RCL Year C - Pentecost - May 19, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, MD

RCL Year C - Pentecost - May 19, 2013

Acts 2:1-21
Genesis 11:1-9
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, (25-27)

 

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire, enlighten us with your celestial fire!  The Holy Spirit – the 3^rd person of the God Head, the Paraclete or comforter, the Ruach Elohim, or the mighty breath of God.  The mighty Wind that moved over the waters of the deep in the beginning of creation, that moved over the masses in the city of Jerusalem, and still moves today among God’s gathered people…

The disciples where all gathered there in one place and at once the Holy Spirit came upon them, divided tongues as of fire appeared on each of them and they begin to speak in different languages...  Different Languages to the gathered assembly, and the whole crowd heard the word of God in their own native language.

On the Feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and ignited the apostolic flame and it spreads like a wildfire – out of control…  so out of control that the people were able to understand the words that the apostles were speaking about the power of God…  And they understood the message, each in their own language.

What an incredible and confusing site that must have been. 

So confusing that some even accused them of having too much to drink.  Peter perks up (not one of his most brightest moments) and comes to their defense, telling them that it is only 9 o’clock in the morning and that the prophecy of Joel has come true… That the Spirit of the Living God had been poured out on all flesh and was alive right there in that place and was witnessed by all of Jerusalem.

The church is gathered now, 2000 years later and the Spirit of God continues to pour out upon all flesh…  bestowing upon us the gifts of wisdom and reason, judgment and strength, knowledge and reverence and a wonder filled with awe. 

And what I ask is, do we recognize it?  And when we do think we recognize it, what are we doing with it??  God is alive right here, present with us and the spirit is being poured out… and how do we respond?

At the 9am service, with the kids, I decided to teach them about the Holy Spirit with a pin-wheel.  A pin-wheel was one of my favorite toys as a kid.  I used to make them and I could sit there and blow on it for hours.  In fact, since these came into the office, I haven’t stopped playing with them.  So now you’re saying, “ok Ken – how did you use a pinwheel to teach about the Holy Spirit.” - Hold on, I’m getting there…   

I call this message the Parable of the Pinwheel:

Well, the scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Ruach Elohim – the mighty breath of God… the rushing wind…  that same wind moved over the deep in the beginning of creation, and that same wind was the one that the disciples experienced in today’s reading from acts…  The thing is – you can’t see wind… it’s invisible. 

You can only see reactions to the wind.  Stuff blowing around, or this pinwheel…  that when then wind blows it and the pinwheel is in the right position, ready to receive and respond to the wind, it spins…  and spins and spins, and spins… 

However, then it is against the wind, it doesn’t spin so good… 

That’s what I taught about the spirit.  When we are ready, and positioned open, ready for the spirit, then the spirit can use us to produce good things…  The spirit can drive our energy and empower us to reach out and help others and so we can do what we are meant to do…   and then we can spin and spin and spin…   but if we are not open, and we have our backs toward God, then the Holy Spirit can’t do its work though us, it can’t give us the energy that we need in order to function properly. 

When we are turned away, we don’t spin so good… 

It’s all about orientation and direction…  and about us being open and ready to receive the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit of God can work in our life, to empower us with courage, wonder, wisdom and reverence.

The disciples were still in Jerusalem, and they were starting to come out of hiding.    After all, it had been 50 days since Jesus’ first appearance of being alive after a horrible death…  and it was 7 days after the disciples saw Jesus raised into the heavens.  They remembered Jesus’ promise…  His promise that they would not be alone, that He would send them a comforter and protector. And when the disciples were there that day, they experienced it – and it gave them the wisdom and power to communicate the power of God to everyone there in Jerusalem.

I want to throw in a fun fact to know and tell:  you know that funny looking hat that the bishop wears, called a miter?  It is made that way on purpose – made to look like a tongue.  A great tongue of fire sitting on his/her head, like the tongues of fire that landed on the heads of the first apostles on Pentecost.  It is a symbol of that apostolic flame that continues to burn throughout the church. 

