When you have young children like Emily and me, it seems like there is a continuous string of “firsts” that happen. On Friday, they got to see me cry for the first time. And it wasn’t just a few tears. I broke down and wept, right there at the kitchen table. Emily came over and held me, and then Julian did the same. Madeleine just stared in confusion. The fact that our four-year-old’s first instinct was compassion - holding me tightly and trying to console me - just made me cry more. I was now crying tears of sorrow and joy.

I know enough to realize that tears like that are not usually just from one thing, but rather all the things that have been suppressed and building up inside. Given all that has been on my shoulders the past few years, I was definitely due for a big cry. But the presenting issue – the immediate source of my grief was an email that I received from a parishioner at the former parish where I served as the Associate Rector for Youth & Young Adults. It was from the mother of one of the youth with whom I was closest – Reid. Reid – who was 20 - committed suicide a couple of weeks ago. I was notified of this tragedy the day that it happened, and have held my grief at bay, mostly due to shock, numbness, and my not being present with that community in Jacksonville. But when I finally heard directly from his mother, Lisa, my grief was finally crystallized in a way that it needed to be. I’ve been fervently praying for Reid, his family, and Reid’s tightly-knit group of peers for two weeks. But I simply needed to cry.

I knew Reid as well as any of the youth at St. Mark’s. My very first day on the job there, I hopped in a van with our Youth Director and 5 rising 7th graders. We drove to Chattanooga, TN for a weeklong mission trip. The first meal we had together was hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I wore the Krispy Kreme hat the rest of the drive to Chattanooga. I learned after the fact that they were really bummed that the new priest was coming with them on the trip. They were afraid I’d be too old, serious, and boring. They loved their youth director Ayana…why couldn’t she just take them? 

As it turns out, those 3 boys and 2 girls and I hit it off swimmingly, and I remain close with all of them to this day, albeit mostly through Instagram. Most importantly, those 5 kids and their other peers from the St. Mark’s Youth Group are still extremely close with one another – even though they have dispersed all over the country to various colleges. When they were in middle school and high school, they didn’t all go to the same schools. Some went to public schools and some went to private schools. Some played sports and others were into Boy Scouts. But they all were committed to their youth group at their church. 

I don’t want to romanticize this Youth Group – there were other groups around town that were much larger. There were always those parents who complained that our youth group wasn't as good as the Methodist or Presbyterian ones in the neighborhood. And there were youth at St. Mark’s that weren’t the least bit interested in our youth group, or any other one for that matter. But that group of teens that did come to youth group every Sunday formed bonds with one another, their adult mentors - and most importantly with Christ - that will last a lifetime. 

Reid came from a very stable, loving, and supportive family. His parents Bob and Lisa and his older brother Drew loved Reid to pieces, and he adored them as well. His older brother Drew was his hero. So, needless to say, we were all shocked when we heard the tragic news of his suicide. 

The email that Reid’s mother Lisa sent to me Friday helped explain some of the back story, and also explains why I was brought to such profound sorrow when I read it. With her permission, I am sharing some of what she wrote:

Dear Richard, 

It was so good to hear the sound of your voice on my voice mail.  Both Reid and I were so looking forward to reconnecting with you when he came over to [The University of West Florida] for school this Fall. We had literally just talked about it, and about how he might sometimes come to Santa Rosa [Beach] for Sunday service. I was planning to let you know in person when we brought him over for college, what he was dealing with and ask you to be in our "village.”

Reid developed General Anxiety Disorder sometime last fall while a student at Sewanee. When he came home for the holidays, we got him to a doctor and therapist, who put him on medication. His prognosis was very good the entire time. They thought he might be on medication for about a year and then be able to go off. His illness is characterized by, not the everyday anxiety that we all feel, but by runaway, racing thoughts that kept people awake all night and exhausted during the day. He seemed to have overcome it and was doing so very well: girlfriend, new college with his best friend, making/selling fishing lures, writing a fishing blog, woodworking, and working at the marina where they had promoted him to manager of the summer interns. He hated being on the medication and got permission from his doctor to go off because he seemed to be doing so well. The anxiety/depression returned so swiftly it was a shock to all of us, and a huge disappointment to him. I think he thought the whole thing was behind him, rather than, as we came to learn, something that he would battle for years. The illness slowed him down and prevented him from living as he wanted to. He was truly a gift to me every day for 20 years, and I honestly, secretly always felt he was a gift from God. Reid was the same at home and in the community; a true sweetheart. I know you were close to several of the boys and I wanted to make sure you knew about Reid. I hope we'll connect sometime in the future anyway. Thank you for your outreach to Reid when you were at St. Marks. We all still miss you. 

God Bless You, 

Lisa

I am sharing Reid’s story with you because I want to highlight the critical importance of two things: first, mental illness is real. And it can be deadly. There is no parent, sibling, loved one, peer group, Church, youth program, youth minister, or priest who can “fix” mental illness. It is a disease just like diabetes or any other diagnosable illness that requires a lifetime of medication, professional help, and lifestyle adjustments. And while it is sad, unfortunate, and even maddening; it is not shameful. I can’t imagine what Reid must have been feeling to end his own life. But I knew Reid well, and for him to do that highlights the profound reality of mental illness. 

The other point I would like to make is that I don’t think that God, the Church, or Reid’s experience in the youth group at St. Mark’s failed him. A fair question for us to ask is that if Reid had such a wonderful family and such a wonderful Church, then how could he have possibly felt so despairing and hopeless? Did Reid’s relationships with Christ, the Church, and his youth group mentors and peers fail him? I think that these are the sort of questions that haunt all of us who have loved ones who make the tragic decision to take their own lives. 

I wish that if we could check all of the boxes that point to a stable, happy, healthy, and grounded Christian life, we would be guaranteed lifelong health and happiness. But that simply isn’t the case. None of us are immune to the setbacks that life can present us, and none of are immune to tragedy. But what the St. Mark’s community provided for Reid and his family and friends aren’t for naught. 

First of all, I believe that Reid knew God, and given his illness, Reid decided that he was ready to be with God. Reid’s suicide wasn’t a rejection of God, but a desperate cry out to God for God’s immediate love, healing, and peaceful presence. And I believe that God heard and responded to Reid’s cry with mercy, grace, and compassion. God would never reject his own child’s desperate need to be held in his very own arms. And I believe that Reid knew that, felt it, and longed for it. Reid’s lifelong journey of Christian formation sadly didn’t provide Reid the resources to help overcome his profound illness. With some people, that might have been the case. That is our hope, after all. But when it is not the case, as with Reid, we can rest assured that Reid’s relationship with Christ allowed him to know Who he belonged to. It allowed Reid to remember that in his baptism, he was marked as Christ’s own forever. I believe that Reid knew that, and he knew where he was going and Who he was going to be with when he ended his life. 

In the wake of this tragedy, the youth group community at St. Mark’s also provided the space for Reid’s peers and former adult mentors to grieve when they heard the tragic news of his death. Most all of them were living at home with their parents because their colleges were closed due to the pandemic. The youth leader Ayana and I both have moved on from St. Mark’s, but Ayana lived close enough to Jacksonville to go back and help host a gathering for all of Reid’s former youth group friends and mentors. So even though those kids had gone off to different colleges, and their youth leader and youth pastor had moved away to other churches, when tragedy struck, they all came back together in that same youth room where they used to gather on Sunday nights. They needed that space, and one another to help them make meaning during this time of grief. 

Even if some of them hadn’t graced the door of a church once they went off to college, when they needed it the most, their church space and church community were there for them. Christ was there for them. Those relationships were formed over the course of the first 18 years of their lives. They served as acolytes together. They took confirmation class together. They went to Happening together. They went to Camp Weed together. They went on mission trips together. They came to know and love one another within the context of their church youth group community. And they came to know and love Christ within the context of their church youth group community. 

So to me, the question isn’t, “How did the Church fail Reid?” The question is, “Where would Reid’s peers be if they didn’t have those profoundly important relationships with one another and with God when this tragedy happened? How would they cope? How would they begin the grief process of making meaning of this tragedy?”

