The Sunday Sermon: the Grace Margin

In our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures today, Elijah is tired. He has performed mighty and spectacular acts to show that the God of Israel is a living God. He has thrown down the altars of competing gods. He has killed 450 prophets of the god Baal. The signs Elijah has demonstrated have been excessive: big, showy signs of strength and power.

Elijah has just performed a particularly spectacular ritual that involved bulls, water, and fire. Jezebel, with her prophets decimated, threatens to kill Elijah. He gets scared, and he flees. He runs about 300 miles by foot into a cave, where we find him in this morning's reading.

Elijah has worked hard for God. I imagine him to be tired, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

God comes to Elijah. But God does not come in the way God has shown up for him in the past. While Elijah's past works with God have involved elaborate and ornate displays of power, this time God is not to be found in the wind, in the earthquakes, nor in the fire.

This time God is found in the sheer silence. And it is hard news. Elijah is being decommissioned. Elijah will always be a favored and treasured part of God's history with God's people, but it is time for a new way. A new prophet is being called- one that works differently than Elijah. There will not be as many spectacular shows of power as there were in Elijah's past. This new prophet will be less showy and work more subtly.

Frequently in the scriptures the people of God are challenged to change, to grow into a bigger understanding of God. Time and again, from the story of the exodus to Elijah to the story of the exile to the story of Jesus calling Israel to grow into to the way of love, it has been hard for the people of God to trust in the unfolding of God's love in bigger ways than we can imagine for ourselves.

Right now many of us are tired like Elijah. I am tired. I do not want to hear about change, much as I imagine Elijah did not. I would much have preferred to write a very comforting sermon, to feel somehow validated that we are ok for feeling adrift in a world that seems to have come loose from its moorings, to yearn to return to stable ground.

But I think both things are true-- that it is ok to feel adrift, and the story of the people of God asks us to embrace change. The gospel story this week is helping me with that.

That passage begins where we left off last week- with Jesus and the disciples tired and exhausted, grieving and reeling from the tragic news of the death of John the Baptist. As they sought a place to grieve and adjust to the change, they unexpectedly met a crowd. Jesus, rather than giving the disciples a day off because it had already been a long day, asked them to serve. To give. They fed the crowd, with miraculous results.

And now, even more tired, they seek refuge. So Jesus sends them ahead on a boat.

A boat or ship is a metaphor for the church. It has been so long since we have gathered in the building, I want to show you a part of it. We call the space where we gather the nave. Nave is a word that means ship. Often the building, as with our own, is designed to call to mind that metaphor, to remind us, the Church, that we are on this voyage together. The Church is not the building. But the building reminds us of who we, the Church, are called to be. We will weather the storms together. We will keep going. The buttresses of the beautiful Notre Dame cathedral that burned recently are said to symbolize oars. We are each called to take an oar on this metaphorical ship and row together to a destination. We row forward, to wherever God is calling us. To someplace new; to new life; to the yet fully unknown kingdom of God we hope and pray for.

This boat in our gospel story has been battered by waves, it faces strong winds. It is a hard journey. I think we can relate to that. But Jesus comes to them. He will arrive at the boat and lead the boat through.

Peter, always the eager one, decides he wants to leave the boat.

Jesus does not object, but the experiment is not exactly successful. It is the safety of the boat that leads through the storm. Jesus arrives in the boat, calms the storm, and leads the journey on safely. We are in this together. It is not by anyone jumping out and running ahead that the boat moves forward. It is by Jesus calming the storm that we can listen in the silence, grab an oar, and heed the direction of our navigator.

Many of us begin this month the anti-racism work of Sacred Ground. The work of anti-racism has always been a spiritual practice for me as a white person; a model for the white church- the whole church- to heed. It should be obvious that racism itself is evil. But the practices of anti-racism are central to the Christian faith: listening, valuing the other, being mindful of one's power and how it is used: the theme of wrestling with complacency and privilege as God calls us into something bigger than ourselves.

White privilege is always insisting that it is my right to jump out of the boat. That I deserve to meet Jesus first, or that this faith journey is only personal- it is private between Jesus and me. White privilege lies and says that like Peter, I should leave the other disciples behind in the boat, because there is something extra-special about me that makes it ok for me to abandon them. But Peter can't do it alone. Neither can we. Those reminders of humility, to listen, to stay connected: to be in the boat, valuing my traveling companions- those are some of the reasons why anti-racism are, for me, intricately connected to my faith.

I cannot love my neighbor if my faith is primarily an exercise in my own self-interest; if faith is a personal matter. The God I follow loves each and every one of us just as fiercely as he loves me. I cannot then develop a faith that ignores my impact or connectedness to any of those around me - to do so is the heart of privilege.

Whether you are participating in Sacred Ground or not, I want to offer this model developed by Eric Law as a template for being church.

See below for larger version 

Many consider the church to be a safe place; a kind of haven for personal healing. Certainly it is that, but that is only an entry point. The mission of the church is to change the world, to reconcile humanity with God and each other. If we stay in this comfort zone of personal healing, personal growth, and inward direction, we fail to live into the mission God gives us in the world. Congregations with large comfort zones tend to have large percentages of people who are the same age, the same race, or the same class. In this zone we can become complacent; we can stop listening to God's dream of living into a bigger vision for the world than our own minds can contemplate. We need varied voices to live into God's dream. None of us have claim on God's vision on our own. Without engaging difference we fall into complacency.

Conversely, if we have an 'anything goes' attitude-- if we truly embrace anyone, let's say, someone openly carrying a weapon in worship-- that may push us into a fear zone. It is hard to truly grow to know the other in this zone when we feel threatened. Navigating what is fearful requires an honest conversation. We all have different boundaries. "Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on your journey of faith you are welcome here" is aspirational, and I love that and use it often. But while we may want everyone to feel welcome, there are limits to who actually feels welcome and who we actually welcome when they show up. Being honest about those limits is important when negotiating what this fear zone boundary is. Is it using non traditional music in worship? Maybe it is the use of Spanish language in principal services? Where the boundary lies is not nearly as important as striving to be gentle, open, and aware that there is a boundary so that we are not disingenuous in our welcome to those who fall outside of it. Westart not by trying to move the boundary, but by naming it so that we can create a grace margin.

And that is the sweet spot, this middle spot, the grace margin. Congregations with big grace margins are comfortable with making safe, brave, and courageous space. There are intentions set in that kind of space-- it is less about who my friends are than it is about how I make space for people I would not normally associate with at coffee hour. In this space we make room for those assumptions to be named out loud, to give room for courage and vulnerability. St. Paul's has done a particularly good job of creating a large grace margin for those who live outside, and our hospitality for that group has been established carefully and thoughtfully over the years. We just negotiated a larger grace margin for children in worship with the prayground this winter. Where are our other opportunities?

Some congregations have thin grace margins. Others have large grace margins. If the expectations are not set well, we will retreat to the comfort zone when someone who does not fit the norm comes in from the fear zone. We retreat, like Elijah and so many others in our tradition, to retreating to what has worked for us in the past- but risk becoming closed to what God is doing now. In the grace margin, we set intentions to listen carefully, not for the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire that so rattle the world around us. Instead, in the grace margin, we act with intention to listen in the stillness to where God might be leading us in this great ship of the Church, together.

Right now we are in the process of growing our grace margin around race. That requires care, and thought, and deliberation. It requires thought and care to our group norms, liturgical practices, and customs: what pushes us into fear, and what draws us into complacency as a congregation? How shall we be intentional in a time of change about staying present to ambiguity, neither being fearful of change nor attempting to return too quickly to what is comfortable?

We are in this boat, my friends, and the waves and the winds are high. But Jesus comes to lead us to still waters, if we have the courage only to stay on this voyage, together- and be led by hope into something bigger than we can ask or imagine.

The Rev. Canon Jeff Martinhauk
Proper 14A, August 9, 2020
St. Paul's Cathedral, San Diego
1 Kings 19:9-18; Matt 14:22-33

The Sunday Sermon: You Give them Something to Eat

In the name of the holy Trinity, one God.

When I was a child in Ireland in the 60’s, my mother had a credit account at the butcher’s, the baker’s, the pharmacy, and the grocer’s. Each shop was small and specialized, and didn’t offer a wide array of choices. The advent of supermarkets changed our shopping habits, and when I came to the US and walked for the first time down a store aisle solely devoted to varieties of breakfast cereal, I was flabbergasted.

