faith to the side as if it has nothing to say when we must do hard things. In difficult times, it can be so tempting to live in anxiety, in fear, in hopelessness, in despair, to give into gloom and fear. But we don’t have to do that. We have another choice. We can live differently. No matter what, we can choose to live in love, to live in peace, to live with joy in our hearts, to live with hope for a brighter day. We can do this, not because of ourselves, not because of what we can do, but only because Jesus is risen from the dead. And in rising, he has called us to rise: from the gloom of sin, from the death of despair, and into the hope of life everlasting, into the light of God’s love. And no matter what comes, come hell, come high water, we know that Jesus Christ, who is alive indeed, will lead us through it. 

Whatever hard thing you may be facing, lift up your head in hope. Look up. Your Savior is here. No matter how hard things may be, we keep the faith, and we know we will be alright, because Christ is risen from the dead, and his Spirit is with us. 

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 16, 2023

Today is called “Low Sunday.” It’s called that because our numbers tend to be low after our big Easter Sunday. Those who show up today are dragged here by something greater than themselves, by the very Spirit of God pulling them, by grace, to the life on offer in the word and sacraments. But for many, the pattern is Easter Sunday, then we need a break. 

St. Thomas breaks that pattern today. In our reading from John, we read that he is absent on Easter Sunday. On the day of the Resurrection, with the doors still locked, Jesus appears to the disbelieving disciples. He breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit. He gives them a mission. He speaks peace. But Thomas isn’t there. And when his fellow disciples tell him what has happened, he doesn’t believe it. He doubts (just like they did before Jesus showed up). He says he won’t believe unless Jesus shows up and Thomas can see the wounds. 

Let’s not beat up on Thomas for his doubt. Who among us has never had any doubt? Perhaps there are some, but they are not standing in this pulpit. I’ve had doubts and struggles with faith. And those struggles have come when I have been at my lowest point, at my most wounded, like Thomas. Those struggles of faith often assail us when we have been thrown into the pit, when our expectations about how things should be are turned upside-down, when our worlds reel and rock and we spin out of control. Thomas’s Lord and Master has been tortured and killed. The source of Thomas’s hopes has been crucified on a tree. No wonder he struggles with doubt today. 

But the next week, on Low Sunday, at his lowest point, Thomas shows up. I wonder why? Why wasn’t he there the week before? Why does he come this week? I suppose it was for the same reason that we are here today. The grace of God dragged him there, wounds and all, because there was something that needed to happen in his life. There was some healing that needed to happen in his soul. 

I often hear it: I shouldn’t go to church if I can’t believe. I shouldn’t be in the pews if I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be there if I’m a sinner, if I’m wounded, if I can’t have faith. My friend, take Thomas as your patron and come anyway. The Holy Spirit is dragging you here. For it is at that precise moment when we need to encounter Christ, crucified and risen. 

That’s what happens to Thomas. He comes. Perhaps he comes kicking and screaming. He comes wounded. But maybe he comes wondering, too–wondering if there could be any truth in what he had heard. “Probably not,” he tells himself as he gets up that morning. “But I need a cup of coffee anyway, and maybe there will be some donuts.” So he comes. He thinks he is dragging himself there. He’s actually being dragged there by God. 

And Jesus shows up. Jesus, crucified and risen, wounds and all, shows up. “Don’t doubt, Thomas,” he says, “But believe.” Trust in me. Trust in this resurrection. Trust that I have defeated the powers of sin and death. I see you’re wounded, Thomas. I have been wounded, too. Go ahead, put your hand in my pierced hands, in my pierced side. Trust me, your once-wounded healer, to heal you.

We show up week after week with our own wounds. And with our wounds, we come with doubts, with reservations, with what-if’s, with how-can-it-be’s. We show up having been dealt blow after blow, having struggled and lost against sin, having been touched by the icy hand of death. But the Spirit drags us here, even on Low Sunday at our lowest points, because we need to meet Christ. We need to meet Christ, not because we’re perfect, not because we have more than enough faith, not because we’re all put together, not because our lives are easy, but for the exact opposite reason: because we’re sinners, because we doubt, because we fall apart, because life is hard sometimes, because we’re hurting and wounded and our hope is lost. And that is exactly how Christ desires to meet us. He meets us there so he can lift us, so he can heal us, so he can love us, so he can give us his life. 