As I was writing this sermon, I was also helping make arrangements for next weekend, when we will host a candidate who has applied for our newly-created Director of Family Faith Formation position at Christ the King. Our Search Team is very excited about this possibility, and we ask that you hold this process in your prayers. I know I sound like a broken record, but I can’t emphasize enough how grateful and excited I am that were are finally committing to having a full-time professional staff person to serve as a shepherd for our children, youth, and their families. Reid and his peers had fun with their youth group at St. Mark’s. But more importantly, while they were having fun, they were developing deep-seated, lifelong relationships with Christ, with one another, and with adult mentors who are still active in their lives. 

When Julian was hugging me the other night as I was crying, he asked me, “What’s wrong, Daddy? Why are you crying?” I told him that somebody who was very special to me died. Julian then said, “It’s ok, Daddy. He is with God now. And God heals people who are sick.” Bear in mind, if my priest tried to console me this way, I would be horrified. But I was profoundly moved by Julian’s sweet compassion as he tried to help me feel better. Julian then went on to say, “I know what we can do! We can use my blocks to rebuild Reid. We can build him up so he can still be with you.” So we went over and began building with his blocks. Julian said, “We have 20 blocks. Will that be enough?” I said, “Yes! That is perfect! Reid was 20 years old, so we have a block for each year.” As Julian and I began to build an image of Reid back up with the blocks, I couldn’t help but to think about how God builds us back up when we fall. And children’s and youth ministries are some of the most vital building blocks for a church to have. They help establish a foundation upon which we can stand when we most need one another, and when we most need the peace and love of Christ. 

Our four-year-old son Julian is going through a vivid dream phrase right now. This past week, the night before his first day at the Tree House Summer Day Camp, Julian was incredibly excited. The next morning, he woke up telling us about his “camp dream.” He dreamt that he went camping outside in the snow, so when he got dressed for summer day camp, he put on a stocking cap and mittens. It was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen! When Emily and I reminded him that we are in Florida, and that is summertime, and that Summer Camp was going to be…summer camp, he didn’t budge. He wore that stocking cap and those mittens to camp, and his teacher told me that he kept it on for 30 minutes before finally taking them off. 

The dream that Solomon had in our reading this morning was much different from Julian’s dream. At this point in his life, my guess is that Julian is perfectly satisfied with exciting, adventurous camping dreams. But at this point in my life, oh how I long for the day that God appears to me in a dream like he did to Solomon. If and when that day comes, I hope I am as prepared for the encounter as Solomon was. 

When God appeared to the young King Solomon and asked him what he wanted from God, Solomon’s response was shockingly mature, and, well, wise: “Give your servant…an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” Solomon’s response was spot-on – so much so that God granted him “a wise and discerning mind.”

What if all of those throughout the world who are in positions of leadership would first and foremost seek to have “an understanding mind to govern people, able to discern between good and evil.” 

Now when I quote this passage, the word “govern” likely steers our minds to our local, statewide, and national governments. And that makes sense –this pandemic has put our government in the forefront of the news, and election season is upon us. Some of us are pleased with how our political leaders are governing right now, and some of us are not. I’m certainly not able to settle this debate here, nor would it be wise for me to even try. But I’d like to take a deeper look at the word “govern” as we find it in our passage today.

The King James Version translates it as “judge,” as in, “Give your servant…an understanding mind to judge your people, for who can judge this your great people?” Of course, in ancient Israel to serve as the “judge” over nation is very different than how we understand that term today. 

On the opposite end of the translation spectrum, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrased translation of the Bible –The Message – translates verse 9 of our passage this way: “Here’s what I want: Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?”

I like Peterson’s choice to use the word “lead” here instead of “judge” or “govern” – it broadens the implications of the Solomon’s request. As your rector, I am not called to govern you - I am called to lead you. Church vestries have governance responsibilities, but the most effective vestries are those that operate primarily within the paradigm of leadership rather than governance. As the old saying goes, “The minute you start quoting Canon Law or Church by-laws to parishioners, is the minute that you’ve lost them.” Those of us who have been chosen to lead our parish as clergy and lay leaders have been given a great responsibility. And during this terribly challenging time, how we lead is critically important. I imagine that if you feel faithfully led by the vestry and me, you are more likely to join with us as we navigate this challenging time together. If you feel governed by us, well, perhaps not so much.

But each of us, through our baptisms, are called to be leaders in our churches and communities. The baptismal covenant is grounded in our own commitment to take responsibility for living our baptismal lives as members of the Body of Christ. As such, through our baptisms, we are all, in a sense, priests and thus leaders in Christ’s Church. Martin Luther called this priestly baptismal identity the “priesthood of all believers.” Remember, baptism isn’t just a washing…it is a literal anointing with oil on the forehead, just as Kings David and Solomon were literally anointed with oil back in the day. We are all anointed as leaders in Christ’s Church. Of course, we are unable to faithfully live in to this anointed calling without the power of the Holy Spirit. Our priesthood is not based on how good we are, but how good God is. It all begins with God’s grace, mercy, and love. Our leadership in Christ’s Church is simply our faithful response to God’s grace-filled action.

As baptized leaders in Christ’s Body and in the world, we would do well to use Solomon’s dream as our playbook for wise and faithful leadership. If God were to appear to me and say, “Ask what I should give you,” I’d love to think that I’d answer how Solomon did. But in all reality, I’m afraid to say that I might start out with a whole host of things that I want for my family and me. Or maybe I’d be selfless enough to first ask for an end to this pandemic and World Peace. I’d probably squeeze in a National Championship for the Florida State basketball team before coach Leonard Hamilton retires, and an endless list of other relatively not-so-important things. It would really depend on when I was asked. But, if God is asking, why not make the list as long as possible? But this response is why I will never be confused with Solomon – the one about whom God said, “no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.” 

When Solomon responded to God’s gracious question, notice that he started with gratitude to God for all that God had done not to Solomon, but to Solomon’s father, David. Solomon – the archetype of wisdom – started with gratitude, not a wish list.  

The next part of Solomon’s response was a continuation of his gratitude to God - but this time for what God had done for him personally. Solomon wisely recognized that his exalted position as King of Israel wasn’t based on what Solomon had done but rather what God had done. 

Next, Solomon responds to God’s offer of a lifetime with humility, as well as a remarkable self-awareness of his own limitations – “I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.” Scholars tend to agree that Solomon wasn’t literally a child in this passage, but that he rather was humbly likening himself to a child with regard to how qualified he felt to be the King of Israel. How sad is it that if a leader today admitted to feeling un- or underqualified for a job, he or she would be considered weak or incompetent? I’ll be the first to admit that I am not fully qualified to serve as the rector of a church – and if you ask me in 10 years I’ll say the same thing. I’ll never be fully qualified for a position such as this. But that is why we clergy have lay leaders to journey with us. If you think about it, on a larger scale, who is really fully qualified to be King of Israel, President of the United States, or even a baptized Christian for that matter? The minute we claim to be fully qualified is the minute we are unknowingly admitting our lack of qualification.

The grateful, humble Solomon indeed was also deeply wise, and his wisdom led to his gratitude and humility, and vice versa. It seems to be that those who are wise are always seeking to grow their wisdom. Ironically, those who tend to be most effective in positions of power or authority are those who don’t even seek power. Nelson Mandela is who comes to my mind in that regard. Those who are most ambitious for power tend to be those who lack gratitude and humility, and thus they lack wisdom. Or as the saying goes, “Beware of those who are dying to go to seminary, or those who are dying to serve on the vestry.” 

When God offered Solomon the anything in world, Solomon simply asked for the wisdom to be an effective, faithful leader. He didn’t ask for power, or even knowledge. He simply asked for God’s wisdom to be channeled through him as God’s chosen leader. 

