The Presentation 2025

The Presentation 2025

Texts: Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

Watch and listen HERE

Everyone who went to the Temple that day was in the process of being obedient to God—like you are today here obeying the 4th commandment to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. All of the people at the Temple probably brought different burdens and probably had different expectations.

Old Simeon was righteous and devout and the Holy Spirit was with him. It guided him to the temple that day.

Anna was 84 and had lived most of her life as widow. She worshiped God in the temple night and day. I have met such widows in the church. They seem to be constantly on their knees in prayer.

Mary and Joseph were there following the law of Moses. 7 days after birth of the first born male child, the parents and the child were to go to the temple to redeem the child and purify the mother. The baby boy was offered to God as holy and then taken home in exchange for an offering of turtledoves or pigeons. This doesn’t say much about the value for first born males.

Because all of these people were faithfully being obedient to God something special happened for them all.

Simeon saw the Messiah and could be at peace in his desire for the consolation of Israel.

Mary and Joseph had their son blessed by an old holy man, and they were amazed at what he told them about their son.

Anna too, recognized who this baby truly was and what it meant for the Jewish people.

Simeon had a message just for Mary. “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce you own soul too.” Though the child would save his people and be a light even to the Gentiles, something tragic would happen to him. We all now know what that would be, but could you imagine what this meant for Mary as she raised her first born son?

Every Sunday we come here to worship God, being faithfully obedient like Simeon, Anna, and Mary and Joseph. We give thanks for many blessings we have received—family, friends, decent health, satisfying work, food, shelter, safety, and peace. We also come bearing our own burdens—fear, worry, anxiety, or confusion…We hope and pray that God will bless us. We share our burdens in prayer and receive God’s mercy and grace in Holy Communion. Perhaps we too hear the message from God, just what we most need to hear—in the lessons, or the words of the liturgy, or the hymns, or the sermon. This is a ritual that has been repeated throughout the history of the people of God, millions of times. It is always better to be together to worship God than not. The Holy Spirit comes when two or three are gathered together.

Like Mary and Joseph, and Simeon and Anna, we too have experienced special blessings by coming together on Sunday mornings—the baptisms of baby Christians, the joy of a child serving as an usher, the affection shared among old friends, lovingly preparing the altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, the contributions of all our parishioners to the praise of God, each in our own way. It truly is a scene not unlike the one in the Temple that day. We have righteous and devout parishioners, elderly widows, and younger people on the fringe. A healthy family needs them all. Who are you? And what is your role among the people recognizing the Messiah, Jesus the Savior of all that we know, and touch, and love? How does meeting him and knowing him change you?

In the Letter to the Hebrews the unknown author addresses the fuller reality of what the Messiah coming into the world would mean for the world. It would not be all love and peace, because earth is still the place where the devil wants to rule people. The author of the letter has a different way of looking at the people of Israel. He wrote, “For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.” We are all the spiritual descendants of Abraham. There are among the people of God those whose hearts are being torn by fear, anger, distrust, and even hatred. Jesus came to redeem sinners, people like us.

A long time ago I read a very old book written by St. Athanasius, one of the Church Fathers. It is entitled “On the Incarnation of the Word”. If you like to read old books, I highly recommend it. Athanasius wrestled with why God would become a human in order to save us. I remember one concise phrase that helps me understand why God did this. “He could not redeem what he did not know.” “To know” in the ancient world was to have a relationship with something. This is a much more intimate thing than just knowing about something. Elsewhere, Athanasius writes that God commingled with man.

Perhaps Athanasius took his understanding in part from this verse in Hebrews, “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” In some way all of us here are being tested by the world, and in particular, by the devil. The devil wants us to be afraid, to distrust, to be anxious, to be angry, and to hate. But Christ’s presence with us is so strong that we are able to eventually, with much prayer and counsel, let those things go, to loosen their hold on our hearts and minds. Though the challenges we face may be physical, or social, or emotional, this is at the depth of our being a spiritual struggle.

The prophet Malachi described this process differently. He wrote that the Lord would suddenly come into his temple and he would bring a fire that would refine the people like gold and silver. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and all of us here are being refined by it. Malachi said this refining would continue until the people presented offerings to the Lord in righteousness. We know the refining fire of the Holy Spirit to be the process of Sanctification, and it continues all our lives. Simeon and Anna undoubtedly had been through a lot in their lives, and they trusted God, and they had been faithful and obedient to his commandments. The results of their process of sanctification were righteousness, devotion, insight, and wisdom.