Much more recently, I have learned the term “food desert”- a neighborhood, typically in a city, where there are no choices at all, where the only place within walking distance where you can buy food is the 7-11 or the tiny ethnic market. Both of these – the cereal aisle of 100 choices and the food desert – co-exist in our nation. And something about that seems wrong to me.

The passage we heard from Matthew’s Gospel picks up just after the death of John the Baptist. You might remember that he was imprisoned by King Herod for telling truth to power, and subsequently murdered in jail when Herod’s teenage stepdaughter demanded John’s head as her reward for entertaining the king’s guests. We know that Herod hesitated but then gave in because he was unwilling to lose face in front of his powerful friends. The prophet was killed, essentially, on the whim of a despotic ruler in order to preserve his fragile ego.

What a terrible waste of a life. No wonder Jesus wanted to go off on his own to grieve the senseless loss of his cousin. The juxtaposition of these two stories is significant. Herod throws a lavish feast for the rich and powerful, with an outcome leading to death; and then Jesus throws a party for hungry people and offers them abundant life.

The miracle of the loaves and fishes is very familiar, and with good reason: the story is told six times in the four Gospels. It’s the only miracle told by all four Evangelists, and Matthew and Mark both thought it was good enough to tell twice. It is clearly one of the most important stories about Jesus that we have.

Jesus wants to grieve in peace, but the crowds won’t leave him alone. They are hungry, starving for good news. They are oppressed, afraid, voiceless, ruled by leaders they cannot trust, regarded as barely human by the occupying forces, seeking a word of comfort, of encouragement, yearning to be fed w

ith God’s word, God’s love. And, by the way, they are people of color.

And Jesus, even in his grief, cannot deny them. He is the word of God incarnate. The whole purpose of his life on earth is to embody God’s love. He is moved in his very being by the needy people before him. He has compassion for them – you might remember a few weeks ago when our preacher talked about that word compassion, and how the original term means a twisting of the guts, a visceral compulsion to reach out in solidarity to those who are suffering. Jesus cannot help but love these people.

But evening comes and the shadows lengthen, and the disciples realize that they have a huge problem: five thousand men, plus women and children, in a deserted place, as dinner time looms. They are in a food desert, not even a Quik-Mart in sight. How are these people going to be fed? Send them away, they tell Jesus. This is beyond us. But Jesus shocks them with his response: YOU give them something to eat.

Oof: that one landed right between my eyes. YOU give them something to eat. YOU take care of these crowds in food deserts both physical and spiritual, these people who cannot feed their families with a full-time job, these people who are hungry to hear God’s word and feel God’s love. YOU offer hope to those who suffer from injustice, YOU offer comfort to those who fear losing their privileged place in the world.

The disciples turn out their backpacks and come up with a few snacks. Jesus takes the bread and blesses it in front of the crowd. Perhaps he uses the words of our Psalm: Blessed are you, Lord God: “the eyes of all look upon you and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.” As he reminds his listeners of their relationship to God the open-handed giver of all good things, they think of what they have in their pockets. How can it be right to eat my picnic when the person next to me has nothing? And a miracle happens, and people are fed, community is created, and God is present.

When everyone pitches in, when we all empty our pockets and open our hands to pool our resources, there is plenty for everyone. Some of you have donated your COVID subsidy to the church or to other non-profits, because you don’t need it. Some of you have made special donations with the money you could have spent on vacations or eating out.

Loaves and fishes. This is the true miracle of faith, when human beings overcome our fear of scarcity and our tendency to hoard, and instead share freely what we have with those who have less. Our national myth of rugged individualism has corrupted our sense of communal responsibility. It is act

ually a blessing to have enough to be able to share: that’s where we are blessed by God, not by building bigger barns like the rich fool in Luke’s Gospel. In the wealthiest country in the world, people go to bed hungry. This is a scandal and a sin, but it’s one that we can mend, if we work on it together.

If we were sharing the Eucharist today, this Gospel would be an obvious lead-in to the sacramental part of our worship. As it is, we are fed by God’s word alone in this season, while we witness the growing hunger of our neighbors in the face of an ever-worsening economic catastrophe. What can we do with our meager resources?

Perhaps we have more than we realize. We have a rich and vital community, coming together online every day of the week to pray, to read Scripture, to learn and grow together. We have a depth of tradition on which to draw, teaching us that all are welcome. We have hearts for service and for generosity, demonstrated by those who donate clothing and who regularly make gifts to our pastoral needs fund. We have 100 people who want to learn how to dismantle the injustices of racism. We have much to offer to this hungry world.  “You give them something to eat,” says Jesus. Yes, let’s do that. Let’s share what God has given us, and we will all be blessed. Amen.

August 2 2020

The Very Rev Penelope Bridges

You Give Them Something to Eat

The Sunday Sermon: The Surprising Joy of Pentecost

We are given two very different Pentecost stories today. The story in Acts 2, with the crowds and the flames and the multiple languages and the accusations of drunkenness, is the familiar one. And with good reason: what a great story it makes! Noise, color, drama: all the elements that make the Bible fun. But then we turn to the Gospel and find a very different story. It isn’t 50 days after Easter, but the evening of Easter Day. It isn’t a public spectacle but a private gathering, behind locked doors, a fearful and grieving group of friends who receive, not tongues of fire but a gentle breeze as Jesus breathes on them, blowing new life into them, giving them direction, raising them from the edge of the tomb and offering the peace that passes all understanding.  

The flames of the Acts story seem particularly appropriate today, after another night of protests and looting in cities across this land. But the John story resonates too, with its dynamics of fear, being in lockdown, and the intimacy of breath that can carry either life-giving Spirit or death-dealing virus. And Oh, how we need that peace that passes all understanding, in the midst of this time of rage and grief over the unjust and cruel treatment of people of color. 

Today is the birthday of the Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery. We have learned over these last months that Church is not a building. Church is an intentional community of people who would act as the hands and feet of Christ in the world, joined together by their love of God and neighbor, committed to reconciliation, peace, and justice for all of God’s creation. That is what we celebrate today, and what we hope for. 

What I love about both of our Pentecost stories is the surprise element. In Acts, the disciples are surprised to hear the Gospel in different languages coming out of their own mouths, while the people around them are stunned to hear good news in words they can understand. In John, the last thing the disciples are expecting on Easter night is for Jesus, whom they have just seen dead on the cross, to show up in their midst, living and breathing and commissioning them to do the work he had been doing, work of healing and forgiveness on God’s behalf.  

Our God is the God of surprises. Again and again in Scripture it’s the youngest or the least likely who is called to carry the promise forward and to do great things for God. Jacob, younger twin, morally challenged, becomes the patriarch of the twelve tribes.  Joseph, 11th of 12 sons, saves Israel from famine. Ruth, a childless widow from a foreign land, becomes the grandmother of David. David himself, just a boy who watches the sheep, becomes king. Mary, a teenager in a backwater of an occupied territory, is called to bear the son of God. And now a bunch of uneducated would-be revolutionaries receive the gift of tongues and are sent out to preach the Gospel in the language of the people, even to the ends of the earth. If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that the Holy Spirit will surprise us, will stretch our imagination, will challenge our comfort levels. 


And in our own time, who could have imagined a year ago that 100,000 Americans would die from a newly-hatched virus, that the global economy would shudder to a halt, that we would have to adapt our faith practices to online platforms? Who could have imagined even a week ago that protests over police brutality would erupt into violence, just as we were starting to hope that the pandemic might be past its worst. Our world is as deeply broken today as it has even been. While the virus still ravages cities and nations, the forces of division seek to stir up hatred and prejudice; black Americans continue to meet horrendous and undeserved deaths; the poor continue to get poorer, and refugees continue to suffer.  

And yet the Holy Spirit abides with us. Our church experience these past three months has been just as dramatic as that of the disciples on the first Pentecost. We have found ourselves preaching the Gospel in ways we never dreamed of, reaching people far beyond the walls of the church building, bringing prayer into people’s homes, even through locked doors of fear and anxiety. And as we let go of expecting people to come to church, instead bringing church to the people, we bring Jesus with us, and we hear his voice all over again, saying, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus has gifted us with the Holy Spirit and commissioned us to be the church in the world, to learn new languages, to open the locked doors of fear, to make peace, and to allow God to speak through us. 

