Author: StAlbansChurch

Today’s readings are about God’s rules for us.  In the passage from Deuteronomy, Moses has given the Law to the people of Israel.  Now he’s encouraging them to obey the Law.  Surely, this isn’t too hard.  He says this, knowing that they probably won’t.  The psalmist begs God to lead him and forgive his sins. He knows he hasn’t been perfect in following God’s law. Next, we have the epistle, in which Paul urges the Colossians to be led by God.

Lastly, in the Gospel reading, a lawyer, or religious authority, asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  As in other places, when this question comes up, Jesus asks the questioner what the Law says, and again, this man replies, love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and Jesus says, you’ve got it.

But this man asks another question: who is my neighbor?

Kind of sounds like he’s looking for a loophole, doesn’t it?  Who, exactly, are these people I’m supposed to love?

So Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Your neighbor could be anybody.

This is not news to any of us.  We’ve heard this story many times, and talked about it.  Your neighbors are the people who help you, or who need your help.  And they might not be the people you expect to be connected with. In Jesus’s time, the Samaritans were those neighbors the Israelites didn’t get along with.  Their religious practices were just different enough to make them unacceptable.

In the 21st century, we know just how big the world is.  We know there are a multitude of cultures and languages and religions out there.  Here in the Bay Area, we see people every day who don’t look like us or worship like us or speak our language fluently.  We’re mostly OK with that.  Yet still, we find people to vilify.

So what can we do? Especially now, when it seems as if everything we’ve been working for all our lives is coming down.  How do we love our neighbors?

Spoiler alert: I’m not going to say anything here that you haven’t heard before.  I just think we need to keep reminding ourselves:  do things that bring joy. Make art and music, grow flowers, feed people, laugh. Dance.  Be kind. Smile at people.  If they smile back, you both feel a little better.  If they don’t, let it go. If you have money to donate, give it to organizations that are fighting for the things you care about.

It’s tempting to let our anger at people who seem to be determined to set us backwards take over. Of course we’re angry.  We can’t help how we feel.  But we do have some control over our words and our actions.

Sure, it feels good to vent sometimes, and we can vent among ourselves.  When we’re talking to people we don’t necessarily agree with, I think it’s better to keep it positive. I don’t mean naïve, oh-everything-will-be-fine positive, but rather, talking about the specific things we are FOR.  Justice for everyone; food and shelter, healthcare and freedom from fear for everyone.  Kindness. Making the continued survival of people and animals and plants more important than how much money a few people have.

So let that be how we frame what we say.  It won’t necessarily change anyone’s mind, but who knows? It might. 

I think it’s important to stay positive, because it’s just more energizing, at least for me, than thinking about how awful things are.  It also seems like a more loving perspective.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Imagine yourself in a large hall with forty other students in a seminary. The person in front, sitting on an elevated platform, has the task of introducing you, day by day, to various passages of Scripture. He explains his view of the meaning of this passage from today’s Gospel, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. The teacher says that people are eager to turn their lives over to the grace of God, but they will need ordained ministers to assist them with their spiritual changes.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Now I’d like to ask you to imagine another hall, a modest parish hall in Las Vegas, with weak air conditioning, in a neighborhood far away from the infamous Strip. Instead of one person sitting up high, you listen to people sitting around in chairs telling their stories of how God has given to each of them a call to minister.

Some years ago I attended that conference in Las Vegas, titled “Total Ministry.” We rejoiced that so many different ministries had come to fruition in people’s lives, not because of a speech given by a teacher on an elevated platform, but instead because, in the hearts of such people, God had been working in them for a long time.

We’re getting away from a vision of the church which viewed only the ordained people as the ones doing God’s work, while the people in the pews supported the clergy. The ministers of St. Alban’s Church are all its members. Each one of you meets people no other Christian might meet — in your words, in the way you conduct your life, when you stand up for what is right, & when you show mercy and turn the other cheek.

When you let someone else know that the love of God means everything to you, when you let them know that you care about them as a child of God — that’s ministry. Well, if that’s the case, then what are the ordained people supposed to be doing? Just this: since all the baptized are the ministers of the church, the clergy are called to help you perform your ministries. When you are perplexed or tired out, then the ordained are there to help you to renew your spiritual energy, to support you.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

In today’s Gospel passage, we hear Jesus giving some basic instructions to the first Christian ministers, to those going forth to spread the Good News. Imagine yourself among that company, doing something never before done.

Many who followed ancient religions (the worship of many gods) held feast days, placed offerings in front of statues, and recited formula prayers by rote. However, those pagans never said, “I am carrying on the redeeming work of Zeus or Athena.” But the followers of Christ Jesus are the ones who are carry on his work. What can we learn from the guidance which Jesus gave to those first disciples?

First, we should display a wise yet innocent spirit — as lambs among wolves. In Matthew’s version we have four animal images, where Luke has only two.

“I send you out as sheep among wolves; therefore be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Jesus here corrects the ways we may have garbled the message of sainthood, of holiness, which is another way of saying “wholeness.” Are we too shy? Jesus challenges us to be bold! Are we too pushy? Jesus tells us to give way to children. If we’re too naive, we’re called to wise up! If too shrewd, we need to be gentle.

Next, we should project a spirit of peace. Have you ever visited a house and said, “Peace be to this house?” I’ve had that experience. At the blessing of a home — which by the way is something I love to do to make a sacred space out of a dwelling — I begin by knocking at the door, and when I cross the threshold I say: “Peace be to this house.” Even though most of the time we don’t say that upon entering, it should be in our hearts when we enter a home — especially our own!

Lastly we are to let people know that the reign of God has come near to them. How?

We can resist the atmosphere of cruelty and de-humanization around us.

We can support the immigrants among us, and confront bigotry when we find it.

It’s the challenge to make the link between our Sunday message and that Monday reality of a world crying out for tangible signs of God’s love.

I’m going to conclude this sermon by sharing a poem by Emily Dickinson. She was notoriously quiet and withdrawn, but even she had a sense of ministering, in her letters to support the people she know, into which she’d include a poem.

She’s happy, with a new Content — That feels to her — like Sacrament —

She’s busy — with an altered Care — As just apprenticed to the Air —

She’s tearful — if she weep at all — For blissful Causes — Most of all

That Heaven permit so meek as her — To such a Fate — to Minister.

