Good morning. It’s good to see you all and to welcome you to the celebration of the Feast of St. Peter. It is especially meaningful to me this morning because it will be my last St. Peter’s Day with you, and next year at this time there will be a whole new exciting thing happening here.

I’ve had the privilege of preaching on St. Peter’s Day twice before. The first time was in 2004 and it was my last Sunday here as an Assistant Priest with Russ. It was a special day for me and it was difficult to leave a parish and a people who had opened their arms and hearts to me, and who had come to mean so much.

However, the Spirit works in strange ways, and after two years as Priest-in-charge at St. John’s Ashton and St. Martin’s in Pawtucket I found myself back here as your Interim Rector. And last year on St. Peter’s Day we had a very special service, as Russ came back for a visit and for the formal dedication of Ruffino Hall, and we celebrated and remembered his 17 wonderful years here as your Rector.

So this is my 3rd St. Peter’s Day with you, and it too is special in it’s own way.

You may notice that the altar looks different this morning than it usually does for St. Peter’s Day. Some years ago Russ started the custom of having bowls with live fish for St. Peter’s Day. However, last year after the service and after the fish were returned to the fish store and the bowls were cleaned and just sitting in the kitchen, suddenly one of them simply burst apart.

Now, I believe that God or the Spirit speaks to us in many different ways and even in simple things or strange coincidences – what the psychologist Carl Jung calls synchronistic events, which is the meaningful significance of causally unconnected events. In this instance I took it as a sign that it is time to move on – so there are no fish bowls this morning.

Now, that may annoy some of you, or even anger you, and I can understand that change is difficult and often emotionally very painful, and sometimes it is the small things, like no fish bowls, that trigger those feelings.

It was a real privilege and honor for me to work with Russ at a key time in my life when I was returning to parish ministry. I will always be indebted to him for his many kindnesses and for all that he taught me, both directly and by example. I treasure Russ as many of you do, so believe me that I mean no disrespect here.

So this morning I would like to share a few thoughts with you about change and about the Spirit working in our lives and in the midst of us here. And about the future of St. Peter’s-by-the-Sea. Now, as I’ve said, change can be difficult, but what is coming is so exciting.

My three year old daughter Ava captured this wonderful sense of anticipation of what is to come when she announced at dinner the other day, “I don’t want to eat too much of my dinner, so I don’t spoil my treat.” Now there is a girl with priorities.

And the treat that is coming is the new thing that God will be doing in this place, and even more than that, Jesus’ whole life and ministry was to tell us and to show us the treat that is coming, the Realm of God, the Kingdom of God.

We read in the 43rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters. Who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior: they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.” (Isaiah 43:16-17)

Clearly the reference here is to mighty acts of salvation that God has done in the past when he led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and he parted the waters of the Red Sea so that they could escape from the army of Pharaoh that pursued them. This is one of the most significant events in our sacred history – but then God goes on to say to Isaiah: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

What a remarkable statement: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.”

Does that mean we are to forget the history of God’s relationships with mankind? Does it mean that we are to forget what God has done in our lives, and specifically what he has done here at St. Peter’s in the past?

I think the answer is both yes and no. On the one hand, of course we are to remember the past, to honor it, learn from it, and be guided by it. Not to remember the past is to forget who we are and where we came from. Can you imagine God telling us to forget about Jesus, or the crucifixion and resurrection? Or, on a more personal and parochial level, are we to forget the past here at St. Peter’s? Of course not!

Yet as it says in Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” (Eccl. 3:1) What the Lord is telling us in Isaiah is that, as there is a time to remember, there is also a time not to: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.”

That doesn’t mean to disrespect or to diminish in any way what has gone on before. No, it means that there are times in our life when we need to make the effort to let go of the past for a bit so that we can look to the future, we can anticipate with hope what is to come, and we can begin to perceive a whole new thing.

For God said to Isaiah and he is saying to us today, both individually and as a parish, “Behold I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19)

I believe the reality is that God is always doing a new thing in our lives, but we get stuck in the past, or in the way things are, or worse, we may think we have all the answers, or even worse, we become like those who Ezekiel calls “The fat and the strong.” The fat – that is us when we fill ourselves with everything but God; and the strong, that is us when we are temporarily in positions of power, and we think we are somehow better or more deserving than other people.

The new thing that God is doing, that God is always doing, is seeking us out, seeking the lost, the injured, and the strayed, and calling us back into relationship with Him.

This is what is so wonderful about the example of our patron saint Peter. Peter is a lost soul. As Jesus told him he would do, he denied him three times, and he goes back to his old life as a fisherman, all his hopes and dreams shattered by the death of Jesus and his own personal failures and humiliations.

But Jesus seeks him out, Jesus comes to him and calls to him from the beach while he’s fishing and he says to Peter “Come and have breakfast.”

In our reading from Ezekiel this morning we heard “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out … I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.” (Ezekiel 34:11, 14)

So God is always searching for us. Jesus, our shepherd is always here and he is always calling to us and issuing an invitation to come to him. “Come and have breakfast” or “Come to me you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will refresh you.”

But the problem is, we have to recognize that we are lost, and injured, and weak, or we never hear him calling. When we think we are okay you know, on top of things and pretty pleased with ourselves, well then that’s being fat and strong, and as God tells Ezekiel, “The fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”

Sounds scary and awful, but necessary. You see, our illusions of superiority have to be destroyed. Then we see we are all of us in the same boat – we’re all a bunch of Peters – screw-ups who are in need of being found, and loved, and fed.

So I think that’s why we have to at times forget the former things, so we can see the new thing that God is doing in our lives right now.

And I think that is where we are at St. Peter’s right now. God is here, and God is already doing a new thing, and our job is, like my daughter Ava, to save some room for the treat that is to come, even if we have no idea what it will look like.

In His Name. Amen.

Good morning. As the summer solstice has come I want to wish you all a joyful and blessed summer. I love the summer and it is a very special thing to be here in Narragansett for the summer.