The message of God’s love, once we accept it, is an irresistible source of joy. If we allow Jesus into our locked hearts, we will discover the new gifts that lie dormant within us. If we allow the Spirit to guide our steps we will have a treasure to offer that our neighbors desperately need: a community of love that communicates in every possible language that God is with us, that God is the source of all knowledge and all wisdom, that God desires for us all to be free of fear and live abundantly, to be the beloved community, to embrace all people and create a kinder, more connected, and more loving world. 


May 31 2020 
Pentecost Sunday
The Very Rev. Penelope Bridges 

The Sunday Sermon: The Unknown God

Have you heard the one about the extraterrestrial visitor who landed in one of our cities? They saw the shopping malls crowded and the churches empty and reported back to the mother ship that the shopping malls housed the object of worship for our species. Well, today both the malls and the churches are empty, and an extraterrestrial visitor would have a hard time finding a crowd anywhere.

But we can imagine the apostle Paul arriving in Athens, the intellectual capital of his world, as a first-time visitor from a faraway place, noticing the statues and shrines on every street corner, and quickly figuring out what was important to the locals. It was evident to Paul that the Athenians believed in God – in many gods. The Greek pantheon comprised some 25 major gods and goddesses. Each one had his or her own portfolio: Poseidon oversaw the oceans, Athena was the patron of wisdom and strategy, Ares was the god of war and Aphrodite the goddess of beauty, love, and desire; and so on. They all had some things in common: they lived within the created order, not above or beyond it; they exhibited all the qualities, good and bad, of humanity; and they seemed to regard human beings as playthings, to be used or discarded at will. Athenians would make offerings to the altar of the god who seemed most likely to solve a particular problem; so sailors would pray to Poseidon, lovers to Aphrodite.

And then there were the shrines to the Unknown God: this was a kind of religious insurance in case there was a deity out there who wasn’t getting his or her due. The gods could be petty and vindictive, and you didn’t want to offend them. You might know that feeling, when you start to thank a list of people and then you forget that one person who gets so offended that they were left out. That’s what the Greek gods were like.

So Paul, as a brilliant evangelist, starts his speech where the Athenians already are: I see that you are very religious with all your gods; I see that you even acknowledge the existence of a God whom you don’t yet know. Paul builds on the faith the Athenians already have, and then he invites them to expand that faith, to make their notion of God bigger, more cosmic, more embracing – less … human. God isn’t a marble statue, God isn’t the emperor, God isn’t a mischievous sprite: God is something greater than we can even imagine, in whom we live and move and have our being. God is continuously revealing new aspects of God’s self to us, continuously calling us to new creation, new life. And this God, this mighty, cosmic, creator God, loves us human beings as a mother loves her children. This God has no portfolio and no agenda except to love us and to love the whole creation.

And that’s what Jesus is all about. If you love me, he says. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And do you remember what his new commandment was? To love each other as he has loved us. As our presiding bishop likes to say, if it’s not about love, it’s not about Jesus. Everything we do as followers of Jesus should be fueled by love: how we relate to each other, how we read the news, how we observe social distancing, how we spend our money, how we will use our new building. I’ve recently had the blessing of conversations with parishioners who shared their stories, witnessing to their own vulnerability and their willingness to be transformed by love. That’s what it means to be part of the Jesus movement: a willingness to be transformed by love. Jesus says that if we love as he has loved us, the Holy Spirit will abide in us, not just in each of us individually but in the midst of our community of love. The disciples don’t understand, of course: the Advocate, the one whom God sends to abide in them, is a new revelation of God, named by Jesus just as the Unknown God was named by Paul. There is no unknown God when we know the God of love. There are different faces of God: the loving parent, the obedient and self-giving Son, the fiery Spirit, all one God, the God who made heaven and earth, and who is with us now.

We have a lot in common with those ancient Athenians. We are well-educated and intellectual; we seek and grope for God in any number of places; and we have our many idols. I wonder, what are your street-corner gods? What are the fickle deities that you are afraid to offend? Maybe the god of financial security. Maybe the god of family harmony. Maybe the god of expectations, or of professional achievement, or of youth. When you hear Paul naming the unknown God as the God of love who created all things and loves all things into being, are you able to turn away from those smaller gods and follow where Jesus leads us? And are you able to embrace the new ways in which God is being revealed to us in this particular time? We are not alone on this journey to abundant life: the Holy Spirit, comforter and guide, abides among us. In this unsettling and anxious moment, with conflicting messages and little clarity about the way ahead for our world, we can let go of our fears and rest in God’s unfailing love. Remember what we heard in the Psalm? “Bless our God, you peoples, make the voice of God’s praise to be heard; who holds our souls in life and will not allow our feet to slip.”

May 17, 2020: the Sixth Sunday of Easter
The Very Rev Penelope Bridges

The Sunday Sermon: The Shepherd’s Way

Alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Is there any text more comforting than the 23rd Psalm? The certainty of that first verse never fails to encourage me: the Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not be in want. I want the kind of faith that can say that and believe it 100%, but I will admit to you that I can’t always say I have it.

This extended isolation period challenges my faith: I am in want. Not for material things: I am blessed with a comfortable home, a steady income; but I am in want of community, of freedom of movement, of hugs and handshakes. But I still recite this Psalm with conviction, because I know that God is present in this, as God is present in every moment of our lives. And I know that if I hold fast to my faith, as imperfect as it might be, God will lead me to green pastures and still waters; God will revive my soul when it is fainting and guide me in right pathways.

The good shepherd comes to bring life and abundance; the good shepherd leads his flock out of danger; the good shepherd shares the life of the sheep and knows every detail of their joys and sorrows.

Many of us are living in uncharted territory. Who could have imagined an America where you couldn’t go to a restaurant or a ballgame? Who could have imagined a time when we couldn’t gather in church and couldn’t even feel confident that we would ever gather in church again? We are being forced to find new ways to be the people of God, to explore new pathways and look for different pastures. What will it mean to be a Christian in a post-pandemic world?

After the first Easter, the disciples had to find a new way to be the people of God. They were steeped in the Jewish tradition and part of a highly stratified culture. Economic divisions were deep; slavery was part of their world and, at the other end of the socioeconomic scale, the rulers of Rome claimed to be divine. Those first Christians were still Jews. They clung to the symbolic center of their national faith, the Temple in Jerusalem. They worshiped there constantly, but they were becoming aware that the Jewish authorities disapproved of their resurrection faith. The next thing that happens in Acts, after today’s passage, is a story of how Peter and John miraculously cured a man in the Temple precincts, after which Peter preached a courageous and provocative sermon about the Messiah. That was the beginning of the end of the Christian sojourn within the Temple and within the mainstream Jewish religion. Very shortly thereafter, they were on their own, faced with the need to invent something entirely new.

The verses we heard from Acts today paint an idyllic picture of the first days after Pentecost, before conflict and power struggles started to creep in. The disciples were united, all of one heart and mind. They shared everything. They did signs and wonders. They served the poor. They prayed together, studied Scripture together, broke bread together. These six verses encapsulate what many of us would like the church to be today – even though some of it comes perilously close to a definition of that dreaded word, socialism.

The new Christians were inventing a whole new way of being the people of God. They introduced new rituals, baptism and Communion. They adopted a radical practice of flattening demographic divisions, regarding each person as a beloved child of God, nothing less and nothing more. Whether you were a slave or an aristocrat, when you joined the Way, you simply became a brother or sister in Christ. Those with plenty gave up their abundance to provide others with enough. Just think for a minute of what it would take for us to adopt these practices today. We would be regarded as a radical sect. We would look different from most other congregations. We would face pushback from family members, colleagues, and neighbors.

For the new community, there were big fights ahead: over membership – should the men be circumcised? Was baptism in the Holy Spirit necessary? Over authority – who would be in charge? Was it only the original apostles who could speak for Jesus, or could others? Were women permitted to speak or lead? Over the nature of Jesus himself – was he fully divine, fully human, a bit of both? All this unfolded over the next few decades, and in some cases we are still arguing over it.