Do not doubt, but believe. Believe that Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, is here now to do that for you. And be healed. 

A sermon for the Day of the Resurrection: Easter Sunday
April 9, 2023

What is a nice Easter? A nice Easter is a day with good weather, a day the Easter bunny won’t have to dodge puddles. A nice Easter is a day when the children, somehow, almost magically, dress themselves in Easter suits and dresses. A nice Easter is a day with a good ham, good sides, good wine, good conversation, and good entertainment. A nice Easter is a day with good hymns, with a good (not-too-long) sermon, and some good flowers on the cross. A nice Easter is a day for good family photos. 

It is striking to me that our list of what makes a nice Easter can rattle on without a mention of the cross and empty tomb. And when it does mention it, let’s make it a nice conversation. Let us not dwell on blood and scourging. Let us not dwell on Mary Magdalene, with eyes so spent she cannot cry any longer. Let us not dwell on the fear of the followers hiding out, on the uncertainty of tomorrow. Let us not dwell on sneering soldiers, on self-righteous religious elites so sure they are right, on inept and violent magistrates. Let us instead think on sunshine, and flowers, and family.  

We in America domesticate Easter. We domesticate Jesus, so it should not be a surprise we domesticate the Paschal event and our participation in that great mystery. Our domestication begins in the church. 

We domesticate Easter into a self-help project. As an article in The Economist magazine put it, “History’s best comebacks, from Jesus to John Travolta: Resurrection stories help us look on the bright side of life.” Oh, look at this pretty flower, we say. It dies every year, and then one day, it pops up again, and looks real pretty. And that’s what Jesus is like. And that’s what we are like, if we work hard, if we try hard, if we find the silver lining and don’t give up, if we all hold hands around the world and sing together. Happy Easter! 

We domesticate it to a socio-political strategy. We say, if you think like me, if you look like me, if you vote like me, if you agree with me, then maybe the cross and resurrection can mean something to you. But you have to be like me, and my group, and my party, and my friends, or it doesn’t work. And once we, the true Christians come together and have real political power, we can make things look how we want them to look. Happy Easter! 

Enough already. If Easter is about flowers and becoming pretty people, I don’t have time for it. If Easter is about making people think like us, look like us, vote like us, so we can have political power, I don’t have time for it. If Easter is about us and what we do instead of about God and unmerited grace, I don’t have time for it. Fire me now, because I need to find something better to do. Thankfully, all of that is not what the cross and resurrection are about. Those are cheap knock-offs, domestications. I’m only interested in the real thing. I hope you are, too. 

Let’s not water it down. Here’s the cross and resurrection, neat: God in Christ has come into the world to save us from the power of sin and death, from which we can never escape on our own. Christ, perfect God and perfect man, died on the cross for us. Christ, perfect God and perfect man, was raised by the Father on the third day. This is a historical fact. And because Christ has done that, sin and death have lost their power. We are free. We are free from striving; we are free from shame; we are free from bondage to our past. Through Christ, we can be with God forever in a transformed life of love. That transformed, eternal life starts right now, and it looks like loving God and those around us, especially the most vulnerable who are easy targets and easily forgotten. It looks like serving a different and truer reality: the kingdom of God. 

Jesus Christ isn’t a life coach, nor is he a political mascot. He is the Son of God, crucified and risen. And because of that, it is worth giving up everything to follow him as our Savior, our Lord, our friend. 

My sisters and brothers, we must refuse to domesticate the cross and the resurrection. We must see the death and resurrection of the Son of God for what it is: A universe-altering, earth-rattling, foundation-shaking, God-driven event whose particularity has eclipsed universality, with power extending not for a single moment only, not even from the year 0 AD onward, but echoing throughout the caverns of time and eternity. Its power extends not just to a select few, not just to you and me, not just to people we like, but to all people everywhere. And it changes us. If we live in this mystery, we are really changed by love to love. We must refuse to domesticate the cosmic implications of this event. We must refuse to domesticate the personal and communal transformative possibilities we have because of this event. The universe is different now, so we can be different now and our world can be different now. We must refuse to domesticate the grace and power of God. 

