THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE
The 2nd of February 2023
My dear people,
For a very long time, the 2nd of February has been very important in the calendars of the church and the world.
Astrologically, today is a “cross quarter day;” that is, the day half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
In the church calendar, today is the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. These two events are intimately connected and are very important reminders of the Jewishness of Jesus. These important commemorations of the ritual Mikva bath after birth and spiritual rejuvenation (resurrection?) of a mother after giving birth and her worthiness to make an offering in the Temple are very important for us to remember and re-appropriate into our understanding of who Jesus really was.
In Spanish, the figure of speech used for giving birth is: “dar a luz” or literally, “to give to the light” an infant who has gestated in darkness for nine long months.
Among the English the importance of increasing light during these days — 40 days after Christmas — is marked by ancient Candlemas processions and celebrations during which all of the candles set aside for use in the church during the coming year are blessed. The importance of light and increasing light are obvious.
Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, the 2nd of February is celebrated as Goundhog’s Day! This 19th century German-American custom of predicting the meteorological future – whether or not there would be an extended winter or early spring – is also related the increasing length of days and farmers’ need to begin preparing the fields for planting, future crop growth ,.and eventual harvest.
So, it’s worth a minute for us to pause today and think about what it is we mean when we say that we believe “Christ is the light of the world.”
Does Christ bring to your life light in the darkness, warmth in the cold, hope for the future harvest?
We who claim to be the “body of Christ” also find this day as an encouragement to remember our own baptisms and God’s call to us to bear the “light of Christ” to a cold and dark world. We do that with the confidence that in preparing the fields in which we are called to plant the seed of the Gospel, God will bring forth a plentiful harvest where the truth is spoken, where justice is done mercifully and where we walk humbly with our God who is the God of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
I know you are doing these things, because, when I am with you, the light is always brighter! The same thing goes for the whole rest of the world. They will know we are doing these things because the light will be brighter because we are here by God and with Jesus who is “the light of the world.”
Bless you on this special day and always.
Fr. Ron
25 October 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday we thought about the story in Mark 10 which tells of the restoration of sight to Bartimaeus the blind beggar.
We talked a bit about his shedding of his defenses —- throwing off his cloak — when he heard that Jesus had called out to him. Initially, Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus! They were, in fact, according to the record, actually ‘calling’ to each other: in dialogue!
The record of this encounter is often understood to be a “miracle” story — and it may well be. But what must be remembered is that Jesus takes absolutely NO CREDIT or RESPONSIBILITY for performing the “miracle” of restoring Bartimaeus’ sight. Jesus quite plainly and clearly tells Bartimaeus: “Go, your faith has made you well.”
As you know, I tend to be “skeptical” about “miracles” when they are understood to be the suspension of the natural order rather than an understanding of the natural order itself as the one and only and universal miracle. God’s whole creation in which we live and move and have our being is THE miracle! Our life in this world, and every moment we live and every breath we draw, IS miraculous. Believing that God might “suspend” the natural order of things to grant personal requests or to fulfill the personal desires of favored individuals is, in my opinion, contrary to believing in the miracle of life and creation itself! So, for me, being “in dialogue” with the Lord is not a matter of getting what I want, but asking for my eyes to opened to what God wants.
Bartimaeus, I believe, asked Jesus “to see again” the natural order of things, of which he had “lost sight.” Can you ‘see’ that Bartimaeus, might really have been asking for a return to a broader perspective about the miracle of God’s creation which had become occluded for Bartimaeus by his personal situation — pitiable as that might have been?
Let’s consider Bartimaeus’ vision problem. Yesterday, I suggested that Bartimaeus’ “IN-sight” may not have been the problem. By that I meant that Bartimaeus could look in-ward, he knew himself and his own situation better than anyone else in the world. Bartimaeus’ vision of himself was quite CLEAR if not POSITIVE. He was a beggar, marginalized in society, understood to be a social problem, he was severely dependent upon others for the very smallest things in life such as directions and information about the time of day, the kind of weather, etc. and for sufficient alms provided by the generous in order to eat and clothe himself.
Essentially, all that Bartimaeus could see was himself and his own situation. Could it be that he suffered the severe kind of blindness which afflicts us all when the only person we can see is ourselves and the only situation we can see in life is our own?
When Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus and Jesus calls back, a relationship is established between Bartimaeus and the Lord. Bartimaeus, despite the discouragement of the Jesus’ friends, finds out that the Lord called to him as much and as effectively as the Lord called to the holy fraternity of the Disciples. And in calling to and being called by the Lord Bartimaeus receives SIGHT. First, he hears, then he sees Jesus. When that happens, Bartimaeus “again sees” that the world is greater than himself and his own problems and that he, in fact, lives RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A MIRACLE. When Bartimaeus sees beyond himself — beyond his own situation, his own limitations, his own sinfulness, his own limited powers — he comes to SEE AGAIN the miracle of the rest of God’s creation and not just his own pitiable situation. Jesus attributes that MIRACLE of RESTORED VISION to Bartimaeus himself. Bartimaeus, not Jesus, is the MIRACLE WORKER in this story! Quite simply, Bartimaeus WOKE UP and OPENED HIS EYES to the rest of the world!
The message here, dear friends, is that we too are called — just as Bartimaeus was — by Jesus to hear and then to OPEN OUR EYES to the Lord. Upon hearing and seeing the Lord, we are then enabled to WAKE UP and OPEN OUR OWN EYES to the rest of God’s children. Then, we are called to SEE and appreciate and enjoy the ENTIRE MIRACLE of God’s creation and to live in it as those who are SIGHTED BY OUR FAITH to see beyond ourselves.
Can you SEE the importance of this Biblical story as we live in a world where many people choose to be blind about the MIRACLES of God’s world: the miracles of God-given knowledge, science and medicine? Can YOU SEE that some choose to be blind about others and to see only themselves their own fears and ignorance? Can YOU SEE that some choose not to see others or to take responsibility toward their own God-created brothers and sisters? Can YOU SEE that Jesus knows what the chosen blindness of fear and ignorance and self-centeredness is all about? Can YOU SEE that the story of Bartimaeus’ restored sight invites us to USE OUR FAITH to SEE, for God’s sake!? Can YOU SEE yourself, and everyone else, as loved by God. Can YOU come to SEE your responsibility toward others — yes, for example, by getting vaccinated, when not medically proscribed! — and to have sight and health restored not only to yourself but to the rest of the world as well.
Believe in miracles? Get vaccinated! Do YOU SEE?
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST IN CHARGE
18 October 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday we spent some time thinking about the simile offered to us in the book of Hebrews which compares Jesus and his life to the life and work of a priest, even a high priest.
The author of that book – possibly Paul – suggests that Jesus was called, as all priests are, by God. Candidly, Paul recognizes that priests are people (sinful and unclean) and must make their own confessions as surely as do the people they serve. But most significantly, the author of Hebrews GETS THE POINT that as the priest must pray for himself as well as his people, he must “deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward” – as God surely deals with us who acknowledge ourselves to be ‘ignorant and wayward’ as well.
My encouragement to you yesterday was to revisit and remember your own BAPTISM as your personal ORDINATION into the “Priesthood of All Baptized Believers.” That is to say that just as the priest, who is a redeemed sinful person, prays for his flock, the flock too should pray for the priest and the rest of the world. The Pope understands that fully. Every week he admonishes the crowd gathered for the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square: “Don’t forget to pray for me.”
Just as the priest has his work cut out for her/himself, so does every BAPTIZED person. Every member of the church is understood as a priest with prayers to say and WORK TO BE DONE! What work? You might ask. Well, the same work as the priests: “to deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward.”
The ordained clergy person really has only two additional duties to “DEALING GENTLY.” Those duties are to PREACH and to PRESIDE at the SACRAMENTS. That’s the only difference, and that difference is, quite candidly, simply “for the sake of good order.”
So, I encourage you to revisit your own baptism. You might even want to look up the date and celebrate its anniversary every year. Then remember that your work to “deal gently” awaits you. And, by the way, we know we will never complete that work, since Jesus reminds us that “the poor you always have with you.”
So, who needs to be dealt with “gently” by us? The poor, the persecuted, the sick, the marginalized, the excluded, the homeless, the refugee, the immigrant, the asylum-seeker, the lonely, the homebound, the isolated….
We start to DEAL GENTLY with the WAYWARD the way Jesus, our High Priest does. We “offer sacrifice” (i.e. make confession) for our own sins first. That means that we do the tough work of introspection – confessional ‘house-cleaning’ if you will – and adjust our ATTITUDES about others whom we see as “ignorant and wayward.” Then we get down to business, as Jesus did, by rolling up our sleeves and WASHING THEIR FEET. Why? Because “they” deserve it? Of course not! We do that because we are Priests of God and that is the work to which we are called, with Christ, in His body.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE
13 October 2021
My dear people,
I’m sure you have heard the old adage: “The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself.” As frightening as that may sometimes seem, change, in the form of education, can and should be welcome and exciting to us.
As we have dealt with a change in our national calendar of commemorations this week, with the official inclusion of Indigenous People’s Day I was pleased to be ‘changed,’ by an ‘increase’ in my knowledge of history and the potential importance of our commemoration of INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S DAY.
Here is the piece which changed my ignorance with information (new to me) which came to me from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in which, as you know, I am ordained. I found this communique most helpful and informative.
I trust you will appreciate this as much as I did.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Indigenous People’s Day: Renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery
“Scripture reminds us that the truth is costly. In Proverbs 23:23 we read, “Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding” (NRSV). Our churches’ work to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery begins with the costly work of telling the truth.” (Telling and Teaching the Truth: The Church’s Obligation to Education about the Ongoing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery)
Yesterday was Indigenous People’s Day, a day of remembrance, reflection, celebration, and education. For the ELCA, this day was an opportunity to reaffirm and expand on the Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery that we adopted in 2016. But what is the Doctrine of Discovery? How is it related to our Church? Why has the ELCA renounced it?
The Doctrine of Discovery is a principle of international law that dates back to the 15th century, originating in a papal decree issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1452. For hundreds of years, it has been used to legitimize the colonization of lands outside of Europe by providing a legal framework for Christian, “civilized” people to lay claim to land occupied by non-Christian, “uncivilized” people. Under this doctrine, seizing lands occupied by indigenous people was not considered theft or violence, but merely the discovery of new lands waiting to be inhabited by Europeans and their descendants.
The Doctrine of Discovery was carried to the new world with Christopher Columbus, where it was used to begin a long history of seizing land from the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. As Native theologian George “Tink” Tinker (Osage) explains:
“We need to understand that the Doctrine is explicitly theological and christian legal discourse, firmly predicated on a global pronouncement made by a catholic pope more than two decades before the Lutheran reformation. Nevertheless, it was also the legal principle used by every protestant christian group who made claims to Native land in north America, from the Episcopalians at Jamestown to the Puritans and pilgrims in new England — and Lutheran immigrants who swept across the northern tier of the U.S. claiming Indian land as their own properties.”
In 1823, the Doctrine of Discovery was famously cited in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M’Intosh. Over the years, it has been cited many more times, including as recently as 2005.
The ELCA believes that this doctrine, which has benefited the Church in direct and indirect ways, must be explicitly and clearly repudiated. Click below to read the Declaration, Confession, and Pledge:
tHE eVANGELICAL lUTHERAN cHURCH IN aMERICA
ELCA Declaration
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE
11 October 2021
Indigenous Peoples’ Day
My dear people,
In the passage from Mark (10:17-31), which we read yesterday, we were confronted – yet again – with Jesus’ understanding of our relationship as humans with the Almighty Creator God.
The concerns of the disciples are not peculiar to them or to Jesus’ day. If we are honest, their concerns are sometimes very much like our own. In short, we too want to know “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” As the wealthiest people in the world, we too are surely – and certainly should be – astonished at Jesus’ warning about the difficulty wealthy people will have in terms of “entering the kingdom of God.” In fear and frustration similar to that of the disciples we ourselves ask: “Then who can be saved?”
And this is where Jesus knocks it right out of the ballpark. Jesus simply says: “Left up to you, there is NO HOPE for salvation!”
Do I have your attention? Did you hear that?
Jesus essentially says, if you want to ‘bargain’ with God and engage in a ‘contract’ — or as the Pope said yesterday, in a “commercial’ or ‘mechanical’ relationship — in which God pays you with the ‘salary of salvation’ for your good behavior, YOU LOSE BEFORE YOU START!
Jesus makes it patently clear that if we are concerned about salvation (ours or anybody else’s) there is nothing – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – we can do about that, by or for ourselves! Jesus himself says: “For mortals it is impossible.” And, if we are anything, friends, we are mortal.
Jesus is absolutely certain that salvation is God’s gift and God’s gift alone. And since “with God, all things are possible,” we are encouraged to believe that we are saved by God’s grace alone. We believe that nothing nor anybody else can or will save us but God and God alone. And in making that confession, we understand that if God can save us God not only can but desires to save all of God’s own creation and everyone in it.
Mortals that we are, just as was Peter, we quite quickly forget that we have received a GIFT and begin to treat our salvation as a personal possession which we have earned. [We ask the same question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” How’s that for self-centered!] And we forget that we have been told that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT OUT SALVATION THAT WE CAN DO to deserve, merit, earn or own it!
Peter – yes, Saint Peter – can’t quite get this through his thick (albeit blessed) skull. He pursues Jesus with his personal ‘merits.’ He brags: “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Obviously Peter sees himself as having done something sacrificial himself to “deserve” his salvation. Jesus, however, simply won’t let him get away with that. Jesus very wryly responds that Peter might be very surprised to learn that: “. . . many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Jesus wants Peter and us to live in this world as HAVING BEEN SAVED by God, for God’s sake, NOT as creatures working to save ourselves for our own sakes. Living as saved by God for God’s sake focusses on others. Living to save ourselves focusses our efforts on us alone.
Jesus warns Peter – and us – about attitudes toward others whom we see and treat as “unworthy.” For examples, what’s your feeling about government aid to “illegal” aliens? How “legal” was Columbus’ ‘immigration?’ When faced with these nettlesome political issues of today, we are prone to cry: “But that’s not FAIR!” “We earned…and they don’t deserve.” To people who think they have worked their own salvation, aid to ‘illegals’ is absolutely ‘un-fair.’ But to those who live in this world as SAVED BY GOD, there is no generosity greater than God’s, and God’s generosity is to be shared with ALL in need, whether or not that’s “fair!” Now that’s truly astounding! That’s what makes Christians peculiar and often not understood.
You see, these are not issues of fairness but matters of GENEROSITY. Our sense of generosity is born in our understanding of God’s grace and the Divine Generosity we ourselves have received from God. How could we possibly ACCEPT GOD’S GENEROSITY and not be similarly generous to others without being blatantly hypocritical?
You see, when our perspectives change, and we understand ourselves as the true beggars for God’s grace, then our prejudices are challenged and we are in for the great surprise that Jesus talks about when he says that the many whom we see as first will be last and that the last will, in fact, the first.
The point of all of this is that Jesus understands our relationship with God as fully and completely DEPENDENT on God’s initiating and creative love in the first place, and God’s redemptive love in the second place. In neither instance – in being created or redeemed – are we anything other than UNDESERVING PRIMARY RECIPIENTS OF DIVINE LOVE. We are NOT in a contractual, commercial or mechanical relationship with God. Rather, we are in a LOVING relationship with a God who creates us and loves us as only a truly loving parent could. We are, in fact, with the rest of God’s own creation, God’s children. We are not employees of God nor is God indebted to us. God owes us nothing and gives us everything.
Consequently, Jesus’ instruction to his disciples is that they should enjoy and generously share the love of God with others. The issue, as Jesus sees it, is not about what we must do to gain salvation but about what God has done to assure us that we are saved! The issue for Jesus is NOT about earning salvation. The issue is NOT about “fairness.” The “issue” is about living in this world as those who believe that they ARE SAVED and sharing that salvation with the world. Entering the kingdom of God for us has to do with starting to build that kingdom right here and right now. That’s done simply by SQUANDERING GOD’S LOVE on others as God has squandered that love on us. Period!
Jesus warns Peter, and us, against self-righteous religiosity. Jesus reminds us that if we think we can justify ourselves we’re going to have as much trouble doing that as a camel who tries to get through the eye of a needle.
This Gospel is as challenging for us as it was for the disciples – and, perhaps, particularly for Peter – who had the impulse to prove themselves worthy. There’s a real and important difference between being self-righteous and understanding one’s self as a humble recipient of more than enough of God’s love and goodness to share, even with those we may deem to be “un-worthy.”
Jesus apparently believes – and lives out his belief – that God see no one as “un-worthy” of God’s FREE grace. If God doesn’t deny the un-worthy (ourselves, for starters!) we shouldn’t either.
Believing that God has squandered love on us, how could we possibly treat others “fairly” rather than “generously?” How does God’s ‘generosity’ toward us affect our attitudes to the poor, to refugees, to immigrants, to asylum-seekers, to the addicted, to the marginalized, and to all those others of God’s children who may neither look nor act like us? What do our attitudes toward others say about what we really believe about God’s grace?
God’s grace is NOT fair. God’s grace is Divine. There is s real difference between the two. In Jesus’ experience and in ours, God is NOT FAIR, God is better and greater than ‘fair.” This DIVINE GIFT baffles us. Our belief in Divine grace will surely expose our hypocrisy if we do not share as freely with others that which we have so freely received ourselves! We simply cannot accept freedom and life without working to squander those same Divine gifts with others who deserve them as little as we do!
The last shall, indeed, become first if we do our job right!
Bless you in your contemplations,
Fr. Ron
P.S. I remind you that today is INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a holiday that celebrates and honors Native American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures. On October 8th, 2021 President Joe Biden signed a presidential proclamation declaring October 11th to be a national holiday. It is celebrated across the United States on the second Monday in October, and is an official city and state holiday in various localities. It began as a counter-celebration held on the same day as the U.S. federal holiday of Columbus Day, which honors Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. Many reject celebrating him, saying that he represents “the violent history of the colonization in the Western Hemisphere,” and that Columbus Day is a sanitization or covering-up of Christopher Columbus’ actions such as enslaving Native Americans. Indigenous People’s Day was instituted in Berkeley, California, in 1992, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Two years later, Santa Cruz, California, instituted the holiday.[6] Starting in 2014, many other cities and states adopted the holiday.
Let us remember our former neighbor, Pastor Gregg Schafer and family who serve the Moravian Church on the The Morongo Reservation which is located in Riverside County, California in the San Gorgonio Pass. Established as the Portrero Reservation by executive order in 1876 under President Ulysses S. Grant, and called Malki by the Native Americans, the Morongo name was adopted by 1908 when the land was patented to the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. The tribe has developed a large casino and hotel resort at Cabazon to generate revenues for tribal welfare and economic development.
Two churches are on the Morongo Reservation. They are the Protestant Morongo Moravian Church and the Catholic St. Mary’s Mission, maintained by the Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Community.
R.
PP.S. You can find a representation of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha on the bronze doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue in NYC.
R.
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE:
Friday the 13th of August 2021
My dear people,
You may remember that I stopped at St. John 6:41, [“Then the Jews began to complain about him. . . .”] as I was reading the Gospel last Sunday to offer an impromptu prone. [The Prône began in medieval times as a vernacular service in extra-liturgical settings that came later to be included in the Latin High Mass on Sundays and other feasts. In its more developed form the Prône included a translation or paraphrase of the Gospel reading, sometimes with an explanation. . . .]
To support my warning about the anti-Semitic use of a ‘literal’ reading of John, I would like to share with you an excerpt from James Carroll’s book Constantine’s Sword, The Church and the Jews. I encourage you to acquire this hefty volume and to read it.
On pp. 404-5 of a 615 page text, Carroll says:
“Since the time of Constantine. . . people who identified themselves as Jews, even when that identification was less than dear, were forced to stand apart, and while Catholic Christianity was gathering itself around an absolutist universalism, Judaism was being reduced down to a narrowly defined kinship religion. This was happening as a result not of anything intrinsic to Torah, Talmud or the “Israelite” character, but of the world of sacred intolerance in which Jews were forced to Iive.”
My point is that we can trace the beginnings of that Constantinian ‘sacred intolerance’ right back to the Gospel of John, which was written 250 or so years before Constantine!
And, friends, let us not only look at history to learn about “sacred intolerance,” let us pay attention to the temptation to err in the same way in our own day and age.
Not learning about and “naming” sacred intolerance in our own time is to be complicit with it!
Not pointing to the ‘sacred intolerance’ which is represented by the flag of the Confederate States — those states which LOST the Civil War — which still flies so arrogantly, hatefully and frequently in our neighborhoods, is to be complicit with the ideals which that symbol of white supremacy, racism, hatred and ignorance represents. There is nothing ‘right’ or ‘religious’ about racism!
Racisms unchallenged led to the complicity which allowed Hitler’s gas chambers in Germany.
Racism unchallenged rolled out the proverbial ‘red carpet’ for slavery in this country and around the world.
There is nothing that ever came out of the mouth of Jesus which was ever anti-Semitic [he was a Jew himself!] or racist or sexist or exclusionary of anyone as a child of God.
What came out of Jesus’ mouth always challenged hatred, prejudice and religious hypocrisy. That’s why today we think about justice, mercy and humility in this world, and in our lives: because Jesus did!
And, remember, what Jesus SAID and DID cost him his life!!!
That’s why our little self-education project with all those flags from all those nations around the world continues.
I see some of you have already planted your flags in front of the church – and I will look for more.
Take another flag if you like. Give one to your friends. Take a moment to think about and pray for other members of God’s creation whom those flags represent. According to Jesus — and the author of Genesis, before Jesus — those folks are your brothers and sisters despite the fact they they are surely different from you and that you don’t even know them. “Fear of the unknown” and ignorance about others drives nationalities, racisms, and intolerance, none of which is “right” nor “religious” nor “sacred.”
God bless you, each and every one, as God frees us all to be grateful for the Divine Creation into which we have all been called, by God, to live, in peace, with All of God’s children everywhere.
Fr. Ron
Monday, August 8, 2021
My dear people,
You may remember that, last week, I expressed my disappointment at the on-going, public and arrogant display, in our neighborhoods, of the flag of the confederate states which LOST the Civil War. I spoke about how reprehensible this behavior is. It would certainly not be allowed for people in Germany to continue to erect statues of Hitler and to display the Nazi swastika on flags. Those symbols are understood and unapologetic. They support ignorance, racism, hatred and absolutely unequivocal anti-Christian ideals.
We all KNOW that the confederate ‘stars and bars’ represents white supremacist hatred, bigotry, fear and efforts to continue the policies and racist practices, of the south. Efforts to keep freed slaves and people of color ‘down’ are known as “Jim Crow.” “Jim Crow” continues and is still blatantly evident in current politics in this country which work to prevent and exclude people of color from voting, etc.
In an effort to positively address my disappointment about that confederate flag display, I provided small flags, from over 50 different nations and asked that our parishioners – YOU! – take one (or more, if you like) home, and find out what nation’s flag you picked, and a little something about that country. I did this to UNDERSCORE our belief in Genesis, Chapter 1, that GOD creates the WHOLE world and EVERYBODY in it. Also, I did this to UNDERSCORE our belief that God loves everyone God creates! All people in All nations in the Whole world. That belief neutralizes – or should – inappropriate nationalism. And that IS a matter of faith and of our religion. This exercise is also to remind ourselves that: We simply cannot claim to love God and then not love those whom God creates.
Yes, that’s what it boils down to. That’s why the ‘stars and bars’ and the Nazi swastika are ANATHEMA to us! Any symbol which invites hatred of others on the basis of race, gender, religion, national origin or any other ‘feeble excuse’ IS NOT, NEVER WAS, AND NEVER WILL BE CHRISTIAN or supported by the Church of Jesus Christ.
There is absolutely NO WAY AROUND THIS ONE, no matter what tune the ‘religious right’ (which is, in my book, neither!) tries to whistle into your ear.
So, during the last week, several folks have ‘done their homework.’ And, here is the fruit of their labor. I look forward to hearing from you about your flag – and if you didn’t get one yet, there are plenty left over!
God loves you and the whole world which is truly in his hands!
Fr. Ron
FLAGS OF ALL NATIONS : Reports from Parishioners
From Pat Ware:
My flag is that of the country of Belize, on the world’s second largest barrier reef and a commonwealth whose reigning monarch is a queen. The flag is navy blue with red stripes at top and bottom and the national insignia in the middle which pictures two men, one black and one Mestizo (the locals call them the chocolate and the yellow men). The men are holding the tools, an axe and an oar, used in the country’s main economy – mahogany – and a mahogany tree casts shade above them. A ship in full sail is below them. The blue of the flag represents unity.
The country’s motto, Sub Umbra Floreo – Under the Shade I Flourish – appears at the bottom.
This is the only flag in the world that has human figures on it. Belize, then known as British Columbia, fought hard from 1950 (represented by 50 olive leaves) til it gained independence in 2018 from Great Britain and it took until 2019 for the entire country to agree on the design of the flag.
The country sits northeast of Guatemala and south of Mexico. It’s eastern border is the Caribbean.
The 400,000+ residents are descendents of the ancient Mayan culture and a group called the Garifunas representing Africans taken there as part of the European slave trade.
Belize backed the UN’s Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.
It’s capitol is Belmopan. The primary languages are English, Spanish and Creole. They celebrate the hunting of the tiger in August and enjoy “rock tip” music.
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From Rainelle (Randy) Fluck:
The Italian National colors of the flag appeared after the dark years of fascism. The national symbol has become most important because it represents the green which symbolizes hope the white symbolizes faith and the red represents charity. The secondary inspiration of the state’s is green which symbolizes the landscapes , the white symbolizes the snow caps of the alps and the red represents the bloodshed of the Italian people. The inspiration of the tricolor flag came from the French, however the color blue was replaced by the color green. Rome became the capitol of the kingdom of Italy in 1872. To mark this historical event a crown was added to the center of the flag. King Vittorio Emanuele 11 made this white Savoias the code of arms , it remained at least until 1946 when Italy officially ended the monarchy.
