I apologize for getting the gospel reading wrong in your bulletin. If the one assigned for St. Francis Day which I just read seems familiar to you it is because we read this just two months ago. I guess God wants us to take special note of this passage this year.

I play a lot of games on my phone and so I see a lot of advertisements. They are mainly for other games or for exercise routines but almost every day I see one asking me to send money to help orangutans whose forest is being cut down. I have enjoyed watching orangutans in the zoo and wondered why their native forest is being destroyed. There are several answers, but I was amazed to learn that one major reason is that Americans like RVs.

Yes, RVs. Recreational Vehicles.

When I think of the simple life of St Francis and how I might live more simply,  with very few possessions, one of the options seems to be to sell the house, get an RV and see where the Spirit takes me.

But RVs are made of a particular timber.  It is processed into a lightweight, moisture-resistant, flexible plywood then R.V. makers use it for interior walls, flooring, cabinets and other features. And where does that special timber grow? In the forests of Borneo where the orangutans live.[1]

In the last five years alone, tens of thousands of acres of the island’s forests have been chopped down. This has contributed to the disappearance of some of the world’s largest rainforests and wetlands, unleashing dense stores of carbon, upending the lives of Indigenous people and endangering the habitats of orangutans and other animals. All so that we can enjoy our RVs.

Who knew?

Of course we didn’t. But my friends, the information is out there.

The man in Jesus’ story knew that death was a possibility as any moment. The information was out there. But he chose not to think about that. Instead, he chose to build big barns to store all his goods. He chose to be rich in material wealth but not spiritual wealth.

And this is the challenge that St Francis gives us. He came from a wealthy family and as a young man had no trouble spending money on all the things that rich young men in the 13th Century spent money on. After a conversion experience and a big fight with his father, he became an itinerant beggar. He spent his time restoring local churches and nursing lepers. Eventually he built himself a hut and dedicated himself to a life of poverty – the complete opposite of the guy in the parable. He started preaching peace and brotherly love and soon gathered a group of men around him. The order was recognized by the Pope and grew rapidly.

There are many stories about Francis and animals. It is said that he preached to the birds and that on one occasion he brokered peace between a village and a wolf.  It is certain from his writings that he saw and honored God in Creation. In 1989 Pope John Paul II said that St Francis "invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honor and praise to the Lord. [He] gives us striking witness that when we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples."[2]

When we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples.

So we can see that peace has three dimensions – peace with God, peace with one another and peace with all creation. And by peace I don’t simply mean no fighting. Peace in the spiritual sense is shalom – shalom means wholeness, or completeness. We might think of shalom as living in harmony with all beings, a state where there is abundance and an ethic of restraint which makes sure there’s enough for everyone.

The man in the gospel story is trying to create shalom for himself, but he doesn’t get that shalom is living in harmony, with generosity and care for all beings.

Jesus has already brought about our peace with God; it is a free gift, given purely through grace as a result of God’s amazing love for us and for all creation. Yet we get to live into it. We get to learn to live in peace by surrendering our lives – making a commitment to living shalom with all beings, guided by the Holy Spirit. I’m not sure if we ever get there, but the vision of God’s holy shalom draws us onward.

And it is that same vision of shalom which inspires us to cultivate peace in all our relationships. This is difficult. Relationships have at least two people involved and that means there are always at least two viewpoints. Even when we are estranged from someone, we can work to offer them shalom in our hearts; to cultivate an attitude of open love that allows them to be fully themselves – to know the joy of their own true nature. We can do that even when we disagree.

And then there’s peace with nature. This morning we are celebrating our companion animals, those creatures who share our lives and inhabit our hearts. Yet however much we live in harmony with our beloved pets, we know that the relationship between human and nature has become fundamentally disordered. And that disorder has reached a point where it threatens animal and human flourishing.

The orangutans of Borneo are not the only creatures threatened by our habits. Some scientists are calling our time the sixth mass extinction. There have been five previous times when huge numbers of living beings have been wiped out in a very short period. Now, due to human behavior we are losing biodiversity at a rate of somewhere between 100 and 1000 times the rate that would be expected were we not cutting down forests, wiping out coral reefs and increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

How then are we to love creation?

Perhaps it is time to take an inventory of our lives. The fourth step of Alcoholics Anonymous is “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” Perhaps it is time to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of the ways our lives impact creation. And then with God’s help look for ways to change our behavior and learn to live more simply with less negative impact.
There is a lot of information available about the impacts of which bank we use or where we invest our money, the food we eat and the food we throw away, the cars we drive and how much we walk; how to make our yards drought tolerant and insect friendly, and where we can send dollars to help save habitat for orangutans and other creatures. I could go on, but you know these things. The information is out there.

People of God, the big aha that we need is to realize that we are part of an incredible web of life – God’s ongoing creation. And our actions, our prayers, yes even our thoughts, impact that web. And we are called to pour love into the web. We are called to be points of Shalom which bring peace and healing. The love which we feel for our companion animals is a start and it is only a start.

St. Francis calls us to live simply so that we may share the abundance we receive from God with all beings and so that we do not use more than our share of creation. Because building bigger barns to store stuff for ourselves is missing the point. God made us to live in shalom with all beings. At peace with God, at peace with our neighbor and at peace with creation. 

      Shalom

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall


[1][1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/world/asia/indonesia-borneo-deforestation-rv.html#:~:text=American%20demand%20for%20tropical%20wood,clouded%20leopards%20and%20sun%20bears.
 

[2] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html

It’s good to be with you all here this morning. Especially as it was touch and go earlier in the week… with all the anticipation around the Rapture. You heard about that, right? Apparently, someone shared with the world that Jesus came to them in a dream back in 2018 to let them know the Rapture would happen on September 23, 2025.[1] I realize this isn’t the first time the world’s anticipated an event like this, but this year, given where we are as a country and as a world, when I heard the Rapture was imminent, a part of me didn’t think it would be so bad. Even though this is absolutely not my theology, I like to think I keep a somewhat open mind … and, I must admit, I didn’t think it would be too bad to be proven wrong on this, and have the Rapture actually take place sometime on Tuesday, as promised.

… I’m not proud of it, but I was a little bit disappointed when I woke up on Wednesday and absolutely nothing had happened.

Having Jesus take care of it all would actually be so good, and so welcomed right about now. Nothing we’re doing seems to be making much of a difference, and so for a fleeting moment there I, too, longed for God to do something massive, to take care of it for it for us, in one dramatic and decisive divine act.