I won’t wish you a nice Easter. And if I go on autopilot and tell you ‘happy Easter,’ please know that I do not mean it. No, the only thing I can wish is for all of us to have a real Easter: an Easter imbued with the radical grace of God; an Easter that changes time and eternity; an Easter that grabs us by the collars and catapults us from our graves of sin and death and into the new life of Christ; an Easter that transforms the way we see ourselves, the way we live in the world, the way we love our neighbors; an Easter purchased by the blood and power of God for millions and for me. Yes, I will wish you a real Easter, an undomesticated Easter, an Easter unafraid to proclaim from every corner, Alleluia! Christ is risen! And because Christ is risen, everything–and I mean everything, for us, and for the whole universe, for all time–has changed, decisively and forever. 

A sermon for the Easter Vigil
April 8, 2023

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The cross comes first, then glory. The cross comes first, then life and peace. The cross comes first, then forgiveness. The cross comes first, then resurrection. Sometimes we want to shortcut everything, go immediately to glory, to life, to peace, to forgiveness, to resurrection. But we can’t. It all depends on the cross. 

Brian knew something about that. He had walked the way of the cross. It wasn’t the literal way that Jesus walked through Jerusalem, the via dolorosa. But he had walked it in his soul after that car wreck that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He had walked it through the despair of learning he would never walk again. He had walked it through the shame and guilt of coming to terms with his affair before the wreck. He had walked it in humility, as he learned to let his family, like Simon, carry his burden when he could not. Brian knew pain; he had experienced a kind of crucifixion; he had lost it all, been stripped of who he was, of all his self-created dignity. He had walked the way of the cross. 

It was a long way. The wreck happened when he was 44. It would take a decade to come to terms with everything. It would take a decade for healing to happen. I don’t mean physical healing; he is still paralyzed. I mean a more profound spiritual and emotional healing. It took a decade for him to feel the forgiveness of God, to accept that his wife had forgiven him, and to forgive himself. It took a decade for him to accept where he was, and to allow his family to care for him without resentment, without humiliation. It took a decade for the depression to lift, for life to come back, for joy to return. 

Brian remembers the day the fog began to lift after that decade. His church had a new priest, and she stopped by to meet him. They sat in the living room, talking. Brian told her, “I just don’t feel like I have a purpose anymore. What can God do with me. All I do is sit in this room day after day; I think; I talk to myself; sometimes I talk to God; I watch the news and I just cry.” 

“Cry?” the priest asked. “Who are you crying for?” 

Brian replied, “I don’t really cry for myself anymore. I cry for the people I see, for suffering in the lives of people I love. I wouldn’t have cried a decade ago, but I cry now, all the time. I guess my pain has helped me feel the pain of others.” 

“Brian,” the priest replied, “Have you ever heard of intercessory prayer?” Intercessory prayer is where we lift up the concerns of the world to God. We are all called to this prayer. But there are some people who have a special vocation of prayer, some folks who are called to be intercessors for the world. People like St. Julian of Norwich, a medieval woman of the 13th and 14th centuries. Called an anchorite, she lived in a small room connected to a cathedral for the entirety of her adult life. She prayed, she gave spiritual direction, she interceded, day in and day out. 

The idea lit something up in Brian. He tried it the next day. “I’m not going to pray for myself today,” he told himself. “I’m going to pray for the people around me.” He began to pray, lifting up concerns to God. He entered into the pain, the distress, the heartache of others, something he could do because he had walked the path of pain, distress, and heartache himself. He didn’t just do it that day, but day after day after day. Like Julian long before him, he became a kind of holy anchorite, bound to a chair physically, but spiritually moving mountains. Before long he was his parish’s intercessor. He and the priest worked together. They had a prayer list put together. They started a prayer team. Brian led them in intercession. Eventually he became a spiritual director, a counselor for people in distress, a teacher of prayer. From his home office, in his chair, unable to move, he opened the unseen world of faith to many. 