We might pray that we too would develop righteousness, increased devotion, insight, and wisdom as we are being tested. We remember that we are not alone—if we know Christ in a way he wishes us to know him—intimately. He has gone on before us in this testing. He knows who he is redeeming, whether or not we are even aware of it.

This is a good place to be, to receive God’s love as cracked vessels. My prayer for all of us, those present and those not present, is that through the work of the Holy Spirit we might become more steady in our devotion to God and be purified in our hearts and minds to worship him more fully. Amen.

June 23, 2024 Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

5th Sunday after Pentecost 2024

Text: Mark 4:35-41

Did you ever have the experience as a young child of being so sleepy, so tired that you were falling asleep before you could get to bed? I vaguely remember when I was probably about 5 or 6 I was so tired to go up to bed on my own. I remember my dad picking me up and putting me over his shoulder. He carefully took me upstairs to my bedroom and gently rolled me off his shoulder onto my bed, and he tucked me in. That feeling of being carried by someone who loves you has never left me. I felt so safe in my dad’s arms.

We took a Holy Hike yesterday, and one of the children needed to be carried by her dad. I walked behind them and watched as she fell asleep over his shoulder as we walked along. It reminded me of that feeling of safety I had felt.

Perhaps Jesus felt the same way in the boat. He was in the stern asleep on a cushion while a storm tossed the boat. His Father was watching over him. Jesus knew he was safe in God’s hands.

The disciples were afraid so they woke him up, and he stilled the sea. “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

People who have done tremendously brave things—like rescuing injured soldiers in the midst of a battle, or swimming into rough water to rescue someone who is drowning, or running into a burning house, are not people who lack fear. They have courage. Their courage overcomes their fear. Their concern, their love for another person drives them to do what others consider heroic.

In Jesus’ prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before his crucifixion, we could see he had real fear about what was to happen to him. “My Father if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not my will but yours.” He was so afraid he was sweating blood. Jesus’ love for the disciples and all human beings whose souls would be lost without his sacrifice overcame his fear. He entrusted his life into the hands of his Father. He would pass through his crucifixion to the place of eternal safety.

So, what does Jesus mean when he seems to be saying ‘faith’ replaces ‘fear’? Fear is a powerful human emotion. We have a strong desire to be in a place of safety. It’s natural, we want to live, we afraid to suffer. It’s primal. So how can faith in God overcome such a strong instinct to survive within us, that was put into us by God in the first place?

When we come to know and trust God as our eternal Father, when we are grateful for everything he has given us—life, family, everything we need to live—we develop a sense of how much he loves us. We can actually begin to feel that he is protecting and carrying us. Just as it seems natural for us to love our own Fathers it becomes natural for us to love God the Father. He is the ideal of all fathers. In loving God, we want to please him, to seek his will for us, to be faithful.

That’s what I thought I was doing when I found myself all alone on an airstrip in the Arctic winter. My friends and family probably thought I had lost my mind. After the pilot of the plane helped me unload all my stuff, we both looked over to the village, which was about a mile away. He said, “I don’t think anyone’s coming to get you.” Communication in the Arctic back then was often unreliable. Maybe they really didn’t know I was coming that day. I remember thinking, “I know God wants be to be here, maybe it’s to get to this point to freeze.” Then the pilot said, “Do you want to put your stuff back in the plane?” I said no. So the pilot took off and circled around the village a couple of times to get someone’s attention. Harriet Tukrook, who was driving the truck for the polar bear watch, saw me with all my stuff at the airstrip, and she came out. I may have lost my mind, but I thought I was being faithful to God. He protected me in my foolishness.

As we walk this life trusting in God there will be times when it is scary to do the right thing, the good thing, to speak the truth in love, to value the life of a stranger so much that we are surprised to find within us the courage to save them, or to travel to a dangerous place to tell others about the love of God. We are all bundles of mixed motives, and discerning the will of God for us is sometimes difficult. That’s what Jesus was expressing in his prayer in Gethsemane. Mere human beings often get it wrong, and we revert to the survival instinct, to be selfish sometimes. It is trust in God, faith, that helps us break out of the place of fear to do the thing God needs us to do in the moment.

Trusting God the Father can be like having your own father carrying you on his shoulder to a place of safety. This is how I believe ‘faith’ can overcome ‘fear.’ This deep sense of being in the hands of God gives us courage to seek his will, to love him in return for all the many, many blessings we have enjoyed. In this broken world, we are all God’s children, and like a natural father, he has hopes and dreams for us. So, let us together seek his will for us, individually and as a parish. Amen.

June 16, 2024 Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

The 4th Sunday after Pentecost 2024

Texts: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34

The lessons today show us that sometimes the mysterious power of God is at work in the smallest of things, so we should never dismiss the smallest, the ordinary, or the unexceptional.

