3 Pentecost (Year C)
II Kings
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 29, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
As I read these past days, one writer for Christian Century wrote of being in a choir and singing the spiritual HOLD ON. Not familiar with that particular song, I found myself online. There are many variations of verses.
- "Paul and Silas bound in jail, / Had nobody for to go their bail. / Keep your hand on that plow, hold on."
- "Paul and Silas began to shout, / Jail door opened and they walked out. / Keep your hand on that plow, hold on."
- "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, / No more water, the fire next time. / Keep your hand on that plow, hold on."
- "Mary had a golden chain, / Every link spelt with Jesus name. / Keep your hand on that plow, hold on."
- "If you wanna get to Heaven, let me tell you how. / Just keep your hand on de Gospel plow. / If that plow stays in you' hand / It'll land you straight into de promised land…"
Like so many spirituals, this song encourages perseverance and faith during challenging times, and in this case refers to Biblical people, Noah and Paul and Silas and Mary. And how to get to heaven by holding on to faith when all hope seems lost.
What is this business about plowing anyway? One of my devotions from Luther Seminary featured this story: “One of my first jobs on a farm was sitting on a dump-rake attached to the tractor and mower. My job was to pull a lever and make perfect windrows of hay for baling. Sometimes I would look back to see how straight the rows were. As a result, I would sometimes miss the right time to dump the hay, leaving behind crooked windrows which were harder to bale.”*
Now, I must admit, while I know what a rake is, a dump-rake was a new term for me. And I ended up on-line. It is an older machine that basically does the same thing: preparing mown hay for baling.
But I digress. Keeping your hand on or off the plow brings us to Elisha, who is at work when Elijah comes calling. He’s going to take on a new task following Elijah. No more plowing, he’s off to be a “sidekick” – servant - for Elijah. There is a new path ahead.
And then we come to Luke’s Gospel and we learn that Jesus is not Elijah. While Elijah has time to wait, Jesus does not. He has “set his face” to Jerusalem, and time is of the essence.
In the latter section of today’s gospel, the first would-be disciple approaches Jesus and says that he will follow anywhere. It’s a reckless, hasty promise, made without thinking it through, as they say. Jesus’s response is clear, straight to the point. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
This would be disciple believes he is willing to follow Jesus "anywhere," but the truth is that Jesus only has "nowhere." Jesus’s life had begun that way. No matter how pretty we make it, Jesus was born to a young, temporarily homeless couple, and would soon be a refugee in Egypt. So being a disciple will not give this man security of any type and will in fact strip him of all the security we find so dear.
No home, no office, no pension plan, no health-care plan, nothing like that comes along with being a disciple. When Jesus clarifies this, he is challenging all of us to move beyond the standards of safety, beyond our preoccupation with job security, financial security, social security. The only true security in life in God.
The second person receives an invite from Jesus to follow him. And, not unlike us, this person has family responsibilities that tie him down and hold him back. According to Jewish tradition it was the duty of the oldest son to see to the burial of his parents. Who among us doesn't feel the daily demand as we try to balance everything: our jobs and family, along with the extra-curricular activities. We all have mortgages or rents due, car payments; some have college tuition; others have children or elderly parents, and we all have grocery bills.
But Jesus will have none of that. There are no “loopholes” in being a disciple. We cannot claim “bad timing.” In fact, it is the opposite that is true. Trusting in God's love and grace and becoming a disciple will result in making us better at caring for our families.
The third is truly eager to follow, but explains that he has family to consider, or at least say “goodbye” to. And to us, it looks right. It’s common courtesy. But does it put God first? Or is it about being socially acceptable? After all, what would happen to his reputation, his social standing, if he simply walked away to follow Jesus?
And so Jesus, as Jesus does, challenges him to move beyond the usual, keep his hand on the plow. Being a farm girl, I know that a field does not get plowed by turning it over in your mind. I can remember my dad saying that: “it’s not going to get done sitting here talking about it.” In Jesus’s time, for plowing, you had to walk along, always moving forward to prepare the ground. The same is true for today, except that the plows are larger.
You probably noticed that each time, Jesus hardly gives a tactful answer. As Jesus goes to Jerusalem, his approach is not to gather a huge group of disciples. His answers to the requests or invites are rather harsh and demanding. Jesus was after – and still is – quality, not quantity.
But, you and I know how difficult it is at times to keep our faces turned to Jerusalem. We know that it can be difficult to love all as we have been loved, and in addition, we may not feel that the spirit is even leading us.
