Proper 9, Year B
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Mark 6:1-13
July 4, 2021

After spending some time healing the sick and performing other miracles around the Sea of Galilee, Jesus returns to his home town.  He goes to the synagogue and begins to teach, and his message does something to strike a nerve in the people who heard it.  Usually, in his gospel, St. Mark gets to the point quickly and provides little detail.  He could have skipped to his summary of their reaction, “They took offense at him” (v. 3), but instead he decided to include their specific questions. Anytime St. Mark decides to give us detail, it’s worth paying attention to!

First, they ask him about the nature of his power and where he got the power.  Then they say, “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary… and are not his brothers and sisters here with us?”[1].  Aren’t you the Jesus we’ve always known?  The one we know is a simple carpenter and is one of us, not some sort of miracle worker!   In the first part of this lesson, we see the folks in Jesus’s hometown reject his authority.  They don’t have faith that Jesus is who he claims to be.  Because of their lack of faith, Mark notes that Jesus could “do no deed of power” there, except in a few isolated instances.  

In the second part of the story, Jesus gives this same authority that his kinsfolk rejected to his twelve closest followers!  He sends them out with his authority to do the same type of ministry he’s been doing – the ministry of casting out demons and healing the sick and inviting everyone to turn from their old ways and believe in the Gospel!   In other words, Jesus sends them out to join with him in reconciling the whole world to himself.

You and I are called, like the Twelve, to this ministry.  In order to do it, we first have to understand that the authority to do so doesn’t come from us.  Doing this ministry of reconciling the world to God isn’t about us.  We have no authority to do so on our own, only that which is given to us by God.

The faith that was lacking in Nazareth is present in the sending out of the Twelve disciples.   Jesus doesn’t tempt them to go do this work by promising luxury or an increase of their fame and stature.  He says, “Go out two-by-two.  Take nothing with you – no food and no money.  Instead, have faith that I will provide for your every need.”  How does he provide for their needs?  He tells them to be completely dependent on the hospitality of others.[2]  How vulnerable they must have felt with no assurance of a living, or even where to sleep each night!

When we talk about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in our own day, we often hear of the need to pray and study the Bible personally, at home.  While these are certainly helpful spiritual practices, following Christ requires us to first acknowledge that we cannot do it in our own.  We must be dependent on others, humbly acknowledging that life isn’t all about self.  The Christian life is inter-dependent with the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Christianity is a communal religion, not something that we can do all alone.

         This interdependency on others is poignantly seen in the sacrament of marriage.  The two individuals getting married become one.  They submit themselves one to another and put the other’s needs above their own.  They are at their most vulnerable with each other, for better or for worse, and much humility is required.  They don’t lose their individuality entirely, but in a very real sense, in holy matrimony, a new creation is born when the two become one flesh.

Likewise, a new creation is born in the waters of baptism.  A deep faith in Christ – like that of the Twelve – leads us to follow him into his death through the waters of baptism – at our physical baptism, and when we put on our baptism each and every day.  St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “we are baptized into Christ’s death…For if we are united with him in a death like this, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”[3]  The baptismal life is a daily cycle of dying to the old self and rising to a new life filled with the hope of resurrection – a bodily resurrection, just like Our Lord. 

This continuous cycle of dying and rising is the pattern of the Christian life.  At baptism, by water and the Holy Spirit, we receive the authority that Jesus gave his first disciples.  Authority to engage in the ministry of casting out demons and healing the sick and inviting everyone to turn from their old ways and believe in the Gospel!  At baptism, we are committed to join with the whole Church in the work begun by Jesus of reconciling the whole world to God and God to the world.

 Dear friends, we cannot live out our faith in Christ alone.  Let us renew our commitment to live interdependently with our fellow members of St. Mary’s and the wider Church, no matter how messy that can be.  Like the disciples, let us claim this authority given to us by our Lord and say yes to taking the Gospel – both in word and in deed – to those around us, and thus join with Christ in reconciling the word to God and God to the world.  Amen.

[1] Verse 3.

[2] Karoline Lewis, Rolf Johnson, and Matt Skinner, "Sermon Brainwave Podcast," Working Preacher (podcast), July 8, 2018, accessed
July 7, 2018. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1037

[3] Romans 6:3-5.

Proper 6 – Year B
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
2 Corinthians 5:6-17
Sunday, June 13, 2021

The experience of being truly loved changes us.

Being in relationship with another person requires intimacy and transparency.  Being in relationship with someone means letting them in to see beneath our polished, outer presentation and experience the unpleasant underbelly that we all seem to have.  When they love us anyway, it gives us hope!  When a long-time friend knows that something is awry and offers to take you to lunch just so that you can vent, you gain just a bit of hope to face another day – not because all of your problems are solved, but because you know that the other person loves you.

The writer of our second lesson today was someone who was drastically changed by the experience of being loved.  The love of Christ literally transformed St. Paul from a persecutor of the church into a tireless missionary who couldn’t keep his mouth shut about so great a love![1]  He means it when he says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

But in order to become new, in order to be reborn and become a new creation, death comes first.  We were baptized into both Christ’s death and resurrection, and are called upon as disciples of Jesus to die daily to sin.

St. Benedict, in his rule that he wrote to regulate the lives of his monks in the sixth century, said, “Day by day, remind yourself that you are going to die.”[2]  By itself, this phrase implies that death is something to be feared or even dreaded.  But in light of the phrase before it, “Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire,”[3] it is clear that, for Benedict, death and eternal life are not separated.  To gain eternal life, death comes first.