So I was hoping to give an upbeat and maybe lighter sermon for the beginning of summer, and then early this past week I read this morning’s Gospel lesson in which Jesus tells us, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

And then he goes on to tell us about setting family members against one another, saying “one’s foes will be members of one’s own family.” And as if this weren’t hard enough, Jesus tells us that if we want to follow him we must take up our cross and lose our life in order to find it. So at first, I thought: not my favorite topics for summer: family warfare and crosses and dying …

I count on my 3 year old daughter Ava sometimes for an inspiration, so what does she say? One day this week, while I was driving, little Ava pipes up from the back seat and tells me: “Daddy, I know one thing it’s good not to talk about … dying.” I thought to myself “Oh, great!” of course now we have to talk about dying, and how right here at the center of our spiritual lives is the reality of the cross and of dying.

So this morning I would like to share a few actually happy thoughts about the sword of Christ, the cross of Christ, and about dying …

I love the summer here in R.I. partly because of the long days, the warmth, and the beach and the ocean. But also just because of the wonder of the earth’s renewal and abundance, and the renewal of life here and now.

Our ancient ancestors were also impressed with the cycles of nature and our earliest religions centered on the fertility of the land and the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. And even our major church holidays, Christmas and Easter, come where they do because of the ancient connection with the Winter Solstice and the renewal of the earth in the Spring and Summer.

The reality of dying and the cycle of death and rebirth is part of our very nature. It is an archetypal pattern that embodies a central truth not only of the world of nature, but also of our psychological development, and our spiritual transformation. Our very lives are a series of deaths and rebirths, we are in a continual process of an old identity dying and a new one being born.

The other day my four year old son Rafe showed me a bit of this reality of change, of the stages of our lives and how soon we become aware of them. Rafe said to me: “Last summer was a great summer. It was my best summer.” Then he added, somewhat wistfully: “Last year was a really good year. Being 3 was the best year of all.” And when I asked him, he said being 4 was pretty great so far, but clearly he could feel that his three year old identity and experience was already passing, that he was a new guy at 4. That’s part of our natural cycle of death and rebirth, our natural cycle of change and transformation.

Marcus Borg shares a story he was told about a three-year old girl. He says, “Several years ago I was told a story about a three-year old girl. She was the firstborn and only child in her family, but now her mother was pregnant again, and the little girl was very excited about having a new brother or sister. Within a few hours of the parents bringing a new baby boy home from the hospital, the girl made a request: she wanted to be alone with her new brother in his room with the door shut. Her insistence about being alone with the baby with the door shut made her parents a bit uneasy, but then they remembered that they had installed an intercom system in anticipation of the baby’s arrival, so they realized they could let their daughter do this, and if they heard the slightest indication that anything strange was happening, they could be in the baby’s room in an instant. So they let the little girl go into the baby’s room, shut the door, and raced to the intercom listening station. They heard their daughter’s footsteps moving across the baby’s room, imagined her standing over the baby’s crib, and then they heard her saying to her three-day-old brother, ‘Tell me about God – I’ve almost forgotten.’ ”1

In Zen Buddhism the master will ask his pupil to meditate on the statement: “Show me your face before you were born.” And in the gospel of Thomas Jesus tells the disciples of this inner knowledge we have forgotten. He says: “The kingdom is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.”

I think Jesus came to tell us about this other reality, the reality of the Spirit, the reality of the presence of God at the core of our being and our true (if forgotten) identity as children of light, children of the living presence of God. And he explains over and over that the way to this new reality and new identity is the way of the cross, that is, a process of death and rebirth.

Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He is telling us that our death, like that of the seed, is part of a process of transformation, leading us to a new life.

In the gospel of Mark Jesus tells his followers “If anyone wants to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) Marcus Borg writes that “At the heart of the … wisdom of Jesus was the path of death and resurrection understood as a metaphor for an internal psychological and spiritual process. It involved dying to an old identity and being born into a new way of being. The new identity and new way of being was a life radically centered in God …”2

Jesus is calling us to wake up to the kingdom of God, to the presence of God, and his way to the kingdom is a path of transformation that leads through death and resurrection.

Paul speaks very clearly about his own experience of dying and rising with Christ. He writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:19b-20a) And he tells us “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

So for Jesus and for Paul the dying process was a letting go of an old identity, of truly being changed, becoming a new person. The great German mystic Meister Eckhardt says that this death takes place when we let go of our old self, and abandon ourselves to God. He says then, “God must pour out the whole of himself with all his might totally into everyone who has utterly abandoned himself.”

This death to the old self and the revealing of the new self can happen very suddenly, as it did to the English clergyman Leslie Wheatherhead, who was suddenly filled with the glory of God and who saw that all of us are shining and glorious beings who in the end would enter incredible joy. And as in all true experiences of the divine, his was marked by love … He says “I loved everybody … It sounds silly now, and indeed I blush to write it, but at that moment I think I would have died for any one of the people (on that train car with me).”

I remember the summer before I went to Seminary I worked as a construction laborer lugging steel rods to the steel layers. They were a very seasoned and rough group of guys. One day at the lunch break they were asking me why I or anyone would even think about going to Seminary. So I told them or reminded them of the story of St. Francis of Assisi, of how as a young man Francis was rich and enjoyed wine and women and led a rather wild life. Then one day he saw the other reality, the reality of God’s presence. And Francis gave up everything, he went through a death and rebirth, a spiritual transformation.

So I said to them, look it practically: Francis saw that there was a much greater beauty and joy and peace to be found and he gave up everything for it, and he became for the world from that day to this an example of love not only for all people, but for the whole of creation.

Jesus tells us that it is God’s great pleasure to give us the kingdom and he tells us over and over not to be afraid, because he knows we are destined to be transformed in God’s love. In order to have this experience, though, we must be willing to die small deaths: to allow old parts of ourselves to be sloughed off so that new parts can find air and grow. This happens bit by bit, perhaps even unnoticeably; until one day, we realize that a whole new thing has taken root within.

May prayer is that this might be the best summer of your life and that you might find a new you.

In His Name. Amen.

1 Marcus Borg, Heart of Christianity, pp. 113-114.
2 Marcus Borg, Heart of Christianity, p. 90.

Good morning and Happy Father’s Day.