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From Sarah Miller:
Here’s what I found out:The flag of Belgium consists of three vertical stripes – black, yellow and red. It was adopted in 1831 after Belgium won independence from the Netherlands.Belgium is located in Western Europe and has a population of over 11 million people. It is famous for fine chocolate and great waffles! (I can vouch for both!)
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From Marianne Berryman:
The flag I received is from Turkey. It is red with a white crescent moon and a white star to the right of the moon. Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark came to rest, is in eastern Turkey. Turkey is a constitutional republic with a president. The population is over 83 million, mostly Moslem. Other religions are Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and Roman Catholic. Turkey is located partly in Europe and partly in Asia. The Mediterranean Sea is to the west and the Black Sea to the north. Presently, they are fighting forest fires.
=========As of 7 August 2021
3 August 2021
My dear people,
You may remember that, relative to our thinking about the “Feeding of the 5,000,” I wrote to you on Monday and said:
I suggest to you that the author of St. John’s Gospel is making a very clear eucharistic connection here between Jesus’ own body, and the bread used at mass. In fact, the author of John’s Gospel reports Jesus as saying: “I am the bread of life.”
With that in mind, [and how’s this for a new ‘twist’] let’s take a peek at what’s coming in the lessons for this Sunday. In the Gospel from John 6, Jesus says:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
This is only one of about seven “I am” sentences which the writer of the Gospel of St. John places in the mouth of Jesus.
Here is a list of Jesus’ seven “I Am” statements in the book of John.
“I am the bread of life.” (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51)
“I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)
“I am the door of the sheep.” (John 10:7,9)
“I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25)
“I am the good shepherd.” (John 10:11, 14)
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)
“I am the true vine.” (John 15:1, 5)
Jesus’ “I am” statements would have particular significance to the first-century Jewish listener. God had revealed Himself to Moses with a resounding “I AM” (Ex. 3:14).
I look forward to thinking more about these statements when we gather for Word and Sacrament on Sunday.
In the mean time, I want you to know I “planted” the first flag – the EPISCOPAL CHURCH FLAG – in front of the church. I delivered one flag to the home of a parishioner yesterday and expect to deliver a few more today! Don’t forget your homework!
I’ve already heard from Karen and Paul Fels about their flags, and Pete Eddins wrote this about his “adopted country” and one of God’s own creation:
The flag that I took was a red square with a green square inside with a crescent moon in the center of that.
It belongs to the Maldives and it is a group of 26 atolls in the indian ocean.
Its main income is fishing and tourism ,it is situated from 1degree s to 10 degrees north.
The flag has changed over the years; however, this is the newest one from the 1960s. :Peter
May God bless the MALDIVES and all who live there, and with us in the miracle of this world, on the gift of this planet and within the Divine embrace of the Eternal Creator God.
Thanks for sharing that, Pete.
God bless you one and all.
Fr. Ron
2 August 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday our Gospel text from John 6, was a continuation of the previous week’s story of the feeding of the hungry multitude. A week ago, we spoke of the real “miracle” which occurred as one of the softening of human hearts to share what God has provided – even if God’s provisions seem meager [only 5 loaves and 2 fishes!].
Yesterday we encountered the crowd “looking for Jesus” again. Do you remember that the disciples departed the shore without Jesus, whom they had apparently already forgotten? Then, when they ran into danger on the stormy sea, Jesus — who had NOT FORGOTTEN THEM, despite their thoughtless and self-centered departure, even after they had been so very well-fed — went to them in their distress, walking on the waters!
Yesterday, the rest of the crowd caught up with Jesus and his disciples and asked: “When did you come here?” Apparently, Jesus sensed that they were looking for their next meal! He says to them: “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill!” Jesus knew that those ‘fat cats’ had “some” and wanted “more.” They wanted to exhaust Jesus’ “supply” with their own “demand,” forgetting what Jesus had just taught them on the hillside. They wanted to be fed again without sharing again! They wanted to know the “secret” of being able to feed so many with so little. They confused “miracle” with “magic!” They asked: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” They wanted power to perform miracles, just as Jesus did; and Jesus, in fact tells them how to do that! Jesus simply says, believe in my God, believe in the God of Moses!
Jesus’ understanding of “miracle” is not the suspension of the natural order but a belief and respect for the natural order as the true “miracle” of God’s own creation. Jesus believed, as he was taught in Genesis, that God created the world to be a garden which had enough for all, and was self-sustainableas well. Jesus knew that the natural order would be ‘sufficient’ for everyone, if God, and God alone – and nothing or no one else – were worshipped.
Now, those ‘fat cats’ knew about Moses. They believed that Moses was responsible for giving their ancestors “manna in the wilderness….” But Jesus teaches that it was NOT Moses, but Moses’ God who provided that real ‘bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus makes it very clear that Moses’ God is also Jesus’ God. Jesus says: “…it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.”
I suggest to you that the author of St. John’s Gospel is making a very clear eucharistic connection here between Jesus’ own body, and the bread used at mass. In fact, the author of John’s Gospel reports Jesus as saying: “I am the bread of life.”
But more importantly for me, Jesus makes a very clear point that all throughout history – through times of famine and of plenty – Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Mary all acknowledged GOD to be the CREATOR and GIVER of ALL good things! Their belief in God contributed to a return to the belief that the natural order is the true miracle and is God’s gift and God’s gift alone!
Jesus’ point? That when people are ‘inspired’ — that is moved by the Spirit of God to do what is right — they return to the true ‘natural order.’ They SHARE! They do not pretend to OWN God’s gifts! When people GET THAT, they no longer starve themselves or the people who are sitting right next to them by proclaiming that the sandwich up their sleeve belongs to them personally. Rather, they respect what they have as God’s gift to them to be shared, so that ALL might have SOME rather than that SOME might have ALL.
When we worship the golden calf (see Nehemiah 9:16–21) we get it wrong. When we are Spirit-moved and come to believe in Jesus’ God, about whom Jesus taught us with the example of the little boy who shared the little he had, we, in fact, become able to “perform the works of God;” and that is miraculous, if you will!Yesterday’s Gospel taught us how quickly we forget the lessons we learn, even after we ourselves are so well-fed by the Savior, on the grassy hillsides of our lives. We often quickly go ‘down to the sea in boats’ and forget to take our LIFE SAVER with us! We forget ourselves, we forget our Lord and our ships start to sink. But we know that our Lord can and indeed does come to us – even in our distress on those stormy seas – to remind us over and over again, that if we worship the One True God – Moses’ God and Jesus’ God – the world becomes a better place: the storm is calmed, needs are met, hunger is fed, sickness is healed, wars cease, air is breathable, water is drinkable, there is enough for everybody, some is left over and our earth can again become the Eden it was originally created to be!
A major part of “wanting to perform the works of God” has to do with the humble search and advocacy for the MERCY of JUSTICE for all people. I shared my disappointment with the continued and arrogant public display of the Confederate States’ flag of the “stars and bars” in our neighborhoods. How acceptable would we find a similar display of Nazi swastikas? Both flags symbolize similar ideologies. We are quite capable of reading “symbols.” We know what they mean. And we know for a fact that both the Nazi swastika and the confederate ‘stars and bars’ are symbols of racism, white supremacy, as well as hatred and fear of others who are ‘different.’ None of those ideas is a part of believing in the God of Moses and Jesus. The simple fact of the matter is that subscription to such ideas will dis-allow us from performing the “works of God” and can only lead to the denigration and destruction of the Eden of this earth which we know to be God’s own Creation.
So, yesterday, I provided flags from over 50 different nations of the world and asked each person to take a flag – to take it home – to identify which country it represents – to learn something about that country – to pray for that country this week – and then to plant that flag among the American flags on our lawns at church. This is meant to make a symbol – to ourselves and to the world – that we understand that God has created not only us but the whole world and everyone in it. This is to teach ourselves to value the hungry person sitting next to us on the hillside of life who may also have something to share – albeit only a couple loaves and a few fish – which just might change our own lives and help us to become, with Jesus and Moses, “miracle workers” who worship the One True God and not the golden calf.
I look forward to hearing from you about “your” new country – the country whose flag you chose.
If you were not able to come to mass this past week, don’t worry, there are plenty of flags left for you to have one. If you can’t get to church for a flag, let me know, and I’ll pick one and bring it or send it to you!
I thank God for you and the “miracles” we can work, we do work, and we shall work together as the body of Christ.
Remember our Mission Statement: “We welcome all people to embody the love of Christ.” Our Christ, Jesus, as you know, worshipped the One True God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary and Joseph. As a part of that body of Christ, so do we!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
30 July 2021
My dear people,
I continue to be engaged by the account of the feeding of the 5,000 about which I wrote to you on Wednesday.
Do you remember my observation that:
“Jesus used the example of the little nameless boy by TAKING what he offered. Jesus did not say, as we might: “No, you are just a little boy and you only have a little, you should keep that for yourself.” Rather, Jesus accepted the gift from the youngster who, by his faithful and generous act, acknowledged the Divine Giver of even the apparently paltry gift of those very few loaves and fishes. That poor nameless child lived out his faith and belief and trust in God. He truly believed that God was the DIVINE GIVER of ALL THINGS. The little boy truly believed that he was ‘BLESSED’ and that even the very little that he had was a gift from God – and belonged to God! His act of faith, I am convinced, shamed those large submarine sandwiches and hoagies out of the sleeves and purses of those ‘big-kahunas’ who were sitting about waiting for someone else to feed them, rather than feeding each other by sharing what they already had!
The religion of the “poor kahunas” [who were NOT really poor – but saw themselves as such] who were waiting to be fed, paled dramatically in comparison to the religion of the poor kid who lived out his faith that God could do wonders with the gifts that God himself bestowed, no matter how small those gifts may have seemed to have been.
I simply wish to point out that if the “BIG GUY” told the “little nameless boy” not to share, and to use what he had for himself, because it was so small, that that which might appear to be an “apparent act of charity” would be just a fatuous EXCUSE for the “Big Guy” himself not to share! What do I mean by that? Well, for example, when the wealthiest country in the world refuses to proportionately tax the wealthiest people in that nation and then argues that universal health care is too expensive and unaffordable, that’s the ‘big kahuna’ using the little boy’s poverty to hide his own sandwich up his sleeve and not to share it. I am absolutely certain that’s what Jesus was talking about. And, I am just as certain that Jesus’ concern was as much FOR the ‘big kahuna’ as it was for the little boy. As you and I both know, the joy and satisfaction of sharing is an incomparable and un-purchasable commodity: one which the “little boy” had and the “big kahunas” lacked! Jesus, I am convinced, wanted the big guys to be as fully-satisfied with that joy as was the little boy. To do that, however, they needed to see and follow his example. And, it worked! So, let’s try it ourselves!
You see, encouraging that poor little boy to be selfish and to keep as his own what he knew to have been shared with him by God, is a subtle way to give a “PASS” or an “EXCUSE” or a “REASON” – however FALSE that “REASON” may be – to the BIG GUY himself to be SELFISH!
The generosity of the poor youngster, you remember, was ACCEPTED by Jesus who SHARED with the crowd, that which the ‘kid’ SHARED with Jesus!
It’s that simple friends. There are no “passes” no “excuses” nor false “reasons” to be selfish without denying that God is the Divine Creator who loves all of creation and all who live in it.
I just thought I should share that thought with you!
Believe in miracles? Take the sandwich out of your sleeve. Get vaccinated!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
28 July 2021
My dear people,
On Sunday, we considered what is often referred to as the “Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes” from John 6.
That morning, during his Angelus address, the Pope pointed out that the word “multiplication” isn’t used in the scriptural account of that ‘miracle.’ Rather what Jesus did was “take” or accept the small gift from a small nameless boy. Then Jesus “gave thanks” and broke and “distributed” the boy’s gift to those who were there. [You may notice in these actions the “shape” of our liturgical actions at every Eucharist. At every eucharist we remember that Jesus did the same things on the night he was betrayed: “He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples!]There is NO Biblical report of any magical or miraculous MULTIPLICATION. There is, however, the report of Jesus accepting a small gift from a small soul, thanking God for that gift and sharing that gift to the SATISFACTION of many which resulted in an over-abundant SURPLUS.
I suspect that our willingness to see this miracle as the suspension of the natural order is our desire to be relieved of the RESPONSIBILITY TO SHARE, which is the real lesson I believe this ‘miracle story’ is intending to teach.
The disciples worried that: “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” But something happened on that hillside. Something changed. We often call what did happened on that hillside a miracle. But I am just as sure as the Pope, that it was NOT a miracle of mathematical MULTIPLICATION. Rather is was the spiritual miracle of the SOFTENING of human hearts. The miracle of the COURAGE to SHARE without fear of having less. The miracle of coming to the genuine belief that ALL that we have and are is GOD’S GIFT to us. What we have is NOT our possession to own. The miracle of Divine Economy is that SHARING provides enough and more than enough for all!
You know that I am certain that each one of those 5,000 people had something up his sleeve or in her purse: a submarine sandwich or a hoagie, perhaps. And each was filled with the satisfaction that he or she had remembered to care for and provide for him or her self. But when the disciples became concerned for the SOCIETY that sat with Jesus on that hillside, when the ISSUES became issues of the COMMUNITY rather than just issues of individuals, there was an APPARENT LACK of enough for all! There was FEAR that there would not be enough for EVERYONE. That perception and that fear were FALSE. That sense of insufficiency was based on self-centered economies which made people believe that if they shared what they had they would have less, rather than more. JESUS CALLED THAT BLUFF! Jesus used the example of the little nameless boy by TAKING what he offered. Jesus did not say, as we might: “No, you are just a little boy and you only have a little, you should keep that for yourself.” Rather, Jesus acknowledged the Divine Giver of even the apparently paltry gift of that poor nameless child and understood that the DIVINE GIVER of the little gift to the little boy is also the DIVINE GIVER of the large submarine sandwiches and hoagies the ‘big-kahunas’ had up their sleeves which they were unwilling to share because they FAILED to acknowledge and THANK the DIVINE GIVER! The economies of the ‘kahunas’ taught them that they themselves had ‘earned’ their possessions, that what they had was theirs by their own efforts and that God, the Divine Giver, had little or nothing to do with their possessions. The ‘big guys’ thought that the inequitable distribution of wealth was an affirmation of their own deserving, of their own righteousness, wisdom, worth or ‘rights’ rather than an opportunity and a resource with which to confess their belief in God as the Divine Giver of all good things. To prove that belief requires faithful sharing for the benefit of the COMMUNITY and SOCIETY rather than just caring for oneself alone!
It interests me that 5,000 people quite instantly ‘got the picture’ from Jesus’ example, when the example of the little boy provided sufficient embarrassment! When the Miracle of the Softening of Human Hearts occurred, the real POSSIBILITIES of enough for everyone, were seen, lived out and very effective. There were left-overs, for God’s sake!
The funny thing about this text from John comes at the end: “When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum.” We learn, shortly thereafter, that they left the shore in such a hurry that they forgot to take Jesus along! Then, without Jesus in the boat: “The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. . . . and they were terrified.” Then, Jesus comes to them in their distress, walking on the water. That’s when they are willing – embarrassed, yet again – to acknowledge their need to have Jesus in their boat in order to have safe and happy passage.
So the lesson for us is, with Jesus in our boat, we can expect to experience the MIRACLE of the SOFTENING of our own HEARTS. With Jesus in our boat, we can expect to have our ECONOMIES changed from selfish and self-serving to community-minded and have them turned toward the common weal. With Jesus in our boat, we can not only expect to eat well but to feed the world with enough and more. With Jesus in our boat, we will be able to share our sandwiches without fear, in joy and with gratitude for all that we have and are, and without embarrassment.
My friends we live – daily – in the MIRACLE of God’s own creation. When we start to paddle the little boat of our cosmos – our oikumene – together, with Jesus as a passenger, the trip improves, for us and for everybody else. When Jesus is with us, our world becomes a much-less-hungry, a much happier, a much greener and a much more serene and peaceful place.
Do you believe in miracles? Then, get vaccinated!
That’s just like sharing your sandwich….
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Saint John’s is running a school supply drive for our local schools until the end of August this year. As you shop over the next four weeks, please consider picking up basic school supplies that can be donated to our local schools (including Evergreen Elementary School and the Wallenpaupack middle and high schools) for those students that can’t afford the basic supplies. Donations can be dropped off at the Pavilion on Sunday mornings, at the Thrift Shoppe Saturdays of August 14 or 18 from 9am-1pm or on Wednesday the 28th from 10-noon & 5-7pm or at the office during open hours. Do not leave donations outside unattended. If you need items to be picked up, please contact Joan Griffin @ grifjoan@alum.mit.edu or Chris Crosley at christine.e.crossley@gmail.com
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
19 July 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday, at mass, I mentioned a well-known and much-beloved Lutheran pastor and professor whom I heard speak at least once, during my seminary education in Chicago (sometime between 1969 and 1971). I was more acquainted with Dr. Sittler’s wife who was the Artist-in-Residence at the Lutheran School of Theology in my days there.
Here is a bit more information about this impressive theologian who was so very capable at connecting the importance of theology to how we live in this world and on this planet.
Joseph Sittler . . . was born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He was a graduate of Wittenberg College and Hamma Divinity School in Springfield, Ohio. Sittler became a teacher at Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary in the early 1940s. He was a professor of theology at the University of Chicago from 1957 to 1973.
The piece of his biography which was important for our consideration yesterday is this:
He was widely credited with pioneering the links between Christian theology and ecological thought, including the need to return to a cosmic Christology, having written about environmental matters as early as the 1950s (long before they were widely reported in the mainstream press). He continually insisted that care for the earth and its environment is a central concern of the Christian religion.These issues are important for our consideration and vital for the survival of our planet. You may recall that I referred to the Pope’s mention of the “ecology of the heart” during yesterday’s Angelus address from St. Peter’s. It looks as if Joseph Sittler sort of beat the Pope to the punch with those theological concerns by a cool three-quarters of a century! The question is, when will we listen – and by that I mean seriously advocate for and work for the kind of ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE for our world (God’s own creation) as BOTH a THEOLOGICAL and a SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY? Now, more than ever, is the time to lay aside the politics of denial, to confess the TRUTH and to take seriously the responsibilities we have to exercise FAITHFUL STEWARDSHIP of the EARTH and care for all with whom we share this extraordinary planet.
For strength to do this faithfully, we pray for God’s help us.
Sincerely yours, In Christ,
Fr. Ron
Thoughts from our Priest-in-charge:
12 July 2021
My dear people,
GLAMOR, SEX and VIOLENCE! (Do I have your attention?) was an advertising ‘tag line’ used years ago by the great New York City Opera Company to invite people who might not otherwise be interested in opera, which is often seen as ‘too high brow,’ to give it a try! The advertising people understood human nature. They knew that opera which was seen as ‘too high brow’ might not appeal to a broader base of people: those who really understood the “nitty-gritty” of glamor, sex and violence.
Yesterday’s Gospel text (Mark 6:11-29), was filled with the real “nitty-gritty” of glamor, sex and violence, and was, in fact, made into an opera by the renowned German composer, Richard Strauss. The Biblical story was re-written as a play, in French, by the great Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde and translated into German in 1891, which version became the libretto for the opera. The first performance of the opera was staged in Dresden in 1905. From the beginning, the opera has raised the eye-brows of moralistic high-brows and been found offensive to many, despite the fact that “it’s in the Bible!”
The United States premiere took place at a special performance . . . on 22 January 1907. The reviewers said “the story is repugnant to Anglo-Saxon minds.” [N.B. the use of “Anglo-Saxon” in this review shows just how subtly and insidiously racism is a part of common life and parlance in our country!] Afterwards, under pressure from wealthy patrons, “further performances were cancelled” and it was not performed at the Met again until 1934. In this history, we can see how politicized, hypocritical, moralistic religiosity would rather silence the TELLING OF THE TRUTH of God’s encounter with glamor, sex and violence, than struggle with the truth that is proclaimed by the PROPHET, St. John the Baptizer. Perhaps, the instruction from St. John, to be re-made into God’s forgiven and liberated people who are no longer enslaved by glamor, sex and violence, was too much for the monied benefactors and the “powers that were.”Or maybe those “powers” were embarrassed to “see themselves” depicted in Biblical and operatic characterizations. We are left to ask why telling the Biblical story of God’s own TRUTH proclaimed by God’s own PROPHET in this opera was so unwelcome and frightening that it was cancelled.
At the end of the opera, Herod sees no hope for Salome’s depravity and has his henchmen crush her to death with their shields. No stranger to such violence, Herod previously had his brother strangled, after twelve years of imprisonment in the cistern, so that he could marry his brother’s wife. Despite his depravity, Herod’s is fascinated with John the baptist. Even Herod’s fascination is hopeless because he treats John as a good-luck charm rather than a truth-telling prophet, albeit a weird and puzzling one. The mother-daughter relationship between Herodias and Salome has certainly soured and ‘gone south’ as well. The story is about the absolute morass of life in which we find ourselves today: a life filled with glamor, sex and violence rather than beauty, love and peace.
But remember this, friends, despite the hell Herod, Herodias and Salome have made for themselves – and the hell into which they wish to drag John – there is, nevertheless, HOPE! The voice of that HOPE is spoken from the cistern, below the earth, by John’s prophetic voice. John knew the TRUTH. John spoke the TRUTH. The TRUTH made John odd. The truth made John FREE – even in his imprisonment, which was no where near like those imprisoned by glamor, sex and violence, jailed him in cistern. God, apparently likes to speak from and enter our world and existence from the lowest vantage point: i.e. from UNDERNEATH! You may remember there are some traditions which depict the Nativity in a cave – a space below the earth. Also, the Orthodox icon of Easter shows Jesus descending below the earth into hell and into the tombs of Adam and Eve to retrieve them and us and all of creation. I’m convinced that God come into the world from underneath, from below, because God does not want to miss anybody – not even the lowest – not even Herod, Herodias, or Salome, or me, or you!
Yes, the story of Salome is upsetting because it TELLS THE TRUTH. Yes, there have always been people who do NOT want the TRUTH to be told. Those who want to silence the truth often look “religious” and “moral” and “up-right” and “up-tight.” They see themselves as “right.” Of course, the real story of life’s opera – when told frankly and straightforwardly – is astounding and appalling to us all. We are shocked to find the roles we ourselves play on the stage of this world and we would often rather not be reminded that we often play roles which promote glamor, sex and violence rather than beauty, life and love and peace.
How can this be? How can we change? How can we prevent this? To whom do we turn when it all becomes too much? Well, strangely enough, in the opera, the clue comes to us from the perverse, depraved and bloody lips of Salome herself. After having just kissed and attempted to satiate her prurient desires with the severed head of St. John, Salome confesses a truth: ” Das Geheimnis der Liebe ist größer als das Geheimnis des Todes” The MYSTERY of LOVE is greater than the MYSTERY of DEATH.
In these words, I see an acknowledgement by Salome, albeit with her final breath, and despite her depraved and apparently meaningless existence, that there is something which she does NOT UNDERSTAND. That is a MYSTERY. And that MYSTERY is LOVE. In these words, which I find true and trustworthy, I believe Salome acknowledges God, whom we call LOVE and sees in that love a HOPE which, despite her past and impending end, she is finally able to acknowledge. Let us not wait until our last breath to acknowledge, confess and be converted by that great MYSTERY of LOVE whom we call GOD.
If the advertising people thought that “glamor, sex and violence” was a catchy ‘tag line,’ to get people to go to the opera, then let’s show them how really attractive “Beauty, Love, Peace-Making and TRUTH-TELLING” are to us and God’s whole creation!
God bless you, Fr. Ron
You are cordially invited to attend a Memorial Mass and a Picnic in celebration of the lives of
Gertrude M. Balliet and Richard Kilpatrick at 11 o’clock in the morning
on Saturday, the 17th of July in the Ace Pavilion behind St. John’s Episcopal Church Hamlin, Pennsylvania
Thoughts from our Priest-in-charge:
7 July 2021
My dear people,
I write to share with you the fact that this week I have been participating daily, via Zoom, in the International Ecumenical Seminar which was established by Lutherans in the 1960’s in response to the Second Vatican Council.
You may remember that I have attended this seminar in the past, at its home, in Strasbourg, France. I find this exercise a most enriching one. We are daily provided with speakers who represent many different traditions (and not all of them Christian), and then we have opportunities to ask questions, engage in dialogue and eventually, to produce a report of our experience at the end of the week.
I thrill at being in company with people from different parts of Germany, France, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Finland, Tanzania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Iceland, I (I have probably missed some!) including folks from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches as well as Lutherans, Reformed and Muslim traditions.
I rejoice that despite the exigencies of the pandemic and its restrictions, we can continue this meaningful work of coming to know each other, to learn, to share, and to grow.
Because we meet simultaneously but, of course, across global time zones, I join the seminar at 7:45am each day.
Also, remember that we are gathering at church for a MASS and PICNIC on Saturday, 17 July, at 11am in the Ace Pavilion, behind the church.
During that service we will be remembering both my dear Aunt Gertrude and our faithful brother Richard Kilpatrick. After worship, hot dogs, hamburgers and drinks will be provided. Those who wish are welcome to bring salads and desserts. Plan to have fun, and to enjoy being together as we give thanks for the lives of Gertie and Richard.
Blessing,
Fr. Ron
Sunday
4 July 2021 9:30 PM
My dear people,
“Lift off!” Our first effort at returning to in-person worship was a success this morning. There was a total of 30 souls who gathered with the six of the ‘skeleton crew’ who worked out the technicalities and logistics of worshipping in the Ace Pavilion behind the church. I look forward to seeing you there at 10am next Sunday OR on Zoom. Both options will be available.