–Emily Dickinson

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

I read short, meditative messages from a variety of daily readers, and the one for last Friday particularly spoke to me:

Take a blessing with you wherever you go. You have been blessed, so bless others. Such stores of blessings are awaiting you in the months and years that lie ahead. Pass on your blessings. Blessing can and does go around the world, passing on from one person to another. Shed a little blessing in the heart of one person. That person is cheered to pass it on, and so God’s vitalizing, joy-giving message travels on. Be a transmitter of God’s blessing.

And wouldn’t you know it – later that morning, while driving around in my old Volkswagen Bug, the car attracted the attention of two two young men in a delivery van who pulled up next to us at a stop light. One of them had had a 1970s Volkswagen Bug, and they told us that seeing my Bug really cheered them up!

I often get another hopeful message from a friend concerning my expectations, which is:

“None of us is going to get out of this life alive, but the best is yet to come!” 

Today’s readings similarly urge us to look on the bright side, and transmit God’s blessings.

They speak of following God, no matter where our human frailties and desires lure us, and the fact that faith and good works, rather than ridged adherence to the yoke of human law, are the road to a fulfilling destiny. If we can love our neighbors as ourselves, by following him with faith and its corresponding good works, we will find the freedom from bondage that Jesus promised us.

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Larry’s excellent description of Elijah in last week’s Reflection reminds us that he was relentless and violent in his efforts to return an errant Israel to the Lord, to the point of killing every offending prophet at Baal. The God of Abraham is not a gentle one.

In this week’s Old Testament reading we find Elijah on his way to Bethel, where he is to be taken “up to heaven by a whirlwind.” On the way, he encounters a young man named Elisha, upon whom he placed his cloak; his “mantle.” Thereafter, Elisha started following Elijah.

As they walked, Elijah repeatedly urged Elisha to say behind, but Elisha refused.

So, they soldiered on with 50 other followers, and when they reached the Jordan, Elijah used his cloak to part the waters.

Elijah then “ascended in a whirlwind into heaven,” leaving behind his mantle for Elisha, who took it up, parted the waters, and crossed over.

As one commentator put it: “Elisha is the successor of Elijah. God’s person for that hour, as the 50 prophets announced, . . .”

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In the New Testament passage from Galatians, Paul is telling us to avoid the yoke of slavery to our sins, and embrace the liberty by which Christ has made us free.

The slavery he’s talking about is both our self-indulgences, and our becoming slaves to one another and the Old Testament’s Mosaic law. The freedom is found in loving our neighbors, because those who act as if they truly love their neighbors, have kept the law fully.

As written by one commentator: The Mosaic Law given by God emphasized salvation by merit, but Jesus put the emphasis on salvation by the grace of God, through faith in him. It is in concern for the well-being of the other person that the law is obeyed.

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That’s not to say that such freedom is an invitation to loose living. None of us (including Paul) is free from sin or controversy.

Even the Nicene Creed, which was an effort to calm warring factions in the Christian church and whose 1700^th anniversary was remembered by Larry last Sunday, is still the subject of controversy about its language and meaning.

But God will forgive us our imperfections as we move toward more loving relations with our neighbors. It is progress toward loving our neighbors that is required, not perfection.

As if to make the point, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus rebukes James and John when they suggest retribution for the village of the Samaritans who refused to receive Jesus. That’s a demonstration of his loving all of our neighbors, even when we choose to turn the other cheek.

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But we’re still killing each other over territory and in the names of our differently conceived Gods, so is it realistic for us humans to aspire to use only non-violent boundaries when loving our neighbors as ourselves?

So far, the best we’ve been able to do collectively in dealing with the ongoing horror is work through human institutions and laws like the United Nations and the International Red Cross’ law of International Armed Conflict, but that has not stopped the bloodshed.

Doesn’t that amount to us, once again, relying on our own, admittedly limited, frame of reference and institutions, which, as Paul warned in Galatians, constitutes being enslaved by those institutions?

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What if we all made it a personal goal to embrace the grace of God, by good works undertaken to express neighborly love for one another? A friend of mine likes to refer to that idea as an exercise in “enlightened self-interest.”

We just experienced doing that sort of thing during the recent pandemic. In the face of serious adversity, many of us gave and received helping hands and a new sense of community. For me, it helped to restore my faith in God, and in the basic goodness in us all. Out of self-interested necessity, in times of crisis we come together for the common welfare.

Is it too much to hope that we can aspire to the same love for our neighbor on a more day-to-day basis, and without the need for at disaster to motivate us to go in that direction?

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I look for ways to cheer myself up, and have found that, as a general rule, being of service to others works pretty well. Even cleaning the cats’ litter box helps take my mind off my so-called problems, and the state of the world!

Something else that cheers me up is a rose bush in my yard, that blooms several times during the year. Its flowers are a slightly different color with each successive blooming, transitioning over the year from yellow to a kind of orangy-pink.

When we planted it over 30 years ago, I was what I call “a legend in my own mind,” who worshiped the material and enforced the law; and complained bitterly about how much the rose bush cost!

Now, by the grace of God, I expectantly await its first blooms each year, making sure that it is well cared for, and frequently going to the window or outside to admire its beauty.

When Mother Nature makes them available, its blooms adorn the house, and two of them were on the kitchen table with me as I wrote this Reflection.

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It also helps me to think of God in terms of Mother Nature. Acknowledging the relentless evolution of things all around us as being accomplished by Mother Nature is a way in which I am able to conceptualize, and even visualize, the infinite, which is God.

She can be both predictable and spontaneous, beneficial and destructive; but always, and I believe forever, uncontrollable by us.

We will never “best” Mother Nature, although as noted in the old Chiffon margarine commercial, we keep trying to “fool” her. As was said in that commercial: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

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The result of her often-dramatic actions (which are referred to in the law and by insurance companies as “acts of God”), is that we eventually have to surrender to reality, and cooperate among ourselves to adapt to her “new normal.”

That is more than a metaphor. For me, it better explains Paul’s injunction that if we Christians live by the Spirit; that is, love our neighbors as ourselves, we will inherit the kingdom of God.

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So, I respectfully suggest that God, in the image of Mother Nature, is a good place to look for things to do that will bring our “neighbors” far and wide, together.

In my case, the rose bush has grown high enough to be seen and enjoyed by several of my neighbors. I’ve also shared its flowers with others.