The other day I was at CVS with my 3 year old daughter Ava and we were waiting in line at the prescription pick-up counter. Ava got bored standing there and so she went over to sit in the waiting area and she sat next to a young woman who was reading a magazine. After a little bit the woman can feel Ava looking at her and they both say hi to each other. Then the woman turns back to her magazine. And I hear Ava say to her, “Did you know that my name is Ava?” And there is no response at all from the young woman, who clearly doesn’t want to be engaged. And Ava looks over to me and goes “I don’t think she hears me.” So I call her over to me so she won’t pester the other woman. What I find amazing and delightful is Ava’s openness to strangers, and her assumption that they are as open and interested in her as she is in them.

This morning I would like to share a few thoughts with you about the strangers at our doors and being open to letting God into our lives. In this morning’s gospel we heard the story of Jesus sending out his first followers in pairs to the houses in the countryside. He gives “them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”

When I read the lesson this week my first thought was how scientists tell us we use only a fraction of our brains, and that there was a parallel with how we use only a fraction of our spiritual gifts. The New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan in his wonderful book on Jesus says that, “The kingdom of God was not, for Jesus, a divine monopoly exclusively bound to his own person … (rather) one entered the kingdom as a way of life and anyone who could live it could bring it to others.”1

Imagine that – living the kingdom as a way of life and brining it to others. Crossan also says that these first missionaries … “were predominantly healed healers, part of whose continuing healing was precisely their empowerment to heal others.”2

So these first apostles are examples to us of the amazing possibilities of our spiritual gifts and depths. Like them, we too are called to be healed, to live the kingdom of God as a way of life, and to be empowered to bring it to others.

But first we need to answer the door. As Jesus continues his instructions to the apostles, he tells them “whatever house you enter say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ And if a child of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not let your peace return to you.” And he says “Heal the sick and say to them, ‘God’s kingdom has come near to you.’ But if you enter a town and they do not receive you, as you leave, shake the dust from your feet and say, ‘Nevertheless, be sure of this, the realm of God has come near you.’ ” (Luke 10:6-11)

The key here is that we are the house that the Lord comes to, whether we understand that collectively as the church, or individually as God comes into our lives.

You know, I find this story of the apostles difficult when I try to imagine people coming to my door. When the doorbell rings unexpectedly at my house, I’m not all that excited like my daughter Ava, who thinks “Oh, who is this interesting person?” I usually think “Uh-oh – who’s this.” And when I go to the door and see two nicely dressed people then I think “Oh no – here are some evangelists.” I admit, I’m immediately suspicious and I think, here are some people who want to tell me what I should think and feel and want … they want my soul. So how were the first apostles different from this?

I think the biggest difference is that they come to bring something to you – if you want it. It’s an offering and not a conversion. And what is this something that they bring? Jesus calls it the peace of the Lord and it is a very real spiritual reality that can rest on people or depart from them. And I think this gift that the apostles received from Jesus and bring to others is twofold: it is an immediate and real experience of the Spirit, of the presence of God. And in this experience of the reality of the presence of God, we are healed and made whole.

Who among us would not feel patronized, annoyed, and even offended, by the experience of someone coming to our door and saying, “I have the answer! I’m here to save you!” But who among us would not welcome with all our hearts an authentic experience of the Spirit – of being touched and known and transformed in a very direct and personal way by God or by one of his emissaries.

This truth is that God is always coming into our lives. God may speak to us in a still small voice, or in dreams, or in other people, or even in the events of our lives.

There is an inner door of our heart or of our soul that we keep closed tight most of the time because it is the door to our most intimate, most real self, and we are afraid to open it. And it is at this door of our house, of ourselves, that Jesus stands and knocks. As he says to us in the Book of Revelation: “Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20)

So our job is to inwardly open the door of our hearts and let the Lord in, so that we may be healed by his love and filled with his peace and his joy. And our job is to open our outer doors, the doors of our houses and of our churches and welcome the stranger who stands there.

Paul says in his letter to the Hebrews, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Paul is making an allusion to the story of Abraham that we heard this morning, about how “The Lord appeared to Abraham … as he sat at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing there.” And then Abraham gives us an example of hospitality as he invites the strangers to rest and refresh themselves while a meal is prepared for them. And as the visit continues it becomes clear that these three strangers are angels, that is, messengers of the Lord. And they foretell that Sarah, who is barren, will give birth to a child. And here comes one of my favorite parts: When Sarah hears this, she laughs at God. Now, one might imagine that she laughs because she can’t bear the thought of having a baby in her 90’s – but more probably she laughs because it is so hard to believe in the reality of God and that He can come into our lives and transform it.

So Paul tells us to show hospitality to strangers because we might be entertaining angels in disguise. But as I have shared with you before, I think Jesus’ teaching here is much more radical, in that he affirms the reality of the sacredness of each person, including you and me. It is not that we might be entertaining angels without knowing it, it is that each person, each stranger who comes through our doors is sacred, is an angel of God, is a messenger of God, whether they know it or not, and whether we know it or not.

Jesus is very clear on this when he says, “Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-40)

So it’s not that you want to be careful because someone might be an angel in disguise, but rather that we all are, and until we really take that in we are missing what he is revealing to us.

When we answer the door, whether it is the door of our heart, or the door of our house, or the door of our churches, and we let God come into our lives, we begin to realize not only our own sacredness, but the sacredness of each person. And then we begin to live in the Kingdom.

In His Name. Amen.

1 John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 113.
2 Ibid, p. 109.

Good morning. It’s good to see you all this morning, and a pleasure to be here with you. In this morning’s lessons, beginning with the story of Abraham and continuing with the call of Matthew and the healing of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, and the healing and raising of the daughter of the leader of the Synagogue, we see examples of faith and the response of the faithful to the call and presence of God.

At one point this past week I thought about Jesus’ call of Matthew, how Jesus simply said to him “Follow me.” And Matthew immediately got up and followed him. I took it for a minute on a very personal level and was a bit envious. After raising seven children I should know better, but I often fall back into the desire to have my children actually listen to me and do what I say immediately. I think most parents wish for or fantasize about this, but most realize how unrealistic it is. And I think it is more often we men who are foolish enough to expect it. You know, we want to be in control.

