Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 11, Ordinary 16), "Of Sheep and Shepherds," Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

 

Sermon 7/21/24

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

Of Sheep and Shepherds

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about leadership lately, and who it is we want to lead us and why. Yes, as you can imagine, I’ve got the upcoming presidential election on my mind. No, don’t worry, I’m not about to get into who to vote for - or who not to vote for - or why. Today I’m more interested in thinking about what we value in leaders. What kind of leader do you think the President of the United States should be? I found an article that addressed several characteristics that seem to make for effective presidencies in American history, and the top qualities include: A strong vision for the country's future, an ability to put their own times in the perspective of history, effective communication skills, the courage to make unpopular decisions, crisis management skills, character and integrity, wise appointments, and an ability to work with Congress. (1) That sounds like a pretty decent list. But it is a rear view mirror list. In other words, it was a list made reflecting on presidencies after they were over, not in the midst of electing a new president. I tried to find something that gave a good sense of what we’re looking for when we’re electing a new president. The best I could find was a recent survey that asked people how they rated a pre-selected list of attributes. So, the survey decided on some important traits, but people got to rank them. There were some party-line differences, but people valued strength, honesty, and competence. Most of all? Across party lines, people said “taking responsibility” was their most desired characteristic in a leader. (2) Now, that desire can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I suspect at least part of why people say they want someone who will take responsibility is because they feel like our leaders don’t do this already. How often do we hear our leaders - presidents or governors or members of congress or otherwise - say: that mistake was my fault and I accept responsibility? Examples do not immediately spring to my mind. 

I read recently on social media some words from John G. Stackhouse Jr.: “God, after all, has a long record of allowing societies to reap what they sow and get the leadership they deserve. It's called judgment, not blessing.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot. This idea: God gives people the kind of leader they want, even if it turns out to be an awful decision, even when it turns out the people are really bad at choosing leaders. Are we bad at choosing leaders? Stackhouse is certainly commenting on current events, but he’s also making observations about the biblical record. Our history, as people, of choosing poorly when it comes to leaders, is not new. It’s in fact a quite, quite old problem. That’s what our text from Jeremiah is talking about. When God first called together a people, Israel, God said that God would be the only ruler they needed. But eventually, the people started clamoring for a king, because they wanted to be like the other nations around them - they all had earthly rulers, and the Israelites wanted one too. And so God gave them what they wanted. And, as Stackhouse suggests, it mostly turned out to be a terrible decision. With few exceptions, ruler after ruler did what was evil in God’ sight, leading the people down destructive paths, resulting in wars, and poverty, and hardship, and most of all: idolatry and alienation from God. 

In Jeremiah, God has had it with rulers who are not the shepherds God intends them to be. Shepherds are supposed to care for and protect the sheep - at all costs! But instead, God says, the rules of Israel have been destroying and scattering the sheep - God’s people. There are consequences, God says. But as always, God makes promises too: God will be the shepherd earthly rulers are not, and gather the people. And God will raise up shepherds who will lead with righteousness and justice so that the people can live in safety. So what kind of leader do we want? What kind of shepherd does God seek out for us? Can we accept the shepherd God longs for us to have, instead of insisting we know better? 

There’s more talk about sheep and shepherds in our gospel lesson, where we start out with Jesus just seeking some peace and quiet after the relentless pace of his teaching, healing, and ministry. Picture this: you are exhausted. It has been a long week at work. Some things have gone wrong. And all week, you’ve been looking forward to a quiet Saturday at home, where you can sleep in. You’re just going to relax. No agenda. No schedule. No plans. And then, there’s a knock at the door. Or the phone rings. And suddenly, that time for rest and relaxation has vanished. And it’s not even that whoever interrupted your time is not a friend, a person you enjoy. It’s just that you were so exhausted, and you so needed a break. Has this ever happened to you?  

That’s what happens to Jesus and the disciples. They were trying to take just a little break, because with all the work they’ve been doing, they haven’t even had time to eat. But the people, who so want to see Jesus, experience his teaching, his healing, find out where he’s going, and while Jesus is traveling by boat, they hurry ahead on foot, so that by the time Jesus reaches his destination, they’re already there waiting for him. And Jesus doesn’t groan when he sees them all waiting. He doesn’t huff and puff and demand that he needs his alone time. Instead, we read: “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus is moved with compassion. The Greek word in the Bible for compassion is my very favorite. The word is a mouthful: ἐσπλαγχνίσθη - esplangchnisthe. It means something to the effect of: your guts are tied up in knots with the level of concern you have for someone. You are physically moved with emotion for the person you’re considering. You feel such concern, such care that it affects you physically. And this word is mostly used in the Bible to describe how Jesus feels about the crowds, the people. In fact, this word is used more times about Jesus than all others instances in the Bible combined. When Jesus sees people, his guts twist with the deepness of his concern. Compassion. His intestines twisted in knots in deep concern for what he saw. A true shepherd, like the one the prophet Jeremiah wrote of, is like this one: one who laments when the sheep are without a shepherd, and is moved to the core of their being to step in and lead, to step in and be that shepherd. 

I wonder: is compassion a leadership skill? Do we want a leader who is compassionate? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skill is that you have gut-wrenching compassion for people like Jesus does - all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations, some of their own making, some deserving more than they’ve gotten, some deserving less - all kinds of people? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skills are compassion, mercy, grace? Well, we can see what kind of leader his signature compassion makes Jesus into: It makes Jesus the kind of leader who can’t seem to stop pouring himself out for others, even when he’d really love a nap. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who says that he came to be a servant of all. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who eschews every attempt to elevate and glorify himself, to take a throne, to rule over. It makes him the kind of leader who cherishes children as those with important wisdom to share. It makes him the kind of leader who notices the widows, the poor, those who have been deemed sinful, those whom no one wants to touch,even the ones who are considered enemies - he notices and sees and embraces. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who gives his life for others. It makes him a true shepherd, a good shepherd, who cannot just pass by when he sees lost sheep. 

