Jars of Clay

Posted on July 13, 2024 by harasprice

A homily given at the July 13, 2024 Ordination of Deacons (transitional) in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia hosted at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke VA. Dedicated to Becki Casey, Reggie Hayes and Caroline Mitchell, with whom I have been honored to walk through their vocational journey.

Ordination Readings:

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 39:1-8; Psalm 119:33-40

2 Corinthians 4:1-12; Luke 22:24-27

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Step into my office with me for a moment as those in vocations process sometimes do.  Against the wall there is a very large filing cabinet; over the cabinet I’ve spread a colorful scarf…you know, trying to tone down the bureaucracy a touch.  On top of the scarf, there is an icon of Jesus Christ, Pantocrator…Jesus, the Teacher.  It was painted by the hand of the teacher from whom I am beginning to learn the holy art of iconography; it reminds me that the face of the holy emerges with prayer, patience, love and grace.  Next to the icon, there is a hand-made paten and chalice given to me on the occasion of my ordination by a mentor and made by a member of her community; it reminds me that every day I learn more about what it means to live out my vows of word and sacrament, and community is essential to that learning.  Next to the paten and chalice there is a small, hand-made jar made of clay.  And tucked inside the clay jar there is a handwritten note reminding me of its origin: Mattaponi river clay pottery handmade by June Redwing Langston.  The jar was a gift from a former social work student upon defense of her doctoral dissertation, which she completed with and among the tribal elders of the Mattaponi people. The lessons held within that jar are richer than anything the filing cabinet could hold; it reminds me that every day, I am learning more fully what it means to be a human being made in the image and likeness of God: all of us, jars of clay formed from the dust of the earth by the loving hands of our Creator.

The icons I am learning to paint, the vows I am learning to live, the mind, body and soul of this person that I am are all composite layers, formed and forged from learning, and mistakes, and grace.  So much grace.  And in that, I take heart, knowing that God is still at work in me.  

Ordinations are an outward and visible sign of that same grace.  And in that, we take heart, knowing that God is still at work in the Church and in the souls that are called into this ministry.

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.

The Church in Corinth had begun to lose heart. They had a lot of clay jars in their midst, not the least of whom was the Apostle Paul. As far as church planters go, it seems Paul didn’t get the “set yourself up for success” memo. His enthusiasm for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ overwhelmed his logic and of course, that gave rise to situations filled with both human shortcomings and divine grace: both of which proliferate throughout the stories and letters conveyed in our holy scriptures. 

Some of us here today might appreciate that Paul’s initial travel to Corinth was a bit of a multi-vocational venture: he was staying with friends Priscilla and Aquila with whom he was engaged in a common trade: tent-making. His intention was to make tents and preach in the synagogue but when his message didn’t go over well with the temple authorities, God drew his attention instead to all the other people surrounding him…the outsiders, the gentiles.  These were the people in Corinth Paul didn’t think of himself as called to serve but, as God reminded him, they had already begun to follow the Way of Jesus and they were all God’s children. Just like Paul, the people of Corinth were clay pots filled with the treasure of the divine spark of love and grace. With this new light breaking through, Paul acquiesced and expanded his circle of ministry. The Church in Corinth began to grow and eventually Paul was able to pass the torch and continue on his missionary journeys in the direction of Rome.

But planting churches amid a very cosmopolitan port city not exactly known for its piety led to a whole host of challenges. Paul draws attention to these issues in his pastoral letters, epistles written in subsequent years during Paul’s travels and carried back to the churches. Paul’s letters to the Church in Corinth were filled with exhortations about piety, conflict, relationships, human sexuality, core doctrine, identity and arguments over death and the nature of the resurrection. That isn’t because those were the most important topics. It is because these issues and challenges consumed the attention of the church and pulled them away from seeing Christ fully in each other. In the section of the second letter written to the Church in Corinth which we read today, Paul seizes a pastoral moment amid his exhortations.  Perhaps one might say he pulls his listeners into his own proverbial office. And in this pastoral conversation, we see through the cracks of Paul’s own experience of grace and learn how he, too, has come to see light in the midst of darkness:

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake.  For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

I might argue that Paul’s word choices here are not hyperbole and should not be made more gentle for our modern ears.  For Paul, his call to minister in places he would rather not go, do things he would rather not do, and serve people he once considered to be outcasts spoke to his forfeiture of personal freedom for the sake of the Gospel. 

The word we translate in English as slave, the Greek term doulos refers to a person either by choice or force becoming the property of another. The church in Corinth would know that term, because they encountered people every day in that particular social circumstance, for a whole host of reasons.  The state of being doulos in ancient Greece was about agency, not worth or essential humanness: one’s actions were lived out in total deference to another for a period of time or even a lifetime.  Perhaps it was to pay a debt, to settle a score, to right a wrong. In Paul’s reference, his enslavement to ministry is for the sake of Jesus and the proliferation of the Gospel. The state of doulos offers insight into how he views the clay jar of his own humanity, fired by blinding light on the road to damascus.  Paul still fights with his ego…we definitely see that…but we also see someone whose zeal has been transformed from persecutor to disciple, coming back around time and again to re-experience the grace and abundant love which is the Good News of Jesus Christ and allowing that message to filter through him and enlighten those he encountered. 

But we’ve come here today in the 21st Century Church, in the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry might say, to ordain three human beings as deacons…diakonos…on their path to the ordained ministry as priests in the church.  In our Episcopal tradition all priests…and bishops…are first ordained and serve as deacons.  And while diakonia is also about one’s willingness to step into the role of servanthood, it’s not the same thing.  Doulos and Diakonos were different states of being in the biblical narrative.  The ministry of a deacon…of the diakonos…was and is one of ministry and service performed voluntarily, often as an outgrowth of devotion and love. 

And we see the ultimate expression of the diakonos in the life and ministry of Jesus.

I need to set the stage a little bit here to from our Gospel passage from Luke. Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem. It was Passover; they had just dined together and Jesus had shared the bread and wine with them in what we now call the Institution of the Lord’s Supper.  It’s a profoundly holy scene, filled with devotion and love.  And then, a dispute broke out among them about who was the greatest.  

Talk about a giant crack forming in the clay jar of humanity.

The Light of the World, Jesus, doesn’t try to patch up that crack but instead breaks through to his disciples with divine light and speaks to them of God’s vision of greatness and love, describing in both word and active example the diakonia of holy servanthood. And Luke’s Gospel points to Jesus, himself, coming into the world as diakonos, the one who serves.  

Jesus the Light of the World.  Jesus the teacher and messiah.  Jesus the deacon.

The gift of deacons in the church is to have visible and present icons of Jesus’ own servanthood.  As deacons in the church, as it is said in the vows you are about to take, “At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.”  Every deacon holds within their ministry the servanthood of diakonia lived out in the life and ministry of Jesus. And every priest and bishop also holds within their ministry the icon of Jesus’ own diakonia of service.

Becki, Reggie, Caroline: In this time in your ministry that you will serve in Christ’s own diakonia of ministry and in all the years of your ministry that will follow, you will undoubtedly encounter surprises and situations you had not expected. But I know the three of you pretty well at this point, so I know you are up for the adventure. 

At times, the clay jars of your humanity might start to feel pretty fragile. You may even begin to crack. While holding the light of Christ’s servanthood is a treasure, I want to remind you that light isn’t actually meant to be contained.  I’ve come to think that holding that treasure of Christ’s profound love and grace in the fragile clay jars of our humanity is actually how it was always intended to be. When we feel ourselves cracking open during times when the needs and hopes and concerns of the world begin to seem overwhelming, it is then that the light of Christ’s own diakonia of servanthood can come pouring out of us.  

The world needs to see that those needs, hopes and concerns can and will crack us open but we don’t fall apart, or give up, or lose heart.  We allow Christ’s light to pour forth from the cracks in the clay jar of our humanity. These cracks are the cost of loving and caring deeply for God’s creation, and they are also the conduits that allow the outpouring of God’s love and grace.

With great respect to Leonard Cohen, there isn’t only a crack in everything for the light to get in; there are cracks in the clay jars of our humanity so that Christ’s love and light can come pouring out.

