Sermon Blog

Sermon from the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | The third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C,  June 5, 2016

As you will see in the announcements, I will be going with a group of youth and adults to a camp called Glory Ridge. I’ve talked about that a few times in other sermons. It’s near Ashville, North Carolina, and it’s a place where followers of Jesus have been gathering for decades to be closer to God and each other and to go out into the community and do service for others. It’s a place where I’ve really felt close to God and learned a lot about myself and about how faith works. The man who started the camp was a Presbyterian pastor named George Moore. I’ve probably told this story in a sermon before so if I have, you’re just going to have to hear it again; it’s a good story. This was in the 1970’s, and Brother George, as he’s known, was carving this camp out of nothing. It was an old apple orchard and it had gotten covered over in briars and they were hacking into the briars trying to build little cabins so they could bring children from the community to this little church camp he was building. Little did he realize that later on it would become a place where people from all over would come. They were just getting started on it and things were not going as smoothly as he would have liked, so he and a friend who was working with him on the camp went down to town to get some supplies. They got the supplies and were checking out and the lady at the counter asked, “Pastor, how’s it going up there at that church camp that ya’ll are building?” George took a breath and he could just feel the weight of all the things that weren’t going right and all of the things that he wished were going better and he started to open his mouth and say, “Well, you know it isn’t going as well as we would like,” but his friend interrupted him and said, “Ma’am, we’re right on schedule.” George tells the story and says, “It was like he saved my life. He saved me from going down that spiral of negativity. He showed me a truth that yes, we were right on schedule, we were right on time.” His friend interrupted him in a way that was life giving. Sometimes interruptions can be life giving.

In the Gospel today, Jesus interrupts a funeral procession. Can you imagine interrupting a funeral procession? Jesus comes to the town called Nain with this big crowd behind him and they come to the town gate and here comes this widow and her only son who’s dead on a stretcher and they’re carrying him out of the city with another huge crowd behind them and these two crowds are meeting and here comes Jesus. Now the respectful thing to do would have been to stand aside and be quiet and let the procession go by, but Jesus interrupts this procession. He goes up to the widow who’s crying and says, “Stop crying,” and he goes up to the stretcher and puts his hand on it and it says the bearer stood still. Everything stops. Then Jesus commands the young man to be raised from the dead.

If he hadn’t done that maybe people would have said he was being rude, but if you step back before the point where the boy raises from the dead, Jesus is being pretty bold, stepping into territory folks would say he shouldn’t, but he feels in his heart; it says “he felt compassion.” That word that the bible uses for compassion means this gut feeling of love, connection, suffering with the other. Jesus feels compassion, so because he feels compassion, he feels compelled to interrupt what is a procession to the grave.

Jesus comes into the world in many ways to interrupt our processions to the grave, not always literal processions to the grave, but there are lots of ways in which we behave as if we are in our way to the grave. My friend, brother George, opened his mouth to begin his laundry list of all of the things that were going wrong, all of the things that weren’t working out right. He was not in a life-giving mode at that point and his friend interrupted him to say, “No ma’am we are right on schedule.” We have our ways, do we not, of behaving as if we are not fully alive, and Jesus comes to interrupt us and to say, “You’re not dead yet. It’s time to rise up. It’s time to realize there can be a new possibility.” I think we too are called to be holy interrupters at times for one another. Now there’s a difference between interruption and interruption. There’s interruption that is rude, and that’s interruption we do because we think we’re right. We say “I’ve had enough of hearing you talk. I’ve got to jump in here because I know I’ve got something better to say.” That’s not the kind of interruption I’m talking about. Holy interruption comes from that sense of compassion, that sense of feeling, that sense of connection with another, saying, “Wait a minute, I’ve got stop this death train before it goes any further. “

This past week on Thursday, some of you may have seen that we circulated pictures from St. George’s and there were things all over the Internet of people wearing orange. Did anybody see people wearing orange this week? It was all about raising awareness about gun violence. June 2 is Gun Violence Awareness Day. I looked up the story about where wearing orange comes from. In 2013, a young woman was killed by a gun in Chicago, Illinois, and her friends didn’t know what to do. They said, “We have got to do something.” They heard about Gun Violence Awareness Day, and said, “We’re going to wear orange because orange is a loud color, orange is a color that gets attention, orange is the color hunters wear because they won’t want to be shot. We’re going to wear orange.” You might say, “That’s just silly, what’s that about?” For them it was a way of interrupting the cycle of violence in their community and saying, “We’re not just going to stand by and do nothing. We have to raise our voices. We have to interrupt this conversation that happens in our community that ends up with people dying because of guns.” So they wore orange in 2013. This year, the orange has gone viral, so to speak, and people all over the world were wearing orange. I don’t know if it’s going to do a lot of good to change violence or not, but I see it as a holy interruption, a way to say, “Wait a minute, let’s stop for a minute and look at how we are continuing patterns in our world that are about death and how do we turn them around and make them about life?”