Using the parallel Greek verbs “to be at home” and “to be away from home,” Paul acknowledges the distance between being in the body and with the Lord, and tells us that he would prefer being at “home with the Lord.”  But whether at home or away, whether in the body or with the Lord, he says, “we are always confident.”  Confidence here means not simply self-confidence, but faithfulness and security in believing.  Confidence whose true giver and object is God.[4]

It is with this deep, abiding confidence that Paul reminds us that each of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.[5]  We will all be held accountable for our actions when we cease to be at home in the body and go home to be with the Lord. 

This is what Benedict had in mind when he said “remind yourself daily that you are going to die.” He continues in his rule, “Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do, aware that God’s gaze is upon you, wherever you may be.”  At first glance, this seems to say that God is watching over your shoulder and will punish you for all the naughty things you do.  But in context, it simply means that we should live our lives knowing that temptation is just around the corner, and when it comes up, by God’s help, we should resist; and if we fall, we should repent and return to the Lord.  In other words, the death into which we were baptized – Christ’s death – is something we have to intentionally put on each and every day. 

Dying isn’t a fun process.  It is usually painful, I’m told.  But it is only through death that we can attain eternal life.  It is only through death that we can be reborn and made new.  It is only the experience of being loved by God that we can receive the hope not only to face another day, but the deep, abiding confidence we need to choose God’s will before our own, to put others before ourselves, and to continue with the constant cycle of death and rebirth that is our daily burden to bear.  It is when we know and embrace the fact that despite our flaws, despite our underbelly, Jesus loves us so completely and deeply, that we will have the confidence to walk by faith, not by sight, and to share God’s overwhelming love generously with those around us. 

“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Amen.

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-11-2/commentary-on-2-corinthians-56-10-11-13-14-17-5

[2] Rule of St. Benedict 4:47

[3] Ibid 4:46.

[4] David Lyon Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 135-136.

[5] 2 Cor. 5:10.

Ordination of the Rev’d Isaac Petty to the Priesthood
May 29, 2021
Isaiah 6:1-6, Psalm 43, Hebrews 4:16-5:7, John 6:35-38
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral

Good morning!  What a joy it is to celebrate today with Isaac, our diocese, and indeed the whole Church.  Today, Isaac will be ordained a priest.  Later in the service, Bishop Field will address the good deacon and remind him that he is being called to work as a pastor, priest, and teacher.  A teacher teaches things, and a pastor serves as the shepherd of his or her flock.  I want to focus on why Isaac is being ordained a priest, and not simply a pastor or teacher. We Episcopalians are mostly unique amongst those whose heritage is in the Protestant Reformation in that we call the leaders of the local congregation priests and not pastors or ministers.  This may seem to be a matter of semantics to cradle Episcopalians, but there is an important reason we do so: priests offer sacrifices, and pastors don’t. 

In today’s lesson from the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus Christ is referred to as a high priest.   In the early history of the Hebrew people, Moses ordained Aaron as the first high priest, the one charged with entering the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for his sins and the sins of the people by offering sacrifices to God on an altar. 

At first in Israel’s history, the high priest’s status was secondary to that of the king, and his authority was limited to the religious sphere and specifically to the liturgical and sacrificial work in the Temple.  Later, the authority of the high priest extended to the political arena.  The office of the high priest and that of the monarch effectively became one and the same.[1]
In today’s lesson and throughout his letter to the Hebrews, the author links Jesus not to Aaron, the first high priest of the hereditary Levitical priesthood, but to Melchizedek, a mysterious figure from the book of Genesis who pre-dates Aaron by six generations.  Melchizedek is only mentioned twice in the Old Testament, but in short, he is described as having been anointed by God as both a priest and a king, offering bread and wine to God. In the late 1940’s, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the desert caves of the West Bank, a manuscript from the 1st century BC was uncovered that indicated that the figure of Melchizedek had developed considerably in Jewish thought by this point.  He was depicted as a heavenly redeemer figure, a leader of the forces of light, who brings release to the captives and reigns during the Messianic age.  The author of Hebrews knows that his audience is familiar with both the Old Testament and intertestamental traditions when he declares that God appoints Jesus as high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.[2]

The priests of Aaron became priests by their lineage, but for Melchizedek, there is no record of his family tree.  He was appointed a priest by God to an order that had no beginning.  Jesus is a priest forever according the order of Melchizedek, and thus the order has no end.  The word order doesn’t mean Trappist or Dominican, it means after the manner of Melchizedek's priesthood. Later in this letter, the author goes on to make a sharp distinction between this order and the Levitical priests who continue to offer animals in sacrifice. They had to sacrifice millions of sheep, millions of goats and millions of cattle with millions of gallons of blood running down through the temple. Why? Because of the Golden Calf. Before that event in the life of the Hebrews, there was a clean, unbloody priesthood that Melchizedek represents, and as is recorded in the book of Genesis, Melchizedek’s priesthood included offering bread and wine.

Since very early in the Church, a connection has been made with the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek as a foreshadowing of the bread and wine offered by Christian priests at the Eucharist.  When Jesus was sacrificed on the cross, the priest and the offering were the same.  But at the Eucharist, the priest and the offering are different, as it was with Melchizedek.  The once-and-for-all sacrifice of the eternal great high priest on the cross is continued through Christian priesthood, a priesthood prefigured by Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine on the altar, and perpetuated by thousands upon thousands of priests throughout history who have offered the same gifts on the altar in the name of Christ.[3]  This point was driven home to me personally when I was ordained priest and opened so many cards of congratulations that said, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

St. Mary’s, the parish I serve and the parish that raised up Isaac for ordination, has a long history of offering the Eucharistic sacrifice every day throughout the year.  When the pandemic hit last some 14 months ago, I felt it important to model the “stay at home” order, and so my bar at home became an altar and I learned the fine points of livestreaming.  The Church has always taught that having at least one member of the Church Militant (meaning a living, breathing person) present at the Eucharist in addition to the priest is strongly preferred, so I had to think quickly who might be able to come over each day for Mass.  It turns out that Isaac lived only a few blocks away from me at the time, and every day for nearly two months, he made the trek – sometimes by foot, sometimes by car – and was present for the Eucharist.  I didn’t have to explain to Isaac why I needed to offer the Eucharist for the flock God entrusted to my spiritual care.  He knew.  And during those two months, I could see both his and my devotion to Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar deepen in those surreal-yet-life-giving moments at my bar-turned-altar.

