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)
/
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
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!”
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!”
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
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
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.
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
A sermon for the fifth Sunday of Easter in 2025.
Love is not a light undertaking.
Love will break your heart. Love will ask you to move mountains. Love will require that you sacrifice your most closely held prejudices, melt down your idols and break their pedestals. Love is stronger than death, stronger than life.
When Jesus says to his disciples, “You should love one another,” he is not being cute. When he tells them, “Just as I have loved you,” he hints at how much love will cost them.
When he says, “By this, everyone will know that you belong with me,” he promises that love will be enough.
The way that Peter’s story is told in the book of Acts is almost humorous in its repetition. First, Peter has the vision, exactly as it is described here. Then, when it is time for the lesson of the vision to be applied, he repeats its description exactly, almost word for word. It makes me think that there is something in the repetition, in the telling of it, that is as important as the vision itself.
After all, if God wanted to declare all foods clean, or at least to invite to the table those who did not keep the food laws, why not give everyone the same vision all at the same time? Why not make it abundantly clear to everyone in the church and in the community, that What God has made clean, you must not call profane?
The people to whom God has sent repentance and declared the forgiveness of sins; their sins you shall not retain. The people whom God has invited to the table you shall not send away. The people whom God loves, and the people whom they love, you also must love; by this, they will know that you belong with and to God through Christ Jesus our Saviour and Lord.
But God did not send the vision to everyone everywhere all at once. Only to Peter. Peter, who had worked so hard to overcome the shame of his denials that night of the trial. Peter, who had worked miracles in the name of Jesus. Peter, who still carried his prejudices and held the keys to the kingdom heavily, perhaps a little too tightly?
I heard a study some years ago, when my children were still in school, that found that giving older children the task of teaching, tutoring, or mentoring younger children helped the older students absorb and understand and retain the material they were learning together. As the ten-year-old struggled to explain fractions to the seven-year-old, he needed to make sense of it all in a new way in order to be able to express the magic of mathematics to his young disciple, and it formed new pathways in his own mind.
So with Peter, perhaps, having to make sense of the vision not only in the moment to receive his Gentile visitors, but to be able to explain it, preach it to his peers: that caused Peter to learn and translate and embody, ensoul in a new way the knowledge that God’s love is not to be conditioned or categorized. When we preach to others we are always preaching to ourselves, and hoping for transformation.
I had a mentor who once told me that when people were driving them to the brink of madness and beyond, they would try to remember that God loved those people, that they loved those people. It made it easier to bear the frustration, they said, if they could remember to love them. Love takes practice.
No, love is not faint-hearted. Love is not weak-willed. Love abides in the meek, in the frail, in the exhausted, as easily as in the strong; maybe it’s even easier to see in the dark. Love is a flame that will not be extinguished, but that will not drain the room of oxygen, that will not consume but enlighten, like the bush that burned before Moses and erupted with the voice of God, with every leaf and twig still intact.
Love – listen. If we believe that Jesus knew whereof he spoke, what he was talking about, then he knew that he was giving this commandment to love one another against the backdrop of a vicious and pernicious Roman occupation. He knew that the local police were about to arrest him on trumped-up charges in the Garden. He was not naïve. His closest circle of disciples included both a zealot and a tax collector; a collaborator and a conspirator. Still, he believed that love was the way, the only way. “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Loving like Jesus heals the sick, frees the bound up, sets the sinner on a new path, brings good news, real good news, to the poor. Brings new life to those left for dead.
This is the love that Peter committed to, that Peter committed. And even he needed to have his vision expanded, if he were to understand and embody the love that would mark him out as an undeniable follower of Jesus.
Love, the love that Jesus commands of and offers us, is not sentimental but sacrificial. It stands by itself, and it does make all the difference in the world.
It may sound naïve to say that love will save us, when still we hear of war and rumours of war, destruction wrought by man and devastation wrought by storms.
But throughout this season of Easter we have been reading from the Revelation to John on the island of Patmos. Exiled; in modern parlance, deported from his community because of persecutions, he nevertheless persisted in his vision of God’s faithfulness, God’s love for God’s people,
See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Even in the midst of Resurrection, we have been reminded time and again not only that the work of love continues, and that it will continue until the kingdom come, but that God is with us, still with us, still Emmanuel. That nothing, not death nor life, angels nor demons, powers, princes, persecutions, paranoia, nor privilege can get in the way of God’s saving embrace. Love may not be for the faint of heart; but love will endure.
Readings include Peter’s vision in Acts 11, part of John’s Revelation on Patmos, and Jesus’ new commandment: to love one another (John 13).
Including words from the original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe
The very Earth is heaving beneath the weight of war.
Fire consumes and leaves no food for the rest of God’s creatures;
lead pollutes the soil, the seas, the blood of the children.
Earth, their mother, of whose clay they were formed,
bone from bone, groans with the labour of holding the poles
of want and greed, fear and history, oppression and liberation.
They clash in the sky like eagles and fall to the ground like the dead.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says, “Disarm, disarm!” The sword is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. [i]
And God, walking in the garden, heard the blood, shed but not silent.
And God, human in the garden healed the injury inflicted and rebuked the sword.
And God, lying in the tomb, bore the wounds of the dead, the destruction of the proud.
And God, how long before peace becomes the birdsong of that place?
Bear witness: we cannot bear much more of war.
Bear down love, the Holy Spirit like a dove, driving and directing our fast.
Bear down peace: lead us out of the valley of shadows,
where the very earth hugs herself together on her knees.
Heal her grief. Bear down mercy: save us by your labour.
We cannot bear our anger any longer. Bear down peace.
[i] The original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe
I have decided to join my cat
in growling at the storm.
We both know when it is coming.
I don’t know if she feels the same
pain behind the temple,
or whether her whiskers
quiver barometrically;
we look at one another. I try
to whisper reassuring quietnesses.
She doesn’t believe in my ability
to shield her from the loud, piercing
lightness of the sky.
She is not wrong. So I
have decided to join her.
I shall set my ears and turn my back
and let the falling pressure know
the depths of my displeasure.
I shall growl at the roaring thunder,
snarl at the lightning, flashing my teeth.
over the water 