We live in a strange and peculiar world. We have millennia of accumulated wisdoms, tested spiritual knowings that connect us today with the ancients who came and lived before us. Our bodies, our physical selves, have evolved to be wonderfully and intimately interconnected with the world we live in, with the complexity of life we share this world with; and we have our Christian faith, born of a wildly long lineage that reaches back through the ages, a lineage of spiritual teachings that offer us firm guidance for how to live, how to be. We’ve repeatedly been told, through the ages, how to do life well together, how it all could be so much better than it is.

We’ve been taught a ton through the history of humanity; humanity has witnessed and responded to a lot; as human beings we sense a lot and have an instinct for even more, and yet … we, humans, tend to ignore all we “know”-  trading it, instead, for the junky ideas floating on the surface of the current moment. We get caught up here, on the surface, and we get frustrated and uncomfortable that things are the way they are. And so we yearn for the world to change, for something to happen, for someone to do something. For an event like the Rapture!

And the junk floating around on the surface, it’s only really concerned with the individual self. It places super-high value on comfort, on wealth, on having power over people and place; it values these things, actually, more than the life of the whole. And for those of us shaped by a society like this, all the world, the people, the plants, the animals, all of it can be thought of as existing solely to be ‘of service,’ all of it as resources to be taken and used, misused, and abused to indulge our comforts and wants. With this worldview, if we want things to be better, it’s the world that needs to offer it up – because the world ‘out there’ exists for us and for our needs.

Even when he’s dead, the rich man in our Gospel reading today, expects someone else to do something for him! “Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue” he calls out to Abraham. The rich man looks out, spots Lazarus, and immediately has a plan to put him to work for his own benefit, for his comfort.

In this context, it’s a staggering self-centered move! And yet, we’re the inheritors of a cultural way of being that shaped the rich man and still shapes us today. I think it’s highly likely that at some point or another, each one of us has thought: if only that person/those people would do what I want them to do, live or think or act the way I want them to – then, the world I’m forced to live in would be far more bearable. But people aren’t so quick to do our bidding, they have their own ideas, we are not of one mind - and so perhaps this is one reason why there’s so much violence of speech and action in this world we live in.

The rich man also begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house, to his five brothers, who – we must assume – are living as large he was. He wants to “use” Lazarus, a man from the dead, as a way to teach his brothers how they should be living, as a warning, so they can amend their lives and avoid ending up where he is. Abraham counters, he says if they’ve not paid attention to Moses and the prophets (if they’ve not learned from millennia of tested teachings and wisdoms handed down to this generation by the ancients) they absolutely will not listen, even to someone who’s back from the dead.

And this is true today, right?

We have it all, all the ancient wisdoms and teachings, God has given us Holy Scripture, a Savior, the Church, the Saints - but our society is noisy and demanding, and we are easily distracted. The culture we live in insists on being our primary teacher, so we learn to look out at the world around us, see it as separate from us, and we learn to claim and wield power over it to make it what we think we want, what we think we need, we learn to want to change it, and to change the people in it to suit us.

Yet, as Christians, we’re also inheritors of the Way, of Jesus’ Way – a way of living that draws our attention, crucially, to our interior world. Jesus’ Way teaches us to spend time ‘there’ get to know that world, work to transform that world, our own interior world. Jesus’ way is the most ancient of ways, and it emphasizes we are entirely interconnected, actually, and entirely dependent on God, and on this planet, and on one another for all of life, for all we have, for all we are; we are all in this together.

This is a ‘knowing’ that’s found deep in the being, in the heart; our relationship with God is a truth of our embodiment, of our whole selves. Jesus’ Way calls our attention to that, teaches and encourages our embracing of that, so that this inner knowing, our call to our own ongoing transformation, that is what we’re called to pay attention to, to listen to, and that’s what we can change.

Our best life, our true comfort, a healed world, an end, finally, to humanity’s abuse and exploitation of this planet and of one another doesn’t start and end out there, with everyone and everything ‘out there’ changing. There is no voice, no information, no new thought or well-articulated idea, there is no scientific development that can ever speak out a truth that will finally bring about the kind of change we’re all waiting for. … the change that’s needed must happen in here. It starts with each one of us taking seriously the immense impact our own conversion of life will have on the great unbroken story of life in God that’s still unfolding on this planet.

But it’s not easy, and it will take effort, and it’s going to take courage and creativity and commitment and faith,
it’s going to take all that for change to be lasting and to be real and good, and it has to come from within.
​
So, in these times, whenever we find ourselves longing for the world to change, longing for God to do something decisive that will heal this broken world, let’s remember that God already did. In Christ Jesus we have all we need, have been taught all we need to learn, have been told all we need to hear; it’s up to us whether we choose to listen. Amen.

the Rev. Linzi  Stahlecker
September 28, 2025
​
[1] https://www.today.com/popculture/rapture-tiktok-september-23-24-rcna233251

Many of you will be familiar with Julian of Norwich. In May 1373 she received a series of sixteen visions which she recorded in her book, “Revelations of Divine Love.” It is the first known book written by a woman in English. There are two editions, the short one she wrote very soon after her visions, and a longer version she wrote later with her reflections about what she saw.

Her understanding from all her visions is that God is totally and completely love. She writes:
 “Then [God] showed me a small thing, the size of a hazelnut, nestled in the palm of my hand. It was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eyes of my understanding and thought, What can this be? And the answer came to me: It is all that is created. I was amazed that it could continue to exist. It seemed to me to be so little that it was on the verge of dissolving into nothingness. And then these words entered my understanding: It lasts, and will last forever, because God loves it. Everything that is has its being through the love of God.”[1]

It lasts, and will last forever, because God loves it. Everything that is has its being through the love of God.

Today’s gospel reading is about the lengths we will go for something that is precious to us; the shepherd who searches for one lost sheep and the woman who searches for her missing coin and gets her friends together to celebrate when she finds it. Jesus tells these stories to show the Pharisees that God will go to great lengths for one individual sinner and rejoices to be reunited with them.

These parables of God’s love reminded me of Julian’s vision of the hazelnut because they both have the same sense of preciousness. The missing sheep is precious, the missing coin is precious, you and I are precious, and Creation is precious.