So as I meditated and reflected on this story of Jesus and Matthew I was very aware of how my children responded to me when I told them at different times to come to me. First, my 11 year old son Gabriel wanted to know the reasons why and then discuss the merits of why he should listen to me or not. Then another time when I repeatedly called out to my four-year-old son Rafe, he simply ignored me completely, as if I didn’t even exist. And then later, when I called my three-year-old daughter Ava, she kind of screwed up her little face in a scowl and said, “No, Nev-er!”

These experiences led me to two thoughts. First, that faith as trust in God is about learning that we aren’t always in control, and here I was trying to be in control, like a minion king or tyrant. And secondly, that faith and our response to the divine is not a simple thing, but as complex and multi-layered as life itself.

In our Old Testament lesson from the book of Genesis the Lord says to Abraham “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great …” And we are told that even though Abraham was 75 years old, he did what the Lord said and uprooted his whole family and began the difficult journey to a new land and a new life. And because he had the courage and the faith in God to take this journey with God, now thousands of years later he is revered and looked to as an example of faith by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

And of course, Abraham’s journey wasn’t an easy one. I mean, if God told me to take my family to Nevada and start a new life it would seem pretty overwhelming to me, even if I flew there or went by car. But Abraham and his family had to walk or go by donkey. So while I don’t question Abraham’s faith, I do imagine that the reality was much more complex and that he and Sarah had many times of uncertainty and doubt.

And so too with Matthew, the tax collector. Jesus says “Follow me” and immediately he gets up and leaves everything to follow him. First, this is an act of blind faith and trust, but imagine what it was like later as he tried to explain it to his wife and family.

And that’s one thing I love about the Exodus story. God, through Moses, calls the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and leads them into the wilderness, and as soon as they get into the wilderness the Israelites begin to doubt and to complain. That’s real life and that’s what our faith journey, our walking with God, is most often really like.

I remember once talking with a young woman who had had breast cancer. She said when she was first diagnosed with cancer all the literature told her to be upbeat and believe she would vanquish the cancer. And so too her friends would tell her to have courage and confidence and to keep a positive attitude and that she could beat it. But she had none of that – she was terrified. And she said all the time she went through treatment she totally doubted that she would make it, and she worried and complained all the time. And I’m happy to say she survived.

So you see, faith on one level may be a very simple thing, but it is also a process and a multi-faceted and multi-layered journey together with God. For faith is like grace, in that it is a gift, it is something that just comes – we don’t earn it or deserve it or accomplish it.

You can invite faith, you can ask God for it, but there is no formula to produce faith. It is an open-ended process, not a recipe. It is an exploration together with God. To even begin we need to trust that it’s worth the effort and the struggle and the difficulties and the doubts as we try to discern God’s presence in our lives.

But there is also great hope for us in our gospel stories this morning. Jesus makes it very clear that he didn’t come for those who already have all the answers. No, he came for the sick, and the outcasts, the sinners, and those who were considered unclean and unworthy. At many times in our lives, at many times even each day, we may fall short, or be a mess, or lack faith – but that’s what it’s like to be human, and Jesus comes to us in our humanness, and in our messes, and in the realities of our lives.

First Jesus comes to Matthew and calls him to follow him. Now as a tax collector, Matthew was looked upon as a traitor and was despised. And Jesus not only calls him but he eats with him and other sinners. He makes it clear in his actions that by inviting outcasts and sinners to his table he is offering to them God’s healing grace and love.

And then there are the women in today’s story who are considered unclean and ritually impure. This may not seem relevant in our day and age, but we do have our impure, whether it’s those who are sick in certain ways or those whose customs are different from ours. And sometimes people are made to feel unclean by others’ attitudes towards them or by early childhood experiences. Just the other day I had a very minor version of this with my 3-yr-old daughter Ava.

You may remember Wednesday was a rainy day and in the afternoon Rafe and Ava went out to play after the rain stopped. When I came out I saw Ava running around in her socks and I said to her angrily “Ava, what are you doing?” (I know, that’s not a good response, but I had lost it a little bit.) Well Ava looked very guilty and stricken, and then I saw her little sneakers, almost brand new, completely covered with a pile of slimy mud. And of course I say “Ava why did you do this?” And Ava starts to cry hysterically and with arms out she wails “I don’t know why I did it.” Well thankfully, that brought me to my senses and I said to her “Ava I know why you did it, you wanted to make a mud pie with your sneakers.” Ava in the midst of her sobs she said “Yes, I did!” And so I held her for a while and told her it was all right until her sobs and tears gradually stopped. And of course I felt upset that I had made her feel so badly about doing a normal 3-yr-old thing.

The next day I was reassured that I hadn’t done any lasting damage when Ava came inside after digging for treasure in the yard. She was covered with dirt and she very proudly announced, “I am the dirtiest girl in the whole world.”

Fortunately this time I knew to respond with love and delight. And this is how Jesus responds to us. In his eyes none of us are unclean or unworthy, even if all of us in some secret part of ourselves feel that. The gift of faith and our awareness of our journey with God begins with the acceptance that we are loved by God and that we are worthy of love. This in itself, as the first movement of faith, is plenty.

In His Name. Amen.

Good morning. It’s very good to see you this morning and to share the joy of the Sabbath together. Last week when I saw the new lights in the church and how they revealed the church in a new way I thought of last week’s epistle, where Paul says to the Corinthians “It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.” (1 Cor 4:3-5)

And in this morning’s gospel lesson the theme of judgment is continued and we hear these difficult words: Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Imagine meeting Jesus and hearing this: “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” And in our epistle reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we hear Paul’s formulation that we are justified by grace through faith.

So this morning I would like to share a few thoughts with you about coming into God’s presence, about judgment, and about how we are justified by faith. I think the first question these readings raise is how do we see or understand the nature of God, what is our image of God?

Do you see God primarily as a lawgiver and a judge. A God of requirements and rewards. As a God who will judge us when we die and consign us to heaven or hell? This is the image of God that has predominated for many years in the church and the one that most of us have grown up with. This image of God has shaped our ideas of faith and how we live a Christian life. It means that we must strive to be good enough, to be worthy enough, and to have the right faith, that is, to believe the right things about Jesus, or else we will hear him say “Depart from me, you evildoers.”