This is one of those Sundays that is really hard not to just make the sermon about myself. Because I think this passage from 1 Kings should probably framed and hung on every Rector’s office wall. It certainly has been a fruitful message for me to engage with this week. But I think that this message is for all of us…and that is because I have a really high theology of baptism. I truly believe that with our baptisms comes the responsibility for all of us to seek a life of wisdom, so that we may better discern good from evil. We are called to hold our baptismal identity and vocations in a healthy balance between joy and gratitude on the one hand and fear and trembling on the other. We are called to live our baptismal lives grounded in gratitude and humility, always seeking the wisdom from above. Imagine our world if all Christians lived this way. Imagine our world if all Christians led this way. Imagine our world if all Christians loved this way.

Last week, my sermon addressed the worship-related survey that the Vestry sent out to the parish. If you missed it, you can watch it online or read the manuscript – which I updated and posted on my blog at fatherproc.com. This week, we will continue to examine the topic of worship, since it is, as I mentioned last week, the “essential service” that the church provides.

But the covid-19 pandemic has changed a lot about how we worship. Our familiar routines have been altered. Things feel different even for those of us who are here in person. In the fitness world, trainers will say that it is a good thing to confuse your muscles. That is what allows them to grow. Well, worshipping from our homes via a computer screen, or wearing a mask in church while we are humming along with the hymns is certainly confusing our worship muscles. This confusion is frustrating and for some, even demoralizing. But if we allow it to be, this new experience can also be an opportunity for growth in our worship muscles.

The vestry and I are extremely pleased with the fact that we have received 95 responses to the worship survey that went out on Saturday, July 11. Thank you to everybody who took the time to respond. For those of you who have not responded yet, it is not too late. The average amount of time taken to complete the survey was 3 ½ minutes, so it is quick and easy to do. Check your email for the link, or ask Stephanie in the church office to re-send it to you.

We were also pleased with the overall spirit of the responses. Early on during the pandemic, I sent a letter to the parish inviting us to navigate all of the setbacks and frustrations related to our disoriented life together as a parish with a spirit of gratitude and grace. And the vast majority of the survey responses communicated feedback that was grounded in gratitude and grace. And for that, the vestry and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I will send the details of the results of the survey to you via tomorrow’s Weekly Herald, but the Cliff Notes are that the vast majority of us will continue to stay away from in-person worship at CtK until the covid-19 pandemic drastically declines in our area and/or a vaccine is developed and made available. So, what that tells us is that what we are experiencing right now – whether here in person or via livestream – is what we can expect for the next few months. 

One thing to remember – for those of you who are not yet comfortable to return to Sunday worship as we have it right now, you have 10 other options for in-person worship that are much smaller in attendance and shorter in duration. Every weekday at 9:30 we have Morning Prayer and at 4:30 we have Evening Prayer. Each service lasts about 25 minutes, and bread from the Reserved Sacrament is served if you desire it. There are typically 2-3 people at these services, so it is easy to spread out. This service is livestreamed every Monday morning and Friday evening as well. 

One bit of hopeful news is that the vast majority of respondents of the survey said that their livestream experience has been positive to very positive. So, while worshipping via livestream is not ideal, it has become a viable option. But as I said before, our new way of worshipping is different, and our well-developed worship muscles should be confused by the change. So, I think the best response to our new in-person and livestream reality is to take responsibility for it. This is not how we would ideally want to offer our sacrifice or praise and thanksgiving to God. But it is what it is for now. And the faithful response is to embrace it and make the most of it. We must take responsibility for making the most of our current situation.

One example that comes to mind is from one of our parishioners, Jean Ward. She has chosen to remain home and worship via livestream. But she still gets dressed for church in her Sunday best, even though she’s worshipping from her living room. She prays the prayers aloud, just as if she were here with us in person. When her husband Ben isn’t here with us, he participates with Jean at home. They pass the peace to one another. They respond to “The Lord be with you” by audibly saying, “and also with you.” They say “Amen” at the end of prayers. This may seem odd that they would be speaking back to their computer screen in their living room. But what Ben and Jean are doing is critically important. They are participating in worship as opposed to watching it. I try to be very careful not to use the word watching when referring to the livestream. I try to use the word participating, so that we can be reminded that though we may not be in the church building, we can and should participateas members of one body. If you have found yourself watching the livestream, I encourage you to experiment with participating in the service. That is the difference between worshipping God and watching others worship God. How might it be to kneel for the prayers – particularly the prayer of confession? What might it feel like to audibly pray the prayers, and to stand for the Nicene Creed and say it aloud? It may seem weird at first, but watching us confess our sins to God isn’t the same as joining us in that prayer of confession. 

The word “liturgy” is derived from the Greek word that is roughly translated as “public work and worship.” Thus, liturgy is meant to be public, active work directed towards God. For those of you at home, you may not be in the public, but we are joined together by the power of the Holy Spirit as members of Christ’s one Body. So, you are working with us as you pray with us. Worship and liturgy are not meant to be a passive endeavor. It is active…indeed, it is work!

For those of you who are familiar with Episcopal worship, you shouldn’t need a bulletin or a prayer book. But for those of you who are relative newcomers, first and foremost, welcome! Each week our worship bulletin is available on the livestream tab of our website. And pandemic or no pandemic, all of us should have a Book of Common Prayer in our homes. If you do not, please come by the church office this week and we will be happy to give you one. It is also available online and there is an easy-to-use Book of Common Prayer app. So, if you feel a little bit lost while you are participating via livestream, take the time to find these resources on the CtK website ahead of time so you can more comfortably participate.

Essentially, what I am inviting us all to do is to grow in our Christian faith. The covid-19 pandemic has stalled growth in many ways – our health, the economy, morale, you name it. And churches are feeling the negative effects of the pandemic as much as any institution. Much of these setbacks are things that we simply cannot control. But when I begin feeling like I am losing control, I try to think about the things that I can control. And one thing that we can control during this pandemic is how intentionally we engage in the act of worship, whether we are here or at home. 

In the Book of Common Prayer’s preface for the commemoration of the dead, it says, “For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended…”. In our context now, it could be said that “worship is changed, not ended.” Worship is the essential service of the Church, and as such, no pandemic will bring it to an end. But it has changed. The goal for us during this challenging time is to allow our confused worship muscles to grow so that we can grow in our faith. Yes, worship has changed. But worship can still change us…it can change our hearts as we lift them up to the Lord. It can remind us of Who the Ground of all Being is…it can remind us Who is in charge. It with our changed hearts, we can be grateful and we can be hopeful. And with our changed hearts, we can change the world.

For the next few weeks, I have decided to hit “pause” on the Miracles in Matthew sermon series, and shift our attention to matters directly related to our current situation here at Christ the King. In response to the continued rise of covid-19 cases in our local community, the vestry and I met on Friday to check in and discuss how we at Christ the King should respond. A while back, many people hoped that Easter Sunday would be the triumphant return to unrestricted public worship. Then it was Pentecost. Then the 4th of July weekend. Lately the target has been the start of the school year. But as we get closer to that date, it is becoming apparent that covid-19 isn’t going away as quickly and widely as we had hoped. It is becoming more and more clear to the members of the vestry and me that in order for the church to remain relevant and meaningful to the community, we are going to continue to have to be flexible, nimble, and adaptive. Simply hunkering down and waiting for things to return to “normal” is not the best that we can do. Simply offering a livestream service and some weekday classes via Zoom and hoping that folks are being fed is not the best that we can do. We can do better, and the vestry and I are inviting you to help us do better.

Yesterday, we sent out a worship-related survey via The Weekly Herald. Thank you to those who have already completed it, and if you haven’t done so yet, please respond so that we can better know how to serve you. If you do not receive emails from Christ the King, please contact our church office tomorrow and Stephanie can add you to it, and she can send you a link to the survey. You can also sign up on the Home page of the CtK website.

I think that during this awful pandemic, many organizations are grappling with what is essential to their mission. Two organizations that come to the front of my mind are churches and schools – and lo and behold, here at CtK we are a church and a school. Schools and universities are struggling to determine what to do with classes – should they be in-person or online, or some hybrid of the two? Do they continue to offer sports, which, in the case of Division I college football, are a huge source of revenue for the universities? The schools that do the best job of addressing these challenging questions are the ones that will not only stay alive, but actually thrive during the covid-19 era.

And the same goes for churches. For churches, what is essential and what is periphery? One way to answer that question is, “What is it that we can do that nobody else can do? What is our unique offering to the community?” 