For us today, who want to follow Jesus, what this means is this: we need to look seriously at what we are doing and where we are going.
“Following Jesus may not—almost always will not—include space and time to check in on other matters such as family or social expectations, or allow for comforts along the way…”** This is not something that can wait until later. It’s something to do now. Being a disciple means changing our priorities, letting go of prejudices, and moving past what we think are limitations. In other words, anything that distracts us from keeping our hand on the plow.
“Jesus…knows his human road will come to an end. The crisis point is coming; he can see the eventualities. The people meeting him along the way (like so many of us) perhaps imagine an adventure beginning, with plenty of time to become engaged, or settle affairs at home, or make sure they have a backpack of snacks and a bedroll…
We need—I need—to come down to the reality of the dusty road. The moment is now. The needs are practical and imperative. The hopes are equal parts heavenly... What is Jesus asking of me? Of all of us? Keep your hand on the plow, and hold on.” Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
*God Pause, June 27, 2025
**Christian Century, Lectionary for June 29, June 2025.
Pentecost 2 (Year C)
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 22, 2025
They were afraid.
In today’s gospel reading we hear about Jesus helping a man possessed by a legion of demons. But we also hear about the people in the community that saw or heard about what had happened. They were afraid. They were afraid and they asked Jesus to leave due to their fear.
But why were they afraid? Jesus had just preformed a miracle; people should be rejoicing! But they were afraid. We must remember that Jesus lived long before social media, phones, or even newspapers. The Gerasenes were a group of people that most likely had never heard of Jesus. They knew nothing about him other than that he was a strange man. The Gerasenes were Gentiles, meaning they were not Jewish. For them a Jew had come into their land, healed a man, and killed a herd of pigs. The Gentiles during Jesus’ time considered pork a choice type of meat, to lose a whole herd of pigs could have ruined many lives. The owner and all the workers would have been deeply impacted by the loss of the herd.
It was common in Jesus’s time to cast aside people that were sick or injured, especially if they had no family to care for them. People that were possessed by demons were considered unclean and it was thought they did something wrong which caused them to be possessed. The man in today’s story was living in the tombs, naked, separated from his community. The community most likely tried to ignore that the man existed. He was forgotten and forsaken by those around him.
When Jesus cast Legion out of the man, he also disrupted the community. A man that was seen as unclean was now once again an average man. A man that was naked and dirty was now clean and clothed. No longer could this man be considered other; no longer could he be forgotten. The status quo was changing. The community now had to ask itself; what do we do with this man? What other changes or damages could Jesus cause?
People throughout time do not like when the status quo is challenged. A possessed man healed, a herd of pigs lost, Jesus throughout his life challenged the status quo.
“Then all the people … asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear.” How many times have we been afraid of change? How many times have we tried to maintain the status quo, even when it didn’t feel right? How many times have we ignored the forgotten and forsaken because it is easier than helping? Fear is a powerful and dangerous motivator.
Our society not only ignores the forsaken, but it is hostile towards them as well. Perhaps you have been to a park and seen a bench with multiple armrests used to break it up into individual seats, or you’ve been at a bus stop and there is no bench only a bar to lean against. As you walk around town do you ever see metal spikes or bumps on the ground outside of a business? These are all examples of hostile architecture. Hostile architecture is designed to prevent or discourage certain behaviors such as a homeless person sleeping on a bench or in a doorway. The problem is people aren’t sleeping on benches or in doorways because they want to, they are there because they have no other option.
I work at ECMC as a Substance Use Counselor. Every day I talk with people that our community would prefer to ignore. I hear their stories. So many of them share similar stories. How they lack support, how the system continues to fail them, how they want help, how people mistreat and ignore them.
People come into ECMC looking for help. Maybe we can offer a starting point, we can temporarily stabilize their mental health, we can medically stabilize their withdrawal symptoms, we can help link them with rehab, we can link them with counseling. Yet, for many of our patients that isn’t enough.