See, every bishop in the Episcopal Church is ordained in what they call apostolic succession where you can trace the lineage of ordination (even the bishop that ordained me) back to the original apostles.  This is done by 3 apostolic bishops (or more) laying hands at ordination on the newly ordained bishop…  thus conveying orders all the way back to the original followers of Jesus…  kind of like a 2000 year old game of tag… 

At a bishop’s ordination, the bishop accepts a responsibility to bear the apostolic witness to the faith and guard the unity of the church… that unity and oneness that I spoke about last week.  (if you missed it, you can get it on-line).  See, all of this stuff all ties together…

At Pentecost, the Spirit of God comes down upon the disciples, resting on each of them and thereby bringing them, and us, all together once again.  The disciples got a crash course that day in the language of God.

As the Spirit used the speech of the disciples on Pentecost to reshape and redirect the lives of those who listened to their words, so that same Spirit on this Day reshapes, remolds, and move us…   But ONLY if we are willing turn, and listen, and be open.  After all, God speaks to us all the time in the one true word that ends our fears and brings us everlasting peace — the Word-Made-Flesh, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

RCL Year C - Easter 7 - May 12, 2013

RCL Year C - Easter 7

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III

Trinity Episcopal Church

Towson, MD

May 12, 2013

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

What does it mean to live in one-ness?  How do we define unity?  Does it mean that we are all like-minded?  Or is it that we all have the same goals and aspirations in life?  Or is it even that we all believe the same thing?  I don’t think so.

I would suggest that if we were all like-minded, and we had all the same goals and believed all the same thing, we would be no more than starving brain seeking zombies with no intellect, no soul, and no future.  Life would be pretty boring - and we would drone on mindlessly, continuing to seek-out something because it feels good.

So, if that’s not it, what is unity?  What is oneness?

Today we find ourselves in the middle, as we so often do, in church…  as we celebrate the life and ministry of Jesus today, we find ourselves in the place between his ascension into heaven (which we celebrated on Thursday) and the coming of the promised Paraclete (the helper or supporter), the holy spirit that will continue to help and guide us; help us remember Jesus’ teachings, and comfort us with the promises of salvation and everlasting life.

In our celebration today, we are found right here in the middle of those two significant events in the church calendar, but the scriptures appointed for today take us back…  They chronologically takes us back to a time when Jesus prayed for unity for his followers that they might be one, as he and the father are one.

The seen we have from today’s gospel reading from John is familiar.  Jesus and his disciples are gathered in the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus has gone off by himself to pray.  He knows that the end is near, and soon Judas and a caravan of Roman soldiers will come trampling up the path to arrest him.

He is stressed and worried.  So, Jesus then begins to pray for his followers and everything that he has been trying to teach them.  He prays that they understand, and that they will continue to be and act together and “be one” with each other in community.  Jesus prays that they “ALL may be one.”  And he prays this so hard that his sweat was like drops of blood! – as Luke’s gospel tells us.

To be a follower of Jesus IS to be a part of a greater whole.  Part of a community…  Because he knew, united they would stand and divided they would fall.

According to Jesus, there’s not supposed to be any solitary Christians out there or spiritual Lone Rangers.  Does this mean they have to get along all the time?  No!  Does this mean they have to agree all the time?  No!  If we think primarily that this is some sort of functional or political statement, then it would seem to call us to constant agreement and like minded consensus.

But if we think on more along ontological terms (as it relates to our general nature of being) then it becomes more of who we are.  We are one in Christ whether we agree with each other or not. And, we are one in Christ whether we like one another or not.  To become a part of Christ is to become a part of the community; to be a part of the one.

It’s one of the most difficult things that we can learn to do.  And yes, I believe that it’s a learned and practiced trait and I use the word practice, because we haven’t perfected it.