Two of my colleagues in the Order of the Ascension - Michelle Heyne and Robert Gallagher - are working on a new book, entitled A Pastoral Theology of the Parish Church. In that book, there is a section that deals with The Purpose of the Parish Church.  It says,

“A vestry will be more effective is it understands the three generally understood purposes of the parish church: 1) the worship of God; 2) the formation of the People of God; and 3) a sanctifying relationship with the external “public” the parish is most connected with (usually the neighborhood around the parish…). In practice each has its own integrity and also overlaps with the others.”

So, for today and at least next week, I’d like to address this helpful reminder from Michelle and Robert. Since the pandemic, there has been a lot of talk about essential workers and essential services. The “essential service” that the church provides is worship. When all else is suspended, delayed, or simply impossible to implement – whether due to a virus or not - the church’s primary role is to offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God every week. And that has been and will continue to be the case for us here at. Christ the King. 

Due to the health and safety concerns of our community, our worship services may not always be open to the public – as has been the case in the recent past. But worship will always be the foundation from which everything else flows for our life together. We can temporarily suspend our nursery, Sunday School, coffee hour, concerts, and all of the other ministries that are part of our life together. But we can and will never suspend worship. We may have to temporarily make it closed to the public, and it may change dramatically – but worship will continue to happen one way or another. 

Perhaps one outcome this awful pandemic is that it has forced churches to be reminded of what is absolutely essential to our mission. Everything that we do – Christian Formation, Pastoral Care, Outreach, concerts, and social gatherings – must originate at the baptismal font, and from there, flow from the altar into our community. If the baptismal and eucharistic grounding of our mission and ministries are removed, then we are simply a social service organization or a special-interest club. And they are much better and more efficient at providing social services and entertainment than churches are. And that is as it should be.

Since worship has changed so dramatically, I think that an important question for us to ask is this – how might I/we continue to engage in the practice of offering my/our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God? One of the essential gifts of worship is that it reminds us Who is in charge, and Who is at the center of the universe. Or, to use Paul Tillich’s phrase – Who is the “Ground of all Being?” 

This reminder for us – that God is the Ground of all Being – is best embodied through worship. We may have our own practices of personal prayers, devotions, and reading that we do at home. And that is a critically important aspect of the Christian life. But that alone is not enough. It is imperative that we regularly gather “together” – either in person or virtually – to “join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” in offering our praise, adoration, and thanksgiving to God. In our era of toxic individualism, where the emphasis seems to primarily on what I want for me and my happiness – it is actually a radical thing simply to worship God. Worship invites us out of our sinful, selfish selves and towards the Ground of all Being. It is only when we take that radically selfless step of turning our focus towards God that we can then turn our focus towards others and ourselves.

I am not grateful for this pandemic. But it has offered us the opportunity to be reminded of what the essential service is that churches provide. Worship is one of the only things that truly makes us unique. Other community organizations provide care for others, book groups, opportunities for self-improvement, and means for social connection. Only the church is “foolish” enough to make “essential service” the worship of an imprisoned, humiliated, tortured, crucified messiah. But “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided , through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”[1] So let us continue our foolish worship of God, whether we are at home or here in person. Thanks be to God!

[1] 1 Corinthians 1:18; 21

“Lord save us! We are perishing!” These terrified words of the disciples bear much meaning for us today. Indeed, one glance at the headline news can make us feel like our nation and our world are perishing. The effects of the covid-19 pandemic on individuals, communities, and institutions continues to be colossal. Human beings are perishing. Economies are perishing. Churches and schools are perishing. 

The covid-19 pandemic seems to have come upon us relatively quickly – similar to the storm that came upon the disciples and Jesus in the boat that day. 

There is another storm that we are in the midst of as well - a storm that has been upon us for quite some time in our nation. The storm of racial injustice actually might be less like a storm and more like a weather condition that simply just is – like humidity in the deep south. But in the midst of an oppressively humid system, a storm will erupt, and somebody will perish - Amaud Arbery; Breonna Taylor; George Floyd. And along with those individuals, our trust in the systems that are meant to protect our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness begin to perish. 

And through it all, our nation feels more divided than it ever has been in my lifetime. As we attempt to navigate the simultaneous storms of a global pandemic and heightened racial tensions, one might hope that our nation would bind herself together for a common cause, similar to the way we did during the time of World Wars I and II. Personal sacrifices could be made for the common good. 

Instead, politics has become driven by special, self-serving interests, and is now characterized by a growing lack of decency, decorum, and collegiality among our elected officials. For many, hope in “a city set upon a hill” … “the land of the free” is perishing on the stormy seas that rage around us. If there ever was a time for us to cry out for the Lord’s help, it is now. “Lord save us! We are perishing!”

Indeed, I have come to believe now more than ever that the only way that we as a nation and we as a global community will come closer to mirroring that kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed is for the Church to inaugurate something akin to the “Great Awakening.” Can you believe it? An Episcopal priest calling for a Great Awakening?! But I truly believe that the best way for us Christians to “wake up” to the sources, symptoms, and solutions of our perishing is to awaken the Jesus that is sleeping within us as individuals and us as a church. 

I’d love to take credit for making the connection between Jesus sleeping in the boat and Jesus sleeping within us. But I got that from one of the Early Church Fathers - Peter Chrysologus. He was the Bishop of Ravenna, Italy in the 5th century and interpreted this miracle in Matthew’s gospel in a way that I find to be incredibly helpful. 

Chrysologus read this gospel narrative allegorically. To him, the boat represents the universal Church – the Body of Christ. Those in the boat represent the individual members of the Body of Christ who have been called to follow Christ. The sea upon which they were sailing represents the ages of time – with Christ and Christ’s body moving through the ages. And the storm represents the many obstacles, hurdles, persecutions, and difficulties that the Church and her members face. And the sleeping Jesus in the boat represents Jesus asleep within each of his followers. But Jesus is sleeping not because he has quit on us or grown disinterested. He is asleep because we have allowed him to fall asleep. We have lulled our inner Jesus to sleep through our own lack of engagement with him and what it means to truly be his disciple. 

The first Great Awakening happened in England and in the English colonies in America in the 1730’s and 1740’s. It was an evangelical revival movement led by preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. Upon coming to the English colonies in America, Edwards was deeply disappointed in the lukewarm Christianity that he encountered in the churches he served. So, inspired by the evangelical revival that was happening back in England, Edwards launched the movement here. This movement spread like wildfire and was very successful in awakening the Jesus that had fallen asleep in so many Christians in the English colonies. The movement emphasized a renewed individual piety and religious devotion. And while existing churches were renewed and new churches were planted, and the religious life of the English colonies was profoundly changed, the movement wasn’t without its faults. The movement was deeply influenced by the individualistic spirit that characterized the English colonies. In the Great Awakening, there was an unbalanced emphasis on an individual’s personal salvation – focusing primarily on going to heaven when you die. As such, there was an unhealthy lack of emphasis on the missional call of being a part of the larger, wider Body of Christ called to bring about God’s kingdom here and now. 

I think many if not most Episcopalians today err on the side the communal accountability over and against individual accountability. We tend to focus on calling out the powers and principalities, talking about corporate and systemic sin, and calling for systemic solutions to the storms that inhibit our flourishing. One might say that is our gift to Christendom. That is our push-back on the oftentimes shallow, individualistic Christianity that has some of its roots in the “Great Awakening.” 

But the danger of focusing only on systemic sin is that we neglect to examine our own personal sin. We neglect to reflect on the part we ourselves play in the brokenness of the wider community. We lose our sense of personal accountability. And when we focus only on how Jesus can redeem the broken systems of our age, or calm the storms of our society, we rob ourselves of truly experiencing the grace, love, and mercy that God offers to us as individuals as he calms the storms within us. We miss out on the deeply personal, intimate relationship that God offers us in Jesus Christ. A person who hasn’t experienced the power of personal redemption will do little good in participating in God’s redemption of the powers and principalities of the world. We simply need both.