One of my patients that I, for privacy and HIPPA reasons will nickname Nick, is like the man possessed in today’s reading. Nick is a middle-aged man with a long history of mental health and substance use struggles. He is homeless, unemployed, and honestly, he can seem scary if you do not know him. Many consider Nick to be beyond help and beyond hope. Many would say that Nick needs to do more to help himself, that he’s been given plenty of opportunities and he has wasted them all. The truth is the system is broken. Nick needs intensive mental health treatment. Nick is paranoid and delusional. He believes the government is out to harm him. He refuses to be hospitalized for his mental health because he believes the government will harm him if stays. Nick does not meet criteria for an involuntary stay because he is not an active risk to himself or others. Nick is left without treatment and instead wanders the street telling people about the government trying to kill off a majority of the population by various means. Nick has also come to ECMC for substance use help but has been turned away because he is not in withdrawal or because his mental health is too severe. Inpatient rehabs turn him away because his mental health needs to be addressed before they can admit him. Which leads us right back to the beginning it is a vicious cycle of being too much and yet not enough. Nick needs a service that will address all of his needs at the same time. Such a program does not exist, especially not for the poor.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s an experiment was preformed at Simon Fraiser University in Canada. Researchers led by Dr. Bruce Alexander observed morphine use in rats. At the time many studies were being conducted to study addiction using various substances and rats. Dr. Alexander and his colleagues were the first to look at the environmental factors. Traditionally, these experiments were conducted on rats that were kept in small metal cages with no enrichment. These experiments would conclude that morphine was highly addictive because the rats would choose to drink water laced with morphine instead of plain water.
Dr. Alexander and his colleagues developed Rat Park. Rat Park was a paradise for rats, it was 200x’s larger than a standard cage and included plenty of enrichment. For the experiment, there were 3 groups of rats. One group spent their entire life in a small metal cage, like the original experiments. The second group spent their entire life in Rat Park. The third group started off in the metal cages and then moved to Rat Park. At the conclusion of the experiment, it was found that the rats in the small cages were 19x’s more likely to choose morphine water than the Rat Park rats. The Rat Park rats preferred the plain water and while they would occasionally use the morphine water, they did not show signs of addiction. The rats that moved cages showed signs of withdrawal but ultimately ended up preferring the plain water while living in Rat Park.
Architecture, substance use, mental health, RATS. What does any of this have to do with today’s gospel?
When I think of the man in today’s gospel, I think of Nick. If Jesus were to walk through Buffalo today, would he ignore all the people like Nick? Would He deem them too dirty, too scary, too beyond hope? Would he admire the hostile architecture and applaud the ingenuity?
The system is failing people like Nick. Nick and many others are trapped in their own small metal cages. We can temporarily take them out of the cage but ultimately when they are done with detox or rehab or even longer-term treatment they are returned to their cages. There are little to no services to help them transition into a better life. The few services that are available have waitlists that are months and years long. Many times, I have heard my patients talk about how they were doing well in treatment but then had to return to the real world. The world in which they had to survive. Many people are discharged from treatment to go live back on the streets, back to the same people and situations they were trying to escape; they eventually seek whatever comfort they can find. The world continues to ignore them and treats them like their struggles are a result of their shortcomings. Just like in Jesus’ time; if someone is suffering it is because they did something to deserve it. We still exile those we do not like; it just looks different now.
People like Nick are also often asked to leave. Like Jesus, they often make people uncomfortable. Those people belong in those areas, and we belong in our areas. If one of those people enters our area, we ask them to leave or we call the police to remove them. How many people avoid certain parts of Buffalo because it makes them uncomfortable? Maybe the people in those areas look different, maybe they are homeless, maybe they are scary, or act oddly, maybe they are asking for money. Truth is most of those people hate where they are in life, but they see no way out. They don’t want to be in that area any more than anyone else does; but they have no choice. Goodie bags with essential items like socks, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, hand sanitizer, and deodorant are often looked forward to and met with gratitude. Something so simple but also so impactful. I will warn you, most of my patients will not accept random food given to them, they are too used to people spitting in the food or worse.
Jesus came to save us all, especially the lost and forsaken. Jesus would help Nick. Many of us here at St. John’s help a variety of people. We do food drives, turkey boxes, Angel Trees, fundraisers, and much more. But how often do we interact with those we are trying to help? Jesus could have cast out Legion and continued on with his day. But He didn’t. Jesus sat with the man and talked with him; He treated him with respect. One of my favorite quotes is by the Aboriginal activists’ group in Queensland; “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” St. John’s participates in the Burrito Project which is a great opportunity to interact and learn from people whose voices are often unheard. How else can we work with others on a deeper level that shows mutual respect and responsibility?
My patients and all the other forgotten and forsaken people are not beyond hope. Hope is stronger than fear. How would we as a church respond if Nick wandered into our church today? Would we welcome him in and help him, would we ignore him, would we chase him out?