In this beginning time, the disciples were trying to sort out how to be church. They could no longer rely on the hierarchy or the tradition to tell them what to do. They were developing ways of worship that were unfamiliar and even offensive to the people around them – remember that non-Christians believed that Christians were cannibals, because of the fake news they heard about the Eucharist. In this tender time the disciples needed community more than ever. They needed to stick together as a flock, under the one good Shepherd.

In those early days a lot of the disciples believed that Jesus would return very soon to redeem Israel and usher in the Kingdom. So they held back from creating structures and rules because it was all temporary. But soon enough that hope started to fade, and by the time John’s Gospel was written, the Christian community had realized that they were in for the long haul, and they started to create the structure of membership, of insiders and outsiders, of walls and gates, of doctrinal requirements that would maintain what they regarded as the purity of the faith; and all of this held fast for the next couple of thousand years.

And today, where are we in this story? We are starting to realize that the changes forced upon us by the COVID 19 epidemic might not be short-term. They might not even be temporary. When will we feel comfortable cramming together in a crowded church, drinking from a common cup, handling shared hymnals and collection plates, placing our hands on an altar rail that 20 other people have just touched? Maybe we are in a place similar to those first Christians, of having to figure out how to be church all over again. Today none of us knows when or how we will be able to gather in community again. And, like those first Christians, in this uncertain time we need to stick together as a flock, even if only virtually, under the one good Shepherd. And we need to hold fast to our faith that this good Shepherd is still with us, watching over us, and guiding us to those green pastures ahead.

Alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

May 3, 2020, the Fourth Sunday of Easter
The Very Rev Penelope Bridges

The Sunday Sermon: walking towards the light

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Today is the third Sunday in these 50 days of Easter. By now, if you’ve been attending worship, you have heard Matthew’s story of how the risen Christ appeared to the two Marys; you’ve heard John’s story of how Mary Magdalene mistook the risen Savior for the gardener; and you’ve heard John’s story of how Jesus appeared to the disciples in a locked room on the evening of the first Easter Day, and again a week later when Thomas was with them.

Today’s Gospel is still focused on Easter Day, and now it’s Luke’s turn to tell us his Easter story. Early in the morning, Luke tells us, the women went to the tomb and saw a vision of angels who shared the good news; they didn’t see Jesus himself. But when the women went to the disciples with the angels’ announcement, the men didn’t believe them. Now it is evening and two of those disciples are walking home, dejected, grieving, deeply disappointed, wondering what the future would hold, now that their hopes have been dashed. The women’s announcement seemed like an idle tale to them – after all, the courts didn’t value the evidence of women, so why should they? Like Thomas, these disciples would believe only the evidence of their own eyes.

Brain scientists tell us that we see what we expect to see. Our brains fill in gaps in what our eyes observe, and conversely we see what our brain tells us to see. Maybe you’ve seen the experiment where you are instructed to count passes in a basketball game; after the video ends, the researcher asks if you saw the gorilla. What gorilla? You told me to watch a basketball game and that’s what I saw. When the video is rerun you see that a guy in a gorilla suit walked right through the middle of the game. How could you have missed him? Your brain failed to recognize a gorilla because you were set up only to see the basketball game. These two disciples, Cleopas and his companion – maybe his spouse – were deep in grief. They knew that Jesus was dead. They had discounted the women’s story, so they had no reason to think that the stranger who caught up with them on the road might be Jesus come back from the dead. And Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey guys, it’s me – I’m back.” It’s almost like he plays with them, scolding them gently for their lack of understanding, teaching them the whole salvation story that has led to this moment, and even turning away as they reach their destination.

It’s only when they invite him in, when they share their meal with him, that he permits them to recognize him. He allows them to continue in their grief and uncertainty, giving them the opportunity to move through their loss, to tell their story, to reach their safe haven and find comfort in the ordinary tasks of preparing a meal, before he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and shares it with them, just as he had done on the night before he was arrested. And in this moment, after the teaching, after the grief-filled journey, after the hospitality and the sharing, in this moment they realize who has been with them all along. And in a beautiful turn of phrase Luke tells us that they rose up – he actually uses the term for resurrection – and they rushed back to the city to share the good news that they now, finally, believed. The Lord is risen indeed!

In all the years I have been preaching on this story, I think this is the first time that I haven’t preached it in the context of the Eucharist. It makes my heart hurt that we cannot share Communion today, after hearing how Jesus comes to us and is made known in the breaking of the bread. But it also offers an opportunity to look at the story from a new angle, and in this strange time of Covid-19 we are being invited to look at all kinds of things from new angles. We have all gone through an experience of profound loss over the last couple of months. We have missed our friends, despaired over our retirement savings, worried about our vulnerable loved ones, been disappointed by the endless cancellations, raged at the inconsistent messages of the media. We have lost a way of life that, even if it wasn’t ideal, was at least familiar.

Two months ago we were walking a well-worn path towards Lent and Easter, as familiar to us as the path from Jerusalem to Emmaus was for Cleopas and his companion. But that path took some twists and turns, and it became a path of fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, of loneliness and grief. Suddenly, this Lent wasn’t just about giving up luxuries, it was about giving up our core communities, our dreams, even our jobs. And when Easter came, we were still on that same path. Like those two disciples, Easter had come but we were still in the dark place.

When you walk a path that you have known well, you tend to stop noticing details along the way. You might be focused on getting from A to B, automatically avoiding the uneven pavement here, the overgrown hedge there. And then something happens that makes you pay attention. The two disciples were walking a road they had walked many times before, but this time there was someone with them, someone who was opening their eyes to the story behind the Messiah, someone who was teaching them to appreciate God’s goodness and mercy in a new way, someone who was leading them gently through the darkness to the light.

I have been walking my neighborhood every day since the stay-home order began. I find that I am noticing some things I haven’t seen before. The view across Mission Valley is much clearer because there is less pollution from traffic. I am present to the natural world in a new way, because there is time for me to pay attention. I see details of the flowers; I see the hummingbirds. My sister, who has been with me for six weeks, has been my mentor in this: she is an artist and she paints the flowers we see each day, catching the details of their beauty. She has planted the tops of carrots and the roots of spinach, so we can watch them grow. She has caught wild yeast from the air and made sourdough bread.

There is so much to observe and enjoy that I wasn’t noticing before. Maybe this is where God is for me in this time, walking beside me and showing me the glory of creation. Maybe God is somewhere in this strange world of the internet, hovering behind the faces on Zoom, quietly teaching us about the meaning of community and sacrament through their absence, teaching us to be faithful through loss and change, to find new ways to recognize the risen Lord as we break bread at home, as we spend time alone, as we adjust our family relationships.

Today we cannot take, bless, break, and share the bread and wine of Communion. But we can know Christ and make him known in our gathering as his body, in the ministry that we offer each other and our neighbors, and in the hope we share of a new and better world on the other side of this. Risen Lord, be known to us in the fellowship and prayers of your church.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.

April 26, 2020
The Third Sunday of Easter and Creation Care Sunday
The Very Rev. Penelope Bridges

The Sunday Sermon: pursued by Jesus (Apr 19)

The gospel for this morning hits close to home. The disciples are closed up in a house behind closed doors, fearful.

They were fearful of those who had killed Jesus, and it calls to mind our own situation as we sit behind locked doors afraid, or at least anxious, of COVID-19, the virus that has killed so many.

Fear and isolation set the stage for this resurrection appearance of Jesus.

The followers of Jesus are in shock. They have lost their leader. John makes especially clear that Easter is not a light switch; it is not a single moment in time where the followers of Jesus suddenly become filled with joy and start making Easter Eggs or chocolate bunnies.

No, especially in John, New life comes in waves. Mary discovers an empty tomb. She leaves, confused- she has not yet discovered new life. She shares news of Jesus' missing body with Peter and others, who explore the tomb themselves. Then, Mary returns to the tomb to have an encounter with Jesus, whom she first mistakes for the gardener, finally realizing that Jesus has risen. Easter comes gradually to different people in different places. The loss of Jesus was traumatic, and his death won't be overcome instantaneously.

And so now, later on the very same day that Mary discovered that empty tomb, many of the disciples are gathered in a locked room. They are still afraid. And in this fearful state, Jesus comes to them, like he did to Mary. Jesus comes through doors locked with fear, and he shows them his wounds. And he says, 'Peace be with you.'

