A Donald Putin Epiphany

A Donald Putin Epiphany

As the story goes, the Holy Family went up to Bethlehem to be taxed by the rich folks. I wonder if those rich folks paid their taxes then any more than rich folks pay their taxes now? Then an unwed mother gave birth to a poor homeless Child at a very dark and cold time of year. Twelve days later, Wise Men from the East came to the Child and gave him gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. 

Cradle to grave gifts those were! A generosity to last a lifetime!

As I thought about these gifts I wondered about the Donald Putin Oligarchy and what kinds of gifts they were bringing to the poor, homeless, refugee children of today? When the Holy Child grew up he healed the sick we're told. I wonder about the kind of health care poor children will receive now at the hands of the Donald Putin Oligarchy. For the poor and the elderly I wondered; what of Medicare and Medicaid? Or even Social Security? 

I had an Epiphany! The Donal Putin Oligarchs will not be bringing their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh to the Holy Child or any other poor Children this year. Rather, they will be taking away what little the Holy Children young and old have managed to eek out. 

Truth be told, the Donald Putin Oligarchs are waging war against the poor and creating armies of unwanted refugees. 

The Holy Mother of all these Holy Children has been revered down through the ages by people of faith. In a perversion of that reverence, the Donald Putin Oligarchy regards women with repugnant obscenity.

Let the Bright Light of the Star The Wise Men followed shine on the Donald Putin Oligarchs. People of faith are called to resist the Donald Putin Oligarchs.

People of Faith in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are under a moral mandate to Tithe to the poor. 

In a perversion of that generosity The Donal Putin Oligarchs will steal from the poor rather than give any gifts at all.

The Psalmist sings this song on the Feast Day of the Epiphany when God's love shines forth to all the nations of the earth; 

"All kings shall bow down before him, *

and all the nations do him service.

For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, *

and the oppressed who has no helper.

He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; *

he shall preserve the lives of the needy.""

~Psalm 72

This is not the song I hear from the Donald Putin Oligarchy. 

Fr Paul, just a simple parish priest. 

Day by Day

Day by Day

The Pilgrimage we take this summer and throughout the year; indeed every day of our lives is a pilgrimage with God as our companion. Along with our friends and family, our co-workers, and many many more, we journey along; the daily turn. Much like a vine that grows in the sun, we begin to bear fruit and the vinedresser tends to us. 

The biblical image of the vine and the vinedresser is a theme that is used time and again throughout scripture. God, we are told in today’s first lesson, in fact sings a love song for his beloved vine. The Psalmist describes the care the vinedresser exercises in tending to the vine. The vinedresser expects us to bear fruit, good fruit.

I love grapes. I love the summer when the good peaches are in. Last week we were in Maine, with friends and those blueberries always taste extra good to me, especially when put in a pie! There is also the lobster, the crab and the fresh corn on the cob. Oh, what a feast we had with our dear friends where we shared not just the good food, but good conversation, many stories, and of course, gales of laughter. There was work to do too at the local lodge where the crabmeat luncheon brought the village together along with a generous supply of tourists. That was fun too, to rub shoulders with the locals. 

My grandmother and her family lived in Rockland, Maine many years ago, and I spent a little time in the town to scout out the old neighborhood where they lived. I went to the local Episcopal Church to see if they had any record of my grandmother’s family. Apparently they were not Episcopalians then. 

All these good fruits and vegetables and the goodness that come to us from the sea, are a sign of God’s goodness to us. In return God expects us to bear good fruit for service to God and to one another. We are to love God, and love one another. We are to be known for our generosity in forgiving and our courage in reconciling one another in the midst of our controversies. 

Paul notes in one of my favorite passages in the Bible that “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”

With our friends and our families being what they are we are blessed indeed, even if you end up with a family like I had. After all, on occasion my family could be a “mixed blessing”. 

Jesus takes note of what happens in family, political and cultural life. 

He says of us; 

“they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

More and more our politics are capable of dividing us. So much so, that when the conversation begins, it almost immediately ends when you find yourself in a place with one who disagrees. 

Race relationships divide us. “Black lives matter”. “Police lives matter”. “All lives matter.” 

Gun control. That one can generate more heat than wisdom.

The rich, the middle class and the poor.

And of course gender equality and marriage equality also can generate lots of controversy among family, friends, and certainly in the body politic of these United States of America. 

