O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom. Amen.

As Anglicans the Incarnation has always been central to our expression of the Christian faith. Indeed, as Anglicans we are a people who take seriously the indivisible construct between what we say and what we do in all matters of faith. Thus, you will not hear Anglicans engaged in the age old battle between faith and works. As Anglicans we echo James as he asks:

What good is it . . . if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

In the back of your Book of Common Prayer the Articles of Faith put it this way. Good works “spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; in so much that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by its fruit.”

Therefore it should not surprise us that the feast of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ has always been a profoundly joyous celebration for us Anglicans. In the incarnation God takes on human flesh and comes among us to literally pitch a tent in our midst. The Incarnation is God’s ultimate act of communication with us. God comes to live in our contemporary world – here and now. And in doing so teaches us by example how to live a life in love with God.

“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us,” the shepherds proclaim immediately following the visit from an angel and heavenly host. In order to most fully participate in the good news of great joy the shepherds instinctively know that they must “go and see.” Indeed, later in his ministry this first born son wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger will be described by Philip to Nathaniel as the one he must “come and see.”

On this Christmas Eve night – in the midst of this glorious space and celebration of the Incarnation – God comes among us and says “come and see” how I love you. We need not journey with the shepherds to ancient Bethlehem to discover the Lord. Christ awaits us in our communities, homes, and churches; wherever there is human need and an opportunity to show God’s love through service, there Christ lies, as if in a manger. The Lord’s presence may be imperceptible to those who seek God only in the spectacular, but it is revealed to all who understand what Bethlehem is all about.

Nor is this Christ to be found only at Christmas. Christ is within reach at all times and seasons to those who can recognize God in the ordinary. Yet we too often find that our vision of the Lord is hidden from us in the press of everyday life. Thus Christmas occurs once a year to remind us how things really are.

So we gather as Christians first and Anglicans second here at St. Catherine’s this night, as an expression of our desire to come and see what God has done. And as we do we might ask God for a new way of seeing, of recognizing the divine in our midst in this coming year. Since the humility of God in Jesus Christ is seen most clearly in the sacrificial suffering of the cross, we come asking the ability to recognize the humble presence of the Lord wherever we encounter suffering, pain, rejection, loneliness, and despair. We come asking for the gift of readiness to offer ourselves – to bear our fruit – as living sacrifices for our sisters and brothers in need.

As Jesus does not reject us, we can reject no one. As Jesus shares in our poverty, we are called to share in the poverty of others in our relationships with others may be found a kind of “second Incarnation” as the Body of Christ – you and me – comes to the world again and again, loving, sharing, find the lost and feeding the hungry.

The true gifts of this day are not the brightly decorated packages around the tree, as important as they may be in conveying love. The true gifts of Christmas are the ability to discover God’s presence in our lives and the willingness to offer ourselves to any of God’s daughters and sons whom we can help, encourage or strengthen. This, then, is what it means to live a “true and lively faith”; to live out the incarnation in the world. When we possess the gifts of seeing God in others and serving others in God’s name, then Christmas is upon us in its fullness.

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom. Amen.

Christmas cards are beginning to arrive! They are filled with special messages of love and peace.

Yet, we come to church and hear Isaiah, in the words Jesus himself will use in the temple in his hometown, challenge us to “bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day vengeance of our God. . .”

We encounter John the Baptizer baptizing in the river Jordan. Are you a prophet? “No,” he responds. Who are you then. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord." Turn your life around because one greater than me is coming.

The truth is our Christmas is artificially set in Victorian splendor with snow on the ground, love in our hearts and presents under the tree. Yet, Isaiah calls us to seek justice in an unjust world. And John proclaims the one who is so much greater than John that he can't even stoop down to untie his shoelaces. Are Isaiah and John the Baptist preparing to celebrate the same Christmas?

Neither John nor Isaiah care much for the contemporary battles being waged over the “preservation of Christmas.” Nor should we! The fact is if John and Isaiah were to stand in this pulpit this morning their message would be painful. You’ve got it all wrong, friends! Christmas is not what you have made it to be.

Given the opportunity what would Isaiah and John write in our Christmas greetings? Let’s think for a moment about the nature of a true Christmas greeting.