Many of us grew up with this story in Sunday School hearing Thomas cast as the bad guy. 'Doubting Thomas,' he has been named through the years. In more recent years, Thomas has been seen in a more nuanced light, though. Thomas wasn't in the room with the disciples. We don't know why. Maybe he wasn't as scared as they were and he was out in the town. We just don't know. But Thomas hears the account of Jesus coming to the disciples and giving them peace. Thomas is yet another party in this gradual Easter. He simply wants the same peace the other disciples have received from Jesus.

Mary has seen Jesus. Other disciples have seen him. And Jesus, the good shepherd, the seeker of lost sheep, doesn't forget Thomas as he demands the same peace the others have had.. Jesus pursues Thomas. Through locked doors again. For Thomas this time, Jesus comes. Patiently, Jesus allows Thomas to see it is him, let's him touch his wounds. And, when Thomas is satisfied, Jesus grants him peace.

Easter is not something that happens all at once. Easter happens in different ways, at different times. Every year, my favorite part of the Great Vigil of Easter is the precise moment of the Easter Proclamation in the middle of the service. That is the moment when the lights are brought up, and the organ plays bright music, and the mood changes from dark to light, and we start saying Alleluias again.

For me it has always been the signpost that Easter is here! But this year, I think many of us are realizing that the original Easter, in fact the real Easter that plays out in our lives in so many ways in so many times, has very little of that kind of precision.

Easter, rather, seems to be a liminal space if we are to take the gospel of John seriously. It is a gradual transition, from death to life, of things which have been cast down which are being raised up, of things which have grown old which are being made new, it is not a singular point in time. The gospel does not focus on a narrator's perspective of what happened to Jesus' body in the tomb, describing some concrete moment in time when Jesus' lifeless body was reanimated. Instead, we are directed to focus on the liminal space that the followers of Jesus had to navigate as the resurrected Jesus made his rounds. They are changed. We are changed. It is Easter, but the joy comes slowly.

Now, as we settle into a full month of secluding behind locked doors for fear of infection in this pandemic, we are starting to look forward. It is becoming clearer and clearer that our path ahead is not simply turning back the switch on normalcy. Instead, we will go through waves and stages. This will be a long transition; an expanded liminal space as we grapple globally with a new way of being for some time.

Transitions, these liminal spaces, they are scary. The good news in the gospel is that Jesus pursues the disciples, and he offers them peace in the midst of the liminal space. When Thomas expresses dismay, at not believing new life can work, Jesus pursues him, comforts him; offers him a way forward. The wounds do not disappear. But new life comes, nonetheless.

And so, here we are, behind our locked doors. Something is happening in the world around us, something is happening that we don't understand. Like Thomas, sometime or another most of us cry out for Jesus to pursue us, to seek us out, to prove he is truly among us, to offer us reassurance of peace.

So, dear people of God- Thomases and Marys, disciples and doubters- know this. Jesus pursues you. Cry out! Lift your voices high to heaven and demand, like Thomas, to be heard.

Like those thousands of years ago, we are in a time of grief, a time of collective loss, a time where we need to be gentle with ourselves as hurt piles upon hurt, and wound upon wound.

So name those things to the One who pursues you. Because you are pursued, just like Thomas. In all your longing, in all your isolation; in all your hurt, in all the suffering of this world; the one who comes through locked doors, and bears his body comes for you to grant you peace, and to bring hope of a new day. And to remind you that you-- that we-- are not finished here.

Because you are made for one thing: To be beloved of God, and to be pursued no matter how isolated, no matter how quarantined, no matter how ill or healthy, and no matter what this world can come up with. Take heart, and believe: there is new life!

The Rev. Canon Jeff Martinhauk
Easter 2A, April 19, 2020
St. Paul's Cathedral, San Diego
John 20:19-31

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Sources Consulted:
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4434
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5426

Homily, Great Vigil

We are in the dark. We don’t know when this thing will end. We don’t know if we or people we love will become ill. We don’t know who is telling the truth.

We are in the dark and we need the light of Christ.

This year, more than ever, we need Easter.

In Ezekiel’s story of the dry bones, we see a valley of death. It is a lifeless place of dry bones, merely the faint memory of life. It feels hopeless. But as soon as God begins to speak, hope is born. Can these bones live? A shocking question that we would not dare to ask. But for God, nothing is impossible, and when God asks the question, we know the answer is yes. Yes, these bones can live. Yes, the darkness will end. Yes, the light of Christ will burn brightly and lead us from the edge of the grave back to life.

Over and over we see in Scripture that God brings life out of death. The people of God are liberated. The desert blooms. The boy Isaac is saved. The bones live. In this challenging time, we are tempted to think only about death. We hear the statistics, the number of those infected, sick, or who have died, and the temptation is to think only about the death. But Easter tells us that death isn’t the end of the story. This pandemic will end and the people of God will come back together to celebrate the life that is God’s free gift to us all. Just as the cathedral lights will come on and the organ start up when the Bishop proclaims Easter, so the lights will some day come back on in the world and life will return to our streets, schools, and industries.

But I dare to hope that it won’t return to normal. Our society had become like a spoiled child, never satisfied with what we had, paying little attention to those who had less, forgetting to take time with our loved ones and putting our own wants ahead of the common good. This time of enforced isolation, of extended time with some family members and cruel separation from others, this time of doing without new clothes, manicures, vacation trips, and parties; this shared experience could redirect us to be more family-oriented, to reprioritize our habits and our spending, to become more aware of the humanity that we share woth every other human being. This time, as hard as it is, could be the salvation of our culture, if it moves us away from the consumerism and toxic politics that have all but destroyed any shared value of community spirit.

My Easter hope this year is that there will be a cultural shift in our world; that, just as the world changed for ever when Jesus rose from the dead, so, when our world rises from its viral sickbed, there will be a new normal, a normal that brings us closer together and enables us to see more clearly the Christ in each other. To see, we need light, and the Paschal Candle reminds us that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. We need the risen Christ to go ahead of us, to lead us from the dark tomb to a new place of light.

The Exsultet hymn calls us to rejoice tonight as the light shines out. For this is the night when everything changes. This is the night when we pass with Christ from darkness to light, from sin to redemption, from death to life. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, ever burn in our hearts, and may we come to know the full joy of Easter. Amen.

The Great Vigil of Easter, April 11, 2020
TVR Penelope Bridgesv Preached after the Vigil readings

The Sunday Sermon: Transfiguration

We’ve all seen the movie: a story of the relationship between a grouch, and a high-spirited kid; the tension between them grows to a dramatic crisis, and is followed by the grouch’s transformation into a kindly grandparent, and the happy if tear-inducing ending. There is always a turning point in this formula where someone’s worldview is transformed. They are looking with the same eyes but something has shifted and they see what they never saw before.

Our Scripture readings today tell us that first Moses and then Jesus go on retreat with their closest friends. They have mountaintop experiences. They are transfigured, transformed by their encounter with God, a transformation that is clearly visible to those around them and informs their relationships going forward.

Perhaps you can recall an experience of seeing someone in a whole new light: a parent who becomes frail and vulnerable, a friend or a teacher whom you see in an unfamiliar context. Perhaps there was a moment when you saw Christ in someone for the first time. Imagine then what it was like for Peter, James, and John to see their rabbi transfigured and in the company of the prophets Moses and Elijah, the legendary heroes of their faith. Of course they were changed by the experience. And of course they were startled, even terrified, by the divine voice that proclaimed Jesus to be more than a prophet: this is my Son, the Beloved.

The disciples knew, from the stories of Moses, that it was dangerous to get too close to God: the Exodus story tells us that the presence of God was like a devouring fire. And now these three fishermen, who walked with Jesus every day, were being told that their friend and teacher was in fact the presence of God in their midst.

These last few weeks we’ve been hearing stories of how the mission of Jesus was made known to the people of Israel. At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter has just acclaimed Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, only to be told that this Messiah will not liberate Israel from oppressive rule but will be betrayed and murdered. Now, on the mountaintop, Peter and the others witness a sort of commissioning of Jesus as Messiah, by both the ancient prophets and by God speaking from the cloud, just as God had once spoken to Moses out of the cloud.