…we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

To our three soon-to-be deacons: my prayer for you is that the diakonia of your ministry allows you to be cracked open for the Light of Christ to show forth in the world: in the students that you mentor and teach, the people and parishes with whom you will be called to minister, with the communities and first responders where you offer calm and solace in the midst of disaster; to your children, spouses, families and friends; on pickle-ball courts, in the halls of Bishop Walker School and the fields and campsites of Wild Goose; in music and song, liturgy and incense, coffee and conversation.  The paths that each of you travel are as diverse as the beautiful jars of clay that God formed you to be. Everyone in this place and watching this livestream are going to be waiting to see the amazing, unexpected, wild and beautiful ways that the Holy Spirit will be moving in your lives and ministries as you serve as Deacons in God’s church.  

And you can walk into my office and share your stories with me any time you like.

The Light of Christ is the treasure that we all hold in these clay jars of our humanity.  These three soon to be deacons are about to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the Church to empower them for ministry.  That gift will not only break them open, but through them all of us will be broken open, too.  May the diakonia of Jesus and the light of His love spread forth from you to fill the world with love and grace, on this day and in all the days to come.

Jesus Christ, Pantocrator (icon written by Olga Shalamova); Paten and Chalice and Mattaponi river clay jar

Caroline, Reggie and Becky with me just before their Ordination

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Social Media Update

Posted on June 19, 2024 by harasprice

Friends and followers:  I have made a long time practice of keeping my social media (for me, primarily Facebook) full of love and light.  For some inexplicable reason, today Facebook disabled and deactivated my account.  I’ve tried unsuccessfully to address this today and I’m not optimistic that I’ll be able to retrieve it.  I’m feeling some loss about suddenly losing 14 years of communication with those I love.  Although I’m giving it some time to see if it can be rectified, I am also reconsidering how I want to interact with that social media platform in the future. 

I will be more active on my blog here going forward and encourage you to follow me here for updates.  Please spread the word to our mutual friends and family that they can find me here!

Much love to you all.  Here are a few photos from my recent trip to California to add some cheer to your day. ♥️

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Known

Posted on June 2, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for Proper 4, Year B

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Richmond VA

Texts:

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)

Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Mark 2:23-3:6

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening

The last time that I stood in this pulpit and offered up a reflection, it was Easter season and I was speaking about the holy nature of rest.  Some of you have wondered if I preached that sermon just for you. I’m never one to second guess the message that the Holy Spirit inspires, but as the saying goes among clergy: we always preach the sermons that we ourselves need to hear.  Even when I was standing here delivering that message, I knew in body, mind and spirit that I also needed holy rest: to rest quietly in the presence of God. 

Being a little like the restless young Samuel, I have had a few false attempts to create a space for holy rest. Case in point: during the one “sabbatical” I had as a social work professor, I traveled to a seminary to teach classes as a visiting professor!  I honestly find a lot of joy in my work, but that isn’t the point.  The prodding of God has been there, and the wisdom of spiritual mentors in my own life confirmed and validated the need to be still and listen. Being who I am, I needed to do more than go to my mat…I needed to drive several hundred miles and up a mountain to a monastery without cell service in order to do it.  But this recent time of silence, prayer and holy rest has been exactly what I needed, in ways I could never have imagined.

In a more rested state, God’s voice becomes more clear.  

Today’s story of Samuel and Eli is one I’ve heard often, and maybe you have too.  But in my more rested state, I find myself hearing something playing out in this story that it was easy for me to overlook in the busy state of doing in which I often find myself. I tend to hear this story from the standpoint of Samuel receiving the direction he needed to do what he needed to do.  But there is a deeper point in this story: God knows Samuel.  God isn’t inviting Samuel to do something new.  God is calling to Samuel to be Samuel. God already knew who Samuel was, even in his youth: Samuel the listener.  Samuel the messenger.  Samuel the prophet.

God, not Samuel, is the actor in this story of prophetic witness. God knows the boy Samuel, in ways that Samuel does not even know himself.  God calls Samuel’s name to get his attention.  Young Samuel, through the wise discernment and counsel of Eli, learns to open his ears and his heart to hear God.

God had searched out and known Samuel.  And God searches out and knows us, too.

You have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

The words of our psalm today are a prayer of gratitude to the God who knows us, who already knows what we are capable of and where our thoughts dwell. But we are a people and a culture of independence and self-direction, prizing our free thinking and our free speaking.  Hearing that God knows us so fully and anticipates our needs can sound childish, naive and maybe even terrifying. So, I wonder into the possibility that this story of Samuel is conveyed in our Holy Scriptures precisely because it invites us to see God’s knowledge of us and action on our lives through divine-human relationship, embodying like Samuel the same spirit of child-like trust.

This isn’t always what we think we want from God.  We want to see our enemies vanquished and the desires of our hearts fulfilled.  We want neon signs and big, repeating announcements from God that tell us with certainty where to go and what to do.  We chide ourselves for not doing enough, not working hard enough, not living up to some mysterious potential others seem to have for us or letting ourselves down from attaining what we’ve come to believe are the ultimate achievements of our goal-driven lives.  

And all the while, God who already knows us and loves us exactly as we are and understands who we are waits for us to lie down on our mat and invite the Holy One into that very present moment with us: Speak Lord, your servant is listening.

When he listened, Samuel understood that God was asking him speak God’s words to someone who was his caregiver.  He was frightened, but he understood.  Eli understood, too.  He received the message Samuel delivered, knowing and acknowledging his words were from God.  The story that we hear today is one part of a larger narrative; Eli’s sons are described earlier in this text of our first lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures as wicked scoundrels; Eli knew that their actions were betraying the holiest of places, stealing offerings that were appointed for God and violating the covenant of trust God had made with their ancestors and subsequent generations designated to serve as priests and keepers of the temples and holy places of Israel. 

They knew who they were and who God had appointed them to be, but they did their own thing.  And it was a greedy, evil thing that harmed many people.

Samuel not only opened his ears and heart to listen to God but through the nature of who he was, he responded by doing the hard thing, even as a young child, speaking with his voice the words that God had shared with him.  Samuel was a prophet; not because he learned or earned the right but because that was who he was. Eli knew Samuel, who had been entrusted to his keeping. And Eli knew the truth of the message from God. In that moment, hard as it was, we are given a glimpse of how God was present with all the people in this story: the faithful but failed minister, the wicked scoundrels, the hurt and hurting people, the unlikely prophet. 

We also see the relationships these people have with God: Eli followed some of the rules but ultimately was ruled by fear of his sons; he ignored the evil perpetrated by his family and he eventually emptied into the consequences that had been set in motion. The wicked sons of Eli meet their end in the next chapter of the story during a battle in which the most holy object, the ark of the Covenant, is also taken from Israel.  In contrast we are told, “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.”  The times in which Samuel would go on to live and minister were hard times. But Samuel rested in the presence of God.

The story of Samuel reveals the trust into which God invites us. Call is rooted in relationship. Being who we are, in the company of God’s presence, means fundamentally that we value and prioritize our relationship with God over all else.  We see it for the gift of love that it is.

And that outpouring of divine love is what the holy rest of sabbath is all about.

The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.

When we pause to hear and take in this story of the Hebrew scriptures, we better understand the story and the nature of Jesus’ response in the Gospel text, too. This isn’t a story of Jesus breaking the rules.  This is a story of Jesus realigning our human understanding of Sabbath with God’s intended purpose.

God’s desire for God’s people is relationship.  God’s desire for us is relationship. Relationship with God allows us to rest fully and wholly, with vulnerability and trust, in the presence of the Holy One who knows us, and loves us for exactly who we are. Our Gospel lesson reminds us that Jesus, the very essence of God-made-human, is fully engaging in relationship with God when doing exactly what he came among us to be and to do: to nourish and nurture, to teach and heal, to embody resurrection and life. 

To follow our call is to rest in God.  To rest in God is to embody the gift of knowing that God sees us, knows us, loves us and carries us step by step into the holy, loving and lifegiving work we are made to do. Exactly as we are. Loved, beloved people who are known by God and essential to God’s work in this world. In this, we are asked to trust and invited to rest.

That’s true even when we don’t yet have the words to describe what that work is.  Samuel didn’t have the words, but he had the openness of heart. When we open to hearing God’s voice and responding like Samuel, “speak Lord, your servant is listening” then we will be carried and supported step by step: through the hard days of speaking truth to power; through the hungry days when in feeding others, we ourselves are fed; through the broken days when we yearn for the healing of ourselves, one another and the world and find the source of that not through our own merits, but through the grace of God. 