The universe is coming into being because of the love of God. Julian said, “It lasts, and will last forever, because God loves it. Everything that is has its being through the love of God.”  We might expand on that a little to say “Everything that is has its being through the essential nature of God.” Because the essential nature of God is Love and Creativity. God cannot NOT love and God cannot NOT create. That is simply who God is.

Creation lasts, and will last forever, because God loves it. Everything that is has its being through the love of God.

Julian lived at a time of plague and famine and was sought after as a counselor for those in distress[2], yet her writings are just what their title says, “Revelations of Divine Love.” She assures us that everything is alright when looked at through the eyes of God’s love. You are probably familiar with her most famous saying, ‘all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

Julian’s visions made her an optimist. The same cannot be said for Jeremiah who gave us our first reading today. We will be hearing from him in the next two weeks as well. Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry covered a tumultuous forty years at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 6th centuries before Christ. He was not a popular prophet as he proclaimed that the nation of Judah would suffer famine, foreign conquest, plunder, and captivity in a land of strangers. He was not popular, but he was right.

Reading the short selection from Jeremiah this morning made me think of Gaza. ‘I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.’  (Jer 4:26) When I see pictures of the destruction and the suffering of the people of Gaza, and the West Bank, it makes me weep. And the destruction of the environment. As Jeremiah said,” I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light…I looked, and lo… all the birds of the air had fled.”

So here we have a paradox.

Julian tells us that ‘Creation lasts, and will last forever, because God loves it. Everything that is has its being through the love of God.’ Jeremiah tells us, ‘the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black’ because of people’s sin and the Lord’s fierce anger.

How are we to reconcile these two very different visions of God?

Some people say that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament.

Since Jesus was an educated Jew and the only Scriptures he had were what we now call the Old Testament, I don’t think we can justify just writing off the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. I do think that Jesus taught us to see God very differently. Perhaps Jeremiah was right in seeing the disaster that was headed their way but not so right in declaring that it was due to God’s anger.

Maybe God wasn’t angry but it was the natural outcome of the political situation of the day and the choices that the people made. Just as in Julian’s time famine and plague were the realities of drought and the failure of public health practices due to ignorance.

Maybe God doesn’t want suffering, but suffering happens. And much avoidable suffering happens because of human behavior. We have free will. Not total free will. Our free will is constrained by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And suffering can happen because of the decisions we make, and suffering can be alleviated by the decisions we make. Decisions we make as individuals, decisions we make as groups, decisions we make as nations. Suffering can be made or alleviated by individual decisions and by decisions made at State and federal levels.

The suffering in Gaza comes as a result of decisions that humans have made over the centuries, some good, some not-so-good and some downright evil. God is present in the suffering and God is working every moment to help humanity make better decisions and to bring the best possible outcome out of every situation. But God’s love allows us to go on using our free will even when we make a mess of it, even when we sin, even when we cause suffering.

God is still creating this ever-expanding universe. And so are we. But God is always creating it in love. Our motives are rarely so pure.

Yet it is our calling, people of God. We are called to expand the reign of God. We are called not just to bask in the amazing love of God shown to us by the shepherd who came and found us, but to live that love in every moment, share that love every which way we can.

Many of Julian’s visions were rather gory images of the crucified Jesus with a lot of blood. Jesus’ death was not pretty, but in that amazing event, God brought together immense love and immense suffering. This is the central mystery of our faith; that God’s love and human suffering were joined together on the cross and then God brought resurrection life out of the midst of it.

None of us understand it. We have glimpses. Julian’s visions were glimpses. Glimpses which led her to say:

God is all that is good. God has created all that is made. God loves all that he has created. And so anyone who, in loving God, loves all his fellow creatures loves all that is. All those who are on the spiritual path contain the whole of creation, and the Creator. That is because God is inside us, and inside God is everything. And so whoever loves God loves all that is.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 


[1] Translation by Mirabai Starr, ‘Julain of Norwich; the Showings’

[2] https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich

For most of my life I have been a vegetarian. Today I also eat fish because my body needs extra protein without many carbs. My mother was vegetarian all her life but brought us kids up to be meat eaters. My own journey with vegetables began in the early 70s when I realized that meat is an inefficient way of getting protein. It takes about seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef[1]  and about 35% of the world’s grain harvest is used to raise livestock. That could be used to feed humans.

So back in the early 70s I discovered that if those of us in affluent countries ate 10% less meat and the grain saved was redistributed there would be no starvation. That was a big motivator for me. I hate being hungry, and I don’t want anyone else, human or non-human to ever experience hunger. I read the books that were trending at the time – Small is Beautiful, Diet for a Small Planet, and later Voluntary Simplicity – I am sure that quite a few of you read those same books. And so I became a committed vegetarian. I also started shopping in thrift stores – that was trendy too.

But what I didn’t know back then was that other aspects of the way I lived were having just as dire an effect on the planet as my food. I had no idea that the gas I used to drive my little car was affecting the environment. I had no idea that fresh water was scarce. I did not know that fossil fuels and big agriculture were filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and methane and that they would make the planet heat up and lead to massive fires, rising sea levels and bigger life-threatening storms.

Today I have a much more complete understanding of the way my lifestyle impacts other people and other beings. And I don’t like it. It is inconvenient, and it is uncomfortable. I don’t want to read the articles about climate change. I don’t want to continue to attempt to reduce waste, cut my carbon footprint, eat locally and live simply so others may simply live.

But that’s what Jesus taught. Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the things I want for myself, a safe and peaceful society, a comfortable home, clean water, clean air, plenty of delicious food and yes, flush toilets, all of those things Jesus tells me to want for my neighbor too. And not just the neighbor I can see but the one in Haiti or Sudan or Gaza.

And the more of the world’s resources that I use, the less there is for them.

Since the early 70s when I was learning about diet and the planet, the amount of the world’s resources that people use each day has more than tripled.[2] We are using more than there is to use. And according to the United Nations, those of us who are lucky enough to live in affluent countries are using ten times as many of the earth’s resources than those who live in low-income places.

In today’s gospel, Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship. He is being followed by large crowds, but he knows that many of the people following him are there for the novelty of it. They have been caught up in the excitement of the crowd. And so he discourages them by pointing out just how difficult it is to truly be his disciple. The path of discipleship is not one for most people because it calls for sacrifice, it calls us to love God and our neighbors even when it’s not convenient or fashionable.

