The Mid-Week Missive is based on Community Rules: An Episcopal Manual by Ian Markham and Kathryn Glover, both administrators at Virginia Theological Seminary. I am working my way through this book, reading and writing  through the lens of our Life Together as part of the Christ the King Episcopal Church family, as well as part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. 

Rule #13: Be Considerate – It Is Part of Christian Email Etiquette. Markham and Glover’s reflection on this rule can be found in their book, which can be purchased here. 

How does this rule apply to our Life Together at Christ the King? Markham and Glover’s very practical and on-point reflection on email etiquette includes: 

·      Email must never be written in haste or rage

·      Sleep on an angry email, and even after, run the text past a friend or spouse before sending the message

·      Civility in our email correspondence is a key part of living in community.

Holding the mirror up to myself, I recognize that I am guilty of sending emails that I would love to have back. I wish I could say that every email I’ve sent has been grounded in Christian charity, but the fact is, it hasn’t been. I’ve also been on the receiving end of not-so-charitable emails, and indeed, they sting.

The more I study and practice Benedictine spirituality, the more I am convinced that living in and being in community is one of the most difficult things we can do; but it is also has the potential to be the most rewarding. Community can bring out the best and worst in us. And sometimes, those we love the most can bring out the worst side of ourselves.

 As we continue to live into our baptismal callings within the context of our parish church community, I encourage us all (myself included), to strive to be considerate, respectful, and charitable in the ways we communicate with one another. In doing so, we will more fully reflect in ourselves and see in others the precious image of God in which we are all created.

Christ’s blessings and peace,

Richard+

The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman army in 70 AD was a huge blow not only to the Jewish community, but to the Jewish-Christian community as well. And the letter to the Hebrews that we will be reading from the next four weeks is addressing this particular audience, and encouraging them to keep their faith in Jesus Christ in spite of the trauma they had experienced. Kenyatta Gilbert points out that Chapter 11 of this letter “urges the displaced and dismayed converts to remember the lives of faithful forebears who trusted God and practiced faith without the temple.” And the writer of the letter draws upon the audience’s knowledge and memory of their ancestors Abraham and Sarah, who “by faith, searched for a homeland with permeable borders, a heavenly city not walled by other means.” In other words, not only did Abraham and Sarah not have a temple, they didn’t even have a country or a city to call their home. But through faith, they set out in search of the Promised Land.

In our lesson from Genesis today, Abram had just returned from battle, and all he and his wife Sarai had was their nephew, a group of women from their community, and a whole lot of stuff. But what he and Sarai did not have was children of their own to carry on their family name. Yet, in a vison, the Lord told Abram that his reward would be very great. But the very sensible Abram pushed back, and reminded the Lord of the grim reality of his and Sarai’s inability to have children. But the word of the Lord came to Abram and said, “No one but your very own issue shall be your heir. Look toward heaven and count the stars… So shall your descendants be." And at that moment, Abram believed the unbelievable, and he went from being a great herdsman and a great warrior to a faithful  visionary. First, he was faithful enough to receive a vision from the Lord, and second, he was faithful enough to believe the vison, as outlandish as it might have seemed.

But I believe that this story about Abram and Sarai is reminding us that vision and promise alone aren’t always enough. And that is why the sermon to the Hebrews focuses on Abram’s faith, and why he encourages his listeners to remember Abram first and foremost by his faith, even more so than by his vision or skills. Our psalmist today articulates this beautifully when he writes,

“There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army; * 

a strong man is not delivered by his great strength.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him, * 

on those who wait upon his love,

Our soul waits for the Lord; * 

he is our help and our shield.

The difficult thing about being a people of faith, is that, as Abraham and Sarah - and their sons Isaac and Jacob - learned, one’s faith in God’s promises doesn’t necessarily speed up God’s promises. The writer of Hebrews recognized this difficult reality when he recounted that, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.” Neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob lived to reach the Promised Land they so faithfully pursued. But the most faithful visionaries are those who pursue God’s call and promise for them, even if the promise isn’t fully realized until after they are gone from this earthly life. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

And that brings me to where we are here and now. As providence would have it, this is the second week in a row that I am going to talk about stewardship. But I am not in control over the scripture lessons that we are assigned each week, and this is the second week in a row that I have felt the scriptures pulling us that way. And I believe that when we are invited to make a pledge to the church each year, it is an invitation to do at least two things. The first thing is very present-term and pragmatic. We are being invited to support the mission and ministries of the church as they exist right now. Everything we see here, and everything that we see being announced in the bulletin insert… all that happens here…is made possible by those who make a pledge of time and money to the church. If it weren’t for that reality, the doors couldn’t stay open here, and the mission and ministries of Christ the King would cease to exist. That is a very real and present reality that cannot be overlooked, and I trust that it will not be when stewardship season arrives in a few weeks.

But the second thing we are participating in when we make a pledge to the church is faithful vision-casting. We are humbly remembering that, as the writer of Hebrews so eloquently stated, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We are faithfully and selflessly placing our hope in the future – a future that we might not even live to see. Or, we very well may live to see it, but as of now, we just don’t what that “it” is yet. There are missional and ministry-related initiatives for our church that only God knows about right now. We just have to have faith that God will reveal them to us when it is God’s will.

Three Christ the King parishioners who come to mind when I think of this selfless, faithful vision-casting are Nat Daugherty, Stafford Smith, and Lily Greene. Now they are all in their late teens, so they by no means are at a risk of not living to see a vision become a reality like Abraham and Sarah. But I think of them because when they were at Christ the King as older high school students, we essentially had nothing here for them program-wise. Yes, they served as acolytes, helped with VBS, preached, and did other wonderful things. But they did so by themselves, with no other youth to call a Youth Group. But they hung in with us here, and found other ways to serve. Nat and Stafford got involved with the diocesan Youth Retreat ministry called Happening. And Stafford served on the staff at Happening her senior year. And she has served on the staff at Camp Beckwith – our diocesan camp and conference center – the past two summers.