This is the essence of discipleship, of our invitation to be part of God’s vision for the world that is being revealed to us step by step, with God’s help.  So trust…and rest…in that loving vision.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

You are known and loved exactly as you are: Blessings for Pride Month from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia!
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Holy Resting

Posted on April 21, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Richmond VA

Lectionary Texts:

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

At our diocesan camp and conference center Shrine Mont there is a very old sign, nailed to a very old tree just above a very, very old stone seat built out of the same huge stones used in constructing the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration.  It reads, in a script as old as its language, “Come ye apart and rest awhile.” 

The irony is that while I have sat in that stone chair in my own efforts to rest a while, more often I see it taken over by kiddos in various stages of climbing and adventure, creating the kind of imaginative and exploratory play that happens away from the schedule of home and the screens of technology, frolicking with friends. Their joy-filled spirits are active and at the same time, they at rest in the delight of God’s presence.

Both of these visions speak to me of the holy and life-giving nature of rest.

Now, you may be wondering why it is that someone who holds two jobs and several volunteer roles simultaneously would choose to preach a sermon about rest.  And that would be a fair question!  I offer to you that it is precisely because I am a person who left solely to her own human nature might actually work herself into a frenzied whirlwind that I’ve learned that I must reflect on what rest truly means…and why some of us may resist it. As I’ve come to see and experience holy rest in a new way, my desire has become to deepen into the practice of resting joyfully under the watchful care of  Jesus, our Good Shepherd. And I’m drawn to sharing my reflections on rest with you all today because I sense that a few of us here likely share this challenge in common.

Our lectionary readings today include Psalm 23, one of the most familiar verses of scripture and one that has been central to my re-aligned understanding of “rest.” Like that very old sign nailed to a very old tree, these familiar words can begin to become so much part of the landscape of our lives that we fail to notice them beyond the pastoral nostalgia they invoke. Not to mention, even perpetually busy people tend to like to take vacations, so images of quiet pastures and cool waters appeal to us as a sort of reward that we receive at the end of our labors…the carrot at the end of the proverbial stick that keeps us motivated and productive. We can easily start thinking about rest only on these terms: as an earned reward for our own good behavior.  Of this, I am guilty.

But that isn’t at all what this Psalm suggests.

Rest, we hear in the words of the psalmist, is the first and great gift to all of us who are cared for by the Good Shepherd.  Holy rest, enfolded in the care of a loving God, is the source of energy and inspiration for our common lives together.  Rest is Sabbath; rest is fuel; rest is replenishment; rest is resistance to the temptation to prioritize productivity over people.  And our Psalm opens by reminding us that our Good Shepherd makes us lie down to rest, not at the end of our journey but from the very beginning.

I’m reminded that sometimes I’m like an over-stimulated toddler avoiding my nap.

Rest in the care of God’s love and grace is what provides us…all of us…both the individual and collective strength that we need to traverse the journey that the Good Shepherd intends for us to make together.  And, when we rest, we take time to notice and care not only for our own well-being but all of those together with us in this flock.

We are very good at talking about all the many active things that Jesus does: healing, teaching, preaching, guiding his disciples. It’s rare that our attention is drawn to the other thing that Jesus does with regularity: rest. It’s a pattern in Jesus’ ministry, actually. He deliberately pulls away and finds quiet and solitary places to rest and pray not out of exhaustion but as the foundation for his ministry. This is why we find Jesus in deserts, gardens, mountains and the far side of lakes, as well as in the cities and towns where people learn to anticipate his arrival.  Jesus, our Good Shepherd, models for us the holy nature of rest as giving us what we need for the ministry we are called to do.

When rested we are strong.  When rested, we are responsive, rather than reactive.  When rested, we can see and hear and sense with all our being what the Good Shepherd intends for us.  When rested we are less prone to wandering off into precarious places where the Good Shepherd needs to rescue us and bring us back into the fold.  When rested, we can care for those with whom we travel.  When rested, we come to know with assurance the Good Shepherd’s presence with us at all times and everywhere.

Cole Arthur Riley has been instrumental for me in reconceptualizing rest.  In her book, This Here Flesh, Cole talks about the radically different view of rest that God has for us. She reminds us that rest is a gift not to be taken for granted: rest was denied to enslaved people to deprive them of their humanity and rest continues to be withheld at the hands of human power to make others subservient. We withhold rest from ourselves as products of a culture that values profit over people and reduces our worth to our productivity. She reminds us how counter-cultural and frankly, revolutionary it is that in response to traversing even the valley of the shadow of death we are invited by our Good Shepherd to rest beside still waters, restoring our souls to their fullness with God. 

My understanding of rest began to shift as I read and listened to Cole, a Black woman with physical health challenges, poignantly detail the intersecting stigmas of race, gender and disability that she experiences, including the presumption that our individual ability to do or to achieve on our own merit earns social respectability while others who cannot or are not afforded opportunity to do or achieve in the same ways are minimized and marginalized. In scarcity, self-protection and fear of not being seen as capable do-ers,  we avoid rest.  Resting in God, our wholeness is restored. 

“Rest” says Cole “is not the reward of our liberation, nor something we lay hold of once we are free.  It is the path that delivers us there.”  (p. 151)

This fundamental shift applies not only to our individual lives, but to who we are called to be as Church: a community that through resting in the care of our Good Shepherd and in relationship with God and each other can liberate God’s love to the whole world.  Thus, we welcome these times to come together as community: being present, listening, praying, partaking of holy food and community, sharing this time together with God and each other not out of busy-ness or obligation but as a time to collectively come apart, to rest and to pray. And to be joyful and imaginative in each other’s company.

In a few minutes, we are going to officially welcome a new member of the flock into this joyful community of love and grace through the sacrament of Holy Baptism.  Jenn, we’ve been traveling together for a while and our prayer for you is that through this holy sacrament and the waters of baptism you will experience the deep joy of joining with God’s Church; being enfolded in the care of a community that is being led by the Good Shepherd to engage the work of transformative love, justice and compassion in the world with God’s help. And all of us are going to reaffirm our baptismal covenant with you, too.  These words that we will speak together are not do-gooder promises on which we will be judged for our meritorious completion.  These are words of a Covenant which we enter into at Baptism and reaffirm periodically so that we can acknowledge the magnitude of God’s love for all of God’s children…the sheep we know, as well as the other sheep who may belong to other folds and are also beloved of God.  The gifts we offer in this sacrament are our lives: our willingness to engage in these ways of centering God and caring for one another with God’s help.  And God is promising to help us, care for us, be with us, always.  And I’m here to posit to you today that by our affirmation of “I will with God’s help” we are affirming our willingness to rest fully in the presence of God so that we can know God’s plan and intention for us, and to ensure that each and every beloved person we encounter in this world has that same opportunity for holy rest in God’s loving presence.  Because together, that rest is our path of liberation.

That means that with God’s help we will secure resting places for those who wander without a place to call “home” and that we will prevail against powers that would seek to diminish, marginalize or negate the inherent worth of any other child of God with God’s help.  It means we will have the strength through our rest to confront fear and violence refreshed with a vision of God’s mercy and justice.  And it means that our collective care will make us less likely to go off on our own or believe that our individual merit, money, power or strength will save us.  And if we do find ourselves exhausted from journeying alone or in a ravine in need of rescue, our Good Shepherd will find us there with arms of love and bring us back to the flock, our beloved community of love and grace where we can be made to rest and invited with renewed compassion to care for one another as God cares for us.

Like green pastures beside still waters, rest calms our weary souls.  And like the children frolicking on the rock chair, resting in the company of beloved community is also joy.  It is not complacency or boredom; it is not selfish escapism or willful ignorance of our responsibility to care for one another.  Holy rest is not to be withheld from ourselves or from anyone else.  Rest is resistance to human abuses of power through a collective embrace of God’s abundance of love and grace that carries us, and nurtures us and makes us into a Church emboldened to go wherever the Good Shepherd leads us.

Jesus, our Good Shepherd: Grant us rest to hear your voice so we may know you who calls us each by name and follow where you lead.

Mosaic from St. Mark’s, Berkeley CA

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Eternity, at the foot of the cross

Posted on March 29, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for Good Friday, Year B

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

“The dead do not turn their heads or their eyes to the right or left, but they sit in a quiet without stiffness.  When they speak their tone is matter-of-fact, without sentimentality and, above all, without lagubriousness.” -Thornton Wilder 

(stage instructions for the characters of the dead, opening of Act III, Our Town)

I was just shy of twenty years old when I read these stage instructions, written by Thornton Wilder into the manuscript for Our Town.  I was rehearsing for the role of Mrs. Gibbs, wife of Dr. Frank Gibbs the town physician, Mother to George and Mother-in-Law to Emily. In the play, George and Emily grow up in Act I, fall in love and marry in Act II.  And, if you know the story, you know that Mrs. Gibbs can be found seated among the on-stage dead in Act III, making a sort of distanced maternal welcome for young Emily who joins her family and neighbors in the Grover’s Corners cemetery after she dies during childbirth.  