Becoming a disciple of Jesus means letting go of the things that get in the way of a simple, deep walk with God. For the people of the time that meant leaving their families with their traditional ways and joining this new movement, this new tribe, the Jesus Movement. Today joining the Jesus Movement means finding a new depth of love as we seek to love as God loves, unconditionally and uncompromisingly.

Back in 1971, astronaut Edgar Mitchell looked out the window of Apollo 14, as he was returning from the moon. He looked out of the window at the space, stars, and planet from which he had come and suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, and harmonious. He writes, “I also realized that the Earth is a gem in the cosmos, a place to revere and care for. We are here not by accident, but on a journey of awakening that is as magnificent as the universe that holds us. We have a profound responsibility to care for the Earth, which is our craft on a voyage of both outer and inner discovery.”

We have a profound responsibility to care for the Earth. The Earth is our neighbor. Care for God’s creation is not an optional extra but a deeply important part of our calling as the people of God.

And caring for the earth as well as caring for our human and non-human neighbors means counting the cost of our own lifestyle. What is the cost of driving my car – not just in gas and insurance, but the cost to the planet? What is the true cost of the inexpensive clothes we buy? What is the true cost of the food I eat and the food I throw away? And what about the packaging – the plastic and the styrofoam that cannot be recycled? And here’s a tough one for me – what about the true cost of coffee?

Coffee is one of the causes of deforestation as more and more land is cleared for coffee production. And the coffee industry is plagued by human rights abuses and water pollution. That’s all before we consider the carbon footprint, oh and the paper cup I drink it in which can’t be recycled either.

Voluntary simplicity is part of the path that Jesus trod, and it is the path to which we are called.

Jesus words are hard, “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." We might paraphrase it as “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your stuff."

Stuff takes time and energy to care for. I had a dear friend who was more than a little crazy. In her later years she filled her house with stuff that she bought from thrift stores or picked up by the side of the street or found in dumpsters. And she spent her days moving her stuff from one place to another, packing it in boxes and then unpacking the boxes to see what was in them. For me that’s a picture of how our stuff can consume our time and our energy, taking our focus away from loving God and our neighbor.

This month we join Christians around the world as we celebrate the Season of Creation. This season is an opportunity for us to consider deeply the effect that our lives have on the planet, to consider changing habits which use the worlds resources and to start getting rid of all the stuff which prevents us fully following Jesus the Christ.

Because, like John Lennon, the Christ invites us to imagine.

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
 
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 


[1] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/whats-new/is-meat-production-an-efficient-use-of-resources#

[2] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/rich-countries-use-six-times-more-resources-generate-10-times

I think Jesus must have been an extrovert. Here he is again, eating out, this time in the home of a leader of the Pharisees.

You will remember that there was an ambivalent relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees whom he often described as hypocrites for their focus on small things which obscured the important things. Pharisees interpreted the law of Moses for contemporary living and Jesus often annoyed them with his disregard for the niceties of convention.

So he was invited to a meal by a leader of the Pharisees, but they were all watching him closely. And Jesus watched them. And he noticed how the guests all tried to choose seats of honor.

A quick sidebar here: the culture of 1st century Palestine was based on honor. Everything you did had the potential to bring honor or dishonor to your family. Honor was far more important than material wealth, so people wanted to show that they were honored by having the most important seats.

So, seeing how they were trying to get the best seats, Jesus told a story about honor. He told them about a wedding banquet where they did not have a seating chart, and guests jockeyed for the seats of honor. Beware, he said, of taking the most honored seat and then having the disgrace of being asked to move down. Instead take a less honored seat and have the honor of being asked to move to a higher table.

And he used this story for one of his topsy-turvy comments – “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." That’s topsy-turvy like ‘the first will be last’, and ‘if you want to save your life you must lose it.’

But wait, wait there’s more. If you are going to give a luncheon he said, don’t invite your family and your buddies, invite those who can’t repay you and you will be blessed in the resurrection of the righteous.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

In the second lesson, the one from the letter to the Hebrews, the writer has turned his attention from theology to how we should live and gives some very explicit instructions.

• Let mutual love continue.
• Do not neglect to show hospitality.
• Remember those who are in prison,
• and those who are being tortured,
• Let marriage be held in honor by all
• Keep your lives free from the love of money, and
• be content with what you have

These don’t seem to need much interpretation. They are things we get to do as Christians, clear standards of behavior based in our knowledge of God’s incredible love for us.
But Jesus’ teachings need a little more work.

I had lunch with a friend this week who said “I like things to be very clear. I don’t want to do a lot of interpreting.” Her current spiritual path is not based on the teachings of Jesus!

We get to interpret, but we never do it in a vacuum – we have the teachings of those who have gone before and have struggled with the same questions, we have the witness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and we have one another – the community of faith. So we have resources to draw from.
Now back to Jesus. He is always challenging the status quo. He is always challenging us to live differently, a life lived in his footsteps not in the dominant culture in which we live. So what is the challenge here?

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Humility.
Humility has never been so counter-cultural or so unpopular.

Yet it is a mark of the followers of Jesus. We don’t humble ourselves in order to be exalted but because we are disciples of Jesus. And because we are followers of Jesus, we are promised that we will be with him in glory. But that is not our motivation. Which is why Jesus’ story of the wedding banquet is a parable. He is not telling us to take a lower seat so that we will be asked to move higher and so be honored by everyone who sees.

Jesus is saying something much more profound.

Jesus is calling us to live lives grounded in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is calling us to live lives imitating him.

Humility is not about having poor self-esteem. Humility is knowing that we are absolutely surrounded by the love of God and so we do not have to do things to prove our worth. Humility is quietly and confidently living our lives in God’s service and in service to others.

We do not need other people’s esteem. We do not need to be invited up to a higher seat so that everyone can see how important and how honorable we are.

The writer to the Hebrews said, ‘be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you."…’ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.’

People of God, we are called to live our lives grounded in this truth; Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever has promised never to leave us or forsake us. And knowing that, we can be content with who we are, and what we have. We do not need to throw dinner parties with influential people to increase our influence in the world, no, we get to throw dinner parties for those who are marginalized – the poor, the disabled, the immigrants, the queer and transgendered, the people of color.

We are at a time in our country when the powerful are becoming more powerful, the rich are becoming wealthier, and systems that have supported the common good are being dismantled.