Like me, Isaac was formed how to be a pastor and a teacher in a different denomination.  And like me, he owes a debt of gratitude to his former denomination for forming him as a disciple and follower of Christ.  I know he feels this gratitude toward the Nazarenes, not because he’s said it explicitly, but because each year without fail, he sends me a joyful and almost gleeful text message to remind me of John Wesley’s commemoration in our church calendar. 

That said, I’m sure his feelings towards his former denomination vary wildly depending on the context.  Yes, he owes them a debt of gratitude, but he also bears the wounds inflicted by some of their wounded individuals and power structures – wounds that are bound to heal over time but are ever fresh and painful.  Isaac sacrificed much by making the decision to be honest about who God made him to be, the consequences of which rallied so many of his friends and colleagues both within the denomination and in ours to support him as a Christian and as someone called to serve the church as an ordained leader.  He came to The Episcopal Church with both the academic training and quite a bit of experience as both a pastor and a teacher. But today, Isaac is being ordained into a priesthood that offers sacrifices, again and again. The Church doesn’t teach that priests re-sacrifice Jesus at the Mass. The crucifixion happened one time in history and can never be repeated.  At the Eucharist, the priest offers to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving on behalf of the people, a bloodless sacrifice of bread and wine as foreshadowed by Melchizedek.  This sacrifice makes the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross present for us in our day and time.  In the Eucharistic sacrifice, time stands still as earth and heaven are joined, and we are transported to that green hill called Calvary, and Calvary is brought here.  And when we receive our Lord into our bodies, our sins are forgiven, our union with Christ and the Church is strengthened, and we experience a foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.[4]

Isaac, this is the priesthood into which you have been called.  In a moment, when the bishop and the priests lay their hands on you and ask the Holy Spirit to make you a priest, you will be united with your Lord into an order that has no beginning and no end.  The Holy Spirit will transform your diaconal character into that of a priest, giving you awesome power and responsibility to confect the sacraments which are the outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. Your personality and your outward appearance will, of course, remain the same, but the Holy Spirit will transform your inner character to that of the Great High Priest.  You will become an image – an icon – a visible manifestation of Jesus Christ in the world.

Your hands will be anointed to signify this change, for by your hands, the bread of life and the cup of salvation will be consecrated, and by your hands, the people will be fed with the holy food and drink of new and unending life.  A Bible will be given to you as a sign of your authority to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments.  It’s not in our ordination liturgy, but a little birdie has informed me that you’ll be given a chalice and paten, the holy vessels of the sacrifice of bread and wine, signifying the continual sacrifice that you will offer for the sake of the people and indeed the whole world.

As any of the priests in this room can testify, there will be times you will want to take off your priesthood.  To undo what is being done today, just for a moment, whether it’s from fatigue, or because the collar around your neck limits your ability to say or do something as if it is choaking you, or perhaps because a parishioner has hurt your feelings and you can’t even imagine how you can continue to love them.  In those moments, remember the weightiness of the hands placed upon you.  And remember the grace given to you in that moment, grace that you will need as you offer yourself in sacrifice for the people until the day you die. 

Dear friends, let us give thanks to God for the gift of the priesthood, and for Isaac’s willingness to answer God’s call to sacrifice himself as a priest for the salvation of souls and the redemption of the world.  Let us give thanks that by the Holy Spirit, the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is made present for us on this altar today.  And when we receive our Lord into our bodies in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, let us give thanks to God for filling us with hope in this foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.  Amen.
 
[1] Levine, Amy-Jill, and Zvi Marc Brettler, eds. The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017, 470.

[2] Keener, Craig, ed. Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. 38.

[3] https://www.hprweb.com/2018/09/christ-melchizedek-and-the-eucharistic-sacrifice/

[4] BCP 860.

Pentecost Day
May 23, 2021
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Acts 2:1-21

Happy feast day to you!  And what a glorious feast it is in which we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the fledgling Christian Church The earliest believers were together to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Weeks, or Shavuot, 50 days after the Passover.  The Festival of Weeks celebrates the anniversary of the giving of the Law by God to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai in 1312 BC, an event for which Jews who were scattered all about the land regathered in Jerusalem. 

God’s ongoing presence in the world in the person of the Holy Spirit, long foretold by and promised by Jesus himself, begins with a vision of a reconstituted Israel.  It’s not a reconstitution of the 12 tribes, but of a diaspora of Jews who live in all sorts of far-flung places, brought together for a common purpose.  In this moment, God breaks in and announces Good News.  It is fitting that on today’s feast of Pentecost, St. Mary’s begins a new chapter in our common life together at this phase in the pandemic by having our first meal and social event together) in over fourteen months (tomorrow after Mass).

​It is, of course, an incredibly happy occasion, but many of our parishioners are coming back to church after being fully vaccinated only to find new people they’ve never met.  And more than a few of you became a part of this community during the pandemic and have never met some of our long-time members.  St. Mary’s is a different community than it was when the pandemic began, and it will take awhile for everyone to get to know one another and find out what the “new normal” looks like.

