The Gift and Joy of Children

 The Gift and Joy of Children

After my mom remarried in 1956 we moved to Toronto where my step-father worked for the Weston Biscuit Company, Canada’s answer to Nabisco. There, I attended a little mission church called St. Richard of Chichester. Because, even then I sought to be ordained, Fr Hall allowed me to teach Sunday school. Second grade was my favorite. Their minds full of wonder I’d engage them with fanciful stories and tales and not just biblical ones. I’d make them up as I went. 

One day I happened upon a caterpillar on the way to church and brought the little centipede to class. I shared the experience of allowing the little one to climb all over my hand and held the children in awe. Then one by one, those who wished were allowed to experience the magic of that creepy crawly thing to roam about their hands. To round out the wonder of it all I asked the children to imagine that one day this little one would be a magnificent butterfly. 

Then I proceeded to tell the story of the early church and how it used the butterfly to tell of Jesus’ resurrection. I told the children that one day they too would turn into something beautiful for God; something like a butterfly from the creepy crawly caterpillars they were today. We all laughed. 

Being a child with children is a pure delight. 

In College I lived with a family who had two young children and partly paid my room and board in exchange for babysitting. Again I told bed time stories. I’d make up something as I went along. J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling had nothing on me. And just this week I spent a delightful evening with Sara Mato from St Paul’s and her two children with Bob and Anne Barney, thank you very much. I fancy myself a bit of a lovable grandpa. This is how Sara’s children see me. And Cindy is grandma.

The gift of children. The joy and care of children as the Prayer Book puts it. How precious!

All of which makes the events of this past week unbearably and exquisitely excruciating in sorrow and pain. And yet I feel as though I am silenced from what I want to say. So politicized is everything that anything I might want to say will likely be characterized as “political”. And politics should be kept out of the pulpit.

So, I’ll hold my tongue. I will bottle up the pain within me. I will keep a silence. But as I do that, the children’s screams cry out to me from somewhere beyond the grave. In fact the voices are clearly recorded; “Please send the police” a child begs. 

An hour passes before the police breached the barricades.

If it were up to me I’d lock up gun control advocates and NRA leaders into the same room with the children’s voices. I wouldn’t let them out until they agree on something. But I have to hush my mouth. I have nothing to say. I don’t want to be political. 

But I do have to be prophetic. That’s why I ask us to listen to the voice of Jesus. In today’s Gospel; Jesus prayed to God; “that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one”.

I have no voice. No opinion. I have nothing to say. But the children’s voices are haunting me with their screams. They are the prophets now and I will let them speak for me. 

We are told that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun. Why then did the good guys with guns wait so long?

Alas I have to learn to hold my tongue. 

Maybe Congress can come up with something this time!

Hold your tongue, Bresnahan.

When our children were little, I told them the tales of Fern Hollow, this wonderful fanciful place of thatched cottages in a pastoral setting in a lovely little village.Various and sundry barnyard animals held forth in their homely adventures. 

No longer can I protect my children and provide for them a safe, warm, and affectionate home. All that is gone now. 

I have nothing more to say. 

I must keep a holy silence.

The pain will not go away.

Jesus I pray to you for the children. Make us one that we may protect them. 

“Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the joy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient wisdom as we nurture and protect them. Give us Grace that we may teach them to love whatever is just and true and good, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”

A Dialogue

Now, Jesus is glaring at me. 

“Don’t just sit there praying to me while the children die.

Do something!”

“Do what? Anything I do would be political.”

Jesus is increasingly impatient. 

“Am I not the Good Shepherd. 

Did I not lay down my life for the sheep.

What about you?

What about my children?

Did I not say ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’.

Did you not teach that song to the children when you taught Sunday school?”

“But they keep telling me that guns are not the problem.

These are people I love.

What do I say?

Anything I say will be heard as political.

I just don’t know what to say or what to do.”

“Tell the Truth.” ~Ephesians 4:15

“I did that. They will not listen.

Remember what they did to you Jesus when you told the Truth.”

“I know.

Did that stop me?”