Theological differences are no longer confined to progressive and conservative, mainstream and evangelical, even Protestant, Catholic and Jew and Muslim.

Now we have to add into the mix those whose extremes will lead to violence in the name of God.

Jesus was aware of all this. Jesus said to us; “why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” The danger of all these divisions of course is that they lead inevitably to a collapse of cultures, and a realignment of power. 

Jesus in fact becomes very confrontative in today’s Gospel. So much so, it doesn’t sound like him to me. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” If that’s what Jesus is here to do, then by God Jesus seems to be very much in our midst of the present reality.

Many of you will know the Limerick about the two cats from Kilkenny. It speaks to the matter of the self destructive nature of an insistent and self willed divisiveness;

Many of you will know it;

“There once were two cats from Kilkenny

Each thought there was one cat too many

So they fought and they fit

And they spat and they spit

‘Till instead of two cats there weren’t any.”

There are cracks in the very foundations of every aspect of our modern life. How then can God sing his love song for his beloved vine? And how to we reconcile a God who loves and tends to his vine and a savior who says; "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

The answer to that question is clear to me. Jesus seeks to divide those who tend to the “least of these”, those who feed the hungry, house the homeless, and tend to those in need from those who turn the other way. This is the division, the fire and the judgment Jesus is clear about. 

Jesus is looking for a vine that bears good fruit. He will look for a church to organize its life around the needs of the neighborhood and the community in which it is set. 

As you prepare for your new beginnings with your new priest you and he will have the grace to ask each other “What is God calling us to do?” “Who is God calling us to be for the sake of the world in which we find ourselves/“

The vine God loves, the vine for which God sings a love song is not just the membership of the church but for those who live outside our doors.

It was William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during World War II who famously said that the church is the only organization on earth that does not exist for itself but for those who live outside it”.

You will remember Jesus asking Peter;

“Peter, do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I do.”

“Then feed my sheep.”

A second time Jesus said; 

“Peter, do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I do.”

“Then feed my sheep.”

A third time Jesus said to Peter

“Peter, do you love me?”

This time a little hurt, Peter insisted

“Yes, Lord, you know that I do.”

“Then feed my lambs.”

We cannot turn our heads away from the hurt, the injustice and the suffering all around us. God wants his beloved vine to bear fruit, good fruit, fruit that shall last. 

God wants to be in our hearts in our daily pilgrimage as we individually and as a church organize our lives around the needs of those around us.

Whether it is in the arts or the sciences, politics or social services, or just in rolling up our sleeves to feed the multitudes of physical and spiritual hunger, it is a matter that cries out from heaven itself that we live out our lives caring. 

I spent my teenage years at the Parish Church of St. Richard of Chichester in a western suburb of Toronto, Ontario (Etobicoke). Many of you will remember St Richard’s prayer, made famous by that enormously popular song from Godspell. As the collect for the day prays that we may follow in the blessed steps of Jesus holy life, so too St. Richard prays these lines; 

“Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ

For all the benefits Thou hast given me,

For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,

May I know Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly,

Follow Thee more nearly.

Day by Day.”

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

Fr Paul

Civil Unrest & Terrorism

Civil Unrest and Terrorism

In God We Trust

So says the coinage of the Republic. 

The collect of the day teaches us to trust in God with all our hearts. And there are two reasons for that; firstly, God resists those who put their confidence in their own strength, and secondly, God never forsakes those who make their boast in the mercy of God.

Certainly we see evidence of that in Sacred History. Today, for instance, in our First Lesson we read of God’s ordinance regarding the institution of the Passover meal. The ritual of Passover is a reenactment of the means by which we came from slavery to freedom.

Blacks were slaves in America, Irish were slaves in Ireland, and the British were slaves in their homeland as well if we go back far enough in history. I was surprised to learn that the stirring words of Rule Britannia, a grand national song the British sng a the conclusion of the Proms in London include the words; “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”

Rule Britannia!

Britannia rule the waves.

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Ah there’s nothing quite like the Proms. We have the Pops, but the British have the Proms. Either way what fun!

In the history of all people, if we go back far enough, we will discover that we were all slaves at one time or another. We were and are in turn, also oppressors. It is in the nature of Sacred History that God will choose a Moses who will go to every Pharaoh and say; “Let my people go!” 