The contrast between the ancient Hebrew understanding of God as a dangerous and destructive presence and Emanuel, the God who comes among us, is driven home by Jesus reaching out and touching the trembling disciples, reassuring them and telling them there is nothing to fear. This is a divine presence that heals and doesn’t hurt. And this experience of God is, in a nutshell, the uniquely good news of our Christian faith: that the all-powerful and transcendent God, who made the heavens and the earth, is willing to be one of us, to reach out with healing hands and words, to enter into the reality of this broken world so that the light can shine in the darkest places.

This week I saw the movie “Just Mercy”. The plot, based on a true story, revolves around the experience of a newly-minted lawyer seeking justice for Death Row inmates in Alabama. The men on Death Row live in the valley of the shadow. They have foreseen their death just as Jesus does in the Gospel. And some, like Jesus, are innocent of any crime.

“Just Mercy” opens with one of the main characters cutting down a tree and gazing up at the revealed gap, meditating on the serene beauty of the surrounding treetops waving in the breeze with a brilliantly blue sky behind them. Later in the movie, in a particularly dark and painful moment, the same character, now on Death Row, closes his eyes and relives that vision, which he has mentally stored away for just such a moment as this.

What have been your mountaintop experiences? When have you glimpsed the glory of God? Surely most of us have some memory of a shining moment that sustains us in difficult times.

The nature of a mountaintop experience is that it is fleeting, however much we, like Peter, try to hold onto it. The music ends, the flower withers, the surprise becomes routine, and sooner or later we have to come back down the mountain to face reality.

Jesus is the beloved son of God, but that doesn’t change the grim fate that awaits him. He and the disciples must still walk on to Jerusalem, sustained by the memory of that mountaintop moment and strengthened in their vision of the Kingdom of God, a world where love and justice and wholeness prevail over hatred and greed and prejudice.

If we can enter into the Transfiguration story and put ourselves in the place of the disciples, we too can experience the healing touch of Jesus. We too can hear him say, “get up and do not be afraid.” We too can draw on the shining certainty that the Kingdom of God is among us, not only in those transfiguring moments but potentially in every moment, if we only pay attention. We can be changed by this encounter, changed so that we become true disciples, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, seeking to become like him, casting his vision for others and making it real.

In “Just Mercy” the young lawyer is changed by his work with Death Row inmates. He has been chastened and abused, his heart broken, his expectations dashed, by his experience. The law and justice don’t always coincide. The systemic racism is deeply embedded. He has witnessed suffering that he couldn’t have imagined. But he has seen the face of Jesus in those inmates on death row. And so he keeps on keeping on.

Last weekend, at the diocesan leadership academy Christian Gillette, newly hired canon for evangelism and discipleship, asked us to consider if being a Christian and being a disciple are the same thing. Discipleship is challenging. It’s easy to go to church, but much harder to actually change your life in the pursuit of learning to be like Jesus. The hard question for each of us is, how much do I want to be like Jesus? What am I willing to give up? Is that vision of a just and peaceful world, of abundant life for every human being, beautiful enough to make me change my life?

At this point in the church year, just before Lent, we are gazing down a wilderness path that leads to the cross. It’s the toughest six weeks of the year. Some people may stop attending church. Some may stay away in Holy Week. And some will walk all the way with Jesus, because the vision that he holds out to us is so compelling, so glorious, that we will endure the discomfort, the darkness, and the guilt of being part of that crowd who shout “Crucify him”, for the sake of bringing that vision just a little closer to reality.

For the lawyer in “Just Mercy”, his Gospel vision of justice called him to persevere, to fight, to keep going regardless of threats and abuse, until his client was exonerated; and even then he didn’t stop. His organization, the Equal Justice Initiative, continues to work today on behalf of those who don’t have access to legal counsel.

This journey of faith will give us moments, mountaintop experiences when someone or something is transfigured and we gain a new insight. But most of the time we will be down in the valley, trudging doggedly in the footsteps of our Savior. And with each step, we will come closer to personal transformation, to the glory that will transfigure you and me. So put on your sandals and take up your walking stick: it’s time to set out for Jerusalem.

The Very Rev Penelope Bridges
February 23,2020

The Sunday Sermon: Costly Grace

Grace. I am for it. If I were asked to sum up my theology in one word, it would be “grace.” I don’t think we act on grace enough in the church. Grace is all about the gifts freely given to us that we cannot earn; about the ways in which God loves us that are not like the ways of this world; the gifts that are not payment for services rendered, are not transactional, are not in our power to repay, and are not in our control even. As one of my mentors used to say, the whole of the good news can be summed up simply this way: grace trumps.

At the Rooted in Jesus conference that several of us went to recently and haven’t been able to stop talking about, one of the presenters noted some things about the 21st century relationship with God that I think affect our relationship with grace.

It is assumed in our world today that it is possible to live a full and fulfilling life without any relationship to a transcendent God. That hasn’t always been true.

Today’s culture also implies that spiritual power is within us. That hasn’t always been true.

There have been unintended consequences for the victory of critical thought in modernity. Institutions are in decline. They are no longer needed to propagate thought and to convey information from one generation to another. The source of authority has moved from family and institutions to the self. A major complication with this development is that individuals have to find their own way-- how something feels has become the judge of what is true. If people don’t like how something feels, if people don’t feel like they are helping then they move to something else.

So how do we find grace in an environment that is fluid and fragile? When the very nature of grace is the ability to receive transcendent gifts that may make us feel powerless, the result in these situations may be to make us feel unworthy. And that may leave us feeling like it's time to move on in search of something that justifies us rather than sitting with the overwhelming gifts that we have been given without merit but may make us uncomfortable.

Many of you are familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a theologian famous for resisting the Hitler regime in World War II who was eventually martyred for his stand against the regime.

In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote about something he called cheap grace.

Cheap grace, he said, is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

I suspect that many of us may bristle from Bonhoeffer’s description. It is not hard to resist the idea that discipleship requires discipline. What’s wrong with wanting grace to be cheap? Isn’t Jesus primarily a pastoral, loving figure? What’s wrong with having the hardest spiritual thing we do be the journey to purchase a yoga mat? And anyway doesn’t this more difficult grace start to sound too much like those crazy fire and brimstone folks?

One of my re-awakenings at the conference I mentioned was remembering just how radical Jesus was. Yes, he was pastoral and loving. But he was so much more than that. In today’s gospel passage he is also laying out a vision for what it means to be a disciple.

Discipleship is such a church word. It means the process of becoming like Christ; of becoming more and more a follower of Christ. In our diocese, our bishop has changed the name of our diocesan Formation committee to the diocesan Discipleship committee because the purpose of Formation is not to provide classes for people to consume; it isn’t Education although that can be a part of it. The purpose of Christian formation is to create disciples. That may include classes, but liturgy is formation. Service is formation. Daily life and prayer practice is formation.

And in the gospel passage today Jesus lays out for his first century audience what discipleship meant for them, to have responded to grace and be formed as his followers.

In four different situations, he challenges them to do more than the ancient Jewish law calls for; not to treat other people based on legalistic understandings of the minimum required to “pass” legal muster. Instead he calls them to respond to others in their daily lives based on what will make relationships full and whole, going beyond the letter of the law.

The opposite of murder is not just not killing, he says. It is not even working through your anger at someone you might like to kill. It is reconciling fully with that person. A fully reconciled relationship is a far way from the legal minimum of refraining from killing someone. A disciple of Jesus can measure their relationship with God by the attempts at restored relationships with family, friends, and neighbors.

Throughout this passage it is clear that following Jesus results in changed lives. Following Jesus is more than an inward journey: his disciples have motivation upon realizing what grace they have been given to change their behavior and do more than just skate by.

Bonhoeffer contrasts cheap grace, just skating by, with costly grace. He defines costly grace as “the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.” 

Discipleship comes with costly grace, but it isn’t from browbeating, from guilt or shame, or from fear-mongering. The cost is not payment for a transaction, it isn’t earning one’s grace or place in Jesus’ kingdom, it isn’t even a responsibility. It is a vision of something so beautiful the follower is drawn in to the behavior that supports it, gives themselves completely over to it. It is surrender.

Years ago, a man named Anthony Colon learned his older brother had been shot to death on the streets of New York City. They were just teenagers.

Anthony had looked up to his brother. He described him as the only family he had, the one who looked out for him, who always saw the goodness in him, who taught him not to fight to solve his problems.