“All right you dragged it out of me. Let the chips fall where they may. Here’s the Truth as I see it. ‘A well regulated militia’ as the Second Amendment says would be one in which guns would be registered, gun owners licensed and insured, based on universal background checks.”

“But my loved ones say that guns are not the problem. Mental Health is. We need to arm teachers.” 

“You see, Jesus we are a ‘house divided’~Matthew 12:25 and as you wrote in the scriptures so many years ago. Such a house cannot stand.”

“All right. Start there. That’s the truth. Now ‘Come let us reason together’~Isaiah 1:18. “It is written.”

In the Name of God the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

The Milky Way and the Way of Jesus

 The Milky Way and the Way of Jesus

After my mom remarried we moved to Toronto where my stepfather worked for Canada’s version of Nabisco; namely, the Weston Biscuit Company. There I spent my high school and college years. 

My buddy Dave Appleby and I used to love going to the family cottage in the Haliburton Highlands about 150 miles north of Toronto. We drove up in his dad’s 1953 Pontiac Star Chief. What a car! I remember the windshield wipers which operated on a vacuum pump so that when driving uphill and the engine labored, the windshield wipers would stop. This was inconvenient when it was raining which it always was when using them! It was an adventure driving up to the North Country. 

I loved the out of doors in those days. We went canoeing at night and studied the heavens. It was unlike anything you could see in the city. There in the dark, dark skies nothing would impede or interfere with that amazing sight. It was as if God had spilled an enormous salt shaker across the canopy of heaven. For the first time in my life I was able to see the Milky Way. It was an enormous pinwheel in the sky and spun about in all its glory. For me at least, it declared the Glory of God. 

As the Psalmist says;

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, * 

and the firmament shows his handiwork. 

2 One day tells its tale to another, * 

and one night imparts knowledge to another. 

3 Although they have no words or language, * 

and their voices are not heard, 

4 Their sound has gone out into all lands, * 

and their message to the ends of the world.

Or in today’s Psalm

3 Praise him, sun and moon; *
       praise him, all you shining stars.

As I leaned back in that canoe, there was absolute silence. But I could hear God’s voice with crystal clarity. It spoke to my heart of the mysterious dimension of Creation and the unfathomable depths of its riches.

I loved reading “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking. Science fascinates me. How does this magnificent universe work? I cannot say that I fully understand all that there is to understand about The Big Bang, Black Holes, The General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, but that doesn’t stop me from gazing into the minds of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein or explore the thinking of other great physicists. Mind you, I flunked grade 12 algebra so how in heaven’s name do you think I can manage this subject material? Still I study it. 

News of the first image of the Black Hole at the center of our Galaxy hit the streets this week. Dennis Overbye’s article in Thursday’s issue of the NY Times is well worth reading. He explains that at the center of our Galaxy there are forces so strong that the whole of our vastness spins around it. As Carl Sagan would say “billions and billions” of stars and all their planetary systems spin around the center of that dense force so powerful that light itself cannot escape it. To my way of thinking, it is very simple. The vast pinwheel around the center of our Galaxy is like the vortex at the center of a full sink of water draining into nothing but and empty swirl of low pressure. That’s probably over simplified!

What does all this have to do with the Gospel? What is the most powerful force at the center of our lives? Who is at the center of our lives around which everything else revolves like a vast pinwheel? Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for me but the Way of Jesus! In the same way that the heavens declare the glory of God in that long ago Canadian sky to this then teenager and his buddy David, so too “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.”

It all boils down to one very simple declaration. For as Jesus proclaims in today’s Gospel; “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

There are no exceptions to that rule. “The apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.” That was a problem for some of our ancestors in faith. The word “Gentile” literally means “outsider”. In Jesus, God has declared that there are no “outsiders”. There are no more “Gentiles”. We are all one in Christ! When Peter sat down to eat with these “outsiders”, the “insiders” criticized him. This whole business of “circumcised” and “uncircumcised” is all about who’s in and who’s out. And God help us, the church still plays all kinds of “inclusion/exclusion games.” All the complexities of dietary laws factor into the conversation at that point, and when Peter declared; ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ A vision from God’s had begun to declare a new heaven and a new earth to him and it was centered on the love of God.

Which brings us back again to the Way of Jesus, the Way of Love. It is the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life. Without Love we become a black hole and the truth and the life are not in us. 

But when we love God, when we love one another, and when we love ourselves as God commands us to do, then we begin to see a New Heaven and a New Earth! Much like a star lit heaven in the Canadian North Country; “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Such is the Glory of the Milky Way to my eyes!

God knows we’ve seen a lot in these past few years with the loss of over 1 million Americans to COVID and millions more around the world. And now untold destruction of a whole civilization in the Ukraine. Human suffering is indeed a Black Hole out of which no light can escape. 

Unless we put Jesus at the center of our Universe. It is a fascinating paradox that at the same time that a Black Hole is the darkest thing in the Universe from which no light can escape,  its magnetic power is such that it releases a light that is brighter than any other force in nature. Wrap your head around that if you can!

Which brings me back to Jesus as the Way and the Truth and the Life. There at the center of my universe there is a force around with everything in my life is organized. 

Love God.

Love one another. 

Love yourself.

Now when I gaze into the heavens I see what John the Divine saw in the center of the human heart; “God will dwell with us and we will be his peoples; God will wipe every tear from our eyes. And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

There, I’ve come a long way from those wonderful rides to the North Country in David’s fantastic 1953 Pontiac Sky Chief!

In the Name of God; the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul.

Below are the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter with thoughts and phrases highlighted that speak to my heart and soul. 

Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Collect:

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Lesson: Acts 11:1-18

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Psalm 148

1 Hallelujah!
   Praise the Lord from the heavens; *
       praise him in the heights.
2 Praise him, all you angels of his; *
       praise him, all his host.
3 Praise him, sun and moon; *
       praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, heaven of heavens, *
       and you waters above the heavens.
5 Let them praise the Name of the Lord; *
       for he commanded, and they were created.
6 He made them stand fast for ever and ever; *
       he gave them a law which shall not pass away.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth, *
       you sea-monsters and all deeps;
8 Fire and hail, snow and fog, *
       tempestuous wind, doing his will;
9 Mountains and all hills, *
       fruit trees and all cedars;
10 Wild beasts and all cattle, *
       creeping things and winged birds;
11 Kings of the earth and all peoples, *
       princes and all rulers of the world;
12 Young men and maidens, *
       old and young together.
13 Let them praise the Name of the Lord, *
       for his Name only is exalted,
       his splendor is over earth and heaven.
14 He has raised up strength for his people
   and praise for all his loyal servants, *
       the children of Israel, a people who are near him.
       Hallelujah!

Second Lesson: Revelation 21:1-6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Gospel: John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a far away land I was a very young parish priest. Our congregation was part of a community organizing effort to respond to the ravages of urban crisis in an old shabby Boston neighborhood. 

I was at a good size gathering of churches and happened to meet an elderly Greek gentleman who grew up as a shepherd boy in his native land. He was wearing a shepherd’s cap and his tweed jacket looked like he wore it to bed as well as to church and all the rest of the time as well. As he spoke just the stub of a stogie moved around in his mouth. During our conversation I wondered what it took to be a “Good Shepherd”. After all, he was the first real shepherd I ever met and it was near Good Shepherd Sunday and I needed some good sermon material. 

He didn’t hesitate for a moment. 

“Tree tings. First you gotta know de sheep’s names. Second, you gotta have dogs to keep de sheeps togedder. Tird, you gotta have a shepherd’s crook, so when one a dem sheeps steps outa line, you whacken ‘em upside de hed! Dat’s what it takes to make a good shepherd”. I took careful note of what the wizened old shepherd had to say.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday in the Church Year. Jesus is the Good Shepherd of this flock. Today’s Gospel proclaims; “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

To the casual bystander it may seem that the sheep are indistinguishable one from another but not to the Good Shepherd. Not only does he know the names of each of the sheep, but he knows the background, the history, and the personality quirks of each and every sheep. Jesus knows us not just by name, Jesus knows the secrets of our hearts. Not only does he love us no matter what he sees there, he is willing to lay his life down for us. He did lay down his life for us.

I remember my best teachers, the ones I loved because they loved me. The first thing they did every year in September was to line us up in rows and seats and they’d learn our names. But it was more than names they learned about us. They learned exactly where we were in our learning capabilities. Then they encouraged and cajoled us as they taught us our lessons. 

Sunday by Sunday I take attendance. Every parish priest worth his or her salt does so. Every week Alice sends out an email to Cathy and me taking careful note of who is new, who is visiting, who is missing. Cindy and I do the same thing as we drive home. We count noses because every single life matters. 

You may think of the disciples as the trained sheep dogs keeping us together. God has deployed us all to look out for each other. We tend to stray each to his or her own way. We tend to wander preoccupied grazing with the humdrum of our daily routine. Or when we are wounded, hurt, or sick we may tend to recoil or withdraw in fear. Then we especially need someone to seek us out to keep us together as one in God’s flock. 

There are those times when we may think we know better than the shepherd. We may even head off on a tangent. After all, there is a stubborn streak that runs in the human heart. It may take a quick whack upside the head to wake us up. Or we may come to our senses and return “sheepishly” to the flock. Sorry I couldn’t resist. 

The Scripture knows all this about us. Which is why God sends the Good Shepherd to us. Like Tabitha, something in us may even become sick and die. Not to worry. Peter comes to us kneels down and prays and raises us from the dead. 

To be sure, life is such that something dies in us day in and day out as life wears us down. There is so much tragedy, trauma and death all around us. Where is our life to come from in the world we live in? It comes from the Risen Christ and someone with the courage of Peter and the disciples who are not afraid of kneeling down to pray. “Tabitha, get up.” 

Don’t be afraid to ask the impossible when you pray to God. It is not unusual for God to make possible what we think of as impossible. Just because the answer to our prayers so often is “No” does not mean we should not keep asking. 

Just because violence is a daily reality in the Ukraine or in our neighborhoods does not mean we should work and pray for peace with a sense of urgency. All wars eventually come to an end. At some point God whacks someone upside the head and knocks some sense into the human heart and mind.

Look at all the multitudes gathered before God as John the Divine does in today’s lesson from Revelation. If this vision of heaven does not whack us upside the head, I don’t know what will. There we are are gathered “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” , and we stand “before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in our hands”. We have all come out of “the great ordeal”, scripture tells us. All of us are gathered together as one flock before one Shepherd. “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and God will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

Thankfully we are never alone. Which is why we need dogs. When I go for my daily walk along Lynn Shore Drive, I get my daily doggie fix. There is such unconditional love in dogs even for perfect strangers. Like a well trained sheep dog each and every one of us is called by God to look out for everyone else and for ourselves. As Jesus so succinctly put it. Love God. Love each other. Love yourselves. Each one of us is charged with keeping the flock together. 

These past few years have really tested us and the test is not over, not by a longshot. But here we are. There are days when we have become very discouraged but just when we may have begun to loose hope a new resurrection brightens our life. 

Take a look at our life here at Trinity. Fridays twice a month Alice Mann, Lynn Peterson, Nancy Morrissey and Bruce Malborn have begun to gather with as many as a dozen folks from Dinah’s House for a Mass in Spanish. I’ve begun sharing my Sermons and Newsletter articles in both English and Spanish so that the Gospel reaches as many as possible within our numbers. There is some exciting, emerging new life in this congregation. And I thank God for each and every one of you and your ministry which makes that life possible. 

We are learning more than each other’s names. We are learning of each others lives. The Good Shepherd knows us each by name and just the wizened old Greek Shepherd taught me so many years ago. Names, dogs and the occasional whack upside the head! It’s all a sign of the degree to which God cares about us and about the degree to which we care about one another.

In the Name of God; the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul.

The Collect:

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Below are the readings for Good Shepherd Sunday with highlights that speak to my heart and soul 

First Lesson: Acts 9:36-43

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Second Lesson: Revelation 7:9-17

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Gospel: John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”