In reflecting on the texts from the last couple of weeks, I wonder whether you were struck, as was I, by the interesting “twist” in today’s Gospel from Mark 6:1-13. Just as in the Gospel from two weeks ago, in Mark 4, when Jesus was asleep in the boat and was aroused by his disciples to “do something,” so too, earlier today at Mass, Jesus’ disciples were nonplussed about the Savior: particularly about his thoughts (his ‘theology’) and his powerful actions (his ‘ministry’).
Surprised by Jesus, and maybe feeling a bit inferior to him, they try to “bring him down a peg or two.” In the boat, they challenge him and “ask” whether or not he cares that they are perishing. In today’s Gospel they make rather ad hominem remarks about his person, rather than criticizing his ideas, thoughts or actions. “How” they ask can a mere, blue-collar “carpenter’s kid” astound them so with such knowledge and power? Perhaps they felt so bad about themselves that they did exactly what we often do when we feel like that: “they took offense at him” rather than bothering to re-evaluate themselves and correct their own prejudices and behaviors.
People still – and we among them – take offense at what Jesus says and does. And Jesus very quickly gets the picture: that because he is known to be a local boy and ONLY a carpenter himself, he could not possibly be as wise or effective as he was at bringing health and wholeness to those who suffered! Jesus is aware that familiarity does in fact breed suspicion and contempt for prophets such as himself. Could it have been that which they found so very offensive was not so much Jesus (the person) but what Jesus said and did on the basis of what he believed about God? In the end, isn’t it really Jesus’ God that they find so reprehensible because Jesus’ God is way different from their own understanding of God, or even their own gods? That’s my guess.
As followers of Jesus we believe, teach and confess the Gospel of Jesus, the Christ. Now you may ask, as others have before you, just exactly what is that Gospel?
Well, I think part of the answer is related to the Gospel text we read last week from Mark 5. In addressing the completely marginalized, denigrated, ostracized and nameless woman who was healed, simply by touching him, Jesus says: “Daughter, your faith has made you well….”
Now contrast that with what Jesus said to his own disciples in today’s text from Mark 6: “And he was amazed at their unbelief.”
The “twist” in all of this is that after being “amazed at their unbelief” Jesus then calls the twelve and begins to “to send them out two by two!” By contrast, the woman whose faith made her well is given no such assignment. She, rather, is simply told to: “go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Could it be that Jesus sent his disciples out with nothing other than a staff, a tunic, and a “good pair of comfortable shoes” so that they themselves might learn something by being themselves the recipients of the hospitality of strangers? Could it be that their proclamation that ‘all should repent’ was meant for their own ears first? Could it be that Jesus was sending the “chosen” to meet the rest of God’s own “chosen” creation and to learn that they could be accepted and loved by the “others” – even by those they found hard to accept and love themselves?
A final thought. Jesus warns them not to “badger” anybody with and about their religion. The instruction is clear: “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet. . . .” That’s all. And that’s enough.
So, I ask you why is it that Jesus sends out those whose “unbelief” amazed him rather than the nameless woman healed of her hemorrhage by her own faith? Could it be that those ‘religious’ friends of Jesus had more to learn from the “likes of her” and the “likes of him, that carpenter’s kid” than she had to learn from them?
God bless you, every one
Fr. Ron
P.S. Here’s a little abridgment of the quotation from Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll which I shared with you yesterday. Page 338.
Between 1348 and 1351, something like twenty to twenty-five million people died of the plague….
Everyone was asking what had caused the disaster. Pope Clement VI (1342-1352), when told that the cause of the plague was some conjunction of planets and stars, scoffed. Instead, Clement ordered the papal physicians to dissect the corpses of plague victims, “in order that the origins of the disease might be known. . . .But survivors in the cities thought they knew the cause: a well-poisoning conspiracy of Jews.”
You may see an uncanny similarity to current events in which science is mocked by conspiracy theories. The “conspiracy theory” of well water-poisoning provided the excuse to continue and to perpetrate the fear, ignorance and xenophobia which has lurked behind the persecution of the Jews since the days of the early church – and about which we often read in Holy Scripture!
Do you remember what British statesman Winston Churchill wrote? “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
We are a church which celebrates HISTORY and particularly the HISTORY of SALVATION. We have NO EXCUSE to engage in any of the fears and phobias which we are often taught by society, family and even – as we have seen – the church! It is our business to KNOW and to APPROPRIATE the lessons of history so that we can build on our faith rather than lose the whole world.
As the disciples were sent, so are we. We must speak up and speak the faith in order to instruct ourselves first. Eventually, we may come to have the kind of faith of that nameless denigrated woman who was healed simply by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment rather than by being afraid of all the others in creation who were different from herself.
Let us practice reaching toward the hem of that same garment, with her.
God love you,
Fr. Ron
June 21, 2021
My dear people,
Just a reminder that we are planning an outdoor Memorial Mass and parish picnic on Saturday, 17 July, at 11am in the Ace Pavilion behind the church.
The Mass will be celebrated in loving memory of my dear Aunt Gertrude and our dear Christian brother, Richard Kilpatrick.
Hot dogs, hamburgers and drinks will be provided. You are welcomed to bring salads and desserts. Plan to have a good time!
In addition to remembering and giving thanks on that day, for those who have died whom we have known and loved in our pilgrimage on earth, we can also celebrate the new life that will be ours as a congregation which is able to gather again in person, as the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic gradually releases its evil hold on us.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
P.S. For those of you that read the Forward Movement Daily devotional, they are available in our outside letter box (Aug., Sept., Oct.)Volunteers needed for clean-up day:
Good morning everyone:
In anticipation of a return to in-person gathering at Saint John’s, we are holding a clean-up at the church on Saturday, June 26 from 10 am to 12 noon. Please join us, as you are able, to help us dust away the cobwebs, beautify the grounds and prepare sandwiches for a group meal afterwards.
Please check the following Sign-up Genius link to let us know if you can join us and what role you want to play.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094DAAAD2CA2FB6-saint1
And don’t worry, we will continue to provide the Zoom options for those that can’t join us in person.
Good afternoon everyone: In anticipation of a return to in-person gathering at Saint John’s, we are holding a clean-up at the church on Saturday, June 26 from 10 am to 12 noon. Please join us, as you are able, to help us dust away the cobwebs, beautify the grounds and prepare sandwiches for a group meal afterwards.
Please check the following Sign-up Genius link to let us know if you can join us and what role you want to play.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094DAAAD2CA2FB6-saint1
And don’t worry, we will continue to provide the Zoom options for those that can’t join us in person.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
5 May 2021
My dear people,
This past Sunday we encountered some extraordinary texts during worship which warrant revisiting.
In the first lesson, from Acts chapter 8 (26-40) we read about a eunuch’s encounter with Philip. As you know, a eunuch is person who has been deprived of his masculinity – yes, castrated – usually in the interests of guarding a harem for a monarch. Ostensibly, the mutilation of the eunuch was to prevent him from ‘stealing’ or enjoying the ‘property’ (i.e. the women) of the king. The requirement – the sacrifice of one’s manhood, one’s humanity, one’s identity, one’s potency, one’s progeny, one’s self – is so very wrong and tragic. In this particular case, the eunuch was from Ethiopia. He was black. He was serving the Candace – the queen of the Ethiopians. Apparently, he was not protecting her harem. But he was rendered unable to take personal advantage of the queen herself. He was there solely for the purpose of protecting and preserving her wealth: “her entire treasury.” He was publicly known to have been emasculated for this purpose and this purpose alone.
In his ‘flying visit’ from Jerusalem to Gaza, where he encounters the eunuch (who, as you may have noticed, does not even have a name!), Philip is invited to sit with him in his chariot [on his journey through life?] and helps him to understand the scripture he was reading. This was one smart eunuch: he knew how to read! And reading, as you know, is a powerful tool for learning and personal advancement. As you also know, slaves were vigorously prevented from learning to read and write for fear that they would come to understand themselves as complete and equal human beings, to abhor their situation in life and to be empowered to seek justice and reparations for the abuse, mutilation, depravation and debasement they always suffered in order to increase and protect other peoples’ wealth.
When Philip proclaimed to the eunuch “the good news about Jesus,” something happened. The eunuch learned that his life had value beyond the Candace’s “entire treasury.” Philip also learned something. Philip learned that, as a believer, his job was to AFFIRM AND CELEBRATE the black eunuch’s value as a child of God and as a beloved and equal brother.
So, when the eunuch noticed that there was some water there, he asked a most poignant question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip’s answer was: “Nothing!” In the act of baptism, the truth of God’s love for the eunuch as a fully-human, fully-loved, fully-forgiven, fully-valuable. fully-equal child of God – despite his personal condition and situation – was affirmed. Philip’s eyes were then opened to acknowledge, embrace and fall in love with a brother whom society had abused, mutilated, scorned, marginalized and hated. In that day and in that place the “good news about Jesus” served BOTH the eunuch and Philip. I have a suspicion that Philip learned a bit more than the eunuch did that day, simply because he had a bit more to learn! That day, Philip learned that that one apparently diminished, debased, devalued, despised black life mattered and mattered fully and eternally to God. The eunuch mattered to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. As Philip began to appreciate that the eunuch mattered to God, he came to be valued by Philip as well and then necessarily valued by the entire church. As they came to appreciate that Divine love which united them all in baptism they were compelled to work together for justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God and all of God’s people everywhere.
The proclamation of the “good news about Jesus” opened Philip’s eyes to the fact that that one sad emasculated black life mattered to God. Therefore that same life needed to matter to the whole church. There was absolutely NOTHING TO PREVENT Philip from sharing that “good news about Jesus” with the eunuch. There is NOTHING TO PREVENT the church from sharing, affirming and celebrating God’s love with all whom society mistreats, marginalizes, ignores, hates and fears. Celebrating that baptism may have done more for Philip than the eunuch! Baptism does the same things for us now as well. As Christians, along with Philip, we respond that NOTHING prevents anyone from being acknowledged as God’s beloved. The encounter between Philip and the eunuch shows us how freely God’s love is given to us so that we might freely share it with others – all others – for God’s sake!
Let us bless Philip for setting us an example of when (always), where (everywhere) and with whom (everyone) to share the “good news of Jesus.”
Let us bless the eunuch for asking the poignant question: “What is to prevent this poor black soul from being as publicly affirmed as a fully-fledged child of the Creator God in baptism as he has been publicly shamed, debased and abused?” Along with Philip we answer: “Absolutely NOTHING!”
Bless you as you revisit and reaffirm your own baptismal promises. Bless you as you share the “good news of Jesus.” Bless you as you work for justice, love mercy and ride humbly in the eunuch’s chariot, with Philip, through this world toward the next world. What, I ask you, is to prevent us from doing this, for God’s sake?
In Christ,
Fr. Ron
P.S. Remember we are hosting an ECUMENICAL VIGIL OF PENTECOST on SATURDAY evening, 22 MAY 2021 at 8pm, via Zoom. Watch for the link, share it with family and friends and join us please.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
30 April 2021
My dear people,
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!!
Blessings to you as we continue to celebrate the RESURRECTION of OUR LORD in this joyous Easter Season.
As you know, major feasts in the life of the church are often preceded by penitential seasons of preparation: Advent BEFORE Christmas and Lent BEFORE Easter. These penitential seasons conclude with a VIGIL – the last night before the holiday – which is usually spent in patient anticipation of the “breaking of the fast” (from which we get the word “breakfast”) and the first celebration of the holiday at the stroke of midnight!
The Festival of the Holy Spirit – PENTECOST – comes from the Greek Πεντηκοστή (Pentēkostē) meaning “fiftieth”. It refers to the Jewish festival celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover, also known as the “Feast of Weeks” and the “Feast of 50 days” in rabbinic tradition. As you know, EASTER which precedes PENTECOST by fifty days, is the least penitential season of the year. Maybe that’s why the celebration of PENTECOST and its VIGIL seem to get a bit of a short shrift in the life of the church.
In order to celebrate PENTECOST fully and importantly, we have decided to gather this year – via Zoom – for a PENTECOST VIGIL on Saturday, 22 May at 8pm. Mark you calendars now and please plan to join us for this first-ever celebration at St. John’s. Frankly, the inspiration for this service comes from the great success we enjoyed with our Good Friday service of the Seven Last Words. You may remember that service was conducted by seven different colleagues and friends of ours – both clergy and lay.
I have engaged another group of leaders for the Pentecost Vigil from places as far away as California and South Carolina. And, I have every expectation that this liturgy will be as beautiful and beneficial as was the one on Good Friday. A part of what makes these services so very special is your being there!
Here is a fabulous opportunity to bring emphasis back to the third major feast of the Christian year and the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. We don’t have much problem celebrating Christmas and it’s vigil (the traditional ‘candlelight service’). In recent years, we have come to celebrate and appreciate Easter and learn from its profoundly significant vigil. So let’s keep the ball rolling and ‘resurrect’ the VIGIL of PENTECOST with the same kind of enthusiasm which produced such good response for us this past Good Friday.
I am sure our celebration of Pentecost, Whitsunday, or the Feast of the Holy Spirit will be significantly elevated by our observance of the Pentecost Vigil and our being together again at the throne of God in worship that evening.
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!!
Fr. Ron
Wayne Memorial Holds Open Moderna Clinic – No Registration Required – State Opens Eligibility to All
(Honesdale, April 12, 2021)…As of tomorrow, Tuesday, April 13th, Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf said every adult can schedule an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine; there are no more phase eligibility requirements. At the same time, Wayne Memorial Hospital announced it will hold an open Moderna vaccine clinic this Friday, April 16th, from 7am to 3pm at the hospital at 601 Park Street, Honesdale, 18431. First come, first served — no registration is required for the clinic, although individuals can accelerate the process by downloading, printing and filling out a form to bring to the clinic. That form can be found on the wmh.org website’s COVID vaccine registration page at COVID Vaccine Registration – Wayne Memorial Hospital (wmh.org) Wayne Memorial and Wayne Memorial Community Health Centers have other Moderna clinics available for which registration is required. First dose clinics still have many slots available on Saturday, April 17th and Saturday April 24th in Honesdale and in Pike County on April 21st.
The Moderna vaccine, which requires two doses, is available only to adults age 18 and older. An appointment for a second dose will be scheduled at the time of the first dose. For more vaccine information, visit www.wmh.org.
EASTER MONDAY
5 April 2021
My dear people,
The forty days of Lent are now accomplished and we are about the business of celebrating the Resurrection of Our Lord.
Funny thing: I think I might ‘miss’ Lent this year!
If the truth be told, when Lent approaches, I sort of “dread” it. I don’t “dread” the “rigors” of Lent because, I confess, I have never been successful at fasting or other personal Lenten disciplines. I do become concerned about all the different things we do together, as the church, in Lent: the preparation that is required to ‘change gears’ when we change the liturgical colors, prepare for extra and very different services: events such as Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, The Great Vigil, etc.
Despite our inability to gather in person, we have nevertheless managed to stay in touch with ourselves, and some others, possibly more frequently “virtually,” than ever. We have surely grown mightily in our technology and outreach via Zoom [huge thanks to the Diocese and to Joan and Jim Griffin for that!]. We have not only survived but thrived in ways never before imagined. By the grace of God, we have been enabled to make lemonade out of some pretty sour lemons!
So rather than regret the passing of Lent and the benefits we gained from it, let us commit ourselves to continue our Lenten technological trajectory and inter-personal and congregational growth during the next 50 days of Easter! Our Good Friday Ecumenical service of the Seven Last Words from the Cross was attended by 40 people. That was surely a record-breaking attendance at St. John’s for a Holy Week Service. It felt good. I received lots of extremely positive feed-back about that service. And we learned then that the Body of Christ becomes a very healthy and happy body when it includes greater variety and more of God’s own and other children. One of the the responses I received right after that liturgy was simply: “Wow!!!”
Our Easter liturgies were equally thrilling. Our attendances were strong and the Spirit’s evidence among us was incontrovertible. So then let us continue to give thanks for our life together at St. John’s, during this holy season of Easter. Let us continue to grow in that Faith and Hope and Love which is the source of our life together. We are aware that that life has not been diminished, but rather deepened, during this last year of a horrible and deadly pandemic. Let us give thanks for the home that St. John’s has become for so many people from so many different places. Let us give particular thanks for the retired clergy people from so many different traditions who are so generously willing to share their preparation, experience and inspiration with us, as they did so beautifully on Good Friday. Let us plan to continue to live together as a congregation which is a genuinely ‘theological community’ which continues to experience true resurrection even during this time of deadly medical crisis which has plagued our community and our world. This Easter let us give thanks that the Body of Christ is constantly rising from the dead and that the part of that Body which is St. John’s in Hamlin is indeed genuinely a part of that resurrection.
As we continue our celebration of Easter through the next 50 days, I wish you all a very blessed season of new and resurrected life, in Christ.
Happy Easter to you my dear people, my dear colleagues and my dear friends.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!! Alleluia!!!
Fr. Ron
31 March 2021 Wednesday in Holy Week
My very dear people,
The next three days in the life of the Church are known as the Paschal Triduum (i.e. the three days from the evening of Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday).
This very special time in our calendar is the culmination of our 40-day season of Lent and the natural continuation of what we remembered and celebrated on Palm Sunday. It is often the custom in churches to act or perform the Passion History on Palm Sunday. Often “His-story” is presented with a narrator and parishioners acting the roles of those around Jesus during his entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal, his passion, and his death.
During the next three days the custom in the church is to pause and remember that we – all of us – participate in the denial of Our Lord, out of fear or in shame, for ‘social’ or for financial reasons, etc. These are the days in which we acknowledge that we too betray our Lord with a kiss! These are the sober days in which we acknowledge that we ourselves have kissed the golden calf with our true affection and kissed our Lord with deceit and clever lies. These are the days in which we come to acknowledge that we have worshipped money over God and that we have cleverly argued that service to the poor, the infirm, the refugee, the asylum-seeker, the foreigner in our midst is ‘too expensive,’ impractical and quite frankly not in our own interest, and we are afraid. These are the days in which we who so very happily call ourselves ‘Little Christs’ (i.e. ‘Christians’) not only disagree with our Savior’s understanding of the world and how to live in it, but that we flat-out betray our Lord, and frankly betray our selves. These are the days in which we really grapple with the reality that: we are by nature sinful and unclean and cannot save ourselves.
These are also the days in which we come to grapple with the truth that we are NEVERwithout hope! These are also the days in which we remember the unimaginable and extraordinary love of a man who asks his own Creator-God to forgive those who have brought him to misery, torture and death, because, in his own words: “they know not what they do.” These are the days in which we understand that our eternal, loving Creator-God is like a parent who welcomes the returning prodigal son with open arms and encourages the other self-righteous ‘prudical’ son to return to the household and feast prepared for both his sons.
These are the days in which – by stark contrast – we compare our own paltry ‘love’ to God’s unimaginable love, which often looks crazy and irrational to us. These are the days in which we again accept that extraordinary forgiving love of God for ourselves, and recommit ourselves to Iive in and to share that crazy and irrational love of God just as generously as we have received it.
These are the days in which we come to believe that Christ rises from the dead, even today, as any and every person who takes the name of “Christ” returns, in humility, to that loving Savior and speaks his words of love and forgiveness to the world and lives out his life of loving service here and now.
These are the days of the Paschal Triduum. These are the opportunities to worship at St. John’s during this highest and holiest feast in the year.
1 April – MAUNDY THURSDAY – 8pm
2 April – GOOD FRIDAY – 8pm – Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross – Seven different preachers from five different traditions.
3 April – EASTER VIGIL – 8pm – Have a candle, a bowl of water and a bell with you, if you can.
4 April – EASTER DAY – 10am
Here’s the ZOOM link: https://zoom.us/j/95636831255
Bless you, each and every one!
In Christ,
Fr. Ron
26 March 2021
My dear colleagues,
Thanks and thanks again to each of you for being willing to present some of your thoughts on one of the “Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross” at St. John’s Good Friday Zoom worship, one week from today, April 2nd, at 8pm
You may remember that I suggested:
1. A simple, brief ‘collect’ – preferably of your own construction – to introduce your “word.”
3. A brief meditation, reflection, thoughts (of your own construction!), on that “word.” Five minutes or so should be fine.
4. A hymn or song which you find appropriate or relevant to your “word.”
5. Possibly – but not necessarily – find a work of art which could be shown during your devotion.
Our “line up” goes like this:
PAUL HAGEDORN : 1. Luke 23:34: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
KATHLEEN HAYES : 2.Luke 23:43: Verily, I say unto you today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.
BETH HAYNES : 3.John 19:26–27: Woman, behold thy son. (Says to disciple) Behold thy mother.
ALAN SHUMWAY : 4.Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.
SARAH MILLER : 5. John 19:28: I thirst.
REUEL KAIGHN : 6.John 19:30: It is finished.
CHRIS WEIDNER : 7.Luke 23:46: Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.
Traditionally, these seven sayings are called words of 1. Forgiveness, 2. Salvation, 3. Relationship, 4. Abandonment, 5. Distress, 6. Triumph and 7. Reunion.
Finally, if you have anything which needs ‘reproduction’ for broadcast [i.e. if you want to share the text and/or music of a hymn or a piece of art, etc.] please let Beverly know, at the church office, by Monday, March 29. She’s “in” from 10am to 3pm.
I am ever so grateful for your willingness to participate in this effort. Personally, I welcome the opportunity to ‘sit at your feet’ on this solemn and holy day.
You are such a rich blessing to me and to St. John’s.
Thanks and thanks again!
R.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-charge:
22 March 2021
My dear people,
Happy Spring!
Yesterday I had a thought which has continued to engage me.
I talked about Pontius Pilate being THE person in the Passion Narrative who PUBLICLY proclaims: “Look at Jesus. I find no fault in this man.” How could we possibly disagree with Pilate about that?
Many believe that Pilate was not a very nice human being, In fact, he is believed by some to have been quite evil. However, it is he who makes a PUBLIC confession about Jesus which most of the rest of society, the church, the government, and Jesus’ closest friends were either unwilling, unable, or simply too afraid to make PUBLICLY.
Now, if that’s where the story ended, Pilate would come out looking like a real Christian hero and maybe even a saint! In fact: “Due to the Gospels’ portrayal of Pilate as reluctant to execute Jesus, the Ethiopian Church believes that Pilate became a Christian and venerates him as a martyr and saint, a belief historically shared by the Coptic Church.” I’m sure that’s “news” to a lot of us.
But Pilate does live DOWN to his own reputation. And after speaking the truth – albeit perhaps without love for Jesus – he washes his hands of the whole affair and allows ‘things to take their course.’
Jesus’ closest and dearest friends did NOT PUBLICLY declare – as did Pilate – that they found no fault in Jesus. They may have personally believed that privately. But, they were too afraid of the OPINIONS and POWER of others and the possible COST to themselves of PUBLICLY PROCLAIMING their belief in Jesus. In a real sense, they too ‘washed their hands’ as did Pilate, but in FEAR and in SILENCE, if not in loveless mockery. The result was the same: crucifixion.
All were complicit. Pilate, despite his ‘confession,’ DID nothing to prevent the injustice of the crucifixion. Jesus’ friends and associates were complicit too. Despite their (probably whispered) confession they SAID NOTHING PUBLICLY, to prevent the injustice of the crucifixion.
The invitation of the last two weeks of Lent is for us to take seriously – and learn from – what it means for our Lord, who is LOVE, when we neither SAY nor DO PUBLICLY what we say and believe privately about Jesus and his love.
Our positions in the PUBLIC ARENA are a genuine issue for our contemplation as we approach Easter, when we, with the Church throughout the world, will PUBLICLY PROCLAIM, “HE is risen, indeed!”
My hope is that we will be able to appropriate the lessons of these latter days of Lent, and apply them to ourselves, our faith and our mutual mission together to make God visible, audible and known in the world today. Then, perhaps even the very powerful and possibly even the very evil may say with us: “Look at HIM. We find NO FAULT in him. Let us follow and worship HIM. Alleluia!”
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Thoughts From Our Priest-in-Charge:
17 March 2021
My dear people,
I have some very good news to share with you. Plans for our Good Friday zoom service [April 2nd at 8pm] have come together. Seven dear colleagues and friends of ours have agreed to provide meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross. They are:
Paul Hagedorn, Kathleen Hayes, Beth Haynes, Alan Shumway, Sarah Miller, Reuel Kaighn, and Christopher Weidner
I hope you will be able to participate in this service of contemplative worship on this very solemn day in the life of the church.
Invite your family and friends to join you, won’t you.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
March 12, 2021
My dear people,
First of all: REMEMBER to move your clocks ahead one hour this week-end.
Next: I have a little homework for you. You may want to find an old palm frond from a previous Palm Sunday or look for a branch of pussy willow (traditionally used in the Orthodox tradition) or a forsythia branch (which you could force into blossom!) to use at home on Palm Sunday.
Then, in preparation for Easter, if you are able, have a candle (and a match to light it), a small (finger or thumb) bowl full of water and a bell (of any size) at hand, for use during the Easter Vigil. The candle will be a domestic substitute for the PASCHAL CANDLE which is new every Easter and lit from a freshly-struck fire. We’ll explore the rich significance of all that during the service. The water will be used as a part of the rite of remembering our baptisms. And, the bell will be used to ‘ring in’ Easter at the singing of the Gloria during the service. Lent, after all,is a season of preparation. So, let’s get ready!
Third: I am VERY pleased to announce that our Good Friday liturgy will be ecumenical and will feature different preachers – both lay and clergy, men and women – who will provide meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ.
Fourth: REMEMBER our LENTEN SCHEDULE.