Anthony became hurt, and angry. Of those years after his brother's death, he says, "Oh, God, it just - it just put so much hate in my life. I hated everybody. I hated everything. It made me to be not a person, but like a monster.”*

The anger took over for years. But eventually, something changed. Anthony began attending church. He had a family. And one day, he ran into his brother's killer while visiting someone else at the prison.

His brother's killer was named Michael Rowe. When Anthony saw him that day, Michael didn't feel very good about himself. He expected some kind of revenge; some kind of attack.

But Anthony did something Michael did not expect. He went to Michael and said, "Brother, I’ve been praying for you. I forgave you. I’ve been praying I would see you again.”

That chance encounter would change both men's lives. Michael got support from a ministry that helps inmates transition out of prison, and having the support of the victim's family made a world of difference. The coordinator of the program said of Michael and his relationship with Anthony, "Not only does it lift that cloud of shame that he walks with, but more importantly it allows him to have a second chance with the blessings of the victim's brother.”

The forgiveness and reconciliation that Anthony allowed in his relationship with Michael released both of the men of their hurt and anger and allowed transformation to occur.

Anthony eventually sat in support for Michael at his parole hearing and was released. Anthony says of the experience “For some reason I felt that he was dealing with... condemnation. Self-pity. Just like this hovering darkness that was around. People think that’s strange, but it’s just the part of the nature of a person that’s closely connected to God. There’s a connection with God that can allow you to see past what’s in front of you."

Anthony found a vision of a world where reconciliation is primary rather than simply meeting the legal requirement of not taking revenge on his brother’s killer. He found that vision and pursued it, releasing him of anger and bitterness. As a result Michael also found grace, and pursued it, changing his own life.

Where is costly grace being offered to you in this world today? Will you pursue the vision of something more beautiful, of being a disciple, even if it costs something?

Rev. Canon Jeff Martinhauk
Epiphany 6A, February 16, 2020
St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
Matt 5:21-37

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Sources Consulted:

• Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1. Ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2010. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/13/from-anger-to-forgiveness-man-befriends-brothers-killer/ on 2/14/14.
• http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5415
• http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4371
• Study Notes, New Interpreters Study Bible Westminster Dictionary of Ethics-Jesus, Ethical Teachings of

The Sunday Sermon: Convicted by Love

I spent three days this week experiencing some of the most powerful preaching and the most inspiring teaching I have heard. Along with Jeff, Maya, our people’s warden Sue, and about 15 other people from this diocese I attended the first Rooted in Jesus conference, in Atlanta, Georgia. The schedule was packed; there were up to 18 different offerings in any given time slot, covering formation, discipleship, evangelism, stewardship, leadership, multicultural ministry, safe church ... you name it, there was a workshop on it.

Esta semana asistí, con unas personas de la catedral y de la diócesis, una conferencia en Atlanta que se llamó Raisgado en Jesús. Escuché sermones y talleres muy poderosos sobre todos temas de la iglesia. Escuchamos sermones de nuestro primado el Reverendisimo Michael Curry, el Reverendo William Barber y algunos otros. Estábamos animados en nuestra fe y en nuestro trabajo a compartir las buenas noticias del amor de Dios.

We heard sermons from our presiding bishop Michael Curry, from the Rev. William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, and from several other leading voices. The conference was all about following Jesus, being ever more deeply rooted in Jesus, being affirmed and encouraged in our callings, and being equipped for sharing the good news of God’s love and teaching others how to do the same.

Rev. Barber expounded on the words of Isaiah that Jesus adopted as his mission statement: “the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.”

He pointed out that neither Isaiah nor Jesus would have felt the need to share this mission if there hadn’t been an urgent need for that good news. Both Isaiah and Jesus lived in desperate times, times of unjust and oppressive government, times when God’s people were in danger of forgetting who they belonged to, times when hope was hard to maintain. He spoke of the heresy of worshiping God without a conscience: of claiming to be a follower of the God of love while neglecting to live in a loving way. He suggested that we live in a similar time, when people who claim to be Christian perpetrate injustice, spread lies, treat their neighbors as less than human, and when other people who claim to be Christian stand by and allow these things to happen. He spoke in a way that convicted us, that got under our skin, that pierced our hearts.

El rvdo Barber predicó sobre las palabras de Isaías que Jesús adoptó: el Espíritu del Señor está sobre mí: él me ha ungido para llevar buenas noticias a los pobres, para anunciar la libertad a los cautivos y a los ciegos que pronto van a ver, para poner en libertad a los oprimidos.” Dijo que ni Isaías ni Jesús habia compartido esta misión si no se hubiera habido una necesidad urgente para noticias buenas. Los dos vivían en los tiempos desesperados. Habló de la heresía de adorar a Dios sin consciencia. El nos convenció, él tocó nuestros corazones.

Bishop Curry preached at the Revival later the same day. By now you probably know his theme, because he has one theme, and that is our loving, liberating, life-giving God. Just as Rev. Barber had worked us up with his repeated indictment of those who worship God without a conscience, so Bishop Curry brought the crowd to a frenzy with his repetition of love, love, love, and his famous tag line: if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.

El Obispo Curry predicó, como siempre, sobre nuestro Dios que nos ama, que nos libera, que nos da la vida. El nos convenció con la repetición de su palabra favorita: el amor, el amor, el amor, y su dicho famoso: si no se trata de amor, no se trata de Dios.

I cannot recommend highly enough that you find the video of these two sermons and watch them, preferably more than once. I dare you to remain unmoved.

Les recomiendo mucho los sermones que se encuentran en linea.

Today we are celebrating our patronal feast, the Conversion of St. Paul. It’s a story that’s told three times in the Bible, twice in Paul’s own words. We tell the story in pictures here in our windows, starting here by the pulpit with Saul overseeing the arrest and persecution of Christians, his conversion and change of name to Paul, illustrated by the reversal of the colors of his clothing, and continuing through all the episodes in Acts, ending over there with his execution by the sword.

Hoy celebramos la conversión de San Pablo, nuestro patrón. Se cuenta tres veces en la Biblia y la contamos en nuestras vidrieras pintadas. Aqui miras que Esaul está observando la persecución de los cristianos, y su conversión y el cambio de su nombre a Pablo, ilustrado en los colores de su ropa, y en las vidrieras siguientes se cuenta toda su historia hasta que su muerte por la espada.

Before his conversion, Saul was a very successful man, a prominent prosecutor, with full power and authority from the religious authorities, even the power of life and death over his fellow Jews. He was famous for his zeal on behalf of orthodoxy. Everything he did was legal. He was an observant Jew who attended worship and knew the Law: hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That was Saul’s law. And he was a successful man. If he were alive today he would probably have a Lear jet and a brace of mansions. But being successful isn’t always a sign that we are doing God’s will, and just because something is legal doesn’t make it right.

Antes de su conversión tenía Esaul mucho éxito y poder, incluso el poder de matar a los otros judíos. Estaba famoso por su fanatismo. Todo que hizo fue legal. Asistía al culto y conocía bien la Ley de Moisés: “Escucha, Israel: yavé, nuestro Dios es Yavé-Unico. Y tú amarás a Yavé, tu Dios, con todo tu corazón, con toda tu alma, y con todas tus fuerzas... y amarás a tu prójimo como a ti mismo.” Pero el éxito no significa siempre el favor de Dios, y lo que es legal no es siempre justo.

Saul worshiped the same God that Jesus worshiped. But he had a fatal flaw: he worshiped God without love in his heart. He worshiped the God who brought the slaves out of Egypt and who cared for the poor and the homeless, but he didn’t follow through in his life. He went to the temple on the Sabbath, praised God, listened to Scripture, nodded his head when the preacher spoke of God’s liberating power, and then he walked out and started hunting down his neighbors who followed the way of Jesus. There was no love in Saul’s heart. He was utterly certain that he was right.

Esaul adoraba al mismo Dios como Jesús. Pero no tenía el amor en su corazón. Estaba convencido de su rectitud.

How did a man who espoused this Law dedicate his life to persecuting the followers of a fellow Jew who had lived the Law in its purest form? How did he stray so far from the God of love? Because he was guilty of the heresy of worshiping God without a conscience. Because he somehow separated what he read in Scripture from how he lived his life.