The world and even the church (the followers of Jesus) have not shown us good examples of this unity that Jesus prays for.  The violence and destruction modeled by governments and social systems only adds to the division and exclusion…  He or she is not one with us because he or she…  (you can fill in the blank) 

                        Has a different color skin…

                        Speaks a different language…

                        Lives in a different part of the world…

                        Doesn’t make enough money…

                        Makes too much money…

                        Doesn’t have the right job…

                        Is disabled or handicap or has a learning disability…

                        (and the list is infinite!)

And the church is just as bad (mia culpa).  He or she is not one with us because (fill in the blank)

                        We don’t worship the same way…

                        You ordain women / homosexuals…

                        You don’t use the right prayerbook…

                        You say odd prayers that include the Virgin Mary…

                        You think that organized religion is stuffy and has no value…

                        You don’t celebrate communion every Sunday…

                        You practice private confession…

                        You pray extemporaneously…

                        You don’t kneel or you don’t stand or you don’t genuflect…

                        You don’t know Jesus like I know Jesus…

                        You don’t pray the right prayers…

                        (again the list goes on and on and on…)

                       

Yet Jesus’ most stressed and personal heart wrenching prayer was for his disciples to be one, and for them to continue practice community…  and for them to love and live into their diversity…

This oneness doesn’t rear it’s head and say, “I have no need of you.”  It says, “come my brother or sister, sit and eat, feast at the table and be refreshed and renewed.” 

It doesn’t say, “I’m upset because you don’t play my way, so I am going to take my toys and go home.  That it’s my way or the highway.”  It says, “I’ll walk with you, learn from me, and give me your burdens, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.  Together we can share the journey and the load.”

Jesus’ prayer for unity reminds us that our unity, our oneness with each other, is to be an outward sign to the world of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus.  We understand from his prayer that oneness and unity is about love.  It embodies the trust and allegiance.  That Beverly talked about last week.

And if you have been a part of a family, or a member of a church, or a community, you know that within that love that it can get messy sometimes…  there are always disagreements and squabbling.  Because we are all human, made by the one creator, God.  But the mystery of the incarnation (God coming into this world, embodied in the person of Jesus the Christ) is that God desired unity with us so much; God became one of us.  And at that moment we were invited into the oneness of God, in unity with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.  It is only with God’s help that we are able to continue to live into that oneness.

Like the disciples, who were in the middle, in a time without Jesus between the Ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  We are in that time between the first coming of Jesus Christ and his coming again.  May we rejoice in the promise that Jesus the Christ continues to be one with us in our diversity, as we continue to pray for our oneness, and for the unity of humanity as community.

RCL Year B - Proper 6 - June 17, 2012

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, Maryland

RCL Year B - Proper 6 - June 17, 2012

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17
Mark 4:26-34

I want to talk a bit this morning about perceptions.  Things are often not what we perceive them to be.  It is easy to fall into the trap of making assumptions about something or someone based on what we think it should be or even how we think someone should act – all based upon our own preconceived notions or expectations.  The assumptions we make often get in the way of the truth, or obscure our understanding of what the situation is, or who the person even really is.

Dealing with bad perceptions is revealed in this morning’s readings.

Saul is on his way out.  God has rejected him as king over Israel.  Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to the house of Jesse.  God tells Samuel that he is to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the new king over Israel.  God doesn’t disclose which son, but assures Samuel that God will name the one he is to anoint when the time is right.

Samuel arrives at Jesse’s home and invites Jesse and his sons to go with him and offer sacrifice.  Jesse gets his sons together and lines them up.  As the oldest, Eliab, passes before Samuel, Samuel sees the height of his stature and perceives that surely this is the one that he is to anoint.

God says, no – do not to look on the height of his stature, because God does not see as people see.  Jesse makes the next son, Abinadab, pass by Samuel – he wasn’t the one either.  Next was Shammah…  no, not him either.