Most economists note that in the current history of America, the only place where income in increasing significantly is in the top 1% of the population. You will remember that Pharaoh was worried about the number of Hebrew people in the land and decreed that the male children would be killed. One of those children got away as we already know from the cycle of readings around the life of Moses. 

Then there were too many Hebrew children, now we have millions of illegal aliens and children without parents invading our shores from Central America. Like we did when the Irish and the Italians who invaded before them, we posture ourselves politically against the inevitable. 

People go to Pharaoh again and again seeking a place in the sun. Whether it is citizenship or a raise in the minimum wage or just a job, the powerless will always be met with the same response from those with the power. NO!

I see slavery in our young people today here at home in America, and abroad as well. I ache for our young people, whether in the teeming inner cities of our nation, in rural areas or the middle east. If they do not have an opportunity to find their way toward economic freedom, they will be forced into a life of crime, waste away into a life of drugs abuse, or turn to a life of violent terrorism, which at least promises them all the rewards of heaven. 

I would argue that it is a dangerous posture for us to allow our young to languish in a kind of modern variation of slavery and oppression. I’ve spent a lifetime in the cities and in the rural areas of this country and I can tell you chapter and verse about the hopelessness of these young people.

Take away hope, and you take away everything. If you grow up in my family or in my church you will find out it what it is like to be loved and educated and equipped for life in this world. You will make a contribution to the creative, redemptive and sanctifying work of God. If you grow up in my home, God help you!

What does our Catechism teach us about the Five Mighty Acts of God? Yes, you all know them, of course. They are 

I. The Creation

II. The Exodus

III. Jesus Christ

IV. The Church

V. The Christian Hope

That’s the foundation of all faith. God created us. God brought us out of slavery and into freedom. God sent Jesus to be for us the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus gave us the Church as the Community of Faith where we might live out our faith. And The Resurrection of Jesus establishes the Hope in which we all live both in this life and in the life to come.

If you take away our hope, or if you take away the church or Jesus, if you take away a sense that God has made us, then, sure as Mike, we’ll fall back again into slavery. I suspect that many of our young people are losing all sense of meaning, purpose and perspective in life. If there are no jobs, if there is no future, no purpose, then there is crime and drugs. 

If there is no hope for the young in the Middle East, they become prime targets for those who wish to wage Jihad or “Holy War” against the Western World. After all, the Western World has turned toward secularism and away from God, and though I understand why many turn away from religious zealots.

What I do not understand though is the growing concentration of wealth in the few. I object to the redistribution of wealth from the the 99% to the 1%. It is a posture of greed. A posture of greed is very dangerous both domestically and internationally. In today's Gospel, Jesus teaches us to take the case directly to the one who sins against you. If that doesn’t work bring a few respected leaders with you and seek some kind of accommodation. If that doesn’t work set the matter before the church and if that still doesn’t work treat the offender as you wold a tax collector. 

The tax collector was usually the richest man in town and treated as a pariah. He was among the most despised in all in the Ancient Near Eastern world. I hope you appreciate the exquisite irony in that the writer of this Gospel story was himself a tax collector. He knew what it was like to be treated as a social pariah.

All except for Jesus, who looked at Matthew, the tax collector, with compassion. He treated him as a human being and as a child of God. Jesus had no money and lived on a subsistence level. All we know about the taxes that Jesus paid was that famous quip from the 22nd Chapter of the Tax Collector’s Gospel where Jesus was given a coin with Caesar’s image imprinted on it. Jesus said; “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what belongs to God.”

Apparently Matthew thought that much more than wealth belonged to God. The encounter he had with Jesus turned his whole life upside down. He found his reason for living. He discovered what Justice and fair play meant. He found forgiveness, reconciliation. Above all, he found the love of God.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we are told the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Apparently there were those standing idle early in the morning, and the landowner put them to work for the agreed daily wage. Likewise at 9 o’clock he went out and there he found more standing idle. Again he agreed to send them out to work and pay them fairly. He went out at noon and at three in the afternoon and he put them to work with the same promise of a fair wage. Finally at 5pm he still found those standing idle and put them to work again agreeing to pay them what was fair. 

When the time came to pay the laborers they all got a full day’s wage. A storm of protest erupted, since those who had worked the whole day could not understand why they would not be paid more than those who had only worked an hour. 