At the end of our reading, Jesus will not allow the man to travel with him. Instead, Jesus tells the man to return to town and spread his story. The man is a daily reminder of God’s power and love. He is also a consistent challenge to the status quo.
Some of my coworkers are Peer Support Workers. They have struggled with mental health and/or substance use and are now using their experience to help others. Many of the peers I work with lean heavily on their faith and credit God with saving them. Many of them were actively struggling when they started exploring their faith and found the support they needed. Many find the support they need in self-help groups like AA and NA. These groups allow people to use their stories to help others. The 12 steps of AA focus on relying on God for help, making amends with others, and carrying the message of hope and God’s love to others. Like the man in our reading, the peers were once exiled and ignored. Then once they found healing through Jesus, they were called on to spread their story to help other. Now that they are in recovery people do not know how to react to them. Their transformation challenges the status quo. If the man was anything like the peers I work with, then he was met with a wide variety of responses as he shared his story. Some of the townspeople may have rejoiced with the man, others may have feared him, and others still may have ignored him. I wonder how many heard the man’s story and found salvation. What story are you being called to share? You never know who needs to hear what you are being called to share. Amen.
Holy Trinity (Year C)
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 15, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
To deny the Trinity endangers your salvation; to try to comprehend the Trinity endangers your sanity. That is attributed to Martin Luther.
It is Holy Trinity Sunday and rather than trying to explain this mystery of our faith, I have another question. Why must we always explain everything? Frederick Buechner says that this fascination with trying to explain the world is a result of what we cannot simply accept. In writing about coincidences he says: “I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on…than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that’s going on?” That is why we laugh these things off, but in reality, they make us nervous. Why, I wonder.
So many years ago now, I walked into a patient’s room – the patient was sleeping – spoke to his wife, calling the man by the wrong name. I apologized, said I had the wrong room. But she asked me to stay and we talked about his illness, and life and death, and their very happy marriage, and finally we prayed. As I turned to leave, she remarked: “I am so glad that you walked into the wrong room.” Did I?
If we accept that odd things happen and that when you have faith in God, odder things happen, then this Sunday should not be a test of faith at all. So we come to the festival of the church called Holy Trinity.
For those of you who know me well, you know what’s coming next. Yes, a bit of a history lesson is in order. The doctrine of the Trinity came about only in the late second century and was only firmly fixed in the life and dogma of the church after the Councils of Nicea in 325 AD and Constantinople in 381 AD. The early Christian church did not set it apart as we do, and it was in 1334 that it became an official day in the calendar of the church year. Most of the early church’s celebrations centered around Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, with Christmas and Advent coming later. So, Holy Trinity Sunday is relatively young. And what does it mean for us?
Luther says it best when writing of the Holy Trinity.
“It is a mystery in the strict sense, in that it can neither be known by reason apart from revelation, nor demonstrated by reason after it has been revealed, but it is not incompatible with the principles of rational thought.”
All that means is this: unless God helps you understand it, you won’t; and even once God helps reveal it to you, you are going to have a hard time explaining it to someone else.
Not that we haven’t tried to make it concrete. Over the centuries, many have tried to explain this concept that the Bible itself does not lay out with clear definitions. Many of us remember the illustration of the Trinity as water, which can be a steam, liquid, or ice, yet still maintains it’s molecular designation H- 2 – 0. Some have used the analogy of the egg, which is one thing, yet has distinctive parts: shell, yolk and white. Or perhaps, you think of St. Patrick and the cloverleaf, one thing made of three individual parts. I have used the image of a braid, and even mercury.
There have been mathematical models, geometric models, and still, we stumble to explain it, or even to grasp it. Human language has limitations, and so instead of trying to nail down a sound definition of God – one theologian compared that to nailing Jello to a tree – maybe we should consider the relationship of the Trinity and how it enters into our lives spiritually. Maybe we should stop trying to figure it out and just revel in the mystery. Just revel in it and be amazed. Perhaps we should just own the mystery. If that sounds familiar, it should, as it comes from a well-known hymn. It’s one that has been around in a variety of settings and languages: (starting with Latin) since the 4th century. It is ELW 414, Holy God, We Praise Your Name.
Holy Father, Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, Three we name Thee,
Though in essence only one;
Undivided God, we claim you,
And, adoring, bend the knee
While we own the mystery. …
“What could it mean to “own the mystery”? I suspect it starts by owning UP TO the mystery. By recognizing that God will always be something greater than, and not contained within, our doctrinal formulations. This is not to say the work of theology is useless but, rather, that it’s never done. … The wonderful Frederick Buechner once wrote: ‘Theology is the study of God and God’s ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study us and our ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.’ We will never get to the bottom or the top of this mystery, but God beckons us to live into and learn the mystery, all the while laughing at the absurdity of our efforts.”