Jesse had seven of his sons pass by Samuel and none were the ones that God had in mind.  Samuel asks Jesse if that was all of his sons.  Jesse replies that he has one more, the youngest, David, who was out keeping the sheep.  Samuel requests that he be brought in immediately.  When David enters, the scriptures describe the boy as ruddy (healthy looking) & handsome with beautiful eyes.  God tells Samuel that he is the one.  Samuel anoints David and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

Evidently, Samuel, and even David’s own father, Jesse, didn’t perceive that the youngest son could be chosen by God to be King over Israel.  But that’s exactly what God did.  Things are often not what we perceive them to be…

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable to describe the Kingdom of God.  In this parable, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed.  A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds known.  Yet, Jesus uses it to explain something as grand and majestic as the Kingdom of God.  But we must remember, things are often not what we perceive them to be…  And as we learned in the Old Testament lesson, God does not see as people see.

Jesus goes on to explain that when sown in the ground, this smallest of seeds becomes the mightiest of shrubs.  This isn’t something that we would normally expect.  It doesn’t make sense to us, because we make assumptions…

We assume that because it’s such a small seed, that the plant it yields won’t amount to very much.  But that is exactly what the Kingdom is like…  The Kingdom of God is different than our own perceptions.  It’s doesn’t fit our human descriptions because it isn’t what we would expect it to be.

It is easy to quickly jump to conclusions based on limited information, or even have a bad idea about something because we have misinformation.  It is at those times, we should be still.  Be still and listen to that still small voice of God that teaches us to look beyond our own perceptions and attempt to see things as God does.  Maybe open our minds a bit and try see things in a different way.  Look at the unexpected chosen small things that will go on to do miraculous things for the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom that is like a mustard seed.  So unexpectedly small, that we couldn’t imagine that it would grow into a great strong shrub.  Because God always takes the unexpected and unimaginable, and does far more than we could ever fathom.

RCL Year B - Easter 6 - May 13, 2012

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III

Trinity Episcopal Church

Towson, MD

RCL Year B - Easter 6 - May 13, 2012

Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17

Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”   We could say that is an extremely strong statement for Jesus after he has time and time again assured us of his unconditional love.  Why does this sound like He is “all of a sudden” changing his mind and giving us a condition to His love?

Does this mean that every time we sin, every time we don’t love one another… we don’t love Jesus?  Many of us would say yes.  But I don’t think that Jesus is imposing a condition on His love…  I feel that he is calling our love into Action…  Although we love Jesus, every time we commit sin, we are showing that we love something more than we love Jesus.

If we loved Jesus more than anything else, then we would keep ourselves free from sin for Jesus.  Wouldn’t we?  If we love Jesus, we would strive to give ourselves totally to him.  When we sin we are giving ourselves over to something else…  something other than Jesus.  And when we love Jesus with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength we will not want to put anything, no matter how small, between ourselves and Jesus.

Again the words of Jesus in our Gospel, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”  Sometimes we hear people make statements, or we have even made statements ourselves like, “Jesus understands that I am human, He will forgive me.”  This is very true…  Jesus forgives, and none of us doubt his abundant grace and mercy and the redemption that we feel in our life.  But if we loved Jesus more than anything – we would put Jesus before whatever it is that is tempting us whatever is trying to separate us from God.

So, Jesus is teaching us that loving Him is not just some emotion…  Loving Jesus means changing lives.  And this doesn’t happen over-night.  It is a process of growth, formation, and transformation…  In the process, we are informed and reform our lives…  we work on our personalities and our characteristics, we overcome our sinful habits, and stretch ourselves to love as Jesus loved.

Loving Jesus means thinking about ourselves and others as Jesus thinks.  If we get our ideas about love and life from TV, movies, the internet and other sources that our materialistic western culture dishes out, we run the risk of not understanding the difference between our freedom from sin and the freedom to simply do what is right.  Our minds would be cluttered with false images of ourselves, of others and of the world….  If we cloud or minds with the self-reliance and self-salvation that some of these things teach we are NOT putting Jesus first.