On that first Pentecost Day, the disciples and others heard a sound like the rush of a violent wind bringing divided tongues as of fire causing them to speak in other languages. When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, Luke says they were bewildered, astonished, and perplexed.  “What does this mean?” they ask (v. 12).  They mill around, stepping on each other’s toes, their faces reddening, their voices rising in confusion.[1] This confusion sounds just like the story of the Tower of Babel when in response to the people trying to build a tower tall enough to heaven, God confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand one another, and scatters them around the world.  With the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the confusion of Babel begins to be reversed.  Instead of widening confusion, there is a growing understanding, little by little.  In this fantastical moment, divided humanity begins to come together in harmony as people speak languages other than their own and understand one another.

The Holy Spirit continues to work in this way in our world today, and even here at St. Mary’s.  Pentecost reminds us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people.  No one is excluded.  We humans like to erect divisions between ourselves, mostly to find ways to show that we’re better than others.  Peter quotes the prophet Joel in his Pentecost sermon to indicate that God is pouring out the Holy Spirit on both sons and daughters, the young and the old – even the slaves representing those at the margins of society are included!  The Roman imperial authorities allowed groups of people like the Hebrews the freedom to be themselves in most ways, but they required each of these linguistic and national groups to stay in their own silo as a way to control them.  We do the same today in politics, religion, race, socio-economic class, national identity, etc, but the Holy Spirit powerfully unites those of us who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord despite our differences making us one body, one Spirit in Christ.

St. Mary’s is not the same community it was in March 2020.  But we are united by the Holy Spirit who has continued to work in and through each of us whether we were here in person or in quarantine.  I can think of many ways in which I saw direct evidence of the Holy Spirit at work throughout the past year at St. Mary’s, in person, and in our online small groups, and perhaps especially in the many phone calls and porch visits between parishioners and clergy, caring for one another as best we can.

As we begin to explore what the “new normal” looks like in the coming months, I encourage you to do a lot of listening.  At the barbeque after Mass (tomorrow), have a conversation with someone you don’t know.  Listen to how the Spirit has worked in his or her life over the past year, and tell a little about your story.  Whether you’ve been at St. Mary’s 1 week or 12 weeks or 12 years, the Holy Spirit unites us in our common baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, and continues to work in our midst.  The Holy Spirit continues to break down barriers that divide us, bringing bring order and understanding to confusion and chaos. 

On this joyful feast day, let us pray for the grace to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.  And let us pray for the strength and courage to join in the Spirit’s work of breaking down human divisions wherever they exist, here at St. Mary’s, and in the world around us.  Amen.
 

[1] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 19.

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B
May 16, 2021
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
John 17:6-19

What does reading a mystery novel and going on a retreat at a monastery have in common?

Both are forms of escape from the world.  When you read a mystery novel, you get lost in the story, fantasize about the lives of the characters, and so on.  When you go on retreat at a monastery, you’re at least supposed to disconnect from electronic devices and the world at large and spend time in prayer and meditation.  In both cases, you get to escape from the world around you.

We all need escape from time to time. We live in a world of constant pressures including complicated relationships, budgets, commutes, and other time constraints.  It’s also full of temptation to sin, and oppressive societal pressures like sexism and racism and terrorism and the like. 

Since the beginning, Christians felt the need to escape from the world.  We want to follow Christ with all that we are, and being in the world in the midst of temptations and those who challenge our faith can be exhausting.  We’ve glimpsed a vision of what is good and holy, and have experienced genuine Christian community where we forgive one another and learn to love each other despite our faults.  We even experience a foretaste of heaven each time we celebrate the Eucharist together. 
Some Christians throughout history have responded to this by living communally with likeminded Christians in monasteries or convents.  On a smaller scale, many more occasionally visit monasteries or convents for a brief retreat from the world around us.  In both cases, there’s an attempt in some way to “create a space, unencumbered by the world, that allows for a fuller realization of a faithful, holy Christian life.”[1]

I remember back in my evangelical days when I was taught that allegiance to Christ meant avoiding certain movies, or abstaining from alcohol, or observing the rule that persons of the opposite gender couldn’t come in my dorm room as it might lead to an inappropriate sexual encounter.  We were taught to avoid chunks of the world in order to be able to avoid becoming entangled in the world in such a way that living a faithful and holy Christian life isn’t possible. 

The early Christians who heard Jesus’s prayer from St. John’s gospel lived in a conflict-ridden world in which being a Christian resulted in persecution.  I can only imagine that they fanaticized about escaping to a world in which the Roman Emperor became a Christian, got baptized, and stopped persecuting them.  A world where practicing one’s Christian faith was seen as admirable.  A world where it was easy to gather with other Christians to tell the stories of Jesus and regularly receive him in the bread and the wine.  A world where simply being a Christian isn’t dangerous.

This is the context of Jesus’s prayer.  Note that it doesn’t include a request that they be allowed the luxury of escaping from this world.  He instead asks the Father to protect them in his name.[2] Jesus acknowledges that he and his disciples “do not belong to this world.”  (v. 14)  But he specifically prays, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”  Christ didn’t call them into community to escape from the world, but instead to stay in the world under God’s protective care.  We too are called to stay in this world, in the midst of the terrors of mass shootings, and nuclear weapons, persistent racism, gender inequality, and even a global pandemic.  But to stay in the world under God’s protective care.  We are called to live life amid all of the evil in the world without ourselves getting entangled in it.[3]

The fuller realization of a faithful and holy Christian life cannot be found in escape from the world, but instead in dedicating oneself to God entirely while still being an active part of the world.  In verse 17, Jesus prays “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”  The word “sanctify” means “total dedication to God.”[4]  This realization of holiness isn’t found in escape, but is found in the truth of God’s word – Jesus – as he is revealed in our world day in and day out.