Saturday – 13 March – move clocks ahead
Rose Sunday – 14 March – 10am – Lent IV Sunday – 21 March – 10am – Lent V
Thursday – 25 March – 8pm Zoom – Power Point Presentation on the Annunciation of Our Lord
Palm Sunday – 28 March – 10am
Maundy Thursday – 1 April – 8pm Good Friday – 2 April – 8pm Saturday – 3 April – 8pm – Easter Vigil Sunday – 4 April – 10am – Easter Day
Fifth: Bless you, one and all.
Fr. Ron
March 8, 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday I announced the death of Timothy Wilson, the oldest son of my dear colleague and our friend Canon John Wilson. Tim died a week ago today.
Canon Wilson is well-known to us at St. John’s; and you may remember he preached at James’ funeral here.
Some of you asked for his address:
The Rev’d. Canon John H. Wilson
#2 West Croft
Henleaze, Bristol BS9-4PQ
England
Blessings to one and all,
Fr. Ron
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Thrift Shoppe Information:
We will no longer be accepting winter related donations as of March 27, 2021.
During the ongoing coronavirus, your gently used “in-season” only donations will be gratefully accepted inside our Thrift Shoppe during our open hours: the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month from 9am-1pm and on our “free clothing day event” on the Wednesday following the 2nd Saturday of the month from 10am-noon and from 5-7pm. Thank you to all our volunteers and everyone who generously donates gently used clothing, shoes, housewares, baby items, youth and maternity goods – Thank You 🙂
2021 Lent and Easter Worship Schedule:
To mark and celebrate Lent and Easter this year, the Vestry has decided on the following schedule of Zoom services and meetings:
| Ash Wednesday, February 17 2021 8pm |
| Lent I – Sunday, 21 February, 10am – Service begins with the Great Litany Vestry meeting follows our worship service |
| Lent II – Sunday, 28 February, 10am – Moravian/Episcopal Ecumenical Liturgy |
| Lent III – Sunday, 7 March, 10am – Worship |
| Lent IV – Sunday, 14 March, 10am – Rose Sunday Worship |
| Lent V – Sunday, 21 March, 10am – Worship |
| Annunciation Thursday – 25 March, 8pm – Power Point Presentation |
| Palm Sunday – 28 March, 10am – Liturgy of the Palms & Passion History |
| Maundy Thursday – 1 April, 8pm – Recalling the Institution of the Sacrament of the Altar |
| Good Friday – 2 April, 8pm – Quietly rejoicing in Christ’s victory over death |
| Easter Vigil, Saturday – 3 April, 8pm – The Resurrection of Our Lord |
| Easter Day, Sunday – 4 April, 10am – The Resurrection of Our Lord |
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
+ 17 February 2021 +
My dear people,
Today is Ash Wednesday. Were things more ‘normal’ than they have been for the last year [yes, our first Zoom service was on Palm Sunday 2020!], we would have gathered last night for our traditional pancake supper. We would have eaten a good meal, sung some fun songs, burned the palms from last Palm Sunday to make the ashes for today, and we would have buried the Alleluia. I trust we’ll get around to all of that next year, again.
The traditions of mardi gras, or fat Tuesday are many and varied, and deeply rooted in cultures and ethnicities different from our own.
There are still very lively pre-Christian customs observed by Jews who: “. . . are bound to avoid leavened food throughout the entire [Passover] holiday. Even the tiniest of “chametz” crumbs count. That’s why conscientious Jews carry a thorough spring clean of their entire home. In fact, having the slightest sign of leavened bread at home while Passover lasts is considered as ungrateful and is strictly forbidden. Rightful Jews cannot afford to insult God and that’s why people thoroughly wipe and mop their homes room by room and from top to bottom. This equivalent of spring cleaning is followed by a ritual hunt for chametz crumbs by candlelight, the night before the first day of Passover.”
“According to Catholic customs, the Church altar is thoroughly wiped on Maundy Thursday, right before Good Friday, along with all its surroundings. The Greek Orthodox Church encourages spring cleaning on the first day of Lent, known as Clean Monday. This corresponds to the Julian New Year on April 1st. Cleaning altars may not be the exact definition of spring cleaning, but it is understandable why it could have lead to annual domestic cleaning throughout Christian communities.”
And it is also appropriate for us who gather at St. John’s, as we enter Lent, to take some time to do some of our own spiritual house – and heart – cleaning. We know that we hide much in our hearts which eats away at us. Twelve-step programs have taught us that: “We’re only as sick as the secrets we keep.” And there is some real truth in that statement. During this month of Black History Awareness, we have acknowledged that the worm of racism lies deeply buried, and unconfessed within us from early on. We know that we sometimes treasure in our hearts, and keep alive there, some terrible and untoward thoughts about others which corrode the insides of our spirits and darken the light of Christ which we are asked – as was Mary – to bear and to let shine from within us.
Well, Lent is a perfect time – and a sufficient time [40 days] – for us to do some Spring Cleaning of our own inner thoughts, prejudices, hatreds, etc. Lent is a perfect time for us to unclutter our spirits so that the light of the Resurrected Christ might burn ever more brightly in our hearts, in our lives, in our words, and in our actions.
Let us use Lent as a penitential season, in which to self-consciously turn toward God. When we turn toward God, we do so in order to receive from the Creator what we need to live as we were intended to live. If we turn toward God and our hands are clenched into fists and our hearts are cluttered with all kinds of junk which is not of God, but which we ‘treasure’ anyway, how will we ever be able to receive what our Creator has for us? How will we receive what God offers to us and wants us to have FREELY? The problem of God’s grace is not one of the Almighty’s unwillingness to offer it. Nor is the problem of God’s grace in the Almighty’s desire to extend it only to those who are [or rather, see themselves as] worthy. No! The problem of God’s grace is that we are so often unable, incapable of, unwilling to, or prevented from receiving that FREE GIFT, because our hands are not open and our hearts are cluttered and filled with all kinds of other unnecessary and harmful junk.
I invite you all to join us this evening at 8pm as we initiate our 40-day Lenten season of spiritual and internal ‘house cleaning!’ I welcome you to come together as we commit to empty our hands and to de-clutter our hearts in order to receive God’s full and sufficient grace of loving forgiveness which is offered FREELY for us and for all people. Then, we will be encouraged to live the rest of our days as bearers, with Mary, of the light of the resurrected and living Christ in our very own bodies. Then we too can be converted [i.e.turned around] into fully-forgiven and fully-functional members of the brightly-transfigured Body of Christ himself.
God bless you, every one!
Fr. Ron
P.S. Here is your invitation for our Ash Wednesday service tonight:
Welcome members and friends of St. John’s Church,
Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Hamlin, PA will continue to provide Sunday morning services and other meetings and services via a Zoom meeting until we can meet again in person. As a result we’ve set up a recurring Zoom session to cover them for the time being. Attached is the bulletin for tonight, Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021.
We are also recording the services and during the week the link is posted to our website, saintjohnhamlin.org under the Events page tab and also on our LinkedIn and Facebook page(s), as well as, sending the link of the recording to our members and friends via broadcast email during the week.
Time: 8:00 pm
To Join the Zoom Meeting click the link below. In most cases, it will take you right into the Zoom meeting.
https://zoom.us/j/289984840 If you need to log on manually, Go to www.zoom.us , click “Join a Meeting” in the upper right corner of the screen and when prompted enter the meeting ID: 289 984 840 No Password will be required. In addition, you can phone in for an audio only version of the service by using one of the numbers below: +1 646 876 9923 or 1 253 215 8782 or 1 301 715 8592
Again you will need to enter the Meeting ID: 289 984 840 followed by #. To avoid background noise when anyone joins the meeting during the service, all participants will be muted upon joining. Feel free to unmute yourselves if joining before 8pm to chat with other parishioners. At the start of the service we will be muting all but the current speaker, reader or Kathleen during hymns but everyone can participate in the service by holding down your space bar during responsive and all participant parts of the service via computer (or mute/unmute by: *6 – if on audio only via phone). Joan S. Griffin, on behalf of Saint John’s Episcopal Church of Hamlin, PA grifjoan@alum.mit.edu
See you on Zoom! Stay safe and be well.
Beverly E. Keleher, Parish Administrative Assistant
Join us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
www.saintjohnhamlin.org 570-689-9260
For the Flock Feb. 10, 20121
…and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
My dear people,
I remind you of these words from last Sunday’s lessons. I share them with you again, because I know that you have heard – and maybe even felt, yourself – that “politics and religion” should not be ‘mixed’ or talked about, at least in polite society.
In a sense, that is true. The message of the Gospel is over, above and beyond all ‘politics.’ The Good News of God’s love for ALL people, is not the property of any individual political party or any single religious tradition. As Christians, we believe, teach, and confess the Gospel as absolutely and immutably true. But the proclamation of the Gospel MUST BE UNFETTERED by any exigencies – however compelling they may seem to be. Briefly put, there is not – never was and never can be – a good enough reason NOT to proclaim the Gospel. As we all know, just as the Gospel sometimes challenges us, the Gospel often seems particularly offensive to others who cannot square their prejudices, their political positions and their religious tenets with what it is the Gospel teaches and proclaims. It is they who, in their own discomfort with the truth, believe that the Good News should be muzzled or silenced when its proclamation is contrary to, or unsupportive of, their prejudicial political or ecclesiastical positions. The subtlety of this invalid argument goes like this: If the Gospel offends then it should be silenced, tamped down, un-proclaimed or otherwise perverted into something other than the Divine Truth that it is.
So friends, let us pause in the middle of this national Black History Month to confess that no amount of church-going, Scripture-quoting, Bible thumping or waving, could, can, or ever will be able to be used honestly to support, encourage or ignore the societal racism into which we are all born. Racism is simply NOT of the Gospel. Racism is always brought to the Scripture, brought to the church, brought to the society, brought to the culture in the hearts of those who have been TAUGHT to fear and hate others. Support of racism is NOT to be found in the Gospel. The Gospel – when rightly read, marked, learned and inwardly digested, opposes ALL FORMS of racism, prejudice, hatred and ignorance. The Gospel destroys any and all cockamamie arguments to the contrary.
Yes, friends, officially, this is Black History month. Unofficially, it could also be called, Christians Return to the Gospel month!
Here are the lyrics from the famous 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific.” In the play, this song is preceded by a line saying racism is “not born in you! It happens after you’re born…”
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
So then, as we return, over and over again, to the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, let us work to un-learn the racisms in our lives, in our politics, in our religion and in our society and at the bottoms of our very own hearts. We know that the intention of racism is the destruction of the ‘other.’ We also know that, racism, hatred, prejudice, bigotry and ignorance are like acid which eats away first and best at the container in which it is stored.
Let us then, without equivocation, denounce and deny the soul-destroying evils of racism and commit ourselves yet again to the glorious Gospel of God’s love for all people, everywhere.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
February 5, 2021
My dear people,
I promised this “address” to you on Sunday. You will be able to use this site to follow the appointed readings [called pericopes in fancy church lingo!] for every Sunday of the year. The word “pericope” comes from the Greek: “peri” meaning “around” and “cope” to “out.” So the pieces of Scripture which are ‘cut around’ and extracted for use on Sundays are called the ‘pericopes.’ Yep, essentially, the “cut outs.”
So, here ’tis: lectionarypage.net
Happy reading!
Sincerely,
Fr. Ron
February 3, 2021
My dear people,
Both Pastor Gregg Schaefer and Pastor Mark Newman have shared this invitation with us.
I must say how delighted I am that our experience of living out and into this full-communion agreement with our Moravian family, friends and neighbors has been a wonderful and mutually-beneficial experience for us all.
God bless us all, every one!
Fr. Ron
3 February 2021
My dear people,
Yesterday, was a very important day in the church calendar, and in other calendars as well. In the church, we remember the venerable pre-Christian custom of the purification of women, 40 days after childbirth. Since yesterday marked 40 days after Christmas, that’s the day the church celebrates the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Coincidentally with that, the church also celebrates the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. You know the story, in St. Luke’s Gospel, chapter two.
After her ritual purification, Mary, with Joseph, takes Jesus, to present him, their first-born son, as “holy to the Lord,” according to the law. This is when Simeon sings what we call the Nunc Dimittis,
“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.” [Book of Common Prayer, 1662]
confessing that God had fulfilled his promise and shown Himself to the faithful old man. In Jesus, Simeon believed that he had seen the Savior of the world. Consequently, he could die peacefully fulfilled. An old woman named Anna was also there. She too recognized what Simeon saw in Jesus and knew what the life of Jesus would mean for the world. Sometimes, in Christian art, the Circumcision and Presentation are depicted as simultaneous, or even the same event.
In the Church of England, the second of February is also called Candlemas, the day on which all the candles are blessed for use in the church during the rest of the year. That liturgy often begins with a procession around the church. I assume the Candlemas tradition comes as a result of the days of mid-winter becoming appreciably longer and connecting that light with the “light of Christ.” [Winter, as you know, is the season of lengthening days.] The 2nd of February is a sort of ‘hinge’ between winter and spring. It is very apparent that the world is indeed turning. Days are getting longer, and the hope of spring is ever more palpable and believable. Certainly these recognizable changes in the weather have something to do with the Pennsylvania “Dutch” tradition of weather prediction by the groundhog and his shadow on February second.
In the Eastern Church, the celebration of the Presentation is known as Hypapante (Ὑπαπαντή, = “Meeting” in Greek). That is to say the “meeting” between the young and the old, the Divine and the human, the Creator and the creature, good and evil, truth and falsehood, etc. That meeting is, of course, accompanied with the promise of God’s reign over, and presence in, all of creation. Just this past Sunday, Pope Francis established an annual date [the fourth Sunday in July] to honor grandparents and other elders, lamenting that they are often forgotten despite the wisdom they have to offer the young and the rest of society. In this act, he is encouraging precisely the kind of “meeting” expressed in the “Presentation” we commemorate on February 2nd.
That ‘meeting’ promises God’s eventual victory over time, over space, over sin, over death, over evil and over falsehood. As we know – and as they knew then – these victories would be hard-won. As you know, living that truth cost Mary a great deal of maternal pain, and eventually, cost Jesus his life. As we read in Luke 2: 34 and 35:
“Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
All of these celebrations and commemorations on the second of February remind us that SPRING is near, and so is LENT! Lent means spring and Lent means our 40-day penitential season of preparation to receive, believe, confess and celebrate the foundational truth of our faith: Christ is risen indeed! Christ is alive: with us and in us.
To mark and celebrate Lent and Easter this year, the Vestry has decided on the following schedule of Zoom services and meetings:
Ash Wednesday, 17 February, 8pm – Worship
Lent I – Sunday, 21 February, 10am – Worship beginning with The Great Litany (Vestry meeting follows our worship service)
Lent II – Sunday, 28 February, 10am – Moravian/Episcopal Ecumenical Liturgy
Lent III – Sunday, 7 March, 10am – Worship
Lent IV – Sunday, 14 March, 10am – Rose Sunday Worship
Lent V – Sunday, 21 March, 10am – Worship
Annunciation Thursday – 25 March, 8pm – Power Point Presentation
Palm Sunday – 28 March, 10am – Liturgy of the Palms & Passion History
Maundy Thursday – 1 April, 8pm – Recalling the Institution of the Sacrament of the Altar
Good Friday – 2 April, 8pm – Quietly rejoicing in Christ’s victory over death
Easter Vigil, Saturday – 3 April, 8pm – The Resurrection of Our Lord
Easter Day, Sunday – 4 April, 10am – The Resurrection of Our Lord
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Thoughts From Our Priest-in-Charge:
27 January 2021
My dear people,
In the Lutheran calendar, today is the day of Commemoration for Lydia, Dorcas and Phoebe, (Biblical) Witnesses to the Faith.
Today has also been designated by the United Nations General Assembly as International Holocaust Remembrance Day—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.
Let us also, as Christians, take a moment to remember that it was possible, not long ago, in the 20th century, for a demagogue and mad man to ascend to national power and to lead a nation full of brilliant and very advanced people to abandon their humanity and perpetrate unspeakable acts of moral depravity, against those who were ‘different’ and whom they blamed all the ills of their society and culture.
There was a German Lutheran pastor named Martin Niemöller who, early on, was sucked into Hitler’s madness and who came to regret that later.
Pastor Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. But when, after he came to power, Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II.
Let us remember that even today, “nice religious people” can quickly get sucked into following and supporting demagogic madness and leaders who instruct their minions to perpetrate unspeakable acts of moral depravity against those who are ‘different’ and whom they blame for all sorts of ills in society and culture.
We know this can happen even today, just as easily as it happened in Germany in the 1930’s. The pattern is clear. Let us pray God to prevent us from doing the same or worse. Let us also pause today to remember Martin Niemöller’s experience and to remember these, his own and very famous words:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
God’s richest blessings be yours as we continue to seek justice for all, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
In Christ,
Fr. Ron
25 January 2021
The Conversion of St. Paul
My dear people,
I ask you to indulge me with the personal privilege of inviting you to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of my baptism on this, the church’s Feast Day of the Conversion of St. Paul. My baptism occurred in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which was my mother’s tradition. That church is now a part of the United Church of Christ. My up-bringing occurred in the Lutheran church – my father’s tradition – which was not much different from the E. & R., and shared the German cultural and theological underpinnings of the Lutheran Reformation.
Baptism is really all about God’s claim on us. Baptism is also related to our claims about God. There are aspects of baptism which can honestly be understood to be about conversion: our on-going conversion, our growing in faith, our unfolding love toward God and the consequent and necessary love of our neighbors.
The conversion of St. Paul is the story of a religious man who by all appearances was a very, very good and observant man. Paul loved God, unquestionably. It is also fair to say that because Paul loved his ‘religion’ more than he loved his God, he therefore had trouble loving his neighbors who saw things differently than he did. That’s what allowed him, self-righteously, to persecute believers in the early church. Paul’s ‘religion’ allowed him to support and engage in unspeakable practices, in God’s name, against God’s own – albeit other – children. How could any God, who is understood to BE love, condone such behaviors as, for example, the stoning of Stephen? Remember, Saul witnessed that stoning and held the coats of the (‘religious’) perpetrators of that crime.
Today we remember that eventually, Saul was literally and figuratively knocked off his high horse, and blinded by the ‘Light of Christ.’ [You may remember that those are the words we sing at the Great Vigil of Easter as we enter a dark church carrying the Easter or Paschal Candle – from which all other lights in the church take flame.] And, just as we received our names in baptism, Saul too eventually comes to be known by a new name, Paul.
As a youngster, I wanted to know which ecclesiastical tradition was ‘better:’ the one in which I was baptized or the one in which I grew up. After attending Muhlenberg College – an institution of Lutheran foundation – and attending the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, I concluded my seminary education at Union Seminary in NYC which had Presbyterian foundations but is a completely independent and fully-ecumenical institution related to Columbia University. Union Seminary is closely related to The Riverside Church in NYC which has Baptist and Congregationalist roots. Then, I attended Drew University, a Methodist institution in Madison, NJ for my Ph.D. My first parish was located in the profoundly Roman Catholic neighborhood of WNY, NJ where many of my dear colleagues were priests in the local Catholic churches. My second parish was in Teaneck, NJ a profoundly and ever-more conservative Jewish neighborhood. You also know that for a while, I lived in England and participated in the life and work of the Church of England. And, better than most, you know that now I serve in the Episcopal Church in America. I have, I hope that , along with St. Paul, I am continually being converted not to ask that question: “which is better.” I hope I continue to learn, as did Paul, what is good in every tradition and what is it I have to learn from other faithful people. I have gained unspeakable riches from all of the different religious traditions with which I have had contact and experience. They have all contributed to my life and ministry. I have also learned that there is truly only ONE GOD.
I share all this with you because today is the conclusion of the WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY. Recalling the story of St. Paul’s conversion, is a sober reminder that nobody ever gets it all right, all of the time. Micah understood this when he reminded us that as religious people, our job is to do justice, love mercy, and WALK HUMBLY with God. That humility allows us to confess that God, and only God, is right and true ALWAYS. That humility obviates our questions about who is “right,” and which tradition is “better.” That humility certainly requires us to withhold our judgments of others, so that instead of fearing them, we might learn from and with them and thereby benefit each other mutually.
Surely, our own conversions are an on-going process. Sometimes, our conversions not only turn us around toward God, but even turn us upside down, just as Paul was turned around and upside down!
That idea of being turned upside down by conversion is magnificently expressed in the painting I have included with this message. That work is entitled the Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus. It is in the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome, and was painted there in 1600-1601.
Bless you, every one, as you celebrate your own baptism, which calls you too to conversion. Be prepared. That conversion may, just as did Paul’s, turn you around, or even upside down!
Sincerely, in Christ, in whom we find our unity,
Fr. Ron
P.S. The following is our Vestry approved Lenten Schedule for 2021:
ASH WEDNESDAY – 17 February, 8pm
Lent I – 21 February, 10am – Liturgy with the Great Litany – Vestry Meeting after worship
Lent II – 28 February, 10amLent III – 7 March, 10am
Lent IV – 14 March, 10am – “Rose Sunday”
ANNUNCIATION DAY – THURSDAY – 25 March, 8pm –Power Point Presentation on the Annunciation in Christian Art
PALM SUNDAY – 28 March,10am
Maundy Thursday – 1 April, 8pm
Good Friday – 2 April, 8pm
Easter Vigil – 3 April, 8pm
EASTER DAY – 4 April, 10am
Thoughts from our-Priest-in-Charge
13 January 2021
My dear, dear, very dear people,
On January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord, we celebrated God as willing to be seen and experienced by us humans.
On the very same day, in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. we also saw the willingness of absolute evil to be seen and experienced by us as well.
Often, God seems to be hidden from our sight.
Similarly, absolute evil sometimes seems to be hidden from our sight. But, unlike God, evil usually prefers to be obscure and not to be publicly identified and called by name.
Now, however, we cannot claim that we no longer SEE the evil which has festered in our nation for generations; and which has been fomented in this generation by current national leadership. That EVIL is known by some, as “America’s Original Sin.” We call that EVIL by its name: WHITE SUPREMACIST RACISM.
I am absolutely certain, that were we to strip away all of the arguments, explanations and excuses about what happened in Washington, D. C. on January 6th, the ‘bottom line,’ the bed-rock ‘reason,’ would be the irrational insanity which is born of RACISM and the fear that in the United States, something might actually be “done about that,” during a new and different administration, which will share power broadly with people of color, with women, and with “others” who are neither white nor frightened of difference.
For way too long – and by way too many “nice people” (and yes that includes “nice church people” like you and me!) – RACISM has been given a pass and remained “invisible” to many, if not to most, white people in this country. That evil has enjoyed being hidden from our sight, and not being called out and called by name. Often, that happened because we ourselves were complicit, simply by CLOSING OUR EYES to it.
The “second epiphany” in Washington, D. C. on Wednesday the 6th of January – the epiphany of racism – has opened our eyes to the evil ferocity and rapacious hatred that possesses white racists. On that day, we saw racism uncovered. Racists simply will not – are not willing to – or choose not to – recognize people of color, minorities and folks who are different from themselves as ‘equals.’
In the “First Epiphany,” on Wednesday the 6th of January, the one in the church calendar, we celebrated precisely the opposite! The Magi, who were themselves foreigners, immigrants, racially-different outsiders turned away from their own country (from their home of original sin) toward God, incarnate in Bethlehem. They came away from Bethlehem, having SEEN their Creator in flesh and having received their Redeemer in person. They left Bethlehem knowing that they were SEEN by God, and that God wished not only to be SEEN by them, but SEEN in them, and through them: SEEN in all the world. That is the Epiphany of Our Lord, which we Christians celebrate. That is the “First Epiphany” which gives us hope for, and direction in, these times, of other sad and pathetic “epiphanies.”
To say that what happened on the 6th of January in Washington was “not who we are,” as a nation, is not – and has not been – really true! We might – and should say – that that is “not what we want to be.” We might also say that that is “not what we want to continue to be, or to become, as a nation.” But frankly, folks, we must say, that is who we, as a nation, have been, historically. Those RACIST voices of destructive, disrespectful, hate-driven and fear-driven racist white people have been with us since the founding of our nation. Surely, that is our “original sin.” In the nation, just as in the church, we need to begin with a confession that “we are by nature sinful and unclean and cannot save ourselves.”
You may remember when I preached at the 2016 Ecumenical Thanksgiving service, in the Assembly of God Church, in Hamlin, I told the story of a derelict house – just across the way from our churches – where an antiques dealer opened a chest, and thought he had discovered old bed linens. Then, he picked up those sheets and saw the eye-holes in them, and with them, the membership book of the local K.K.K. You SEE, and I’m sure you know, that the evil of racism has not only always been with us, but it has also been close to us, and even in us! [Those white robes and that secret membership list of the local K.K.K. prove how evil plays “peek-a-boo” and hates to be seen and publicly called out by name.]
Now that we have seen some real EVIL face to face, and can call it by its name, let us also confess that we have a GOD whom we also see very clearly and face to face. We have a God to whom we can turn and re-turn. We publicly believe, teach and confess that our GOD neither condones nor blesses RACISM in any form or for any ‘reason.’ Racism — as any other and all sin, in any form and to any degree — turns us away from God and places us outside of Christianity.
As we commit ourselves to making our God SEEN and VISIBLE, and as we confess and repent of the latent racisms in ourselves, let us re-commit ourselves to work for justice and reparations for all of God’s children who have suffered the EVIL of racism for generations on end, and even at our own hands.
Now, having SEEN RACISM uncovered, we CALL our corporate original sin BY NAME: Systemic National RACISM. Along with our personal sinfulness, we now confess our “National Original Sin.” This must be done FIRST! Then we can confidently turn back onto the road toward improvement and perfection. Assured of God’s mercy, we turn around toward God and God’s ways filled with hope and Good News for All People. Our hope as Christians and as a nation is in the possibility that, forgiven of our sins, we can engage creatively in the business of BECOMING better, by working toward justice for all people everywhere. There is no doubt that that is the absolute will of the Almighty, and the task of the church, the Body of Christ.