Resurrection happened. New life happened. God raised Brian up into something new. As surely as God raised Jesus from the dead, God raised Brian from despair. Like Jesus, Brian came out of the tomb with scars. Brian carried his ordeal in his body. He was confined physically to a chair, but no longer confined spiritually, no longer confined emotionally. The scars, his physical condition, instead of being the thing he hated most, became part of Brian’s testimony to the greatness and power of God. He would say, “Without the wreck, I wouldn’t know how to pray.” 

The cross must come first. But resurrection comes second. That was true for Jesus. That was true for Brian. And it’s true for us. Most of us don’t walk the way of the cross like Brian. We don’t walk it like Jesus, either. We are not given a cross to bear with such intensity. Our crosses are carried in spurts, in small trial after small trial, in one difficulty after another. Our valleys are broken up by mountaintops. We have a reprieve in our via dolorosa, our path of suffering. But we each, all of us, are given a cross to bear at some point. 

But then the third day dawns. Morning comes, as it always must. A new fire is lit. New life is given. God takes those sufferings, those pains, those heartaches, those wounds, and God heals them to make something new. God meets us when we are down, in despair, in the pit, in the grave, with tear stained faces, and God yanks us out of our tombs to faith, to hope, to love, to resurrection and new life. And when that happens, all we can say is Alleluia! Christ is risen, indeed, and my life is the proof.  

A sermon for Holy Saturday
April 8, 2023

How can we understand what is happening today? Truth be told, we come to the edge of words. God in the flesh has been killed in the most godless way, on the most irreligious tool of torture. There was no legion of angels at the last minute, no sleight of hand. He is dead: laid in the arms of his mother, and then taken to a tomb nearby.

One ancient homily tells us what is going on. I usually read that homily today. Probably written by Melito in the first centuries of the church, it expounds on what we read from I Peter. Christ, after death, has descended to hell, to the dead, in order to bring the captives–that is, those who died before–up from their graves and into the newness of life. But if you and I were to enter the tomb today, we would still see the body of Jesus lying there, unrecognizable. He would be cold. He would be stiff. He would stink from decay and from the humiliating ordeal of crucifixion. Lifeless. How can we, on this side of the veil of death, understand this? 

Our collect today says he is resting on the Sabbath. We are meant to see in these holy days a parallel to the story of creation in Genesis 1. We will read that story tonight. In the creation account in Genesis 1, we see a seven-day creation. On day six, God creates humankind, male and female, in his image. On the seventh day, God rests and calls his creation very good. 

In coming to earth to take on our flesh, Christ, God in the flesh, has entered into a project of re-creation: the re-creation of humanity and the entire cosmos. Once in the image and likeness of God, we have been marred by sin and death, and creation along with us. Christ has come to “more wonderfully restore the dignity of human nature,” to bring us back to that first image, to bring us back to our first purpose: relationship with God, one another, and all creation. Thereby, as we sang last night, earth and stars and sky and ocean are freed from that ancient stain of our doing. 

God in Christ makes that re-creation of humanity possible on the sixth day of this Holy Week, on Good Friday, hanging on the cross, defeating the power of sin and death. It costs God dearly. And then, like in Genesis one, on the seventh day he rests from all that he has made–all that he has made possible through this sacrifice. And he calls it very good, indeed. That is what is happening in the stillness of the tomb. 

We, of course, do not stop on this seventh day. We know this is not the end. Vindication is coming. The Resurrection, which we will proclaim tonight, inaugurates a new day, a new age. The dawning of the Resurrection takes us to, not the first day of the week recycled, but to the eighth day of a new age. Indeed, early Christians called Sunday the eighth day–a day in time and yet out of time, a day that is the sign of the fullness of life to come, a sign of our hope in Christ, a participation in eternity. Here at St. Alban’s, it should be no surprise that our baptismal font and our columbarium are eight-sided. 

On this sabbath day, this seventh day, we rest with Jesus, in thanksgiving for our new creation that his body and blood have made possible from the cross on the sixth day. And we remember that the eighth day, the day of hope, of new life, of the new age, of eternity, is drawing near.     