¿Por qué dedicó este hombre su vida a la persecución de los seguidores de Jesús? Porque él adoraba a Dios sin consciencia.

And then the road to Damascus happened. Jesus confronted Saul, not with anger and punishment, but with sorrowful love. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” And as Saul’s spiritual eyes are opened to what he has been doing, persecuting Jesus himself through his body, the church, Saul’s physical eyes are closed and he becomes helpless. And then Jesus goes on to say, “I will rescue you.” Not punish, not reject, not condemn, but rescue. Jesus demonstrates his nature in the clearest way: Saul the enemy of Love is blinded, devastated, vulnerable, but because this is Love that has confronted him, he is in no danger. Jesus will rescue him. His conscience has been jolted awake and his heart broken.

Entonces ocurió la revelación en camino a Damasco. Jesús confrontó a Esaul sin enojo, sin castigo, sino con el amor doloroso. Y él continua, “yo te protegeré.” Esaul, el enemigo del Amor, está ciego y vulnerable, pero el Amor le protegerá. Su corazon se rompe.

From here on Paul could do no other than preach the good news of unmerited grace, grace that he could witness to like nobody else. Paul left a secure and prestigious position to become an itinerant missionary, dependent on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter, constantly on the run, condemned by the civil authorities and his own people. And he is our patron. He’s a dangerous patron for us, if being named for him means that we are supposed to follow his example.

Desde este momento Pablo tenía que predicar solamente de las buenas noticias de la gracia inmerecida, la gracia que él había recibido. Salió de su éxito y se convertió a misionero en camino sin recursos, sin amigos, sin seguridad. Y este hombre es nuestro patrón, un patrón bastante peligroso como ejemplo para nosotros.

The word over my stall there is “Praedicamus”. It means “we preach” and it is the beginning of a quote from St. Paul, “We preach Christ crucified.” It’s a constant reminder that we, St. Paul’s Cathedral, are called to preach as Paul did, to preach God’s sacrificial love, to preach by word and example the grace and forgiveness that we receive from the Cross.

La palabra allí, arriba de mi silla, es Praedicamus. Es una palabra de San Pablo. Predicamos a Cristo crucificado. Nos recuerda que estamos llamados a predicar del amor de Dios, llamados a predicar por palabra y ejemplo la gracia y el perdón de la Cruz.

How shall we preach that word as St. Paul’s Cathedral? How shall we bring good news to the poor, forgiveness to the sinner, comfort for the broken-hearted in the year ahead? We will do it by loving each other, ourselves, and this broken world. If we are to worship with any integrity the God who, as Scripture tells us again and again, favors the poor, the underclass, the powerless and the oppressed we will follow through with our witness and action.

¿Cómo predicaremos esta palabra en la catedral de San Pablo? ¿Cómo proclamaremos las buenas noticias a los pobres, el perdón para el pecador, y compasión para los corazones rotos? Lo haremos con amor uno por otro y por el mundo.

Los predicadores de la conferencia nos animaron a estar incómodos, a resistir y a gritar. Nos pidieron de compartir las buenas noticias de Jesús con los afuera de nuestra iglesia. Jesús nos pide a cambiar por completo el mundo amando a Dios y a nuestro prójimo como él nos ama.

The preachers at Rooted in Jesus urged us to be uncomfortable, to push and resist and rebel and remonstrate. They urged us to go out and share the good news of Jesus with people who will never come inside our churches. Jesus didn’t tell us to increase our average Sunday attendance or grow our endowment; all Jesus asks of us is to turn the world upside down by loving God and our neighbor as he loves us.

Conversion of St. Paul and Cathedral Day, January 26, 2020
The Very Rev Penelope Bridges

The Sunday Sermon: The gathered community

I had the opportunity this week to watch a video entitled “American Creed.” It is a documentary that frames the American dream, and asks what happens to it when social mobility and trust in institutions decline.

“Work hard, and it doesn’t matter where you come from. You can go anywhere.” It’s the dream that has attracted so many to this country. Two stories from the film highlighted the tension we face:

In one, an elementary school teacher worked hard. She showed up every morning. She was dedicated to the kids she served. She lived in Oklahoma, and her school consisted mostly of native American students, many of them poor. Some of them would not be able to stay in her school for more than a few weeks at a time as their families would move from place to place, seeking a lower rent or better conditions for themselves. But she made a place for them, and ensured that her school was preparing for them to stay for the long-term no matter what. She came from two generations of educators. She acknowledged that she herself was only able to become an educator because of a land-grant her own native American family received, land which later turned out to have oil beneath it. If that hadn’t happened, she would likely have had a very different story.

In another story, a woman immigrated from India at a young age and went through public school right here in Southern California. She was admitted to Harvard and worked three jobs along with scholarships to pay for her education, and went on to found a non-profit that provides technical job training to the poor in developing countries, and then hires them to do work. She gave a Ted talk on what she learned, when someone from the audience suggested her model would work right here in the US, in rural Arkansas. She tried it, and opened a training center. It was much more challenging. While the participants were quick to learn new technology, cable companies simply were not willing to provide infrastructure so that their homes would have internet service. Cell service did not work in all parts of town. Without those connections they could not work. The educational barrier was eliminated, but obstacles remained. The participants had worked hard, but the structural obstacles of poverty could not be overcome just from just pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

Several stories like these in the film helped point out that the American myth of “work hard and your dreams can come true” has broken down. If the American dream ever was true, it is less true now. Social mobility is declining. Trust in institutions is declining. The glue that holds society together is breaking so that it feels like we are merely a collection of individuals. Narrators Condoleeza Rice and David Kennedy claimed that society cannot hold together without a common aspirational story. Can we find a new aspirational story to share?

Now I am not a theocrat, and I believe in the separation of Church and state. But I do believe that the Church is here to have an impact on the world. Church in Greek is ecclesia, and it means the gathered community. Maybe we have something to offer a society that is atomizing, that is losing its identity, that is un-gathering.

In the story from Acts today, Peter is in the middle of learning a new aspirational story for the nascent Church.

Peter begins this chapter believing primarily that the church is good news for the Jewish people. But then he has this experience with a lavish picnic blanket, an abundant table, that shows him that God’s hope for the world is much larger than he has been able to imagine. All people are welcome in the Church, Jew and Gentile.

“God shows no partiality,” he opens with the first sentence from Acts in our reading, as he processes his learning. And he launches a new aspirational moment for the early Church, one that we carry still today: The Jesus Movement is not just for Jewish followers of Jesus but for all people in all nations.

It's interesting to look at how that vision came about for Peter. Something like a sheet came down carrying four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Jewish purity laws forbade Jews from eating some of these foods. God used a vision of a kind of a banquet to illustrate a new vision of the ecclesia, the gathered community, for Peter. And for us.

The table was a place with rules, with boundaries and purity laws, and by opening it up to abundance, the Church received a new aspirational story, to grow to welcome all.

And here we are, now, 2000 years later. Have we, society, let the work of scarcity creep in to our table rules? Do we listen to a voice that tells us that there is not enough to share what is on our tables with them, whoever they are?

We can have a new vision. The table as a place of abundance, a vision of a plentiful feast. “We live at God's table, because gifts are freely given, because grace animates everything.” There is enough. For you and you and you and them and them too! There is enough so that we can joyfully invite anyone to sit at the table with us!

Table economics is something we will examine closely over the next few weeks in our Epiphany formation series. I invite you to sign up in the courtyard this morning.

In baptism, we do sign up for a common aspirational story. It is the story of an abundant table with room for all. It is the story of working hard but also of grace when we stumble. It is the story of belonging and relationships. It is the story of laughter and love and of shared commitment and community. It is the story of belief in a God who loves us more than we can ask or imagine and walks with us on the way. It is the story of sticking with struggles together, enduring because going it alone isn’t an option. It is the story of shared discernment, listening carefully to each other and working together to find a way forward. It is the story of ecclesia, the gathered community.

It is our story, St. Paul’s. Be the baptized, the beloved, children of God! And let that light shine brightly out to the rest of the world, a story to share with the whole world!

The Rev. Canon Jeff Martinhauk
Baptism of our Lord A, January 12, 2020
St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
Matt 3:13-17

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Sources Consulted:
Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1. Ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2010.
https://www.americancreed.org/the-film
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=412460899630259