GOD’S KINGDOM is NOT, never was, and never will be A RACIST SOCIETY! Working toward the Kingdom of God in this world has everything to do with working for JUSTICE for all people, everywhere, loving MERCY and living and walking HUMBLY with our GOD. Our God wishes to be SEEN in this world, especially in us who take the name of CHRIST. There is NOTHING about CHRISTIANITY which is compatible with RACISM. We simply cannot be CHRISTIANS and RACISTS at the same time. Period.
Yes, friends, we have seen, and no doubt will see much more, blatant evil done under the disguise of unconfessed racism. However, we are not shaken in our belief that OUR GOD – whom we DO see – can and will be SEEN in us, by others, as we continue to make our confession, turn toward God and LIVE OUT OUR FAITH as forgiven children of the One and only true God, who is the loving Creator of all people everywhere.
Where truth, justice, love, and mercy prevail, there God is truly present and really SEEN!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
P.S. I remind you that in the calendars of both the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, this Friday, 15 January, is the Day of Commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr., Renewer of Society. Let us with joy and gladness continue the work of Dr. King , and that of his teachers and mentors — Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus, the Christ — as we ourselves work to be with them, “Renewers of Society.” R.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
6 January 2021 The Epiphany of Our Lord
My dear people,
Greetings to you on this very important and festive day.
Today, in the church, we celebrate the EPIPHANY or the THEOPHANY of God, incarnate in the person of Jesus. However funny these ‘church words’ may seem to us, they tell the whole story of what it is we celebrate today. The –phanein part of Epi-phany, means to be seen or to appear. The epi– part implies in front of or before. So EPIPHANY is a celebration of the God we see before us in the person of Jesus. Similarly, the Theo- part of Theo-phany, is the GOD we see before us in the person of Jesus.
You may remember that we’ve been having the discussion, before our services, the past two Sundays, whether they should be called Sundays “after,” “of,” or “in” Christmas. Whatever your choice about that may be, we conclude the TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMASTIDE remembering the arrival of the gift-bearing Magi at the manger, on this special Epiphany Day.
It is important that we remember the SCANDAL caused by the birth of the Savior. We just dealt with the texts of Herod’s mad rage and the slaughter of the Innocent Martyrs in his insane search for Jesus – in whom he also saw something special. Herod may even have come to belief in Jesus’ Divinity before anyone else! How so? Well, he apparently saw in Jesus a Divinity which challenged, and out-shone, and certainly threatened his own divinity (for in those days, emperors were gods!). That is Scandal “A” of the Nativity.
Scandal “B” of the Birth Narratives of Jesus is to be found in the religious community – during the early years of the church. That scandal is directly related to the narrative about the Magi. The question in the early church became whether or not God’s gift of God’s self, in the person of Jesus, was for the whole world (the Gentiles – the Nations – the People – in Greek hoi polloi) or just for the community of faith. You remember how this unravels, don’t you? Having ourselves just remembered (on January 1) the former feast of the Circumcision of Christ (8 days after birth, according to the Jewish custom), the question arose in the early church whether converts to Christianity had to become Jews first – and be circumcised – before being admitted into the Christian communion.
Epiphany is all about Scandal “B!” Epiphany is about our firm belief that God’s incarnate gift is given to the whole world: to all people, everywhere. This gift of God’s divine affection for all creation and for everyone in it was – and often still is – a scandal to the church and to many ‘nice, faithful, religious’ people. How is it that God could possibly love those who are so very different from – and believe differently from – us? That may be a mystery just as large as the mystery which we believe and teach and confess that God comes to us in the person of Jesus. But it is what the Epiphany is all about. No matter what the value or significance of the gifts the Magi brought, the EPIPHANY teaches us that the true gift was that of GOD to the Magi, and to world, in flesh, in the person of Jesus, and subsequently, to the world, in the Body of Christ, the Church.
Scandal “A” of the Nativity, continues, in the church calendar, with the celebration, today, of Scandal “B,” that God loves and gives God’s entire self to the entire creation. For us, that means, that as the church, our task is clear. Our job is to continue to SCANDALIZE THE WORLD with the love of God for all people, at all times, in all places, and especially for the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the over-looked, the mis-understood, the infirm, as well as the wealthy. Those Magi were, if nothing else, wealthy. But isn’t it interesting to you that their great gifts of ‘value’ see so irrelevant in a stable? Also, doesn’t it interest you that there is no record of those gifts after their presentation? I suppose that the importance of those gifts, in this story, is their irrelevance.
Today we, as did the Magi, come bearing gifts. Today, we are scandalized by the importance of the gift of God’s self to us, rather than any gift we ourselves might offer. And today, we re-commit ourselves, at the Epiphany, to make God apparent in how we live our lives in the interests of ALL of God’s people everywhere, as scandalous as that may be.
Bless you every one,
Fr. Ron
A note from Pat Ware, our Thrift Shoppe Mgr. : Please spread the word that all Christmas items will be 50% off during the whole month of January!
We will be open our normal schedule: Saturdays: January 9 and 23 from 9am-1pm and our free clothing event will be Wednesday, January 13 from 10am-noon and from 5-7pm. Come one, come all!
| January 2021 | This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC |
| Birthdays, Anniversaries & Events | @ St. John’s Church – Hamlin |
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| New Year’s Day Holiday | ||||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10am via Zoom https://zoom.us/j/289984840 | Steven Otway-B’day | Mary Ellen Kilpatrick-B’day Thrift Shoppe 9am-1pm | ||||
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 10am Moravian Love Feast via Zoom https://zoom.us/j/289984840 | Free Clothing Event @ Thrift Shoppe 10-noon & 5-7pm | Christine LoCicero-B’day | ||||
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| Janice LoCicero-B’day 10am via Zoom https://zoom.us/j/289984840 | Martin Luther King Holiday | Dylan Otway-B’day Rev’d Reuel & Barbara Kaighn-Anniv. | Thrift Shoppe 9am-1pm | |||
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 10am via Zoom https://zoom.us/j/289984840 VESTRY MEETING FOLLOWS | Edith Otway-B’day |
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
28 December 2020
Holy Innocents, Martyrs
My dear people,
On this Third day of Christ, known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, also called Childermas or Innocents’ Day, we remember the massacre of young children in Bethlehem by King Herod the Great in his mad rage and insane attempt to kill the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:16–18). . . . The slain children were regarded by the early church as the first martyrs. You may remember that we celebrate St. Stephen, who is also remembered as the First Christian Martyr, on the 26th of December. So, how do we get two firsts? Well, the Innocents were martyrs, in deed. But, the argument goes that they were too young to have known why they were giving their lives. So, they were not martyrs in will. Stephen, on the other hand, was a martyr both in will and in deed! He knew he was giving his life and why. St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist is usually remembered on the 27th of December, between these two commemorations of martyrs, NOT because he was martyred, but because he is believed to have been a martyr in will (if called upon for that purpose) but was not a martyr in deed.
The point of these commemorations is to remind us that our belief about the birth of Jesus and the INCARNATION of God in human flesh might have consequences for us in this life. Our belief in the truth of this INCARNATION is also what provides us with HOPE and TRUE JOY for our lives – come what may.
These poignant celebrations remind us that those who came to belief in and about Jesus – in his very own day – experienced the changes and chances of life, just as do we. Their belief also led them to understand that, in the INCARNATION, God made clear God’s love for God’s own creation and re-affirmed God’s promise to be with us at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. Yes, those martyrs believed that God was truly with them, and that nothing could separate them from the love of the God who created them: not even death. It is in this faith that we too find the the JOY of our religion! That joy does NOT mean that we are always ‘happy,’ or without grief, or pain, or suffering. But our JOY is founded in our belief that right in the middle of our situations – whatever they may be – we have Immanuel: God with us!
God bless us every one as we continue to celebrate the TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.
In Christ,
Fr. Ron
Hi All – I am assuming that we can safely say the thrift shoppe will not be open for the 5p-7p hours today, December 16, 2020.. Take care and stay safe. Pat Ware
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
The Eve of St. Lucy 12 December 2020
My very dear people,
In a front-page ‘item’ in a free and widely-distributed local advertising paper, the publisher, apparently angry that some local churches have decided not to open their doors for worship in order to protect the health of those who might worship there, “simply asks” questions about the safety of the Holy Family and the gatherings of people around the Nativity of Our Lord as recorded in Scripture.
The publisher is aware of an understanding of the church as a community rather than a building. Nevertheless, he tempts and taunts the churches to: “Think of all the money your congregation could save” by unburdening the community of its real estate. That leads the publisher then to suggest, by extension, that the church could then save money by not employing ecclesiastical professionals: “…ministers, pastors, priests.”
His point, I suppose, is that he is desperate for local churches to provide lovely, warm, candle-light, cozy, gemütlich, Christmas worship, which would also be DEADLY, in our generally small church buildings. It’s not clear whether or not he intends to attend any one of them!
Now, to allay your fears, our publisher appeals to the situations surrounding the Nativity of our Lord 2,000 years ago. He asks [and you know, he is NOT “asking!”] whether or not things were safe then. Was it safe for Mary (pregnant), Joseph, the Wise Men, etc. to travel and to experience the exigencies of life in their day? The answer he is attempting to elicit from his dear readers (and possibly you!) is that, no, it was NO safer THEN than it is NOW. Therefore, let’s go to church!
Well, my friends, I am here to remind you that you do belong to a church which sees value in its church buildings. We, however, do NOT worship our buildings. Rather, we worship IN buildings. We worship in all kinds of buildings and not just in temples! We worship when we gather and we worship when we are alone.
You are a member of a community of believers which has a clear and firmly established sense of the church as the Body of Christ. You belong to a church which understands all the baptized as members of the priesthood of believers. And, you also belong to a church which provides you with publicly recognized and certified ecclesiastical professionals: “. . . ministers, pastors, priests,” as well as bishops and presiding bishops, who are shepherds charged with your care, your feeding, your well-being and your safety.
The value of ecclesiastical leadership is that the church educates, selects, and affirms by ordination those who, on the basis of Scripture and the tradition, are charged to look after and protect you from the voice of the tempter, the seducer, the accuser who prowls around to devour you. You know who that is, don’t you!
The voice of this publisher invites you, with cunning argument and with subtle appeal to Scripture, to unsafe and inappropriate behavior! He invites you to argue for scientifically, medically, and statistically un-safe practices right inside our own buildings and inside the community of faith. He is counting on your love of a building and a Christmas ‘tradition’ to be stronger than your love of the Christian community itself! He is encouraging nothing less than deadly practice in churches. That simply will NOT work among us!
This publisher is tempting you to worship the temple itself. This publisher is tempting you to believe that the temple is the only place you can worship traditionally and appropriately, particularly at Christmas. We will not be defined by anyone other than the God of Jesus, Mary and Joseph to be anything other than the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” of Jesus the Christ. We simply ARE the church, at all times, in all places and under all circumstances. No amount of Bible waving outside of our buildings – by presidents or publishers – will make us become anything other than who we really are, or do anything other than we are really called to do, by GOD!
Our Pastor, Bishop Kevin, meets with the experts and other bishops across the church and advises us regularly and sincerely, about safe practice for us in our church. We are engaged in the building up of the Body of Christ and nothing less.
I invite you to consider Jesus’ response (in Matthew 4:6) when Satan invited him to risky behavior, using the same argument that has been offered to us by an un-certified, un-ordained, angry, anti-scientific, anti-ecclesiastical, demagogic voice which is widely-distributed in print in our neighborhoods.
Matthew 4:6
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
You know what Jesus did. He did NOT take the bait! Nor shall we…….
Rather, Jesus answered:
It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
And, my friends, so shall we!
We know, believe and teach that ignorance is NOT faith. And we know, believe and teach a faith which is NOT ignorant!
Sincerely yours, In Christ
The Rev’d. Ronald R. Miller, Ph.D.Priest-in-Charge
St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hamlin, Pennsylvania
St. Lucy Day 13 December 2020
My dear people,
Earlier today I spoke about Mary Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) who, according to Wikipedia, was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist who wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a sardonic Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters . . .
Her writing reflected her Roman Catholic faith and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
I made reference to one of her short stories entitled “Revelation,” which story I encourage you to read. You can also find a brief plot outline of this story in “Cliff Notes” on line. The point I was trying to make was the connection between the pig figure which has become a part of my creche here at home, and the epiphany Mrs. Turpin has in the story, when she marches out to the pig parlor (pig pen) to hash our her differences with God.
There’s much in this story about racism, prejudice, and our human willingness to classify others at sight, without having a clue to who they really are.
The child in the manger grows up. Our faith in that child should grow up as well, just as Mrs. Turpin’s did, albeit imperfectly. If the child in the crib teaches us anything, all of our prejudices, racism and pre-judgement of others will be challenged, and by God’s grace, improved.
I treasure my creche pig. It reminds me of the faithful truth communicated in Flannery O’Connor’s story of the pig parlor. Also, my little pig was a posthumous gift from another faithful Southern woman who became a Lutheran because she appreciated Luther’s emphasis on God’s grace as sufficient for our salvation. Thanks Carolyn!
Bless you one and all,
Fr. Ron
OUTREACH UPDATE: Many of the current active members of the parish asked about being able to participate in an “Angel Tree giving opportunity” as we have done in the past years. Since we can’t meet in person, I’m taking advantage of SignupGenius to create a virtual tree. Click on the following link to go to the sign-up page. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c094daaad2ca2fb6-saint
I’ve reached out to the families we’ve supported in past years and have gotten information on their kids, ages, sizes and general likes. We’d like to provide each child with an outfit (shirt and pants) and a gift. Visa gift cards would also be appreciated. If you would like to donate a gift and outfit to a child, please select one (or more) of the slots available and return your items (unwrapped or in a gift bag with tissue), with a tag indicating which child your donation is for to the church by December 18th. There are still 8 childrens’ slots still unclaimed.
Questions? Contact Joan Griffin at grifjoan@alum.mit.edu.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
7 December 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we spent some time thinking about Mary and Mary’s ‘kinswoman’ Elizabeth.
The birth narratives which grew up around Jesus and his ‘forerunner,’ John the baptizer, surely evolved as their followers came to realize and believe the truth and ‘radicality’ of the messages they proclaimed.
My thought is that the clarity and concision of the messages of both John and Jesus – yes, the ‘radicality’ of what they said – moved their disciples to come to beliefs about those two men themselves. In the case of Jesus that led to his divinization and the belief that Jesus was indeed a part of the Godhead: the ‘Second Person’ of the One Holy and Undivided Trinity.
I also believe that as the church came to recognize God’s presence in Jesus, that it became important to create myths about Jesus’ birth as an auspicious one, so that the TRUTH of what Jesus said, and believed, and that the TRUTH of his life of faith, might be believed by others. That “technique” of TELLING THE TRUTH, still works, believe it or not! It involves the hope that if people believe that the messenger is “special,” they will eventually come to hear and believe his very special message! Both John and Jesus lived lives that embodied what they believed and taught. Simply put, they practiced what they preached.
There is a world full of people who may ‘know’ the stories of the Nativity and who ‘celebrate’ Christmas, who, nevertheless may not be aware of the radical message these powerful myths convey. But for us – for the family of faith – these myths keep alive the opportunity to proclaim the TRUTH of GOD’S LOVE for ALL PEOPLE. These myths also keep us reminded that the messages which John and Jesus taught cost them both their lives. John was beheaded and Jesus was crucified, simply for TELLING THE TRUTH and living out what they believed.
All of the ‘Christmas tinsel’ that surrounds us in our culture at this time of year could easily overwhelm us. The ‘glitz’ sometimes threatens to make our truth-communicating myths into simplistic stories about long ago magic. But we who are aware of the ABSOLUTE MYSTERY of God’s created natural order are moved, in Advent, NOT to deny the mystery of this entire world and our fleshly humanity in it. Rather we are encouraged in our belief that God has come to live among us in such persons as John and as Jesus. In our own time, we also pray that, as in them, God may be born in us today! When we open our hearts, as did Elizabeth and Mary to be impregnated with God’s promise, we dare, with them, to become God-bearers, even in our own flesh and blood. Then, with John and Jesus we will be enabled to speak the truth in love. Then we too, with them, will bring the light and warmth of the truth of God’s love into a cold and dark world. Tinsel, as you know, only ever reflects light. John, Jesus, and the Body of Christ are in fact the light itself.
So then, in this holy season, let’s let our little lights so shine before others so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
P.S. Here’s a Gift for you!
The BACH CHOIR OF BETHLEHEM is offering a FREE Virtual Christmas Concert on-line, on SUNDAY, 13 December 2020 at 4PM. See the brochure below.
You are INVITED to join lots of other folks from 47 States and 10 other countries for this very special concert. You must, however, REGISTER.
Register at BACH.org/ticketsOR:To receive the link, SEND: Your Name, Address, ‘Phone Number and E-mail to:
THE BACH CHOIR of BETHLEHEM, 440 HECKEWELDER Pl., Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18018
OR:
Telephone Michael at (610) 866-4382 ext.110
If you are unable to attend, you will be able to see the performance on YouTube, later.
Fr. Ron
My dear people,
Here’s a link from worship at ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL in London (England!), which I just received from the former Dean of the Cathedral in Bristol (England!). [Connecticut makes those parenthetical clarifications necessary!]
I offer it to you for your pleasure and edification: https://youtu.be/82Aw-aMBTtc
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
| December Events 2020 St. John’s Episcopal Church 570-689-9260 saintjohnshamlinpa@gmail.com | REMEMBER TO DONATE SOME “DOUGH” TO OUR CHURCH FOR “BAKELESS COOKIES GALORE” THIS YEAR TO KEEP OUR FINANCIAL GINGERBREAD HOUSE IN ORDER 😊 (annual fund raiser cancelled due to pandemic) |
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| Nov 29 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| Sunday’s: Zoom Service at 10am Dig out your Advent Wreath for Advent I | Nicholas Baldo, Kevin Bauer, Gina Hanson B-days | Camille Coppola B-day | ||||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Advent II | David Baldo B-day THRIFT SHOPPE OPEN 9A-1P | |||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| Advent III-Blessing of the Bambinelli | Piper Evelyn Duggan B-day | FREE CLOTHING EVENT 10-NOON & 5-7P John/Mary Krueger Anniv. | Fr. Reuel Kaighn, John Kilpatrick, Jr. B-days | Jennifer Mercereau B-day | THRIFT SHOPPE OPEN 9A-1P | |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| Advent IV | Michael Rotolo B-day | Christmas Eve Zoom Candlelight Service @ 10p | Christmas Day Zoom Service @ 10a Pajama Mass Lois Gilpin, Mary Millan B-days | |||
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
| Regina A. LoCicero B-day Jerre Holbook/ Joanne Brogan Anniv | Marianne Berryman, Pr. Greg Schafer B-days | |||||
*Please take a moment of thoughtful prayer and make a declaration of your intended giving (Pledge cards available if needed) to St. John’s for next year so that our budget-making process can be honest, solid, faithful and effective. God Bless You!
To all the members and friends of Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Hamlin, PA:
The Outreach Committee, with the support of the Vestry and Father Ron, have come up with a few plans to help our community, here in Pike and Monroe Counties and wherever we are currently located this holiday season. We hope you will join us in these efforts.
In addition to the year-round service we provide the community with the Thrift Shoppe, we are focused on the ever-increasing need in our communities to support food pantries and to provide Christmas gifts.
The Vestry has approved the contribution of $750. to be donated to the Wayne County Food Bank operated out of Newfoundland (serving both Pike and Wayne counties) and The Kids Food Pantry operating out of the Wallenpaupack High School. Beginning in 2021, the church will be contributing $50 a month to both pantries to support families in need year-round.
For the holidays, the Vestry also approved a $300 donation to Zipper Junction’s annual toy drive for Pike and Monroe Counties.
Now we are asking everyone to support these efforts with donations of your own.
Understanding that it is very difficult to continue to do things the way we have in the past this season, due to the rising infections of Coronavirus, we have chosen to ask our members to support Zipper Junction with cash donations. This organization, that has been working to provide toys and gifts to kids 0 to 18 in our community these past several years made a decision to not collect and distribute actual toys but to request donations that would be passed onto families in need in the form of gift certificates. This is an approach that has been taken by many organizations this year. More information on the Zipper Junction program is available in the attached flyer, can be viewed in the video at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iinPBgfeT5c&feature=youtu.be
and on their web site at https://www.zipperjunction.org/holidaydonationdrive/
The link for donations is: https://gf.me/u/yzja5g
In addition, we are proposing that our members and families undertake a Reverse Advent Calendar activity this holiday season to provide much needed food and personal items for food banks and pantries in January, a notoriously weak month for supplies. Instead of getting a treat each day, the attached Reverse Advent Calendar suggests items that can be added to a box or bag and, at the end of the Advent season, donated to the local food bank or pantry of your choice. Of course, if anyone needs help with the pick up and delivery of their advent offering (assuming you are in the vicinity of the church) please contact Joan Griffin at grifjoan@alum.mit.edu, and she will work to help with distribution.
Our recorded worship service for Sunday, November 22, 2020,
Christ The King, Last Sunday of Pentecost.
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE:
23 NOVEMBER 2020
My very dear people,
We had very a very pleasant “zoom” worship service yesterday and a very productive vestry meeting afterwards.
At worship, we discussed the tensions involved in ending the liturgical year with a celebration of Christ the King. We thought about the need to be careful about confusing ‘triumphalism’ [excessive exultation over one’s success or achievements which is used especially in political contexts] with Jesus’ triumph over ‘sin, death and the power of the devil’ and the salvation of the world, which he accomplished “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, so that we may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness….” [from Luther’s Small Catechism].
We thought about our text for the day (Matthew 25:31-46) and revisited the idea that the only way we can serve and worship our Lord is to meet the needs of others: the thirsty, the lonely, the naked, the ill, the imprisoned, the widowed, the orphaned, etc. Yesterday, I made the suggestion that, as we approach Christmas through Advent, we carefully draw the distinction between the “Nativity” and the “Incarnation” of God in Christ. The “Nativity” is the ‘birthday party’ part of celebrating Jesus’ full humanity. The “Incarnation” is coming to the belief that in Jesus – and yes, in all human beings – it is possible for us to worship God by humbly serving human need wherever, whenever and with whomever we encounter that need! Triumphalism has neither time nor space for humble service. But, as the Body of Christ, we work and practice to continue the business of Jesus’ triumph in humble service to those in need. This is really the only true way to offer sincere worship to the Almighty.
Our vestry went right to work on this tenet of our faith at its meeting yesterday. We discussed and approved increased, and regular monetary contributions from us to two local food banks, sharing gifts with children at the holidays, and a “Reverse Advent Calendar” about which the Outreach Committee will give you further information soon. It is such a joy for me to watch the Body of Christ – against all of the ‘pandemic’ odds – continue and increase our efforts of humble service to those in need around us. Bless you!
Now, about ADVENT I (this coming Sunday, 29 November), I have homework for you!
- Dig out your Advent Wreath (or make one). Four simple candles will do. We’ll bless them for use in our homes, on Sunday – ADVENT I – at worship.
- Dig out your Jesu Bambino, and your St. Lucy Crown for ADVENT III, on December 13th. That’s when we, along with the Pope in Rome, will bless all the creche figures of Jesus [Bambinelli] for domestic use. These little images should serve to remind us of the “Incarnation” as well as the “Nativity” and encourage us to follow the example of that child through his adulthood and worship him in our own lives the only way we can: in humble service to others in need. Any Swedes out there? Or am I the only one with a Lucy Crown? Get ready for an explanation and to see it blaze on Advent III as well!
- Think about the idea of a BAKE-LESS COOKIE SALE. At the vestry yesterday we discussed the impossibility of doing our tradition pre-holiday cookie bake and sale. So, I suggest that when you make cookies at home, you think about what we used to do – and the significant income that used to generate for St. John’s. Then, I suggest, you put some “dough” in an envelope and mark it “Cookie Sale” and send it to St. John’s [P.O. Box 118, Hamlin, PA 18427] to keep our Financial Gingerbread House in order.
- Just for fun, here’s an easy recipe which I – who am not a cookie baker – make and love, because it is easy and absolutely delicious. If you try it – why not use it as your reminder to respond to St. John’s BAKE-LESS COOKIE SALE? DORIS’ WALNUT BARS: Stir together 1 unbeaten egg, 1 cup of tightly-packed brown sugar & 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Separately mix 1/2 cup flour with 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Then quickly stir both mixes together. Add 1 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts. Push into a square 8 X 8 baking pan and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Do not over-bake. Centers should be soft when taken from oven. Cool in pan. Eat, enjoy and Remember the Bake-less Cookie Sale! Let me know how yours turn out, please.
- The vestry also made plans for Zoom worship at Christmas. There will be a candle light service on Christmas Eve – Thursday, 24 December, at 10pm. There will also be a Christmas Day Service, Friday. 25 December, at 10am. It was suggested that folks might show up on Christmas morning in their new pajamas – so, we’re calling that the “Pajama Mass!” Do plan to join in – as you are. The suggestion was also made to ask Pastor Alan Shumway to favor us with a rendition of Silent Night for our Christmas worship, which he has already kindly agreed to do. Thanks Alan! We have also extended an invitation to Pastor Mark Newman and the Newfoundland Moravian Church to join us and participate in our Christmas services, since we have become aware that they have cancelled their in-person worship through the end of the year and are not able to provide Zoom services. We sincerely hope they will join us and increase the ecumenical church’s celebrations of Christmas joy to the world.