There is another way of seeing and imaging God, that is, as a God of love and justice. As God speaks to us in Isaiah, saying, “I have created you. I have called you by name. You are precious in my sight and I love you.” And as Jesus shows us and tells us over and over, that God is a God of love who has called us into relationship. This is perhaps most vividly portrayed in Jesus’ teaching on the prodigal son, in which he tells us that as soon as we turn to God that God comes running to meet us, to embrace and kiss us and to celebrate our return with great joy. The New Testament scholar and theologian Marcus Borg speaks of the implications of this way of seeing God. He writes,

“Taking the God of love and justice and of grace seriously has immediate implications for the Christian message. It becomes: God loves us already and has from the beginning. The Christian life is not about believing or doing what we need to believe or do so that we can be saved. Rather, it’s about seeing what is already true – that God loves us already – and then beginning to live in this relationship. It is about becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening of our relationship with God.”1

If, as I believe, Jesus is calling us into relationship with a loving God that we might be transformed, healed, and made new in his love, then what are we to make of today’s gospel?

Most New Testament scholars see this teaching from Matthew’s gospel as not coming from Jesus, but rather reflecting a situation in the Christian community long after Jesus’ day, “When the Christian prophets and miracle workers were being accused of subverting the Mosaic law.”2 Such controversies were not unusual in the early church communities, as can be seen by the conflict between Peter and Paul over the issues of eating kosher foods and circumcision. They reflect “Matthews resolve to keep the Christian movement within the bounds of Mosaic law.”3 In short, these words don’t reflect Jesus’ teachings but rather one perspective present within the early church.

If then God is a God of love and justice, then what does it mean, as Paul teaches, that we are justified by grace through faith? To be justified by God means to be brought into a right relationship to God. And to be justified by faith has often been understood to mean that if I believe that Jesus is Lord and I believe the right teachings of the church or belong to the right church then I will be saved. Of course that leaves the rest of us who don’t believe the right things in a bad situation.

However, “faith” doesn’t simply mean belief and Paul here is talking about the reality of the possibility of a new life in relationship to the divine. Marcus Borg in his wonderful book “The Heart of Christianity” tells us that in the history of Christianity, faith has had four primary meanings.4 The first meaning is to believe in God, but not in the sense of believing something to be true, but in the ancient sense of “I give my heart to,” I belove something. To believe then means to love.

The second meaning of faith is faith as trust, as a radical trust in God. It is the opposite of anxiety or worry. This is the meaning of faith that I talked about last week when we considered Jesus’ teaching about not to worry or not to be anxious, but to seek first God’s presence. Jesus calls us into a relationship of radical trust in God that can transform our lives and free us from the burden of being like Martha, “anxious and worried about so many things.”

Thirdly, faith means fidelity, that is faithfulness. This is faith as commitment in the core of our being to God. It means centering our heart and life in God. It is reflected in the commandment to love God with all our heart and mind and soul, and with all our strength.

The fourth meaning of faith has to do with our vision of the world and our ability to see God’s grace, to see the goodness of creation and to be able to rejoice and be glad in it. This sense of faith grows out of our trust in God.

The Frappist monk Thomas Merton gave expression to this aspect of faith when he said: “Life is simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows himself everywhere, in everything – in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It’s impossible.”5

Thus faith is not primarily a matter of the head and believing the right things, but it is a matter of the heart and opening ourselves to the grace of God and the presence of God. Paul tells us that God’s spirit is a grace, that is, it is a free gift, and that, like the air we breathe, it is always available to anyone and all we have to do is accept it and co-operate with it.

When we open our hearts and souls to the free gift of God’s presence, we sometimes suddenly, or more often slowly over time, are justified by God. This justification means being made right with God, being healed, being made whole. Justification by grace through faith is the receiving of the free gift of God’s presence and being transformed by his love.

Paul speaks of this amazing transformation that we are called to when he says, “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

And he says: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” (2 Cor. 4:16, 5:17)

Jesus is calling us into a relationship with God, a relationship with the Spirit of love at the very core of the universe. And in that relationship we will be transformed, we will be set free from our exile and come home to ourselves, to one another, and to God. And when we come into the presence of the Lord, either in this life or in our death, he will not say “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

No, he will say “Come unto me all you who are burdened and are heavy laden and I will refresh your soul and I will fill you with my peace, my joy, and my love.” And there will be great rejoicing in the kingdom of God.

In His Name. Amen.

1 Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, p. 77.
2 The Five Gospels, p. 158.
3 Ibid, p. 158.
4 Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, p. 28-41.
5 Quoted in Borg, p. 155.

The other day I moved around some furniture in the living room and the new configuration produced a natural hiding place between the couch and a chair that was just the right size for a little person. My four year old son Rafe immediately saw the possibilities and he began gathering his favorite toys and different found objects and hiding them in this special space. And when I asked him what he was doing he said, “I’m hiding my treasure and don’t tell Ava where it is.”

I think one of the great things about childhood, one of the real joys of childhood, is that as children we intuitively know that there is a hidden treasure and that it is all around us. Sometimes Rafe and Ava will discover this treasure in a special stone or a bottle cap, or it could be found almost anyplace.

Jesus speaks of the hidden treasure that is all around us when he compares the kingdom of God to a farmer working in a field who uncovers a pearl of great price and he sells everything he has to obtain this pearl. And in our gospel lesson this morning Jesus is again trying to tell us about real riches and about hidden treasure, and how we find our true heart’s desire.

First of all, Jesus speaks to us very directly. He says, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one or love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Well, that certainly makes sense, even though we don’t usually see ourselves as slaves or servants. But then Jesus is even more direct, more explicit. “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

This is pretty straight forward and we’ve all heard this teaching before: “You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve God and money.” You don’t have to be like the rich young man who came to Jesus seeking the kingdom to be disturbed by this. You will remember when he told Jesus that he followed a very religious life that Jesus then said to him “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then follow me.” The young man went away very sad because he could not make that choice. And Jesus then said to the crowd: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

“No one can serve two masters.” But you know, most of us still think that we can. We think that we can manage to put wealth first and still seek God. And then Jesus continues with his teaching; he says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, or about your body what you shall wear. Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

“Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life.” Well, in fact, all of us worry about our life, and about those we love, and if we have enough energy left we worry about the people in China after that terrible earthquake, and we worry about those in Myramar and their suffering. Or if we keep our focus closer to home we all do worry about money, about the cost of gasoline, the rising cost of food, and we worry if we will have enough, or if we are fortunate enough to have what we need for right now then we worry about how long it will last and will we have enough in the future.