Remaining in the world is not without its risks.  Being a Christian without being wholly dedicated to Jesus leaves us open to succumbing to the evil around us and getting off track.  What does being totally dedicated to God look like in everyday life?
The key is prioritizing one’s life by putting God before everything else, and more specifically by setting aside intentional time to pray and read the Bible.

Our evangelical brethren call this setting apart of time to spend with God “a quiet time.”  It was a time when one is supposed to read the Bible and pray.  My problem was this: I often found myself wondering what part of the Bible to read, or what to pray.  I would pray for my family, and those who were sick, and various church leaders, but after that, what was there to do?

It was the discovery of what our prayer book calls the Daily Office that answered this question for me.  In The Episcopal Church, the Daily Office consists of Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline with Morning and Evening Prayer being the primary and most important of the offices.  These prayer services mark the hours of each day and sanctify the day with prayer.  The Daily Office isn’t a magical thing to be done when you feel the need to escape, but it is a tried and true method to be sanctified in the truth.  It’s all about prayer and the Bible, all tidied up and ready for you and I to use in our everyday lives.  On the one hand, when I discovered Morning and Evening Prayer, I was grateful that the Church provided a systematic way to pray that has stood the test of time, and grateful that I no longer had to wonder how to proceed in private prayer; on the other hand, I no longer had an easy excuse when I didn’t know what to pray.

The Daily Office may not resonate with you.  There are plenty of organized ways to pray and study the Bible out there, both new and old.  The important thing is actually making time to pray and read the Bible!  If that’s not something you’re doing now – or have ever done in your life – don’t be scared!  Take the plunge and give it a try!  Spend five minutes in the morning in quiet prayer, beginning by praising God and thanking him for his grace, followed by a few minutes listening to God, and then ending with intercessory prayer for those you love. 

Jesus prays, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  This is the opposite of getting out of the world!  That said, we can’t escape the temptation to escape from the world. But Jesus is redirecting our desires today.  We should look to “create a space, unencumbered by the world, that would allow for a fuller realization of a faithful, holy Christian life,” not by escaping from the world, but by dedicate ourselves to Jesus Christ while living our lives in the world under God’s protective care.  We are called to live life amid all of the evil in the world without ourselves getting entangled with the world.  In order to do this, we need to intentionally spend time with God in prayer by sanctifying ourselves in the word which is truth.  One way to do this is by praying the official prayers of the Church in the Daily Office, but there are many other ways.  We are called not to disengage from the world, but intentionally press into God while still in the world, and in so doing, we receive the grace and fortitude to live as a Christian in the midst of our broken world that we might have a more abundant life, right here, and right now.  Amen.

[1] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 545.

[2] Verse 11.

[3] Feasting 547.

[4] Michael D. Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins, The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version : With the Apocrypha : An Ecumenical Study Bible. 4th ed. (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford UP, 2010), 1910.

Ascension Day
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
May 13, 2021

As the psalmist said, “God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet.”  According to the Scripture, on the very first Ascension Day, the Lord commissioned His Apostles to preach the Gospel to all nations; then, having blessed them, "he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). 

After all the disciples had been through with Jesus – the agony of his death, and the joy of his resurrection – it’s hard to imagine the sadness and despair they must have felt when he disappeared from their sight.  The disciples saw him after the resurrection – they felt the marks of the nails in his hands and his side, and even ate with him – but now he’s gone.

Not only is God gone up, humanity is too!  For we believe that God humbled himself to share in our humanity in the incarnation of Jesus Christ at Christmas.  Through the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, we who are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under the Lord’s table, are taken up with him.  In the words of St. John Chrysostom, “Our very nature, against which Cherubim guarded the gates of Paradise, is enthroned today high above all Cherubim.”[1]
Despite their sadness, the disciples were hopefully prepared as they heard their Lord tell say to them,

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”[2]

Unlike the disciples, we know how this plays out.  Ten days after Jesus’s ascension, the Holy Spirit comes with power with a sound like the rush of a violent wind.  Jesus keeps his promise and does not leave us orphaned.  Though his body left this earth, by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, he continues to work in the world today primarily in the Sacraments of the Church.  By the power of the Spirit, when someone is baptized, they are cleansed from sin and welcomed into the household of God.  By the power of the Spirit, the same Jesus who ascended body and soul into heaven on that first Ascension Day is the same Jesus who is here among us in the consecrated bread and wine. 

Let us give thanks that “God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet!”  Let us give thanks to God for not leaving us orphaned.  Let us give thanks that “when two or three are gathered together in [his] name, [he] will be in the midst of [us].” And let us give thanks that we are not alone – that God is manifesting his presence to us by the Holy Spirit in the face of the poor, and in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar.

[1]  Hom. in Ascens., 2; PG, 50, 414. 

[2] John 14.

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
May 2, 2021
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21
 
In the reading from Acts, we continue to get a peek into the life of the early Church just after the resurrection of Jesus.  Most scholars believe that the book of Acts was part of a two-part work comprised of Luke and Acts together, authored by St. Luke the Evangelist.  St. Luke was a Gentile, meaning he wasn’t Jewish, and Luke-Acts is the only book in the New Testament written for a Gentile audience.  Acts is a book written by an outsider for outsiders.

The story begins with an angel telling Philip to go out into the wilderness.  There, he encountered an Ethiopian eunuch who had come to the Temple to worship and was returning home. The differences between the eunuch and Philip are striking. First, the fact that he’s Ethiopian in 1st century Palestine means that he had much darker skin than the Hebrews. He’s of a different race.  Second, he’s a foreigner from somewhere south of Egypt, which is largely an unknown place to the Hebrews. [1]  He’s of a different ethnic background and nationality.  And third, he’s a eunuch.  In ancient times, a eunuch was a castrated male servant who was trusted to perform social functions for royalty.  Essentially, they were neutered male human beings.  As long as the deed was done before puberty, they were deemed safe to serve among women of the royal household.  Despite this, eunuchs were stereotyped as sexually immoral people.    His sexual state seems to be rather important to Luke as each of the five times he refers to the Ethiopian in this passage, he’s identified as “the eunuch.”  The bottom line is that this Ethiopian guy was different in so many ways from both Philip and the earliest Jewish Christians.  He was an outsider.