- Finally, a reminder: Please take a moment of thoughtful prayer and make a declaration of your intended giving to St. John’s for next year. Times are tough. But financial planning ‘in the dark’ is a thankless and really impossible task. Please, let your ‘little light’ shine so that those who work so hard and selflessly to keep the light burning at St. John’s can do so as reasonable and faithful stewards. You don’t need a special card or form: simply write what you expect to give (weekly, monthly, annually) on a slip of paper and send it in to the office (address above) so that our budget-making process can be honest, solid, faithful and effective.
I, my friends, plan to have a great deal of fun during this Advent. Of course it’s a penitential season. But what could be more delightful than unburdening old and dusty sinfulness and turning toward the manger in Bethlehem with all of the expectation of the humble shepherds, the sophisticated wisdom of the magi and the elegant divinity of the angels? Now, if that’s not fun, I don’t know what is!
Bless you one and all,
Fr. Ron
thrift shoppe news:
November 16, 2020
Good afternoon friends and family of St. John’s!
I want to sincerely thank everyone who volunteers for their time and those who donate for their treasures for our Thrift Shoppe and to update all on what we do need and do not need as far as donations:
NO MORE OF THE FOLLOWING (We have no room for more of these items at this time): Men’s clothing, Crafts, office supplies, Games, Linens, Glass/Cooking housewares, Jeans, Coats/jackets for men and women
HOWEVER WE STILL NEED: Misses slacks and tops, Women’s plus sizes slacks and tops, Teen girls clothing, Children’s 2T through teen, Children’s coats, jackets and boots
We will re-evaluate how inventory looks in January 2021 and update you then…Thank you all!
Pat Ware, Thrift Shoppe Mgr.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
16 November 2020
My very dear people,
When the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the unmitigated love of the Almighty Creator God for all of God’s creation is characterized as “too political” and inappropriate for public consideration in the church, in the proclamation of the Gospel, and in preaching, and when the expectation that the Gospel should be silent and neutral, that perversion of the Gospel becomes itself one of the most DANGEROUS and POLITICAL requests of all! That request asks the Gospel to conform to human power structures rather than vice versa.
The Gospel is an UN-MUTABLE TRUTH about the love of God for all of Creation. The Gospel is for the benefit of the whole world, so that it might turn around, repent and return to the Creator’s intention, desire and purpose for creation. What, you might ask, is that? Simply, as Jesus says: “That ALL MIGHT BE ONE, even as the Father and I are one.” The Gospel is NEVER to be made to conform to any political theory or reality. Rather, the Gospel offers a PROPHETIC CHECK for those who claim power or responsibility of any kind or of any degree over the lives of any others. If political realities do not conform to the Gospel it is they – not the Gospel – that need to change!
As we reflected on the Parable of the Talents, in Matthew 24, yesterday, I thought about how SILENCE and NEUTRALITY, particularly in dangerous and difficult times, are very like the buried and hidden talent in the parable.
So, I share with you this excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1986. “And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
As you ponder this proclamation of the GOSPEL from the mouth and heart of a Jew who must certainly have been a man much like Jesus himself, I encourage you too to be faithful, true and bold.
Bless you, one and all, as we approach our celebration of Christ the King on the last Sunday in the liturgical year, and look toward the cleansing and refreshing penitential season of Advent. Now might be the time to start looking for your Advent wreaths, and to get them ready for lighting!
Ever sincerely yours, In Christ
Fr. Ron
P.S. Keep those Declarations of Intended Giving coming in. They are most important for good, strong and healthy financial planning for St. John’s in the coming year. Thanks, and thanks again for that!
13 November 2020
My dear, dear People,
After much consideration of the epidemiological realities and necessity to control the increasing spread of the Covid-19 virus, we have – with the encouragement of our Bishop Kevin – decided that we MUST SUSPEND “Zooming” our services from the church building.
WE WILL CONTINUE TO ZOOM – as we did before, from my home – ON SUNDAYS AT 10 AM. As much as we would like to gather, we simply cannot run the risk of spreading the infection by gathering at church.
As you know, there is HOPE, and a vaccine is on the way. That, however, is not here yet and we are all still in danger.
So let us support and encourage each other in staying safe and well as best as we possibly can.
I look forward to seeing you via Zoom on Sunday at 10am.
God bless you each and every one.
Fr. Ron
twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
9 November 2020
My dear people,
Here are a couple of fact-check refinements to what I said yesterday.
Because of the closeness of the Amish community and dedication to husbanding the earth, the usual Amish custom is for weddings to take place in the late autumn, after the harvest, and on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
I mistakenly said that the Swedish Julotta service was celebrated on Easter morning rather than on Christmas morning. Most Julottas were held at 4 a.m. Traditionally, the service should end before, or at the time of, dawn.
Of course, we also know of the wide-spread custom of ‘dawn services’ among Christians at Easter. The Moravians still celebrate an age-old custom of their Posaunenchor, or trombone choir, playing from the cupola on the top of the church or in some places in the cemetery, I suppose to sort of wake up the dead, and invite the living to worship at sunrise on Easter morning!
An article in The Harper’s Weekly magazine of 1888 explains: “Very early in the morning, and long before dawn, it has been an old custom to go round the village and awaken the still sleeping inhabitants by an Easter morning choral performed on the trombones. The trombone band is an institution as old as the ‘Sun Inn’ itself. [By the way, the ‘Sun Inn’ still stands!] On Easter morning, its members assemble in front of the Old Church, where, by the light of flaring torches, they discourse solemn music, summoning the people to the in-door service held before the break of day.”
The point of all of this is the dramatic ability of God’s light of grace to dispel the darknesses of this world’s ignorance, fear, hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and sins of all kinds. The light of God is seen in the world when the poor whom we always have with us are cared for, when the sick are healed and health-care is both scientific and available to all, when those who are ‘different’ are in fact and indeed equal. When all of God’s children not only receive and accept God’s grace but use and burn those graces in this life to provide light and warmth in this often dark and cold world.
I believe that in yesterday’s the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids or virgins from Matthew 25, that Jesus – in a very parabolic way – was also talking about the darkness of hypocritical religiosity, about which the Amos text (from chapter 5) also speaks:
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies….Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. . . .But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
The point of all of this is that TRUE WORSHIP of the DIVINE and TRUE RELIGION are characterized by acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God, as Micah says. Now, believe what you will, in terms of the world in which we live, those goals are as political as it gets. As we can see, from these scriptures, religion by definition, has been politically pro-active long before Christianity was ever heard of. When religion is not political (i.e. actively in pursuit of justice, mercy and righteousness) and when TRUE RELIGION degenerates into hypocritical “religiosity,” God simply hates and despises that. Advocating for a JUST, MERCIFUL and HUMBLE society IS true religion. And the truth of that RELIGION will be proven by an over-flowing flood of JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS for ALL of God’s children, everywhere. According to Scripture, that is what God desires, and as believers that is what we desire too: nothing more and nothing less.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
P.S. Your declarations of intended giving have started to come in to the church office. Each one is very important so that, as a congregation, we can be corporately and fiscally responsible in planning our budget for next year. The Vestry, wardens, treasurer, finance committee and ‘counters’ all do ‘bang-up’ selfless jobs to keep our ‘ship’ afloat. Special thanks to each of them for that. And thanks to everyone of you for being so faithful in giving them the means and wherewithal to do their work on your behalf and to the glory of God. Have you sent yours in yet? Please do.
Bless you one and all for your on-going and expanded stewardship with the gifts that God has given us all so generously.
Joy and peace be yours,
R.
FYI: I received a call from Edith Otway yesterday. She is currently a patient at Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton. She took a fall at home on Friday, is bruised but has not broken bones. It is not yet clear when and whether she will come directly home or go to re-hab first. Bless her. R.
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
3 November 2020
My dear people,
On Sunday I made reference to a title which the English monarch uses to this day. Thanks to Wikipedia, here’s a more complete explanation of the title FIDE DEFENSOR:
“Defender of the Faith” has been one of the subsidiary titles of the English and later British monarchs since it was granted on 11 October 1521 by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII. His wife Catherine of Aragon also used the title.[The title was conferred in recognition of Henry’s book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defense of the Seven Sacraments), which defended the sacramental nature of marriage and the supremacy of the pope. This was also known as the “Henrician Affirmation” and was seen as an important opposition to the early stages of the Protestant Reformation, especially the ideas of Martin Luther.
Following Henry’s decision to break with Rome in 1530 and establish himself as head of the Church of England, the title was revoked by Pope Paul III (since Henry’s act was regarded as an attack on “the Faith”) and Henry was excommunicated. However, in 1544, the Parliament of England conferred the title “Defender of the Faith” on King Henry VIII and his successors, now the defenders of the Anglican faith, of which they (except the Catholic Mary I) remain the supreme governors (formally above the archbishop of Canterbury as primate).
So, while Lutherans may be celebrating the REFORMATION, by commemorating Luther’s 95 Theses, which were posted in Wittenberg on the Eve of All Saints in 1517, the Anglican/Episcopalian church might be thinking about what the importance and use of the title FIDE DEFENSOR, and what that might mean, come to mean and imply in today’s world, state and church. Way back in 2015, Charles, The Prince of Wales said that he will take on the role of “Defender of the Faith”, which he envisages as being the protector of all faiths. Not a bad idea at that!
And just another thought about the Reformation: I made mention on Sunday of the Continental influences on the development of the church in and the Church of England. Again, with the help of Wikipedia, this may clarify things a bit:
The 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer is the original version of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), variations of which are still in use as the official liturgical book of the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Written during the English Reformation, the prayer book was largely the work of Thomas Cranmer, who borrowed from a large number of other sources. Evidence of Cranmer’s Protestant theology can be seen throughout the book; however, the services maintain the traditional forms and sacramental language inherited from medieval Catholic liturgies. Criticised by Protestants for being too traditional, it was replaced by a new and significantly revised edition in 1552.
Now, back to today. I hope that by now you have received a slip in the mail which will help us facilitate budgeting and financial planning for the next year. We live in difficult and peculiar times. And, I firmly believe, that never before in my life has the business of proclaiming the GOOD NEWS of God’s love for all people at all times and in all places been as important as it is right now!
You know how I feel about ‘Christian Stewardship.’ I have some trouble thinking that what we give to the church is what we give (back) to or share with God. Rather, I believe that mature and faithful Christians firmly believe that all we have and all we are is GOD’S GIFT TO US. The real question is: “HOW WILL WE BUDGET, USE, SHARE, WASTE, FRITTER AWAY, EMPLOY, etc. ALL that GOD has GIVEN to us?” That’s a question for every day, not just one for an annual stewardship campaign.
Making a financial commitment to your congregational church is NOT really a matter of what you intend to ‘give to God’ during the next year. Rather, it is a matter of what or how you will budget what God has given to you already. Do you intend to share with your community of faith – and through the congregation the Diocesan and national Episcopal Church – to support the worship and work at St. John’s in Hamlin? Without my telling you, you know that NOW is as important a time as ever to stretch and increase our giving, if at all possible, no matter how minimally. We are sadly aware that there are those congregations which will not “make it” through this pandemic and economic crisis. We also know that there are those whose businesses – surprising as it may seem – are booming at this time. [I told you about my clock-maker who said their business is up 50%] And so it is, I hope that we too will see growth and strong support continue for the work we do together in this community of people whom we love and who love us.
Bless you, one and all!
Fr. Ron
P.S. If you did NOT receive an INTENDED GIVING slip for 2021 in the mail and would like one, please e-mail your request to Beverly at the church saintjohnshamlinpa@gmail.comor call the office (570) 689-9260.
Thanks for your kind attention to this necessary business and bless you, each and every one.
Fr. Ron
26 October 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday, when talking about our opening hymn (#605 in The Hymnal 1982), I quoted Malachi instead of Micah 6:8 as the source of the text: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
I also made a reference to a quotation from Bryan Stevenson. Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founder/executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a law professor at New York University School of Law. I recently received the gift of his book – which I suggest we all read – Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.
The quotation of his, from that book, which I intended to share is this: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
I believe that that sentence sums up what the Lord was trying to say in yesterday’s Gospel from Matthew 22.
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus’ implication is that if we truly love God (and if we truly believe that we are loved by God) then we can do nothing other than love our neighbors.
I suggested that the initial problem of loving our neighbors is believing that we ourselves are genuinely, truly and unconditionally loved by God! We often think that our relationship with God is “contractual.” That means, that when we fall short on our end of the bargain, there are consequences which look and sound like punishment. When, in fact, disappointing our loving parent is punishment enough: and self-inflicted!
I firmly believe, that our relationship with God is like that between a loving parent and an un-lovable, or difficult, or even addicted child. Despite the child’s inability to ‘live up’ to any kind of expectational contract with the parent, despite disappointment, the good parent’s love for that child remains, and may even grow.
In the Parable we refer to as the “Prodigal Son,” the son who stayed home, and did all that his father asked and obeyed all the rules, thought that he was in a “contractual relationship” with his father. He thought that after all his good work and flawless behavior, his father owed him something, some kind of reward or a ticket to heaven! He did NOT SEE his father’s love as an undeserved gift but as a well-earned payment he deserved. Consequently, he thought his prodigal brother was owed nothing by their father; and he became angry and indignant when his father showered his returned brother with the same undeserved and unconditional love they had both received throughout their lives. If you ask me, in the end, the son who stayed home required greater effort to love than his profligate brother! The father proved that his love was not “contractual” but a love which I describe as “crazy,” because it seems so contrary to our small self-righteous and hypocritical selves! Both boys got what they needed from their father: life, love and forgiveness. Then, the father gave them to each other!
I spoke too, of the best personal example I ever had of this kind of love when I shared with you a treasured saying from my own father, who assured me that: “There is no kind of trouble you can get into that is so bad that home is not the first place you ought to come.” That’s the parental, crazy type of love which is way larger than any contract, and which none of us deserves, but which we believe, teach and confess God showers on us and all of creation, no matter how disappointing our behaviors may have been.
The problem, you see, of loving our neighbor is really only a problem of BELIEVING THAT WE ARE, in fact, TRULY, UNCONDITIONALLY, AND ETERNALLY LOVED BY GOD. When we get around to believing that one, I firmly believe that the business of “loving our neighbors as ourselves” will come lots easier and way more naturally to us.
We know – scientifically – that humans cannot live and survive without love. How dare we not share with others the life-love we have so freely received in such full measure from our God whom we know to be “crazy” in love with us?
The greatest commandment? Believe that you are loved by God. Share that love. Period.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
20 October 2020
My dear people,
Earlier today I prepared a message “For the Flock” which continued my on-going thoughts about Sunday’s Gospel, from Matthew, about “rendering unto the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” Later this afternoon, Ray Moran called to ask me to write a letter to you as a part of our annual stewardship and financial planning campaign. Coincidence?!
I’m always delighted to think with you about our beloved congregation and the work we do together as the Body of Christ. There is no secret that that Body of Christ faces the same challenges which are being met – around the world – in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. But, it is NOT all BAD news!!!
We have learned some things since this crisis began. We have learned how to reach out electronically and how to gather via the rather ‘magical’ technology of ZOOM. Big thanks to the Diocese for that! Consequently our attendances have remained relatively strong. That has also allowed us to stay in touch (especially long-distance) in an even more immediate and far-reaching manner than ever before. I have also learned from more than one business person (including my clock repair man!) that “business is better than ever” and “up by 50%!” And although we KNOW that that is NOT the case for everyone, we rejoice for those who are so very fortunate despite the crisis.
I have also had a report from at least one other Episcopal congregation that giving has increased during this crisis; and I am not surprised.
I cannot know what everyone’smfinancial ‘situation’ is. And although I could not say that giving has increased at St. John’s, during the Covid crisis, I can say that giving at St. John’s has remained strong, circumstances notwithstanding. That’s called “Keeping On Keeping On!”
We have just spent a good deal of time discussing our confession that ALL that we have and are is God’s gift to us. So, it is a bit ridiculous to think of our support of the church as something we “give back to” or “share with” God. It is just as ‘iffy’ to understand our support of the institutional church as giving to God as if the way we spend all of our resources does not reflect our convictions about our loving and merciful Creator God. As Christian stewards – and those who accept God’s grace totally undeservingly yet in complete measure – maintaining our institutions (including the church) is, and always should be, an act of gratitude and responsibility. We are simply charged to be responsible with that which is NOT ours by right, but that which is ours by GRACE.
I do not need to explain to you what the maintenance of the household of faith involves. The Annual Report does that for you. But I do need to ask you to continue to surprise and encourage our operation in the way you always have : generously, gratefully, lovingly and happily.
We know St. John’s is unique and wonderful. And I know that a significant part of that specialness is your sincerity in supporting the operation of St. John’s’ for God’s sake and the world’s.
Bless you in your exercise (which involves stretching!) of your personal Christian stewardship.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
October 20, 2020
My dear people,
I am continuing to think about our Gospel lesson and the parable from Matthew 22: 1-15, which we read last Sunday.
I’ve been thinking about common expressions about “time” and “energy.” We often speak of “wasting time” and “wasting energy.” We also speak idiomatically about “spending time” and “spending energy,” just as we “spend money.”
The discussion in Sunday’s parable was OSTENSIBLY about spending money. The Pharisees and the Herodians (who were, by all standards, good “religious” people) were trying to entrap Jesus with clever questions about how money should be spent.
Jesus, on the other hand responded with a question about to whom the money, imprinted with the emperor’s image, belonged. Knowing their hearts (which, psychologically speaking, were completely different from their religious ‘affect’), Jesus asked what they believed about possessions. Their reply indicates their lack of the truly religious belief that : “all that we have and are is God’s gift to us.” Their stated belief was that the coin with the emperor’s image belonged to the emperor. They, therefore, confessed that the emperor was indeed their god (which was precisely the point of putting his image on the coin in the first place).
On Sunday we talked about ourselves being created, “minted or printed” in the “image and likeness of God.” That’s a different confession from the one that says the image of the emperor minted on currency is in fact an image of a god; and that the emperor’s image indicates “ownership” of the wealth and resources of the empire (or world).
Jesus does not argue with the Pharisees and Herodians. He simply suggests that they live out what they believe by giving their denarius to him whose image they worship: the emperor! Jesus quite subtly makes the point that those who believe that they are made in the ‘image and likeness of God’ belong to God alone!
Jesus welcomes us to “SPEND” – and not to “waste” – the currency of our own selves as if we TRULY believe that we are made in the image and likeness of God; and that ALL that we have and are is God’s gracious gift to us. Those who know they are God’s possession intend to SPEND themselves and all they have, according to God’s own and holy will. That means EVERY cent which is in our power to control we treat as God’s gift for us to SPEND WISELY and effectively for God’s sake!
My fascination continues along the line of us Christian stewards proving what we believe by how we spend the currency of OUR OWN SELVES – the image-bearing “money of God” – in God’s needy and strife-torn world.
So, here’s the parable simply put, and yet again: Do you believe that you are MINTED, PRINTED, CREATED in the IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD? Do you believe that ALL that you have and are is God’s gracious gift to you?
Then, the question is: Will you chose to SPEND wisely or foolishly waste that which God has so graciously given? Will you chose to RENDER UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S, at all times, in all places and under all circumstances? Even now? By so doing, we make our confession of who our God is and render our time, our energy and our resources accordingly.
Bless you, one and all,
Fr. Ron
Please enjoy our recorded worship service for Sunday, October 18, 2020, 20th Sunday after Pentecost:
Good morning! Due to the upcoming holidays, St. John’s Thrift Shoppe hours will be different than the normal 2nd and 4th Saturdays in November and December.
We will be CLOSED Sat. 11/28 and Sat. 12/26
We will be OPEN:
Wed. 11/4 9am to 1pmSat. 11/14 9am to 1pm
Free Day will be Wed. 11/18 10am to 12noon & 5pm to 7pm
Sat. 12/12 9am to 1pmSat. 1219 9am to 1pm
Free Day will be Wed. 12/16 10am to 12 noon & 5pm to 7pm
Thoughts from our Priest-in-Charge:
October 14, 2020
My dear people,
I very much enjoyed Sunday’s Gospel text, from the beginning verses of Matthew chapter 22.
I am interested – for just a moment – to return to that passage which speaks of the one guest who accepted the invitation but attended the banquet without the proper attire.
As I said Sunday, I was grateful for the Holy Father’s explanation that wedding garments were freely provided by the host for his guests. I suppose the custom has been a bit reversed today: the bride, groom and wedding party wear special, celebratory and often ‘uniform’ clothing, to set them apart from the crowd. Surely, that was done in Jesus’ day too. But apparently, in those days, there was also the custom – perhaps much like wearing a yarmulke in synagogue – of providing matching outfits [the Pope said they were something like capes] freely provided by the host, for the guests as well. That ‘uniform’ indicated who was ‘provided for’ as opposed to those who were ‘providing.’ In a large gathering, I’m sure that was important and helpful for the waiters and servants to know whom to serve, care for, and honor first: the invited guests! Sunday I spoke about understanding forgiveness as a ‘covering.’ That reference comes from Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
There is another reference from the New Testament book of 1 Peter 4:8: which makes the same point: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
We remember from Sunday that: “. . . when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.”
This, it seems to me, is the whole point of the parable. If we attend the “banquet” of God’s extraordinary creation and live in it as the PROVIDERS rather than the PROVIDED FOR, I suppose we ought to be asked to leave! That wedding garment, given to us at the door, serves two purposes. First, it is the freely-provided underserved, un-earned and un-paid-for covering for our sinfulness. Secondly, it becomes the garment of genuine gratitude and humility before God for that Divine grace which enables us to see all others in creation as our brothers and sisters and equal recipients with us of God’s undeserved and impossible-to-understand generosity, love and forgiveness.
The point is that just as the Collect suggested yesterday, our ‘good works’ proceed quite naturally from believing that God’s grace both precedes and follows us. So, when we accept and humbly wear the gift of God’s forgiveness, then we will live as God intended us to live and be ‘given to good works.’ That is simply a matter of the nature of those who accept and wear that wedding garment gladly. Sadly, those who refuse to accept that gift and refuse to live in that kind of joyful humility, will sacrifice their voice, and be left, as the Gospel says: “speechless.”
Here again is Sunday’s collect for your use throughout the week:
“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
Bless you, one and all,
Fr. Ron
My dear people,
Here (below) is the information from Fran Hager’s family about the arrangements for her funeral.
Rest eternal grant her, O Lord. And let light perpetual shine upon her.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Family and Friends,
This is the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/gBzmfsya0I0 which will air Fran’s funeral service. The service will begin at 2:00pm(EST) on Thursday, October 15th.
If you are having problems with the link, you can go to stfrancismd.org and click on the Videos tab found at the top of the page or click on Virtual Worship. We recommend that you log on at least 15 minutes early to ensure that the link is working for you. If you are unable to watch during the actual time of the service, it will be available on-line for a later time for you to view.
Attached is the service bulletin which will be used for the service. At the end of the bulletin you will find Fran’s obituary.
After the service in the church, those in attendance will go outside to the Memorial Garden for the inurnment. Unfortunately, we are unable to livestream this, however; it will be recorded and a seperate link will be sent to you approximately 1 to 2 hours AFTER THE SERVICE. If you haven’t received the link by 6pm(EST), please let us know and we’ll make sure to resend.
Finally, as we don’t have everyone’s email addresses, please forward this information to anyone who would want to be a part of Fran’s home going service. Janet and I are both saddened that COVID-19 restrictions have made it impossible to have all of you who have been a part of Fran’s life in attendance with us. While your physical presence can’t be with us, we know that your spiritual presence will be surrounding us with your love from wherever you may be. Please join with us in the prayers found in the bulletin along the way. For those in attendance, there will be an opportunity to receive Holy Communion; for those watching from home, there will be an invitation extended to you by Fr. Kristofer to pray the Prayer for Spiritual Communion (Episcopal Prayer Book for the Armed Forces – 1988):
In union, O Lord, with your faithful people at every altar of your Church, where the Holy Eucharist is now being celebrated, I desire to offer you praise and thanksgiving. I remember your death, Lord Christ; I proclaim your resurrection; I await your coming in glory. And since I cannot receive you today in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood, I beseech you to come spiritually into my heart. Cleanse and strengthen me with your grace, Lord Jesus, and let me never be separated from you. May I live in you, and you in me, in this life and in the life to come. Amen.
Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received… but only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage. St. Francis of Assisi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBzmfsya0I0&authuser=0
Please enjoy our recorded worship service For October 11, 2020, nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost below:
Our recorded worship service for yesterday, Sunday, October 4, 2020 – Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost may be viewed and enjoyed below:
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE:
October 5, 2020
My dear people,
As a congregation which has expressed it’s desire to work as an ecumenical church, I share the following document with you, which comes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which, as you know, I am an ordained member.
Blessings,
Fr. Ron
October 5, 2020
My dear people,
Sometimes it takes a while!
Yesterday, we tried to remember this hymn which, by the way, is in our 1982 Hymnal, #407 (thanks Kathleen for looking that up for us!).
The text is a translation by Howard C. Robbins of St. Francis’ prayer. Yesterday, you remember, was St. Francis Day in the church. This stunning text is the gorgeous work of a very poetic translator which speaks for itself. I remind you that in 1979, Pope John Paul II declared St. Francis the Patron Saint of Ecologists. In some ways, St. Francis of Assisi could be viewed as the original Earth Day advocate.Not only did he care for the poor and sick, but he preached multiple sermons on animals, and wanted all creatures on Earth, including humans, to be treated as equals under God. Some of his sermons included stories about birds, fish, and rabbits.
The extraordinarily beautiful music for this hymn was composed by Calvin Hampton, a colleague of James’ and a very well-known and highly-competent and creative church musician who was the organist and director of music at Calvary Episcopal Church (now Calvary-St. George’s) on Park Avenue South in New York City, back in the day when I was the parish musician at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church on 22nd Street in Manhattan. Calvin was an early victim of another medical pandemic in the 1980’s known as AIDS.
I have asked for us to sing this hymn – as we are able – next Sunday.