But if we truly want to love Jesus, we will should strive to fill our minds with his thoughts and His way of looking at the world.  We can fill our minds with Jesus’ thoughts by studying scripture in our community of faith, reading for spiritual enrichment and by adopting a discipline of prayer in our daily life.

If we fill our minds with the clutter from some portions of our society, and let it direct our path...  What does that say about our love of Jesus?  It would be impossible…   impossible to keep the commandments of Jesus.  So, let us take a minute right here, right now in the middle of this service, in this place to fill our minds with the thoughts of Jesus, so that we may keep his commandments and abide in his love.

Again the words of Jesus are, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”  Truly loving Jesus leads us to give up whatever in our lives draws us away from Jesus.  Truly loving Jesus leads us to making changes in the way we live and think and act.  Do we live as Jesus asks?  Do we love one another with the radical love of Jesus.  Do we live as Jesus asks as it was taught to us through the Apostles, and through the Church’s teaching?  If we do, then we know that we love Jesus Because Jesus says that then we will abide in his love.

But if we just say we love Jesus and continue to think or act in a way that is the opposite of the way Jesus teaches us, then we are not putting Jesus in first place, when we do this, we do not abide in Jesus’ love...  because we do not keep his commandments.  And, if we truly desire to love Jesus our love of Jesus will prompt us to probe and learn until we understand how to keep his commandments...  how to love one another...  how to be a true friend of Jesus.  So for some, loving Jesus may mean walking a humble way of trust until a clearer understanding comes.

When we keep the commandments not only do we abide in the love of Jesus but we also have Jesus’ love in us.  We in him…  He in us…  

At the end of our Gospel excerpt today we heard, Jesus says that the chosen…  Those that love one another and abide in his love…  will bear good fruit…  Good fruit that will last.  Good fruit that will sustain…  and good fruit that will provide…

So loving Jesus and keeping his commandments fills us with the love of Jesus and the love of the Father, and in our hearts we see Jesus.  When we love Jesus and keep his commandments, we have Jesus in our hearts.  And we are capable of doing things that are far beyond our wildest dreams… 

But as we all know, sin kills the life of God in us, and serious sin kills the life of God in us in a serious way.  It is like rotten fruit that spoils the whole bunch…  Sin within us is NOT good fruit that will last…  Whenever the life of God is lacking in us it is not God’s fault, it is ours.  It’s our hardness of heart and our inability to love one another, and a failure to abide in Jesus’ love.

When we have it right...  When we keep commandments and abide in Jesus’ love; miraculous things happen.  Miraculous things that show the love of Jesus in a real way.  Things that restore the world to God. 

This has been a difficult week for the Episcopal Church in Maryland.  This week we laid to rest those that were killed in the tragedy at St. Peter’s in Ellicott City.  In the midst of that tragedy there were 3 deaths, a priest, a parish administrator, and a homeless man.

It was so easy in the midst of the horrible violence to crawl into our fear and lash out and condemn, and accuse and cry out for justice.  The diocese of Maryland reached out in a real and concrete way  The Churches in Ellicott City and throughout the diocese offered a place to decompress, and focus.  It made me proud to be part of the diocese to reach out in love to our neighbors.  To model keeping the commandment of Jesus to love one another.

It made me proud to be part of the diocese that stretched beyond what was comfortable and offered forgiveness to the man that took those lives and then offered to give him a proper burial.  To offer the love of Jesus to the world – to each other is an amazing and transforming thing…

It models the love that we have experienced when we have been truly loved - Truly loved by God... 

How much does Jesus love us?  This much - He stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross and died for us, so that we might come within the reach of his saving embrace.  Let us never ever be afraid to turn to Jesus for mercy after we sin, he is always waiting to forgive us and restore us...  

Let us never ever be afraid to turn to Jesus for comfort after a tragedy.  He is waiting there to heal us and re-create us…  Let us resolve right here and right now to love Jesus by keeping his commandments….  so that the love of Jesus and the Father and the Spirit may be in our hearts always.