And our church’s neighbors are already tending some of its gardens, so let’s reciprocate by loving them, no matter who they are, what they believe, or where they came from.

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Mother Nature is not too concerned with such things.

Good morning, dear people.

Before I start my reflection, there are a couple of things that I feel I must say. The first is that, this year, we celebrate the anniversary of something that is way older than the Democratic Party, way older than the USA, way older than the current State of Israel. This is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. This is what we say we believe. We also believe that we should love our neighbors as Jesus told us. But loving our neighbors derives from what the Nicene Creed recognizes – that Jesus is divine, the Son of God. In telling us to love our neighbors, Jesus wasn’t giving us some ethical advice. He didn’t come to found the United Nations. He founded the church in the world and this kinship right here. This is what Saint Paul was always yammering about over and over – that the Gospel derives from Jesus’ divinity.

The second thing has to do with current events. I am deeply unhappy about the attack on Iran and the escalation of war in the Middle East. And yet we sit here so safely. What is to be said? Well, the Vatican has probably the world’s greatest media empire. And the Pope addresses people every day almost. So, I looked to see what Leo XIV might have said. He said that we should look to diplomacy. Well, that’s true. Let’s hope. But he also said that war inflicts deep wounds on a people’s history. He also said it leads to consigning other issues to oblivion. And I ask, in this respect, where is the suffering of the people of Gaza in the newspapers these past few days? He said that victory is no compensation for the fear of children or for their stolen future. He said that no conflict is far away when human dignity is at stake. So, now, let’s turn to the message of today’s readings which concern, in their way, what we do for our children and what are God’s expectations of us.

So, onward.

The people we love – parents, children, spouses, friends — sometimes go through hard times. Then, we comfort them. But our job is really to help them get through it and often we have to push them really hard. The pushing can hurt everyone a lot and it makes us wonder if we’re doing the right thing. I’ve said this before: Love can be a sword that pierces your heart.

I’m most familiar with this dynamic, if that’s the right word, in the case of my children. I remember when our teenage daughter and we went to the airport for her travel to a whole other state to start college. Suddenly, a necessary farewell turned into mourning. Tears flowed. Finally, she, wearing a pair of red pedal pushers (if that’s the right word!) got on the plane to start out.

How can such a right thing cause so much pain? But, now, practically thirty years later, I see how she is a whole, healthy, highly competent woman, a mother and a professional. Perhaps it had to do with pushing her onto the airplane.

Twenty or so years ago, I pushed my son out the door to make him take a job offered to him in New York City. It had to be. He had to go out the door. It was painful and frightening for us all. (Parents get scared at almost anything.) But he ended up making a life for himself. It was not easy, but it became positive. And New York is now his home more than California ever was.

This dynamic of deciding, grieving, and pushing is something that we see in the Old Testament reading and in the Gospel for today. But, instead of parents, for example, it is God who does the deciding and the pushing. And I ask myself whether he also does not grieve.

Elijah is one of the great figures of the Old Testament. He was active during the reign of Ahab, King of Israel, who, as the Bible says, “did more evil in the sight of the Lord than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30) One of his evils was to marry Jezebel who was not a Hebrew. The two of them institutionalized the worship of Jezebel’s false gods in Israel. And Jezebel made sure that as many of the prophets of the Lord that she could catch were hunted down and killed. This is the scene that Elijah steps into.

Elijah’s story is interesting and stretches over seven and a half chapters of the Old Testament. (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2:12). He definitely has singleness of heart in trying to return Israel to the Lord. He is constantly on the road, constantly in danger. He seems powerful and he seems humorless. He is actually not the person I’d like to spend time with.

I think we all have heard the story how Elijah challenges the priests and prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He and they are each to prepare a sacrifice and see which divinity will bring down fire from heaven to burn it up. (1 Kings 18:18-40). Elijah, or rather the Lord, wins. Baal does nothing, and the Lord consumes even the stones of the altar that Elijah set up for him. Then – tit for tat, I guess — Elijah had the people kill every one of the prophets of Baal.

Elijah runs away because Jezebel is out to skin him alive. He ends up by himself in the wilderness near Beersheba which is way down south in the Kingdom of Judah, far from Israel. And, at this point, the Bible gives us one of the first great descriptions of despair and depression. Elijah sits under a tree and asks the Lord to take away his life. He is exhausted. He is scared. He falls asleep under the tree or shrub. He awakes to the comfort of a simple hot meal. (I think we’ve all given unhappy people something to eat and said “this’ll make you feel better.”) Elijah falls asleep again. He gets another meal. And he is told to get up and get going. He gets going to Mount Horeb which is in the Sinai. Elijah finds himself, in the silence, in the very physical presence of God. He is able to explain less emotionally the reason for his being so far away from Israel. The explanation of his flight is rational. God really listens, but God has expectations for Elijah.. Elijah is sent on other tasks all to assure the continuation of God’s worship in Israel. (Our selection for today leaves his assigned tasks out.) God has pushed him on his way as we often do for loved ones.  

In today’s great Gospel reading, Luke gives us one of the great scenes of a confrontation with truly tormented insanity. Jesus heals this man who has seemed totally divorced from our reality, who is in such unimaginable pain. So what happens? The Gerasenes, who are the people of this area and are Gentiles, come down and ask Jesus to leave. They are afraid and upset because of his vast intrusion into the ways of their world – the healing, the loss of their pigs. They wonder what could be next. Jesus does go away. The man who has been healed begs to go with him. But Jesus says “No”. Jesus has expectations of him. He is to go to the Gerasenes and glorify God among them for the miracle of his healing. He is given a mission. He will replace Jesus who is being chased away. He is to become “Jesus” to the Gerasenes. He is pushed away.

The Bible is like a mirror of our lives. God intrudes on us where we are and as we are. The healing of Elijah and of the madman of the Gerasenes is like our giving comfort to our children. But when God sends Elijah onward and sends the formerly mad man on his mission to the Gerasenes, he is like us pushing our children away on their own path – to college out-of-state, to a job and life in New York City, and whatever the experience of each of us brings up.