Here’s the text for your contemplation before we gather next week for worship.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
1 Most High, omnipotent, good Lord,
to thee be ceaseless praise outpoured,
and blessing without measure.
From thee alone all creatures came;
no one is worthy thee to name.
2 My Lord be praised by brother sun
who through the skies his course doth run,
and shines in brilliant splendor:
with brightness he doth fill the day,
and signifies thy boundless sway.
3 My Lord be praised by sister moon
and all the stars, that with her soon
will point the glittering heavens.
Let wind and air and cloud and calm
and weathers all, repeat the psalm.
4 By sister water be thou blessed,
most humble, useful, precious, chaste;
be praised by brother fire;
jocund is he, robust and bright,
and strong to lighten all the night.
5 By mother earth my Lord be praised;
governed by thee she hath upraised
what for our life is needful.
Sustained by thee, through every hour,
she bringeth forth fruit, herb, and flower.
6 My Lord be praised by those who prove
in free forgivingness their love,
nor shrink from tribulation.
Happy, who peaceably endure;
with thee, Lord, their reward is sure.
7 For death our sister, praised be,
from whom no one alive can free.
Woe to the unprepared!
But blest be they who do thy will
and follow thy commandments still.
8 Most High, omnipotent, good Lord,
to thee be ceaseless praise outpoured,
and blessing without measure.
Let creatures all give thanks to thee,
and serve in great humility.
Good Morning!
Here is the link for yesterday’s worship service, September 27, 2020, 17th Sunday after Pentecost:
Below, you will find the link to yesterday’s worship service, September 20th, sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Additionally, you may view our Annual Meeting held immediately after the worship service yesterday, September 20, 2020:
Thrift Shoppe News: We will begin accepting winter related donations on October 15, 2020. Please kindly bring clean clothing, shoes, linens, houseware (no furniture) to our thrift shoppe during our open hours: Saturday, Sept 26 from 9am-1pmSaturday, Oct 10 from 9am-1pmWednesday, Oct.14 (our free clothing event) from 10am-noon and from 5pm-7pm Saturday, Oct 24 from 9am-1pm.Thank you to all of our shoppers and our generous donators !Masks are mandatory to enter any of the buildings at St. John’s for all of our safety. Be safe, be well…Final Note: PLEASE DO NOT PILE ITEMS OUTSIDE OF OUR BUILDINGS – ALTHOUGH WE APPRECIATE DONATIONS WE DO NOT ACCEPT BOOKS, VIDEOS, MAGAZINES, DVDS, AND THE LIKE. PLEASE DONATE THOSE ITEMS TO OUR LIBRARIES.
THOUGHTS FROM OUR PRIEST-IN-CHARGE:
16 September 2020
My dear people,
This past Sunday we spent some time thinking about the wicked slave [in Matthew 18] who accepted the forgiveness of a burdensome debt from his master, who then demanded satisfaction of a tiny debt owed to him by a fellow slave. This, of course, angered the master – because the master’s example of generosity became an occasion for greed on the part of the first slave, rather than an effective encouragement for him to change his heart and attitude toward others: his fellow slaves.
This text is often considered to be about how many times one must forgive another. That suggests that a law can change a heart. As we know, laws can only change [or control] behavior by threatening and exercising punishment for disobedience. Jesus was addressing the issues of obedience to the law when he was asked: “how many times?” The implication of that question is that the law demands an act or a “work” be done a number of times in order for the law – the contract – to be fulfilled.
But Jesus wanted to address the nature and condition of the human heart – which is not a matter of the law as much as it is a matter of the spirit.
Needless to say, Jesus’ understanding of true religion has something to do with a changed human heart rather than a mindless and heartless obedience to and fulfillment of laws which see God as a “contractual partner” rather than a loving parent who is crazy-in-love with her children who deserve nothing yet receive everything from God’s own self: and that, from the get-go!
In this parable, Jesus is puzzling about why the human spirit doesn’t change – if out of nothing other than embarrassment. When the generosity and grace of God are so freely given and accepted by the first slave and he is set entirely free of his debt, why and how could he not possibly extend the same grace and generosity to his fellow slave?
I believe that, in the end, the problem of the first slave was that AFTER he had received full grace and pardon he treated that GIFT as his own property and convinced himself that he DESERVED that Divine generosity: it became his possession rather than God’s trust for him to share. I believe that that’s the problem with religion which see God as a “contractual partner” rather than a loving parent who is ‘crazy-in-love’ with us so that we might be crazy-in-love with all of our fellow sister and brother slaves in this world and treat them as we know God treats us. Anything less is hypocrisy.
If we don’t really believe in God as “Our Father, Mother, Parent who art in heaven,” we start to believe in ourselves. And that is, as you know, a quick road to hell! Because we are – as we confess – “by nature sinful and unclean” we confess that we simply “cannot save ourselves.” Saving ourselves does not – and cannot work! And no amount of our ‘works’ can do that. Our salvation is God’s work: fully and completely. How dare we not share what we have so freely, fully and undeservedly received ourselves? That’s the question which is way more important to me than “how many times….?”
I REMIND YOU: Our Annual Meeting will be conducted via social media immediately after worship this Sunday, 20 September 2020. Copies of the bulletin of reports will be available on-line and, if requested, in print from the office.
God has blessed us, one and all. Therefore, let us strengthen each other to be a blessing to others.
Sincerely,
Fr. Ron
Our recorded worship service for Sunday, September 13, 2020 (fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost) may be viewed below:
Our September 6, 2020 worship service (fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost) may be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/457569318
Below is our recorded worship service for August 30, 2020, thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
The link below is for our recorded worship service for August 23, 2020 – Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost:
24 August 2020
My dear people,
Here’s a paragraph from James Cone’s book – Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody– about which I spoke yesterday. It very succinctly makes the point of Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” Or, in other words: “What is your theology?”
“Christianity is essentially a religion of liberation. The function of theology is that of analyzing the meaning of that liberation for the oppressed community so they can know that their struggle for political, social, and economic justice is consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor is not Christ’s message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology.”
In still other words: if we, as the Disciples did the night that Jesus was betrayed, deny Christ and say “we have no king but Caesar,” and then ask for the release of Barabbas, we speak for – and indeed become – the antichrist.
Let us therefore, choose Christ and follow Jesus’ example by advocating for political, social and economic justice for all -come what may!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
17 August 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we spoke about Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman recorded in St. Matthew Chapter 15.
“Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”
I suggested then that Jesus’ embarrassing behavior and attitudes in this story [referred to as “cruel” by the Pope in his Angelus, yesterday] were ‘purposive’ and that Jesus was trying to teach – by example – an object lesson to his disciples and other ‘religious’ people about how ugly their self-righteous religion was. If only they bothered to pay attention! In the first place, Jesus was in Canaanite territory. Jesus was in HER country, not HIS! He was her guest – not the other way around. Secondly, he was reprehensible toward her ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS and FOR RELIGIOUS REASONS! His arguments to mis-treat a HUMAN sister and a DAUGHTER of GOD were ‘religiously sound!’ Despite Jesus’ own status as a ‘foreigner’ in Canaanite territory, he ‘cops’ a religiously-self-righteous attitude and says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Yesterday, in discussion with a highly respected colleague of mine – who is a Methodist pastor – whom I shall not name, but whose last name is the same as mine! – Sarah suggested that maybe this was about Jesus really changing his mind! And maybe it is. We could certainly come to the conclusion that Jesus had indeed ‘bought’ for himself the self-righteous, arrogant, exclusive and self-centered religiosity of the disciples around him. He could have been that kind of religious person who sees himself as “saved” by God and others as damned by the same ‘loving’ God.
But whatever the case [and take your pick!] – I firmly believe that the point of the story is that Jesus comes to understand and use the example of the faith – the religion – of the Canaanite woman as an example for his disciples [and according to the idea that Jesus changed his mind, for himself!].
What is the example of the Canaanite woman? In one word: HUMILITY before God! That’s what Jesus perceived and teaches – using her example – as true religion. Genuine humility before God opens our eyes to the value of all the other “lucky Dogs” who COMPLETELY UNWORTHILY gather the crumbs from under the Master’s table. So if we – with her – understand that we are the genuinely UN-deserving recipients of God’s grace, how could we do anything less than share what we have received freely with ALL people at ALL times and in ALL places?
Political attitudes entice us to believe that the exclusion, mis-treatment and denigration of others on the basis of origin, gender, color, sexuality is arguable and permissible on the basis of ‘laws and orders’ norms of society, or national fidelity, or racial superiority, or economic exigency, or national security, etc. And we confuse false political postures with the genuinely religious example of HUMILITY offered by Jesus’ teaching in this text. And, as Christians, we simply cannot get away with that.
I remind you of what Jesus’ dearest friends said to Pilate at Jesus’ trial: “We have no king but Caesar. Away with this man!” And, friends, we add our own voices to that chorus when we lay aside the principals of HUMILITY before ALMIGHTY GOD in favor of clever political arguments which summon us to dis-regard, en-danger, despise, or otherwise de-humanize and animalize our brothers and sisters who are just as un-deserving of God’s love and mercy as we are.
The Canaanite woman’s understanding of herself as an undeserving ‘dog’ – who, although not worthy of the Master’s care, NEEDED and received that care FREELY – is what made Jesus offer her as a POSITIVE MODEL for us to emulate.
Simply put: true religion starts with HUMILITY – and changes our view of the world and everybody in it. True religion has no King but the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Below is our recorded Zoom worship service for Sunday, August 16, 2020, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost:
Below is our recorded Zoom worship service for Sunday, August 9, 2020- Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – click the link to open the recording:
My dear people,
Here’s the symbol of the ECUMENICAL World Council of Churches, about which I spoke on Sunday.
I remember seeing this image – or one similar to it – with people in the boat.
Never mind…….
For our purposes, and for the message the church wishes to convey, we know for sure that that that boat is ‘occupied,’ whether or not we see the faces of the occupants.
“The terms ecumenism and ecumenical come from the Greek οἰκουμένη (oikoumene), which means “the whole inhabited world”, and was historically used with specific reference to the Roman Empire. The ecumenical vision comprises both the search for the visible unity of the Church (Ephesians 4:3) and the “whole inhabited earth” (Matthew 24:14) as the concern of all Christians. [Wikipedia]
Happy sailing to one and all as we travel together in “life’s boat” – the church – which is our “life boat!”
Bon voyage,
Fr. Ron
Our recorded Zoom worship service for Sunday, August 2, 2020, 9th Sunday after Pentecost cam be viewed by click the link below:
3 August 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we thought about the Feeding of the Multitude story in Matthew 14:13-21.
You certainly know by now that I have great trouble understanding ‘miracles’ as the ‘suspension of the natural order.’ If asked whether I believed “God can do that” I would answer: “Yes. Absolutely!” Now, asked whether or not ‘that’ is what happened, I would be less confident.
My reasoning about this is that such ‘magical’ thinking tends to ignore the absolute and indisputable miracle of creation and human life: what I call “the natural order.” Who and what we are – in the end – simply cannot be fully ‘understood.’ We are moved to grasp at explanations beyond our reason. We project our ideas about our world, its creation and our God. I am happy with a God who creates the natural order, in which we live and of which we are parts. That’s a pretty universal concept. We are here, in this place, and we know a lot – but certainly not all – about how it works. The NATURAL ORDER friends IS the MIRACLE! Why would God suspend the miracle?
In the Biblical miracle stories, I believe Jesus is trying to point to something way more important than the ability of a creator God to interrupt or suspend the natural order.
A great mystery – to which Jesus has a key – is that of the human heart. That “heart” might be described as human attitudes: particularly those beliefs and ‘attitudes’ about God and especially about God’s creation of other human beings, especially those most unlike ourselves.
Yesterday, in the parable, we saw some extraordinarily embarrassing and selfish attitudes displayed by Jesus’ closest friends, the Disciples. They suggested that the crowd who came to be fed by the words of Jesus be sent away “into the villages” to “buy food for themselves.” That pious ‘religious’ community of Jesus’ closest friends, who were glad to be seen as “spiritually fed” wanted to wash their hands of the responsibility of the physical hospitality which demanded that they care for and feed those who gathered there with them. Hospitality, which is an expression of the condition of the human heart is, at its simplest, caring for – even anticipating – the needs of others. The PHYSICAL expression of the Disciples belied the true SPIRITUAL condition of their hearts. The Disciples were not impressive. They were NOT thinking of others and anticipating their needs. They were IN-HOSPITABLE. Hospitality at its simplest may just be a matter thinking, period. You know the ‘Golden Rule.’ THINK! Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!
Jesus uses the word “compassion” as he teaches his ‘own’ embarrassingly self-centered Disciples to “give the crowd something to eat” yourselves! Don’t send them away “into the villages to buy their own food.” As we noted yesterday, the word ‘com-passion’ means ‘to suffer with.’ Compassion is way different from sending people away to care for themselves. Jesus, I am sure, was appalled by the attitudes of his closest friends, after whom we now – and for thousands of years have – named our churches! The Disciples argued budget deficits, financial exigencies, exhausted resources, personal, if not national debt, and all kinds of other clever reasons NOT to care. Jesus called their bluff. He took the very little that was offered – five loaves and two fish – and offered them up to God and acknowledged God as the Creator and the giver of all good gifts. In this, Jesus teaches that God suffers NO deficits. Jesus embarrasses his closest and most pious friends, by proving that there is, in fact, enough to eat when others – that very large crowd gathered on the hillside – are understood to be “com-panions” i.e. those with whom to break bread rather than economic or social burdens or un-worthy recipients of God’s generosity. Simply put, compassion provides companions with whom this is always more than enough.
You see, when Jesus LOOKED to GOD he made an example of and for his Disciples – and the condition of their hearts – as they looked only to themselves for a solution to the problem! In looking to God and learning to see those who needed to be fed as “com-panions,” that which we call a “miracle” occurred. There was not only enough to eat, but plenty left-over.
Now, here’s what I mean. The “enough to eat’ and the ‘left-overs’ were already there! Jesus didn’t magically make more food. Everybody came with some. Everyone already has his ‘own.’ Jesus – by setting an example, and by embarrassing his beloved Disciples – was able to affect and change their human hearts! They learned that even the ‘little’ that they had was NOT their own, but God’s gift to them. That their hearts were changed to believe this IS the miracle. Now that miracle is often harder to believe as possible than the “suspension of the natural order!” But Jesus teaches us that it is, in fact, possible to change the human heart – i.e. human attitudes – as impossible, improbable and miraculous as that may seem. Jesus professes his hope and belief in humanity that we might be saved from ourselves and our own self-centeredness into something more akin to himself by a change of our own hearts. By teaching ‘com-passion’ Jesus promised way more bread and many more ‘com-panions’ than we might imagine: a miraculous amount of both bread and buddies with whom to share and enjoy life and prove the abundance of both God’s love and physical nourishment and sustenance for us and for all in creation.
We have received God’s abundance in full measure. Let us not send others into the villages to buy food for themselves.
Bless you in your sharing,
Fr. Ron
THRIFT SHOPPE REOPENS
Great News! Our Thrift Shoppe will be back on our regular schedule unless we are told to close again. As for now, we are to be open the 2nd and 4th Saturdays (August 8th and 22nd) from 9am-1pm, with our free days as usual: the Wednesday following the 2nd Saturday of the month from 10am-noon and from 5-7pm. (August 12th). We humbly request any donations be delivered to the Thrift Shoppe on our open days – please only seasonal items, no winter items for the time being.
Our first concern is your safety. Masks are required to be worn in our buildings and everyone is asked to maintain the social distancing protocols (minimum of 6′ distancing between you and other shoppers, please).
Look forward to seeing our customers again!
Many thanks! Pat Ware, Thrift Shoppe Mgr.
27 July 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday, I was very interested in the text of the second lesson from Romans chapter 8:26-39.
First we read: “…we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words….because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
This passage challenges some popular ideas about prayer: what prayer is and ‘how’ to pray. For us, prayer is often a “HONEY DO” list! Frequently, our prayer is telling God what we need and what to do [for us, in particular]. Sometimes prayer is a ‘last resort’ or a ‘go-to’ in times of trouble. As I said yesterday, prayer can be a matter of: “When the tire hits the road, that’s when our knees hit the kneeler.” Prayer can often look like the pious tool of the hypocritically self-righteous. You know who they are: those who are always praying, and praying for others to become just like themselves. Prayer is often referred to as a ‘conversation’ with God.’ Some think that unintelligible utterance (tongues) is a right or better way to pray. And the definitions of prayer may, in fact, be as varied and plentiful as the people who pray. But the insight from the second lesson yesterday was this: “we do not know how to pray as we ought.”
So then, you might quite rightly ask, what are we supposed to do about prayer? How should we pray?
Well, reading a little further in the Romans text, we come across another idea: “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”
Here then, we are faced with the concept that BOTH the Spirit of God and the Christ of God intercede – i.e. pray – for us! How’s that for an idea? What an inversion of the concept of prayer! How assuring this is.
That God is ‘omniscient’ (i.e. all-knowing) is not a new idea; but it is an idea worth re-visiting. If GOD ALMIGHTY is understood to be omniscient, God does NOT need to be told about or reminded of anything. The Romans text assures us that the SPIRIT and the SAVIOR have beat us to the punch and already have interceded for us. God knows what we need before we ask.
I find great comfort in the fact that God does not depend upon me to know what my needs – or those of anyone else – are.
Since there are probably as many different definitions of prayer as there are people who pray, could it be, however, in general, that we’ve got this whole thing a little backward? Here’s my question, in a proverbial nut-shell. Could it be that we need to see OURSELVES as the ANSWER to GOD’S prayer rather than to understand God as the answer to our prayers?
Should we be asking whether we have been – or are becoming – what the Spirit sighs for and the Son intercedes for? Should the surprise in this world be that I have lived, loved and acted in answer to God’s prayer rather than that God has answered my prayer?
Don’t you suppose it is a better idea for the imperfect to pay attention to the perfect Creator rather than the other way around? That way, in our prayer, we will become more attuned to God and God’s perfect ways rather than hoping for God to do things according to our imperfect ways. We are, after all, made in the image and likeness of God, not vice-versa.
Maybe our only prayer should be: “May we be the answer to God’s prayer, today.” Isn’t that, in fact, what Jesus meant when he taught his disciples to pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?
A-men.
Fr. Ron
Please enjoy our recorded worship service for Sunday, July 26, 2020, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost:
Please enjoy our recorded worship service for Sunday, July 19, 2020, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost:
20 July 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we were talking about the parable in Matthew 13, which used to be known as the “Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.”
As I was speaking about Robert Campin’s Merode Altarpiece, I wanted to mention something which got side-tracked as my train of thought went down a different line. The point was that in that depiction of the Annunciation, the Virgin is seated on the floor, in front of a pew-like bench, possibly a throne (of Solomon’s wisdom?) which is carved with little lions (of Judah?) and which is backed against a rather large, blackened, but empty and cold fireplace, in front of which is a small fire-screen, which is no-longer needed and is dwarfed in size by both the fire-place and the pew-like throne parked in front of it.
That images suggests to me that, in the Incarnation [the business of Christ being planted in Mary’s fertile body] the rather insufficient fire-screen ‘mechanism,’ which was all that one had to protect one from the hot glare of the raging fires of that (h)earth-blackening hell, God, the Almighty, provides a new ‘mechanism’ which completely quenches the fires of hell, making that small, inadequate, fire-screen unnecessary. The new ‘mechanism’ is the incarnated Christ himself! Christ himself obviates the need for a hell-fire screen by fully and eternally extinguishing hell’s fire and by breaking open hell’s infernal ‘gates of brass’ for all eternity. Who needs a screen if the fire isn’t burning? What is there in place of that screen? A throne of wisdom. A place for God, instead of the fires of hell, to preside and prevail, in this world, with wisdom and love. Remember, Mary is sitting on the floor! It is she – essentially – who becomes the throne of God’s own self and who invites us to do the same by following her example. If that’s not Good News, nothing else is or could be.
As, with Mary, we consider our own un-worthiness, we begin to realize that in the parable, is it we who are often the ‘tares’ rather than the ‘wheat.’ And we acknowledge that when we are particularly self-righteous, pious, and judgmental about others, and about their sincerity and their beliefs, we in fact have ourselves become those very ‘tares.’ When we presume to “help” the Profligate Farmer by weeding HIS garden, with OUR own ‘good intentions,’ we are truly in deep trouble. Note: it is the slaves who offer the farmer “help” which he neither needs nor wants! You know how it goes: we refuse to let ‘them’ be ordained, or to ‘receive’ communion or even to preach in ‘our’ churches, because we perceive ‘them’ to be un-worthy weeds. We become certain that we know the mind of God and we offer to be on the front line of God’s army to root out the enemy. We fool ourselves into believing that we know who in God’s field is ‘wheat’ and who are ‘tares.’ That is the surest sign that we are not being honest with ourselves, with God or with each other. Honestly friends, we know that often we are the tares. Just as surely as there are times when we are the wheat. But this parable reminds us that God is the farmer: as foolish and profligate as that farmer may seem to us. It is God’s will to let the tares grow. The point is that if we think God is a bad farmer, we are worse ones. The parable tells us that we would ruin a good crop for sure if we started to do the weeding.
This parable instructs us about the inscrutable wisdom of an Almighty God who is able to see value and beauty where we do not. Therefore, the parable teaches us NOT to fuss, worry about or up-root others whom we deem to be un-worthy. That is God’s job. Our job is to flourish as best we can right where we are planted. We do that in the knowledge that the fires of hell have been vanquished for us and for the whole world. As we sit on the floor of our own un-worthiness, we are nevertheless encouraged to allow God to plant God’s own seed in us to grow and come to fruition.
Think about this: the wheat in the parable, which is planted by God, when mature, is eventually ground into flour to be baked into bread, as the ‘bun in the oven’ of Mary’s womb. That’s the Incarnation! The church of his day did not see Jesus as wheat but as the ‘tares’ which were choking out old ideas about self-righteousness, piety, purity and the exercise of the law without the Gospel. God saw Jesus differently; and eventually (one might even say ‘too late’) so did the people. That’s the lesson: it is God’s “eventuality” to tend for God’s own garden God’s own way, not ours.
In the mean time, as we learn to acknowledge that we are, in fact, all planted in the same garden of this world, we celebrate our firm belief that in the Incarnation God has moved the throne of God’s own gracious wisdom into our world and across the still-blackened, but now completely cold, mouth of hell. That’s an act of pure and simple grace!
Does it disappoint you that the fires of hell are well and truly quenched for others as well as for yourself? It certainly infuriated the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, [Luke 15:11–32]. He too thought his father needed his help to weed the garden of their household, in which he knew he had served very faithfully. Boy, oh boy, did he have something to learn. So do we! God loves those whom we do not – and that’s the scandal of the wheat and the tares. Let us have ears to hear and hearts to respond.
God bless you in your growth in faith toward God and in fervent love toward all of God’s people.
In Christ,
Fr. RonP.S. Here are a couple examples of useful and nourishing ‘weeds.’
Dandelion is considered as a particularly pesky weed. But we – and lots of the Pennsylvania Dutch – eat the early Spring leaves as a salad, smothered in hot bacon dressing.
Later in the season, some folks make wine from dandelion blossoms.
As a kid, I was always pleased at the generous availability of dandelion flowers to take home as a gift of affection for my mother. In fact it was a final filial gesture for me to place a dandelion flower in the bottom of both of my parents’ graves.
Chicory is a flowering plant in the dandelion family that is characterized by a tough, hairy stem, light purple flowers and leaves that are commonly used in salads. Chicory coffee tastes similar to coffee but has a flavor that’s often described as slightly woody and nutty.
Stinging nettle has a long history of use as a medicinal aid. Stinging nettle, or Urtica dioica, is a common plant that grows in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It primarily grows in damp, fertile soil. The nettle has sharp hairs on its leaves.
And, let’s not forget our Thistle, which is a widely distributed herbaceous plant of the daisy family, which typically has a prickly stem and leaves and rounded heads of purple flowers. And, if we don’t eat it, the birds do!
And, just for your information, below is an image from my garden of the thistle and the tomato about which I spoke, yesterday. They are getting along quite famously. Neither would be the same, without the other.
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
13 July 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we spoke about the iconography in the Netherlandish Annunciation Triptych of 1425-1428 by Robert Campin at the Cloisters Museum in New York.
The point I was trying to make was how for a very long time — before our quarantines and worsening national health crisis which obviate the celebration of the sacrament of the altar, at the altar — the right preaching of the Word of God was, in and of itself, understood to be sacramental, if not a sacrament itself.
In the central panel of the Merode Altarpiece, we see, high on the wall, to the left, the “eyes of God” windows looking into the created world of Mary, and into our cosmos as well. That room could represent the Garden of Eden, after the fall. From between those ‘eyes’ – as if from the mind of God – a tiny cross-bearing baby is headed straight for the ear of the Virgin – who is reading the Word of God and hearing the Word of God spoken to her by an angel. How very clearly and simply these images portray the first words of John’s Gospel: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Right before our very eyes, in the proclamation and reading of the Word, God, in the person of Jesus, becomes present in Mary’s flesh to dwell among us.
The same Biblical/theological tenet is similarly made clear in Lucas Cranach the Elder’s triptych for St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, painted in 1547 (120 years after the Campin painting and 300 years before our own little church was built!). As we have already seen, the idea that the “Word becomes flesh to live – and die – among us” is put forth in the predella of the Wittenberg altarpiece. As Luther preaches to his congregation in a preaching hall, devoid of ornamentation, the crucified Christ appears, embodied, right before their very eyes.
The point of all of this is that we believe, teach and confess that the Christ is just as really present when the Word of God is rightly preached as when the Sacraments are rightly celebrated.
I offer this for your comfort as we live in times which prevent us from gathering for public worship and sharing the Holy Meal of bread and wine in which we also surely encounter the real presence of Christ.