—Meg Jenista, “Owning a Mystery,” Reformed Journal, October 23, 2024.
The Trinity only seems a mystery. We know God. We know God as Father. We know God as Son. We know God as Holy Spirit.
We know God as Father in his role as Creator, as the first reading in Genesis so richly reveals. We know God as sustainer of all things. Spring follows winter, the trees leaf out, flowers bloom, the grass grows, the weather changes, birds sing, and the air feels warm and gentle. We know God – not just as the creator described in Genesis – but as a God who continues to create, a God who is always at work in all places and time. As a chaplain, I see that creation of new life and possibilities all the time. God creates in us new ideas that benefit all, whether in science or history or literature. God the Father, Creator, sustainer of life, renews creation, restores creation, and maintains the creation.
We know God as Son, perhaps better. God the Son, who became incarnate in Jesus, who lived among us, who cooked and ate food, who was compassionate, but could get tired and even angry, who became sad and frustrated, who suffered pain, died, and was raised. We know God the Son as a teacher, a healer, a passionate preacher, as a motivator, as redeemer.
We know God as Holy Spirit, but that is perhaps the most difficult to pin down. Some speak of the Holy Spirit as that mysterious essence that is like an electric current. Others speak of the Spirit as a feeling of deep peace and joy, a feeling that all is right in God’s world for that one singular moment. For others, the Spirit passes them by, giving them a new idea to consider for the future. Others talk of speaking in tongues and private revelations.
But more than that, the Holy Spirit is that part of God who is present in our lives whether we feel it or not. When I cannot make a decision and so go to sleep frustrated, only to wake with the answer that eluded me, that is the Spirit. The Spirit is present when a child asks about communion.
Whether we know it or not, the idea of the Trinity is firmly in our minds. A few years ago a nationwide poll asked, "What word or phrase would you most like to hear spoken to you, sincerely?" Can you guess the first thing people wanted to hear?
- You’re probably right with the first one. "I love you."
- The second was, "You are forgiven."
- Number three, believe it or not, was, "Supper is ready."
(With thanks to James A. Harnish, "Walking With Jesus: Forgiveness," Tampa, Fla., March 22, 1998.)
That is the best example of the Trinity that I can think of. On Holy Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the great mystery of the Christian faith, I can’t think of three better things to say or to hear. Unconditional love, unmerited grace, unsurpassed invitation; that is the Holy Trinity. God the Father says: I love you. God the Son offers forgiveness. God the Holy Spirit invites us to the table. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Pentecost (Year C)
Acts 2:1-21
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 8, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Imagine a person comes up to you and says this: “I was out driving the other day when I had a punctured tyre. I pulled off to the verge and opened the boot. There was no spare. So, I opened the bonnet. Fortunately, a lorry driver saw the raised bonnet and stopped to help me out.”
If you can understand that, you have either spent time in Great Britain, or you watch way too much British TV.
Want an American translation? “I was out driving the other day when I had a flat tire. I pulled off to the shoulder and opened the trunk. There was no spare. So, I opened the hood. Fortunately, a truck driver saw the raised hood and stopped to help me out.”
It’s Pentecost and it is all about language, but not language that confuses or needs to be translated, rather, one that brings together those first Christians and marks the beginning of the church.
Your accent can betray you. We see that in the Acts lesson: Are not these men Galileans? Yes, there were accents in ancient Israel. As a scholar says: “Identifying a person’s regional dialect suggests a number of things about them. Having grown up in the south, I can distinguish between redneck slang and an aristocratic drawl. Seminary in Chicago acquainted me with the midwestern twang, and grad school in New Jersey introduced me to nasal northeastern.”
As for me, I never thought I had an accent until I moved to Philadelphia. Then I was asked: Where are you from with that accent? My seminary internship was just south of Boston, Massachusetts. Just watch the Sam Adams commercials; you’ll get the drift.
“Language has divided Christians, too. Among the earliest followers of Jesus strife emerged between Greek-speaking Jews who complained that the Aramaic-speakers overlooked their widows in the distribution of food (Acts 6). A thousand years later, the Latin-speaking, Catholic west and the (mainly) Greek-speaking, Orthodox east divided in the Schism of 1054. During the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church banned translations of the Bible into the everyday vernacular of the common laity.”
Language is one of the unique traits that make us human. And so, to understand Pentecost, we need to know the story of the Tower of Babel, today’s first reading. The Tower of Babel was really the first skyscraper — “a tower with its top in the heavens.” Its purpose was to “make a name” for those who built it and then, as it would be a permanent structure, would certainly bring a reputation.
What did that tower say about God? The tower was a monument of self-reliance. The phrase “let us” shows up three times in this reading and sounds an alarm of independence and egocentrism.
Then, this tower was intended not for the glory of God, but to make a name for themselves. This is not God’s plan, and in the covenant with Abraham we will hear: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” It is God who makes our name, and God’s blessing on us is always to benefit others, not ourselves.
It’s spiritual selfishness. As N.T. Wright summarizes:
“Those who were supposed to be reflecting God’s image in the world — that is, human beings — are instead looking into mirrors of their own … arrogant and insecure, they have become self-important.”
Everything we have accomplished and everything that we have are the products of, and instruments of God’s blessing, intended to be a blessing to others. We’re not supposed to be making names for ourselves. And so God scatters them, by adding additional languages.
We come now to Pentecost. Given the volatile dynamics of language, it’s remarkable that in this transition, God uses language, as divisive as it can be, to build the church. In the book of Acts, Luke describes the first Pentecost.
Luke tells us that “God-fearing Jews from every nation of the world” as having converged upon Jerusalem for Pentecost; he goes on to list at least 15 ethno-linguistic groups who were present. And they all understood, meaning they could take the good news of Jesus to their respective communities.
Pentecost and the birth of the church reverses the calamity of the Tower of Babel. In those first pages of the Bible, one language did not unite the people, as they were more interested in making a name for themselves, honoring not God, but their own talents.
Pentecost takes the languages of the world and reminds us that languages can unite a people. You will notice, not one language is singled out as being superior.
Nadia Bolz Weber, writing about Pentecost, said: “There were several events of monumental importance that happened in 1492. One of those events seems, at first glance, to lack significance, but in reality altered the course of history. For it was in that year that Antonio de Nebrija entered the chambers of Queen Isabel of Spain and handed her what he called the key to their dreams for a Spanish Empire. It was a weapon. A weapon which had no equal and it was not made of steel or gunpowder. It was made of paper. It was the first book of grammar. When [he] handed it to her, Queen Isabel famously said that she knew the Spanish language quite well and had no need for such a book. To which Antonio replied, ‘But Your Highness, language is the greatest tool of empire.’
And one has only to look at the 21 Spanish language countries that exist now, over 500 years later, to know that he was right. And one has only to look to the language laws of Germany in the 1930s and 40s and of South Africa in the mid 40s to the mid 90s…to know that there are few more potent markers of identity than language. Language, as you know, is powerful.
What becomes a problem is when I insist that there is one language in which the Gospel can be preached and it just so happens to be with the language, or the art, or the culture, or the humor that I understand. I’ve then confused the ethos and the logos, the wrapping with the gift.
Because while there may be one Gospel, one story about God-with-us, God becoming human and healing the sick and feeding the hungry and being killed for it all and then defeating death itself, while there is this one story, there are countless ways of understanding it. There are countless images and words and music and culture which serve to tell that story.”
This is one reason the Pentecost story in so compelling. There is no one language. What there is, is the Holy Spirit.
And that is where we find ourselves today, with an amazing story that has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. And not one of them is better because it is the one story that matters.
Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season, and it begins what I call the “long, green season,” a time of growth for the church and for us. I like to think that Pentecost brings with it a clean slate. If Pentecost tells us anything at all, besides all the details about that mighty wind, those tongues of fire, and all those languages, it is that God delivers on his promises. And this marvelous Holy Spirit leaves us with a sense of peace and awe that should inspire us, as those at the first Pentecost were inspired. And like those who were there, we can understand God’s word in a language that didn’t really take form until the 5th century. There is no one way and there is no one language. God will always find a way and come to us. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
6 Easter (Year C)
John 17: 20-26
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 25, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
David Foster Wallace, an author and short story writer, gave a Commencement address at Kenyon College twenty years ago, an address that holds as true today as it was then. I honestly didn’t know much about him until Friday. He was born in Ithaca in 1962, and died young, by suicide after struggling with depression. The commencement speech – entitled THIS IS WATER - won widespread acclaim, and covered subjects including the difficulty of empathy, the importance of being well-adjusted, and being compassionate.
Here is one example from the address.
“There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: ‘Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God. It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out ‘Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.’ And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. ‘Well then you must believe now,’ he says, ‘After all, here you are, alive.’ The atheist just rolls his eyes. ‘No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.’”
He goes on to say – in a nutshell – that we need to consider how we make meaning out of our lives, and some of that is intentional choice. For the faithful, God did intervene, not with a spectacular miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. Still, when it comes to religion, Wallace warns us about arrogance, saying that …the nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. For believers and non-believers alike, the enemy is “blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.”
It's a lesson to all of us to think, really think, on who we are and how we believe, how we understand how God is working in this world, all without becoming arrogant or belittling.
And then he goes on to say this:
“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
"Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
"They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
"And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
No wonder his speech won acclaim and attention.
What is your default setting? Who or what do you worship? How do you decide what has meaning? How do you keep the truth in front of you?
As followers of Jesus, we are given default settings when the world lets us down. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of his departure, and provides us just that.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
We have been given God’s peace. Because of that, we do not have to be afraid, and certainly not troubled. Are you going to cling to that or find meaning elsewhere?
John, in Revelation, gives us a default setting as well, with visions of the river of life, the tree of life laden with its twelve fruits, its leaves for the healing of the nations. And there will be no need for sun or lamp, for God will be our light.
And in the Acts lesson, Paul’s default setting is to go find a place for prayer, no matter where he was. In a vision he is called to Macedonia and there he meets Lydia, whose heart is opened, and a new believer is born. What do you choose for that “peace that passes all understanding?”
When the world gets you down, where do you turn for relief and solace and a good word? After all, the world wants us to turn to whatever it is offering at the moment. They call to us seductively: self-help gurus, TikTok tutorials, what’s on Facebook or X or Instagram. Those are temporary helps, these things that encourage us to just follow. It’s fun for a while, but there will always be a new influencer, a new platform. There will never be enough money, or power, or beauty, and eventually we need to find solid ground that will not fail.
You have to choose. I gave you three just now from today’s readings, but Scripture is filled with wisdom, compassion and a love that will not let you go. From the beginning, when God called the creation “good,” to the patriarchs and Moses and the prophets. And Jesus, who teaches us that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Along the way there were many influencers and false prophets, wealth and power, and it all faded away.
This past Thursday one of my patients was declared brain dead, and the family opted for organ donation. What is often done in these situations is an HONOR WALK, where the patient is taken from the room to the OR for the harvest of organs. The word goes out and associates gather in the halls to honor this person, to mourn the death, but also to remember that people who are suffering will be given a chance for better health. I was in the room; I prayed with them, then joined the dozens who were present. It was an emotional moment. The family expressed their gratitude. And my hope, my hope and prayer is that they will remember this Christian witness and make that their default setting.
A default setting cannot be what the world offers because the world is fickle and frivolous, ultimately unreliable. Set your default setting to the one God who so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
5 Easter (Year C)
Revelation 21
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 18, 025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
It was the class so many of us wanted to take while in Seminary. Alas, my schedule didn’t give me the opportunity. And why wouldn’t it be? As one author wrote: “The book of Revelation is filled with strange images: A great red dragon, beasts from the sea and land, the bowls of God’s wrath, a great whore, an apocalyptic battle, and the final judgment. When the seventh trumpet blows, we learn of God’s plan “for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
There have been movies and television and books on Revelation, always attempting to explore this mystery of what it being said in this last book of the Bible.
But for all this, Revelation was almost not included in the New Testament. There are any number of reasons.
First, there are doubts as to who wrote it. Was it written by John, the apostle, or another John? The style of Greek doesn’t match with the other books attributed to John.
Then, there is its style, which is unusual and apocalyptic. As a side note, Apocalypse simply means “unveiling,” or disclosure. In the apostolic tradition, apocalypse is not so much the end of the world as it is the beginning, the disclosure, the unveiling of this new creation that Jesus will bring in. Unfortunately, due to bad theology, it has come to mean something far more dire, more frightening, more of a scare tactic.
Revelation has vivid imagery and symbolic language, and it differs from other New Testament writings, not only making it a challenge to interpret, but being far too easy to misinterpret. For example, some understand it as prophecy already fulfilled. Some see it as prophecy happening in the here and now. Still others view it as prophecy for the future.