When I first got the script, I admit that I had to look up lagubriousness: “the quality of excessive mournfulness and uncheerfulness”  I didn’t know that within a few weeks, I would more fully understand why Thornton Wilder chose that word.  And, it’s meaning is completely embedded for me in the context of Good Friday.

My role in the college theater club production of Our Town was just a few weeks after my spring break. We had rehearsed Act I and II before break, and Act III was next.  I headed home, bringing my script with me.  I wasn’t raised in a liturgical tradition but I did honor Holy Week so I made plans to attend a multi-denominational community Good Friday service held in a park, just one town over from where I grew up.  I called my friend Carlos to see if he wanted to go with me. Now, if I was narrating this story like the Stage Manager in Our Town, I might break the third wall and say, “her feelings for him were a mite bit more than friendship” which gives this story some added context.  But, back to the sermon: I called up my friend Carlos to see if he wanted to come to the Good Friday service with me.  And he said yes…and with a little hesitation added, “let’s have lunch first…I have something I want to talk with you about.”

Being 19, I was only worried about getting my heart broken.  I was so worried, in fact, that the only thing that I remember clearly about the early part of that day was ordering a tuna sandwich because it was Good Friday and it seemed like the thing that I should do.  I was chattering on nervously; my motive seemed to be that if I didn’t stop talking, I might not hear what I was afraid that I might hear.  I don’t think I’d taken a full bite of my sandwich yet when my friend asked me, gently, to stop talking.  And then he said to me: “I have to tell you something very serious.  I found out I have AIDS.  And, I’m probably going to die.”  It was the 1980’s.  This was our reality.

Now, I’ve been a priest for five years and preaching regularly for a decade, but surprisingly this is the first Good Friday sermon that I’ve been invited to preach. And a part of me always knew that I would have to preach this particular sermon at some point because Good Friday is indelibly marked by this memory for me.  And I’m glad it is a story that I can share at St. Mark’s, because I know this is a community that palpably understands.  Moments like this in our lives take us to the foot of the cross.

That Good Friday, I remember the entirety of John’s Gospel being read while we white-knuckled holding each other’s hands: love, death, grief, faith, resurrection all swirling together and yet silenced out of necessity. Later, I remember trying to get myself together so that my family would know nothing when I walked back through the front door. My profound and palpable grief felt like it was being carried in every cell of my body and yet all I could do was to focus my attention ahead, not looking to the right or to the left, at what was or what might be as I walked each deliberate step. The great irony was that I thought I could distract myself by memorizing my lines. Instead, I could only read the words of that Act III opening stage instruction over and over again as I imagined myself not as Mrs. Gibbs in the Grover’s Corners cemetery but at the foot of the cross, side by side with my friend.  Not turning our eyes to the right or to the left. Surrounded by death yet sitting in a quiet without stiffness or sentimentality.  Without lagubriousness.

Pause with me, if you will, in that space at the foot of the cross of Jesus. 

Thirty something years later, and that is where I always stand on Good Friday.  With me are the other mourners: Jesus’ mother; his mother’s sister Mary, wife of Cleopas, Mary Magdalene, the disciple whom he loved. There are so many other people there, too: disciples, named and unnamed; those who mock; those who are afraid; others gathered in solidarity who across the centuries have been victimized, persecuted, misunderstood, labeled, beaten, given a name that is not their own, mocked, stripped, left for dead. 

And after a time, we who remain begin to realize we are not among the dead.  We begin to free our vision, we dare to turn our heads, to see those others with us: their gentleness, their trust, their love and their belovedness.  And we realize that we are, in fact, still among the living who through their tears are also beginning to notice their lives more deeply linked in relationship with one other, to begin to see each other as beloved family.

In the play, Emily Gibbs tries unsuccessfully at first to take her place among the dead.  She asks for a chance to go back, just one more time, to a happy moment.  In spite of dissenting voices of experience and wisdom from among the dead, she is granted permission by the omniscient stage manager. She picks the day of her 12th birthday.  It’s an ordinary day, filled with ordinary yet overwhelmingly beautiful, loving things she hadn’t ever noticed before. And her heart is cracked open by the fact that no one among the living is pausing long enough to look at her; they are going through the motions of life unaware of its precious and transient nature. She turns away, exasperatedly saying to the Stage Manager:

“I can’t.  I can’t go on.  It all goes so fast.  We don’t have time to look at one another….I didn’t realize.  So all that was going on and we never noticed.” – Thornton Wilder (Emily, returning to her 12th birthday, Act III, Our Town)

Good Friday is our opportunity to stand at the foot of the cross and notice.  

Confronting life and death breaks us open to notice and transform our days.  Confronting the ugly death by which the Son of God died by human hands breaks us open to notice and transform our lives.  But what do we notice?  Who is with us?  Whose hand are we holding?  Whose tears are we wiping?  Who becomes our brother, our sister, our sibling when the one who has been loving us now looks at us from the place of his death and invites us not to turn away or to sit in detached silence like the dead, but to turn towards each other and to love one another? 

It starts to come into clarity now, here at the foot of the cross, these lessons of profound, mind-blowing love that defined Jesus’ life and ministry. Healing the out-cast; recognizing the faithfulness of the people that others see as broken or cast-off; the greatest among you becoming the servant and the servant becoming the greatest of all. The parables that seemed to turn everything we thought we knew over into new lessons of undeserved love, mercy, and grace which defy human logic.  The tables now literally and symbolically overturned at the sight of injustice and the arrogance of thinking we could somehow manage and manipulate God who made and will remake the whole world. There are moments when the whole world seems to be ending, and at the same time we realize that it is just beginning anew. 

On Good Friday, we have an encounter not only with death, but with eternity.

After some moments in life, we are not the same. Perhaps we wouldn’t wish them on ourselves or anyone else.  And yet these most powerful moments of our lives break us open. Perhaps that is because it is only in our brokenness that we are able to make room and receive God’s transforming grace.  Only at the foot of the cross can we know what it is to feel the smallest flicker of the eternal flame of God’s overwhelming love piercing through the veil.

In so many ways, the way I live out my life and vocation can be sourced back to that Good Friday thirty-something years ago. Because in every way, all that I am is dependent upon being at the foot of the cross, broken open, sitting in that quiet moment where we are given a glimpse of eternity…where my life, and your life and all lives are interdependent upon one another through our belovedness in the eyes of God who made us, and transforms us, and remakes us so that we are instruments of that transforming, eternal love.

“Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take’m out and look at’m very often.  We all know that something is eternal.  And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars…everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.  All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it.  There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.” – Thornton Wilder (stage manager soliloquy Act III, Our Town)

Open to the eternal now, beloved friends in Christ as we stand together at the foot of the cross.

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From palms and branches

Posted on March 24, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Passing from one celebration to another,
from palms and branches let us now make haste, O faithful,
to the solemn and saving celebration of Christ’s Passion.
Let us see Him undergo voluntary suffering for our sake,
and let us sing to Him with thankfulness a fitting hymn:
Fountain of tender mercy and haven of salvation:
O Lord, glory to You!

(lyrics: Motet for Passion Sunday, composed by Frank Ferko)

We are, on this day and even in the past hour, passing from one celebration to another.

The culture around us has been “celebrating” a jelly beans-and-marshmallow-peeps laden Easter since the last red heart-shaped box of chocolates left the grocery store check-outs on Valentine’s Ash Wednesday. Advent calendars as a lead up to Christmas have developed a sort of cultural adaptation, but the lenten fast…not so much.

But here we are, Church. We are waving our palm branches and processing with Hosanna’s one moment and the next, standing in the midst of a recitation of the Passion Gospel where our voices, too, echo the crowd’s changing refrain from messianic adoration to the leering cheer of condemnation, “crucify him.”