It is our calling to see these things clearly and to call out sin when we see it. But it is so easy to think that somehow we are better than them, that our knowledge of Jesus and his ways allows us to look down on those who are caught up in the rush for power and who themselves look down on other people. The trap is always that in challenging that which is wrong, in attempting to build a fair and just society for all people, we get caught up in the same attitudes and tactics.

I think the antidote is humility.

Humility says that we too are sinners in need of God’s grace. Humility says that we can only act as a result of our knowledge of God’s love not just for us but for the people whose ideas we oppose. Humility prays for our leaders and our opponents. Humility listens for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, trusting that all will be well.

I am going to end by quoting a few familiar verses from 1 Corinthians 13 but changed slightly:

4 Humility is patient, humility is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Humility does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  1 Cor 13:4-7

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 

A Call to Compassion; A Call to Action      Reading:  Luke 13:10-17     Proper 16/C    8/24/25
By the Rev. Karen Faye Siegfriedt    St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Morro Bay CA
 
            In June of 2018, I was walking along Morro Strand Beach toward the rock.  Suddenly, a young sealion started waddling out of the water and moving toward me.  At first, I backed away, puzzled by his actions.  Why was this beautiful marine mammal coming toward me as if he were trying to tell me something?  I soon realized that something was very wrong and immediately called the Marine Mammal Rescue Team.  They sent out volunteers who captured the sealion and brought him to the Center for diagnosis and treatment.  It turns out, this particular sealion was poisoned by domoic acid, a neurotoxin produced by red algae which accumulates in shellfish, sardines, and anchovies. When sea lions, otters, humans, and other predators eat contaminated shellfish, poisoning can result, affecting the brain and possibly causing death.
  
After two weeks of IV fluids and medication, the sealion was “set free” from his ailment and was released into the ocean to live a full life.  I marvel at the compassion of those who volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center and their heroic attempts to relieve the suffering of these precious sea-creatures.  I give thanks to all those who have donated time and money to provide for the health care offered at the Marine Mammal Center.  Like Jesus in today’s gospel, there are many of you who are moved with compassion for those who suffer, rolling up your sleeves to actively respond to their needs.  Thank you for caring!

In today’s gospel story, we see compassion in action.  The year is around 30 A. D., and Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.  In this particular story, he is teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath day when he notices a woman who is unable to stand up straight. This is a woman whose spine has collapsed into a permanent forward hunch.  Her body language communicates more than pain; it pictures the crushing power of affliction. In modern medical terms, she is suffering from severe kyphosis.   Now I want you to imagine for a moment being in her shoes: bent over, incapable of standing up straight, unable to look up at the sky, glancing only side to side in order to navigate your path, and spending the majority of your waking hours looking down at the ground. 

How diminished would your life be?  Would you even be able to perform activities of daily living, like cooking, cleaning, and raising a family?  How popular do you think you would be at a community gathering?   Would people make eye contact with you or would they simply glance over you as if you did not exist?  Over time, you might find yourself fading into the background like many other disabled people, never being asked for your opinion or treated with respect.  It is into this context of limitation and bondage that Jesus lays his hands on the woman and sets her free from her ailment.  What a gift!  What an act of compassion!  Imagine the joy that must have been experienced by all those who witnessed this incredible act of healing!

Well actually, not everyone was overjoyed!  Instead of thanking Jesus for healing this unfortunate woman, the leader of the synagogue criticizes him: “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”  Imagine being censured for healing someone on the sabbath day.  Imagine being so legalistic that adherence to the law or a political party takes precedence over compassion for those who suffer.  Imagine punishing the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the disabled for lacking the means to pay for access to health care and then cutting off health resources that could restore them to a full life.  Well, this is exactly what is going on in our country today.

Over 8 million people’s healthcare is being stripped away in the name of reducing waste and fraud as cuts to Medicaid and caps on Medicare are being instituted. Yet in my experience as a nurse and as a rector of a church in rural Amador County, those who received Medicaid were mostly children as well as some of my parishioners who were in economic straits, unable to afford decent insurance.  When I worked as a student nurse in Appalachia, the Regional Hospital in McDowell KY, was heavily subsidized by the federal government, providing healthcare to children living in poverty, families afflicted by inbreeding, coal miners suffering from black lung disease, adults living in shacks, and many others who were under-employed and under-insured.
 
Aren’t these people worthy to be set free from their ailments and to be able to stand up straight like the woman in today’s gospel or the sealion rescued on Morro Bay Beach?  Must they bear the burden of being bent over?  What will happen to these folks who are being denied access to health care?  Will they collapse from their burdens?  I don’t know.  But what I do know is this: The rural hospitals and those towns whose people depend on Medicaid will suffer greatly, forcing many health care centers to shut down, leaving entire communities without healthcare.

 When small town clinics and hospitals close, the whole community loses:  Jobs are lost, doctors and nurses go elsewhere, and senior facilities and ambulance services remain at high risk of closing down.  How are we to respond?  Like many others, I do not know how to save the world.  I do not have all the answers for good government policies.  I do not hold secret knowledge as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present.  But I do know that today’s gospel is a call to restore compassion to the center of public policy and morality.  Today’s gospel summons us to reject any interpretation of scripture that hinders healing or breeds indifference to human need and suffering.  Today’s gospel is a call to reject those powers of the world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God; those institutions and policies that deny access to heath care, healing, and wholeness. Today’s gospel is a call to action, even on the sabbath day!

We are now living in a time in which there are countless challenges in our world; a time when so many people are bent over in pain.  There are those in the middle East and the Ukraine who are bent over because of war and violence.  There are refugees who are bent over as they try to escape from their homelands in search of safety.  There are people of color who are bent over because of the prejudice that follows them everywhere.  There are the elderly who are bent over, even in our own community, trying to pay exorbitant rents with limited income.  There are those who are bent over with debilitating pain because of aging or illness.  There are those who are bent over in exasperation, trying to find a competent doctor who can diagnose their medical problems or perform surgery in a timely manner. 

We find ourselves in this seemingly hostile world, daunted by chaos and pain.  Some of us are so overwhelmed with all the problems in the world that we become paralyzed, hoping that someone else can fix the mess that we are in.  Others are so focused on their own lives and those of their immediate family that they have no time or energy left for the outsider.  Some folks are fearful and prejudiced, refusing to help those who are different from themselves.  Yet, as a people who have promised to follow in the steps of Jesus, we must remember that our primary mission as Christians is to have compassion for all of God’s creatures by walking in the way of love through active participation in the healing of the human race.