All this language and imagery have made it difficult to understand, and when something is difficult to understand, then comes misunderstanding. And many of those misunderstandings in the early church conflicted with agreed upon Christian doctrine.
And it didn’t help that Revelation was associated with heretical groups like the Montanists, who focused more on the Holy Spirit to the neglect of the Gospels. And so the questions arose, with concerns about its theology and whether it was suitable for inclusion.
And, as some have argued, it may have been written in code. ”Elaine Pagels, a New Testament scholar, has written that that Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement in the late first century, with Jerusalem fallen and the Temple destroyed and the Saviour, despite his promises, still not back. All the imagery…represents contemporary people and events, and was well understood in those terms by the original audience… When John says that ‘the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth,’ he revises Daniel’s vision to picture Rome as the worst empire of all,” Pagels writes. “When he says that the beast’s seven heads are ‘seven kings,’ John probably means the Roman emperors who ruled from the time of Augustus until his own time.” As for the creepy 666, the “number of the beast,” the original text adds, helpfully, “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person.” This almost certainly refers — by way of Gematria, the Jewish numerological system — to the contemporary Emperor Nero. Even John’s vision of a great mountain exploding is a topical reference to the recent eruption of Vesuvius, in C.E. 79.” The argument is that Revelation was not about what was to happen, but what was happening.
Despite all these initial reservations, the Book of Revelation was eventually included in the canon, likely because it was accepted, and it did have connections to other writings, especially if it was written by John.
So we turn to Revelation 21 and contrary to popular opinion, destruction, doom and damnation are not the final word in Revelation. The book ends with a vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
Pastor Henry Brinton writes in Interpretation that the end of Revelation contains a promise of “a new relationship with God, one that is both intimate and eternal, in which people live in harmony with God and with all that God has made. This bond is a restoration of the original creation in Genesis, and it contains the best of numerous biblical images — a new heaven and earth, a city, and a garden.”
Revelation is not intended to frighten us. Instead, it provides a message of comfort and hope, written by the Christians of the first century to the Christians of any era, including our own.
As the chapter begins, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” This new creation is one in which the past is forgotten, over and done, wiped clean. That “the sea is no more” is important, as the sea always seen as a force of chaos and darkness, the unknown. In Revelation, it will be no more. All the forces that keep us from living fully are defeated as the creation is transformed, even set free.
So what do we do with this text that even Martin Luther thought should not be in the Bible? His argument was that it did not reveal anything. When Luther first translated and published the New Testament, he thought that Revelation should not have the same status or authority as the gospels or the letters of Paul or Peter. And so he put it at the end, but he didn't number it.
What do we do with this book that has us so fascinated? Simply this. God is always the Creator and so let us concentrate on making a “new heaven and a new earth” for others: the marginalized, the forgotten, the lost, those we criminalize for no apparent reason. Let’s wipe away the tears and the pain and trust in God’s promises. That new heaven and new earth is coming, but Jesus brought it here for us now. But we have to allow the resurrection of Jesus to transform us. Let’s bring heaven to earth. Richard Rohr writes of this:
“Jesus talked much more about how to live on earth now than about how to get to heaven later. Show me where Jesus healed people for the next world. He healed their present entrapment and suffering in their bodies, not just their souls. But many Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, pushed the goal into the future, making religion into a petty reward/punishment system inside a frame of retributive justice. (The major prophets — and Jesus himself — teach restorative justice instead.) Once Christianity became a simplistic win/lose morality contest, we lost most of the practical, transformative power of the Gospel for the individual and for society.”
Transformation. Today, in the First Reading, we see Peter is transformed by a vision, how he is to be open when it comes to those who are different, namely, the Gentiles. Make no distinctions. It is the same Holy Spirit.
Jesus gives us the commandment, to love one another as we have been loved. This was not new, as Leviticus commands the same. What makes it new is that this commandment is to be modeled on the love Jesus showed for his disciples, by his washing of their feet and by his death. Too many times, we define this only as belief; however, Jesus asks us to act out this love so that others may know us by the “good fruits” we live. Good trees bear good fruit.
So, here is your homework for the week: Bring heaven to earth, especially now. That is what Jesus did. If heaven looks like a city and we are to pursue God’s will on earth as it is in heaven, then as ourselves: how do we live that here? How do we restore justice? How do we love our neighbor? How do we serve this city? How can we change this place? How can we become the church that transforms lives? No matter how you understand Revelation, we can trust God’s promises that all is held in His hand, that God is “the Alpha and the Omega.” Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
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