This jarring change of destination is one that we instinctively do not want to travel. We yearn for a different changing of celebrations that is more palatable, like the smooth transition from candy hearts to chocolate bunnies. We’d much rather have the loud chorus of “Hosanna” shift to “Alleluia!” again. But there is still a road that needs to be traveled, friends. And just because we choose not to walk it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

This walk through Holy Week with Jesus is a narrower path that will make us confront our fears, that will rend our hearts, that will change our song from one of selfish expectation to one of soul-wrenching injustice…eventually overcome and transformed by unbounded, unfathomable love. We are, indeed, passing from one celebration to another: one which starts with shouts of human-initiated hope for tangible triumph and the other which culminates with God-initiated salvation for hearts broken open. Participating with the crowd in the first triumphal entry requires very little of us. The second walk to the cross demands much more. It requires us to risk our human comfort as we walk together into God’s vision of divine mercy and grace. That transforming love wasn’t free, painless, or socially supported. It was costly, excruciating, and solitary. It was, and is, the gift to surpass all gifts.

Being truly present with Jesus through the journey of this Passion narrative changes us, in ways that we cannot know right now. That’s perhaps the most frightening part for us, if we’re honest about it. We like to have control. We know the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection so we can control how much of it we deeply experience. We have faith to proclaim Easter even in the midst of Lent. But we don’t know what shifting our other life priorities aside and centering the celebration of Jesus’ outpouring of love, his betrayal, his humiliation and death will mean for us. Where will we be during Holy Week? What roads are we willing for our hearts, minds, bodies and souls to travel not out of convenience or even obligation, but out of love?

It’s not a rhetorical question.

We will choose every day this week what we do with this passing of holy time demarcating a Holy Week. On what images will our hearts and minds be fixed? Where will we put our bodies? With whom will we journey in solidarity of spirit as we honor Jesus’ journey of suffering and death at the hands of humanity, the very people whom God loved so much that he came to join with, live with and love profoundly, even to the point of death? Will it be with the disciples? With Judas first sharing bread with Jesus and then in his betrayal; With Peter in his denial; With Mary his Mother in her anguish; With secret followers like Joseph of Arimathea carrying a broken and beaten body to a tomb that had been dug for another; With Mary Magdalene in both grief and belief even while others disbelieved her resurrection witness? With those who, like Jesus, are oppressed at the hands of earthly powers and subjected to injustice and violence in this world and yet stand firm in the hope of God’s salvation which is beyond human understanding?

Wherever and with whomever we journey in this solemn celebration, we will be changed.

Transformed.

I opened today and will close again with the words of a choral anthem that I sang one Palm/Passion Sunday well over a decade ago now that forever altered my experience of this entry into Holy Week. The composer, Frank Ferko, wrote this motet based on a Byzantine chant for Palm Sunday vespers, sung as the sun sets on the day of triumphal entry and we begin this journey together into the depths of Holy Week. And we will journey together, if we choose to. I need you. You and I need all the others making this journey as well. So, I invite you to choose to make the journey and share in solidarity this solemn and saving celebration of Christ’s Passion. And together, we allow ourselves and encourage one another to open to transformation…to walk through the valley of the shadow of death into the unknown mystery so that we can be Christ’s transforming presence in this world, in all the spaces, places and people in need of divine love, mercy and grace. In that divine love dawns the light of resurrection.

Passing from one celebration to another,
from palms and branches let us now make haste, O faithful,
to the solemn and saving celebration of Christ’s Passion.
Let us see Him undergo voluntary suffering for our sake,
and let us sing to Him with thankfulness a fitting hymn:
Fountain of tender mercy and haven of salvation:
O Lord, glory to You!

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We want to see Jesus

Posted on March 17, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for Lent 5, Year B

St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Richmond VA

Gospel reference: John 12:20-33

First, I want to thank the Rev. Marlene Forrest and St. Philips for the opportunity to be present with you today.  I have had the honor of knowing Marlene since the early days in our respective journeys into ordination.  My first recollections are some shared space and time at a retreat together at Richmond Hill.  We each took a different seminary path…literally, two different coasts…but it seems like our paths continued to weave together during those years in the kind of way that the Holy Spirit is prone to do.  And now, here we both are in Richmond.  We serve together in diocesan ministry and regional ministry, in Commission on Ministry work and in the hosting of ordinations.  And always, in all of those occasions,whenever I have had a chance to be in conversation with Marlene one thing is true: I always come away having seen Jesus.

Maybe that’s why this week, it is those simple, specific words at the opening of a profound Gospel text that have grabbed my attention: a few travelers from Greece come up to Philip the disciple and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

We wish to see Jesus.

Imagine this moment with me. This isn’t a planned business meeting or an arranged conversation; their approach to Philip wasn’t a check in with a receptionist.  These aren’t friends of Philip’s or even people who know him by name.  They are, in many ways, “the other”, the outsiders.  This scene unfolds in the midst of the Passover preparation time, where people were pouring into the city ofJerusalem and making preparations for a holy series of days.  You know what that’s like…we’ve got a big week coming up…and there’s lot to get done! Philip may have expected a random question about where to buy necessary provisions, or find lodging, or common meet up locations.  But in this moment conveyed in our Gospel text, a group of people from outside the Jewish cultural mainstream are among those who have come to the city of Jerusalem to worship. When they encounter Philip, their question is evidence of their trust: he is someone who knows the One who they wish to see.  The way this story is conveyed in Greek suggests that this wasn’t just a curious interest.  Their request comes from desire, from determination…perhaps better translated from the Greek, “we are longing to see Jesus.”

This moment is deeply profound, both in what is said and what is left unsaid.  After all, Philip could have just kept on walking, or made an excuse, or brushed them away.  But, he did not do any of those things.  He saw and heard their desire, and he responded.

Philip seems aware that their desire to see Jesus reflects something larger and more significant that is happening.  Philip goes to Andrew, then Philip and Andrew go to Jesus.  And Jesus, rather than going out to offer a social or even pastoral greeting uses this moment of their faithful inquiry to reveal with prophetic clarity the depths through which everyone will come to see him. Those to whom he speaks are unaware that they are about to see him not in the kind of glory they were perhaps imagining, but in the glory of God’s vision for humanity coming to its fullness through his death in this world and his glorification in God’s realm.

To truly see Jesus is to see him in the fullness of this paradox where those who love their lives will lose them, and those who serve will be honored; where death is necessary to bear fruit and where eternal life is found only when we let go of our love of this world.

We wish to see Jesus.

I was invited here to St. Philip’s today to talk about discernment and vocation, which are the areas in which I focus my diocesan work.  As I’ve been preparing to preach and offer a time of further conversation after the service, it occurs to me that this question, this invitation to see Jesus is really at the core of everything that we engage in discernment and formation.  That’s because we live in a world that needs to see Jesus…and by that, I mean JESUS.  I don’t mean a token Christianity that uses the name of Jesus to justify their privilege.  I don’t mean a co-opted Christianity that uses the name of Jesus to oppress other people.  I don’t mean the use of the name of Jesus to hide from historic wrongs and present day patterns of ongoing prejudice and injustice.  I mean that this world needs to see Jesus.

The world needs to see Jesus who loves without regard to status or affiliation; the world needs to see Jesus who sources his whole ministry in prayer and conversation with his heavenly Father; the world needs to see Jesus whose gifts of humility and reconciliation meant that he would give up everything so that the world might see clearly the intention of God’s love to transform the world.  

The world needs to see Jesus.

So what does this have to do with us, both in our individual lives of faith and for the Church?

If we believe that people need and desire to see Jesus, then we, like Philip, need to point the way with our lives to the One whom they are seeking. And that truly is about discernment.  We have some fundamental questions on which to discern: who are we in this world, and how do we carry our relationship with Jesus with us?  

Discerning who we are in this world and the role of Jesus in our way of being is what being called to the life of a Christ-follower is all about.  We don’t all need to do the same things; the whole world needs to see Jesus.  That means seeing Jesus in all manner and forms of our daily work: in schools, in health care, in business and industry, in science, in social services, in our neighborhoods and communities as well as our work in the church.  Just as Philip turns to Andrew, discernment relies on the wisdom of God found in community to help us better understand how the gifts that we bring can be best used to further the transforming love and grace of Jesus both in the world and in the church.  God’s love is everywhere.  When we are living into that love, surrounded by our community, living our lives in relationship with Jesus there is nothing to fear.  

In my own life and in companionship with others, I’ve engaged discernment in community.  Through the gift of community discernment we learn to pay attention, hear, notice and respond to the specific ways that the gifts we bring have value to God’s realm, on earth as it is in heaven.  It can catch us off guard and make us feel confused or uncertain at first when we feel God’s presence tugging at our hearts, inviting us to something more.  I imagine that those in our Gospel lesson who set off to Jerusalem in search of Jesus may have felt that way, too.  But they began the journey and continued the journey in faith, one step at a time.  And that journeying step by step is actually the kind of response that is modeled for us by the disciples.  Those who were journeying were a group: they were jointly making their way in the hopes of having that encounter with Jesus.  At the same time, Philip and Andrew along with the other disciples were traveling together, with Jesus and each other.  When this Gospel lesson opens, no one is on their own.  They all have community accompanying their journeys, discerning each step of their shared ministry in relationship with God and each other.  And that, my friends, is the truly good news. When we have stirrings in our soul that might make us both excited and perhaps a little worried about what God is doing, there is always someone…or someones… in community through whom God is working to companion us.  And sometimes, God is working on us to companion another person on their journey, too  

We wish to see Jesus.

Each and every day, I am blessed to be working with people in discernment and formation who not only wish to see Jesus, but desire to make Christ’s redemptive presence known to all with whom they live and work and worship.  Just so you know, not everyone’s path looks the same.  

Sometimes on the path of discernment, lay people find ways that their skills and gifts serve the church in particular and beautiful ways, and they commit deeply to showing Jesus’ love in their everyday lives in the world and in the roles that they serve in the parish as well as the diocese.  I know a number of St. Philip’s people doing that on diocesan committees and task groups as well as here within your parish. 

Sometimes on the path of discernment, there is a particular call to service which responds to the needs of the world and draws the Church to see those needs in ways that mobilize us to deeper and fuller service to God’s people.  Those called to serve as Deacons have this beautiful gift of service wrapped in prophetic voice and Gospel proclamation that means that the Good News that is in their hearts spills over into ministry with those in this world.  Through their actions of service, they are helping all of us see that in serving those on the margins of this world, they are serving Christ himself.

And sometimes on the path of discernment, there is a particular call to build up the Body of Christ and people of God through the nourishing sustenance of Word and Sacrament, lived out in our life as Church.  These priests whom God calls are formed with a core of awareness that the many, many things that they are called upon to do all have their source in Jesus’ own example of priestly humility: to nurture a life of grace in God’s people that equips them to do all that they are called to do.

This week we honored Bishop James Theodore Holly on our Episcopal Calendar of Saints, the first African-American Bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church and one among our Great Cloud of Witnesses who in spite of great personal loss made deep and lasting impacts on the Church and especially his ministry to the people and churches of Haiti. In his life and in the ministry of Bishops we see the gifts of pastoring God’s Church and helping us move forward courageously in the directions that further God’s love, grace and justice in this world.  Bishop Holly’s story was no doubt filled with moments of great uncertainty as well as a depth of clarity in God’s community.  The lives of our saints and spiritual ancestors are guiding lights in the journeys that each of us undertake.

Every one of these paths of serving the church is one on which we see Jesus, and through which others see Jesus in us. And it is communities just like this one which help those in whom the Spirit is stirring to walk openly into the question of how they are being called, and what will equip them to serve and respond to that call.  And I can promise you one thing: if you are engaged in this process of listening to God’s call in any way…through your own discernment or supporting the discernment of another…you will have a transforming encounter with Jesus that aligns your vision and sets the order of your world into God’s order.  And that, my friends, is exactly the Good News that this world needs: We want to see Jesus.

I invite us to keep this conversation going today at our forums, and at any time and in any ways I can be of support to this community of God’s beloved people.  And I close with a prayer that is for all of us, as we continue to discern God’s presence in our lives, our church, and our communities:

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you; and then use us, we pray you, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pulpit, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church
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The Law of Love

Posted on March 3, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year B

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

There’s no mistaking it now: we are in the midst of Lent.  Branches have replaced flowers; certain words beginning with “A” have fallen from our collective liturgical voice; we have knelt at the beginning of our worship to offer our confession, hearing the words of God’s law spoken and responding with our collective assent. This morning, our appointed lesson from Exodus invites us to hear again God’s words spoken to God’s chosen people, outlining the Covenant which framed their relationship. These ten commandments reflect two intersecting pillars of the law, instructing us how to live out our love for God, and how we live out our love and respect for others who bear the image of God for us.  Love God.  Love Your Neighbor.  As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry notes repeatedly, that is the heart of our life in Christ.

This two-fold way of being that was first given to our spiritual ancestors is profound.  We are bound to God through love, and we are bound with each other through actions which display that love.  How we respond to this covenant matters: we can see each commandment at face value, offering a catalog of “do’s” and “don’ts” or we can see this Covenant for the depth of life-giving love it conveys: in the words of the psalmist “the law of the lord is perfect and revives the soul.”  I hope we can focus on that latter understanding this morning.

Living into the love language of the ten commandments is a transforming proposition.  As much as these commandments seem directed as instructions for our individual lives, it’s important to remember the source and inspiration for the giving of the law: these commandments from God were given to a community of people who had been exiled and enslaved in order for that community to see and experience their common identity as God’s chosen and beloved people.  Together, they speak to what it means to live together in a Beloved Community, the flow of divine love giving us the fuel to liberate our common identity in loving ways with one another.  This message of profound love is what we also are given in the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection: the divine flow of love overflows in the arms outstretched on the hard wood of the cross, extending that love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ for the benefit of all of humanity.  That message of the cross, notes our Epistle, is the power of God for those of us being made new through that liberating and life-giving love. Without God’s love to guide us, adhering to these laws and Jesus’ profound embodiment of them might truly seem like foolishness.

Our prayers and scriptures this morning all seem to come together around this intersection of love for God and love for our neighbor.  And then, enter our Gospel lesson to jar us as we meet an angry Jesus, making a whip out of cords, dumping out the coins of the money changers and overturning tables in the temple. 

How do we make sense of this?

I think it helps to go back to the beginning, to the story of God’s Covenant with God’s people. If we read more of the story from the book of Exodus conveyed in our Old Testament lesson, we might recall that while Moses was on the mountaintop caught up in this holy inscription of the liberating love of God who had saved the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt, the beloved people for whom God’s covenant was intended became impatient.  They took things into their own hands and created a golden calf to worship as their god, in the erroneous belief that they, of their own making, could create a god that provided for them in the ways that they understood to mean prosperity. When word of this reached Moses, we are told that anger consumed him and he threw the tablets of the covenant to the ground, burned down the calf they had built and ground it to a powder which he scattered on the water and then, he made the people drink it.  

Don’t mess with Moses!  

I think anyone who encountered Jesus in the temple likely felt the same.

But here’s the important message: in both of these accounts, the visible actions of anger destroying that which is not of God completely up-ends the status quo.  And in doing so, it breaks open a renewed outpouring of God’s liberating and transforming love.

Anger in these stories of our faith is a means for purging away that which enslaves us: in the case of the people of Israel, perhaps that included the remnants of their captivity that made them distrust their belovedness reflected in a divine-human covenant.  Their distrust needed to be destroyed before authentic trust could be rebuilt.  Jesus references this pattern of destruction and rebuilding as well, even in the midst of anger.  It is a foreshadowing of his death and resurrection, and also a reminder to us that not everything that we think we need to cling to ultimately serves us.  Sometimes, we end up clinging to a vestige of something that is enslaving us and keeping us from full immersion into divine love and grace.  We want to trust in God, but that golden calf is something that we can see right here and now.  We want to believe in the vision of a temple for all people to worship, but we put up barriers to full participation as we try to manage the fear and scarcity that we keep clinging to.

We want to believe the message of the cross and embrace the liberating joy and power of salvation, but we keep focusing on our doubts, our fear of not having enough or being enough, our worries that the church is dying or the world as we know it is ending.  And the message of the cross and its divine love and grace overflowing into a genuine outpouring of love for our neighbor can even begin to feel like foolishness when we fall into the spiral descent of cynicism, perishing in our doubts and fears.

We may find ourselves starting to construct our own golden calves of justification to fan our fears and soon we find our courtyards filled with moneychangers who can collect what we believe we have coming to us just so we can survive.

And then, a season like Lent comes to upend our status quo and break us open from the fear and distrust that enslave us.  We are reminded in all kinds of ways during this holy season that God’s love is more powerful than our fears, our anxieties, our self-doubt and our impatience.

Perhaps that purging comes to us as a conviction in spirit, the proverbial “dark night of the soul” that wakes us and shakes us and in which we finally find ourselves letting go and being held in the hands of a loving God who has been there all along.  Perhaps that purging comes when someone we least expect responds to us with a love that we don’t deserve; when we see God present in that grace, it breaks our hearts open and expands them three or even four sizes more putting even the Grinch that Stole Christmas to shame.  Perhaps we are extended forgiveness whether or not we deserve it.  Or perhaps in the midst of our own rage against the injustices of the world we suddenly feel a deep peace of presence and we choose to trust it in spite of all evidence to the contrary.  It doesn’t negate our rage; it places it in the hands of a loving God.