On the other end of the spectrum, on Friday millions from all around the world, the former British Empire, turned their attention to the ‘trooping of the colors’, the celebration of the birthday of the English monarch, King Charles III.

In the lesson from the Old Testament last week the people of Israel were begging the prophet Samuel to give them a king. There was a man who was tall, handsome, and noble—like George Washington. People would certainly follow him. But Samuel was reluctant to anoint any person to be the king of Israel because he knew Israel was called to follow God, not a king.

Yet, the people were insistent, so with the Lord’s direction, Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king of Israel. However, Saul was immediately disobedient to God, so he lost God’s favor. Saul went crazy with power and he did not trust God. Saul was in a battle in which he would lose three of his sons, and in despair he fell on his sword, he committed suicide during the battle.

The Lord then led Samuel to the family of Jesse to find Israel’s next king.

Like many in his time, Samuel would have assumed the Lord would choose the older, the more experienced, the wiser of Jesse’s sons. But Samuel, listened to the voice of the Lord, he was patient, he kept at his task, asking God to confirm the one. After Jesse had presented all of his sons, Samuel insisted, “Are all of your sons here?” “There remains the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” Perhaps Jesse too assumed the youngest would be least likely to be chosen by God.

David was the last son of Jesse—the youngest, after Eliab, Abinadab, Shammah, and all of David’s other sons. He was the last one Jesse would have thought to be a king. David was the one doing the most menial thing, tending the sheep, keeping them together while they grazed.

Well, the Lord chose the least likely son of Jesse to be anointed king. In monarchies it is usually the oldest who is supposed to be the next queen or king. However the boy who kept the sheep, David, the one who was not even considered by Jesse to present to Samuel, would go on to become the greatest king of Israel. And years later, Jesus, the Son of God, would come into the world as a descendent of David, through Mary’s marriage to Joseph, and possibly through Mary’s own lineage too.

There is a connection between the lessons from First Samuel and Mark’s Gospel—God chose the least through whom to accomplish the greatest feats—the greatest King of Israel, and through David the Messiah who is bringing the Kingdom of God. From the least likely in the world God is bringing the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is mentioned 55 times in the New Testament. It is the topic about which Jesus taught most often. He primarily used parables like the two in the lesson this morning to describe it.

In the first parable Jesus describes the kingdom as seed growing secretly, quietly, without expectation. It is scattered on the ground, it sprouts overnight, and eventually produces grain, something useful.

The seed is the Gospel, the essence of the Word of God. It is read and taught to us from a very early age, we take it in, but it does not immediately, dramatically change us. The sprouting overnight is sometimes over the course of a lifetime. It is gradually taking root in us as we live and grow, and experience life—but only if it is nurtured in the company of fellow believers who study, and pray, and worship, and mentor one another. We do not just hear the Gospel once and understand it, just as Jesus did not just tell one parable to describe the Kingdom of God. Often that seed is planted deep within us and, if it is given the nutrients it needs, if it is steadily nurtured, it is growing silently, impacting us in subtle ways, forming us to see the world as Jesus does.

The second parable has to do with the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed. How can something so small become such a useful thing?

A former parishioner of mine was attending a family birthday party with his wife. His children and their spouses, grandchildren and their spouses, and a great grandchild were all there. It suddenly occurred to him that all of the lives and the life he was enjoying came from just one small seed of life. Through the life of even just one person, so much life had come into the world. There is great potential in the smallest of things, but it is God who brings it to be, who protects it and sustains it, quietly growing while we are busy attending to the details of daily life.

The mysterious power of God is growing the Kingdom, the time and place where the love of God will rule all hearts. Jesus does not give a complete, detailed description of what will be. He gives us glimpse of it, as we are able to understand it, using common images that are familiar to us—like seeds, and yeast, and fishing nets.

In Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians he wrote, “we walk by faith, not by sight”, meaning that we can have confidence that God is working in the world even when we cannot see it. Perhaps it is because so often we overlook the smaller things, like giving some change to a panhandler on the 30th time we see them standing at the stoplight, or one child forgiving another for taking a toy by deciding to share it with them, or feeling the nudge to pray for a friend without request. The goodness of God is at work in the world in quiet ways for those who have eyes to see.

So, even while the world around us seems to be chaotic, we can trust God, that good things will continue to come from him—peace, and joy, and true communion among people, life-giving and self-less love that is endless. God is still at work in his creation, bringing good through small things, the ordinary, the unexceptional. May the Holy Spirit give us the eyes to see the potential for goodness in the small thing, and the patience to wait. Amen.