Lily Greene wanted to be a part of a youth Bible Study last year, but we didn’t have one for high school students. So rather than leaving to go somewhere else, she asked if she could help lead the Middle School bible study that our parishioners Travis and Rachel Meyer host at their home on Monday nights. So she served as their Youth “apprentice” at the Bible Study. Imagine the example that she was setting for those impressionable middle school youth. She didn’t have to be there with them – but she wanted to be. What a faithful example of servant leadership!

Nat, Stafford, and Lily all graduated from high school before we were able to get a high school youth group up and running here at Christ the King. But they faithfully laid the foundation for what I hope and pray will become a thriving middle and high school youth program here. And we are working hard to make that dream a reality, thanks in part to a couple of other faithful vision-casters. These two young adults gave a financial gift that allowed us to hire Ministry Architects to serve as our consultants and assemble our Children & Youth Ministry Renovation Team. We have been working with Ministry Architects since last school year to begin laying the foundation for a sustainable middle and high school youth program that will be in place when all of these children we see here today reach middle and high school. This is just one example of how the belief that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” is relevant here at Christ the King. Our faithful stewardship of the resources God has blessed us with is for both the people and things that we see here and now as well as the people and things that we don’t yet see. Let us continue to follow in the tradition of our spiritual ancestors - and Nat, Stafford, and Lily - as we respond to God’s call to step out towards the Promised Land in faith, trusting that even if we ourselves don’t taste the fruit it bears, those who follow us will.

To be honest, I can sympathize with the man who asks Jesus to tell his brother to divide up the family inheritance. That seems fair enough for this guy who obviously isn’t the first-born male in his family. Perhaps he had heard about some of Jesus’ teachings that were turning the ways of the world upside down…the ones about the last being first, healing on the Sabbath, and children being a model for faithfulness. Why not include family inheritances being shared equally among all children? That would certainly help in caring for the widows and orphans. At first glance, I don’t find this man’s desire and request to be too misguided or selfish.

But perhaps it was this man’s timing that was off-base. We must remember that at this point in his ministry, Jesus has “set his face towards Jerusalem.” He and his disciples were headed to the place where he would be executed for claiming to be the King of the Jews and the messiah.

With that in mind, Jesus had just finished having a very serious talk with his disciples, where he mentioned to them that if they acknowledged that they were his follower, they too would eventually be brought before the synagogues, rulers, and authorities. And while that dim reality might instill fear in them, they are not to worry. The Holy Spirit would be with them, and would give them the words to say.

So with that sort of heavy conversation as a backdrop, one might understand why this random man from the crowd’s request for a piece of his brother’s financial pie was a little off-putting to Jesus. So much of life is about context, timing, and delivery.

But this encounter does an excellent job of highlighting where Jesus’ mind was in that moment, and that ever since he “turned his face towards Jerusalem,” he has been laser focused on the mission of ushering in the kingdom of God. And as he and his disciples march towards Jerusalem, Jesus is doing his best to communicate clearly that the kingdom that he was ushering in was nothing like the kingdoms of this world. As we have seen over the past few weeks, one way that Jesus does this is through telling parables, which can be effective ways of communicating a deeper truth through the power of narrative. These parables often highlight the difference between the values and ways of the kingdom of heaven over and against the kingdoms of the world. In God’s kingdom, love, justice, mercy, and grace take precedent over anything else. The violence, greed, competitiveness, and self-centeredness that infect the hearts of the world that is East of Eden has no place in the kingdom of heaven.

In today’s parable, greed is front and center, but we also catch a subtle glimpse of the “religion of self,” which I think is at the heart of the parable. Martin Smith points out the “pseudo-spiritual dialogue that the rich man has with himself. He seems to pray as he addresses his own soul, taking inventory of his assets. He reviews the privileged lifestyle to which he entitles himself [by saying], ‘And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years: Relax! Eat, drink, be merry!” And Smith goes on to call this way of thinking as the “religion of self.” And here in our context - 2,000 years later - the religion of self is alive and well.  Some might be more subtle than the man in the parable – and some quite frankly are not – but perhaps the biggest stumbling block that lies between the world’s values and kingdom of heaven values is the idolatry of self.

The apostle Paul addresses this very issue, but less creatively than does Jesus. Paul wasn’t as apt to engage one’s imagination through parables…he was usually far less subtle. In the portion of his letter to the Colossians that we heard from today, Paul is also juxtaposing the kingdoms of heaven and the world when he writes, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” The death that Paul mentions is the death of baptism, when we are plunged into the waters of baptism, where we die to our old selves and are raised up as a new creation and a new life in Christ. Our baptismal identity grants us a new citizenship, and supersedes our citizenship in this world.

Paul loved lists, and today’s reading has two lists of vices – both of which point to the ways of the world. Perhaps the most telling vice in these lists is greed, because it is the only one that he expands upon by calling it idolatry. As a person who was so committed to the Jewish Law for most of his life, Paul wouldn’t use the word “idolatry” lightly. In the Jewish world, anyone charged with idolatry was a blasphemer against God, which was punishable by death. For Paul, greed was nothing short of blasphemy. And the only way to overcome the human proclivity to greed was to make Christ our “all in all.”

Our parable today is a warning against making our own selves – and all of our stuff – our “all in all.” The worst thing that we can do when we hear this and other parables is to focus our energy on the man’s shortcomings, and say as we do here in the South – “Bless his poor, selfish heart.” We miss the mark when we fail to put ourselves in the parable, or if we fail to read Paul’s letters as being addressed to us as well.

In about a month, we will begin our annual pledge campaign here at Christ the King. Today’s lessons – including the ones from Ecclesiastes and the Psalm – are an invitation for us to begin prayerfully discerning where our hearts are. What are our priorities? Keep in mind that Jesus doesn’t condemn the man in the parable for being successful, or for accumulating a lot of wealth. The condemnation has to do with the man’s unwillingness to share what he has accumulated, for fear that he might not have enough for the future. But the man’s greed is symptomatic of a deeper sin, which is the fact that the man it utterly self-absorbed - his priorities are out of order. I think that annual stewardship campaigns at churches are really as much about priorities than they are time, talent, and treasure. What if we called it our annual Priority Setting campaign; or our taking an annual inventory not of our stuff, but our priorities.