So if you are like most of us and you do think you can serve two masters, and you do worry about all manner of things, well, then I would say it’s okay. Don’t worry, it’s part of our human condition.

You all know the story of the two sisters Mary and Martha, and how when Jesus came to their house to eat Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and had attention only for him, while Martha ran around and did all the work until she finally got fed up and complained to Jesus. Now Martha represents all of us, she represents the human condition we all find ourselves in – overwhelmed and anxious and troubled by so many things.

But Jesus doesn’t criticize Martha. No, Jesus sees Martha’s difficulty and in his tenderness and his love for her he wants to give her the kingdom. He calls her by name, saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about so many things…”

Martha, Martha – Jesus calls her by name twice – he’s trying to reach through to her – he doesn’t criticize her, he sees her and tells her the condition of her soul – like us, she is “anxious and troubled by so many things.” Then Jesus tells Martha – there is a way out – and only one thing is needful.

So you see, it’s okay that we try to serve two masters, and it’s okay that like Martha we are worried and anxious about so many things. That’s simply where we are, where we start from; the key thing is that Jesus wants to show us the way out.

The New Testament scholar Marcus Borg, in trying to describe what we can know about the historical Jesus, says that first and foremost he was a Spirit person, that is, someone who had an immediate experience of the presence of the divine, and he could mediate this experience to others.

What Jesus tells us and shows us is that in addition to our ordinary reality, there is all around us and within us another reality, the reality of the Spirit, and the presence of God. All of the Bible, both old testament and new, is filled with stories of Spirit people, of those who experienced that other reality, Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai. Or Elijah also on a mountaintop, experiencing God in the still small voice. Or in the beginning of the book of Ezekiel we read, “In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw a vision of God.” (Ezek. 1:1) Or Paul, who was on the road to Damascus when the Risen Lord appeared to him in the glory of the divine light.

And Jesus’ own ministry began with just such an experience of the Spirit. We are told that after his baptism by John in the river Jordon the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven said “You are my beloved Son: with you I am well pleased.” And in Luke when Jesus begins his ministry, he says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And this brings us back to today’s gospel lesson. I think Jesus is trying to show us the way to this other reality.

Very simply he tells us we can’t serve two masters, we can’t serve God and money. We must make a choice. In one of my favorite passages of scripture Jesus tells us: “Fear not little flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” God wants to give us the kingdom. God wants us to have the hidden treasure that is all around us, that we might be filled with his joy and his love. This is not something we have to earn by being good, but it is something we have to choose.

Simply put, Jesus is telling us we need to put God first. When he tells us not to worry – he also tells us “That God knows we need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

At the center of Jesus’ life was a profound and continuous relationship to the Spirit of God, and he’s calling us to participate in that reality with him. Seek God first and all the rest will follow. When he teaches us to pray Jesus tells us with assurance, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

So how do we begin? Last week I talked about keeping the Sabbath and I would suggest that one way to begin is to keep a little Sabbath time each day, that is, give a little time each day simply for prayer, for quiet, time to be alone with God.

Paul calls us, “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” and he tells us to clothe ourselves with compassion and kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. And “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

So as I’ve suggested before, when you wake up in the morning and all your concerns and worries and anxieties come back upon you, then take a few minutes and put yourself in the presence of God and imagine clothing yourself in God’s love, and let God be your master, and let him hold all your worries, if even for just a few minutes.

And slowly over time you will come to see and to know another reality, the deeper reality of the Spirit. And you will discover the true treasure that is all around us and that Jesus wants to give us, so that his joy may be in us and our joy might be full.

In His Name. Amen.

The other day I was at a church meeting and we were asked to break into small groups and introduce ourselves and tell what we did for ministry in the church, and also what we did for fun. I was sitting between two mothers, who not only had children at home, but also had jobs, and who were very involved in work at their church and various forms of ministry. They made me feel like a slacker. But when they were asked what they did for fun both of them confessed that they didn’t have time for fun – they were just too busy!

Another day this week I was driving 4 year old Rafe and 3 year old Ava to daycare. On this morning we were talking about the different seasons of the year and the coming of summer. And this is particularly fun, because they are so young they only remember last summer a little and so it’s almost brand new. So we all got excited together and I said to them: “Soon it will be summer and we can all go to the beach and play in the sand and go swimming.” And they both cheer, yelling, “Yeah!”

And I said “And we’ll have grilled cheese and French fries from the snack bar.” And they both go “Yeah!!” And I say: “On the way home what will we do?” And they say “We’ll stop for ice cream, Yeah!!” As you all know, one of the great, wonderful things about having little children around is that they remind us how very, very important it is to take the time to have fun.

So this morning I would like to share a few thoughts with you about the coming of summer and the need we all have, young and old, to slow down and have fun together; and also how we keep God’s commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

The two women who had no time for fun are like all of us in the present time. All of our lives have become so full that the one refrain we hear over and over again is “I’m so busy.” And I think it is particularly difficult for women. In many respects, on a practical level women’s liberation has also meant a deeper enslavement. Many women not only have children to raise and families to take care of – and anyone who has done that knows it’s a bigger and more demanding job than anything men do at work. But that’s just part of it for the modern mother who also works part-time and more often full-time, and then gives of herself to church or schools or whatever. And that’s not to say that many men don’t also do way too much – it is part of our times.

You know, I remember when I was first ordained to the Priesthood. I woke up the next morning and was feeling pretty good, and probably a little full of myself, and then I ran into my twin brother Russell. When he saw me he made the sign of the cross and with a big smile he said, “Congratulations – you’ve found the one job that’s right for you, because you only have to work one day a week.”

Well these days, even clergy work too much, and we forget, as we all forget, to observe the basic rhythms of life and to leave room for quiet, for silence, for rest, and for fun.

In our lesson this morning from Genesis we heard how God created the world in 6 days, “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.”