We have expectations of the people we love when we need to push them onward. We want them to mature and grow. But what is God’s expectations of us? For surely God has them. They are more like what he wants from Elijah and the formerly insane man. Broadly speaking, he wants us to live the Gospel. But I sense that there is more detail than this bland statement about living the Gospel. Saint Paul, a great pusher if there ever was one, says that we are on with each other; that we are one with God; that we share God’s spirit because we are the Spirit’s Temple. And Saint Paul speaks a million times about the Body of Christ – well, I exaggerate: he talks about it three or four times. It is one of his lifelong themes. The Body of Christ is the church in the worldwide sense and as a local kinship, like us here in this room. The Body of Christ has many parts. Paul enumerates them – the teacher, the healer, the preacher, for example. (For example, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Romans 12:4-5) And we can go way beyond Paul’s enumeration of the parts — to vestry member, school teacher, retired person who volunteers, a person who prays for all and sundry, Bible student, theologian, observer of the beauty of the universe, proclaimer of the day of the Lord’s favor, and you name it.

And so our important question is: What does God expect of you as a baptized person? What does he push you onward to do? It may be something not so big, like a seed that sprouts and becomes a big tree. Jesus loved talking about seeds. Every little thing you do is a sprouting seed. Think about this! You may not know it, but you’re already doing it. Make yourself think about it!

We have also a great starter outline in the Baptismal covenant. Do we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? Do we continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the Eucharist, and in the prayers? Do we resist evil and repent our sins and return to the Lord? Do we proclaim the Gospel by word and example? Do we serve Jesus in all persons and love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we strive for justice and peace? And as the Pope mentioned in his recent message that I referred to: Do we respect the dignity of all people?

Amen.

So you all know about the protests yesterday, yes? Maybe you were at one of the many many gatherings across this country that were about saying no to kings, to autocrats, to tyranny of any kind.

This is not a partisan issue. It is about who we are as Americans. Most all of us grew up standing at attention, facing the flag, putting our hands over our hearts and pledging allegiance to the country who values liberty and justice for all. Some of you are veterans who fought to protect this democracy and the world against fascism, and we honor you and the memories of those who laid down their lives for This.

We are also Christians, and our primary allegiance, before country or nationality and certainly before any political party, is to the Kingdom of God, whose citizenship includes our baptismal vow to resist evil and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. And so both as Christians and as Americans, we stand up and let our voices be heard. As one teacher’s or mother’s sign said yesterday, It’s time to use our outside voices. And it is encouraging to be in the company of so many, so many others – including others who are in far more dangerous positions than we are. People who have darker skin than most of us do. People who are trying to work and feed their families and pay taxes, and who may or may not have the proper documentation. Politicians who risk not just their careers but increasingly their safety. And I want to pause a moment to send our prayers for the recovery of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife after being shot, and pray that the souls of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortmann and her husband John, who were politically assassinated may rest in peace and rise in glory. Yes, it is time now to stand up and use our outside voices and to exercise our constitutional rights, again and again and again.

The six California Bishops co-wrote a letter this past week to all the episcopal parishes and missions in California, and our presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, wrote to the whole Episcopal Church USA, to all of us who follow Jesus in the Episcopal tradition. I’m going to quote from these letters and if you have not yet read them in their entirety, I encourage you to do so.

This one from the six California Bishops:

Bishop John Harvey Taylor, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, has expressed deep pain and anger as fourteen people in one single Episcopal congregation in that diocese were detained by ICE on Friday. Certainly, we as Episcopalians are shocked and saddened when any of our own are removed from our beloved Community.

In all six of our dioceses, people are concerned and fearful about the denial of due process for those detained and the potential for ICE raids targeting beloved community institutions and people working to support their families. People feel angry and threatened that the haven they sought in our communities is no longer safe. US citizens and legal residents feel deep grief at losing beloved friends and family members. Children whose parents are deported face uncertain futures. In our churches, we strive to protect our members who are at risk.

In the Episcopal Church, we uphold a proud tradition of advocating for civil rights and supporting the vulnerable in our society. We stand for fierce love and for justice that leads to peace, as well as societal practices that preserve human dignity. With God’s help, we will speak and pray on behalf of all in this situation. Bishop Taylor has asked for our prayers for Los Angeles, and we invite all our dioceses to pray for the unfolding situation there as well as for peace and justice in all our communities. We ask that you join us in praying:

“Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP p. 823).”

And from our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Sean Rowe, in its entirety:

Dear people of God in The Episcopal Church:

I am writing to you from Geneva, where I am meeting with global partners at the World Council of Churches and the United Nations Refugee Agency. As we have discussed how our institutions might act faithfully and boldly in these turbulent times, I have been reflecting on how we Episcopalians can respond to what is unfolding around us as followers of the Risen Christ whose first allegiance is to the kingdom of God, not to any nation or political party.

The events of the last several days lend urgency to this spiritual challenge. Earlier this week, President Trump’s executive order banning or restricting travel from 19 countries went into effect. This order impacts countries that are home to dioceses of The Episcopal Church and many of our Anglican Communion partners, and I have written to the bishops and primates in those countries to express our concern.

The unwarranted deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marine Corps on the streets of Los Angeles also signals a dangerous turn. As the bishops of California have written, these military deployments risk escalating the confrontations unnecessarily and set a dangerous precedent for future deployments that heighten tensions rather than resolve them. As Christians committed to strive for justice and peace among all people, we know that there is a better way. What we are witnessing is the kind of distortion that arises when institutions like the military and the State Department are turned on the people they were meant to protect. These mainstays of the federal government, designed to safeguard civil society and promote peace and stability, are now being weaponized for political advantage.

The violence on television is not our only risk. We are also seeing federal budget proposals that would shift resources from the poor to the wealthy; due process being denied to immigrants; and the defunding of essential public health, social service, and foreign aid programs that have long fulfilled the Gospel mandate to care for the vulnerable, children, and those who are hungry and sick.

With all of this in mind, we are finding ways to respond as Christians to what we see happening around us. We are exploring options to support litigation challenging the travel ban on the ground of religious freedom; advocating for federal spending that safeguards the welfare of the most vulnerable; caring for immigrants and refugees in our congregations and communities; and standing in solidarity with other faith groups. In short, we are practicing institutional resistance rooted not in partisan allegiance, but in Christian conviction.

At its best, our church is capable of moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice. I believe we can bring those strengths to bear on this gathering storm. Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated. That is not a role we sought—but it is one we are called to.