There was a second Great Awakening, which began in 1795 and lasted through the 1820’s, and then a third Great Awakening in the 1830’s through the 1850’s.  The heroes of the Second Great Awakening were Francis Asbury and Charles Finney, and it was characterized primarily by the Circuit Riders taking the gospel westward to the frontier, Methodist Camp Meetings, and evangelical preaching. It is interesting to note that in the Third Great Awakening, the emphasis shifted from charismatic revivals and preaching to a heavier focus on personal prayer. In the First Great Awakening, one might say that – in response to the highly rational Enlightenment Movement, the Spirit moved from people’s heads to their hearts. And towards the end of the Second and into the Third Great Awakening, the Spirit moved from the emotions of the heart inward and downward - into the deepest caverns of human beings. Folks began to recognize that Jesus could be awakened within us through the power of deep prayer just like he could through the power of inspirational preaching. Our souls could be ignited through deep prayer just as our hearts could be by hearing an inspirational sermon. The Jesus within us could be awakened in more ways than one.

But whether it was through fiery, evangelical preaching or deep prayer, the Jesus who had been asleep within our nation was awakened, just as he was with Saul on the road to Damascus. Before Saul could be used by Jesus to calm the storms of paganism and persecution, Jesus first had to calm the storms that blazed within Saul himself. Jesus had to save Saul from perishing before he could use Saul to save the world around him from perishing. 

So, in the midst of our despair for our nation and our world today, as important it is for us to say, “Lord save us! We are perishing!” I think it is equally if not more important for each of us to drop to our knees and say, “Lord, save me! I am perishing!” Last week, Emily mentioned in her sermon the airline oxygen mask model of caring for others. We first need to be able to breathe before we can help others breathe. And if there was ever a time for working on our own personal relationship with Jesus, it is now. Due to the pandemic, we are spending more and more time alone at home. These days, we are more likely to pray alone than with our church community. Let us use this situation as an opportunity to awaken our faith – to awaken our relationship with Jesus, who, through the sacrament of baptism, resides within each and every one of us. But just because he lives within us doesn’t mean he is awake. We must call to him – “Lord, save me. I am perishing!”

As many of you know, today would have been Barbara’s 86th birthday. But instead of throwing her a birthday party like we would love to be doing, we are engaging in a much more solemn affair. But the solemnity of this occasion is grounded in profound joy. Solemnity is characterized by deep sincerity and dignity. And as such, I believe that the solemnity of this occasion is rooted in an abiding joy. And our joy is at least twofold. 

First and foremost, as Christians, our joy is grounded in our belief that in Christ, death hath no more dominion over us. As we will hear in a few moments during the Proper Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, our joy is “through Jesus Christ our Lord; who rose victorious from the dead, and comforts us with the blessed hope of everlasting life. For to [God’s] faithful people, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.”[1]

And Barbara Kaster embodied that joy as well as anybody I know. Barbara knew who she was and she knew whose she was. And I think that this confidence was what drew so many people to Barbara. Her confidence wasn’t boastful, puffed up, or proud. Instead, it was, as we will say a little bit later the “sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”[2]

And besides the fact that our solemn joy is grounded in the Good News of the resurrection, our joy is also grounded in our wonderful memories of Barbara. As with her life and even now in her death, Barbara, on her birthday, continues to shower us with gifts. Coming together during this terribly isolating, difficult time to remember Barbara is truly a gift for us as a parish family. We have the opportunity to reflect and remember who and what we love most about Christ the King. We have the opportunity to celebrate a person in whom the Body of Christ was deeply embodied. During this God-awful pandemic, we get to remember this God-filled woman. 

Now there are two things that Barbara would have wanted to happen at this funeral. The first is that the sermon would be short, and the second was that there would be no long-winded extemporaneous prayers. But that’s just not fair. Think about it – Barbara’s life was far from short – it was almost 86 years long! Her career as an educator and mentor to students was long and decorated. Her relationship with her beloved Carole was long (and colorful). Her list of friends is long. The list of people who she impacted through her faithful outreach and pastoral care was long. The list of things she did with and for us here at Christ the King is long. The only thing short about Barbara Jeanne Kaster was Barbara herself. But she was never short on love.  

And the God who created, redeemed, and sustained her is never short on love either. We even go as far as to say, “God is love.” And it is in Jesus Christ where we are best able to witness and experience God’s love embodied for us. To be baptized into Jesus is to die to our old selves and rise again as a new creation in Christ. And Barbara Kaster lived into her baptismal covenant as well as anybody I’ve known. She lived what we call a sacramental life. She lived her life in Christ and for Christ, and she died in Christ and with Christ. But just like nobody else ever did with Barbara, death did not have the last word with her. She will rise with Christ. As the opening anthem of our service today says, “For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord, and if we die, we die in the Lord. So then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s possession. Happy from now on are those who die in the Lord! So it is, says the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.” 

Happy Birthday, Barbara…and thanks be to God for blessing us and so many others with your faithful life well-lived. 

[1] Book of Common Prayer, p. 382

[2] Book of Common Prayer, p. 501

Today, we continue our “Miracles in Matthew” sermon series with Jesus’ healing of the Roman centurion’s servant. This story is sandwiched between last week’s healing of the man with leprosy and next week’s healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. We now find Jesus and his disciples in the city of Capernaum, which many consider to be the home base of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. 

But today’s miraculous healing involves a Roman centurion approaching Jesus with news that his servant is “lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” The implication is that the centurion recognizes that Jesus has the power to heal, and that he is hoping that Jesus will make his servant well.

We first need to recognize the difficulty that this presents to Jesus, similar to that of the man with leprosy approaching him. The centurion (and his servant) are not only Gentiles, but the centurion is employed by the Roman army. This foreign occupying force was considered to be the enemy of the Jewish people – politically, culturally, and religiously. So, the Jews who were present for this encounter – including Jesus’ disciples – would have experienced a combination of insult, shock, and disdain when the centurion approached Jesus with this request. How dare a member of Rome’s occupying army ask Jesus to do him a favor? Who does he think he is? And who does he think Jesus is?

The translation that we have today has Jesus saying, “I will come and cure him.” But New Testament scholar Daniel Harrington prefers to translate it as “Shall I come and heal him?” And without getting in the weeds of his exegesis, I believe that Harrington makes a compelling argument. Harrington’s reading of the encounter is that Jesus is initially a bit surprised, if not even put off at the request. In other words, “Shall I, a Jew, who your people are oppressing, defile myself by entering into a Gentile house to heal your servant?” Again, Harrington’s exegesis of this passage makes a strong case for Jesus initially resisting the centurion’s request. 

 I find this Jewish-Gentile confrontation to be similar to the story later on in Matthew’s gospel when the Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, who was tormented by a demon. Initially, Jesus says to the Gentile woman, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Not one of Jesus’ best moments. But the Canaanite woman calls him out by saying, “Yes, Lord. For even the dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Jesus is clearly moved by her response, and says, “O woman, great is your faith. Let it be done to you as you wish.” I believe that Jesus was deeply transformed by this encounter. The Canaanite woman helped Jesus change his thinking about his mission, namely, to whom he was being called to serve and save. Even God incarnate was humble enough to be transformed in his thinking. 

So, back to our story today. I interpret Jesus’ response to the centurion as mirroring, and even prefiguring, that of the Canaanite woman. At first, Jesus is a bit scandalized by the request. But, like the Canaanite woman, the centurion surprises Jesus with his level of intuition and faith. Rather than giving in to the obvious conflict of interest that he has posed to Jesus, the centurion, who has already referred to Jesus as “Lord” once, again calls him “Lord.” We are not to understand this usage of the title “Lord” as being theological in nature, but rather, it is a title showing respect, admiration, and simply good manners. For a Roman centurion to refer to an itinerant Jewish peasant as “Lord” is shocking to say the least. Clearly, this centurion sees something in Jesus that most did not. And clearly the centurion had a healthy dose of humility and open-mindedness himself. We don’t know if he was aware of Jesus’ recent healing of the man with leprosy. But word had likely spread about Jesus. But there were still many more doubters than there were believers. 