In baptism, we promised to “renounce the powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”  Who or what are these corrupting powers?  They are the monopolies, dishonest leaders, unfair economic systems, and the many institutions who are harming the very people that they promised to serve.  Sadly, the inner spirituality of our government, the inner spirituality of our institutions, and the inner spirituality of the health care industry is “fallen,” blind to the will of the God.  Our health care system is being dominated by the Insurance Agencies, Pharmaceutical Companies, and a Hospital Industry who seem to prioritize making money over treating people for their illnesses. In summary, many of these institutions have lost their moral compass.

How can we as Christians make a difference?  This is a time when the fearless prophetic voices of authentic followers of Jesus are desperately needed to speak out above the clatter of lies, deceit, and misuse of power.  This is the time to educate ourselves on public and economic policies, supporting those issues and candidates who truly care about the commonwealth of all people.  This is the time to write to your elected officials, to donate money to charitable organizations, and to become involved in action committees that strive for justice, peace, and the dignity of every human being.  And then, just maybe, maybe even volunteering at a place like the Marine Mammal Center.   In summary, do what you can, where you can. 

Our gospel of compassion calls us to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. “Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.” [Charter for Compassion]

            And because in our own weakness we cannot fully live the life to which Christ has called us, we continue to pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to guide, strengthen, and uphold us in this mission of love. 

the Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
 

Back in January, the day after the inauguration, the President attended a prayer service in the National Cathedral in Washington DC at which Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde preached.
This is the end of her sermon, Bishop Budde said,

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.

The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.

May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”

She did not harangue nor criticize the president or his party. Yet he called her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” and demanded an apology.  And she received death threats from his followers.
Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Bishop Budde says, “Unity across diversity, and even intense polarization, doesn’t require us to agree on everything. But nor can true unity be built on coercion, misinformation, and contempt for those who differ. True unity is built on the foundations of honoring the human dignity of all people, honesty in both private and public speech; humility, because we all make mistakes and need one another’s perspective; and mercy, the capacity for empathy and genuine compassion.

Though I attempted to speak with humility and respect when addressing the president, my words had the effect of amplifying the divisions that the prayer service for unity sought to address…. Yet if I had only said what our leaders wanted to hear, would that not have been a shirking of my responsibility?”[1]

What do you think? Would she have been shirking her responsibility?

It’s a dilemma for the preacher.

Many of us want to come to church to be nourished and sustained, assured of God’s love and to get away from the conflict in the world. We don’t want to be reminded of the debates that are raging politically.

Yet those debates are where the rubber hits the road. They are where our baptismal vows really have traction, our vows to seek and serve Christ in all persons; to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Although the gospel of Jesus is a gospel of reconciliation, of reconciliation between God and human and between human and human, it is not always an easy and peaceful path. The Prince of Peace does not always bring peace. In fact, our gospel is centered in an act of extreme violence. Jesus was lynched. He was beaten, hung on a tree and left to die.

Yet paradoxically, that act of hideous violence was turned by God’s love into the timeless symbol of peace and reconciliation.

Some of us have been reading The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. One of the ideas that I find most challenging is that the spiritual life is not just resurrection, it is also death. I want it to be just resurrection. I want the Prince of Peace to always bring peace and joy. But Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

In this congregation we do not all agree on everything. Which is of course not surprising; we are strong and individual people. But how are we to deal with our disagreements? Sweeping them under the carpet because we are polite and pleasant folk can be dangerous. They can creep out and ambush us when we least expect it. They can turn into grumblings and gossip which is one of the quickest ways to kill a congregation.

I may be wrong, but I think that when Sid was here you mainly did what Sid suggested, though he always told me he did what y’all wanted. And maybe he did. But if St Peters is to grow and welcome new people there will be more disagreement, more change. New people bring new ideas. You will each need to think about how important something is to you.

For example, when we go back to using a common cup for communion, many of you prefer to intinct – that is, to dip your bread into the cup. Yet, I know it’s counterintuitive, but that actually introduces more germs into the cup than taking a sip. Intincture is not a practice that is ok in this part of the church.

The common cup is a sign that we are all participating together in the life of Christ, that we come to God as a community not as a collection of individuals. It is also a sign that it is in Christ that we find our unity. Most human groups and organizations find unity by defining who is in and who is not. We, the Body of Christ, find our unity in our love and loyalty for Christ who is the head of the body. And we symbolize that reality by sharing bread from the same loaf and sharing wine from the same cup.

We show our care for one another by wearing masks and by not participating in the common cup when we feel less than well. We show our care for one another by not putting our hand in the chalice, however carefully.

You can rest assured that the full benefits of the eucharist may be found in the bread alone. Christ is fully present there so you may choose not to participate in the common cup and still participate in the Body of Christ.

How you deal with the change back to the normal practice of The Episcopal Church will be up to you as individuals in your relationship with God. But it is also up to us as a manifestation of the Body of Christ in this place to treat one another with care and respect even when we disagree.

Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

I think there is a paradox here that I have not fully grasped but I wonder about. In our understanding, God chose the Jewish people and had them live in a narrow strip of land that has been contested throughout most of history. And God chose to incarnate in this land of perpetual conflict. Why? Why did God not incarnate in Rome, the center of the known world and take advantage of pax romana – one of the longest enduring periods of peace in human history?

Why did God choose a place of conflict? And why does the mystery of our life-giving faith revolve around the state-sanctified lynching of a man who preached mercy and compassion?

There’s some deep and important truth hidden here. The closest I can get to it is in the words of a hymn. Please turn with me to hymn 661. Read it through for a moment.

1 They cast their nets in Galilee
just off the hills of brown;
such happy, simple fisher-folk,
before the Lord came down.

2 Contented, peaceful fishermen,
before they ever knew
the peace of God that filled their hearts
brimful, and broke them too.

3 Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,
homeless, in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
head-down was crucified.

4 The peace of God, it is no peace,
but strife closed in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing-
the marvelous peace of God.

And now let’s stay seated as we sing it together, quietly, as a meditation.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall


[1] https://mariannbudde.substack.com/p/hello-im-bishop-mariann

A few years ago, my niece Rachel was diagnosed with adrenal cancer. After a difficult surgery she made a good recovery but always has to be careful because without functioning adrenal glands a bad shock could be life threatening. Earlier this year she learned that the cancer had metastasized into her lungs. She read books on diet and alternative treatments that could slow or reverse the disease, and she started on a strict regime of diet and exercise. But after a while she began to long for a good piece of sourdough bread. And she realized that she wasn’t enjoying herself very much, that the anti-cancer regime was getting in the way of her living her best and most joyful life.