In Ecclesiastes we hear: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Eccl. 3:1) This is what in today’s world it is so easy to lose sight of – the need for balance, the need to stop and just be, the need to be quiet so that we can listen to the still small voice inside. The need to have time for holiness. And this is modeled for us not only in the creation story, but we see it also in Jesus’ life. Now Jesus certainly had a very full, active life, going all over the countryside preaching the kingdom of God, teaching the people, eating with all kinds of people, healing the sick and casting out demons. And wherever he went, hundreds and thousands of people showed up and wanted something from him. But Jesus was also always taking time to stop, to go off by himself for times of quiet and rest, and for times of prayer.

In the Gospel of Matthew it says: “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.” (Matthew 14:23) And in Luke we read: “But so much the more the report went abroad concerning him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. But he withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.” (Luke 5:15-16) And Mark tells us: “That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered together about the door … And in the morning, a great while before the day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:32-33) Jesus models for us the need to stop doing, stop achieving, to stop working. Being too busy is a crime against ourselves, against those we love and against God.

I remember a few years ago a woman who came to see me who had a tremendous amount of energy. She too was a wife and mother and had a full-time job, and she even found time for her hobbies and fun – she played tennis and kayaked and many other things. When I suggested she needed to stop occasionally and just be with herself, she admitted to me that she couldn’t do that because she was afraid if she did stop all she would feel was an emptiness inside and she couldn’t face that. She gave expression to a fear many people have – that if they slowed down and tried to listen to the still small voice, they would hear nothing and have to confront a howling wilderness inside.

In the creation story we heard this morning, after each day of creation we heard “And God saw that it was good.” And at the end of the 6th day just before God rested, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” This is the source of our optimism, if we can only trust in it – that despite all the difficulties, and pain and suffering, underneath it all creation is good, life is good.

One of my earliest memories was when I was about four years old. I remember it was early in the morning and I was standing at my bedroom window. It was a beautiful, sunny spring morning and I could feel the warmth through the window screen. I don’t know the words I thought, but I clearly remember the feeling, which was that life was good, life was sacred, and I wondered what I would do with the whole wonderful day that lay before me. I realized when I got older that that awareness of the goodness of life was a grace and the gift of the Spirit.

What God wants for us, is that we take the time to rest, to be quiet, to be happy. In the 23rd Psalm we hear “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” And Jesus invites us, “Come unto me and all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

He invites us saying “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.” He tells us “I am with you always, I will never leave you.” And that the kingdom of God is within us and among us right now, this very moment. When we take the time to rest we can feel him and we can remember who we are – God’s beloved children and the light of the world.

I live on the East Side of Providence near the Pawtucket border and there must be three or four synagogues nearby, and on Saturday morning it is a common sight to see Jewish families – and often all three generations, grandparents, parents, and children – walking to temple together. It always gives me a warm feeling and I often think of the words of the psalmist: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

For most of us, it is so hard to stop – even on the day the Lord called the Sabbath. But if we don’t, we’re never going to truly know God – we’re certainly going to miss a lot of fun.

In His Name. Amen.

This morning we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, when the disciples received the Spirit of God, and when one could say that the church was born. So today is an appropriate time to think about the Spirit of God in our lives. And I would like to share a few thoughts with you about birthday wishes and birthday gifts.

Some years ago I had a dream that I was walking through a beautiful woods and I came upon a circular pool of water that was over grown with vines. And as I pulled the vines away what was uncovered was an ancient stone-lined well, and in the dream I realized that this was a sacred well and a place where dreams and wishes came true.

I was reminded of this dream when I was on vacation last week. On our last night in Florida we stayed at a hotel right near the airport because we had an early morning flight. And in the hotel lobby was a large fountain and a wishing well and all three of my children – Gabe who is 11, and Rafe who is 4 and Ava who is now 3 – all wanted to make a wish and throw in a coin. Imagine for a minute that you are there at a special, a sacred wishing well. What would you wish for??

My son Gabriel went first and he wouldn’t say his wish out loud because he felt it wouldn’t come true if he told it. Next it was Rafe’s turn and he really thought about it for a minute or two and after he threw his coin in he said very shyly “I wished I would be strong and cool.” And then Ava threw hers in without any hesitation and said “I wish to be magic.”

Now wishes are a very special thing and I would say wishes are sacred. A wish is like a breath of wind or like the breath of the Spirit over the water in Genesis that brings a new thing, a new reality into being. A wish is a desire, a hope, and a movement of the Spirit.

We wish on the first star of the evening and we make a wish on our birthday when the cake arrives with all the candles and we give expression to the wish when we blow out the candles – another movement of breath or the Spirit.

In today’s story from the Acts of the Apostles, the first disciples receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, with a rush of wind, and tongues of fire appeared among them and a tongue of fire rested on each one of them. It was as if in keeping with our birthday theme, they each became a birthday candle, filled with the light of God. And in our Gospel lesson this morning John describes the disciples receiving the Spirit when Jesus breathed on them and said “Receive the Spirit.”

So today, Pentecost, is the day we celebrate the receiving of the Spirit, and with that we receive a special gift of the Spirit. So today is a time to ask ourselves where is the Spirit in our lives today, and what is our special gift from the Spirit?

Paul tells us there is one Spirit, but a variety of gifts and to each of us is given a gift of the Spirit for the common good. This morning I will ask the children of our parish to consider what is or what are the gifts of the spirit that they have been given. This is not an easy question to answer and indeed, it is one that we work to answer our whole lives.

You know, when Rafe told me he wished to be strong and cool and Ava told me she wished to be magic, what I first thought is that they don’t realize it, but they already are those things – their wishes have been granted, they just don’t know it yet. And I suspect the same is true of your deepest wishes and desires.

And what I wish our children to know and for each of us to know is the special gift of the Spirit that they have been given. For the secret gift of the Spirit is this: that each of you is a gift of God. You, each of you, is God’s gift to the world. Each of you is a special, unique expression of the Spirit. There is only one you.

Today is Mother’s Day, and this every mother knows: that their child is a special and a unique and a precious gift of God. That special, ancient sacred well that I dreamt about is something that exists within each one of us. It is the special place in our soul where God’s spirit comes forth and brings our deepest wishes into reality. When Jesus spoke of the Spirit that we would receive he said “out of your heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

So how do we receive and come to know this unique gift of the Spirit that we each have been given? It’s very simple, yet difficult. Our job, our task, is just to get to know ourselves, to become really good friends with ourselves; to regard ourselves with great curiosity and gentleness, not with judgment and harshness.

We all have within us a voice of conscience that tells us when we have done something wrong or are behaving badly, and over time we learn to hear and listen to that voice of truth and guidance. But everyone also has a negative voice inside, and this negative voice is an awful thing – it is always judging us, enticing us, and telling us in some way or another that we aren’t good enough, or thin enough or strong enough or cool enough. It is a terrible voice that seeks to rob us of the gift of who we are. It is the opposite of God’s voice – for God says to us, “I have created you. I have called you by name. You are precious in my sight and I love you.”

Our job is to learn to listen to the voice of God, the voice of love, and with gentleness, and curiosity, and kindness get to know ourselves and make friends with ourselves, and learn to delight in ourselves. For it is who we are, each one of us, that is the gift of the Spirit, and it is who we are that is God’s gift to the world.

I would like to share with you a poem from the Sufi Saint Hafij, which captures this sense that God has a great gift to give us. It’s entitled “You’re It.”

God
Disguised
As a myriad things and
Playing a game
Of tag
Has kissed you and said,
“You’re it – 
I mean, you’re Really IT!”
Now
It does not matter
What you believe or feel
For something wonderful,
Major-league Wonderful
Is someday going
To
Happen.

My prayer for you is that someday soon you will feel God tag you and know you’re Really IT!

The other day our whole family went food shopping and so we drove in my wife’s SUV. As we pulled into a parking spot there was a car just like hers, same color and everything right next to us. What was special about this car though was that there was a little Chihuahua in the front seat. We all stopped to look at the dog and especially my 3 year old daughter Ava, who I was holding in my arms. She especially likes little dogs and so she was very excited to see this Chihuahua all alone in the car. We all stood there looking for a few minutes and then I could hear Ava saying very softly to herself: “It could be Mommy’s car … It could be my doggie.” And as she said it I could feel her reality beginning to change … “It could be Mommy’s car. It could be my doggie …” It was as if she wanted it badly enough and believed it strongly enough it could happen. “It could be.”

Most of you have probably read or at least have heard about the Harry Potter books. The story starts as Harry is approaching his 11th birthday and he finds to his great surprise and delight that he is a wizard and that, in addition to our ordinary reality, there is a whole other magical reality, and that the two co-exist.

I think part of the immense popularity of the books was this sense of a magical reality all around us. After I saw the movie based on the first book I dreamt that I had a magical broom like Harry had and that I was learning how to fly. When I woke up it was with the wonderful feeling that there is magic in the world. Like with Ava, it seemed like “It could be …”

In our lesson this morning from the Acts of the Apostles Paul is telling the Athenians that God is closer to them than they think, that “indeed he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.”

What Paul is telling them and telling us is that in addition to what seems to be our ordinary reality, there is all around us a whole other reality, a spiritual reality – a reality of the Presence of God in which we live and move and have our being.

Jesus’ whole ministry centered on the proclaiming of a new reality, of an alternative reality – the presence of the kingdom of God. And in our Gospel lesson from the Gospel of John, Jesus continues his farewell discourse to the disciples. And he is telling us of the presence of a spiritual reality which he first identifies as the Advocate, the spirit of truth that will abide in us and be with us forever.

And then Jesus tells us the core truth of our spiritual reality. He says, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Jesus lives within each one of us and the divine presence dwells among us. This is what Jesus came to tell us, to show us and to give us: “his joy may be in us and our joy be full.” As Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.” (Logion 70)

So if this spiritual reality of the presence of God is within us and all around us, just like the magical world of Harry Potter, how do we access it, how do we come to know it?

Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and “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.” (John 14:15, 21)

“If you love me” – this sounds conditional, it sounds as if Jesus will only come to us if we love him. But he tells us over and over that God’s love for us is unconditional, that he is going to love us no matter what, that he will never leave us.

I think what Jesus is telling us is that God does love us no matter what, but that we won’t be able to feel it or experience it unless we learn to open our hearts and souls to love. That love is the portal, the doorway, to the experience of the spiritual reality that is all around us and within us. This is what Jesus is telling us when he says “I am the way, the truth and the life,” or when he says “I am the door.”

This is the doorway that the commandments on love open to us. A bit later in the Gospel of John Jesus says, “If a person loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)

This is the very simple, accessible, straightforward recipe for finding God: to love God; to live in God’s love by keeping his commandments; to love one another. And if we follow this path of obedience to love, then we become aware that god’s presence has made its home in us and with us. Our job is to love and to obey the commandment and the demands of love.

On a daily and practical level, this means to locate where love is in each of our interactions with people … for wherever love infuses or touches our interaction with people, that is a portal for God to come through. This is how we find God and how we open the door of our hearts for God to find us … but somehow we can’t quite believe that it is that simple.

In his first letter John says, “God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him … and also, that if we love one another God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:16, 12) What a remarkable thing … that the living center of the whole universe is love, and that we are called to participate in this love … and not only in some pristine state of prayer, but it’s okay to be expressed human to human – and it is not only okay, but that is what we are commanded to do: this is my commandment, that you love one another.

And what a glorious calling it is – for not only are we to love one another, but on this path of love, God abides in us; the divine makes its home in us, and it is in us that his love is perfected. But so often our love is flawed and our ability to love is flawed and over and over again we fall down and fail. But that’s all right.

We, learning to love one another, are a bit like babies … I remember watching Ava and Rafe when they were one year old trying to do things like feed themselves. They would almost constantly fail, but in the midst of all those failures and all their frustration they were constantly growing and learning and changing at an incredible rate … and our learning to love and to grow in love is a lot like that; and our constant failures and frustrations are part of the process by which we are transformed, and we learn to grow in love even when we can hardly recognize that it is happening.

So this morning I would invite you to imagine and to feel the reality of the spiritual presence which is all around us. Like my three year old daughter Ava, imagine “It could be … that God is right here within me. It could be … It could be.”

In His Name. Amen.