Anyhow, the centurion offers a solution to Jesus’ predicament of entering into a gentile’s home, and thus defiling himself. Dare I say, like the Canaanite woman, in this moment the centurion is actually seeing the bigger picture more clearly than Jesus is. He shockingly proposes that Jesus need not enter into his home, but rather, to simply “speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” 

Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard the centurion’s proposal, he was “amazed, and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.’ And the servant was healed in that hour.’” 

The miracles in this story are twofold. The first is obvious – Jesus heals a paralyzed man without even being in his presence. Jesus simply speaks the word from afar, and the centurion’s servant was healed. A miraculous healing indeed – even more remarkable than the one last week. 

But the other miracle in this story is the miracle of transformation that Jesus himself undergoes. This transformation wasn’t instantaneous – it was something he was wrestling with throughout Matthew’s gospel. Later on in the story, in the encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus said that he was only called to save “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” So his encounter today with the centurion didn’t completely change his thinking on this issue. But it was the beginning of Jesus’ growing into his realization that his mission and ministry was to all sheep who were lost – not just those within the House of Israel.

Some will bristle at the idea that Jesus may have been wrong, or that he might actually come to see things differently than he once had. But that would negate the Christian doctrine that says that Jesus was truly and fully human alongside being truly and fully divine. Jesus felt hunger, grief, pain, and Jesus’ understanding of his mission expanded during his earthly ministry. As such, Jesus can serve as a model for us – if Jesus expanded his understanding of who he was called to redeem and reconcile, if Jesus changed his thinking on an ages-old tradition and understanding of who God’s people were, then can’t we? 

So, I don’t think that the primary takeaway for us today is, “Wow, Jesus healed a paralyzed person who wasn’t even in his vicinity – just by saying, “Go, let it be done for you according to your faith.” Indeed, that part of the story is remarkable, and worth our consideration. And so is the centurion’s faith and persistence. But that is for another sermon.

Today’s sermon is about the miracle of transformation of hearts and minds. I believe that Jesus’ heart and mind was transformed by his encounter with the Roman centurion, just as it was later on by the Canaanite woman.  And this serves as a model for us today. None of us can hear this story and learn how to miraculously heal people’s physical ailments from afar by simply speaking a word. Believe me, I wish that were the case, as I’m sure we all do. 

But we can hear this story and be inspired by the fact that Jesus Christ – God incarnate – was transformed by an encounter with someone who was profoundly “other” to him. This encounter challenged Jesus’ thinking about how he should see and engage with those outside of his tribe. And he was humble enough to stand “corrected” – and to be “amazed” by the faith and persistence of the centurion. 

Did the centurion have anything but his own interest in mind when he begged Jesus to heal his servant? Who knows, but probably not. We don’t know what happened to the centurion or his servant after this story. We don’t know if they became followers of Jesus or not. But we do know what happened to Jesus. Jesus began the process of widening the circle so to speak. Jesus began to have more and more encounters with people outside of his tribe who were seeking what he had. They were seeking healing; reconciliation; forgiveness; redemption; a new creation. And by the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus had come to recognize that his mission was deeper, wider, and broader than even he had ever imagined. His final Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel was for his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There would never be a person who couldn’t receive Jesus’ healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, and redemption. 

And we must remember that the healing of the centurion’s servant, and the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter is our healing story too. We must remember that as Gentiles, we are the outsiders who have been welcomed into the fold of the people of God. It is only by God’s grace that we have been included in God’s story of salvation history.

To be honest, I have felt like an insider my whole life. But today’s story reminds me that I am not an insider. I am the centurion. I am the centurion’s paralyzed slave. I am the Canaanite woman, and I am here demon-possessed daughter. I am someone who is in desperate need of healing. And I am someone who is a beneficiary of Jesus changing his mind and allowing even us Gentiles into the fold. Thanks be to God that the faithful, persistent centurion and Canaanite woman pushed Jesus on this issue. And thanks be to God that Jesus was humble enough to listen and be transformed. And may I too listen and be humble enough to be transformed in my thinking, so that I too may expand my understanding of who is worthy of God’s mercy, love, and grace.

As you may already know, today marks the beginning of our Summer Sermon Series – “The Miracles in Matthew.” This whole idea began when I received the Spring issue of The Anglican Digest, which focused on this topic. As I read through the articles on the miracles, I became excited about preaching on some of them this summer. But when I looked up the lectionary schedule, I was surprised to see that we are only given two of the ten miracles in Matthew for the next six months! So, we will be veering away from the assigned Gospel lessons for at least a month so that we can explore some of the miracles in Matthew’s gospel.

The purpose of this project is for us to be reminded of the miraculous healing power of God in Jesus Christ. Though Jesus is no longer physically here with us, he is still, through the power of the Holy Spirit, capable of healing us and making us whole. As members of Christ’s Body, when one of us suffers, we all suffer, for we are one Body. So, we too are the lepers. We are Centurion’s servant. We are Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. We are the paralytics. Weare perishing in the storm. We all need to experience the healing mercy, grace, and power of Jesus Christ in one way or another. And we need to share these stories of miraculous healing with the world around us. So, with that, let’s dive in to the first Miracle in Matthew.

The transitional phrase “When Jesus had come down from the mountain” is a detail that we cannot pass over. These eight words are a critical turning point in the gospel. Jesus had just finished preaching what we call “The Sermon on the Mount,” and he descended the mountain to resume his public ministry. The parallels to Moses on Mt. Sinai are clear as day, which is typical of Matthew’s gospel. Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the Law from God. While he was up there, he carved the Law on two tablets, and then descended the mountain to deliver the Law to the people. 

Jesus delivered the words of the Law in the form of a sermon atop a mountain. He made it clear that in doing so, he wasn’t abolishing the Law that Moses had delivered to the people centuries before. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law; he came to fulfill it. And while Moses presented the Law on two stone tablets to the people, Jesus presented himself to the people. Jesus himself was the Law; it was carved on his heart, his mind, his hands, and his feet. And today’s passage marks that critically important transition between Jesus speaking the law and Jesus embodying the Law. In other words, the phrase “action speaks louder than words” comes to mind. Jesus has just spoken the law in his Sermon on the Mount. Now…how will his actions embody it?

Well, as is oftentimes the case, the “great crowds” didn’t give Jesus even a moment to gather himself for this important transition. As soon as Jesus descended the mountain, he was greeted by a person suffering from leprosy in need of healing. The rubber had officially hit the road; and Jesus wasn’t even given an easy case to begin with. Not that any miraculous healing is an “easy case,” but the man with leprosy presented Jesus with a particularly difficult scenario because the issue wasn’t just a matter of a physical ailment – it also had to do with Jewish Law. The leprosy wasn’t just the man’s problem, it was the community’s problem as well.

As we heard in our Old Testament lesson, those suffering from leprosy were considered to be ritually unclean. In other words, as if their terrible physical ailment wasn’t enough, they were also cast out of their religious community – as well as their home, neighborhood, and the marketplace. Any physical contact with a person suffering from leprosy would deem that person ritually unclean as well, and they too would have to be removed from the community until appropriate ritual cleansing was made. Sound familiar?

So, the fact that the man suffering from leprosy had the courage, initiative, and instinct to seek and find Jesus is a miracle in and of itself. And, of course, the fact that Jesus “stretched out his hand and touched [the man]” is shocking as well. This was the first embodiment of what Jesus had just spoken about up on the mountain. This was the first “sign” of Jesus’ new interpretation and implementation of God’s Law. It was a visible, sacramental sign of what Jesus meant when he said that he had come not to abolish, but to fulfill the Law. It was the “bridge” between Jesus’ powerful words to Jesus’ powerful deeds. But as Steven Peay of Nashota House Seminary reminds us, Jesus’ deeds aren’t over-and-against his words – they are confirmation of his words. As such, “this little bridge story demonstrates that Jesus doesfulfill both the Law and the Prophets, and more.”

The “and more” of this “little bridge story” is what I am most interested in. How might we appropriate this miraculous healing of the man suffering from leprosy to our current situation? Is this sort of healing available to us today? Lord knows, we need it in a big way, and in more ways than one!

