Sabbath rest

Posted on August 24, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Proper 16, 24 August 2025

Do you remember when, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry according to Luke, he stood up in the synagogue to read from the prophet Isaiah? He read:

            The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
            He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
            to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he sat down and said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-19, 21)

 

Here we are in today’s gospel reading (Luke 13:10-17), on another sabbath, in another synagogue, and Jesus, true to his word, is continuing the work of healing, of liberating, of loving that he had first begun.

It is Jesus who initiates the interaction with the weighed-down woman. It is he who chooses her healing, her liberation, before she has even a chance to ask for it. He is continuing his call, living into and living out the promises of our life-giving, liberating, loving God, whose first gift was life and all that sustains it, and perhaps whose second was sabbath: rest, relief, jubilee joy.

So what is it with the leader of the synagogue? He knows as well as Jesus does those promises. He knows the law’s preference for life. His congregation know it; he has taught them well enough in the past – they are all celebrating!

Is he jealous of Jesus, who is able to do what he wishes he could, for his people, his poor, occupied, weighed-down people? “Come on Monday, come on Tuesday, “ he urges them – but if Jesus has moved on to the next village, the next town, across the Galilean sea, how will this local leader heal them without him?

No, there was only the one dissenting voice, and that was the voice of fear, of envy, of a leader so insecure in their authority that he struggled to give himself over to the authoritative mercy of God manifest in Jesus. He was weighed down by his own burdens of worry, of helplessness – what is a leader under occupation? – of hopelessness – what use a prophet who cannot handle, hand out the promises of God? This woman, his congregant, had suffered eighteen years while he watched. This leader was weighed down, too.

He is our cautionary tale: we share in, we share out, we revel in the promises of God; the love, liberation, life that we have in Jesus, but they are not ours to control or restrict or dole out on our preferred days, to our preferred people, those in our network, as it were, at our convenience, according to our prejudices about who deserves freedom, life, love. …

Jesus saw the woman before she asked him to look in her direction. He healed her without hesitation. He lifted the burden from her back and lifted her eyes and voice to what could be, if the promises of God are true, if the love of God leads us.

And the people rejoiced with her – we do, by the way, need to take care that stories like this don’t reinforce our pride and prejudice that these were legalistic and hidebound times and cultures, that we know better – because these people recognized as eagerly and excited as we do – maybe more so – the miracle that is God’s life walking among us.

So I don’t know what’s weighing on you all today. I’ve got a few things on my list. I know I am limited in my power to lift them for myself or for others. And I also know, I believe, that the promises of God are true, that the call of Jesus is clear. I am comforted that he saw the woman’s need before she brought it to him, and that seeing it. he would do nothing less than serve it.

I am comforted by her straightening up, lifting her eyes and her voice and praising God. I am comforted by the near-unanimous response of the crowded congregation, which was to celebrate with her, worship with her, know in their hearts the glorious love of God, and be grateful for their share in it. I hope that in that, they were able to lead their leader back to joy, even if in the moment he was put out, put off by Jesus.

Jesus honoured the sabbath day, kept it holy. By his holiness, by his healing, by his love he taught, he reminded people that the promises of the sabbath are not a set of rules to get right. They are the gift of God to the people of God, weary and weighed down and in need of rest. They are a foreshadowing of the life and liberty that is yet to be realized among us, the reign of God made manifest. The joy of our worship is not a duty, but a response to the one who sees us first, who sees us clearly, who reaches out to heal us with a word, with a weightless word.

As the writer to the Hebrews says, then “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking” (Hebrews 12:25), for in his presence is life abundant, good news for the poor, release for those bound and bowed down by oppression and sin, recovery of sight to the blind, the grace and favour of God: Amazing grace. Amazing grace.

Amen.

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Division

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 17, 2025

You have heard it said (perhaps you have said it yourself) that we are living in the most divided era of our common and shared country, world, creation, since — well, you name it. What I hear from both Jeremiah and Jesus this morning is that division amongst ourselves does not mean that God is far from us; far from it.

No, Jesus says it is he who brings division, and Jeremiah describes the word of God as a hammer that breaks rocks into pieces, as a fire. “I came to bring fire to the earth,” agrees Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, “and how I wish that it were already kindled.”

We, here at home, are divided along political lines, social fault-lines, shifting like strata in the rock, creating earthquakes and eruptions. We rage like wildfire, burn out with exhaustion. Where, we wonder, is God in all this … mess?

Sometimes it is good to have to wonder. Sometimes that is the thing that draws us back somewhere close to the truth, breaks us open to inspiration. So many of our divisions come from our deep and abiding certainty that we are right, or from our secret fear of being wrong. But you have heard it said (perhaps you yourself have said it on occasion) that Jesus is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). We do not own nor contain nor define the Truth; it is beyond us. But it is not far from us, and we live in relationship with it, with him: Jesus.

The Word of God is a hammer that breaks open our obstinate hearts of stone so that we may receive it. The Word of God brings fire to purify and parse out the Truth from our preconceived positions.

Perhaps; I can always be wrong.

This, mind you, is not to say that we should accept our divided situation, nor any injustices that have created it, or that it creates; God forbid, far from it. This is not to excuse the damage that our divisions have done to our selves, to our relationships, to the fabric of our society. The injury to our shared humanity that is occasioned by war is unconscionable. No, we know that we are made for peace, created for one another out of love, the very love of God.

We can’t accept this state of division, but we can look for and expect God to be active within it, going about God’s purposes of mercy, of justice, of love. We can try, with God’s help, to align ourselves with Truth and reconciliation.

Sometimes when I am looking for wisdom I turn to the Desert Fathers and Mothers for help in praying to be aligned with God. After all, they lived for years in the wilderness without anything to sustain them except prayer and their closeness to Christ. What, I asked them, would you do with all of this?

I read Certain men once asked the abbot Silvanus, saying, “Under what discipline of life has thou laboured to have come to this wisdom of thine?” And he answering, said, “Never have I suffered to remain in my heart a thought that angered me.”[1]  

Which sounds great, but let’s be real, my heart harbours angry thoughts almost as often as I open my iPad. I’ve really cut back on social media; that’s helped some. Still, I had to ask, what did the Desert Fathers know of living with the kinds of provocations that we see on the news daily – and whichever side of the headlines you sit, it is provoking, isn’t it?

I read, The abbot Macarius said, “If we dwell upon the harms that have been wrought on us by men, we amputate from our mind the power of dwelling upon God.”[2]

But what about righteous indignation, I asked them? Wanting to justify myself, I tried one more time: after all, didn’t Jesus himself say he wanted to bring down fire, to burn it all down?

I read, The abbot Agatho said, “If an angry man were to raise the dead, because of his anger he would not please God.”[3]

So much and more from the Desert Fathers.

It is true that the prophet Micah has called us to love mercy, to do justice; he also counsels humility in our walk with God (Micah 6:8). The letter-writer James exhorts us to do the works of our faith; even he counsels that human anger will not bring about the righteousness of God (James 2:14-17; 1:20). Jesus tells us that when we care for the hungry, visit the imprisoned, heal the sick we do it as though to him, and that when we neglect to do so we neglect him (Matthew 25:31-46). He also tells us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

I read, Certain brothers were sitting near the abbot Poemen, and one brother began praising another, saying, “That brother is a good man, for he hates evil.” The old man spoke and said, “And what is it to hate evil?” He knew not how to answer: and himself asked, saying, “Tell me, Father, what is it to hate evil?” And the old man said, “He hates evil, who hates his own sins, and who blesseth and loveth every one of his brethren.”[4]

We live in difficult and divided times, but that doesn’t mean that God is far from us; far from it. The word of the Lord is like a hammer that breaks rocks, hearts of stone, and like a fire that melts them.

I’ve been working lately on incorporating beach glass into the things I make with my blacksmithing forge. There’s a whole other story about where the metal comes from and why I feel called to transform it into garden tools and crosses, but that’s for another time. The thing about the beach glass is that it has been shattered and scattered, rolled around, scoured and scrubbed, thrown up finally by the waves to settle among the rest of the silica sand.

Mostly, the elements have done the work to break it down; sometimes I help the process along a little further with a light tap of the hammer to help the pieces fit the mould I have in mind for them.

Then, the whole thing goes into the fire. Under the heat of the forge, the broken and disparate, divided fragments of glass melt and fuse and become one with one another, one body, as it were, of art and beauty — if everything goes right.

I came to bring fire to the earth, said Jesus, and how I wish it were already kindled.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Jeremiah 23:23-29, Luke 12:49-56

[1] Each of these sayings comes from one of a few original sources; the quotations in this homily are all gleaned from the collection contained in The Desert Fathers, by Helen Waddell (Vintage, 1998); this from page 115

[2] The Desert Fathers, 107

[3] The Desert Fathers,103

[4] The Desert Fathers, 149

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Fire

Posted on August 14, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

Storm that breaks the seal
on the dome that holds the waters
of the heavens apart from waters
that brooded life into creation

Storm that breaks the heat
even as fire is splitting the sky,
falling to the ground wrapped
in quenching rain

Mirrored against the glory of God,
the bow formed by the prism of love
arced across the quivering earth —
how I wish it were already kindled!

 

 

 Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! (Luke 12:49)

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Heart/broken

Posted on August 11, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

Scattered and worn, less
translucent even than it used
to be, fragments of brown,
white, green, of one being
with the sand, any message
once inscribed within
or upon it long since scoured

Messages can be rewritten,
glass recast, metal torn  
and fused and fired —
the elements will melt with fire —
we wait for a new heart
and a new earth
wherein God’s mercy dwells

 

(with thanks to 2 Peter 3)

/

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Teach us to pray

Posted on July 27, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for Year C Proper 12 in the summer of 2025. Luke 11:1-13

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, as John had done for his disciples, as our parents or godparents or priests or somebody did for us. Prayer is as natural as breathing; sometimes our breathing is a prayer. And yet it is also something to pay attention to, to be devoutly intentional about, to study closely. How we pray tells us a lot about where we are in our relationship with God, with Jesus, with one another.

Jesus is unusually direct in his answer to his disciples – do you notice? Often, when they or others ask him a question, he responds with another question, or an indecipherable parable, or both. This time, he tells them,

“When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

We’ll come back to that part, because then Jesus goes on to respond in the more familiar way, with a story, with a proverb, with something that demands our reflection, and response.

Jesus, instead of simply giving us the words of a prayer, asks us to consider what it means to pray to God. He offers the illustration of a close-knit community, in which one person can call upon another at any hour of the night when in need, and expect, if not a joyful, then at least a useful response.

This is not a story of one person nagging God to get out of bed and give him his daily bread. The person ate all of their daily bread already – that’s why they had none left for the unexpected guest! But in the world of Jesus’ story, the absolute duty of one person to offer bread to their unexpected guest is matched by the duty of their neighbour to help out, to share in the hospitality to the stranger, to make sure that the love that should welcome them should not be lost.

It’s as if, Jesus goes on to say, you all are family with God, community with God and one another. It’s an audacious claim, to be in communion with God – but if that’s not the truth, why are we here?

We forgive because we are forgiven; we know forgiveness, mercy, through its practice. This prayer is not a set of petitions but a prescription for living in the kingdom of heaven, in the community of Christ, with God the all-creative Lover and the Holy Spirit. We pray to our father, our parent, which makes us family, community, connected by the  providential love of God.

I’ll admit, I’ve struggled this week with how we can pray for our daily bread – those of us who have food security, who have enough, people like me – while we can see, if we care to look, people who are starving. You see them, to, don’t you; the ones in need of solidarity, love, mercy, bread without stones or scorpions, food without fear? How then is my prayer for my own bread?

But it isn’t. If we look again at Jesus’ instructions to his disciples, the prayer is for us, for our, for we. And the story that Jesus tells suggests that we are in this together; that while one person is begging for bread, the one who is secure, safe and comfortable and tucked up in bed with their well-fed children, is the one who is called upon to answer, “and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” (Hosea 1:10)

If the prayer that Jesus taught us is one that binds us in community, in beloved community – with one another, with family members, with fellow children of God we have yet to meet – still, it is personal. “Father,” he has us pray, just as he calls God his Father. And he paints a picture of a parent who holds their family close in warm embrace, yet still has love to spare, love like bread to share. God, who loves us, not at the expense of our neighbours nor any other, but that we

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Bread

Posted on July 25, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

The beginning and ending of this Sunday’s Gospel look like this:

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray … He said to them …
If you …, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Bread

Who, in the night,
would give their neighbour stones
and say, “Here, make bread.”

This is not the fast your children chose;
it may yet be our time of trial.

How will we pray for our daily bread
with their bones before us,
or mercy while they mourn?

All kinds of creatures come of eggs:
snakes & scorpions, dragons & doves.

No wonder you call us evil
when we were only asking how to pray.

The rest of the Gospel for the Sunday closest to July 27 in Year C (Proper 12) : Luke 11:1-13
(see also Matthew 7:7-12; Luke 4:3)

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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Mire

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

Save me, O God;
I am sinking in deep mire,
and there is no firm ground for my feet.

I am not getting out the same way
as I landed in this predicament,
ensnared by gravity and half-digested decay,
trapped in the peat bog where I might stay
undisturbed, preserved for eons; instead
I surrender myself to the yielding earth,
prostrate upon her mercy –
creature of my Creator, mother of my matter –
labouring to deliver me from the mire.

Save me from the mire; do not let me sink;
do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me.

Psalm 69: 1a,2; 16a,17b

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Who is my neighbour?

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

Unseen in the shadow of the story,

a young cub of the mountain watching

the value of love lavished like oil,

profligate pity;

following at a distance to see

if kindness was really worth the weight

of stolen gold

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Our Mother of the cocktail bar

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

Under the stairwell of the cocktail bar

the hooded figure lays out objects of everyday ritual:

teaspoon, lighter, tourniquet.