Another story out of Chicago, Illinois. There are communities in Chicago where violence is at epidemic levels. There’s a group of people who have been involved in gangs who have decided that instead of going to funerals, they need to stop funerals. They need to be holy interrupters. There’s even a documentary called The Interrupters. These people are going into their communities and they’re treating violence like an epidemic disease. There are three things you do to treat an epidemic disease: You interrupt the transmission, so when they hear stories about one gang going after another gang, they try to mediate a peace treaty. The second thing you do is reduce the risk among those highest at risk, so they’re working individually with people in the community who are likely to commit violence, young people, trying to give them other opportunities, other avenues to direct their energies. The third thing is we change community norms, so any time there is an act of violence in the community, they don’t just sit by and say, “Oh well, there’s nothing we can do.” They say “No, we’re going to pray and we’re going to speak out and we’re going to say no more! We’re going to change the way we talk about and respond to violence in our community.” To me that is what holy interruption is. That’s life giving. That’s saying we’re not going to let this funeral train go any farther.

So how are you and I called to be holy interrupters? To be Christ-like in that way for one another. The first thing to remember is that it’s not because we’re right, it’s because we feel a sense of compassion. So the first thing to do is really take time in our lives to feel the compassion within ourselves and others of the suffering of the world. There’s so much that it can be overwhelming sometimes and we might have to pick and choose where we’re really going to focus our attention. Then we find ways to listen for how the Spirit maybe calling us to interrupt, to disrupt a disaster. Maybe a minor disaster, maybe a major disaster. Maybe it’s as simple as when we feel ourselves going down that downward spiral of negativity, stopping ourselves. Or when we see a friend say, “Wait a minute, you’re right on schedule.”

Today we’re going to worship in Hurkamp Park, and to me it’s a minor act of holy interruption because people will be coming down William Street and will say “What’s going on over there?” and we’re just going to interrupt a little bit, and it’s not because we’re right, or holier than thou or because we want to be out there so we can say look at what good Christians we are, but we want to be visible in a way that maybe interrupts just enough, just enough that somebody might say, “What is this community thing all about?”

Holy interruption. We heard the story this morning of Paul saying he had been persecuting the Christians and then God interrupted Paul and said, enough of this violent conversation, Paul, I’m going to make you somebody who is a giver of life instead of a bearer of death.

We are called to be Holy Interrupters, and so may God give us the grace to feel the compassion for ourselves and for each other. Give us the grace to say to one another, stand up and live. Stand up and live.

Sermon from the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Trinity Sunday, Year C,  May 22, 2016

How in God’s name do we live together? We have been pondering these words for the last several months. It has been the theme of our program year which began in September. Today, as we celebrate Trinity Sunday, it’s a good time to think specifically about the words, “in God’s name.” How in God’s name do we live together? When we live in God’s name, we are living in the name of the Trinity.

One of the most famous Trinity hymns was written by Saint Patrick of Ireland. It sometimes goes by the title, “The cry of the deer.” Legend has it that when Patrick was under attack by an army of druids in Tara, Ireland, he escaped from them by changing into a deer. You didn’t know we had shape-shifting saints, did you? It was around that time that he is said to have composed his poem which begins with the words, “I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity.” Just as a soldier binds a breastplate to his body for protection, so Patrick put on the name of God who is one and three, to guard him from all danger.

For Patrick, the name of God, the name of the Trinity was literally a lifesaver. But over the centuries, the name of God has often been used not as protection but as a weapon to hurt others. The name of God may remind us of how we have hurt each other. While some find comfort in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…others are reminded that purely male images of God have often been used to make women feel inferior. There’s a lot of healing and unpacking to be done when we talk about the name of God. It’s all related to the same question, “how do we live together?” I can’t unpack and heal all those wounds in this sermon. What I’d like to do is ask whether there is a fresh way to hear the Name of God and its power for us.