A sermon for Good Friday
April 7, 2023

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Every family has its secrets. They’re never spoken publicly, rarely spoken privately. Yesterday evening I introduced us to Brian. Brian was in a car wreck that paralyzed him from the neck down. It transformed his relationship with his wife and children forever. Brian, always the provider, had to learn the other side of love: being provided for. His paralysis wasn’t a secret. The car wreck wasn’t a secret. Most people wouldn’t have even known there was a secret to be had. But there was one. The secret was the answer to that question, the question everyone had been asking the night of the wreck: Why was Brian out driving so late at night? 

The wreck happened around 1:20 am on a state highway about 25 minutes from his home. The other driver had been impaired; it was his fault. Brian was in the clear as far as that goes. The toxicology report at the hospital proved it. His phone never left his pocket. Tread marks showed he had not fallen asleep; he was in his lane. 

Why was Brian out driving so late? Mandy, his wife, had come up with an explanation well before Brian was out of the coma. He couldn’t sleep, she had said, due to some new medication he had been on. He was working and realized he had forgotten something at the office. Why waste the opportunity? But the truth was, Mandy didn’t know. Mandy had been asleep, like the kids. Mandy only found out when the police officers from the scene handed her his personal effects. Brian was having an affair, and he was on his way to see her. It had been going on for some time. 

No one needed to know. She knew. Brian knew. Everyone else bought the work story. But secrets of that sort are heavy. They are a weight. There is a shame, an anger, a sadness that only Mandy knew as she watched her husband in an induced coma for two weeks, then sat with him as the doctors put humpty-dumpty back together again. And part of her wished they wouldn’t. 

Yes, these secrets are heavy. It was heavy for Brian, once he came to and remembered some things. He and Mandy had the talk in his new reality, in a hospital bed, without feeling from his neck down. He asked her forgiveness. He meant it. She gave it. She meant it, too. But you don’t drop shame so easily. He carried it. The guilt stayed with him.

Sin is a powerful thing. Sin is a cosmic power, a dominion, a realm that can capture our souls. But there’s another dimension of sin: the personal side, the side we feel, the guilt, the shame, the heaviness we carry. 

Sin is a powerful thing, both cosmic and personal. It could only be defeated by God in Christ on the cross. That’s why this Friday is good. That’s why Christ’s suffering is called good. Because it sets the world right. The Holy Trinity defeats that unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil, and it happens on Calvary. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is that double cure we need: It deals with sin as a cosmic power and dominion, but it also soothes the soul and brings relief to our personal shame, lifts our own burden of guilt. 

Brian had always been a Christian. He had seen the cross carried in, just as we will in a moment. He had sung the hymns, prayed the prayers. But he didn’t understand the power of the cross until he had to walk that way. Ironically, he began walking that way when walking was no longer a physical possibility. He began that inward journey into his shame, into his guilt, into his transgressions, into his sin. He carried that heavy burden as he sat bound to a bed, confronted with the consequences of his decisions. There were days he asked God why he hadn’t died. That would’ve been easier.   

But he had lived. So he walked the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of shame, the way that Jesus walks today. Jesus’s way was a public way, down a street; Brian’s was a secret way, into the recesses of the heart and soul. But it was still heavy. He carried it until he had a dream one night. In it, he saw Christ, crucified, dying, breathing his last, at the foot of his bed. Above Christ’s head was the sign we read about: King of the Jews. And in his dream, next to that sign, there was a smaller note, stained with blood. It read, Brian’s affair. And before he commended his Spirit to the Father, Christ looked Brian in the face and said, “This is for you.” 

I don’t know what your note would say, but you probably do. I know what mine would say. Christ’s message is the same for us: This is for you. Forgiveness is possible for Brian because Christ has paid the price. Forgiveness is possible for all of us because God in Christ has paid the price for sin. God in Christ has died so a new way of grace can be opened up in our lives, freeing us from the weight of shame, lifting the burden of guilt, liberating us from the curse of sin, defeating the power of death and the devil himself. God has paid the price so we can be free and have life and peace.