Many of us might hear this story and immediately link it with the current covid-19 pandemic; and that makes perfect sense. Those with the virus are expected to quarantine themselves away from the rest of society so they don’t infect anyone. They are in many ways “the unclean” of this day and age, simply due to the contagious nature if this virus. 

But I’d like to invite us to move beyond the more obvious link between leprosy and covid-19 to a sickness that infects us all. This sickness is sin – something most mainline Christians prefer not to talk about too often. Sin is the great equalizer because none of us are immune to it. There is no such thing as “herd immunity” to sin, though churchgoers might like to think that is true. And sin is not something we catch due to exposure. It is simply something that infects us all to the core of our being. We are born with it, we live with it, and we will die with it. And good deeds, being kind, or respecting the dignity of every human being do not inoculate us from the human condition of sin. 

In today’s story, the man suffering from leprosy was miraculously healed by Jesus. But notice that Jesus didn’t just say “Voila! You’re healed!” and tell him to go his way. After he healed the man of his leprosy, Jesus ordered him to go show himself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. Again, Jesus wasn’t seeking to negate or abolish the Law. Though the man was no longer stricken with leprosy, he still needed to participate in the ritual cleansing process in order to be reincorporated into the community. Because as I said before, the man’s leprosy was an individual problem and a community problem. The rituals of the community were still important, because these rituals weren’t focused only making the individual whole again– they were focused on making the community whole again. The apostle Paul wasn’t the first one to say that when one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers. 

And for our nation to experience true wholeness and healing from the whole hosts of crises that we are facing right now, I don’t think it will be a matter of “Voila! You’re healed” because of an election, legislation, rally, or miraculous event – though they are an important part of the process. Throughout our history, and still today, there have been miraculous displays of prophetic power and healing when it comes to the racial divisions that continue to plague us. But for healing and transformation to genuinely take hold over the long haul, all of us must do the difficult, slow, long-term, and repeated act work of “showing ourselves to the priest” so that we may be made whole as a community. 

In other words, in today’s story, it wasn’t enough for the man to say, “I don’t have leprosy anymore. I’m good to go.” That certainly was an important – and indeed a miraculous first step made possible by the mercy, love, power, and grace of Jesus Christ. But the second step was re-incorporating his newfound wholeness into the wider community so that he and his community could be reconciled with one another. There were important steps to be taken for mutual re-incorporation, and much of it involved acknowledging God’s role in the process. It is God who initiates healing among individuals, and it is God who initiates healing among communities. Hence, “showing yourself to the priest” in our time is akin to, in my thinking, the steady, routine participation in the sacramental life of the Church. Like healing, baptism is a both-and event – it is a one-time cleansing of sin as well as a lifelong process of faithfully living out the baptismal covenant within a Church community. It is a one-time miracle and a lifelong series of miracles. 

One example of individual and communal healing that we at Christ the King will begin this week is our engagement with the Episcopal Church’s film-based Dialogue Series on race and faith called “Sacred Ground.” My hope, prayer, and expectation for this series is that it will initiate both individual and communal healing. I imagine that we will experience some one-time miracles while we also lay the sacred groundwork for more long-term miracles.

 In our gospel story, the person in desperate need of healing sought out Jesus and asked him to make him whole again. Such an act by this man who had been cast out of society was an act of great courage, faith, and humility. I think we all need a dose of this type of courage, faith, and humility if we as individuals and we as a nation are going to be made well. And I believe that the role of the Church is to model what this looks like for our communities. What if we as Christians were the first to drop to our knees and ask for forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation? If we can show the world that we recognize our own sinfulness – our own desperate need for God’s healing touch – and if we can be the first to drop to our knees and say, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean,” the Church will indeed be the bridge between the words and actions of Jesus for our world today. 

But we must remember that leprosy wasn’t just an individual problem, it was a community problem too. And such is the case for us now. Jesus has given us the words and the deeds for making individuals and communities whole. May we, through our baptisms, and through our steady, faithful, and courageous participation in the sacramental life of Christ’s Church, heed to and imitate these miraculous words and deeds of Jesus. 

When I was a junior in college, I spent my Fall semester in London for a study abroad program. One visual and audible image that sticks with me to this day from that semester is the slogan “Mind the Gap.” This slogan is posted on signs in the subway system and is played aloud over the intercom at every stop when the doors to the subway car open. The gap they are referring to is the gap between the opening of the subway car and the platform. In other words, “watch your step” when you are getting on or off the subway. “Don’t step into the crack and fall.” It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and certainly not something I’d mention as what I remember most about my time in London. But all it takes is a few very long subway rides – with a lot of stops – to get that very polite pre-recorded British voice stuck in your head. 

But the London subway system isn’t the only place where there are gaps. Here in our context today, there are many gaps that we having to deal with, watch for, and bear in mind. The first is very obvious – the physical gap between you and me right now. After being cautiously optimistic about returning to public worship at CtK last week, we are back to livestream-only after a potential exposure to covid-19. So, to be safe, we are expanding the gap between one another from 6 feet apart to total separation. This temporary setback is just part of the process that we will have to deal with as we seek to come together. There will be starts and stops and starts again. There will continue to be physical gaps between us until a vaccine is discovered. 

The covid-19 virus has also exposed many other gaps in our nation and world – gaps between the rich and the poor, urban and rural, old and young, healthy and unhealthy, insured and uninsured, mask wearers and non-mask wearers, compliant and non-compliant…the list goes on. 

And the recent civil unrest surrounding the tragedies related to Amaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have exposed many other gaps in our nation. We are being reminded of the cavernous gaps between white folks and people of color; justice and injustice; peaceful and violent protest; conscientious and rogue law enforcement; liberal and conservative…the list goes on. 

One thing that we Christians are called to do in the midst of chaos, unrest, and disorientation is to turn to our faith for solace, strength, and wisdom. If our Christian faith has nothing to offer us during times like these, what’s the point? 

I think the doctrine of Holy Trinity can help us try to make sense of these gaps we are experiencing in our lives today.

First and foremost, the Hebrew scriptures – particularly those of the prophets - tell us of the monumental gap or chasm that exists between God and God’s people. So God sent prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and the like to call Israel back into faithful relationship with God. They were sent to be gap-closers so to speak. 

The last of the great biblical prophetic gap-closers was John the Baptizer, who served as the bridger of the gap between the old and new covenants. John was preparing the way for the ultimate repairer of the breach, Jesus. The incarnation of God in Jesus was God’s ultimate, radical act of gap-closing. When God the Father – the first person of the Trinity - recognized that the prophets weren’t enough to get God’s message of love, peace, justice, and reconciliation across to God’s people, God chose to empty himself of all divine pretensions and he became a human being. 

Jesus of Nazareth – the incarnate Son of God; the incarnate Word of God; the second person of the Trinity – closed the gap between God and humankind by living and dying as one of us. God’s very own self felt the humiliation and pain of suffering and death. God could never again be accused of not being able to relate to us. God was no longer only transcendent, far away, and unknowable. The gap between divinity and humanity was closed and sealed forever. 

Even though I’ve provided us with a hopefully palatable metaphor for thinking about the Triune God, in the end, all metaphors fall short. Dare I say that all metaphors, no matter how helpful, leave a bit of a gap.

Early on during this coronavirus pandemic, I read “The Celebrant” - a historical fiction novel based on the Memphis yellow fever epidemic in 1878. It is the fascinating story told from the point of view of Fr. Louis Schuyler – one of the “Martyrs of Memphis.” The “Martyrs of Memphis” were a small group of Episcopal clergy, lay people, and nuns who either remained in or traveled to Memphis to help care for those who were stricken with yellow fever. All but two of them ended up dying of yellow fever in their efforts to help others. 

This group of faithful Episcopalians is commemorated on the Episcopal Calendar every September 9, and the Feast day is called “Constance and her Companions: The Martyrs of Memphis.” Constance was the superior of the Sisters of St. Mary, an Episcopal convent that was established in 1873 to start a girl’s school connected with St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis. We at Christ the King have two important connections with this story. First, Fr. Frank Cooper, prior to serving as the Rector here at Christ the King, was the Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis. And he was a part of the team of people who lobbied the Episcopal General Convention to add Constance and her Companions to the Episcopal calendar of Feasts and Fasts. So, every September 9 when we celebrate Constance and her Companions, we should be mindful that Frank Cooper is a big reason we are doing so.