He was reading the book of Isaiah when Philip ran into him.   After reading the passage from Isaiah which we now refer to as “the Suffering Servant” passage, the eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”  Christians today often say that Isaiah meant to refer to Jesus, but that’s not actually true.  Isaiah, after all, died about 700 years before Jesus was born.  We never hear Philip’s answer to the eunuch’s question.  Instead, Luke tells us that Philip begin to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to the Ethiopian the good news about Jesus.

While they were riding along in the wilderness in the Ethiopian’s chariot, they came to some water.  The Eunuch said, “Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized!”  After hearing about the Good New of Jesus Christ from Philip and randomly seeing some water, this guy asks a theological question about why he can’t simply be baptized.  The only response to his question was the baptism itself.  In other words, nothing is to prevent him from being baptized.  Baptism is the great Sacrament of inclusion.  It is open to all, without rules or conditions.  It’s open to black and white, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, cis-gender and trans-gender, Jew and Gentile. 

In this story, Philip listens to the voice of God via the angel, and when stumbling upon some guy who anyone in their right mind would consider a weirdo, he shares his faith with him.  And this is the way the Christian faith has been passed on ever since.  Person to person.  Insider to outsider.  And when the outsider decides to respond by asking to be baptized, the Church does so. 

In today’s church, there are those who believe there should be a lengthy catechetical process prior to baptism.  Some believe that priests shouldn’t baptize people who aren’t thoroughly trained and prepared for what they’re getting themselves into.  I fear that they’re missing the point entirely.  “Look,” the Ethiopian said, “here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  The answer is absolutely nothing.   Immediate baptism: if it’s good enough for Philip, it’s good enough for me.  If you have not been baptized and would like to be, come talk to me, and we get it scheduled soon.

Baptism is the great Sacrament of Inclusion.  It’s open to all without condition.  Baptism is the great leveler of humanity.  We all process back from the baptismal font the same as the person standing next to us.  Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch are both baptized Christians, and yet are very different people.  Baptism doesn’t erase the differences or remove their human individuality, but it serves as the beginning of the Christian life and the entrance into the household of God in such a way that they are equals.

One of the things I love most about St. Mary’s is our diversity.  I miss the Reception after Mass where it was common to see a young person who’s been here two months sitting next to an older person who has been here for decades, or the rich person chatting with the poor person, or the black person having coffee with the white person.  These conversations can be gristly and rough around the edges at times as the two people are coming from completely different contexts and perspectives.  But through our common faith in Christ, these sorts of relationships are not only possible, but are life-giving and beautiful, and have so much to offer our fractured and polarized world.  When you encounter someone who is radically different than you, and open yourself up to talk about something as intimate as your faith, both of your lives are enriched, and your hearts are changed. 

Sometimes, we are afraid of people who are different than we are.  That’s an instinctual human response.  Fear is a powerful force, and it can lead to ignoring God’s voice when we are called like Philip was to go on a journey to which we don’t know the final destination.  How can we overcome fear and say yes to God? 

Love.

Not romantic love, not the love you feel for your parents or siblings, not sentimental love.  The love we heard about our second lesson in John’s first epistle.  The Greek word used throughout this passage is agape, love that gives without expecting a return, sacrificially.  God is love, agape.  Jesus died for us as an act of agape, and we ought to agape one another.  In other words, friends, you and I are called to express outwardly what we have received personally from God – a sacrificial love that gives without expecting a return.  Love in this sense isn’t an ideal to aspire to or an emotion we feel, it’s a tangible choice.[2]

As we hear and respond to God’s call to share our faith with others, we will encounter fear.  Let us respond to this fear with agape love, a sacrificial love that gives without expecting a return.  Let us reach out to the outsider that is different than we are and share our deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ.  And then, when the outsider responds in faith, let’s bring them into the household of God in the waters of baptism. 

[1] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 457.

[2] Ibid 469.

Easter IV
April 24, 2021
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
John 1:11-18

Since Easter Day, we’ve been exploring Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances.  On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the focus shifts to reflecting on who Jesus is and what that means for his followers.  Throughout the centuries, the Church has used a variety of images to express Christ’s identity to the faithful, and the image of the Jesus as the Good Shepherd has been an enduring one.  While some of you may have grown up in a part of the world where shepherds and sheep are commonplace, my suburban Johnson County upbringing wasn’t one of those places.  Frankly, one of the first things I thought of upon reading this passage is a recent use of the word sheep in modern, civic discourse I occasionally come across online in the dreaded comments section, particularly the comments posted in response to news articles.  The term is actually sheeple, and according to Urban Dictionary, sheeple is a combination of the words sheep and people meaning that the person or persons are acting as a group, or only to behave based on what’s trending.[1]  This modern metaphor implies that sheep are dumb.