In Geneva, I have been reminded that we are part of a global communion of hope in the Risen Christ. We do not stand alone as we live by our baptismal promises: to persevere in resisting evil, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. In these troubling times, may we find courage and resilience in our identity as members of the Body of Christ.

Yours in Christ,

The Most Rev. Sean Rowe

Presiding Bishop

The Episcopal Church

And how, my friends, do we live our baptismal promises, even when our hearts may be leaden with despair or fear of the coming storm, and our bodies fearful of being harmed or our friends being hurt? We live our baptismal promises because the Holy Spirit lives in us, God with us, God within us, guiding us, encouraging us, putting us back on our feet when we fall, inspiring us. “When the Spirit of truth comes, Jesus said, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

And what does the Spirit declare? So much, so, so much. More than any one book or any one person could possibly hold or tell. But it is this Spirit that informs us in the moment as to what is needed to follow the way of Jesus, guides our decision making in the moment as we resist evil and strive for justice and peace among all people. Do we always get it right? No. Our own biases and prejudices and fears and sins get in the way of spiritual clarity – but we keep at it. We keep asking. We keep listening. We keep desiring to go the way of truth and the way of love above all other ways. And the Spirit? Jesus told his disciples will not leave us orphaned. And it is that Spirit who will ensure that we do find the courage and the resilience that our Presiding Bishop desires for us, as well as the moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice that he commends to us as the church.

My friends, I am so so grateful to be an American. I am even more grateful to be a living member of the body of Christ, following Jesus in our time and in our place. May we know that we and all others are created in God’s image, that we Christians bear the marks of Jesus, and that the Holy Spirit indwells us, guiding us always, correcting us as needed, breathing peace into our souls, truth into our minds, and courage into our bodies.

In the name of the One Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Happy Birthday, everybody! Today we celebrate the birthday of the church — not the birthday of this parish, but of all who follow in the ways of Christ Jesus. On this day, some ordinary people began to turn the world upside down.

Before the Holy Spirit came, there was no such thing as the Christian church; the first disciples of Jesus were not increasing in number; they were fearful, stagnant. But after this experience of God’s Spirit of boldness being poured out on them, their numbers went from 120 to 3,000.  That’s a factor of 25 times as many! How did they attract such enthusiasm that so many people joined on the spot?

The listeners declare it: “In our own languages we hear people proclaiming God’s deeds of power.”  And what are God’s deeds of power?  They’re not simply stories about Jesus’ miracles, or even the story of his rising from the dead. “God’s deeds of power” have to include the stories of how God has worked in your life to change you, to challenge you, to comfort you, to love you infinitely.

We started today’s worship by praying about the Good News of Jesus: “Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth.”

For many years, I was part of a ministry at Grace Cathedral. Once a quarter, we would welcome visitors there, and often have a short conversation with them. One woman I met started to tell me about a place where Jesus’ words about how the Gospel would spread to the ends of earth was literally fulfilled.

I was wondering about this line of thought, but I listened as she reminded me that in the 1700’s Roman Catholic Mexico and Orthodox Russia met just north of here in a place called Fort Ross. The languages and customs were very different, but each party could tell that the other party shared the faith of Christ.

Pentecost was an ancient spring harvest festival, when people gathered in the first fruits of the earth after a cold winter had turned into a hopeful spring. The followers of Christ Jesus know a more profound harvest, a spiritual harvest!

Those 120 people knew times of sadness and abandonment and uncertainty, but in God’s Spirit they harvested spiritual gifts that were new and unexpected. They felt the rush of a violent wind, filling the house where they were praying — they saw divided tongues as of fire, resting on each one, like condensed halos.

All of us here have had the experience of some moments of inner fire or bliss, and sometimes those moments come when we are in community. Some describe it as “spine-tingling”. Some deep, deep realization occurs to our minds and hearts, and then it seems like a subtle inner waterfall cascades down, or wells up from below.

Those spiritual “spine-tingling” moments may come about in sacred music, or when we’ve touched the soul of another person in a moment of deep sharing. At such times, we feel somethings almost tangible, as if we are radiant — as if something in us understands the halos painted above the “official” saints.

People who progress in the spiritual life have names for such blissful moments: names like “consolation.” Spiritual guides caution us not to become greedy for them.

Rather than seek only the consolations of God, seek the God who gives consolations. Otherwise we risk becoming addicted to inner bliss, and forgo outer service of neighbor.

The poet William Blake puts it this way:

     He who binds to himself a joy

     Does the wingéd life destroy.

    He who kisses the joy as it flies

    Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

We find quite a range of ways of showing forth the Holy Spirit’s life in our own lives. Our personal experiences vary so much; and the Holy Spirit blows where it wills. This matter of discernment explains why the sacred authors stress the variety of God’s gifts, sometimes described as the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit:

• Wisdom
• Understanding
• Right Judgment
• Courage
• Knowledge
• Reverence
• Awe of God

Does any one Christian display all these gifts all the time? That’s not possible. In fact, that’s why the body of Christ has so many members with a great range of gifts.

How simultaneously challenging and wonderful it is, that Christ’s body shines forth with such a spectrum of temperaments and perspectives and ideas and gifts!

Even here at St. Alban’s we display a great range of abilities and limitations. We need one another to make a healthy church that shares the gifts of the Spirit. In the words of today’s Collect: “Shed abroad this gift throughout the world, by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Today is the last Sunday for the year that will have “Easter” as part of its name. But our Easter Season isn’t actually over until next week, the Day of Pentecost.  Then for the last time our first lesson will be from the Acts of the Apostles – when the Resurrection becomes, if you will, “full blown” with the gift of the Spirit.

For most of the Easter Season, in addition to having all the first lessons from Acts, our second readings have been from the book of Revelation – sometimes called the Apocalypse of John – and, on most Sundays, Gospel readings from John’s Gospel.

Next week and for all those many Sundays after Pentecost, we will return to readings from Luke’s Gospel.

So, today, let’s savor this last dip into John’s Gospel.  It’s fitting, as we get near the end of the Easter season, that we hear the final verses of what is called Jesus’ Farewell Address.  This address stretches from chapter 13 all the way to the end of chapter 17. 

Chapter 18 begins John’s account of the passion of Jesus.