There are way too many standing idle in our inner cities, our rural areas and in the hot bed of conflict in the Middle East. Such idleness will give rise to crime, drugs, and international terror.

To my way of thinking there is a connection between the unrest we have seen this summer in Ferguson, Missouri, and other urban and rural areas of America and international terrorism. 

If we let our young people stand idle in the marketplace, a vacuum will be created that is worse than slavery. It is the vacuum of hopelessness. Nature abhors a vacuum. It must be filled with something. Domestically it seems to be filled with crime and drugs. Internationally it seems to be filled with the hope of heaven given in the delusional teachings of ultra radical Islamic terrorism. 

Obviously Moses, Jesus and Mohammed abhor slavery, injustice, and violence. All three believed and taught that God is the creator, the Law Giver, the All Loving and the All Merciful.

The Great Souls all teach us of The Dream of God. A dream where there is Freedom with Law, Justice, Mercy and above all, a Love between and among brothers and sisters. I think this is what Paul was trying to say in today's Epistle. That's what it all boils down to; "Love one another"!

This is our Dream too. The Dream will not come true until we Proclaim the Gospel of God's Love with courage and determination.

This is the Dream of God.

Economic Justice on Mother's Day

Good Shepherd Sunday

and

Mother’s Day

This year’s Most Valuable Player award for the National Basketball Association went to the Oklahoma City Thunder star player Kevin Durant. In his acceptance speech on Tuesday night of this week, the six foot nine inch tall forward spoke of his mother as being the real MVP winner behind that award. The big tough guy, stopped to pay tribute to his mom.

She was his Good Shepherd. 

In his own words, this is what he said;

“I think you know what you did,” he said, as the camera cut to his emotionally overcome mom. “You had my brother when you were 18-years-old. Three years later, I came out. The odds were stacked against us. Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21-years-old. Everybody told us we weren’t supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I had, is when we moved into our first apartment – no bed, no furniture – and we just all sat in the living room and just hugged each other, because we thought we made it.

“And when something good happens to you, I don’t know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here. And you’d wake me up in the middle of the night in the summer times, making me run up a hill, making me do pushups, screaming at me from the sideline of my games at eight or nine years old. We weren’t supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street. Put clothes on our backs, food on the table. And when you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You’re the real MVP.”

This now brings us to Good Shepherd Sunday, Mother’s Day and the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Here, on this side of the Resurrection, we take note of the sacrifices we make for those we love. They do not end because Jesus rose from the dead, indeed our sacrifices take on new, joyful, generous and abundant dimensions.

He who came into the world so that we might have life in all of its abundance, has become our Good Shepherd. He is the gateway into a way of life that makes of sacrifice our joy and our gratitude. We know what it takes to have children, and send them on their way; it takes everything we have.

But then if you want to give birth to anything worthwhile, you will have to sacrifice a great deal. You may write a book, build a shelter for the homeless, expand a soup kitchen and a food pantry, argue for an inclusive church, or a hundred other things, but you will be giving birth, and making sacrifice to do so.

In this sense you are embracing that abundant life that Jesus came to bring us. The joy and the generosity of Jesus involves great words like forgiveness and repentance, love and compassion, the equally sacrificial and demanding word reconciliation. It is not just his attitude toward us that gives flesh and blood to our redemption, it is our attitude and sacrifice toward one another within which his body shape and substance. 

Those who bring us to the knowledge and love of God may have been our mothers or grandmothers, our dads or grandfathers, our aunts or our uncles, but whoever they were they have become for us a whole constellation of spirits we now come to call the “Communion of Saints”.

They led us to God the Creator, Jesus the Savior, and the Holy Spirit the Holy Wisdom and gift giver from on High. The Holy Trinity then also become an abundant and dynamic community dwelling with and among us.

There is nothing static about discipleship. Like that dazzling new model of the universe expanding over time that the students at MIT have developed, we are an ever evolving and emerging force for good in a world in desperate need of Good News.

It has all happened before time and again. In salvation history it happened to Mary, the Mother of our Lord. May marks her month for our Roman Catholic friends. The angel came to her and informed her that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her. 

Please remember she too was a single mother and that Joseph considered sending here away quietly so as not to scandalize everybody, but something or somebody told him in his dreams that this was all God doing the kind of thing that God does.