Jesus told stories, and Paul wrote letters that contained lists. Both were means for communicating the gospel – the Good News that God’s reign is here, and in God’s kingdom, there is simply enough for us all. There is enough mercy, grace, and stuff for everyone. And most importantly, there is enough love for everyone. How might we embrace the enough-ness of God’s kingdom, and as a faithful response to our new life in Christ through our baptisms, share what God has blessed us with for the furthering of God’s kingdom?

Just the other morning, as I was headed to visit a parishioner in the hospital, I stopped to grab a bite to eat. As I am prone to do, I read the Daily Office lessons and prayers while I ate my breakfast. When the server came by to check on me, he asked, “What are you reading? Is that the Bible?” I told him that it was called a Daily Office book, which includes daily prayers and scripture readings. He then asked me, “Are you a priest or something?” I’m guessing my collar prompted the question, and I said “yes.” Then the young man – he couldn’t have been older than 18 or 19, asked me, “What can you tell me about faith?” Not, “would you like a biscuit or toast?” or “would you like grits or home fries?”. This pleasant young man at Don Pedro’s asked me, “What can you tell me about faith?”

 These are the sort of questions that, when I reflect on them later, I find myself thinking, “I should have said this or that…”. What I told him was that my experience with faith has been that it is a lifelong journey, and just like any other thing that you are seeking to be proficient at, it takes steady, persistent practice. I couldn’t tell if that answer was what he was looking for or not. We went on to have a brief conversation about the church he used to attend when he was younger, and then that was it.

 I find the timing of this conversation to be rather providential, because in our gospel lesson today, after Jesus finished what was perhaps his own daily prayer ritual, a disciple said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." Jesus was clearly more prepared for this sort of question than I was, because his answer ended up becoming one of the most impactful prayers in the history of world. In this first part of Jesus’ response, he was offering an example of what one might say when they pray to their Father in Heaven. He was giving this disciple, and all who would follow, a prayer to pray when words escape us.

 But in the second part of his response to the disciple, Jesus goes a step further than just offering an actual prayer to pray. He teaches the disciple to pray by offering a parable that illustrates what a life grounded in prayer might look like. The parable of the friend at midnight points to the fruit born out of bold, persistent, steadfast prayer. The man who knocked on his friend’s door late at night asking for three loaves of bread for a late-arriving guest is initially rebuffed by his understandably-grumpy neighbor. And it is clear that when the sleepy man finally conceded and gave his neighbor what he asked for, his generosity was attributed to his neighbor’s persistence. The neighbor wouldn’t have received the blessing of bread if he hadn’t been steadfast, persistent, and even forceful in his request.

 The editors at Synthesis point out that “although God knows our needs before we ask, persistence strengthens our resolve and develops our openness to receive the blessings God has to give. Giving up easily shows no real concern for what one seeks.” Jesus then follows the parable with some sage wisdom that illuminates the belief that “persistence strengthens our resolve and develops our openness to receive the blessings God has to give.” This wisdom isn’t as well-known as the Lord’s Prayer, but they are indeed some of the most well-known of all of Jesus’ sayings - “ 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.”

These words from Jesus have received a good bit of pushback from folks who assert that this simply isn’t always true. And I think that we all can relate to doors that have never been opened for us… prayers that have seemingly gone unanswered. So what do we do with this news that Jesus offers that seems too good to be true? It is important for us to remember the context in which these well-known sayings fall. Jesus says them immediately after telling the parable of the friend at midnight. I believe that “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” is more about how we pray – and how often we pray - than a quick-fix reward we will get when we do.

The neighbor who asked his friend for bread at midnight didn’t receive his wish upon his first request. But he persisted in his asking, and ultimately, his wish was granted. Jesus is challenging his followers to ground our lives in persistent, steadfast prayer. When we soak ourselves in a life of prayer – not only when we need or want something right now, we will drawn into an intimate relationship with God. This intimacy with God is exemplified by Jesus when, in the prayer that he taught his disciple, he refers to his Father in heaven as “Abba,” which is translated best as Daddy or Papa. And by instructing his disciple to address his prayer to Abba, Jesus was inviting this disciple into the same intimate familiarity with his Father in heaven. And so it goes for us too. When the friend knocked on his neighbor’s door, his persistence paid off, but equally important, so did his relationship with that neighbor. Had he been a complete stranger, my guess is that he could have knocked all night but never received a response.     

Prayer was clearly an integral part of Jesus’ life and ministry, and when this disciple asked Jesus to teach him and the others how to pray, Jesus offered a tangible response – the Lord’s Prayer – as well as some sage wisdom on how one, in general, is to be grounded in a life of steadfast, persistent prayer.

As I mentioned to that young server at Don Pedro’s last week, my experience of faith has been a lifelong journey. I have no quick-fix, easy answers to finding or experiencing God.

The most practical advice I can give in terms of how we might be steadfast and persistent in our prayer life is to use what our Anglican tradition has given us – the Book of Common Prayer. Praying the Daily Office – Morning and Evening prayer – has had a profound impact on my spiritual life. In a week where one prays Morning and Evening Prayer every day and then attends the Holy Eucharist service on Sunday, one will have prayed the Lord’s Prayer 15 times that week. And one will have also prayed the Psalms and read the Hebrew scriptures that Jesus prayed and read, as well as the scriptures of the New Testament. One will have affirmed their faith twice a day through the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed, while also praying the collects that have been passed down through the generations, and prayed by the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. This sort of repetition ends up forming us in the same way that repetitive drills in sports or musical instruments form athletes and musicians. Just as the concert pianist forms an intimacy with her instrument, such is the case with our intimacy with God.

It is this steadfast, persistent, form of daily prayer and scripture reading that has drawn me closer to God, and been the source of answered prayers in my life. There are many other ways to ground yourself in daily prayer – there are Contemplative Prayer forms such as Centering Prayer, body prayers, meditation, and lectio divina. There are devotionals like Forward Day by Day. The options are vast, and certainly not “one size fits all.” But what is critically important for us to strive for is creating a habit of prayer in our daily lives. This is the steadfast persistence and intimacy that Jesus is speaking of to his disciple in our lesson today.

As the Psalmist says in our Psalm for today, “When I called, you answered me; you increased my strength within me.” And such a commitment to prayer is what allows us, as our Collect for the Day says, “to pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.”  So as we pass through this temporal life, let us do so grounded in steadfast, persistent prayer to our Father in heaven, who is up waiting with the light on.

When we moved to Jacksonville in 2012, Emily had to go before her Presbytery’s Commission on Ministry for an examination. The purpose of the examination was to determine if she would be allowed to serve as a clergyperson in that Presbytery. The odd thing is, they examined her after she had started her new job at Lakewood Presbyterian Church. Prior to her examination, Emily was sent a three-page list of questions that she would need to be prepared to answer in front of the committee. The questions were along the lines of  "What distinctive elements of the Reformed faith would you describe as “essential,” and how do they impact your life and ministry?" and "What is the place of the sacraments in worship (in terms of both your theology of worship and the placement in the order of service)?" … Great conversation starters. Long story short, Emily passed her examination and she was allowed to keep the job she already had.  

Now when Jesus was faced with going before committees to answer tough questions, the stakes were usually a little bit higher, because it wasn’t his job that was on the line…it was his life. And when the Pharisees, the Temple authorities, or the Roman authorities were questioning him, they were usually attempting to trap him, or better yet, to see if he would trap himself by giving the “wrong” answer. They did this to Jesus because they didn’t trust him. Even though he was a devout Jew - a Rabbi no less - they weren’t convinced that he was truly one of them. And perhaps they were right.

The tough question that Jesus is asked in today’s lesson is actually posed by a lawyer who employs the same strategy that these other folks used. It appears that he wasn’t truly longing for a deep conversation with Jesus about matters pertaining to eternal life. It appears that he was simply testing Jesus to see if he was one of them or not. 

When answering the lawyer about what one must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus actually turns the tables and responds with questions of his own: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” which is was a good start. After all, in Judaism, if you stick to the law, you’re probably safe. It’s kind of like if you’re a child in Sunday School class or VBS and your teacher asks you a question – any question – it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and shout out “Jesus” for your answer.  There’s a good chance you’ll be right!  But anyhow, the lawyer gave his best Jewish version of the Sunday School answer -  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus agreed with the lawyer, and my guess is that he was hoping that that would be the end of the interrogation so that he could go about doing whatever it was he was doing in the first place. 

But the lawyer kept at it, and followed up with the question, “And who is my neighbor?” This devout Jew likely had a list in his mind of who the acceptable neighbors were in those parts, and he wanted to see if Jesus’ list was the same. After all, you can tell a lot about somebody by looking at his or her list – they are easy ways for us to size one another up. And this lawyer doing just that - testing Jesus to see if he was one of them or not. If he could get Jesus to claim just one outsider to the Jewish community as a neighbor, he would have confirmed his suspicion. This guy Jesus is not “one of us.”

But as usual, Jesus is a step ahead of his antagonists. This time, Jesus doesn’t respond with a list. He responds with a story. And as it turns out, this story is the probably best-known story that Jesus ever told. Folks who have never even graced the door of a church know the story – or at least the premise of the story – of the Good Samaritan.  And I think that it has stood the test of time because like any good teacher or therapist or spiritual director, Jesus invites his conversation partner out of the world of easy answers and into the world of narrative. Because with narrative, we as listeners have the opportunity to be invited in to the drama, and participate in the truths it may reveal, shocking though they may be. In this case, the shocking truth is that it ended up being a Samaritan – an outsider - who was the answer to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” But how would this truth have gone over if Jesus had simply responded to the lawyer’s question by saying that Samaritans are our neighbors, without inviting the lawyer into the narrative?  I’m guessing not so good.

 So perhaps our takeaway from today’s lesson isn’t to go and do charitable deeds. Of course, kindness and mercy are terrific. But somehow, I think eternal life is more profoundly complex than simply doing good deeds. Just ask Martin Luther. Rather, I wonder if our “going and doing likewise” is more about entering into the world of narrative with other people, and allowing ourselves to be transformed by these encounters. After an initial, rather testy exchange with the lawyer, Jesus decided to go deeper into the world of narrative, and the lawyer allowed himself to be transformed by that encounter, which I’m guessing changed his life forever. For us, going and doing likewise might involve allowing ourselves to be transformed by narratives – both in telling them and hearing them. 

Or if someone asked me what it means to be a Christian, rather reciting a list of my doctrinal non-negotiables, I might try to tell them a story about I have experienced the healing power and love of Jesus Christ while participating in prison ministry in the Death Row prison in Georgia and Kairos here in Florida, or counseling addicts about anger management at a treatment facility in Atlanta. Upon first glance, I never would have considered the folks I encountered in those contexts as being my neighbors so to speak. But after hearing their stories, I realized that we had quite a bit in common, and we weren’t as different as we may have seemed.

Or the next time somebody asks me a litmus test question like, “What is your stance on the death penalty,” I might say, “At church, our adult Sunday School class just finished reading a book called the Sun Does Shine. It was written by man named Anthony Ray Hinton who was wrongfully convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. Let me tell you about the impact that Hinton’s story had on me.

Or maybe someone could share a story about how they never truly “got the whole Christianity thing” until they gathered around the font for their child’s baptism, or when they held a loved one’s hand as they breathed their last breath. Perhaps a story could emerge about how you and your spouse never would have weathered those difficult few years of marriage without the help of God and your church community as a support system. Or on the other hand, one might share how they never could have made it through a difficult divorce without the steadfast love of God and support from their church community. The stories are endless, and they are much more interesting, and much more inviting than lists of what it means to be a Christian.

Usually, when you make yourself vulnerable enough to share these types of experiences, it opens the door for deeper, more transformative encounters with one another, and with God.  The lawyer in our story today oftentimes gets a bad rap, and I actually gave him a hard time a little bit earlier. But I must hand it to him. When Jesus launched in to his story about the Samaritan, the lawyer hung in there with him. And by the end, when Jesus followed the story with the question, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” the lawyer’s response revealed to Jesus and reveals to us the power of a good story. Let us go, and do likewise.

Today’s Gospel lesson is a direct continuation from last week’s story, where Jesus “set his face towards Jerusalem,” which is the turning point in Luke’s gospel. In last week’s story, Jesus sent some messengers ahead of him to a Samaritan village, to recruit more disciples for the journey that lay ahead. For some reason, those messengers didn’t fare too well. James and John’s reaction was to propose that they “command fire to come down from heaven” to destroy that Samaritan village. After all, that is the sort of thing that Elijah was known to do back in the day. But Jesus rebuked them for proposing such a violent response.

So in today’s continuation of the story, Jesus doubles down on his efforts to recruit more laborers for the upcoming harvest. But he also realized that perhaps he needed to do some more coaching before he sent the messengers “like lambs in the midst of wolves” to the nearby villages. In preparing them for their daunting – even dangerous - task, Jesus focused on two things: peace and hospitality. The first thing he commanded them to say to people upon entering their home was “Peace to this house.” In other words, we come bearing peace, not hostility.

 But we must remember, in that context, “peace” was a loaded term. The peace that Jesus spoke of was not the sort of peace that these villagers and townspeople were accustomed to. As a people who lived in an occupied territory under of Roman rule, they were used to hearing of the “Pax Romana” – or the Peace of Rome. As theologian Amy Allen points out, this sort of peace was imposed upon the people of occupied territories, and was “the promise of peace through the subjugation of lands. Roman armies traveled from place to place conquering smaller powers and ushering in protection and hopes for prosperity in exchange for tribute [to Caesar] and obedience. The spoils of their campaigns brought material and cultural wealth to the Roman center, while leaving the townspeople in the subject lands to pay the price.” So it is no wonder that townspeople were a little salty when outsiders came in. They were used to being pillaged, robbed, and looted by occupying forces in return for protection and “peace.”

 Jesus, on the other hand, was ushering in the Kingdom of God, which embodied a new sort of peace – a peace that passes all understanding, logic, or reason. In Amy Allen’s words, “It was not a peace won on the backs of commoners and soldiers, it is not a peace reserved for the wealthy, nor a peace through destruction or death. The peace that Jesus’ apostles bring to each town is a peace of life.”

 And one way that Jesus instructed his messengers to embody this sort of peace was related to how they graciously received hospitality. When we think of hospitality, particularly as it relates to Christianity, we think of it being something that those who have something offer to those who do not. It could be something critical like food or shelter or something like a warm welcome at church or an invitation to share a meal in your home. In all of these cases, on one level or another, there is a sort of power differential – even if momentary - between those who offer hospitality and those who receive it.

What Jesus was instructing his messengers to do was first of all, to be aware of the power dynamics at play. They needed to remember that the townspeople they would encounter were accustomed to people with power coming in and asserting it over them. Therefore, they needed to be sensitive to this dynamic, and one way of doing this would be to clearly put themselves in the position of receiving the hospitality of those whose houses they visited. Arrive bearing peace, and in need of food and shelter. Allow the villagers to choose whether or not they will receive you. Don’t pack a bag for the journey - allow the villagers to decide how long you can stay. Don’t bring food – allow the villagers to decide what you eat, and how much, and when. As a matter of fact, the only thing that Jesus told them to bring was his peace, which was embodied by a willingness to enter into new relationships by being gracious recipients of others’ hospitality.  

Interestingly, we don’t hear whether or not these 70 or so messengers were successful in recruiting any new laborers to help with the harvest. But we do hear that they were successful in casting out demons, and when they reported it to Jesus, they were filled with joy. In the verse immediately following today’s passage, it says that “at that same hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit…and said to his disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

Jesus seemed to rarely get excited about the work that he and his followers were doing. He was usually so focused on what was next, or offering correctives to his disciples, or responding to Pharisees who were trying to entrap him, that he didn’t have much time to rejoice and celebrate.

But the end of this story depicts Jesus at perhaps his most joyful moment recorded in Luke’s gospel. It seems to me that Jesus felt like this might have been a critical “ah-hah” moment for his disciples as they had now turned their faces towards Jerusalem. They were able to experience the fruits of relational, peace-bearing ministry, even in hostile territory. By bringing with them life, relationship, and a gracious willingness to receive hospitality, they were making the space for God’s healing power to take place. This sort of the peace, the peace of God’s kingdom, brought life and healing, not death and plunder like the Pax Romana. And the fact that his disciples and 70+ messengers experienced this glimpse of the kingdom of God brought Jesus great joy.

So much of our own work here at Christ the King involves our efforts to offer hospitality to those who enter into our midst. And that is a good thing. There is much in the Bible that invites us to practice this sort of hospitality. But what might it look like for us to also go out into the community and beyond, looking for ways to be recipients of others’ hospitality as a means for developing relationships and bearing God’s peace? A group of us did that a while ago when we attended a potluck at the Bay County Islamic Center, and it was an amazing experience. Others from our parish have visited the Senior Center just up the road, not bearing gifts, but rather, just to be present with the seniors there on their own  turf so to speak. Our parishioners who have gone to Zihuatanejo, Mexico and Haiti have reported that the hospitality they received from the locals was far more than they ever could have offered. God’s grace, peace, and healing power gets unleashed in the most surprising contexts, and most often when and where those who are typically the ones with the power and resources are the recipients of hospitality from those who aren’t accustomed to being in a position of blessing others with the gift of hospitality. And as Jesus pointed out to his disciples, it is the shifting of power - grounded in peace - that causes “Satan to fall from heaven like a flash of lightning, and for our names to be written in heaven.” Let us continue to seek ways to share God’s peace and healing grace with others by developing relationships beyond our walls in our community and beyond.

 One of the words that most comes to mind when we celebrate Independence Day is freedom. Back in 1776, the people who had immigrated here from England and other parts of Europe officially became free from the tyranny of an oligarchical system of government that was oppressing them. They were free from taxation without representation. They were free from being told what kind of religion they should practice. They were free from the systemic forces that were keeping them from thriving in this new world.

 But their hard-earned freedom wasn’t just from something or somebody. It was also – and equally as important -  freedom for many things. In order to thrive as a new nation, our founding parents knew that they needed to stand for things, not just against them. So they drafted a Constitution that began the long process – and a process that is still underway - of securing freedom for all people – regardless of who they are, or who their people are.

 This distinction between freedom from and freedom for isn’t uniquely American, of course. As a matter of fact, it is at least as old as the Pentateuch section of the Hebrew scriptures. God rescued God’s people – the Israelites – from slavery in Egypt. And at first, the Israelites’ identity was tied to the Exodus – they were free from slavery… they were free from Pharoah.

 But the next challenge for them was to listen for God’s call for who and what they were free for. What might their community look like? In what principles would it be grounded? Of course, the 10 Commandments helped answer these questions. And many, many years later, Jesus narrowed them down to the most important two – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The freedom that God won for the Israelites during the Exodus - and the freedom that Christ won for the whole world through his life, death, and resurrection – was freedom for loving  God and our neighbors over and above anything or anybody else. Dare I say, even above our nation.

 To be patriotic is to celebrate the many “freedoms for” that we are so privileged to have here in the United States.  And to be a good patriot is to celebrate the people, culture, music, arts, landmarks, natural resources, and beauty of this great nation. And to be a good patriot is to recognize and honor those who in the past and present have dedicated their lives to various ways of serving the common good of our great nation, as well as to help create opportunities for future leaders to blossom.

 But we need to be careful not to confuse patriotism with American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is the belief that God loves and blesses Americans and America more than other people or nations. Of course, this belief, among many problematic things, limits God’s sovereignty and power – as if God isn’t capable of loving all people and nations equally. With the Great Commandment at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is declaring that God’s mercy, grace, love, and favor is for all nations, not just Israel. In Jesus Christ, God’s abundant love and mission extended beyond – while still including - the original chosen people of Israel. Just because we love America more than any other nation doesn’t mean that God has to follow suit. Yes, God loves and blesses America, and that is something to celebrate. But it is not something to hoard.

 Another danger with American exceptionalism is that it can drift towards being a religion unto itself. One’s unwavering devotion and even worship of their nation, political party, or political ideals can begin to supplant their devotion and worship of God through Jesus Christ. The flag replaces the cross as the primary and ultimate symbol of freedom, and a political leader or ideology becomes the focus of people’s allegiance. In this scenario, one derives their identity, purpose, and meaning from their country more so than their baptism or other religious identifying mark.

 Whenever the people of Israel drifted into this blasphemous territory, God’s prophets called them back to the corrective that was first declared Moses not long after the Israelites gained freedom from slavery in Egypt :

 The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords… the great God, mighty and awesome…him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.

 When this same God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, he articulated what this sort of love might look like when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

 I truly believe that the way for us to be the best Americans we can be is for us to first be the best Christians we can be. Our Christian faith gives us the “tools” so to speak for good citizenship. If we faithfully and courageously live out our baptismal covenant, which is grounded in the teachings of Jesus, I believe that we are helping make this country a better place to live. History tells us that our country – and all the countries of the world - needs God more than God needs our country. We must remember - nations are fragile; empires rise and fall. Left to their own devices, nations – just like the people of whom they are comprised - usually make a mess of things. But if we – the Church – can faithfully work to become the conscience – the moral compass-  of our nation, I think we will experience the fruits of that work more than ever. That way we can be free from the heresy of American Exceptionalism and free to listen for and respond to God’s will for us here in this remarkable country that we call home.

 We oftentimes reflect back on the “good ol’  days” of our nation. And indeed, there have been many. But Christian hope tells us that the best days always lie ahead. As we Christians faithfully participate in the ushering in of God’s kingdom here on earth, we will make way for God’s justice, righteousness, and peace to prevail in our community, in our nation, and in the world.

Join the July 30-Day Psalm Challenge!

The liturgical color for the Season after Pentecost (Ordinary Time) is green, which points the natural growth that happens during the months of Spring and Summer. It is also a time for us to grow deeper in our faith, and dig deeper into the Bible. We don’t have special seasons or feast days to prepare for and celebrate. So our time is spent digging deeper, and establishing our spiritual roots as a firm foundation for our faith.

So during the month of July, I invite you to join me in reading the entire Psalter (Books of Psalms). That is roughly 5 Psalms a day. Our Adult Formation classes during the month of July will be focused on the Book of Psalms – it’s origins, authorship, purpose, categories, why we include them in the Book of Common Prayer (it takes up almost 1/3 of our Prayer Book!) and how we can use it today for our own spiritual practice and enrichment. The Psalter was Jesus’ prayer book, so how might we be drawn closer to Christ by praying the same prayers he prayed?

The Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer (pp. 585-808) is actually organized in such a way so that those who want to read the Psalter over a 30-day period while praying the Daily Office can. There are headings that say, for example, “First Day: Morning Prayer” and “First Day: Evening Prayer.”

But we have also created a reading schedule (that is in alignment with the BCP’s schedule) on a separate sheet of paper for you to use if you’d prefer. Those are available in the church narthex and church office, as well as right here:

30-Day Psalter Reading Schedule for the month of July

Psalter begins on p. 585 in the Book of Common Prayer

July 1: Psalms 1-8

July 2: Psalms 9-14

July 3: Psalms 15-18

July 4: Psalms 19-23

July 5: Psalms 24-29

July 6: Psalms 30-34

July 7: Psalms 35-37

July 8: Psalms 38-43

July 9: Psalms 44-49

July 10: Psalms 50-55

July 11: Psalms 56-61

July 12: Psalms 62-67

July 13: Psalms 68-70

July 14: Psalms 71-74

July 15: Psalms 75-78

July 16: Psalms 79-85

July 17: Psalms 86-89

July 18: Psalms 90-94

July 19: Psalms 95-101

July 20: Psalms 102-104

July 21: Psalms 105-106

July 22: Psalms 107-109

July 23: Psalms 110-115

July 24: Psalms 116-119 (verses 1-32)

July 25: Psalm 119 (verses 33-104)

July 26: Psalm 119 (verses 105-176)

July 27: Psalms 120-131

July 28: Psalms 132-138

July 29: Psalms 139-143

July 30: Psalms 144-50

 This week, our Adult Formation class is finishing up our study of “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row.” In this book, Anthony Ray Hinton tells the story of how he was wrongfully convicted of murder in Jefferson County, Alabama, and sentenced to death. After spending 30 years in a 5’x7’ cell on death row, he was finally exonerated of all charges, and released from prison.

Anthony Ray Hinton’s story did at least two things for me. First, it exposed the appalling level of dishonesty, corruption, apathy, racism, and injustice that was present in the Alabama criminal justice system. It reminded me of how sheltered and privileged I am, and it invited me to honestly reflect on the role I play – through my own apathy and inactivity -  in allowing our system to remain so corrupt.

 But the story also reminded me that, in the words of Ray Hinton, “God may sit high, but he looks low.” In other words, in the midst of the brokenness of this sinful, fallen world – of which I play a part - the Holy Spirit is still alive and at work. And ultimately, God’s love, mercy, and justice prevail, whether in this life or the next. The redemptive story of Anthony Ray Hinton is living proof that this claim about God sitting high but looking low is not some a pious platitude, but rather, the Gospel Truth.

 Our Gospel lesson today is an excellent one to hear as we wrap up this important Adult Formation series. The first line marks the critical turning point of Luke’s gospel story. “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Jesus’ setting his face towards Jerusalem is such an important detail of this narrative, Luke says it twice. Jesus’ mission and ministry is about to take a drastic turn, and Luke wants to be sure that hearers of this story don’t miss this important point.

 At this point in the narrative, the primary purpose of Jesus’ mission and ministry would no longer be teaching, preaching, and healing. Jesus would no longer be itinerantly going from village to village, with a route that resembled the winding, circuitous dotted line from a Family Circus cartoon. In the words of David Lose, Jesus was now on the move. He was headed to a specific place with a specific purpose. Yes, he might continue to preach, teach, and heal. But that would be secondary to his primary mission as he headed to the power center of Jerusalem.  

 The primary mission that he was setting his face – his entire body -  towards, was the journey to Jerusalem, where he, an innocent man, would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death upon a cross. This redemptive passion and death – and his resurrection three days afterwards - would be the apex moment of the ushering in of God’s kingdom that John the Baptizer foretold when he was baptizing folks in the Jordan River.

 Though Jesus struggled at times to accept this divine calling – remember he was fully human too – ultimately he consented to his Father’s will because he knew that this horrific death on a cross would be essential to the ushering in of the Kingdom of God. His death would accomplish what his preaching, teaching, and healing alone could not accomplish. His death on the cross would not only be for the sake of those in his midst, and not only for the sake of Israel. His redemptive suffering and death on the cross would be for the whole world – past, present, and future. Jesus’ redemptive suffering and death on the cross would be for Anthony Ray Hinton…. and those that colluded to unjustly sentence him to death…and his friends on death row who were guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death…and for the victims of those crimes...and for their grieving families. Jesus’ mission to redeem God’s fallen world wasn’t for those who deserved it…after all, nobody deserves it. Actually, those that feel like they are entitled to God’s redemption are the ones who actually need it the most.

 This new kingdom that Jesus was ushering in as he set his face towards Jerusalem was not like any other kingdom of the world. God’s Kingdom understood power differently than the kingdoms of the world. In God’s kingdom, the last would be first and the first would be last. The passage in Luke’s gospel that immediately precedes today’s passage is the one where Jesus overhears his disciples arguing over who among them was the greatest. Jesus responded by picking up a little child and saying, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me…for the least among all of you is the greatest.” Back then, children weren’t revered the way they are today. They were indeed among the “least of these,” yet Jesus was claiming that in God’s kingdom, the least would be the greatest. He was redefining power.

 And another way that the power structure of God’s kingdom that Jesus was ushering in was different from the kingdoms of this world was that it was not violent, wrathful, or vengeful. When James and John asked Jesus if he wanted them to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume [the Samaritan village]” for not welcoming Jesus, they were clearly still operating under the rules world’s kingdom. Perhaps they were not to blame – after all, not long before this story, James and John had just witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus on top of a mountain. And at the Transfiguration, they saw a vision that included the prophet Elijah. So perhaps when the Samaritan village people rejected them, they remembered when Elijah called fire down upon those who had opposed him. Perhaps they were just offering to do what Elijah had done. But Jesus rebuked them because he rebuked any form of violence, even if it was done in the name of so-called justice. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus forgives his executioners as he is dying upon the cross. Even after all they had done to him, Jesus recognized that real power is the power to love and forgive anybody, under any circumstances.

 Anthony Ray Hinton spent three years in silent, righteous anger on Death Row before he was able to re-connect with the Christian faith in which he was raised. But he finally broke his silent anger when the man in the cell next to him got news that his mother died, and sobbed through the night. For the first time in at least three years, Hinton’s heart broke open, and he was overcome with compassion over his neighbor’s inconsolable grief.

 About that moment he wrote, “Despair was a choice. Hatred was a choice. Anger was a choice. I still had choices, and that knowledge rocked me. I may not have had as many [choices as people on the outside] had, but I still had some choices. I could choose to give up or to hang on. Hope was a choice. Faith was a choice. And more than anything else, love was a choice. Compassion was a choice…I can’t describe exactly what it is to have your heart break open, but in that moment, my heart broke wide open and I wasn’t a convicted killer on death row; I was Anthony Ray Hinton from Praco. I was my mama’s son.”

 And that was the moment that Anthony Ray Hinton broke his silence and said to his neighbor the first words he uttered in that prison in three years: “I’m sorry man, I really am.” And then he yelled out for everyone on Death Row to hear, “Listen! God may sit high, but he looks low. He’s looking down here in the pit. He’s sitting high, but he’s looking low. You’ve got to believe it.”

 What Anthony Ray Hinton was modeling for others – those on death row and those on the outside – was his deep understanding of the difference between the power of God’s kingdom and the power of the world’s kingdom. The ultimate power that the world can impose on someone is death – to intentionally take away someone else’s life. And right now in the United States, we exercise that power in the same way that Rome exercised it when they executed Jesus.

 Jesus’ disciples James and John knew that they had the power to destroy that entire village, and asked Jesus if he wanted them to exercise that power. Jesus rebuked them for even uttering the idea. James and John ultimately died the same death that Jesus died – execution by the powers of the world. But by the time they suffered their own deaths, they had had the privilege of witnessing what real power looks like – the power of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. And it was that power that gave them the courage and conviction to die a martyr’s death while spreading the Good News of God’s kingdom here on earth.

 Anthony Ray Hinton’s story is a modern-day story of the power of resurrection…of the power of God’s kingdom breaking through and claiming sovereignty over the kingdom of this world. Just as James and John’s hearts were converted to the power of God’s kingdom, so was Anthony Ray Hinton’s. And by sharing his remarkable story through what has now become a national best-selling book, he is doing his part in ushering in God’s kingdom by breaking open the hearts of those of us who read the story.

 When Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, he knew his time had come to fulfill his calling, and he single-mindedly and faithfully responded to that harrowing call. Through our baptisms, we too have a divine call to respond to. By the grace of God, may we set our own faces and bodies towards the places where we can play our faithful part in ushering in the kingdom of God so that love, compassion, forgiveness, and justice become the embodiments of power in our families, churches, communities, nation, and world.

In some ways, today’s worship service will pale in comparison to the last two Sundays. Two weeks ago, we celebrated Pentecost, and last week we celebrated Trinity Sunday. Both of those services offered opportunities for us to “make a big deal of things” so to speak.

 But beginning today, we will have twenty-two straight “Green Sundays” that will not be tied to a particular theme, event, or feast. As such, these Green Sundays – also known as Ordinary Time - might feel, well, rather ordinary compared to the Sundays in the prior seasons. Robert Webber points out that “the various Sundays [of Ordinary Time] are not connected by a particular theme. In Advent we await the coming of Christ; during Christmas, we celebrate his arrival; and at Epiphany, we proclaim that Christ is manifested to the world as Savior. During Lent, we prepare for the death; in Holy Week, we reenact his death; then in Easter, we celebrate his resurrection and complete the Easter cycle with the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. But in the non-festive season of the church year [known as Ordinary Time], there is no unified theme that ties the Sundays together.”

 Rather than moving from one thematic season to another, in Ordinary Time we move simply from Sunday to Sunday. Each Sunday stands on its own, and is counted as the such-and-such Sunday after Pentecost. As such, most liturgical churches – including the Episcopal Church - now refer to this season as the Season After Pentecost, so that the emphasis is on the continuing work of the Holy Spirit after the Day of Pentecost. In the midst of our ordinary, even mundane lives, the Holy Spirit is alive, well, and working in and through us.

During the Season After Pentecost, the Revised Common Lectionary provides two options for us to use for the Old Testament reading. The first option – called Track 1 – provides the opportunity for us to read through particular books of the Old Testament week after week during this long season. This option is an excellent way for us to engage the oft-neglected richness of the Hebrew scriptures. Since I have been here at Christ the King, we have always followed Track 1 during the Season After Pentecost. Last Summer, I did a preaching series on 1st and 2nd Samuel, following the dramatic story of King David. Two summers ago, I preached through the book of the Prophet Jeremiah. For those of us who are here most Sundays during the Summer, this approach to preaching can introduce a sense structure and purpose to each Sunday so that in some ways it feels thematic and “purposeful” like the other seasons of the church year. There isn’t a “randomness” to each Sunday so to speak since the readings continue where they left off from the prior week, and the sermon addresses the continued story.

This year, we are going to take a different approach, and use what the lectionary refers to as “Track 2” for the Old Testament lessons. With Track 2, the Old Testament lessons aren’t continuous from one week to another. In other words, we won’t be tracking through the same book week after week, following a single storyline. Instead, the Old Testament lessons are chosen by virtue of how they relate to either the Gospel or Epistle lesson. Today’s Gospel and Epistle lessons both deal with the broadening of the definition of who God’s people are. Therefore, we are given a lesson from Isaiah that deals with the tension between  God being faithful to God’s people, regardless of how faithful they are to God. In this lesson, we are seeing glimpses of God’s expansive love, and how that could one day extend beyond the House of Israel.

Since the Season of Advent, we have been in Year C of the lectionary cycle, which means that all of our gospel lessons – except for during the Season of Easter - will be from Luke. This summer, I plan to use Luke’s gospel lesson as the starting point for all of my sermons. Most of the lessons will present the miracles and parables of Jesus. As H. Boone Porter observes, this season’s lessons from the gospel of Luke “represent most of what we know about the ministry and teaching of Jesus. If the Church cannot concentrate on this for half a year, what can it do?”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops asserts that “Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in Christ. The goal, toward which all of history is directed, is represented by the final Sunday in Ordinary Time – [Christ the King Sunday – where after several months of hearing from the life and ministry of Jesus, we should be able to boldly proclaim that Jesus Christ is indeed King of the Universe.]”

Some have observed that the liturgical color for this season – green – is appropriate because it represents the natural growth that the earth experiences during Spring and Summer. One look at my yard will indeed confirm this! As such, we can also see this long season of the Church year as an opportunity for our own spiritual growth. It is a time to slow down, dig in, and mine the depths of our scriptures and tradition. We are not busy decorating the church or our houses for special holidays. There are no pageants, concerts, or Holy Weeks to prepare for.

I encourage us all to embrace this season of Ordinary Time – this Season After Pentecost. I trust that if we allow ourselves, our lives, and even our worship to be graciously ordinary, God’s Holy Spirit will do extraordinary things in our lives, in the life of our Church, and in the life of our community.