Today’s reading is the summation of what is the theme of John’s Gospel: it is good news that Jesus is no longer among us.  If Jesus hadn’t departed, we wouldn’t have his words, his abundant feast, and the gift of his Spirit.  Now, because Jesus is gone, we have a new identity, a new family, and a new community.

Of course, John’s point – yes, it’s confusing and contradictory – is that those three gifts are how Jesus is present with us right now.  In this absent-but-yet-present Jesus, we see the image and the substance of a God of love who created and continues to create all of life.  And, because Jesus is present with us, we have this love that enlivens and sustains all existence.

But how do we experience that love today?  How do we let Jesus’ presence shape and sustain our lives?

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus is praying for us.  Significantly, Jesus concludes his long farewell address with what some have called his High Priestly Prayer.  Jesus prays to God to keep our name before God.  Jesus keeps reminding God – and reminding us – that we are his siblings, that we are one with him.

In today’s Gospel, we also hear that Jesus is giving us his glory.  This word glory is mentioned 18 times in John’s 21 chapters, and it is called out twice in these six verses.  This is the “glory” that we’ve heard about from the beginning of John’s Gospel.  It is glory of the Jesus’ hour on the cross, when Jesus gives up his life and is lifted up to the Father.  Jesus gives us this death so that we might have eternal life: life that begins anew every day and is self-renewing.

In today’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus gives us a mission.  That mission is to repeat the words that we have heard so that others might trust this promise of eternal life.  John’s Gospel was written to urge his community to keep gathering for the Eucharist and practicing Baptism as way to grow that beloved community.  And so we see huge vats of wine and gushing water that literally overflow into the lives of others.  

Hearing Jesus pray for us, to be lifted up on the cross with him, to take part in his mission are all ways that we deal with what we see in our first two lessons. 

In Acts, we see that being part of the Easter mission gets Paul and Silas in prison.  In Revelation, we hear a tale about the destruction of Babylon, which was a coded way to talk about the persecution, oppression, and corruption of the Roman Empire at the end of the first century.

Our own situation today doesn’t seem that far from what took place in Acts or Revelation.

You and I are watching the sledgehammering of knowledge, institutions, and resources that enable our economy and our culture to thrive. Threats to our health, safety, and security seem to grow daily.  Many of us are terrified about how all of this going to end – and whether it will even be possible to put everything back together when this nightmare ends.

 Our reading from Revelation encourages us – in the midst of our despair, anxiety, and – yes – anger to wait in hope and expectation.  We can trust that these times of travail are not the end, but rather the beginning.  We are invited – as Jesus prays for us – to repeat what many believe is the first Christian prayer: Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

Bathed in God’s abundant love and surrounded by this community, we can be clear-headed and strong hearted.

That means that we can – with appropriate moderation – read and watching the news.  Staying informed is an act of resistance. 

We can also speak up without fear, perhaps joining those who send a message every day to their members of Congress.  Our individual voices become stronger when joined with others as we call for an end to cruelty and stupidity.

And, in this time when revenge and bullying are pushed in our faces, we can act with kindness and compassion.  Perhaps never before in our lives have the smallest measures – saying hello to neighbors, contributing funds to food banks, distributing information about immigrant rights – have had such a huge impact. 

Let’s be clear, we are doing these things not to save ourselves, not to make us more worthy of God’s love.  We have that love – as fully qualified members of God’s family, as cherished parts of God’s creation.  It is Jesus’ absolute and unconditional gift to us.

That’s exactly why we shouldn’t be surprised – and we should give thanks – that we can’t help but be involved in sharing that love with others, preserving God’s creation, and protecting all those in God’s family.

The church, for all its failings, has always been marked by welcoming the stranger, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry.  Because we are joined with Christ, we are always doing what he did.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

As always, our lessons are a great gift to us, and the very first reading today is one that is especially compelling.

Do people still have visions? Visions that are as vivid as living life and that lead to action. Paul saw a vision of a Macedonian pleading with him to come to preach God’s good news. The vision was so real that it was enough to make him drop everything to set sail.  And once in Macedonia, he preached as he had been told to do, speaking to those who had gathered. Among those who gathered were, it would seem, women, including the cloth dealer Lydia. Her stock in trade was purple cloth, a cloth of high value of importance to the wealthy.

We don’t know Lydia’s back story. How had she come to be so independent? She seems to have been a successful business woman, dealing in a luxury item. Even in these few lines, we see something of her personality. She was open minded, eager to hear Paul’s message. And once she heard it, she was decisive. She was unhesitating in inviting these heretofore unknown men to come and lodge at her house.

That this was an unconventional request is suggested by the phrase that she had to be persuasive – she “prevailed” on them to come. And she did not simply welcome them. She was wholly open to them, transformed by what they said to the point that she was baptized and the whole household was baptized with her. She was a woman with influence, certainly over her household. She seems to have been socially unconventional, a woman operating without the supervision of a husband or father or son.  She was a woman on her own, economically self-sufficient, making her own decisions.  A woman for our times.

We should heed her example of attentiveness and openness. There are many voices trying to influence us. We need to hear the voices that speak truth and generosity, as she was able to do. There are, however, some voices, alas, that are not generous. They draw lines that question the rights and interests of other people, people who are not “like us” and who don’t belong. We need to see this attitude as destructive of our shared human needs.

I suggested that Lydia in her independence and values was a woman for our times. But her ways were not for everyone in our times, alas. You could stay with her without providing, say, a jet plane in return, as Trump’s recent guest from South Africa felt constrained to provide. Lydia we can feel sure would be the good host. She managed her household well, we imagine — someone who was generous, successful, enterprising, open to what was powerful and true.

Let’s return to the visions. Paul was in Macedonia where he met Lydia because he had a vision in the night that he believed was sent by God. And because he believed that, he acted on the vision. He simply set sail. He went to Macedonia because he felt summoned to preach, and, once there, he did so with influence. —–

Revelations also offers a vision. This is a different kind of vision from Paul’s, a vision – not of a worldly place where someone felt he needed to be, as Paul was — but a vision of the new Jerusalem, a place of light and peace and people living in honor and truth  – all shown from a high place by an angel. This is a vision that does not call to action but that holds out a golden dream of light and peace.  It is a vision of healing and abundance in the engulfing presence of the light of God. This is a vision to inform all of life.

And, finally, our gospel offers a vision – here vision in the sense of an account – a vision of real healing, of the healing from physical suffering that transforms an individual’s life. This is a story that even in its simplest form is one that anyone hearing has to be deeply moved by. This is a story about ignoring  legalisms–  like prohibitions on Sabbath actions — in favor of human generosity.

It first briefly recalls the healing of the official’s son, a child near death who at Jesus’ word is restored to life. 

It then goes on to its main subject, the story of a man long paralyzed, perhaps his whole life, who faced not only his physical suffering but the isolation that no one seemed to care about his plight. There was, it would seem, no one to help him do what he badly needed, to be put into the pool that would give him respite. This is a story of physical pain and the personal pain of isolation. And the take-away, perhaps, is that Jesus responded to that pain. He saw a person’s suffering and found a way – admittedly a way beyond what any one of us could do – to alleviate that pain. But still there is a lesson that anyone could take away.  This is the lesson that, in whatever way possible, suffering needs a response. It’s the same lesson as that offered by the good Samaritan, who does not pass by on the other side.

So we are given three visions –

a vision of guidance,

 a vision of God’s new Jerusalem,

 and a vision of Jesus’ modeling of legalism-defying service.

Our collect today prays for such love of God that we will love God in all things. To go back to Lydia, that is, I think, what she does. When she encounters Paul, she hears God’s truth. She welcomes his words.  She calls him to her house. Like her, we must hope to sift truth from falsehood. We must hope to recognize and truly hear the truths that we need to hear. And then, doing then, we must not just hear, but respond as we should.

“Love as I have loved you.”

On the 5th and 6th Sundays of Easter – this week and the next, we will be back in John’s gospel, in the long instruction and prayer that Jesus gives to his disciples on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion. This is because we hear these teachings differently in light of what comes after the crucifixion – the amazing truth of resurrection. We can follow this new commandment that we love as Jesus loved because we know that it is the path of life and we know that we are inhabited, inspired, indwelt by the Holy Spirit which empowers us.

Ok – so this morning, we are back at the Last Supper, and after Jesus tells his disciples, “everyone will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another,” he demonstrates what he means by getting on his knees with a basin of water and a towel and tenderly washing each of those rascally disciples’ feet – even the one he knows is going to betray him in just a couple of hours, and the one he knows is going to deny that he ever knew him. Judas – and Peter – and most all the rest who will scatter to hell and gone with the soldiers show up.

Love one another as I have loved you. So that looks like Jesus tenderly washing those feet. It looks like mundane, every day acts of service. Basin and towel kinds of service – watching your grandchildren and actively listening to them without the phone in your hand. It looks like taking in the garbage cans for your neighbor – giving your place in the checkout line to the mother behind you that is trying to keep her kids corralled – making food to share at coffee hour, and setting up the coffee for the rest of us. It looks like sharing tomato starts and going out of your way to make conversation with the crotchety neighbor. It looks like volunteering in the community – at a school, a homeless shelter, the food bank, the public radio station, the library’s literacy projects. It looks like waking up night after night with your baby, or curtailing your social life as you care for an ailing spouse.

Basin and towel kind of love can easily be overlooked and yet it is the kind of love that makes the world work. It is the glue that grounds a community and that makes it more difficult to divide people over political differences. It looks like no big deal – but in fact, it is. Consistently loving in this basin and towel kind of way makes for families and communities that provide shelter and hope and life. It is Jesus’ kind of love, demonstrated at the last meal he would share with his friends before his arrest.

We sing about this foot washing kind of love on Maundy Thursday:

(Refrain) Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love,

show us how to serve the neighbors we have from you.

Kneels at the feet of his friends,

silently washes their feet,

Master who acts as a slave to them.

(Refrain)

Neighbors are wealthy and poor,

varied in color and race,

neighbors are near us and far away.

(Refrain)

These are the ones we should serve,

these are the ones we should love,

all these are neighbors to us and you.

(Refrain)

Loving puts us on our knees,

silently washing their feet,

this is the way we should live with you.

(Refrain)

Then there are the grand huge and concrete acts of love that are more costly. Sacrificial love. The kind which bears witness to the cross of Christ. The kind that Jesus gave on the cross – his blood shed, his body broken for the healing of all creation. Sacrificial love. And it plays out in private settings but more often in public ones.

We have a storehouse of saints who teach us what this love looks like. This past week, May 13th, for example, was the Feast Day of Frances Perkins. A lifelong Episcopalian, she was a staunch and outspoken advocate for industrial safety, and a persistent voice for the reform of what she believed were unjust labor laws. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the White House and as Secretary of Labor, she had a major role in shaping the “New Deal” legislation signed into law by President Roosevelt and which had great impact upon the nation as it emerged from the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Because the Augustinian order is in the news now what with the new Pope being a member, I want to note that Frances frequently recited the Augustinian prayer: ‘My God, I love thee above all others, and I love my neighbors as myself.’ She was frequently and publicly attacked: Not suitable for a cabinet position because she was a woman; a communist because she supported labor rights, she was called Jewish in order to damage her reputation and undermine her political influence; she was lax and dangerous to the nation because she assisted refugees, including Jewish folks fleeing Nazi Germany.

Most of us are not called to the kind of love that would earn us a place in the Calendar of Saints – the kind of love symbolized by the cross – but every single one of us is called to the kind of love symbolized by the basin and towel. Whatever opportunities come your way, large or small, to love the way Jesus loved – take them. There are hundreds of them every day one you begin looking. Guaranteed, the Spirit comes alongside and magnifies every single act of service to do more good than you will most likely ever know.

“The Lord is my shepherd.” This is the statement of fact and confidence that opens the most comforting and calmest of the Psalms. It is the signal of God’s constant presence and concern, no matter where we are, whether in green pastures, in the valley of the shadow of death, or at the dining room table. Its message is that God is pervasive in our lives. As another psalm, the 95^th says: We are “the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”

The Twenty-third Psalm is attributed to King David of Israel. We don’t know at what point in his long life he is supposed to have composed it. But, if you read the First and Second Books of Samuel, you realize that David did not remain the handsome and ruddy young man whom the prophet Samuel picked out from among Jesse’s sons as the next king. (1 Samuel 16:12) David’s life thereafter was passionate and violent. He lost the friend of his bosom, Jonathan, the son of the very king, Saul, whom David was replacing. (2 Samuel 1:25-26) He was a renegade and actually a kind of brigand. (1 Samuel 25: the extortion of Nabal) He was also a mercenary. When he was king, he seduced Bathsheba, a married woman, and saw to it that her husband Uriah was killed in battle. (2 Samuel 11-12) His son Absalom rebelled against him, and he was forced to flee Jerusalem. (2 Samuel 15-18) The Bible points out in detail how and how much blood was shed.