A true Christmas greeting is new. What God did in the small town of Bethlehem 2000 years ago was so new that no other event has so shaped our lives or will ever shape our lives. What God did that night is radical and never before imagined -- God came down to earth as a living, breathing human baby to join us in our earth bound life. So a true Christmas greeting never sounds rerun. Its central message so startles us that it can never become stale.

A true Christmas greeting should offend us. The proud were not invited to the party in that manger. Today you must stoop to enter the Church of the Nativity. It should remind us that we are called to a ministry of justice to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners. And only when we take that ministry seriously are we invited to stand with them at the manger. Christmas is not about all those sentimental songs, commercials, and perfectly trimmed Christmas trees Christmas is about the scandal that our God came to the broken and oppressed of the world as a baby lying in dirty straw in an animal feed trough surrounded by an exhausted mother and nervous father.

A true Christmas greeting is excessive. Only God could have written the Christmas story. Who could have imagined the obedience of Mary? Who could have matched the faithfulness of Joseph? Who could have obeyed like the shepherds? Who would be willing to cross the desert following a star? Paul's message to the Thessalonians acknowledges this remarkable love and demands that we respond with equal excess. "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances..."

A true Christmas greeting promotes love. John the Baptist denounces the crowd, but then invites them to turn their lives around. He encourages them to make a difference in their world by bearing fruits worthy of repentance. Isaiah, John the Baptist, Paul -- all of them show in their lives and words specific examples of lives lived in response to God's great gift -- Jesus.

A true Christmas greeting brings joy. I wonder what the shepherds talked about as they returned to their fields? Was it about the theological implications of the birth of the messiah and who would write about their astonishment at their encounter with the angels? Or is it more likely that they returned to their fields so full of joy at what they had witnessed that they were singing and praising God and talking nonstop to one another about the glory they had experienced.

So, imagine John the Baptist on the front of your next Christmas card. You open it and find this greeting:

"Our thoughts for you at this special time of the year are best expressed by the one who said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.” Join us in our work for justice and peace in the world. Merry Christmas."

Or imagine a card with a picture on front of a contemporary family celebrating Christmas dinner by raising their champagne glasses in a toast. You open it and find this greeting:

"As we toast the happiness of our families, friends and nation we invite you to join us in bringing goods news to the oppressed, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners during this season of abundance. Merry Christmas"

Or imagine a card featuring Mary, as a very pregnant teenager -- her hair uncut and unwashed, her feet bare and dirty -- standing on a street corner. You open the card and find this greeting:

"Our holiday wishes for you were expressed by the one who said: "He has scattered the proud... He has brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly. he has filled the hungry with good things. And sent the rich away empty. Merry Christmas."

These Christmas cards may not sell, but their messages get Christmas right! Christmas is about recognizing and celebrating the arrival of God in our midst -- not solely for our sake and salvation, but for the sake and salvation of all those we oppress or bind up or hold captive or imprison by our words and deeds.

And so from our house to yours this Advent season, imagine this card:

"Our wishes for a season filled to abundance with God's call to live your lives in love with him, with God's son, and with your neighbor. Merry Christmas."

Text of Sunday Sermon

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom. Amen.

The early Church spent much of its time waiting for Jesus to return. As years passed, the remoteness of his return -- at least imminently -- raised many questions. The readings from Matthew these last few Sundays of the liturgical year attempt to answer some of those questions. Today Matthew wants to assure his community that Jesus will return, though the time of waiting will be hard. The question is, "How can we be ready."

Matthew offers the parable of the talents to help us answer that very question. And the answer seems clear enough. We best prepare for the return of Christ by using the gifts God has given us.

A talent was a staggering sum of money worth more than fifteen years of laborer's wages -- at my stipend that is nearly a million dollars in 2005 dollars. We should not hear, then, the word talent as meaning specific talents like piano playing or woodworking or sewing. Rather try to hear the word as the sum of one's life, entrusted to us by God, a staggering treasure.

Is our life a treasure? Like the one talent man, are we too tempted to refuse everything God offers us out of fear? I can sympathize with the one talent man. Poor guy. He doesn't have much to start out with; he's cautious; and he's afraid of his harsh master. His fate at the hands of the master seems completely unfair at least when compared to his crime of not using the money. "Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness" hardly seems a fit sentence for a man whose only fault was excessive caution.

But Matthew, during these last weeks of Pentecost, gives us a series of harsh sayings, and he doesn't seem too concerned about God's reputation. And we have echoes in this passage of what we've encountered many times before in the Gospel lessons. Jesus does not seem to have a lot of sympathy for fear. "I was afraid," said the One Talent man to his master. His sin was the opposite of what we usually think of as chief among sins, closer to apathy than pride. He was not willing to risk losing what little he had, and his punishment was to lose everything.

We've usually understood this parable to mean that, even though some of us have few gifts, we are meant to use those gifts rather than lose them. No doubt that is good advice. But we could find that advice just as easily in a Dear Abby or Erma Bombeck column as from Jesus. So there must be a deeper message in the parable. Jesus is talking about an attitude toward life that seems to be all to common in today's world.

The one talent man was capable of increasing a hundredfold that with which he had been entrusted. Had he been willing to risk, to venture, to act with courage, he could have entered into the joy which is promised to the other servants. But he preferred safety. He was afraid, which, in the Gospel, is equivalent to having no faith. The master, in complementing the other two servants on their wise use of his property, says to them, "You have been faithful..."

The major themes of our faith -- caring, giving, witnessing, trusting, loving, hoping -- cannot be understood or lived without risk. The problem with the one talent man is that he is motivated by the opposite of faith -- he is motivated by fear. And fear paralyzes and prevents our even taking the first steps of faith. Rather than invest our faith in our everyday worlds we bury it out of the fear that we may do something wrong and be punished for it. To live our faith is to live in constant risk. Caring, giving, witnessing, trusting, loving and hoping are all risky ventures. We put our hearts and souls on the line each time we attempt to live our Christianity in the world.

The way we are most ready for Christ's return is when we risk our lives by sharing the abundance of what God has given us; risking to share ourselves with each other.

There is a wonderful Anthony deMello story that comes to mind.

"My friend isn't back from the battlefield, sir. Request permission to go out and get him."

"Permission refused," said the officer. "I don't want you to risk your life for a man who is probably dead."

The soldier went, all the same, and, an hour later, came back mortally wounded, carrying the corpse of his friend.

The officer was furious. "I told you he was dead. Now I've lost both of you. Tell me, was it worth going out there to bring in a corpse?

The dying man replied, "Oh, it was sir. When I got to him, he was still alive. And he said to me, "Jack, I was sure you'd come."

In Jesus Christ, God risked all in assuming frail human flesh and gave up all upon the cross. We who have the risen Christ as the promise of our salvation can do no less than take in hand the treasure entrusted to us individually and as this community, boldly investing it by taking the risk to care, give, witness, trust, love and hope in one another. The one who is over us has every confidence in us. And one day the master, too, will respond to us, "Well done good and faithful servants."

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom. Amen.

Frederick Buechner says this about saints, "In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

A handkerchief. Used at those most personal, private, and intimate moments of our lives. To wipe a running nose. To clear our nasal passages in order to breathe more freely. To wipe a tear -- ours or someone else's.

A handkerchief of God. A saint. What a rich image! In my life, the saints who have entered and continue to influence my life are very much like handkerchiefs. They are always with me at those most intimate times of my life -- with me in times of great joy and times of great sorrow. They are with me to support and to challenge me. They are with me to bring the presence of the risen Christ into my life at a time when I most need him -- or most need to be reminded that it is Christ who bears all my joys and sorrows.

Saints are those people who are there when we need someone to be with us and to love us sometimes in spite of who we are. There are very few people called to be saints and when they do enter our lives they do so with lasting impact.

"I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" It is one of my most favorite hymns. The music and lyrics are so child-like, yet in them we are reminded of the central place the saints and all the faithful play in the worship and celebration of the Christian Church.

The song speaks of doctors and queens, shepherdesses on the green, soldiers, priests, and those slain by fierce wild beasts. Each is a saint. But the song reminds us as well, that we are called to be saints, with God's help. What is required to be a saint? The desire to do Jesus' will which may mean being a policeman on the corner, or being a grandmother or father, aunt or uncle, or godparent. It may mean being a teacher in school or church school. It may mean being a best friend -- or may even mean being the best “you” that is possible.

It may mean being a Stephen Minister or Stephen Leader. We celebrate our 20^th year as a Stephen Ministry congregation this weekend. Stephen Ministry is central to our spiritual life and has shaped us as the people of God. Stephen Ministry builds and sustains kingdom living. And while no Stephen Minister or Leader is likely to describe him or herself this way, Stephen Ministry make saints because through our Ministers people experience an answer to their deepest longings.

Stephen Ministry helps people experience Jesus and his saving power in their lives; Stephen Ministry helps people experience Jesus in one another, giving them the sense that they are connected to a “body”—a loving community—as well as to the Creator and Sustainer of all things; Stephen Ministry helps people experience Jesus in their pain and suffering— when many people are most clearly in need of the gospel and most open to God’s presence and the healing, saving power of Jesus; and Stephen Ministry helps people experience meaning, purpose, and significance by participating in Jesus’ mission in the world and being involved in something that is not only bigger than themselves, but also life-transforming and enduring.

Not many of us are called to be slain by a fierce wild beast or to give our life in martyrdom, but all of us are called to turn our lives over to God for Him to use as he sees fit. Some standout in this endeavor, no doubt, and they are the ones we remember so vividly today -- whether the Christian community calls them saints or we do because we've been touched by their sainthood. But standout or not, we are called to bear Christ in this community. In either case we are called, today, to live our ordinary lives mirroring the Christ to others as a powerful reminder of the many saints who have passed on before us.

Saints lived out their vocations in their own unique social settings. And in those settings they learned to see things through the eyes of the Lord. Some laid down their lives as martyrs; others cultivated virtues according to their personalities and what they did in the world. Ultimately saints learned to turn over their lives to the Lord. “For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Jesus preaches today on the mount and he introduces us to the Beatitudes. Remember that Jesus has just proclaimed that “the Kingdom of heaven” has come near. He is not saying the kingdom will come at some distant point in the future, but that the kingdom has come now. In the beatitudes he tell us something of what characterizes this kingdom living. In the Beatitudes, Jesus stands our world in its head. We believe in personal pride; Jesus blesses poverty of spirit. We seek pleasure; Jesus blesses those who mourn. We see the prosperity of aggressive people; Jesus blesses the meek. We love good food and drink; Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This is our challenge in a world where we believe and act like we are in charge of our lives. Learning to do kingdom living; to turn over our lives to the Lord who invites the Christ in each of us to reach out to others letting them be a part of us and allowing a part of ourselves to be in them. This is the image of the handkerchief. It is allowing ourselves to enter into the pain and joy of others and in the words of Scripture to wipe away the tears of joy and the tears of sorrow. This is the kingdom we welcome Camille Alexis, Emma Madison, Nathan Jordan, and Reghan Kyra into this weekend as we baptize them in the name of God the creator, Jesus the shepherd, and the Holy Spirit the sustainer.

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God patient and brave and true. I sing a song of remembrance for all the faithful witnesses who, blessed by God, surround us and encourage us. I sing a song of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of Ruth and Naomi, of Samuel and David, of Elijah and Amos, of Mary and Elizabeth, of Peter and Mary Magedeline, of each person listed in today’s bulletin and countless others. I sing a song of the saints of God; a song of joy for all of the faithful who surround each o f us today and for our continued striving to be one of God's saints; one of the handkerchiefs dropped in a world filled with tears of sorrow and pain and tears of joy and laughter.

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom.


This is the beginning of October and a time when we fill focus on Stewardship.  So this is the first of several stewardship sermons you will hear from me, Sherry, and our lay people.  It is a sermon about generosity and faithfulness; a sermon about thankfulness and gratitude; a sermon about abundance and hope.

What I want to tell you today is that St. Catherine’s is a congregation of abundance.  Consider if you will,

    A staff with 60+ years of combined service to this congregation.
    A lay staff who serves you day in and day out and does so selflessly.

    Clergy who love you and care deeply for your well being.
   
    You are a people who love one another and reach out to accept and embrace the stranger as John Hawthorn reminded us a few Sundays ago and in his Wheel article.

    Our education programs are staffed to abundance.
    When some churches find it difficult to put 2 Journey to Adulthood teachers in each classroom we have 4 in two classrooms and 5 in another.
    A Catechesis program with three atriums: four if you include our Little Lambs atrium.  Each staffed with trained teachers and assistants loving your children on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.
    Five adult education offerings each Sunday – and starting in January a sixth offering.

    Fellowship opportunities abound
    Wednesday night suppers where 90 to 100 are fed and nourished physically and spiritually.
    Valentine Dinner Dance where we ate, laughed, danced, and in a short 90 minutes raised over $20,000 for our youth to go on Pilgrimage.

    An outreach program of which everyone of us should be incredibly proud.
    Even when our budget has shrank some 8% over the past three years our giving outside ourselves has increased every year.
    We’ve not missed a beat building a habitat house
    We’ve continued to be a major donor for MUST Ministries as we’ve added several new and worthy ministries.
    A generous response to most anything that the wider community need for example in two weeks we gathered $10,000 for hurricane relief.

    A Pastoral care program anchored by SM for 20 years with leadership and ministers at work with you in the moments of grief, loss, anger, disappointment.
    We say our prayers for you and for countless others you bring to our attention
    Daughters of the King who pray for us.

    Our buildings
    Stunning new facilities of which we are very proud
    And because of a devastating fire and a wonderful insurance company, we have virtually refurbished every square foot of our buildings.

    And how about the Faith Builds! Campaign?  Well after nearly three full years of a four year campaign and having lost a number of pledges in 2003/04 we are still at a collection rate of above 80% – far above our lending institution’s expectations.

We have been abundantly blessed.  Yet what do I hear?  That we are people of abundance?  No, I hear we are a people of scarcity.  We worry about paying this bill, or fixing this air conditioning.  While we have a roof over our head that for the vast part keeps us dry, we worry about replacing a small portion of it.  We say to one another, “in our current economy how can he expect us to give any more to the church.”

It is a good question!  But first here’s an overly simplified answer to why we need you to give more.

We don’t give to a budget at St. Catherine’s.  The finance team and the Vestry commit to building a balanced budget only after you have made your commitments to the congregation.  But what is clear this year is that we need to raise about $100,000 more in pledges than we did last year.  This is about a 20% increase over 2005.  And the priorities that drive this figure are not “wants;” they are “needs.”

More than wanting to give our staff a minimal raise; we need to raise enough money to keep our staff.

We now have a better picture of maintenance costs for our new buildings that we need to maintain and keep within community building and occupancy codes.

We need to meet our financial obligations to our lender, Wachovia bank.

We need to return to our tradition of tithing our income to our Diocese which has enthusiastically supported us through our building program and the fire.

We need to strengthen our program budgets which have been cut to the bone and in some cases through the bone and cannot be cut anymore without considering simply eliminating them.

Now here’s some overly simplified math of why we think giving more is possible.

We have 300 households at St. Catherine’s.  In 2005 183 of those households made a pledge to St. Catherine’s for a total pledged income of $490,000.  This represents an average pledge of $2700 per household.

If every household is tithing then that suggests that the average income for our congregation is $27,000.  I could be wrong, but I suspect the actual number is higher .

Now, another way to look at this is if every household in this congregation gave the average pledge of $2700 our income for 2006 would be $810,000, a 65% increase or $320,000 over 2005 – three times what we need.  Now I realize that not every household can give that because indeed there are some households in this congregation who do not have an income of $27,000.  And there are, of course, many more households whose income allows them to give much more than the $2,700 average.  But all of us can struggle to increase our giving whatever that means for each household.  Some people are fond of reminding me of the widow’s mite.  And they are right to do so!  Yet, I remind you that what the story celebrates is not that the widow gave so little, but that she gave so much – her entire living.

In the coming days you will be asked to attend a cottage meeting in a parishioner’s home and to prayerfully respond to St. Catherine’s by offering your gifts of time and talent and treasure to our mission and ministry.  I have some advice for you.  If you approach this invitation with resentfulness or the burden of a heavy heart.  If you approach it with a sense that you have to do it.  If you approach it with no sense of thanksgiving to God for all that you have and for all that you are.  If you increase your giving only because we have asked you to in order to give the staff a raise or support a new program or to replace a roof – then my advice is leave the card blank.  I can hear the gasp of our stewardship team, but I mean it.  If it is a burden or if it is an act done in resentment, then you have missed the whole point of stewardship. 

If on the other hand, you take time to pray, to talk with your family, to look with care at all that your life represents and how God through this community of faith has touched your life this past year.  If you leave here Sunday after Sunday with a certain joy in your heart that comes from no where else in your life.  If you feel accepted by this community without regard to how much you give, or what your title is at the office or what car you drove here this morning, then give thanks to God and write a number in the treasure of your pledge card that represents either a tithe of your income or reflects your commitment to get on the road to tithing this year – not because I said so, but because you are thankful to God and for God’s abundant blessings.       

So, prayerfully consider what you will give next year, not in light of what we need as a congregation, but in light of the abundance God has showered upon each of us and upon this congregation.

Now for those who say this sermon is only about money.  If Sherry and I preached about money in the same proportion as Jesus – who might not be a bad model on this subject – then we would preach about money more than any other subject.  Consider the world.  When was the last time you went to the store to buy food and weren’t asked for money.  When was the last time you ate out and weren’t asked for money.  When was the last time you used the Y and weren’t asked for money.  When was the last time you filled up with gas and weren’t asked for more money.  When was the last time you went to a doctor or the dentist and weren’t asked for money.  You see the world is always asking for money. 

Now consider when was the last time you were helped with a meal, or had a conversation with Sherry or me; or got flowers on Sunday or approached this altar for Eucharist; or baptism, or confession; or came here to pray or attend a community meeting, or to vote, or simply to find some rest and peace and were asked for money.  The truth is that the Church hardly ever asks for money.

In our reading from the Hebrew scripture this weekend we are admonished to “not make for yourself any idol.”  We have done just that with money in our society.  I suppose some will suggest that this sermon does the same.  And they may not be entirely wrong.  I have resisted preaching this sermon for two years now.  I do so this weekend with a hopefulness coupled with the conviction that it must be preached and with the deep and abiding faith that it will be heard; heard only with the deep love and care I know this congregation is capable of expressing.

To those who are visiting with us this weekend, I assure you that we don’t preach like this every week.  Yet, this community is faced this year with a real and certain choice and I suppose it is only fair that you know that about us.  But you also need to know that you will find no more loving and caring community than you have found this morning and that is the most important thing to know about us.  We are, in word and deed, a community where God’s abundant love is manifest and overflows in our life together.

I invite you everyone of your to trust God and to increase your giving to St. Catherine’s this coming year.  Not as an expression of an obligation, but out of a deep and abiding generosity and gratitude for all that you are and all that you have and how God has blessed you and this congregation with abundance.  Let us together pray for a faithful response.

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom.  Amen.


God’s people at this point in the wilderness wanderings have experienced God’s deliverance through the Red Sea, and at least two instances of God’s faithful provision, manna last week and now water from the rock. What seems striking is the brief duration of their memory of God’s faithfulness, and their lack of hope that God will continue to make provision for their needs as they arise. Even the dramatic memory of their preservation through the Red Sea is turned on its head in their challenge to Moses, ‘Have you led us out only to kill us with thirst?’

This time, however, Moses asks an added question that was not part of the people’s original complaint, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’ This is the theological issue that is at stake, the question of God’s presence, and the deeper matter of faith and trust in God’s guidance and provision. The people’s complaint to Moses, so soon on the heels of God’s provision of manna, shows they but slimly trust in God’s guidance.

The Hebrew people are a desert people not just in place but in heart.  They have yet to learn to trust God to sustain them.  They seem mostly to look at their selfish interests.  And they complain.  But, are we any different?

In our time, even as in the time of the Exodus, God is re-making a people, journeying with us toward a destination that as yet we cannot see. While our first impulse may be to complain, the text today calls us to take heart, for along the way, God feeds us with the bread of our journey and revives us with the water of life. 

The story of the people of the desert call us as people of faith to stop complaining and to trust God to sustain us.

So if God is re-making us; then, how?  Paul uses his letter to the Philippians to give us some idea of what it means to stop our complaining and to look beyond ourselves; beyond our selfish interests.  By doing so we are promised something greater than even bread and water.

This hymn is an illustration of what Christian citizenship means. Unity comes in serving God through service to each other. There is danger of selfishly looking out for one's own interests at the expense of others.  The solution to problems in interpersonal relationships is an attitude of humble commitment to others.   And Paul uses Christ to illustrate this. He had every right not to choose the path of servanthood rather than claim His rightful status. And Paul bears witness that he himself is walking the path of servanthood, perhaps to his own cross.

The Church needs the unity of mind and purpose to which Paul is calling the Philippians. It needs a unity built around servanthood, a servanthood illustrated by the emptied Christ and the poured-out Paul. Perhaps the Church needs to see itself in a new light. Maybe it needs to see itself less as the proclaimer and defender of divine truth, and more as the servant of humanity, the footwasher who expresses his love by humble service.

So how is God re-making us.  We are being re-made into a people who trust God to sustain us.  For what? For others!  We are being re-made into a people who look not at our selfish interests but trust God to use us.

This weekend we baptize four persons.  As we do, we will renew our own promises to give ourselves to God for a makeover, so to speak.  Along with Patrick, Preston, Brianna, and Mackenzie we will promise to be faithful member of the community of faith.  And being a faithful member of the community faith includes our promise “to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.”  As the people of God we make this promise knowing full well we can only trust God to convert our hearts to such radical love.

Which is why it is easy for us to understand the parable of Jesus for today about the two sons. The meaning is so obvious. That is, some religious people make all kinds of grandiose promises to God but their performance doesn’t live up to their promises. These Christians promise God, “O yes, God, I will be your faithful disciple. I will carry out the mission of the church. I will do your work in the world. Yep, count on me. I’ll get the job done for you, Lord.” But they don’t do a darn thing. And so God goes and finds some less churchy people who actually go and do what God wants done in this world.

And so in this parable for today, Jesus is inviting you and me to have a change of heart...you and I need a change of heart...about the messed up world around us. You and I need a change of heart about the painful needs of hurting people around us...we need a change of heart about actually doing God’s work of love in a messed up world. We all need this change of heart, a change inside.

And so we are left with Moses’ question: ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’   My answer is an unqualified yes.  Yet we must still learn and grow together.  We are the people in the desert learning to trust in God to sustain us.  We are the Philippians called to look not at our selfish interests but to trust God to use us as servants of one another.  We are the people who will promise to live out our baptismal covenant but to do so we know we must trust in God to convert us: to change our hearts.

Let us now baptize these four wonderful children and proceed to show them how to do God’s work of love in a messed up world trusting that God will sustain them; use them; and convert them

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom.  Amen

We left everything and followed you.  What do we get out of it?

That is the question isn’t it.  At the end of the day after we’ve given our time, our talent and our treasure for the spread of God’s kingdom.  At the end of the day after we’ve loved God with every ounce of our being and loved our neighbors even at their most unlovable best.  At the end of the day when we’ve given up so much to build a Habitat house, or teach Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, or be a Stephen Minister, or sit on the Fellowship Committee, or give three years to the Vestry, or cook a meal at MUST.  At the end of the day after we’ve written a check to the Church or to Episcopal Relief and Development instead of for that new car; or dinner with our spouse; or the new piece of furniture you’ve looking at; or even that much needed vacation.  At the end of the day that is the questions isn’t it?

We left everything and followed you.  What do we get out of it?

The whole congregation of Israel complains to Moses and Aaron.  We left everything and followed you.  What do we get out of it?  You’ve brought us out to this desert to starve us to death.  We’d been better off dying in Egypt with our stomachs full.

This story records the contest between abundance and scarcity - a contest that still tears us apart today.  In answer to the people's fears and complaints, something extraordinary happens. God's love comes trickling down in the form of bread.  They had never before received bread as a free gift that they couldn't control, predict, plan for, or own. The meaning of this strange narrative is that the gifts of life are indeed given by a generous God. It's a wonder; it's a miracle. It's an embarrassment; it's irrational, but God's abundance transcends the limits our minds and behaviors put on God.

Peter asks Jesus about who has priority in the kingdom of heaven.  We left everything and followed you.  What do we get out of it?  Now Jesus explains what the kingdom is really like by telling the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

This vineyard owner hires several workers early in the morning. Then he returns several times; at 9:00 AM, Noon, 3:00 PM, and 5:00 PM, and hires more workers each time. Then when he pays them at the end of the day, he pays them all a full day’s wage. Now what kind of owner pays the same wage to a guy that worked one hour as a guy who worked all day? That’s pretty fuzzy math if you want to turn a good profit.  Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like this, implying that this owner who can’t get his math straight is like God.

As a community we are entering into a season of stewardship.  During this season we will ask you to give sacrificially to the mission and ministry of this congregation.  As we begin our conversations about stewardship I invite you to do two things.
First, look around this congregation and ask yourself these questions.  Is our life together  characterized by the abundance of God’s generosity.  Or is our life together characterized by fear, complaining and scarcity?  As I look around I see abundance.  And rather than identifying with the folks hired at the crack of dawn, maybe we should try to identify with those shorter-term workers who had reason to feel joy that they got so much so undeservedly.

Second, I invite you act like the two sons in this rabbinic parable:

A farmer had two sons. As soon as they were old enough to walk, he took them to the fields and he taught them everything that he knew about growing crops and raising animals. When he got too old to work, the two boys took over the chores of the farm and when the father died, they had found their working together so meaningful that they decided to keep their partnership. So each brother contributed what he could and during every harvest season, they would divide equally what they had corporately produced. Across the years the elder brother never married, stayed an old bachelor. The younger brother did marry and had eight wonderful children. Some years later when they were having a wonderful harvest, the old bachelor brother thought to himself one night, "My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of his harvest than I do, but I know he is much too fair to renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he is already asleep, I'll take some of what I have put in my barn and I'll slip it over into his barn to help him feed his children.

At the very time he was thinking down that line, the younger brother was thinking to himself, "God has given me these wonderful children. My brother hasn't been so fortunate. He really needs more of this harvest for his old age than I do, but I know him. He's much too fair. He'll never renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he's asleep, I'll take some of what I've put in my barn and slip it over into his barn." And so one night when the moon was full, as you may have already anticipated, those two brothers came face to face, each on a mission of generosity. The old rabbi said that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to fall. You know what it was? God weeping for joy because two of his children had gotten the point. Two of his children had come to realize that generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well.

What do we get out of following Christ through the mission and ministry of St. Catherine’s?  A God who is far more concerned about grace than merit.  A God whose abundance transcends the limits our minds and behaviors put on God.  How will you choose to respond to this God through the mission and ministry of this congregation?  Now there’s the question!

O Lord, graciously accept the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that they may prepare us to forever rejoice in your kingdom.  Amen.

The birth of Moses

    everything that makes a good story

        intrigue, suspense, irony, and, of course, a happy ending.

    But let us not ignore the violence in this story as the one precipitating these events.

        The Pharoah calls for violence against all Hebrew children
        He fears for what the Hebrew people are becoming.

The culprit in this story is not a serpent, or a brother-killing Cain, but a new king.  A king who is never given a name in Scripture. 


The kings false sense of power is what the women of the story confront by their actions.  By their actions to protect the children and particularly the baby Moses, they confront and shut down the violence.

The irony of the story is

    God uses the weak, what is low and despised in the world to shame the strong.

    God works through persons who have no obvious power.

    God moves not in the obstrusive, the likely, and the powerful.
    God, rather, moves in unobtrusive, unlikely, and vulnerable ways.

Brother Roger’s death

    Brother Roger died as he lived praying in the center of his community.


It would be easy to explain his murder as an act of one lone crazy person.  But such an explanation would miss the greater truth in his death.

    A member of our congregation wrote to me:


        I carry with me a quote:

“Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret.  It’s you or me amplified.  If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it.  If you ever delighted in some violence toward another.”

We kill our peacemakers because they confront in us our deepest and darkest fears.  They confront within us the deepest desires to seek revenge rather than peace and reconciliation.  They confront within us our longing for power and a desire to use that against others and not for others.  They confront within us our own inability to reach out beyond ourselves to invite those most different from us to be a part of our lives.  And when our fears, our desire for revenge; longing for power; our unwillingness to embrace the other are confronted we react not unlike Pharaoh – with a desire to eliminate them.

Violence achieves nothing no matter how righteous the cause.  Pharaoh’s actions changed nothing.  The people of God ultimately are freed by their brother Moses.  The community of Taize will go on being a beacon of hope for our youth living in a world of hatred and violence.  It might be said that the irony of both of these stories is that just when God seems to be absent; when all hope is lost; is actually the time filled with positive possibilities.

During my recent visit I learned many new songs.  One touched me deeply and I want to share the text with you today.


May the soul of Brother Roger and the souls of all the departed rest in peace.