Apparently, according to those who know more about these things than I do, sheep are not dumb.  It was cattle ranchers who started that rumor as sheep do not behave like cows.  Cows are herded from behind with shouts and prods from the cowboys.  But that doesn’t work with sheep.  If you stand behind sheep making noises, they will just run around behind you.  They actually prefer to be led.  Cows can be pushed; sheep must be led.  Sheep won’t go anywhere that their trusted shepherd does not go first, to show them everything is alright.  They seem to think that shepherds are part of their family, and the sheep and shepherds develop a language of their own that outsiders are not privy to.[2]

Of course, when Jesus spoke of shepherds and sheep, he was speaking to people who had everyday experiences with them.  They knew about a shepherd’s unique relationship with his flock when Jesus said, “I know my own and my own know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father.”[3]  Yes, Jesus knows humanity intimately because he became human and dwelled among us.[4]  But, in the words of the opening prayer today, he also calls us each by name.  Thank God, for just like sheep, we are prone to go astray.  We may get distracted and stop listening to the shepherd’s voice, or wander off because we are tempted to go graze in what looks like a greener pasture than where the shepherd is leading us.  As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”[5]  The Good Shepherd, unlike the hired hand, sees the wolf coming long before he arrives, and protects his flock, even those who have gone astray. 

What comfort this gives us!  But just as the sheep and shepherds develop a language of their own over time, so too do Jesus and his followers get to know one another more intimately over time.  This doesn’t happen overnight, or without deliberate effort.  As Christians worship and pray together, as we immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, the liturgy of the church, and receive grace and nourishment from the Sacraments habitually, by God’s grace, God slowly conforms our will to his will and our desires to his desires.  We learn to recognize the voice of the shepherd little by little over time.  I received Jesus’s call to holiness of life very differently when I first started being intentional about private prayer and communal worship than I do today.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that I don’t go astray.  The wolves come after me today just as they did when I was a much younger Christian, but the practice of intentional daily prayer, and frequent reception of the Sacraments over many years has helped me to recognize the deceptive mirage of the “greener grass elsewhere” more quickly than before.

Jesus’s followers had grown up telling and re-telling the story of Moses and the flight out of Egypt. Each year they heard the call to “take a lamb for each family”[6] and prepare the Passover meal.[7]  But in this metaphor, the shepherd intentionally becomes the sacrificial lamb.  Not so with the hired hand who runs away because a hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep.  The Good Shepherd willingly lays down his life for his sheep of his own accord in order to take it up again.  Jesus’s death, as the ultimate expression of the love relationship that exists between the Father and the Son, extends that love to each of us who choose to follow him[8], and Jesus’s resurrection from the dead seals for us his promise to defend and protect us from every enemy, even death itself.

Friends, we are not “sheeple”, blindly following our shepherd, even if that means following him right on over a cliff.  We follow where he leads, with a deep and abiding faith that he will lead through death to resurrection. Let us build strong spiritual habits by immersing ourselves in Scripture, both private and communal prayer, and so listen to the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd; and when we hear it, may we know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads.  Amen.
 
 [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sheeple

[2] Most of this paragraph is from David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 450.

[3] John 11:14-15.

[4] John 1:14.

[5] Isaiah 53:6.

[6] Exodus 12:3b

[7] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-1011-18

[8] NISB 1929.

Easter Day
April 4, 2021
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
John 20:1-18
 
The scene that St. John sets before us in the gospel lesson we just heard has all the features of a good movie: vivid detail, gripping suspense, and powerful human emotion.  More importantly, it tells a down-to-earth story about something with which all of us struggle: the odd claim to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, even though he has never stood before us physically in the flesh.  But even more bizarre is the Christian claim to believe that he rose from the dead, for we know that dead people don’t rise from their graves and walk around.[1]

Like most Christians, we Episcopalians believe that our relationship with Christ begins with baptism.  In the baptismal rite, the priest asks the Candidate or the parents and godparents, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?”  It’s very easy for most to respond, “I do.”  It’s also easy to say, “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,” as we will in a moment when we recite the Nicene Creed.  Speaking these words is quite simple, but is often done without much emotion or thought, and doesn’t indicate that we’ve necessarily had some sort of personal encounter with Christ. 

In today’s Gospel, we see a very different kind of encounter with Jesus.  This encounter isn’t only tangible and physical, it’s emotional and deeply personal.  For Mary Magdalene, her encounter with the risen Christ involved her eyes and her ears and a person standing before her.  It is very real. 

After the events that lead to Jesus’s arrest, torture, and death, she comes to his tomb only to find that someone has presumably stolen his dead body.  She is so caught up in her raw emotion that she doesn’t even recognize Jesus when he’s standing right in front of her.  When she responds to him, assuming he is the gardener, Jesus doesn’t offer some sort of generic response.  He says, “Mary.”  He uses a word that applies to her and her alone, a word that captures the particularity of her individual life – her name.[2]  His response was deeply personal. 

You and I don’t have the benefit of seeing the resurrected Jesus in the flesh as she did.  How can our faith in Jesus be as real as Mary Magdalene’s faith?

 While we don’t see him in the flesh, in the waters of baptism, God used ordinary water to grant us grace, despite the fact that we didn’t earn it or deserve it.  According to our catechism, at baptism, God adopted us as his children and made us members of Christ’s body, the Church.  At baptism, we were united with Christ in his death and resurrection, born into God’s family, forgiven of our sins, and given new life in the Holy Spirit.[3]

 Children.  Life. Members.  Family.  Born.  Forgiven.  These words reflect a deeply personal relationship between us as individuals and God, a God who calls us each by name, just as he did Mary Magdalene.  At baptism, the candidates are baptized not anonymously, but by name.  God’s interest in us is deeply personal – his interest in us is just as real as it was when he said to her, “Mary.”

I’m not sure about you, but if God were distant and far away, like a clockmaker who sets his clock in motion and leaves it alone to operate without any further interaction, I wouldn’t have the slightest bit of interest.   But a God who sees and knows the most intimate parts of my life – my body, my past, my dreams and disappointments, my future – a God who loves and cares deeply about all these intimate aspects of my life?  That’s the sort of God we see revealed in Jesus Christ. 