Yet, and perhaps we can be shocked, David continued to love God, and God continued to love him. And this is another encouraging feature of the Twenty-third Psalm. It is so interesting that, at some time in his stormy life, David would hark back to his handsome and ruddy years and take comfort from his past life as a shepherd. He could see the peace in leading his father’s flocks. He carried this experience in his heart – and we all do the same thing! And, because David was so good at his art, he could take his life as a shepherd and translate it into God’s unending care for him.

As to the metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep, we should really think about the relationship of humans to animals. As to sheep, not only were they valuable in economic terms as a source of food and of their immensely precious wool. They also have an emotional appeal at least in that they require guardianship and love. At one point, David told King Saul that he killed or drove off lions to protect his flock. (1 Samuel 17:36-36) Of course he might have been boasting, but I don’t doubt that he drove predators off. And the New Testament statements how Jesus seeks out the straying lamb is a metaphor that must have an absolutely accurate origin in real life. (Luke 15:4-7; Matthew 18:12-14)

A shepherd lived with the flock all day and all night. The flock really knew him. When the group traveled, the sheep followed the shepherd. He did not have to drive them, and he could be certain they were behind him. They knew his face.

There are many other fascinating things to say. For example, how the shepherd is the sheep’s doctor and obstetrician. But the point is that the relationship between shepherd and sheep is profound. If you have an animal in your life, you know the incredible strength of the bond. David beautifully takes the reality of this bond between humans and animals and turns it into the bond between The Good Shepherd and us.

We should not forget that the Twenty-third Psalm is more than a metaphor and more than a poem. It is a meditation and a prayer, that is meant to comfort us. And it does comfort us. It is meant to express foundational connection and it does that. Like David, we have problems. We have problems in our personal lives, the problems that come with love. We have problems in the broader world which we recognize because we love. Our world is as uncertain and perilous as the world of ancient Israel was. In his prayer, David is telling us that, amidst problems, amidst enemies, in the valley of the shadow of death, our connection to the shepherd remains unchanged. And that is a good point. Indeed, we need rest and comfort and we want predictability. The Psalm gives us the predictability that comes from faith. The Lord is our shepherd, indeed. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel passage, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me…No one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27) 

It is so wonderful, so entirely lovely, to have a God who loves us. I am not sure that any other religious tradition in the whole world and ever is based on the biblical tradition of a God who loves. The Psalm tells us to have great confidence in God’s grace, not in the world’s perfection – as if! – but in his grace. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton gave a nice definition of grace in his book “The Seven Story Mountain.”  He wrote: “What is grace? It is God’s own life, shared by us.” (Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978 at page 169)

This means something very special. We are made to go beyond being the comforted. God is not only deeply loyal to us his flock, but God also shares his life with us. In the Book of Genesis, which is wise and clear-sighted, we read that God actually made us in his own image, And that he put us in charge of his Creation. (Genesis 1:26-30)

If God is so free with his life and his image and his creation, our posture changes dramatically. I would say that the Twenty-third Psalm goes upside-down under our feet.  The reason is that, if we share in God’s life, we enter into King David’s metaphor so that we are shepherds too. We are shepherds to each other and we are shepherds to Creation. In other words, we become Good Shepherds too. Maybe, and I am not a theologian, this is one of the big lessons of the Incarnation: that we can actually imitate the Lord. After all, as in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus said to Peter: “Feed my sheep.”  (John 21:15-17)

How do we fulfill the job of being shepherds?  We have to take the shepherd’s long, slow, difficult, painful walk of love. Jesus walked this road in his life on earth. And many people followed him and they listened to him. We listen to him today. So, the first stage of the walk is listening. One might say that this is passive. I don’t think so. It means being receptive to Scripture, to good books, to good talks, to good movies, to what we say to each other even in the most trivial conversations. We find the Gospel everywhere, and the trivial is often the arena of the depth of friendship and mutual respect. There is something about this passivity, as it were, that makes things sink in. It is like being picked up and set down at another level.

The next step on the walk is prayer. I am a big enthusiast for prayer. It strengthens faith. Prayer is not something fancy. It is not a big thing. As Father Rocky says, there is no such thing as bad prayer. But prayer keeps our minds and bodies active and attentive to our needs and desires and our aspirations. Since the interaction is with God, prayer has results. In the case of shepherding, it makes us more deeply aware of love and its radical style. For example, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  This is really a prayer about love.

And so, we become attentive to love. We feel a loyalty and love for other people – and for animals and for the beauty of Creation. And we can act in love. I don’t mean we will found nonprofits that will feed the world. I mean that we will become attentive to all our acts and contacts. That we desire every little thing we do to be done lovingly. Making dinner is an act of love. We become aware that hatred can rise up in an interaction with any person, even a person we don’t know like a person highly placed in politics. But Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  Hatred can eat away at the foundation of justice.

Somehow, praying is a way of participating in God’s love. We and God, in prayer, love the people of Gaza and the Sudan; love the people in government offices in Russia; love the kids who get measles; love our wives and husbands and sons and daughters and grandchildren and friends. Prayer is never-ending, never boring. The more we pray, the more people we have to prayer for. I can see why some people keep lists!

I know that the world is a mess. Consider just a part of it: the major wars that are going on. Some readers of Genesis would describe this as The Fall. When I was young, I thought that we could fix it. But I don’t think anymore that we can fix it by ourselves. But we can pray that it be fixed. We are shepherds in this way, too. Our sleepless nights are shared with the shepherd by the camp fire who worries about the predators that we all fear – until, in God’s time, the wolf dwells with our lambs. (Isaiah 11:6)

Prayer is foundational to our lives. This lesson about prayer is really the simple fact of the existence of the Twenty-third Psalm. The Psalm is not just a nice poem or metaphor. It is itself, in the middle of David’s troubled life, a meditation and a prayer. Shepherds love their sheep and they know how bad things can get. So, shepherds like us pray. It is part of being a shepherd. It is the shepherd in King David who said: “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Thank you for listening.