Behind the bar an ersatz courtyard paved with astroturf, 

foxgloves painted on the wall, 

purple digitalis for the broken heart.

From her corner the Mother watches,

whether stone or plaster, her eyes impassive, 

unable to look away. 

On the street below, the hunger in the eyes 

of the seeker, looking for change, 

would turn water into wine.

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Not as the world

Posted on June 8, 2025 by Rosalind C Hughes

A Pentecost sermon

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

“I do not give to you as the world gives.” This peace, passing understanding, is no temporary ceasefire, no uneasy truce in the shadow of a troubled world. It is the unconditional surrender to Love, the unending mercy of God that endures forever.

How else can we understand Jesus telling his disciples, telling us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,” when we know what is coming next in the story: the scene in the Garden at night, with torches and weapons; the trumped-up trial; the Cross; wars and rumours of wars.

How else do we make sense of fire falling from the sky upon the people gathered in Jerusalem, of all places, as good news, as the gift of the Holy Spirit?

When Jesus says, “My peace I give to you,” the peace that he will give to his disciples is not the whitewash that paints over problems, nor the paste that papers over cracks. It is not the bliss of ignorance but the grip of truth. It is peace that passes understanding, that finds the restless Spirit of God even in the most troubled times and places, and seizes upon her tailfeathers in order to find the direction in which she is moving, because we cannot lead ourselves, because we cannot find our own way to peace.

When he says, “My peace I give to you,” Jesus is not describing a passive peace. It is the peace not of the grave, where Jesus himself was restless, but of living waters, rolling down like justice, roaring like a vision, aflame with mercy. It is the profound and urgent love that fanned the waters of creation and produced life.

It is a peace that tells the truth. It is a Spirit that tells the truth in the face of sneering and astonishment and disbelief that anyone could dream of something so naïve as the kingdom of God, as the reign of Love, an economy of mercy. It is not a peace that papers over the cracks but that points out the chasms between us, and that points the way to reconciliation. Jesus is promising this Spirit of truth, this Spirit of profound and uncompromising peace right before he is crucified, right before his sacrifice, right before his ultimate and infinite demonstration of God’s love for the world.

The world could not at first see the truth. It thought that it had defeated God, Christ on the Cross. But just as in the days of Babel, the world was deceiving itself.

Just so now, whenever the world considers that it can play God with the lives of those made in the image of God, created and breathed into life by the living God, in whom the Spirit flickers and flares and dreams; well, then the world is deceiving itself.

Where does that leave us, church? We are in the world, not of the world entirely, but certainly with a foot in each camp. We know the burning of the Spirit within us, we know the truth of the peace that comes from forgiveness, from mercy, from letting God be God, and following in Christ’s image. Yet we understand the sneering of the crowd, who consider the disciples to be either drunk or possessed (they were possessed, but by a holier Spirit than the sneerers imagined). We can choose to go quietly back into the house and close the doors, or to proclaim peaceably and persistently the hope that is in us, that comes from Christ and from the Spirit.

There are so many places in the world that are in dire need of a dream, of a vision, of peace; places full already of blood and smoke and fire; places where truth has crumpled with the bombed-out buildings and the collapse of the towers and their children. And how will we preach peace to them?

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Do not be afraid to be naïve enough to believe that love is stronger than death, stronger than the Cross, stronger than the armies of the world and its powers and principalities. Do not be afraid to be persistent enough to insist that the vision of God has more merit than the ambitions of the princes of men.

We live in the midst of a world crying out for good news. We are in it; we feel its pain, anxiety, its anger. But we are not entirely of it, because we have seen another way.

Yesterday, in Cleveland, I marched with a few thousand people wearing rainbow colours (which is, interestingly enough, the colour of the glory of God, biblically speaking (Ezekiel 1:28)). I marched with dozens, scores of Episcopalians, all proclaiming in one way or another, through their banners and t-shirts and smiles and prayers and presence, that the love of God is for everyone, no exceptions. And I witnessed certain people on the sides of the street brought to wet tears by the affirmation that God loves you. I saw our bishop (wearing her “This Bishop loves you” t-shirt) hugging them, comforting them: God loves you, and if God loves you, we commit to loving you, too.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, therefore, and do not be afraid to stand in the Spirit of truth, in the Spirit of love, to change the world. For there is far too much of trouble in the world, and too much to fear; but the Spirit is still on the move among us, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit ofPeace, the Spirit of Love, which is the Spirit of God; and we fly by the grip and grace of her tailfeathers. 

 

This Sunday’s Pentecost readings include Genesis 11:1-9, Acts 2:1-21, John 14:8-17, (25-27), Psalm 104:25-35, 37

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