Like with Mary Magdalene, Jesus comes to us not as a zombie, or a ghost, but as a person.  He doesn’t come to us as a disembodied spirit, but as a whole, integrated person – body, mind and spirit.   He didn’t just come to save our souls, he came to redeem our minds and our bodies as well.  He cares about how we spend our money, and what we do with our time, and how we treat the bodies God gave us, and how we treat the poor person we encounter, just as much as he cares about our thoughts and prayers.  Jesus doesn’t just come to us in our hearts, he comes to us physically: in the waters of baptism, in the bread and wine at Holy Communion, in the physical intimacy between spouses, and so on.  

We don’t get to see Jesus in the flesh like Mary did.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…it’s not an easy thing to wrap our heads around as dead people don’t generally rise up from their graves and walk around.  I’m not sure about you, but to me, a God who is interested in both the spiritual and the physical realms...a God who loves humanity enough to become one of us in order to redeem the worst parts of who we are…a God who loves me enough to care about the intimate parts of my life…a God who loved the world so much that he not only gave his Son for our sake, but promised us that he would be with us always…a God who lavishly pours out his love for us physically again and again in our world today…that’s the kind of God that sounds interesting to me.

This Easter Day, as we encounter the risen Christ at this altar, let us pray for the grace to recognize him in the breaking of the bread.  Let us renew our faith in the One who loves us so deeply that he gave up everything for us.  And let us rejoice that he has called each of us by name into a deep and personal relationship with him.  Amen.

[1] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 376.

[2] Feasting 378.

[3] Catechism of the 1979 BCP..

Good Friday
April 2, 2021
Hebrews 10:16-25
The Rev’d Charles W. Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

When I give tours of the church, I usually start in the back, and move my way toward the high altar.  This entire space is built in such a way that the focus of the eye is always drawn to the altar.  I begin with describing the women saints that adorn the front of the altar, then point to where Fr. Jardine is buried underneath the horn of the north steps.  Before I can get to the rest of it, I’m often interrupted by some version of this question: “What is that box for?”  The box in question is directly above the altar in the center, and in it, we keep the reserve sacrament, the leftover communion bread that was consecrated at a previous Mass.  Today is the one day in the calendar when the Sacrament is not reserved. Normally, we would pay Jesus homage by bowing or genuflecting toward this holy place, perhaps catching a glimpse of the sanctuary lamp that burns as a reminder of his presence.  But not today. The lamp has been extinguished, the doors thrown open, the tabernacle emptied, the sanctuary stripped. As Mary Magdalene said when faced with the empty tomb, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”[1] The empty tabernacle declares to all what happened on this day: our Lord has died to save us from our sins.[2]

The tabernacle, in the Western tradition, is, among other things, analogous to the Holy of Holies in Judaism.  The Holy of Holies was the holiest of all places on earth for the Hebrew people.  It was in the innermost part of the Temple in Jerusalem, and it was only in the Holy of Holies that God’s presence appeared.  Once every year, the high priest, and no one else, lifted a corner of a curtain that shielded the Holy of Holies to go inside and make a blood offering for himself and for the sins of the people.  The curtain kept God hidden; only the high priest could pass through the curtain once a year and be in the intimate presence of God.[3]

What curtains do we have in our lives that keep God hidden?  What curtains keep us separated from God?

It’s quite easy for us to see ourselves as defective and thus unworthy to be in God’s presence.  Even those human beings who were blessed with good looks go through times of feeling physically unattractive – even ugly – and project these views on God, leaving us with the feeling that God feels just as disgusted with our bodies as we are.  We see ourselves as “less than” in all sorts of ways, perhaps especially when we’re self-evaluating our prayer lives. In this way, our defectiveness becomes a curtain, keeping God hidden and far away.  In the same way, we often erect a curtain between us and God when we throw in the towel because we’re sick and tired of repeating the same sins over and over again.  Each of us has specific tendencies to sin – for some, it’s greed, for others it’s gluttony, for others it’s fornication.  By God’s help, we will try to stop, but it’s likely that we’re going to continue to have the same tendency to sin tomorrow, 10 years from now, perhaps until the day we die.  It’s easy to put up a nice, thick curtain between you and God and stop trying to resist that particular temptation altogether.

On this day so long ago, the curtain separating us from God was forever torn in two.  The author of Hebrews says, “Since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”[4]

Any good Jew would have been scandalized to hear that they might be able to intimately know God in the same way the high priest did – to enter into his presence.  Just as the tearing of the curtain in the temple made the Holy of Holies visible, so that all could freely enter, so Jesus, whose flesh is torn open upon the cross, unveils the God of heaven so that all may enter in to relationship with Him.  On that cross, God himself bowed his head and submitted to death, suffering for us.  Veiled in flesh, God himself is torn open on the cross to remove anything that might inhibit us from coming into God’s presence.  While all human beings are made in God’s image, the pure water that washed us at our baptism restored us all the more to the way we were supposed to be before Adam and Eve ate from that tree so long ago, and continues to give us the grace to see ourselves not as defective, but as beautiful and wonderfully made.  The grace given to us at baptism continues to give us the strength we need to strive for holiness day in and day out and strive to resist committing those stubborn sins we continue to struggle with day after day. 

Friends, let us give thanks to almighty God that Jesus set his passion, cross and death between his judgment and our souls.[5]  Let us give thanks that in Jesus, all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.[6]  Let us give thanks for the empty tabernacle, for on this day, our Lord has died to save us from our sins.
 
 [1] John 20:13.

[2] https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2011/04/22/the-empty-tabernacle/. Accessed March 23, 2021.

[3] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville (Ky.): Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, 299.

[4] Hebrews 19b-22

[5] 1979 BCP p. 489.

[6] Colossians 1:19-20.