So she had a dilemma; Should she continue to fight the cancer by restricting her diet and activity or should she just accept that her life was going to be shorter and enjoy herself and share her gifts with her friends and family for as long as she could?

I think this is the dilemma that Jesus is raising in today’s gospel. Are we going to live in fear and try to shore up our fear with an abundance of material possessions which take time and energy to maintain, or do we dare to live lightly in the knowledge that another world is coming and we can live into that future right now?

Perhaps it’s a little like the position St Peters is in. You are waiting for a new rector. You don’t know who they will be or when they will get here. It’s tempting to leave everything the way it was when Sid left, and hold on to the books and the folders and the tchotchkes, the service leaflets and the habits. But in order to welcome the new rector, you have to make room for him or her. Part of my job is to help you do that by challenging some of the ways you have always done things, not to deny the goodness of the past but to open up to new possibilities for the future.

Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms.” And then follows that up with two stories about being ready, “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour," he says.
“Sell your possessions” is perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to hear. Living in this country at this time without at least some possessions like a cell phone, a car, and access to a computer and a washing machine and hopefully a roof over your head seems almost impossible. Surely we think, Jesus didn’t really mean to give away everything, did he!

I think the key is how he connects it with fear. The man in last week’s gospel reading stopped feeling afraid because he had filled even bigger storage units with his stuff. He was confident because he had enough stuff, not because God loved him. In this culture it is very difficult to work out what is enough. How much stuff is enough stuff? How much do we need to have in order to feel secure?

Jesus points out that having security in stuff is pointless. And as we see fire suddenly decimating whole communities it underlines this point. Stuff can disappear in a moment. Everything in this life is temporary, even our most cherished relationships. Dealing with our existential fear by amassing things or by filling our lives with friends and activities, or by following strict regimes of diet and exercise simply doesn’t work.

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms.” Because we trust that God enjoys giving us the kingdom, we can live with an ethic of restraint and generosity. An ethic of restraint means that we think before we buy, we reuse and recycle whenever we can, and we let go of things we no longer need. An ethic of generosity means that we give consciously, intentionally and with love, again and again.

Yet the kingdom of God is not yet fully realized, so it requires faith in the love of God to dare to let go of the need to hoard, to let go of the need to have more than we need.

Instead, Jesus says, “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“An unfailing treasure in heaven.”

Heaven is not a place above the sky. We know that. We start the prayer that Jesus taught us, “Our Father who art in heaven.” So one thing we do know about heaven is that God is there.

How then can we make ourselves an unfailing treasure in heaven – the place where God is most profoundly present?

Friends, I think this must be about love. Love with a capital L. The kind of love that God has, that Jesus had, the love which took him to the cross and beyond, giving his life for the welfare of the world.

As we live with an ethic of restraint and generosity, our generosity means that we always seek the highest good for all beings. In the way we live, in the way we pray, in the way we talk we are always looking to assist God in bringing about the highest good in every situation.

And we open our hearts to worship, love and praise God. For we can be sure that heaven is full of the worship of God which underlies all Love because God is Love and the nature of God is Love. One of the early church fathers said, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.”

As we free ourselves from the possessions that we gather in order to feel safe, or the over-work, or whatever it is that you use to defend yourself from the fear of death and the fear that you are really just an insignificant ant in the great scheme of things. As we free ourselves from those fears and we allow ourselves to freefall into the love of God; as our lives are filled with capital-L love and with praise and joy, so we become fully alive.

My niece Rachel is a woman of deep faith. And she has decided that it is more important for her to live her best life, the life God gave her to live, than to cling to restrictive regimes with the hope that she might extend her life on this earth. She has decided to live to God’s glory, a human being fully alive for all the days that God gives her, trusting that it is indeed God’s good pleasure to give her the kingdom.

For Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 

One of the fascinating things about the New Testament epistles is how often we get exalted ideas followed by very practical ones. It’s not really surprising given that we are people who live in two worlds – the world of Spirit and the world of human clumsiness and the epistles were written to churches just like us – full of sinner-saints.

The reading from Colossians today is an example of this contrast between the metaphysical and practical.  “If you have been raised with Christ,” we heard, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

In our baptism both symbolically and sacramentally we are joined with Christ in his death and resurrection, so we are raised with Christ. Our baptism is what brings us into the Body of Christ, the Church, and that is why we have the font at the entrance to the church. It has water in it that has been blessed and I encourage you to experiment with reminding yourself of your baptism by blessing yourself with that water when you enter the church. Our baptism joins us with Christ and we renew that every time we make Eucharist together. Whenever we, as the Body of Christ come together and celebrate the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection we make it ours once again as we receive the life of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine.

So we have been raised with Christ and the writer to the Colossians tells us that therefore, we should seek the things that are above, where Christ is. Because that is where out life is now. Hidden with Christ in God. When I hear that “Hidden” I think of how a chick might be hidden under its mothers wings, or a baby possum in its mother’s pouch. Our lives are hidden in Christ because we are beloved, but at some time when all things reach their intended conclusion, and Christ is fully revealed, we will step out from under his wings and enjoy participating in the full glory of God.

That is who we are, people of God, we are the ones who are enrolled in the reign of God, we are the ones who have been joined to Christ in his death and resurrection and will enjoy his glory with him.
And that has implications, like setting “our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

But, we think, that’s all very well but I still need to pay the bills, have the car serviced, get the groceries, cook dinner, and weed the yard. Yes we do. Because we are here in this dimension with all its limitations, challenges and joys.

And the writer to the Colossians is pragmatic. It is exactly because our lives are hidden with Christ that we get to pay special attention to how we live now. “Put to death, therefore” he says, “whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed ... These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

We are clothing ourselves with the new Self – our old Self was left behind when we were washed in the waters of baptism but we still have some of those habits. We have been renewed in the image of the Creator who doesn’t even notice skin color, ethnic origins, sexual orientation or national boundaries and so we get to live like that. We get to live like the children of God that we are.
​
And the children of God do not practice anger, wrath, malice, slander, lies, promiscuousness or greed. The children of God live the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, mercy, humility and patience.