Sometimes I think we need reminding of just who it is we’ve committed to following. As people of faith, we’ve committed to following someone whose leadership skills may not be on the top list for presidential candidates. Elections matter. Secular leaders matter. Of course they do. I think we should vote, and vote thoughtfully, faithfully, trying our best to vote in alignment with our deepest held values. But I’m reminded of a post that was going around on Facebook way back in the Obama/Romney election in 2012. It showed Romney and Obama each with a statement near them that read: “Hope of the world.” But then it was crossed out. And it said at the bottom: “That job’s already taken.” I love that. Jesus is the hope of our world and the only one we should seek to follow. The empires of the earth - all of them - rise and fall. But Jesus is eternal, and our place in God’s heart is forever, and God’s love and compassion for us is everlasting. Let’s be followers of the leader God chooses for us. Let’s have the characteristics and qualities of Jesus be the ones we seek out. Let it be the compassion of Jesus that we long for the most, and most strive to imitate. Let’s be sheep in the fold of the shepherd who loves us down to his very guts. Amen. 

1. https://www.ushistory.org/gov/7e.asp

2. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/31249-leadership-qualities-president-poll-data

Sermon, "In Denial," Mark 8:31-37

Sermon 2/20/24

Mark 8:31-37

In Denial

My sermon title is both a reflection of our gospel text for today, and a reflection of how I felt about preaching today. I’ve come to this moment kind of dragging my feet, for a variety of reasons. And one of them was that I just did not want to preach on this text. Of course, I didn’t have to - we don’t demand lectionary preaching in chapel. But I just felt like I wanted to preach from the lectionary during Lent. The other texts for today are all about Abraham and Paul’s take on Abraham, and let’s just say those passages were not filling me with inspiration. Briefly, I was imagining a sermon on the Transfiguration text - it is an alternate text for today. But then our wise friend Leah Wandera chose that, appropriately, for Transfiguration last week when it is the primary lectionary choice, and preached a powerful message - you should give it a listen if you missed our online service last week. So here I am, and here we are.   

Truthfully, I’ve always liked this text, and specifically, what I consider the heart of this passage - “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Please don’t tell this to my dissertation committee and give them encouragement to come up with more questions to ask me about my prospectus draft, but I’ve always liked it when things are challenging rather than easy. I mean, easy things have their place, for sure. But I like a challenge, and Jesus’s words are certainly that. Whenever Jesus describes discipleship in ways that seem demanding, I’ve found them motivating rather than discouraging. I like to think that rather than setting the discipleship bar low so we can all just step over it, Jesus sets the bar high and then helps us reach high enough. So, this call to deny one’s self and take up a cross is a challenge I want to rise to meet. What good is easy discipleship? 

But my dear friend Heather, another clergywoman, and now also a Drewid, a DMin student here, has always hated this text. It raises her feminist hackles. Women, she says, are always being asked to deny parts of themselves already. They are always being asked to give up pieces of themselves, to give up parts of themselves for the good of others. She doesn’t need Jesus asking her to do it too, making women denying themselves into an act of religious faithfulness. 

Is that what Jesus means when he asks for self-denial? Sacrificing parts of ourselves? Our contemporary culture, at least in the United States, has tended to interpret self-denial like a second opportunity to make good on New Year’s Resolutions that have failed shortly after January 1st. Lent becomes a kind of season of self-improvement. We can deny ourselves chocolate for Lent and get a two-for-one deal: obeying Jesus, and trimming some excess from our diets and our bodies. Our Lenten journeys become disordered reflections of our disordered views of ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves very much already, and we don’t love our bodies, and we don’t love the skin that we’re in, and we don’t love who we are, perhaps we welcome a chance to deny ourselves - we’re ready to shed the person we are that we’re so ready to and so easily able to find fault with anyway. Deny myself? Yes please! Lent in this way becomes just another promise of new and improved selves that can never meet our hopes. 

If not that, what, then, does Jesus want from us? What is it, exactly, that we need to deny of ourselves, about ourselves? Does self-denial mean stripping ourselves of our individual identities? We’re all one in Christ - we’re disciples, united in cause and purpose - and identity? Is this the self-denial of the way of the cross? This doesn’t fit right either. One of the things I’ve learned at Drew is that denying myself, denying pieces of myself, can actually be a privilege that gives me power over others. I am, to draw on a favorite essay by Donna Haraway, situated. (1) I have a particular perspective. I am White. I am a citizen of the United States. I am a cisgender straight woman. I am a Christian in a Christian-majority nation. I am a middle-class person, even if I’m also taking on the role of broke grad student for a few years. I’ve had access to - let’s be honest - excessive amounts of schooling. I am situated. Is self-denial about denying all the particulars of who we are? Haraway likens that to what she calls the “god trick” - pretending that we have the same all-seeing and all-knowing perspective of the divine being, looking down from on high. Jesus does say we should set our minds on divine things, doesn’t he? Is self-denial about striving for God’s point of view instead of our own? Can we accomplish that through self-denial, and trying to shrug off labels of our particularities? 

In the midst of all of these unappealing ways of denying ourselves before we’ve even gotten to the part about taking up a cross, is there any chance for saving our lives here? I’m pretty sure I remember that in the text somewhere. Losing our lives, yes. But saving them too. That’s in there, right? How do we deny ourselves, lose our lives, and save them all at once? Are there ways that we can understand the call to self-denial that lead to life? 

As Yeongrok and I were talking about music for chapel today, he said my sermon text made him think of the song The Summons. I almost didn’t include it, but I had been thinking about it too, and the words from John Bell in one of the verses. It’s a question from God to us: “Will you love the ‘you’ you hide if I but call your name?” What is the “you” that you’re hiding? 

I think when Jesus talks about self-denial with the disciples - in the particular context of the oppressive state violence that Jesus believed was in his future as a person who kept relentlessing prodding at systems of injustice - I think he’s telling his disciples that they need to lay down their clinging to self-protection, to safety and security, so that they can take on the cross - rather than the sword - with courage, as they face off against Empire. Our particular context is different, of course. But these words call to us all the same. 

What if denying ourselves looks like denying our obsession with individualism? Not as in denying that we are situated, and acknowledging the positionings that sometimes give some of us extraordinary power and place. Rather, maybe denying ourselves looks more like putting away the misguided notion that we are somehow self-contained. Putting away a notion that we are in control, and a contained, boxed-in self that stands alone. Thinking again of our music for today, I’m amazed at the number of Lenten songs that put us in isolation - it’s just me and Jesus in the lonesome valley, doing it all by ourselves. I’m always wary of anything that suggests that it’s just between us and God, when Jesus so firmly and frequently reminds us that all of our neighbors fill the spaces between us and God. Maybe denying ourselves actually means we can deny this privatized notion that we have that we are solo, contained, doing it on our own, so “unique” that we cannot be in solidarity and in community.

Taking up a cross and confronting injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves isn’t the work of an individual. I think maybe taking up the cross is always the work of a community. In fact, the image of Simon of Cyrene being called on in the gospel to help Jesus carry the cross comes to my mind. Jesus needs help carrying the cross too. Denying ourselves is the ongoing, difficult work of shedding the beliefs that we can or should do it on our own, that we are on our own in our pain and struggles, on our own in confronting the powers and principalities, that we’ve got it figured out on our own, that we only need our own perspective, that we can box ourselves in. Deny this understanding of what self means. Take up the cross, the work of a community - the work of solidarity, of kinship, of working for justice. The work of carrying the cross, together. 

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. Amen. 

1. Haraway, Donna. "‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective'." (1988) In Space, gender, knowledge: Feminist readings, pp. 53-72. Routledge, 2016.

Sermon, "Discipleship by the Sea: Encounter," Mark 14:26-28, 16:7

Sermon 8/14/22

Mark 14:26-28, 16:7

Encounter

Pastor Beckie has shared with me that you’ve been in the midst of a worship series focused on “Discipleship by the Sea,” and she invited me to take up this week’s theme: encounter. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a language nerd - I’m really fascinated by the meaning of words and how words can have similar meanings but with slight differences that communicate a different tone. And so when I read this week’s theme: Encounter - I was intrigued. I think of “encounter” as a simple meeting between different people or groups. An encounter. But I looked up different meanings of the word, and indeed, there are some nuances that set the broader word apart from the word “meeting.” Although “encounter” can mean just a casual meeting, it often has the sense of unexpectedness. If you encounter someone in your travels, the implication is that the meeting was unexpected or unplanned. The movie Close Encounter of the Third Kind might pop into your head - encounters with alien life would certainly fall for most into the unexpected category. “Encounter” can also imply an unexpected situation that is difficult or in some way hostile. For example, “we encountered an issue” suggests that this unexpected issue is not good, not a desired encounter. (1) Have you had these kinds of encounters? What comes to my mind is a time I was walking at Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, and I encountered a porcupine, walking directly on the footpath coming toward me. This encounter met all of the potential meanings - an unexpected meeting that was difficult, perhaps hostile. To make things worse, a runner coming from the opposite direction failed to notice the porcupine, and kept barrelling closer to me, completely oblivious, which in turn was causing the porcupine to pick up its pace. Thankfully, at the last minute, the porcupine veered off the path and into the woods. Phew! An unexpected, undesirable encounter. 

So what does it mean when we think about encounters in our life and discipleship with Jesus. Hopefully, something less prickly than a surprised porcupine! Our scripture texts, short snippets, give us just a glimpse at encounters. In fact, both texts primarily refer to anticipated but not yet actual encounters. In Mark 14, we find ourselves in the midst of the passion narrative - during what we call Holy Week. It’s what we call Maundy Thursday. Jesus and the disciples are at the Mount of Olives. They’ve shared, earlier, in the last supper. They’ve sung a hymn together, possibly a traditional Passover Psalm, like Psalm 114 that talks about “the seas turning back, rivers fleeing, rocks turning into pools of water, and flint becoming springs.” (2) And now, Jesus says to them: “You’re all going to desert me. It’s like what is written: When someone strikes the shepherd, the sheep scatter.” This time, this encounter with Jesus takes an unexpected turn. The disciples are undoubtedly shocked at Jesus’s words. We should note, too: although Jesus eventually singles out Peter and Judas for their impending denial and betrayal, Jesus calls out all the disciples, suggesting none of them will stick by his side consistently. But still, despite Jesus’s words, the most shocking part of all, perhaps, when we really let sink in what Jesus has just said to them is what he says next: “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” There’s a future encounter that Jesus is planning, despite the fact that the disciples are about to abandon him now and he  knows it. When things get hard, the disciples will not stick with Jesus, and he knows it, and still - he’s looking forward to what comes next, what comes beyond their darkest moments, to a season of return and recommitment. They’re about to abandon Jesus, but what is on his mind is a future encounter, where they will understand better what he’s been talking about, and where, in some ways, their true discipleship will really begin. 

I don’t know about you: but I’ll confess that when I think I’m about to be deserted, betrayed, abandoned by people, the last thing that’s on my heart to do is tell them how great it will be when we meet up in the future. This year was my twenty-fifth class reunion. I couldn’t attend, but it made me think a lot about how I feel when I run into various people from my past, people I haven’t seen in decades. Have you had that happen? You notice someone in the grocery store or on the street that you haven’t seen in years, and you have to decide: do you go over and say hello, or do you pretend you didn’t see them? Your response might depend on what your last interaction was like. I have some high school classmates where I’ll admit, I’d probably skulk away and try to remain unnoticed if I saw them! 

But that’s not the way of Jesus with his disciples. Hours before they leave Jesus devastatingly abandoned, he’s already planning on when he’ll see them next, promising a future encounter. And then this promise is echoed again at his resurrection. The women, encountering the unexpected - the empty tomb - are greeted by messengers in white who tell them to let all the other disciples know that they’ll be encountering Jesus again, in Galilee, just as he promised. In their darkest moments of grief, just like in their darkest moments of desertion and betrayal, Jesus makes sure the disciples know that what seems like the worst thing isn’t the last thing, it isn’t the end at all. There are future encounters with Jesus yet to come. What a relief! What a comfort! What a promise! 

Friends, there are so many places where we encounter messages like, “Last chance - act now” and “Time’s running out” and “Once in a lifetime opportunity.” Maybe there are some things where those dire messages are true, and we’ll never have the chance again to take some opportunity or make things right. But that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus says, “I already know you’re going to desert me. Not just Peter, not just Judas. All of you. And even so: this is not our last encounter. We’ll meet again. There are more encounters to come. I’ll extend an invitation again.” Of course, even though Jesus promises more encounters, we don’t have to keep taking the second chance. We can act now. We can show up for Jesus right now, commit to discipleship now. A life lived as a follower of Jesus - that’s an abundant life worth living. But if we’ve had some encounters with the living God where we weren’t our best; if we have promised to follow Jesus with our whole hearts only to abandon him when things were hard; if we’ve missed out on Jesus’s call to us, then take heart. Even at our worst, Jesus promises we’ll meet again, and again, and always. Amen. 

1. Definitions from google.com

2. Imagery from Marcia McFee, Worship Design Studio (designer of the sermon series of which this sermon is part.) 

Sermon for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost, "A Widow's Mite: Praise or Lament," Mark 12:38-44

Sermon 11/7/21  

Mark 12:38-44

A Widow’s Mite: Praise or Lament

Last week in worship, we thought about All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. These celebrations are about, in part, remembering people who have died, people who have been a part of our lives, and part of who we are, both individually, and as a congregation. But these celebrations are broader, too, than remembering our own personal saints, the ones who we knew in person. These celebrations call us to think of the saints of the whole Church - not just in this congregation, but all those who have shaped us. A favorite quote of mine comes from Native American poet Linda Hogan, “Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” We think about the love of thousands that shapes us in this place, in this season. 

I’m new to Christ Church - I started worshipping here because Mark invited me when I started back at Drew for the PhD program last fall. I worshiped online with you, and was thrilled to be able to start attending in person this fall. But I don’t know many of you well yet, and I don’t yet know the stories and people of this congregation - the saints that have shaped this community of faith. That’s what’s so sacred to me, though, about celebrations of All Saints or Dia de los Muertos. I don’t have to have known your people, your saints for them to become mine, as I become part of this community. As I share in this community, I share in your stories. I’m a clergyperson in the United Methodist Church, and over the years that I’ve served in different communities, I’ve often felt that - I arrive to a new place of ministry, bringing my own memories of loved ones with me, and I arrive to meet, through my congregations, a new set of saints. I learn their stories, and they become mine too, a part of me too, even though I never met them. 

That sense of belonging - that when I become a part of this community, these stories, your stories, your people, belong to me too - that’s not just a mindset I think the community of faith holds when we’re thinking about remembered saints who have died. I think, actually, it’s what it means to be part of the living communion of saints, what we might call the body of Christ. It means being part of a community that strives to love like and love who God loves. It means that if someone belongs to God, they belong to us too. If we strive to love like God, we love who God loves and try to make them the recipient of our care and attention just as God has done. We become responsible for everyone for whom God is responsible. That probably sounds like an enormous task - and it is! It’s our whole life’s work! We’re responsible for one another because we belong to one another - not as in ownership of each other, but in relationship with one another, bound together by God’s love for us. We love God by loving one another well. 

In the witness of the scriptures, we see that God’s way of loving gives special attention to those who are the most vulnerable. In the Hebrew Bible, these people are sometimes called the quartet of the vulnerable - the poor, the orphaned, the stranger or foreigner, and the widow. God’s love and God’s commandments call for special care for those most at risk in the community. The most vulnerable belong to God in a special way, and so it follows that if we seek to love like God loves, the most vulnerable are meant to be special to us, too. We’re responsible for and to the most vulnerable. Perhaps today we would not think of the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger in these same “categories,” but those most at risk in our society today are not so different, are they? 

When we read the gospels, we see Jesus live out a ministry that focuses on being in relationship with the most vulnerable people too. In our gospel lesson today, we encounter Jesus seeing and speaking about the actions of a widow, and so we should perk up, knowing already that widows are a particular focus of compassionate attention by God in the scriptures, and a marginalized group who God directs God’s people to consider with particular attention and responsibility. 

The second part of our lesson for today might be familiar to you. I learned this Bible story as a child, and it was always taught with the woman, the widow, being lifted up as an example of generosity and giving our all to God. Jesus sits down across from the temple treasury - imagine, someone planting themselves right next to the offering plates and just watching what everyone was putting in - and he notes, Mark tells us, that many rich people are putting in large sums of money. But then a poor widow comes and puts in a very small sum - two copper coins - a penny,  a mite, a tiny amount. And Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” We’ve read in Jesus’s comments praise and admiration for the woman. She, a poor woman, gave everything, unlike the wealthy whose contributions were comparatively practically stingy. She gave everything to God, and so should we, because God wants our everything, our whole selves. That’s a good message, isn’t it? And indeed, I believe that there is a strong challenge in being called to give our whole selves to God. 

It’s just that I don’t think that’s what is happening here in this text. I think we’ve read praise into Jesus’s commentary. But I think his words are a lament. (1) At the beginning of our reading today, the less familiar part of our passage, Jesus says, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” The scribes were lawyers and interpreters of the law of Moses. They were part of the religious aristocracy. Some scribes would have been members of the Sanhedrin - the religious tribunal before which Jesus was tried before his crucifixion. Jesus is frequently at odds with the scribes and Pharisees and other religious leaders, and his words here are no exception. He’s accusing the scribes, those who are meant to be knowledgeable about and faithful to the law of Moses, of corruption. Scribes, for example, would sometimes be responsible for managing the estate and finances of widows, legal trustees for these women who weren’t permitted to manage their own resources. And they sometimes charged exorbitantly for their services. (2) The fee was usually a part of the estate, but apparently some took the “widows’ houses,” leaving these women even more vulnerable and destitute than before, all in the name of fulfilling the religious law, all while maintaining their own status and position. 

When we take that first part of the passage with the second, the widow and her coins, I think Jesus is offering a lament. He’s saying: Look at how broken this system is - this system that is supposed to draw people closer to God, this system that is supposed to center those whom God has told us are ours to care for and love and especially attend to - instead, this system, set up in the name of God, has been manipulated so that those in power are taking from those without, so that those who are wealthy are taking from those who are poor, so that these men of high standing are able to exploit this women with no standing, so that she feels compelled to give her everything to a system that is all too willing to take everything from her. This widow should have been especially treasured. And instead, she’s got nothing left to give. And that we use her story to encourage people to give to church is like a strange gospel-gaslighting that does that exact opposite of what I think Jesus intended. We’ve focused on the widow’s offering, but I think Jesus wanted us to focus on the widow. To remember that she is ours, that we belong to one another in community, and in responsibility, that she should be a recipient of love and compassion and care, not exploitation.

Who else is Jesus calling to our attention? To yours, to mine? As I think about this widow, this woman who was at risk and vulnerable and exploited, I think about the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women - that’s November 25th this year. Unfortunately, it coincides with Thanksgiving Day, where I’m afraid, ironically, our thanksgiving to God might mean inattention to the very matters this day seeks to highlight. The focus of the Day this year is the Shadow Pandemic - “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines, have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.” (3) “Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.” (3) How can we pay attention to those who are hurting? God has asked us to love one another, and God has asked us to bring to the center those who are marginalized as an act of love. How are we caring for the women and girls who endure such pain and violence? Do we recognize corrupt systems that bring harm and violence to the vulnerable? Jesus is trying to help us take note, that we might love like God loves - and God notices the pain of God’s people. 

Jesus’s lament over the widow ends Chapter 12 in Mark’s gospel, but the division of chapters is something that is added later into the scriptures by interpreters, not by the writers. If I was the interpreter, I would have made the chapter break a couple of verses later. Because what Jesus says and does right after his lament about the widow feeling compelled to give her all to the temple system?: Jesus exits the temple, and one of his disciples comments on how big the stones are that were used to construct the building. And Jesus says, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon the other; all will be thrown down.”

Jesus was right - the temple was soon destroyed. Jesus’ words about the temple were used against him when he was on trial before the Sanhedrin - he was accused of blasphemy and of wanting to overthrow the religious leaders so that he could rule. Or he is counted by gospel interpreters as foretelling the destruction of the temple as a kind of predicting the future. But for me? I think Jesus’s words tie in so clearly to what he’s just been trying to say. He looks at the temple, at this house meant to be God’s house that instead is a site of exploitation of the vulnerable, and he says: “Someday, this system of oppression will be no more. It will all be thrown down.” That, to me, is the good news of this text. The systems of oppression will be dismantled. 

Sometimes this dismantling of systems can happen with a system-wide failure that brings everything suddenly to a halt. But more often dismantling systems of oppression require taking it apart stone by stone, just as that great building that the disciple so admired was put in place stone by stone. When we think about the oppression of women, violence against women and girls, violence against the vulnerable in our context, today, in our communities, in our lives - what is one stone we can work on removing from a structure of patriarchy, dominance, exploitation, and oppression? Stone by stone, with God’s help, we can dismantle oppression. 

To be a community, to be the body of Christ, we have to care for one another, our response to God’s love for us, our way of demonstrating our love for God. As we follow in the rhythms of Christ, we learn to notice those who have been overlooked, and to make it our priority, our passion, and our privilege to throw down any walls, any obstacles, and structures and systems that prevent God’s beloved from being drawn to the center of our attention, of our hearts. Amen.  

1. The sermon title and this question come from David Lose’s reflection here: David Lose, https://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/pentecost-24-b-surprisingly-good-news/, “Pentecost 24B: Surprisingly Good News,” In the Meantime.  

2. Haslam, Chris, “Comments,” http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/bpr32m.shtml 

3. https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-violence-against-women-day 

Sermon for the Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost, Year B - Mark 10:35-45 by Brigid Dwyer

My friend, Brigid Dwyer, a current Drew STM student, gave me permission to post her fantastic sermon, which she preached today at St. George's Episcopal Church, in Maplewood, NJ. I really love her take on James and John in Mark 10:35-45. I encourage you to give it a read! 

In the name of the One, Holy, and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ordination process is grueling. Today, it takes years  just to get to seminary, but in earlier days, you could be  already enrolled and taking classes and be told “no thank you,”  or “not yet.” It is certainly not something you start flipping  the script on lightly. And Jonathan Daniels did not do that lightly. In March 1965 he voluntarily took a semester away  from Episcopal Divinity School to return to Alabama, where he  had been helping in the fight to end segregation. He knew this  might cost his ordination, but he was prepared to sacrifice  even that, and so much more, to faithfully carry out the work  of the Kingdom of God. Two weeks earlier, he had first  arrived in Alabama, expecting to spend the weekend. Instead,  he and a few others from EDS wound up staying a week, and  then coming back, having taken a leave of absence from  seminary. He expected to march, to work hard, to humble himself and take orders, and to send time in jail, and he did all this. But five months after he arrived in Alabama, he pushed Ruby Sales out of the way of a bullet that wound up  hitting him instead. He was not expecting to become a martyr,  but that’s precisely what happened. 

Jonathan Daniels’s feast day is August 14th, making him  what we colloquially call a “Saint” of our church. In 2015,  there was a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his  martyrdom. Icons have been written and statues have been  sculpted onto cathedrals with his image, and he is among those  remembered in Canterbury Cathedral’s Chapel of Saints and  Martyrs of Our Time. Jonathan Daniels fully drank of Jesus’s cup, shared in his baptism, and there is no doubt in my mind  that he sits today at Jesus’s right or left hand in glory. 

Judith Upham was a classmate of Jonathan Daniels. She  got on the same planes from Boston to Atlanta, missed the same flight home at the end of the same weekend, took the same semester off, went to the same marches, worked side by-side in Alabama helping the movement. When Jesus asked  her, “Judy, are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be  baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” she also  replied, “I am able.” But she was not in Hayneville when  Daniels was arrested, imprisoned, and finally shot.  

Judith Upham did not have to drink that particular cup,  and the Church is better for it. Just as we’ve received  Jonathan Daniels’s witness through his martyrdom and  sainthood, we’ve received Judith Upham’s through her life and  ministry. When the Episcopal Church approved the ordination  of women to the diaconate in 1970, she felt her own call to  ordained life, and in 1977, she became one of the first women  to be regularly ordained as a priest in our church. She  continued to make holy trouble for the cause of justice for all  God’s children as the rector of Grace Church in Syracuse – an  integrated parish at a time and place where such things were even rarer than they are here and now. And while there, she offered up Grace’s sanctuary to the local Metropolitan Community Church, where they were performing, among other  ministries, weddings of people who had matching genders.  Many of us remember that this was a big deal in the mid-‘80s. In some places, it still is. Rev. Upham is now retired in the  Diocese of North Texas, where she’s continuing to build God’s  kingdom. 

No one goes into a mission expecting to be martyred, but  reading interviews and stories, I am convinced that both  Daniels and Upham understood that martyrdom was a  possibility. Given the number of people who’d already been  killed doing civil rights work, how could they not? And they  both willingly – not reluctantly - walked into that. And, like  James and John, they both signed up for more. It cost Daniels  his life. For her part, Upham was given a different, but no less  important ministry.

And here’s where I’m going to give the kindest possible  reading to those sons of Zebedee. Between last week’s Gospel  reading and this week’s, there are three verses that tell us  they’re on their way to Jerusalem, and show Jesus telling the  twelve for the third time, and in the plainest language, that  he’s going to be executed. And it’s right after that that  James and John ask about sitting with him in glory.  

Two things about that: First, the lectionary skips that  preceding section entirely, and many versions of the Bible  break it out between two section headers, so even if you’re  reading Mark 10 as part of your devotional practice, it will  look very removed from the bit we read today. But that is not  necessarily how it was conceived. Ancient manuscripts didn’t  break out sections, or paragraphs, or even words. They look  like a continuous wall of Greek letters, and you even have to  do your best to figure out which letters go together to form words, never mind chapters. So, yes, we have centuries of scholarship telling us that the bit about Jerusalem, arrest, and execution are a separate paragraph, but we don’t  absolutely have to read them that way. 

Second: Remember how I said, “no one goes into a mission  expecting to be martyred?” Well, that’s certainly true today,  and it was true in the 20th century, too. In the 1st Century  among the followers of Jesus, though, things were a little  different. By the time this gospel was being written, there  were already organized persecutions in the name of Emperor  Nero against the followers of Jesus. Early Christ-followers  took martyrdom very seriously. They believed it to be a high  calling, and the firmest display of faith a person could show.  They spoke of it in terms like “coming into glory.” Some  stories told of people actively wishing for martyrdom. So where am I going with all that? Let’s just imagine for a moment that, instead of saying, “we’d like to be the two most important people hanging out with you up in Heaven after  all this is over,” James and John are like, “We’ve heard you,  we know how this is all going to go down, and we want to walk  with you through it. Please let us.” They’re asking Jesus to  help. They’re asking to be part of his ministry, no matter  where it takes them.  

This world is weird, and we are living in a particularly  weird moment in history. We are teetering on the edge of a  multinational fascist takeover, not only here in the United  States, but also in Brazil, the UK, eastern Europe, India, the  Philippines. No one who has the power to do so is coming to our  rescue, at home or abroad, because fascism is good for the  rich and powerful, even if they don’t want to get their hands  dirty with it. In the United States this looks like, among other  things, direct legislative attacks on people marginalized by  their race, national origin, sexuality, gender and gender identity, and against poor folks from all walks of life. And we watch this all happening, feeling frustrated, helpless, and angry. And then we remember Jesus, and, even if for just one  moment, we might think to ourselves, “here I am, Lord. Send  me.” 

What does Jesus tell us when we’re ready to jump in with  both feet? Let’s start with what he doesn’t tell us: He doesn’t tell us  “No.” He doesn’t say, “I’m sorry, child, but I have someone  more competent in mind, someone with less to lose, someone  more worthy.” In fact, he says quite the opposite. Look at the  following paragraph in this light: The other apostles are telling  James and John to stay in their lane, to remember their place.  They’re fishermen, no one special. This work is for special  people (and please note that none of them were up there  volunteering). And Jesus says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Fellas. This is their place precisely because of who they are. Precisely because they’re ‘just fishermen.’ The other side gatekeeps who can join the struggle. We’re not like that.  We’re better than that. You’re better than that. I’m just  some dude from Nazareth and I’m out here doing this work and a whole lot more, and so can they. And so can you.” 

And so can we. 

But what does he tell us?  

First, he asks if we know what we’re doing. This isn’t  gatekeeping, this is love. This is a friend checking in to make  sure we’re safe. This is when the person at the protest with  the bullhorn says, “if you didn’t take the training, stay back  and don’t get arrested.” Or when the organization that offers  services to the unhoused gives its volunteers training on  compassionate detachment. And it’s also the groups that  ensure that minoritized bodies are kept out of harm’s way as  much as possible at direct actions. Or, and this one can get forgotten in the excitement, remembering to pray for God’s help in discerning your role in establishing God’s Kingdom. 

God is love, beloved. God not only needs us efficient and  effective, but God craves our well-being. Taking care of  ourselves while we do God’s work is both an act of resistance  against the State and an act of devotion to our creator who  loves us. 

The other thing that Jesus is doing is managing expectations. I remember one of the first protests I went to  – a group of us from high school drove down from Pennsylvania  to Washington DC, assembled in the Park behind the White  House, and loudly demonstrated against increased nuclear  armament. (I went to Quaker school. These were school sponsored trips). There were loud chants, captivating  speakers, music – the whole Washington protest experience.  It was thrilling. We drove back up I-95 buzzing, woke up the next morning and, materially and politically, nothing had changed. Now, even at 17, my rational brain knew not to expect the president to call  a press conference and resign.  But it made the moment a little anti-climactic.   

This work is long, and frustrating, and we don’t know how  it’s all going to work out, and in the year two thousand twenty one of the common era we are still having to protest the  state’s efforts to keep Black people from exercising their  right to vote. And, as Jesus says, clear as day: glory is not a  given. But we press on because Creation is worth it. God is  worth it. We are worth it. 

So, what about our protagonists, James and John, sons of  Zebedee? They were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee when  Jesus called them to follow him, and they did. We know they  left behind jobs and community, and they may well have been  supporting families. They expected to follow an itinerant rabbi. But by this time in the Gospel, they’d seen, and that rabbi had explicitly told them, that their ministry was going to  be so much more. And they fully bought into that, and asked  to follow Jesus wherever he led them. 

No one was sitting for interviews back then, so everything we have is apocryphal, but we do have legends. For  James, he’s known today (outside the Gospels) as St. James  the Great. He brought Jesus’s message to Spain, and was  brought back to Jerusalem and beheaded by Herod for his  efforts. His body was then returned to Spain, and pilgrims  walk the Camino de Santiago year-round from France to his  tomb in Santiago de Compostela in honor of his ministry. 

John’s legacy is a bit more complex. Modern biblical  scholars tend to dismiss these traditions, but for our  purposes here, they are a lot more important. Most legends  have him as the author of the fourth Gospel, and call him John the Evangelist. Some conflate this position with him being marked as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” in that Gospel, and some even stretch his legacy out to make him the author of  Revelation and the Letters of John. In any event, the one  thing that all of the legends agree on is that John, son of  Zebedee, died at a ripe old age of natural causes. He spent  the bulk of his life spreading Jesus’s message around the  Mediterranean, and was instrumental in the formation of the  early church. Both John and his brother, when asked if they  could drink Jesus’s cup and share in his baptism, replied, “we  are able.” And both men made good on that promise, wherever  that took them.  

So today, I hope we can look to these bold apostles, who,  even before they risked their bodies, risked the ridicule of  their companions, but put themselves out there anyway. And  prayerfully, mindfully, in those moments where we feel called  to - as the old prayer goes - offer ourselves, our souls, and  bodies to God, I pray we can answer as they did: 

We are able. Amen.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Bearing Hard Words," Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7-15

 Sermon 7/11/21

Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7-15

Bearing Hard Words

What first comes to mind when you hear the word “prophecy”? Often, people think immediately of predicting the future, a kind of fortune-telling. We seem to have a fascination with anything that suggests we could accurately predict the future. And what’s the appeal of trying to predict the future? Why are we fascinated by anything that appears to be a prediction of future events? I can only imagine that it is our general anxiety over things unknown, and our general dislike of things that we can’t control that makes us want to believe that something, someone, somewhere can predict the future with accuracy. Otherwise, we have to live with the unsettling reality that things outside of our control, like disaster and illness, can just come on by and bring upheaval to our lives with there being nothing we can do to stop it. The idea of predicting the future, I think, is about control and security. 

That’s not, however, what the prophets in the Bible were all about. Prophets are truth-tellers. Prophets are truth-tellers, particularly when no one else wants to say how things really are. You know what I mean: Everyone knows what’s really going on, but no one wants to speak unwelcome truths out loud. A prophet is the child who tells the emperor he has no clothes, when no one else is brave enough to say so. A prophet tells it like it is, says how bad things really are, talks about where the path we are on will lead if things don’t change. But a prophet doesn’t necessarily want what they speculate about to come true. Instead, a prophet wants people to stop and repent, wants them to get back on God’s path before things go too far the wrong way. In its simplest version, you might think of prophecy like this: a parent tells a child that if they don’t get their grades up, they will flunk out of college, live at home for all of their days, and never get a real job. The parent isn’t predicting the future, even though this might be exactly what happens. Instead, they’re truth-telling. If you don’t change, these are the probable future consequences of your current actions. Prophets are visionaries too – they don’t only tell the bad things that might happen if we don’t get our acts together, they also try to hold before us the truth of the potential good that might come if we do change our ways. Think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” King was a prophet: a truth-teller, calling us to account for our racism, and holding before us a vision of what could be, a world where his children no longer faced discrimination and prejudice. He certainly was not predicting the future. He was offering up a vision of the possible paths we might take as a nation. A truth-teller and prophet.

Our scripture texts for today bring us accounts of two prophets. First, we hear from the prophet Amos. Amos lived in the 8th century BC. He was a farmer, breeding cattle and tending fruit trees, positions that would have made him fairly prosperous.. And he lived in Israel during the time of King Jeroboam II. It was also a prosperous time for Israel as a whole, but “social and religious corruption were rife; many worshipped materialism and other gods.” (1) God calls Amos to speak out and warn that Israel will be held accountable for its corruption. Amos shares in our text today a vision from God - God sets a plumbline against a wall, a device that would show if the wall was straight and level or not. The implication here is that the plumbline will show that Israel is not level, not acting with justice and righteousness. And God won’t “pass them by” anymore - God won’t ignore their misdeeds.  

Amos’ prophetic visions come to the attention of the king by way of Amaziah, a priest who is in the royal employ - he works for the king. He tells the king that Amos, through his prophecy, is committing treason, conspiring against the king. He says that the land is not able to “bear” Amos’s hard words. And Amaziah tells Amos he’s banished to Judah, and he should prophesy there instead of in Israel. But Amos counters that he’s not a prophet - at least not a professional prophet. Professional prophets, employed by the royalty of the day, would often feel beholden to their employers, telling them what they wanted to hear. Amos has no such qualms. “God said ‘Go and prophesy’” Amos tells Amaziah, and so he did. That’s where our passage ends for today, and we don’t know how his response was taken. We just know that Amos continues to share his prophetic visions of the consequences Israel will face for its injustice and oppression, for wandering from God’s path, and that his visions prove to be accurate. 

Our other prophet today is John the baptizer, who we encounter in the gospel of Mark. John, cousin to Jesus, is counted in the scriptures as the forerunner to Jesus. He has a more assertive tone to his teaching than Jesus in some ways. His focus is on calling folks to repentance, and sometimes he does so with vivid imagery, calling the religious leaders vipers, telling people God’s judgment is like an ax at the root of the tree, or like a winnowing fork separating the usable from the unusable. There’s a sense of threat in his words, I think: “Get it right or else” that makes you want to spring to action. Our text today is a bit of a flashback. King Herod is hearing folks talk about Jesus, saying he’s like Elijah or John the Baptist back from the dead. Because, as Mark recounts, Herod has just had John beheaded. Herod had put John in prison because John called Herod out publicly for Herod’s behavior. Herod married Herodias, who had been the wife of his own brother, Philip. It was against the law of Moses. But since Herod was the king, few dared to confront him for his actions. Not John though. John simply called Herod out, and said out loud what others would only say in whispers: Herod, what you did was wrong. 

John faced harsh consequences - he was imprisoned for his truth-telling. But Herod was apparently fascinated enough with John, and fearful enough because John actually seemed to be righteous, holy, from God, that Herod still didn’t enact a harsher punishment - until Herodias, Herod’s wife, intervened. No doubt she also wasn’t pleased to be the target of John’s blunt indictment. So, using her daughter (in Mark’s account, she’s confusingly also named Heroidias, but other gospels name her as Salome), and a pleasing dance the daughter performs for Herod and his guests, Herodias is able to manipulate the situation - and Herod’s foolishness - to get him to agree to behead John. Herod is grieved - but not enough to stand up to the situation. He doesn’t want to break an oath in front of guests, and John is put to death. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about these two texts and what they mean for us, followers of Jesus. I think we’re called to speak prophetically, and to be truth-tellers, especially when there are truths that are hard to hear but need telling anyway in order for God’s hopes for the world to bear fruit, but what exactly does that mean? How do we go about being prophets? Can anyone be a prophet? And doesn’t everyone think they have the truth? How do we know what we have to say is “right”? I’m thinking of a person I know who considered it one of her spiritual gifts to tell people things they didn’t want to hear. She was pretty harsh and direct, and people were often hurt by her words. She sometimes made people feel pretty bad about themselves. Still, though, she felt like she was doing a public service, because she felt like she was telling people hard truths that they otherwise couldn’t see, or that they would ignore or suppress, or otherwise not deal with. She believed that confrontation, even or perhaps especially in unflinching, blunt, perhaps rude expressions was the way to go, to be a truth teller. Of course, the folks to whom she directed these truths didn’t always find them to be a spiritual gift. Instead, they found her words to be painful and hurtful, making them feel bad about themselves, and like she was damaging their relationships by being unkind. When are you being a prophet, and when are you being a bully? Or when should we speak up with the truth, but we’re just being too afraid to take a stand? 

I think to answer those questions, we can ask ourselves some other questions for reflection. Most importantly, I think we need to figure out where the impulse to speak the sometimes-hard-to-hear truth is coming from. First, and most importantly, is it God who is prompting you to speak up? Or is the impulse really just from you? How can you tell the difference? I’ve always found some words of United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton helpful on this subject. He says, “One path is easy and safe and doesn’t require a lot of risk taking. The other path is difficult. It feels riskier. It makes us a little sick to our stomach. When confronted with these two paths, it’s usually the path that makes us a little queasy that is the right path. It leads to the greatest reward and the greatest impact. I call this the principle of “discernment by nausea.”” (2) I find that when it is God prompting me to do something, instead of just my own will, my own desires, the thought of doing it makes me uncomfortable and nervous, a challenge I have to meet. Is God prompting us to speak up? Ask God! Pray for clarity. Listen carefully for God’s voice. In my experience, when God is nudging us, God keeps nudging until we respond, one way or another. Just read the book of Jonah if you need an example of how God keeps at a prophet until they respond to God’s call.   

Another question to ask: What will the consequences of your truth-telling and prophetic voice be and who will bear those consequences? In other words, what will be the fall out of the truth telling you do, and who will be impacted? If you don’t have any consequences to face because of your truth-telling? Well, your message might actually be more self-serving than God-serving. God’s prophets in the Bible faced serious consequences. Amos was threatened with exile and charged with treason. John was imprisoned and beheaded. But the other prophets often faced similar fates. They told the truth, but there were often big consequences for them for their faithfulness to God’s message and task for them. If your message of truth only seems to have consequences for others? It might be time to reexamine your motivations. 

I also think we can ask about the source of joy in the work of prophecy. As I said, being one of God’s prophets came with a lot of serious consequences, but that doesn’t mean being a prophetic voice for justice is joyless work. I don’t think God wants us to engage in a life of joyless work, even for God, because God loves us and God is full of joy, and God is always inviting us to share in that joy. The question to ponder is where the joy of prophecy comes from. The person I mentioned who loved being so harsh and direct with others? I think what worried me is that it seemed like their joy in truth-telling came from catching others off guard, making them squirm, making them have to deal with unwanted conversations and confrontations. Instead, I think the joy of the prophetic voice comes in seeing the work of God’s justice for the most vulnerable accomplished. When the biblical prophets speak, for example, one of their biggest areas of truth-telling is in calling God’s people out for a failure to care for the poor, the orphaned, the widow, and the stranger. They call God’s people to account for failing to care for and in fact actively oppressing the most at-risk people in society. And for prophets, then, I think the joy of their work comes when those most-vulnerable are cared for again as a result of their truth-telling work. When things are set right, when people return to God, when God is honored instead of false Gods - idols or wealth or whatever we sometimes make more important than God - when the people turn back to God - I think that is the source of a prophet’s joy. 

Sometimes, we’re the recipients of prophetic words from someone who is acting on God’s behalf. Truth-telling is rarely easy to hear, but when it comes our way, I pray that we will be able to listen to the message God is sharing with us, and repent and turn back on a path toward God. And sometimes, friends, we’re tasked with the sacred work of being truth-tellers, prophets for God. I hope we engage in that hard work whenever we see injustice and oppression hurting the most vulnerable. But when we speak God’s truths, inspired by the courage and faithfulness of voices like Amos and John, let us make sure it is God who is guiding us and God who is speaking through us in all we do. Amen.  

1. Chris Haslam, “Comments,”

 http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/cpr15m.shtml

2. Adam Hamilton, “Leading Unafraid,”

https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/leading-unafraid/