And perhaps the images of this Gospel can remind us that the purging of the evils of the world that interfere with the powerful, liberating love of God is the message of the cross which ends not with death, but in resurrection. People continue to be oppressed; greed and power enslave us; the fears instilled in us by the world in which we live convince us that we will never have enough and that survival and success depend upon the diminishment of others for our own gain.  Meanwhile, in God’s economy we are filled to overflowing with the gifts of the Spirit. 

We know so much violence in our communities that we no longer trust the safety of sacred spaces.  In this courtyard of commodification, unconditional love is made to seem like weakness and a spirit of gentleness is mocked. But in the cross and resurrection, violence does not have the last word.  

Perhaps the power of Jesus does need to knock over some tables and purge away that which doesn’t serve the holy in this world.  Our faith tells us that God hears the lament of the oppressed, and God acts. This purging and upending isn’t with an intent to destroy; it is with the intent to make room for regrowth and resurrection.  This my friends is the Good News.

God’s covenant with God’s people is one of love, and God’s commandment is that we live that out in relationship with our siblings in Christ and the whole human family.  Our anger at injustice is something that is known to a loving God. We can feel that anger, we can name that anger: but it does not have the last word. This image of Jesus in the temple reassures us that even when the moneychangers seem to have taken over the prayerful places of our own lives, a complete overturn of heart is always possible, with God’s help. 

I’ve been reading this beautiful book during Lent: Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human.  In the section of her book speaking of the holiness of rage, she concludes with this Benediction. In her prayer, she offers precisely the words that want to offer up to God and leave with you today:

Awake, awake oh sleeper.  Be reminded that the world deserves so much more than apathy in the presence of injustice.  Go with anger, not as enemy but as guardian.  A sacred protector in a world of so much hatred, reminding us we deserve to be protected. We breath, we feel.  And we befriend our anger as if the liberation of our world depends on it.  May it be so.

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Call and Community

Posted on January 21, 2024 by harasprice

Homily for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B

Lectionary Text Link

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation

On Sundays when I’m not here with you at St. Mark’s, I am often traveling to parishes around the Diocese of Virginia as part of my diocesan ministry, talking about vocation and call.  In my role as the Vocations Minister, my days are filled with people engaged in various aspects of responding to God’s call on their lives.  One of my most frequently used words during those conversations is discernment: a prayerful, thoughtful process that often accompanies a time when one has an experience of feeling compelled or called to a new aspect of ministry in their lives.  Discernment of call requires a focus not on doing as much as listening: that means both listening through the interior, spiritual discipline of prayer as well as through outer engagement with others in community. 

Our Christian faith doesn’t come with a discernment manual.  But, as followers of Christ, we base our understanding of vocation and call from the lessons we hear from our Holy Scriptures and the examples of faithful disciples and followers of Christ through the ages. On Sundays like this, our Gospel lessons invite us to pause, to listen and to think about what it might have been like for others to respond to God’s call.  We hear it in the story of the prophet, Jonah and we hear it again in the lives of the disciples of Jesus who were having their own “Epiphany” of realizing that Jesus was not just Joseph and Mary’s son from Nazareth, but also the Messiah, the Son of God.  The stories are profound. Today’s Gospel lesson reads like a movie: Simon, Andrew, James and John each working along the shore of the sea of Galilee, and each hearing God’s call with such unambiguous conviction that they confidently drop the nets of their livelihood and unquestioningly follow Jesus.

At least, that’s how the story goes when we hear it echoed through history.  Sometimes reading this Gospel text makes it sound like it was all very easy for these disciples.  I’m not so sure about that.

I’m not doubting the magnitude of faith it required of Simon, Andrew, James and John to choose to follow Jesus in that moment.  But, I am also reminded that it’s easier to convey stories looking back in retrospect, confident in their outcome through the wisdom of history. Moving forward step by step, day by day into the still unfolding future as followers of Jesus was the real act of faith. 

I was invited recently by someone who was at the beginning of their own discernment journey to tell my own story of call. It was a particularly compelling invitation because this person had met me on a discernment retreat and what their take-home was from our earlier conversation had been gnawing away at them…he remembered me saying that my first experience of God’s call brought me to the field of social work. Up to that point, the people he heard talk about “call” did so speaking about ordained ministry. But vocation and call is so much more than that.

As the story of call in my own life spilled out of me during that conversation, I began to see and hear the movement of God through all the events of my life with a whole new clarity.  Like the Gospel lesson, told in retrospect it all seems to fit together in ways too beautiful for me to have concocted on my own.  And that is because that story of call isn’t about ME.  It’s about God.  If I were in charge of my life, I would have made entirely different choices and screwed it up massively.  I managed to do that along the way a few times, too.  But, as I said to the person who asked me to tell my story of call, I know that living it as I did…step by step…was about following Jesus.  It has involved prayer…both the quietness of contemplation and my loud shouts for God’s help.  The journey itself is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, leaps of faith and chasms of doubt.  And yet, when I reflect back, I know with certainty that God has always been present with me, sometimes through a sense of inner calm but often through the people that I need to help guide me at exactly the right moment.  And that knowledge keeps me moving forward in my following.

That is the nature of following Jesus: not just for me, but for every single one of us.

We aren’t all going to have a journey that looks the same.  Jesus’ disciples didn’t, either.  And I think that confusion about what “following” means is what can trip us up about today’s Gospel lesson.  We sometimes think of responding to God’s call as having to do all the right things to get ourselves from Point A to Destination Z.  But getting ourselves to a destination isn’t following.  Following requires us to be in relationship with the one that we are following, so that we can be guided along the way.  We think we hear a story where the protagonists are Simon, Andrew, James and John who just dropped everything and became disciples.  But the protagonist here is Jesus, the one who calls us.  We can quickly forget that what they actually did was choose to prioritize relationship with Jesus over the certainty of the status quo that they already knew.

I can assure you, it was not easy.  In fact, even the Gospel stories we hear about the disciples tell us repeatedly that it was neither certain nor easy to follow Jesus.  And yet, they persisted: through doubt, despair and arguments over who was the greatest; through miracles and persecution; through mountain-top experiences and rough waters.  They brought themselves…their gifts, their skills, their lives…into living out this relationship with Jesus who could see their strengths as gifts for ministry and transform them to God’s purpose. Some fishers of fish became fishers of people.  Some menders of nets became healers of broken souls. 

And all that you bring, too, will be transformed as you take steps forward in faith.  The call to discipleship is an invitation to each and every one of us, a living out of the promises made at our Baptism.  Answering that call as “I will, with God’s help” is what we do, step by step by step.

I had another experience last week where I saw a profound example of the way in which this call to discipleship is lived out beautiful and profoundly in our daily lives.  I was sitting right up there, in the back of the choir.  Our friend, Mike, came up at announcements time.  He told the story of how years ago, he had been invited into a ministry that wasn’t something he’d considered before.  He named both his willingness to learn and the uncertainty he felt when starting out in the new ministry of being a Eucharistic Visitor.  His story focused on a relationship that emerged with a home-bound parishioner that he previously didn’t really know well at all. And now, their deep spiritual friendship is a gift to them both.

As I listened to Mike, what I heard was the story of incredible discipleship in following the invitation to serve: a relationship between siblings in Christ emerging over the sacramental sharing of the bread and wine, transforming the gifts of visiting and sharing into a visceral example of how we become, together, the Body of Christ.  And then, even more amazing, Mike offered us all a chance to join him in a part of that journey. Less than a minute later, Amos was sharing his musical gifts on the organ, the choir were lifting their voices, Mike as well as Sandy brought out their phones to catch all the joy, the Zoom congregation were all sending hellos, all of us here were rising to our feet, waving and outpouring our love and joy while singing “Happy Birthday!” and making Doris’ 100th birthday an absolute priority for us all to celebrate within this entire gathered community.  Because that kind of beautiful outpouring of spirit is what happens when we follow the call to be disciples in relationship with Jesus and with each other…there may be some uncertainty, some doubt…but then we focus on Jesus, who draws us all together and we are caught up into that beautiful, relational becoming where we know the absolute joy of what it means to be the Body of Christ.

On that first day as a Eucharistic Visitor, I don’t know if Mike could have imagined the joy of the journey.  He probably didn’t guess he’d be mentioned in a homily, that’s for sure. But that is how this walk of discipleship goes: step by step we all grow stronger, together, in Christ.