Mary then discovered a great deal more about God than what was within her as a baby. She discovered a message; a song that sang within her spirit. It is a song we will sing at Evensong in a few short weeks with others members of the Churches of the Collaborative in the Merrimack Valley. We will join and sing with her a song She has been singing since even before the Baby’s birth. Anglican Christians have a special love for her song because, for Anglicans Evensong has won within our hearts a special place for our spirituality. You know those words;

My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
    and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
    the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
    all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
    and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
    throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
    he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
    and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
    as he promised to our forefathers,
    Abraham and his seed for ever.

Mary’s sacrifice, God’s sacrifice, Jesus’ sacrifice are made good in the message given and received and then shared

I find it interesting that the number one best seller on the New York Times list of non fiction hard cover books right now is “Capital in the Twenty First Century” by Thomas Piketty, the renowned French economist. This business of income and wealth inequality is reaching proportions that pose a danger to democracy and capitalism. 

I hadn’t realized that Mary or Jesus could be thought of as economists until I started connecting the dots

He hast put down the mighty from their seat

And exalted the humble and meek

I have come to bring good news to the poor.

Blessed are the poor, and the meek.

Insofar as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me.

A basketball player and his single mom make it from the mean streets of Washington DC, a single mother becomes the mother of God, Jesus becomes the Good Shepherd for the likes of you and me.

What differentiates us now is not just the forgiveness, the love and reconciling power of God, it is the message that God has sown into our hearts and our willingness, yes our courage to communicate that message.

And if we are to mark Good Shepherd Sunday & Mother’s Day, never forget the message the Holy Spirit put into Mary’s heart the day she heard the Spirit’s message.

He has filled the hungry with good things.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul

In Human Form

The following is a meditation on the events of Palm Sunday, based on Philippians 2:5-11, and the Passion Narrative from Matthew.

In Human Form

Jesus found himself in human form and so do we. 

Jesus suffered and died and alas, so do we.

He emptied himself we’re told and became obedient even unto 

   death, and so my friends do we.

Our obedience and his were not of the sort that wills it.

Even in his obedience, he said;

“Let this cup pass from me” and 

“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

But he died like us praying that another way might be found.

Like a common criminal he was hung to die

Just like another unknown human form, except to God

For each precious soul is numbered to God and loved to the end

And so as he is exalted high above all heavens

As Jesus is given a Name above all Names

So God looks to every human heart

And exalts us to where he too has gone before

And then at the Name of Jesus

Every knee shall bow

Like mine today as I bend the knee of my heart

His precious death and passion

Told to us again, his precious band of followers

The lame, the halt, the blind, the poor, those outcast billions!

They spread their palms and coats and the Royal King

Comes to the Holy City on a donkey

Riding in Majesty and lowly Pomp

Ride on, ride on, to die; and so my friends do we.

God meets us in human form upon the Cross of Jesus

We suffer and die together, we are raised together

We ascend and reign with him in Glory,

Together.

Our lips speak with the children’s cry “Hosanna!”

“Jesus Christ is Lord and King to the Glory of God on High!
Hosanna Lord, hosannah!”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Paul

War and Peace; Our Choice

Let Your Light Shine

The choice between war and peace is always before us. Which will we choose today?

In today's Gospel, Jesus says; 

“You are the salt of the earth

You are the light of the world.

Let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

~Matthew 5:13-25

And in today's first lesson, the prophet says;

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.”

~Isaiah 58:6-8

The biblical narrative consistently connects the inner light and our radiance in the world, to the manner in which we treat those among us who happen to be in want or in need. And so it is, that when talking of fasting and prayer, the prophetic tradition and Jesus see that our faith and our servant ministry become inextricably bound up together. So shall our light shine into this dark world.

On Tuesday of this week, the New York Times published an article by Roy Hoffman, a journalist and novelist from Fairhope, Alabama. He writes of a time he found himself jogging. He has done well in life, has known of life’s joys and sorrows, has a good job, and a great family. He is in good health. And here is what he wrote.

“On this day, I sprint up a hill and come to a promontory looking out to the sweep of the bay, the horizon red and orange, and another impulse comes up in me. It is not enough to take a photo, call a friend, jot a line in my notebook, be philosophical. Like the light, the feeling is orchestral, a welling-up of emotion. I want to speak in a way that used to be easy for me as a child: silently, intensely, embracing the mysteries.

I want to pray.”