RCL Year B - Baptism of Our Lord - January 8, 2012

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Church

Towson, MD

RCL Year B - Baptism of Our Lord - January 8, 2012

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

Have you ever stopped to think about - Who you are? Think about who you REALLY are?  Is who you are - what you do? or is even who you are – who you’re related to?

All y’all know that I am from the south. You’ve got to love the south… in the south, who you are is definitely who you are related to… I can hear it now… when you walk up to somebody on the street and introduce yourself…

The next phrase out of the other person’s mouth is Who’s your Mamma? or Who’s your Daddy? Who are you related to? Who are your kin folk? Who are your people? and – if you happen to be lost, you ain’t from around here, are ya?

When we stop to think about who we are, we get caught up in a sort of identity crisis… Where when who we are (or who we are related to) and what we do, start to mesh together and become part of our personae.

It’s hard for some folks to figure out who they really are. They live years living into a farce or fake, plastic personae of who others think they aught to be… It’s difficult and sad when society has such the grip on us that it dictates who we are… to the point that we are expected to dress a certain way or have a certain amount of money to be worth anything…  

So I would like to pose the question to you this week… what does Christmas / the Epiphany / and the Baptism of the Lord all have in common?? The one thing that they have in common is identity! The identity of who Christ is… 

The thought about Jesus’ identity could even be stretched back to Advent when we contemplated the identity of the one we were waiting for…

Epiphany is a season of light and identity… not just Christ’s identity, but also of our own identity… the readings for today, that surround the baptism of Christ shed a lot of light on who Christ is and who we are as his followers. 

The book of Genesis is about God’s great beginning in the creation of the world – A world that was a void, without form, Where darkness covered the face of the deep. God spoke forth light in the first mighty act of creation To shine forth and illuminate the world…

And just as God brought forth the light in the beginning God again brings forth the light – and again and shares it with us…

And in the Gospel lesson, the ones going out to John the Baptist to hear him preach were filled with expectation of who he might be, and they were questioning the identity of the One who was supposed to come after him. They were asking, If you’re not the one, then who are we waiting for?… John tells them that the One who comes will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire… 

After Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan he was praying and the heavens opened up and the holy spirit descended on him in the bodily form of a dove. Then a great voice came down from heaven “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased”… And it was witnessed by everyone there…

Jesus’ baptism sets the example for us…

Jesus’ baptism was the Genesis of his life and ministry. The beginning of his traveling, calling, teaching, and healing… Baptism for us is the Genesis of our Christian life and our ministry as followers of Jesus Christ. Is an initiation into the Christian faith… It is that initial sacrament through which God adopts us as Children of God… it initiates us and makes us full members and allows us to be fully included into Christ’s Body the Church by water and the Holy Spirit. 

And our baptism is witnessed by the whole community and the whole community makes promises to help us live into our Baptism… In a few minutes, we will once again stand with Annie as she takes her baptismal vows and re-new our own vows… those promises that commit our lives to Christ… 

And we know, that regardless of the age we were when we were baptized, that God’s grace came raining down on us to adopt us as children of God and make recipients of the Holy Spirit… and we also had a Christian community backing us up…

See, the Christian life doesn’t occur in a vacuum it is not just “God and me” or a “Jesus and me”… It is experienced in a Community gathered, a community of Christ adopted by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through our participation, we become the beloved of God those favored by God and we are given the task of doing God’s work in the world.

We know most assuredly that Jesus Christ is God… And that God came to this world as one of us to redeem us, to restore us to God’s favor, so that we might become his Children and therefore heirs of the Kingdom of God, - to forever be in the presence of the One who created us.

Baptism clothes us with God’s grace and surrounds us with God’s light and protection. It gives us a “new life” in Christ… God gathers us as a community, and gives us identity… our only true identity as God’s Children… 

Then God empowers us by the Holy Spirit to act… to act and build up the Kingdom of God.

(Please Stand)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, I call upon you now, to renew the solemn promises and vows of Holy Baptism, by which we once renounced Satan and all his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his Holy Catholic Church.