Today, we have heard stories of call in our Holy Scriptures and in our midst.  And we have a chance to experience the Good News of knowing a bit of what it means to share in the transforming relationship with Christ and each other.  So, I urge you: don’t be afraid to follow Jesus.  You don’t have to be certain of the destination.  We are called to relationship, to building each other up, to sharing the Good News through being all of who we are and bringing all of who we are to be transformed by the one who calls us by name and invites us to share this journey: fishers of people and healers of the world through our willingness to walk together in love.

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A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness

Posted on December 10, 2023 by harasprice

Homily for Advent 2, Year B
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Richmond VA
December 10, 2023

Gospel Lesson: Mark 1:1-8

On a misty autumn afternoon in Birmingham, Alabama, I first met Marcus. I was traveling with our diocesan racial justice bus pilgrimage group this past October, and we had taken a break for lunch after which we were to gather at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church for our afternoon pilgrimage site visits to both the historic church and the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum. One of my companion pilgrims, Deacon Susie, had suggested that we pack up a few granola bars and water bottles in our backpacks, foregoing a sit-down lunch in order to spend some extra time at Kelly Ingram park, which was directly across from the church. That park, as you may recall, was the site of the May 1963 attacks by city fire and police officials on civil rights activists including thousands of school children marching for racial justice. The city park contains a walking tour of statues and monuments reflecting this critical and bone-chillingly horrific time of civil rights history, as well as moving statues memorializing the four young girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson and Denise McNair who were killed when a terrorist bomb planted by the Klu Klux Klan exploded just outside the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, caving in the wall to a room where they were preparing to participate in Youth Sunday. It is a lot to take in. And on that day, we were both drawn to enter this particular urban wilderness to make our pilgrimage of remembrance, repentance and healing.

I entered the park and began reading one of the self-directed tour markers. After a few minutes in the park, a thin, African American man wearing clothing that was too large for his frame and a winter stocking hat perched on top of his head came up to me and introduced himself: “My name is Marcus” he said, “And I can give you a tour of this place and tell you some of the stories that you won’t hear about, unless you hear them from where I walk, on the street.” I asked him where he stayed most days and he turned his head and with his chin nodded to a place in an older section of the park where there was evidence of several people who had taken up residence under an old gazebo. “Over there, until they tell us to go” was his response. “Did you eat lunch?” I asked, and he shook his head. I said, “I was going to eat and walk, do you want some?” He looked over our granola bar stash, trying to find something that didn’t have a lot of nuts and landed on a blueberry-oatmeal bar which he thought looked good. I picked cherry-chocolate granola and we headed for the next monument.

Marcus proceeded to tell us a story that was a mix of his personal recollections of his mother’s life, wound in with the civil rights narrative of her world in the 1960’s, intermingled with the lives and events that had taken place in that park. His mother’s story wove together with other young people taking a stand against racial hatred, including of the lesser known history of two young black men who died in incidents of racial violence on the same day as the church bombing: Johnny Robinson, killed by a white police officer and Virgil Ware, killed by a white teenager. Until that day in Kelly Ingram park, I hadn’t heard about the two young men. So often it is that our narratives are limited to who the storytellers are and how much distance…social and geographic…there is between the events and our more privileged and protected lives. We were learning about history in that park in a way that no museum or newspaper could ever teach us.

Marcus was unfolding his own story, too. I learned a lot about Birmingham from him, and about what life is like for a man with injuries and mental health challenges and addictions and recoveries and a mother that loved him unconditionally, until she was no longer in this world to care for him. And because we entered that wilderness with our eyes and hearts open and were met by one of its residents, we learned something real in words and beyond words about the day-to-day of street life, living off the food leftover by strangers, surviving on the proverbial wild locusts and honey of fast-food restaurant cast-offs and shared granola bars.

As we wove in and out of monuments in the park, Marcus would exit and talk with others and then circle back around, adding some more details as his mind was prompted by specific monuments. Lest you think this scene was too serene, there were also plentiful other people in the park, some colorful characters, some tourists, some avoiding Marcus and others living unhoused by making big changes in course to get from one side of the park to the other without eye contact. And there were people who I know thought we were crazy and others who told us outright that we were not safe. But they didn’t know our story or our draw to that particular journey into the wilderness any more than they knew Marcus’ story. I work with the saints of the street on the regular, as does Deacon Susie. And because that is part of my call, I have also learned about addiction, mental health, and about my own humanity and our collective humility when we enter the sacred space of encountering God’s presence on the social margins of this world. So, when I was mostly done with this most unusual of tours and Marcus said to me, “I want to ask you for one more thing” there was a part of me that was mentally searching through my wallet to determine what cash I had and what appropriate compensation for his time I would offer before we parted ways but there was also a part of me that heard the Holy Spirit whispering: you need to just listen.

And so, I listened. And before we closed our time together Marcus said, “will you pray with me.” And I said, “yes, if you will pray with me.”

And there in a city park, on a misty afternoon in Birmingham, I stood with Marcus and we prayed. Words poured out of both of us about the thanks we gave to God, and the places where we most needed healing in our lives. I don’t remember what words I prayed or what Marcus prayed because it was like we had a bit of an open channel with the divine in that moment together, meeting us exactly where we were at.

A voice calling out in the wilderness has a particular and profound connection with God.

When we read this Gospel lesson from the comfort of our modern surroundings and only think historically about John the Baptist, we hear part of the Advent message. But imagine, if you will, that there is a prophetic voice calling us into this story across time and distance. Imagine the people from the Judean countryside and the whole city of Jerusalem leaving their daily routines and making a choice to enter the wilderness and seek out the prayer and prophetic counsel of a wilderness wanderer wearing a rough, camel hair tunic held up with a belt around the waist. Something compelled them toward the wilderness and away from whatever was defined as safe and comfortable. They were drawn to John and through him their ears were attuned to hear not only his voice but that of the Messiah, Jesus, who was coming after him, who would also present himself to John to be baptized. And the ears and eyes of their hearts may have sensed the voice of God breaking open from heaven in that profound and holy moment. These are the same people, at least some of them, who would follow Jesus up the Judean countryside listening to his teaching and preaching. These are the same people, at least some of them, who would find themselves on the other side of their own baptism in the Jordan River experiencing a transformation unlike anything they imagined, their hearts burning with anticipation for an encounter with the Messiah, the incarnate Word-made flesh.

What was the yearning that drew them into the wilderness? What is it that we yearn for that draws us into the wilderness this Advent?

Perhaps it is a yearning for liberation that comes when we push past our complacency and start confronting the truth. Perhaps for us it is the liberation that comes with confronting the hard history that we’ve realized needs to be spoken. Perhaps it is our desire to lay down the trappings and baggage that weigh us down in this world, to be renewed and reborn and transformed with God’s help. Perhaps it is release from the hurt we carry from being in this world, the hurt inflicted on us and the hurt we see inflicted on others. Perhaps we yearn for forgiveness from the hurt we have done to others, whether or not we ever intended to do so.

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord”

The wilderness is a place where only the essentials matter, and the extraneous no longer serves us. This preparation we are called to in the season of Advent is not one of storing up, but of letting go. It brings us, individually and collectively, into a time and place where nothing else matters but the outpouring of our hearts to God as we make room to welcome Christ anew.

Deacon Susie and I were together again at the end of that day in Birmingham, sitting at a picnic table outside of a Mexican restaurant with a long waiting line. As we were talking and catching up about the day that had passed, I saw Susie look up. Her face lit up with recognition at someone she saw beyond where I was sitting, “Well, look who it is!” she exclaimed. I turned, expecting to see someone else from our group who might have been craving chips and salsa. And who did I see: Marcus. No hat this time, and a little bit cleaned up from earlier in the day. “I told you, I know how to walk and get everywhere in this city!” he said to us. We made room at our table, and he sat down with us for a bit, helping us understand the proximity of the park where we were earlier to this restaurant where we were at now, and how all that related to the parts of the city that he felt were important to know. And we shared that sacred space together for a while, until it was time for him to move on while we continued to wait for our dinner.

We laughed at the serendipity of another encounter and at the same time, none of us were really surprised that we found ourselves together again. Church is like that. Amid all our differences and even in the wilderness of our lives, we find one another. We wait with expectation knowing that Christ is always in our midst, drawing us together into holy moments and encounters not only in our familiar spaces, but with the people and places that we least expect.

We just need to open our hearts to make room.

Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham AL (October 2023)
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