He had become a casualty of the national trend of newspaper layoffs and found himself on the religious beat and even against his doubt and skepticism, he found himself increasingly fascinated by the world of faith, until one day he rediscovered his own. He had been a rebellious youth and renounced his father’s faith. He rebelled against authority in many forms as a youth. But now he had grown older and more aware of his own vulnerability and yes, his mortality. He began to look at life a bit differently and began to wonder more about the mystery of it all.

He had seen faith divide people like a cudgel. But he also saw faith bring people together such as in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti when every church, synagogue and mosque in town came together in a united prayer service to raise funds for those in need. He began to see the value of what we in the world of faith do day in and day out to make a difference in this old, dark world.

He began to see the light shine such as the prophets speak of in the holy writings. And then one day he found himself at prayer. It was essentially a silent prayer, but when he put words to it he found himself tracing the intricacies of his inmost heart. This was his prayer.

“Dear God, Whatever we call you

Wherever we find you

in the laughter of our children

the tenderness of our parents

the strength of our brothers and sisters and friends

the closeness of our companions and husbands and wives. 

In the arc of the pelican

the leap of the mullet, 

the perfect sunny day

or incoming storm

In whatever ways we understand you, 

in a church or synagogue or mosque, 

or on a beach beneath a starry sky, 

we offer gratitude for this day.”

It is a profound human impulse to worship, to pray, and to fast. Often it is on a long walk with the dog or for the more hale sorts among us when out jogging, we become aware of the bite of the wind, and our breath making ghosts in the air, and something deep within us makes us aware of the mystery of it all.

And then it goes to a growing appreciation to an ages long connection we have with those ancient rituals that gather us together as they have for millennia. The reading of holy writings, the singing of ancient songs, the breaking of the bread, the drinking of wine. We cozy up at the altar as one people, we brush up against one another and listen to ancient words and our heartbeats connecting us now to the heart of God.

The noun “worship” means “a feeling or expression of reverence and adoration of a deity”. The verb similarly references “ a show of reverence or adoration of a deity; to honor a deity with religious rites.”

The very idea that God needs us to tell him or her how good s/he is, misses the mark to me. Why would God need us for that? We are merely creatures created in God’s image, male and female, the scripture says, he made us and thank God for that! ~Genesis 5:2

But what does it mean to be created in the image of God? It certainly doesn’t mean we look like God.The Catechism says; “It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.” ~The Catechism, page 845, Book of Common Prayer. 

Thus when we come together for worship, we come to learn, to listen, to rehearse the ancient rites of the church and not so much to tell God how good God is, we come to understand how good God wants us to become.

We come here first to confess, and give ourselves the chance to be honest to God about who we are. The degree to which that honesty rings true will determine the degree to which God can then forgive us. Likewise as we confess to one another the truth of who we are to one another. God is then able to effect the essential salve of reconciliation which makes the present and the future possible among us. The work of reconciliation helps us to choose peace over war. It is a ministry we must never flag in pursuing. Thus you and I respond to love God and one another, which is the whole of the Law and the Prophets summed or as Jesus said; “Love God. Love one another.”

It is noteworthy that the New York Times would become interested in religion once again. After all, years ago, many of our great dailies dropped the religion section. Now we have headlines, the world, the nation, metro, business, sports, the obits, and the comics. No religion section? Just the occasional article? Maybe a bit piece on Saturday in our town papers? 

Do you think we’re missing something here? When religion is mishandled, dreadful things can happen. Religion in the wrong hands is a very dangerous thing. No doubt religious warfare or jihad can cost thousands upon thousands of lives. We are part and parcel of the darkness of religion in our own national experience in the thousands who died on 9/11 and the hundreds of thousands who died in the two wars we’ve waged since in the subsequent fourteen years. Killing in the name of God is the ultimate blasphemy, the ultimate darkness.

The times in which we live are not all that different from other times, other epochs in human history. The sad chronicle of religious warfare is well documented.

But Jesus said; “you are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

Let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

It is how we handle our faith in bringing us together as one people, a whole smorgasbord of color, texture, type and taste. Yes, we are a kaleidoscope of creation. God delights in us. It is God’s call to us to shine with this very light in every color of God’s rainbow.

You are doing exactly that. Stay on message, my friends. Shine on with the Light of Christ.

God bless you all,

Fr Paul