Which is why the rich man in Jesus’ parable was foolish. He was living not in the New Self but in the old. When his land produced way more than he could use for himself and his family and more than he could store in his sheds, he went out and got a whole load of storage units. And he thought how lucky he was that now he could retire.

Had he been living in the new self as a child of God, he would have thanked God for the abundance and he would have shared it with his neighbors.  He would have known that true life does not come in an abundance of storage units but in the joy of a life lived humbly in community.

Right now, this seems to be something our country has forgotten. Our leaders have passed laws which will reduce taxes on the rich by reducing the food assistance and healthcare available to the poor. Greed is rewarded. The gap between the 1% at the top of the economic pole and the other 99% is getting wider and wider.

Which means that it is even more   ever  that we share our abundance in faith that our needs will be met.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall

Sometimes I really wish I had been one of the original disciples so I could ask Jesus all the questions I have. Especially about prayer. Yet I also know that Jesus often did not answer questions directly, and in the spiritual journey it is the questions that pull us forward.

Here are some of the questions that I ask: If God knows everything then why do we need to pray anyway? Do we really need to draw things to God’s attention? Does it make sense to keep repeating the same prayers? And how can we “pray without ceasing” as Paul tells us to?

I would love to know what questions you have about prayer so let’s take a couple of minutes to think, pair and share. Please find someone else to talk to even if it means changing seats and take a couple of minutes to share your questions and your wonderings about prayer…
 
There are hundreds of books written about prayer and within the time frame of a sermon I can’t cover much ground. But I have three observations I would like to share with you. 1. How you think about prayer depends on how you think about God. 2. There are many different ways to pray and 3. Its better together.

So #1 – how you think about prayer depends on how you think about God.

A friend of mine once said, “I’ll believe in God when he starts answering my prayers.” So her idea of God seems to be someone external to her who grants her wishes. That’s the genie in the bottle idea – that God manifests when we call on him to grant us three or more wishes.

Then there’s the vending machine model. We put our prayers in the slot and as long as we have the right change, the right words and so on, God will deliver our selected outcome. If we get something different then obviously we didn’t pray the right prayers or push the right button.

This is similar to the Santa Claus idea, where God keeps a list, a list of all our good deeds and our bad ones and answers our prayers depending on whether we’ve been naughty or nice.

All of these ways of thinking envision God as quite disconnected from our lives; a rather capricious authority figure whom we have to try to persuade to give us what we want. Someone who is watching us from a distance.

These are all transactional ways of thinking about our relationship with God; we do something and God does something in return. But we know from our lives that close friendships and intimate relationships are not built on transactions. They are built on mutual sharing and mutual enjoyment. They are built on self-disclosure in a relationship of love.

So we can think of God as a friend as the old hymn says,
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.

This emphasizes the relationship – God is a good friend who will listen to all our woes and problems. God isn’t out there somewhere, God is right here next to us. But I wonder if that doesn’t domesticate God? -whether we imagine we are somehow taming the wild and totally free God; making the God who creates all things into little more than an invisible friend.

But what if God is both transcendent and immanent? In other words what if God is out there AND in here, closer than our breathing? And what if God loves us unconditionally and loves nothing more than to be in mutual relationship with us? What if we are called to be co-creators with God, together building the reign of God based on Jesus teaching?

How then shall we pray?

I think we pray both with awe and with intimacy. As we pray, we come to know God more fully and we are changed in the process. As we pray, we invite God into the joys and the tangles of our lives; our prayer is a form of self-disclosure – God, this is who I am, and it is a journey of self-discovery as we learn how God sees us. Prayer is no longer asking for something specific but inviting God with her power and love into the situations of our lives. Instead of asking for a red bike, we share with God the need we see for better transport and ask for solutions to unfold for the highest good of all beings. And who knows, that might be a red bike.

Onto my second reflection: there are many different ways to pray, and they complement one another.

Practicing the presence of God is foundational to all spiritual life, all prayer. This is intentionally reaching out to the divine and opening ourselves to him or her or them. I found an unexpected description of prayer in a novel I am reading. The protagonist is a woman who was brought up as a strict Moslem but has left her faith. She says,

I missed prayer. It had been a gift. Tilting my head toward the sky, luminescent as though backlit by God himself, silently unburdening myself, inhaling the expansiveness of his deliverance. It had been a relief to surrender, to accept my smallness, to merge into a sacred whole.[i]

I’m going to read that again, because I think it is a beautiful description of prayer which experiences God as both transcendent (out there) and immanent (in here).

I missed prayer. It had been a gift. Tilting my head toward the sky, luminescent as though backlit by God himself, silently unburdening myself, inhaling the expansiveness of his deliverance. It had been a relief to surrender, to accept my smallness, to merge into a sacred whole.

We may practice the presence of God in meditation or walking by the bay or gardening or even in the everyday work of housekeeping. Practicing means doing it with intention. Over a lifetime we may come to a place where we constantly know the presence of God but until then we need to practice.

That sense of being in God’s presence and the awareness of our smallness and yet our preciousness is the backdrop for all other forms of prayer – the arrow prayers when we quickly ask for help or for wisdom or to find the car keys; intercessory prayer when we pray for a friend or loved one – like the Snoopy cartoon in this week’s Pebble “When my arms can’t reach people I love, I hug them with my prayers.”; and intercessory prayer when we pray for people who we don’t love and people we have never met, and when we pray for our world and the planet itself.

These prayers are not like vending machine prayers because they are based in an ever growing and deepening relationship of intimacy which we nurture by consciously practicing the presence of God. And God uses those prayers to help bring about the best possible outcomes. Our goodwill, our desire for healing and for wholeness helps to move the world closer to reconciliation with God.

And my third and final observation – its better together. Jesus once said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” (Matt 18:20) The power of prayer is multiplied exponentially when we pray together, when we combine our experiences of God and align our own wills and intentions.

We gather together on Sundays for liturgy – liturgy means the work of the people – in our prayers and in our hymns we are worshiping God, we are serving God and in the process we are ourselves formed. We are changed by the words and by the fellowship. And we are and are becoming the Body of Christ – the community of God, inspired and led by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes it seems like we are just saying the same old words but our prayers join with the prayers of millions around the world, and together, together we are the light of the world, moving all beings closer to wholeness as we ourselves are transformed into the people we were created to be.
 
 
 the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
 


[i][i] Fundamentally, a novel, Nussaibah Younis, PenguinRandomHouse, 2025