We are, however, not left comfortless. As we continue to read, and hear God’s Holy Word rightly preached, we have no doubt that we continue to be nourished by God’s real presence. We continue therefore, to be truly and really fed in the sacramental act of hearing – if not in eating. Both, by the way, are acts of ‘consumption!’
Remember the ‘Parable of the Sower’ which we read yesterday. In that parable there were some concerns about where that seed of the Good News of God’s eternal love fell. But we read that there is nothing to worry about in terms of God’s intention to sow that seed at all times, in all places and for all people. As that seed grows in us and we become the body of Christ, the ‘Profligate Farmer’ himself. Let us then be prepared to remember that our job is also to scatter the seed of God’s love – far and wide – fall, where it may. If we are scattering any other kind of seeds than love, we can be sure they are NOT from God.
Bless you in the contemplation of these images, and the truths they attempt to communicate.
In the Word of God, the Christ made flesh and living among us,
Fr. Ron
Below is the link to our Zoom Worship Service for July 12, 2020 – 6th Sunday after Pentecost:
Please enjoy our recorded Zoom Worship Service for July 5, 2020, 5th Sunday after Pentecost:
Thursday, July 2, 2020
My dear people,
I write to you as I am preparing to go to Allentown today to preside at the grave-side burial of my dear Aunt Gertrude, who – just 16 days short of her 105th birthday – died yesterday morning.
I saw her last on Tuesday morning. It was clear then that she was moribund. She was essentially incommunicado, morphine had had its effect. But before I left, she rallied just enough to whisper to me: “I love you.”
Now, that’s a message she always made clear to me, from the very beginning. And, how like our God – who in the beginning creates us, and loves us from ‘get-go’ – she made that understood. And how like our beloved Savior, she used her very last breath to assure me of that same and durable love. How very grateful I am for her life and example and love.
In order to genuinely appropriate and appreciate such love we are left with only one task. That is, to share with each other and the whole world that same kind of love which is surely divine, which encourages and improves and strengthens and heals us so that the world we come into might be a better place when we leave it. That she has done.
I thank you – one and all – for your on-going care and concern about her and her well-being over the years. You know what she meant to me. I am, with you, confident that the mystery of love which brings us into this world and the mystery of love which we share in this world is a good and true and benevolent and beautiful love which takes care of us – whatever and whoever we may be – when we are no longer in this world.
Let us celebrate those mysteries remembering this wonderful line from Richard Strauss’ opera based on Oscar Wilde’s drama Salome:
Das Geheimnis der Liebe ist Größer als das Geheimnis des Totes
Surely, the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death!
Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
29 June 2020
My dear people,
On Sunday, we spoke a bit about Lucas Cranach, the Elder’s altar painting, which was created – after the vagaries of protestant iconoclasm – for St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, Germany, That altar piece was surely intended as a corrective for what had, and an explanation of what was, going on there – both in church and society – at the time of the Reformation. I spoke particularly of the predella which appears under a larger painting of the Last Supper. The Last Supper image is interesting in itself – anachronistically depicting the disciples in the dress of the day. They look for the world like a bunch of 16th c. northern European protestants.
I am sure that the image below (in the predella) – which is of Luther preaching to his congregation from a “wren’s nest” pulpit (high on the right wall) – is meant to interpret what is painted above. I am just as sure that that painting of Luther preaching, in an absolutely unadorned [no pictures, no statues, no windows] and otherwise empty room, to a congregation gathered on the far left side of the hall, is meant to communicate the sacramental nature, if not the sacrament itself, of the proclaimed Word of God in preaching! View the full image and information here: https://www.medieval.eu/ways-cranach/
If you look at the Cranach predella, you will see what appears to be another anachronism. Between Luther and his congregation, the crucified Christ, has materialized, in the very same way that the Christ is materialized and sitting at the table in the depiction of the Last Supper, painted above.
Now, you might ask, why is this so important to us now? Dennis Ngien in themelios says it most concisely in these words:
“Luther elevated preaching as an indispensable means of grace, seeing it as central to the church liturgy. ‘To hear mass means nothing else but to hear God’s Word and thereby serve God.’ In his On the Councils and the Church (1539), Luther asserted that the preaching office constitutes the sure sign of a true church: Now, wherever you hear or see this word preached, believed, professed, and lived, do not doubt that the true Catholic church: ‘a Christian holy people’ must be there, even though their number is small.”
And, so the situation is precisely the same for us now as we deal – and struggle – with the limitations imposed on our eucharistic sacramental life in response to the Covid-19 virus. We may indeed be without bread and wine – but we are NEVER without the nourishment of the Word in which we encounter the Almighty God alive.
This is neither a novel idea nor simply theological tenet from the Lutheran Reformaion. We recall the words of St. John 1:14
”And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
And so, friends, we may not be sharing bread and wine at the moment, but we are NOT WITHOUT the SACRAMENT of the real presence of a living loving God who comes to us in the person of the Christ as the Good News is both proclaimed and lived out among us.
Later in John’s Gospel 14:18, we are assured:
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
Our recorded worship service for June 28, 2020, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost via Zoom may be enjoyed here:
22 June 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday, I indicated my excitement about the times in which we live. Believing, as we do, that God calls all of creation out of chaos; and that God is capable of making a NEW creation by RE-creating the old world and former things. Therein is my hope, and, I believe, the hope of the entire church and world.
I provided an example, yesterday, of a Lutheran Pastor in New Jersey who just this week resigned, ostensibly for having been asked NOT to be “political” – meaning NOT to talk about American racism and race-baiting from the highest offices in this land, because that: “would likely prove to be divisive within the church.”
I propose that the Church of Jesus Christ, simply CANNOT be understood to support racism in any of its permutations. The church, by it’s very nature, must speak out against – and NAME – racism wherever it occurs, starting within our own hearts. If there is a place, organization, system or government where racism is NOT named, NOT called out, NOT rebuked, that simply is NOT the church! Anyone who attempts to USE the church as a pious white sheet to cover his/her own racism, hatred, bigotry, and sin simply has NO IDEA of what the church really is.
We know that our nation was built in large part on the backs of humans who were tragically torn from their homes, transported in sub-human conditions, divided from their families, subjected to unimaginable indignities and abuse, who were objectified and understood and treated as animals and forced to work to make their white ‘owners’ financially wealthy and, coincidentally, simultaneously morally and spiritually bankrupt. That – shameful as it is – is our heritage.
We know that Jesus opposed every aspect of slavery. We know that Jesus advocated for women, for children, for the outcast, for the ill and the dis-abled, for widows, for orphans, for the sinner and for all marginalized and objectified people. The behaviors of our slave-owning forbears prove that they did NOT agree with Jesus. When we subscribe – wittingly or not – to racist attitudes and behaviors we betray the fact that we too DIS-agree with Jesus and that we then are not, in fact, the church: the body of Christ.
When public policy, social systems, economies, attitudes, educational and employment opportunities, public services provided by governments and agencies either favor or dis-favor any human being for any reason, it is our job as Christians to NAME that evil as contrary to our understanding of Jesus’ message and the church’s purpose and mission. It is offensive to us and our faith to argue racism, racist behaviors, racist policies, etc. as in any way “Christian.”
As the Christian community we gather to RE-member the body of Christ and to do Christ’s will in the world. It is our job to remind ourselves and the world around us what Jesus’ message was. In doing that, we must ask ourselves – sincerely – what would Jesus say or do about any given situation. And, after lifetimes of “practicing” our religion, we are enabled to be clear and we are called to SPEAK that TRUTH in LOVE, come what may.
The argument that believing our faith might have something to do with the world in which we live and how we live in it is “political” – meaning, NOT in the purview of the church – is a clever dodge and a feeble invitation for the church NOT to be the church. If ‘political’ positions, postures and policies are CONTRARY to the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, then we must say so, and SAY so CLEARLY. We are constrained neither to whisper nor to dissemble about our faith. If anyone in public life subscribes to policies, and positions which are contrary to that Gospel, then no amount of Bible-waving or picture-taking in front of historic church buildings will alter our Christian reality. Truth cannot be denied, no matter how difficult some may attempt to make life for those who do, in fact, tell the truth.
Is being a Christian about how we live in this world as we grow to understand ourselves ever more clearly as Christ’s body? I am certain it is. Are we to be talked down about our faith, by clever arguments and expectations, that we should preserve some kind of perverse ‘peace’ (or truce?) in our congregations by NOT telling the TRUTH? I certainly hope not!
Are we on the brink of God’s new creation which is being called out of our current chaos? I am just as certain of that as I am that our work as the Body of Christ will never come to an end. The poor we will always have with us. Hatred, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance and racism and the lie of white supremacy will always be with us during our lifetimes. But, so will the immutable TRUTH of the love of GOD for all of creation, which is not just long-lived, but ETERNAL; and therein is our joy and our hope.
Bless you, one and all!
Fr. Ron
For your pleasure, our recorded Zoom worship service for Sunday, June 21, 2020, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost:
Please enjoy our recorded Zoom worship service for Sunday, June 14, 2020, Second Sunday after Pentecost:
8 June 2020
My dear people,
Thinking about the complexities of the Holy Trinity took up much of yesterday’s sermon and today’s earlier “For the Flock.”
There are, however, some extremely important issues about our current national and world situations which warrant our attention.
Yesterday I shared an encounter between me and a Viet Nam vet in an antique store in Ellsworth, Maine, on the 21st of August in 2014. When I asked the man who was tending that store what he expected of a Trump presidency, for which he hoped. He responded with one simple word. He said: “Chaos.” I have come to believe that his wish has been fulfilled.
Chaos is very unsettling and even frightening. But I suggested yesterday that chaos is not necessarily a cause of us to lose hope in these very uncertain times. Not only has the political expectation of that vet in Maine been fulfilled, it has been exponentially compounded by the global virus pandemic. That has brought with it a complexity of chaoses: not only in the medical, financial, social and political worlds in which we live, it has also often brought chaos into our personal lives.
What can we do about all of this? Losing hope is one option. But losing hope is NOT OUR OPTION!
I remind you that our very lengthy first lesson yesterday, from chapters one and two of Genesis, reported an account of God calling forth all of creation from complete and utter chaos.
I would like to re-visit OUR belief in a God who can create the Garden of Eden out of chaotic nothingness and into which God places his dearly-beloved people: you and me.
I ask you to consider the current chaos as in no way beyond God’s creative and ordering power and influence. I ask you to remember what God did “in the beginning.” And I ask you to consider the possibility that God is not only capable of – but desirous of – making a ‘new creation’ out of our currently chaotic crises.
I have seen in the past week sustained and peaceful protests and demonstrations aimed at seeking freedom, justice and air to breathe for all. I have heard the requests of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eric Garner, George Floyd and others for their oppressors to remove their feet and knees from their necks so that they might breathe. I have seen people of all stripes and stations – and from around the world – make this demand, and make it peacefully and lovingly. Already I see change. By God’s grace and activity, I have hope for much more to come that is positive.
In the last two weeks we have celebrated Pentecost and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in which we ask for God to breathe onto and into us. We have talked about the liturgical symbols we use in celebrating our liturgies which focus on that request. We thought about the eipiclesis – the liturgical action of the extension and ‘imposition of hands’ – in which we ask the Holy Spirit to come specifically to a person or to accompany earthly elements (oil, water, wine) in order to do God’s will through ordinary things in the sacraments and even in our own flesh!
We spoke of the very obvious symbol of the Holy Spirit’s presence and work in the insufflation or ‘blowing on’ of the waters at baptism in the blessing of the font and on the holy oils at the Maundy Thursday Chrism Mass.
We believe that God’s Holy Spirit comes to us and to the ordinary things of this world in order to be with us and to empower us to make that “new creation” happen. As the Holy Spirit empowers us ordinary people to speak truth, advocate for freedom and justice, and to trample down satan under our feet we can see the beginnings of that ‘new creation’ starting to take shape. That should, I believe, in some measure, relieve our anxieties. In a “new creation” old things pass away. We very clearly know what some of those old things are: racism, sexism, ageism, elitism, inequality of every kind, and ideas that aggrandize one at the expense of another.
I welcome God’s ‘new creation’ which I firmly believe can and will come – yes, even a new global Jerusalem – which I firmly believe God can create out of this chaos by using us to live and love as did Jesus: humbly before the Throne of God and no other.
Bless you, Fr. Ron
8 June 2020
My dear people,
Yesterday we celebrated Trinity Sunday and spent some time thinking about the very peculiar Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity : one God in three persons.
Over the centuries, many and serious attempts have been made to promulgate, define and explain this ‘doctrine.’ As you know the word itself – “Trinity” – is not to be found in scripture. These complex ideas about God have evolved (I referred to the the Council of Nicea in 325, the Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451) over a very long time and are rooted in the early life of the church. I believe such “evolutions” in thinking continue to this day and ought to!
We can only imagine what Christians must look like to other monotheistic folks of faith, such as Jews and Muslims, when they encounter our inexplicable doctrine of the Holy Trinity! My joy in our position, however, is that the doctrine of the Trinity is really an expression (or perhaps a confession) of a faith community which – in its early life, at least – seems to have an EXPANDING understanding of who God is: more accurately, HOW God is and HOW God works. That ‘understanding’ suggests that we are clearly aware of what GOD DOES without a clear understanding of all that God is. We must confess that God really cannot be fully understood or grasped by the human mind. If that were possible, we would NOT have a God at all, would we!
The doctrine of the Trinity is not without its problems – nor is it without its benefits. It is problematic for me that the ‘gender’ of two of the three persons of the Trinity is ‘male.’ A Father Creator and a Son Redeemer. The Holy Spirit is usually portrayed as a bird: a dove. I need not explain the difficulties that presents for much of the child-bearing, female population without whom humanity could not procreate. Consequently, we can understand the roots – even the inevitability – of the cult of Mary which, in the Middle Ages, comes to confess and believe in St. Mary as both Mediatrix, and along with her Son, the Co-Redemptrix. These issues and ideas are still very much alive in the Roman Church and elsewhere today.
It is my concern that beyond our peculiar doctrines as Trinitarian Christians, our understanding of Jesus as the second person of the God-head has lead some to take positions based on words, which I do not believe that Jesus ever spoke. Those words are recorded in John 14:6:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
In coming to believe, and in arguing, that Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity, it is apparent that the early church felt a need – for whatever reason – to make Jesus an indispensable part or “person” of the God-head. Eventually, creedal agreement became necessary for ‘true communion’ with the body of believers who subscribed to this doctrine. So there were those who agreed and those who did not. The result was the church came to see itself as the purveyor and protector of commonly agreed upon ideas about who God WAS rather than WHAT GOD DOES. Having so very clearly seen what God DID in Jesus, the equation became simple: that Jesus WAS God rather than that Jesus DID (lived, spoke and acted like) God!
The early church quickly became more occupied with the business of working out WHO GOD WAS rather than WHAT GOD DOES in and with human beings.
That’s the point of keeping our understanding of Jesus as FULLY HUMAN as well as fully divine. That prevents us from arguing that his example is impossible for us to follow because we are not fully Divine! That means, in fact, that God can do in and with us (as the Body of Christ) exactly what God did in and with Jesus!
In its early understanding of itself as the Body of Christ, the church confessed its need to continue and be about the work of Jesus which was simply allowing GOD TO ACT in and through them – and now, us. In many ways, Jesus’ life and work were often in conflict with what others thought about God. In doing the WILL of God, Jesus contradicted what many folks thought God was and was like. Often, Jesus was seen to be out of bounds and in violation of the law. But NEVER was Jesus seen not to be healing the sick of body, mind and soul. Never was Jesus seen not to be caring for the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant, the outcast and the sinner. The scandal of Jesus was that he proved that God could and did in fact live in a human being and did, in fact, do the Divine work of loving human kind in human flesh. Jesus simply lived what he believed. That belief is the foundation of all monotheistic belief. One God creates the whole world and all who live in it; and that God loves what that One God creates. Jesus didn’t worry so much – or at all – about what anyone thought God was. He simply spent his life doing what God did at creation: i.e. he loved all of creation and everyone in it. The creeds which we inherit seem more concerned with WHAT we BELIEVE about God, and about Jesus in particular than about how God lived in and through Jesus.
I firmly believe it is way more important for us to pay attention to, and be concerned, about how Jesus’ lived his life and loved and served others than it is to worry overmuch what others have said they believe about him.
I see no evidence in Scripture that Jesus ever asked people what they believed, before he ministered to them. Rather, he allowed those whom he heard, and healed and loved, to come to belief about him and his motivation: his God. Jesus simply made what he believed about God manifest and visible by how he lived and associated with others. Because Jesus saw all people as equally beloved of God and as his brothers and sisters, the early church quite naturally compared him with and eventually equated him to his Divine motivation: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who was also the God of Joseph and Mary. Of course it was understandable that folks “came to the Father” by observing and knowing Jesus. But, I find nothing which suggests that God is limited to being known in God’s own creation by the singular necessity of knowing Jesus. I don’t think Jesus did either. We must also remember what Jesus is reported to have said in Mark 3:35
“Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Do we come to know what God is like and what God does by knowing Jesus? Of course! Can others come to know God without doing that our way? I certainly believe so! How could I possibly imagine that I could confine or restrict God from being known by others if they did not subscribe to a doctrine which I can hardly explain or contemplate myself?
My question of Christians is : “Has God done such a bad job of loving all of the rest of God’s own creation that I could possibly say that others cannot come to the Father [which implies that God cannot go to them!] unless they believe exactly the way I do? Do you see a problem in this?
I do believe we have much to share with others and their traditions. I also believe we have much to learn from them as well.
Here are a couple of words from other traditions which I believe – without compromising a jot or tittle of our own theology – we can share and use. These words might open some small doors for us to peek at other traditions and begin to glimpse a God at work who is larger than our ability to define. That is a God who is alive and present among all people, even those who neither know the name of Jesus or ever will.
Ahimsa – is an ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to all living beings. It is a key virtue in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
And, I believe, according to Jesus, in Christianity as well.
Namaskar – a traditional Indian greeting or gesture of respect, made by bringing the palms together before the face or chest and bowing.
I see parallels in this with the Christian liturgical use of the kiss of peace and the use of incense in which those things and people which are greeted and ‘censed’ are honored as ‘holy.’ What is NOT CHRISTIAN about acknowledging the bodies of others, as well as one’s own, as temples of the Lord?
Namaste – what one says when giving a Namaskar.
Don’t we say the same when we greet each other with: “The Lord be with you.”
Satyagraha – holding onto truth, or truth force, is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone who practices satyagraha is a satyagrahi.
Did Jesus do anything less in always speaking truth in love to all in need and all in authority?
Bless you, Fr. Ron
Tuesday 2 June 2020
My very dear people,
Please do not make the mistake of believing that when Donald J. Trump walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. for a photo-op yesterday, that in that moment, the president of the United States had somehow ‘gone to church.’ We just celebrated Pentecost on Sunday. In that celebration we remembered that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church has ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING to do with BEING CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD in every language. That includes ‘body language.’ And that includes the language of photographic images which is what “photo-ops” are all about. Yesterday, the unexpected arrival of a party from the neighboring WHITE HOUSE – made up entirely of White people – at the boarded-up building of the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. was not a matter of church attendance. It was not a matter of prayer: no knee was bowed, no hands were folded, no eyes were closed, no silence was kept. Nor was that unexpected visit to that place a matter of Bible study or the celebration of a liturgy. In the president’s own words “a Bible” which he could not call his own, was there. That Bible was used as a ‘totem.’ That Bible was neither opened nor read. The Word which that Bible contained was kept and remained silent. That Bible was offered as a visual image meant to portray a religious piety which was not displayed in any fashion, either private or public. That Bible and the background of the church building were (ab)used to convey a message that what the president says and does is either somehow related to or rooted in scripture and the church. But NOTHING that was done in that photo-op yesterday was, in any way, related to either. You and I both know that the ‘Church of Jesus Christ’ is not a building made with hands. The Church is constructed by God’s Holy Spirit with the ‘living stones’ of the faithful people of God. Without a shadow of a doubt, our need to be ’socially-distant’ in response to the Covid-19 virus has proven reality of that truth for us and for the world. Our St. John’s lives on and thrives right now, outside of, and without the regular use of a ‘temple’ or church ‘building.’ Simply put: “The Church is not a building.” Simply put: the president did NOT visit a Church yesterday. The world famous duo of Richard Avery and Don Marsh – for more than 40 years, pastor and musician from the First Presbyterian Church in Port Jervis, NY – published a song we all know, and last sang together at the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. Here’s the full text. Please “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” these words, because “they are true and can be trusted.”
Refrain: I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together! All who follow Jesus, all around the world! Yes, we’re the church together! 1. The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people. (Refrain) 2. We’re many kinds of people, with many kinds of faces, all colours and all ages, too from all times and places. (Refrain) 3. Sometimes the church is marching; sometimes it’s bravely burning, sometimes it’s riding, sometimes hiding; always it’s learning. (Refrain) 4. And when the people gather, there’s singing and there’s praying; there’s laughing and there’s crying sometimes, all of it saying: (Refrain) 5. At Pentecost some people received the Holy Spirit and told the Good News through the world to all who would hear it. (Refrain) Now, just a couple of things about visiting churches. There is a well-known etiquette – both social and ecclesiastical – about joining groups of people at worship (being the church) and visiting church buildings. That etiquette is one of respect. Even the Queen of England, the Head of State – who personally owns Westminster Abbey – does not show up there unannounced. In some ecclesiastical traditions, when bishops visit parish churches, they perform a quaint, but significant act, of requesting entry by rapping, from the outside, on the door of the parish church with their croziers (pastoral staffs) and waiting for permission and an invitation from the parish priest, to enter. And when we ourselves visit churches, synagogues, mosques or temples of other traditions, we show respect. We go to see, and learn, and sometimes even to participate with others, in their faithful expressions. NONE of that happened yesterday when the White House rudely and violently pushed its way through peaceful, respectful protestors to arrive, unannounced and unexpected, at an historic Episcopal house of worship, to create a falsely-pious photographic image intending to use the well-known language of a ‘photo-op’ to dissemble to the nation and the world visual assumptions which are not coincident with the Episcopal Church in particular or Christianity in general. That inappropriate behavior elicited the response of The Rt. Rev’d. Marianne Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C. This is a report, from the New York Daily News of her reaction, and of what she said: “A Washington, D.C., bishop criticized President Trump for standing in front of a church and holding a Bible near the White House after protesters were cleared from the area near Lafayette Park by police with tear gas. “Let me be clear: The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for,” Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde told CNN shortly after the president walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church to give a short speech declaring his intent to be a “law and order” president. “And to do so… he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard. I am outraged,” Budde said.” I offer this to you, Lutheran pastor that I am, serving as your Episcopal priest-in-charge, so that you may hear – and understand as clearly as the Holy Spirit of Pentecost makes it possible to understand – from your “own Episcopal bishop” who is on the front lines in the nation’s capitol and bishop of St John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square in D.C. I thank God for our membership together in the Spirit-filled Body of Christ. I delight in our mission to speak truth to power as well as our mission to speak mercy, promise and hope to the poor, the powerless and those in need. Let the voice of the Lord be heard in all the land! Bless you, Fr. Ron, Priest-In-Charge St. John’s Episcopal Church Hamlin, Pennsylvania
Monday, June 1, 2020
My dear people,
Just in case you’re interested in the Maxwell Anderson text to “Lost in the Stars” which I read at the beginning of my sermon yesterday, here ’tis:
LOST IN THE STARS
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Before Lord God made the Sea and the Land
He held all the stars in the palm of his hand
And they ran through his fingers like grains of sand
And one little star fell alone
So the Lord God hunted through the white night air
For the little dark star on the wind down there
And he stated and promised
To take special care
So it wouldn’t get lost again
Now a man don’t mind if the stars grow dim
And the clouds blow over and darken him
So long as the Lord God ‘s watching over him
Keeping track how it all goes on~
So the Lord God hunted through the white night air
For the little dark star on the wind down there
And he stated and promised
To take special care
So it wouldn’t get lost again
But I’ve been walking through the night, through the day
Till my eyes get weary and my head turns grey
And sometimes it seems maybe God’s gone away
Forgetting the promise that we’ve heard him say
And we’re lost out here in the stars
Little stars and big stars
Blowing through the night
And we’re lost out here in the stars
Forgetting the promise that we’ve heard him say
Little stars and big stars
Blowing through the night
And we’re lost out here in the stars
As you know, reading this verse brought me to tears, and that was for more than one reason. But as our nation and our world seems to be spinning out of control, we can certainly understand the poet’s concern that:
“. . . sometimes it seems maybe God’s gone away Forgetting the promise that we’ve heard him say”
And surely friends, it is our job “at all times and in all places and under all circumstances” to proclaim the promise of God’s love as well as to prove our belief kin that promise by how we live and act and treat each other.
Racism, nationalism, sexism, Nazism, injustice, oppression and inequality of any kind deny that promise and take our BREATH away. When Jesus was crucified, he essentially died of SUFFOCATION. But we know that before his death “HE BREATHED ON” his disciples with a BREATH that can neither be suffocated nor taken away: the Holy Spirit. It is up to us now, as much as ever, to use GOD’S BREATH to speak the language of God’s eternal love for ALL PEOPLE by speaking truth, seeking justice, advocating for the poor and powerless, providing health care for all, asylum for the refugee and succor for all in need.
Why? So that we may never be:
“. . . lost out here in the stars Forgetting the promise that we’ve heard him say”
Bless you,
Fr. Ron
View our recorded Zoom virtual worship service for May 31, 20, The Day of Pentecost:
Our Zoom Worship Service – Sunday, May 24, 2020 – 7th Sunday of Easter:
Our Zoom Worship Service Sunday, May 17, 2020 – 6th Sunday of Easter:
