Pentecost

 

June 8, 2025

 Acts 2.1-21

 

+ This past week Deacon Suzanne and I met to discuss a few things, and our conversation turned to theology.

 

We discussed some interesting things regarding the nature of God, the Trinity.

 

And the Holy Spirit.

 

It’s interesting to talk to someone else about these things, because it helps put a needed perspective on one’s own views and beliefs.

 

The Holy Spirit does not usually get a whole lot of conversation.

 

But today, it’s all about the Holy Spirit.

 

As it should. 

 

Yes, we are of course celebrating Pentecost today.

 

It’s a very important day in the life of the Church.

 

Today is essentially the “birthday” of the Church.

 

But, in Judaism, the feast of Shavuot was just celebrated last week.

 

Shavuot is a wonderful and important Jewish feast.

 

It is now 50 days since Passover.

 

The word Shavuot is Hebrew for “weeks.”

 

The belief is that, after fifty days of traveling after leaving Egypt, the nation of Israel now has finally arrived at Mount Sinai.

 

And on Shavuot, the Torah, the “Law,” the 10 Commandments were delivered to them by Moses.

 

So, in a very real sense, this is an important day not just for Judaism, but for us as well.

The Torah, the 10 Commandments, are important to us too.

 

Our feast of Pentecost is very similar in many ways. 

 

It now 50 days after Easter.

 

The word “Pentecost” refers to the Greek word for 50.

 

And it’s connection with Shavuot is pretty clear.

 

Shavuot is this  feast on which the early Jews offered to God the first fruits of their harvests.

 

And that is particularly meaningful to us Christians and what we celebrate on this day of Pentecost.

 

It is meaningful that the Holy Spirit came among us on the feast of Shavuot in which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

After all, those first Christians who gathered in that upper room in our reading this morning from Acts, were truly the first fruits of the Church.

 

And let’s not forget that those first Christians were also Jews, gathering to celebrate the festival of Shavuot.

 

God chose to send the Spirit on those first followers of Jesus on just the right day.

 

Still, like nuclear power or electricity, God’s Spirit is sometimes a hard thing for us to grasp and understand. 

 

The Spirit can be elusive and strange and sometimes we might have a hard time wrapping our minds around the Spirit.

 

 In a sense what happens with the Descent of God’s Spirit upon us is the fact that we now have the potential to be prophets ourselves.

 

The same Spirit which spoke to Ezekiel in our reading this morning, which spoke to Isaiah, which spoke to Jeremiah, which spoke to Moses, which spoke through Jesus, also can now speak to us and be revealed to us just as it spoke and was revealed to those prophets from the Hebrew scriptures and through Jesus.

 

That is who the Spirit is in our midst.

 

The Spirit we celebrate today—and hopefully every day—and in our lives is truly the spirit of the God that came to us and continues to be with us.

 

It is through this Spirit that we come to know God in ways we might never have before.

 

God’s Spirit comes to us wherever we may be in our lives—in any situation or frustration.

 

God’s Spirit is with us, as Jesus promised, always.

 

Always.

 

For those of us who want to grasp these experiences—who want to have proof of them—the Spirit doesn’t fit well into the plan.

 

We can’t grasp the Spirit.

 

We can’t make the Spirit do what we want it to do.

 

In that way, the Spirit truly is like the Wind that came rushing upon those first disciples.

 

So, how do we know how the Spirit is working in our lives?

 

Well, as Jesus said, we know the tree by its fruit.

 

In our case, we know the Spirit best through the fruits God’s Spirit gives us.

 

Remember what the feast of Pentecost originally was?

 

It was the Jewish feast on which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

On the feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fruits the Spirit of God gives to us and we can be thankful for them, and, most importantly, share them in turn with those around us.

 

The Spirit comes to us and manifests itself to us in the fruits given to us by the Spirit.

 

We often hear about Pentecostals—those Christians who have been born (or baptized) in the Spirit.

 

They are the ones who speak in tongues and prophesy and have words of knowledge or raise their hands in joyful praise—all those things we good Episcopalians find a bit disconcerting.

 

These Pentecostals—as strange as we might find these practices—really do have a lot to teach the rest of us Christians about the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

I remember the first time I ever attended a Pentecostal church.

 

Rather than being attracted to that way of worship, I was actually turned off.

 

Partly my reason for doing so, is that by that time in my life I had, in fact experienced the Spirit very profoundly in my life.

 

For me, the Spirit of God came to me not in a noisy, raucous way, but rather in a quiet, though just as intense, way.

 

The Sprit of God as I have experienced it has never been a “raining down” so to speak, but rather a “welling up from within.”

 

The fruits of the Spirit for me have been things such as an overwhelming joy in my life.

 

When the Spirit is near, I feel clear-headed and, to put it simply, I simply feel happy.

 

Or, in the midst of what seems like an unbreakable dark grief, there is suddenly a real and potent sense of hope and light.

 

When the future seems bleak and ugly, the Spirit can come in and make everything worth living again.

 

We experience God’s Spirit whenever we feel joy or hope.

 

As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, the Spirit of God is a Spirit of Truth.

 

We experience God’s Spirit when we strive for truth in this world, when truth comes to us.

 

In turn, we are far from God’s Spirit when we let bitterness and anger and frustration lead the way.

 

We frustrate God’s Spirit when we grumble and mumble about each other and hinder the ministries of others in our church, when we let our own agendas win out over those who are trying also to do something to increase God’s Kingdom in our midst.

 

We deny the Spirit when we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

No doubt everyone here this morning has felt God’s Spirit in some way, although we might not have readily recognized that experience as God’s Spirit.

 

But our job, as Christians, is to allow those fruits of the Spirit to flourish and grow.

 

For us, we let the Spirit of God flourish when we continue to strive for truth and justice, when stand up against the dark forces of this world.

 

The Spirit of God compels us again and again to stand up and to be defiant against the dark forces of this world!

 

That dynamic and life-giving presence of the Spirit of God speaks loudly to us.

 

Certainly we see the Holy Spirit at work in the ministries we do, in the love we share with others, with the truth we proclaim as Christians, even in the face of opposition.

 

We experience this Spirit of truth when we stand up against injustice, wherever it may be.

 

This is how God’s Spirit comes to us.

 

The Spirit does not always tear open the ceiling and force its way into our lives.

 

The Spirit rather comes to us just when we need the Spirit to come to us.

 

Though, often the Spirit comes to us as fire—an all-consuming fire that burns way all anger and hatred and fear and pettiness and nagging and all the other negative, dead chaff we carry within us.

 

So, this week, in the glow of the Pentecost light, in the Shavuot glow with the Law written deep in our hearts, let us look for the gifts of the Spirit in our lives and in those around us.

 

Let us open ourselves to God’s Spirit and let it flow through us like a caressing wind and burn through us like a purifying fire.

 

And let us remember the true message of the Spirit to all of us.

 

Whenever it seems like God is distant or nonexistent, that is when God might possibly be closest of all, dwelling within us, being breathed unto us as with those first disciples.

 

On these feasts of Shavuot and Pentecost—these feasts of the fruits of God—these feasts of the fire of God—let us give thanks for this God who never leaves us, who never stops loving us, but who comes to us again and again in mercy and in truth.

 

 

 

7 Easter

 

The Sunday after the Ascension

 

June 1, 2025

 

Revelation 22.12-13, 16-17, 20-21

 

 

+ + This past Wednesday evening, at our regular Wednesday evening Eucharist, we celebrated the Eve of the feast of the Ascension.

 

Now, for most of us, this just isn’t that big of a feast day for us.

In fact, I don’t know a whole lot of Christians who, quite honestly, even give the Ascension a second thought.

 

No one was packing it in on Wednesday for the Ascension Eve Mass!

 

Some of us might look at the Ascension as a kind of anticlimactic event.  

 

The Resurrection has already occurred on Easter morning.  

 

That of course is the big event.  

 

The Ascension comes as it does after Jesus has appeared to his disciples and has proved to them that he wasn’t simply a ghost,  but was actually resurrected in his body.

 

In comparison to Easter, the Ascension is a quiet event.  

 

The resurrected Jesus simply leads his followers out to Bethany and, then, quietly, he is taken up by God into heaven.  

 

And that’s it.

 

There are no angels, no trumpet blasts.

 

There is no thunder or lightning.

 

He just goes.

 

And that’s that.

 

So, why is the Ascension so important to us?

 

 

Well, it’s important on two levels.

 

One, on a practical level, we recognize the fact that, at the Ascension, this is where our work begins.  

 

This is when our work as followers of Jesus begins.

 

We, at this point, become the Presence of Christ now in the world.

 

This is where we are now compelled to go out now and actually do the work Jesus has left for us to do.

 

Those apostles who are left gazing up at  Jesus don’t just simple linger there, wringing their hands, wondering what has just happened.

 

Well, actually, yes, that’s exactly what they do.

 

For a while anyway.

 

But eventually, with a BIG prompting from the Holy Spirit, they get going.

 

They go out and start doing what they are meant to do.

 

But we’re going to talk about that NEXT Sunday on the feast of Pentecost.

 

For now, we’re here, with them, watching Jesus being taken up, out of their midst.

 

For now, we know Jesus is taken out of our midst and is seated at the right hand of God.

 

Again, this is the point in which we become the presence of Christ in this world.

 

Now, I love the Feast of the Ascension!

 

What I love about the feast is that it is more than just going out to do Christ’s work.

 

Which brings us to our second point.

 

Again and again, as we see in the life of Jesus, it isn’t just about Jesus.

 

Our job is not simply to observe Jesus and bask quietly in his holiness.

 

A lot of Christians think that is all it is.

 

But, it’s about us too.

 

When we hear the stories of Jesus birth’ at Christmas, we can look at them as simply fantastic.

 

They are wonderful stories that happened then and there, to him.

 

Or…we could see them for what they are for us.

 

We could see it our birth story in the births tory of Jesus as well.

 

God worked in the life of Mary and Joseph and what happened?

 

God’s own Son was born.

 

But it should remind us that God worked in our birth as well.

 

Well. Maybe not with angels and shepherds.

 

But God worked in our lives even from the beginning, as God did in the life of Jesus.

 

See, Jesus’ birth became our birth.

 

At  Easter too, we could simply bask in the glorious mystery of Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb.

 

But the story doesn’t really mean anything to us until we see ourselves being resurrected with him.

 

His resurrection is our resurrection as well.

 

God, who raised Jesus, will raise us as well.

 

Well, the same thing happened last Thursday.

 

Jesus’s ascension is our ascension as well.

 

What God does for Jesus, God does for us too.

 

That’s incredibly important to understand!

 

We are not simply followers of Jesus.

 

We are sharers with Jesus in all that happens to him.

 

And that is incredibly wonderful!

 

The event of the Incarnation is a reminder that in much the same way God’s Word, God’s very essence, is incarnate in Jesus so God’s Word, God’s essence,  is incarnate in us as well.

 

So, regarding the Ascension, it is important for us to look at what happened and see it not only with Jesus’ eyes, not only in his followers’ eyes, but in our eyes as well.

 

Yes, we are rooted to this earth, to creation.

 

We are children of this world.

 

But we are also children of the next world as well.

 

We are children of heaven too.

 

Jesus tells us in our reading from Revelation today:

 

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.”

 

Our reward, as children of Heaven, is with the One who says,

 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

 

What the ascension reminds us is that we are inheritors of heaven too.

 

We, like Jesus, will one day ascend like him, beyond this world.

 

We will be taken up and be with God, just as Jesus is with God.

 

In fact, our whole life here is a slow, steady ascension toward God.

 

We are moving, incrementally, upward toward God.

 

This is our journey.

 

And as we do, as we recognize that we are moving upward, slowly ascending, like Jesus, to that place in which we ultimately belong, we should be feeling what Jesus no doubt felt as he ascended.

 

Joy.

 

Happiness.

 

Exultation.

 

When we are happy—when we are joyful—we often use the word soar.

 

Our hearts soar with happiness.

 

When we are full of joy and happiness we imagine ourselves floating upward.

 

In a sense, when we are happy or in love or any of those other wonderful things, we, in a sense, ascend.

 

Conversely, when we are depressed?

 

We plunge!

 

We fall.

 

We go down.  

 

So this whole idea of ascension—of going “up”—is important.

 

Jesus, in his joy, went up toward God.

 

And we, in our joy, are, at this very moment, following that path.

 

We have followed Jesus through his entire journey so far.

 

We have followed him from his birth, through his ministry, to his cross.

 

We have followed him to his descent into hell and through his resurrection from the tomb.

 

And now, we are following him on his ascension.

 

And it is joyful and glorious.

 

Right now.

 

Right here.

 

In this world.

 

Doing the work God gives us to do.

 

And what is that?

 

It is doing what we must do to make God’s Kingdom present here and now.

 

It means loving—loving God, loving others, loving ourselves.

 

It means doing what needs to be done to love and make God’s Kingdom present right now, even weary as we may be, while we are in this world.

 

Even in this sometimes very ugly, very violent world.

 

So, let’s not just wring your hands like the disciples of Jesus after the Ascension, wondering what to do next.

 

We know what to do.

 

So let’s do it!

 

Here we are.

 

In this place.

 

In this world.

 

Doing the best we can.

 

And just when we think God has provided just what we need for this journey, we find one more truly amazing gift to us.

 

Next week, an event will happen that will show us that Jesus remains with us in an even more extraordinary way.

 

On that day—Pentecost Sunday—God’s Spirit will descend upon us and remain with us.

 

Always.

 

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

 

For now, we must simply face the fact that it all does somehow fall into place.  

 

All that following of Jesus is now really starting to pay off.

 

We know now—fully and completely—that God will never leave us alone.

 

In what seems like defeat, there is amazing resurrection.

 

And ascension.

 

In what seemed like being stuck to an earth that often feels sick and desolate, we now soar.

 

So, today, and this week, as we remember and rejoice in the Ascension, as we prepare for the Holy Spirit’s descent, let our hearts ascend with Jesus.

 

Let them soar upward in joy at the fact that God is still with us.

 

Let us be filled with joy that God’s Spirit dwells within us and can never be taken from us.  

 

Let us rise up, in joy.

 

Let us rise up in us and proclaim loudly.

 

We are children of heaven!

 

We are ascending to our God and your God.

 

And we are gaining our rightful inheritance!

 

And it is good!

 

Very good!  

 

Amen. 

 

 

 

6 Easter

 

Rogation Sunday

May 25, 2025

John 14:23-29

 

+ 11 years ago tomorrow—on Sunday, May 26, 2014—we did something special at our Rogation Blessing.

 

On that Sunday eleven years ago we processed out to our overgrown labyrinth and that bare patch of lawn under the tree there and dedicated and blessed the space for  our Memorial Garden.

 

Before that, it was a somewhat forgotten corner of our property.

 

We used to have a composting bin there, where we would put our composting.

 

No one even really noticed it at ll.

 

And now, look!

 

Thanks to Sandy Holbrook and the gardening committee and all the people who have worked for that garden and all that beautiful landscaping that was done there, it has become a place of beauty.

 

And in these eleven years, our memorial garden has become a place of rest for 25 people—and a place of consolation for countless others.

 

When I first proposed a memorial garden for St. Stephen’s, I remember people being resistant.

 

I got weird looks when I first mentioned it.

 

And there were some people who were outright vocal in their opposition for such a thing.

 

But your loyal priest persisted.

 

(As he does!)

 

And he was diligent.

 

If, one day, when I shed this mortal coil, I believe those two words will definitely be used to describe the rector of St. Stephen’s.

 

Persistent and diligent.

 

(along with maybe a few other choice words)

 

Well, this persistent and diligent priest went out and did his research.

 

I visited memorial gardens in other places.

 

I learned how such things were done.

 

And I learned also about an apostolate of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina called the Society of St. Joseph of Arimathea.

 

They were a group who provided burials for unclaimed babies in their church cemetery.

 

I wanted to make sure that anyone who needed a dignified burial had one in our memorial garden, that no one would be turned away because of financial difficulties, or for any other reason.

 

I remember a dear friend of mine at another church who was faithful in in her duties to that congregation.

 

As she was preparing for her own passing, she decided she wanted to be interred in the church’s columbarium.

 

But the price tag to do so was a bit steep for her.

 

I went to the priest and said, “She has been very faithful to this congregation. She has volunteered and been there for everything she is needed for. Just give her the niche.”

 

And that priest said no to me, and to that elderly woman.

 

She finally was able to muster the money together (due to some help from some of her friends) and her ashes now rest there in peace.

 

But the story struck me.

 

I never wanted anyone to struggle in their own lives to find a place of dignity for their final resting place.

 

That is why I am so grateful for our memorial garden, and for all those who made this place what it is not only for us, but for everyone else who has benefitted from it.

 

Now I don’t think I’m overestimating it when I say it has also become a place of mercy.

 

We of course have laid people to rest there who had no other place to rest, who were rejected or forgotten.

 

Why? Why do we do that?

 

Because that is what we do as Christians.

 

In our Christian tradition, mercy plays heavily into what we do.

 

And as a result, there have been, since the early Church, a series of what have been called corporal acts of mercy.

 

I’ve talked about this many times before.

 

These corporal acts of mercy are:

 

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To harbor the harborless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

We at St. Stephen’s, in the ministry we do as followers of Jesus, have done most of those well (actually I don’t know if we’ve ransomed a whole lot of captives)

 

Including that last one. 

 

Burying the dead is a corporal act of mercy.

 

And, it’s appropriate we are discussing things like mercy and love on this Sunday, Rogation Sunday, the Sunday before the Ascension of Jesus.

 

In our Gospel reading for today we find Jesus explaining that although he is about to depart from his followers—this coming Thursday we celebrate the feast of Jesus’ Ascension to heaven—he will not leave them alone.

 

They will be left with the Advocate—the Spirit of Truth.

 

The Holy Spirit.

 

He prefaces all of this with those words that quickly get swallowed up by the comments on the Spirit, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

 

And just to remind everyone, that command is, of course, “to love.”

 

To love God.

 

And to love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

This is what it means to be the Church.

 

To love.

 

To serve.

To be merciful.

To be Christ to those who need Christ.

 

To be a Christ of love and compassion and acceptance.

 

Without boundaries.

 

Without discrimination.

 

Because that is who Christ is to us.

 

Our job as Christians, as followers of Jesus, is  to show mercy to others.

 

We are doing so this morning.

 

We are living into our ministry of mercy to others.

 

Today is, as I’ve said, Rogation Sunday.

 

Rogation comes from the Latin word “Rogare” which means “to ask.”

 

In our Gospel reading today we hear Jesus saying to us,  

 

 “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate…”

 

From a very simple perspective, the thing we are asking today, on this Rogation Sunday, is to be faithful followers of Jesus, thorough our works and acts of mercy.

 

Now for some of us, this whole idea of Rogation Sunday and the procession that we will soon be making outside at the conclusion of our Eucharist this morning might seem a bit too much.

 

 The fact is, it is something, very much like burying the dead on the church grounds.

 

Our memorial garden—this visible sign of the final corporal act of mercy—is a part of this Rogation celebration.

 

This is where we do our blessing.

 

We process there. In this procession, we will bless the earth and the land.

 

We will bless our new pocket prairie.

 

We ask God’s blessings on the growth not only of crops and fields.

 

We also thank God today for the growth of our congregation.

 

We are thanking God for the acts of mercy and grace done to each of us.

 

And we are asking God to continue to make us Christ to those who need Christ.

 

We are thanking God especially for all the graces in our lives.

 

Grace is especially something we celebrate on Rogation Sunday.

 

Let’s see if you can remember my definition of grace.

 

Grace, in my very simple opinion, is a gift we receive from God that we don’t ask for.

 

In fact it is often something we receive from God that we may not even known how to ask for.

 

And we all get to be reminded of the fact that God’s grace still works in our midst in wonderful and beautiful ways.

 

This is how God works sometimes in our lives.

 

And we have provided grace to several of the people buried in our garden.

 

We gave them something they could not ask for.

 

But we, seeking to live out mercy in our lives and in ministries here, provided them something others did not. 

 

It is appropriate to remember all of this on this Rogation Sunday—this Sunday in which we ask God’s blessings on us, on the growth in our lives, and on the renewal in our lives, and in which we seek to be grateful for the graces in our own lives. 

 

As  we process out at the end of the Eucharist today, I ask you to look around  at the memorial garden before and even as we head on to the Mary Garden at the back of the church.  

 

I ask you to look at the names on the stones there.

 

We know many of them now.

 

Others of them we will never know on this side of veil.

 

I ask you as you walk about to thank God for them.

 

I ask you today to thank God for the growth God has granted us at St. Stephen’s.

 

And I ask that you remember Jesus’ call to us, to love God and to keep that  commandment of love and mercy.

 

This is more than just sweet, religious talk.

 

It is a challenge and a true calling to live out this love in radical ways.

 

It is a challenge to be merciful.

 

As we process—especially as we bless our two pocket prairies—as we walk together, let us pay attention to this world around us.

 

Let us ponder the causes and the effects of what it means to be inter-related—to be dependent upon on each to some extent, as we are on this earth.

 

We do need each other.

 

And we do need each other’s love.

 

We definitely need each other.

 

And we definitely need more mercy in this world.

 

We do need that radical love that Jesus commands us to have.

 

With that love, we will truly love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

We will truly show mercy to them.

 

Let this procession today truly be a "living walking" as the great poet (and one of my heroes) George Herbert put it.

 

But let our whole lives as Christians be also a “living walk,” a mindful walk, a walk in which we see the world around with eyes of love and respect and justice and care.

 

And, most importantly, with eyes of mercy.

 

Amen.