The other connection is that one of our parishioners - Geoffrey Butler (I’m still in denial that Geoffrey and Evie moved away, so I am still calling them our parishioners) – was the headmaster at St. Mary’s School for Girls in Memphis. This is the school that was started by Sister Constance and the Sisters of St. Mary’s. 

Anyhow…by the time the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis ended, 90% of the population that remained in Memphis during the epidemic contracted the disease. At the height of the epidemic, there were an average of 200 deaths a day, and of the 20,000 people who remained in Memphis, over 5,000 died. Given our current familiarity with disease and pandemics, just take a moment to ponder those staggering statistics! 25% of the city’s population died.

The historical fiction novel I mentioned earlier gives a first-person point-of-view account of this epidemic. The author – himself an Episcopalian – invites us into the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Fr. Louis Schuyler. Fr. Schuyler – a priest in New Jersey – felt called to religious life beyond parish priesthood. Prior to going to Memphis, he went to Oxford, England to explore becoming a professed member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. When that did not work out, he returned to parish ministry in New Jersey, and it was then that he heard about the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, and the work that the Sisters of St. Mary were doing. He immediately requested permission from his bishop to go to Memphis and help the sisters in their ministry to the sick.

There is a lot about this remarkable story that I do not have time to go into. Schuyler’s bishop did not want him to go to Memphis, as it was as good as a death sentence for him, even though he was a young man in his early 30’s. But after a lot of back-and-forth, and a few instances that can only be chalked up to divine providence, Schuyler was granted permission to go to Memphis. As was expected, he – along with Constance and six other Sisters of St. Mary, and Fr. Charles Parsons – all died of yellow fever. They stood in the gap between those who fled the city and those who remained because they had no other option. They stood in the gap between the haves and have-nots of Memphis. They did exactly what Jesus would have done. And like Jesus, they all died as a result of their call to stand in the gap.

My takeaway from the story of Louis Schuyler and Constance and the Sisters of St. Mary has to do with religious communities serving as “closers of the gap.” I am deeply grateful to be a part of a tradition within Christianity that continues to have religious communities. The Sisters of St. Mary served as closers of the gap during the Memphis yellow fever epidemic in 1878. That is just one example, and it is perhaps a terrible example for me to use. I say that because it is such an extraordinary example of heroism, even martyrdom. The call to religious life is not a call to heroism or martyrdom. It is a call to be a part of an intentional community of prayer and fellowship ordered by a common Rule of Life. It is a call to enhance the life of the wider Church. 

Through our baptisms, we are all called to stand in the gap between God and the world around us. We are all called to stand in the gap between justice and injustice; between goodness and evil; between love and hate; between the haves and the have-nots. Through our baptisms, we are all called to participate in the divine life of the Holy, Blessed Trinity. 

Our very own God has given us a model for existing together in community, as well as for bridging the gap between God and humankind, as well as between one another. 

So, I think our first calling is simply to mind the gaps that exist in our world today. We must acknowledge that there are gaps, and that these gaps can be dangerous if not tended to. Ignoring the gaps - pretending that they do not exist – only widens them. 

 And second, as Christians baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, our calling is to not only mind the gaps, but to do our part to help bridge the gap. We are called to be repairers of the breach; closers of the gap. We have heroic examples of how faithful Christians have done that in the past. But we don’t have to be heroes. We simply have to be Christians. Lord knows, the world needs us. Our nation needs us. Our community needs us. So, let us mind the gap. And, empowered by the holy and blessed Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- let us do our part to be bridgers the gap.

Today we celebrate the joyful encounter between two pregnant cousins – Mary and Elizabeth. Both of them were miraculously pregnant – Elizabeth had been unable to conceive her whole life - and she was well beyond child-bearing age when she finally became pregnant. Her much-younger teenaged cousin Mary was also miraculously pregnant, having conceived while she was a virgin. So this visitation between these two faithful miracle-bearers was one of celebration and joy. 

So, Elizabeth exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” And Mary responds with one of the most powerful songs in all of scripture, which begins, “"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…”

Indeed, this was a joy-filled acknowledgment and celebration of God’s steadfast power, love, and goodness. Elizabeth and Mary were two joy-filled, hope-filled, gracious mothers-to-be. The gratitude and joy and wonder is palpable in both of their greetings to one another.

Though Elizabeth and Mary were remarkable vessels of God’s miraculous power and grace, they were also, in many ways, ordinary human beings like you and me. They were susceptible to fear, pain, disappointment, and grief. And as it turns out, these two mothers experienced a heavy dose of all of those in their lifetimes.

As we celebrate the joy, awe, and wonder of this remarkable encounter between Elizabeth and Mary, I can’t help but to think about the fact that both of their boys – John the Baptist and Jesus, would end up dying horrible deaths. Both would be executed unjustly by the powers-that-be. Mary would actually be present for and witness up close the horrific torture and crucifixion of her son. I can’t even imagine that. I wonder if Mary had any idea this would be the fate of her son who she carried in her womb when she sang the Magnificat.

When I think about these two mothers – Elizabeth and Mary – my mind then goes to mothers today. I imagine that most mothers - regardless of their racial or socio-economic background – begin their journey of motherhood with at least a glimmer of hope in their hearts for their children. I believe that parenthood, at its core, is a hopeful endeavor. Even if our lives aren’t what we hoped they would be, we bring children into this world with big hopes and dreams for them. We hope that their lives will be better than ours. We hope that we can teach them what we have learned. We hope to steer them away from the mistakes we made. We hope that the world will be a safe place of opportunity for our children. As citizens of the United States, we hope and expect that our children will have full access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and all of the freedoms that our remarkable constitution offers them.

But the recent news has been a sobering reminder that many, maybe even most, mothers should have a healthy dose of fear for their children. In particular, mothers of color are afraid for their children, particularly their boys. Whatever hopes they have for them, they are clouded right now by legitimate fear for their safety – for their very own lives. 

My children were born into privilege, so my fear for them is different than is they were children of color. My fear is that they will participate in and benefit from systemic racism that infects our country today. My fear is that though they will be raised well and taught to love all people, they will still be a part of the deeper virus of racism that infects our country. They might be asymptomatic carriers, but they will still be carriers.

I think we are all fearful for our country as a whole and our children in particular right now. And we have every right to be fearful and despondent. That is how I feel right now. 

I have received some feedback that I should keep my messages positive and joyful during these trying times. I simply can’t do that, because it is not how I feel. And the minute that I feel like I have to be inauthentic with my feelings and my message is the minute I need to find another vocation.

So, I may not be joyful or positive. But I am hopeful. And the only reason I am able to be authentically hopeful is because of the son who Mary gave birth to. Yes, Mary had to endure what no mother deserves to endure when she witnessed the unjust, cruel execution of her son. But Mary never abandoned him, and she never abandoned hope. She stood at the foot of the cross as he hang there dying, in hopes that somehow, some way, this suffering and death would be redemptive as the promised that it would. 

The Song of Mary the we read today – the  Magnificat – is a rally cry for hope in the midst of suffering. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the Song of Mary was deeply out of tune, and appeared to be a terrible mis-reading of who her son was and what he would accomplish.

But on Easter Sunday, Mary’s Magnificat was deeply in-tune with God’s promise for the world. Mary’s hope is our hope. She was a mother who hoped against all odds. She, a lowly, poor teenager who was pregnant out of wedlock, who lived under Roman occupation and oppression, gave birth to a boy who, statistically-speaking, didn’t stand a chance for a safe, happy, fulfilling life. But that same son turned out to be the savior of the world. That same son – Jesus Christ – is not just a sign of hope, he is the world’s only hope for living life as God’s Beloved Community.

May we have the audacity to hope like Elizabeth and Mary hoped. For our children, for our nation, and for our world.