We could say that the name of the Trinity is powerful, because of God’s mighty acts. God created heaven and earth. Jesus Christ died and rose again. The Holy Spirit came down and empowered people to do incredible things. But there’s more to God’s power than mighty acts. Part of God’s power is in the fact that God exists as a community. God is three distinct personalities who are bound together in perfect unity. This is the mystery of the Trinity. They surround and enfold each other in an unfathomable web of relationships. The strong web of the Trinity is bound together by love, by mutual delight and joy. The members of the Trinity are in perfect harmony. God the giver of life delights in God the light that came into the world and the Holy Spirit. God the Christ delights in God the loving creator and God the Holy Comforter. God the Advocate and Guide delights in God who made everything and in God who has brought the world to God in reconciling love. The name of the Trinity is strong, because of this delightful community. When we ask the question, “how in God’s name do we live together?” we are asking…how do we live together in a community of mutual delight and joy?

In the reading from Proverbs that we read today, lady wisdom speaks. The writer of proverbs cast the voice of wisdom as a female. And she testifies: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work…I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and delighting in the human race.” In this telling of the creation story, wisdom is God’s first creation. God delights in her, and she delights in all that God has made. And delight is powerful. The ability to delight in God and delight in one another is the ability, the power, to turn away from poisonous negativity. Delight is an expression of love. The power of delight is the wisdom to find joy and to see good, when it’s so easy to find sadness and see bad.

I once heard some good advice, that if you are in a rut in your relationship with someone else, maybe someone you’ve been close to a long time, try to notice five new things about that person. Notice them and take delight in them. Delight has the power to transform how we see each other.

In his prayer, St. Patrick, as a way of protecting himself from harm, from the attacks of his enemies, delights in the creation and in Christ. ‘I bind unto myself,’ he prays ‘the virtues of the starlit heaven, the glorious sun’s life giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning, the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea around the old eternal rocks. Christ be with me. Christ within me. Christ behind me. Christ before me.’ The hymn goes on, but in these bits of it we can hear the delight, we can sense Patrick’s finding power and strength in the wonders of creation and in the presence of Christ all around. The strong name of the Trinity is woven in and among all these things. And the Trinity is strong not simply because God can protect us from enemies, but because God can transform our relationships through love, through seeing each other with eyes of wonder.

It is said that when saints like Patrick, holy women and men of the Celtic tradition centuries ago in the British Isles, when they would pray for protection, they would sometimes trace a circle around themselves. This circle, called a Caim, symbolized a zone of divinely given safety that would travel with them. And so as someone might recite the words, ‘I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity,’ she would literally point her finger and turn round as an outward reminder of this zone of protection. Maybe it was like making the sign of the cross. Not an act of magic or superstition but simply a visual and physical act to remind the one praying that God’s protection was with them. I wonder if we can draw such a circle around us as a community. Not a circle that excludes others, but a circle that is ever widening. A circle in which we find God’s protection by the power to see each other as God sees us, as wonderful parts of God’s creation. Today we will take delight in four young men who have turned thirteen, who are making a transition in their lives from childhood to young manhood. The Rite-13 ceremony that we will use at the 11:00 service is a kind of caim, a drawing of a circle around these young men to remind them that they are beloved and delightful, that they are included in the words of Psalm 139 which says “your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”

“How in God’s name do we live together?” We live together by saying, “your works are wonderful and I know it well.” We live together in the circle drawn with the powerful Name of the Trinity. It is a powerful name, because it is the Name of mutual delight. We live together, as we are able to find delight in one another, as we are able to rejoice with Lady Wisdom in the wonderful works of God. We live together, as we seek to find something new about ourselves and each other and God that brings joy to the heart. This is a power given to us through the name of the Trinity. As we all bind unto ourselves that Name, may we all see a circle of power and protection, a Caim, around us. Power and protection that comes not from force or violence but from delight and love, from joy and wonder in God and all that God has wrought.

Sermon from the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | 7th Sunday in Easter, Year C,  May 8, 2016

In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays to God in these words: “The glory you have given me, I have given them so that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one. I have given them glory, Jesus says, that they may be one, completely one.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find it hard to follow Jesus’ train of thought with all the talk about  “I in them and you in me that they may be one as we are one.” There’s a similar verse written somewhere which says, “I am he, as you are he, as you are me and we are all together. I am the eggman. I am the walrus. Goo goo g’joob!” Oh right, that was the Beatles! But Jesus sounds like he’s on some kind of magical mystery tour when he prays this prayer that we would all be one as he is one with God.

We love the idea of oneness and unity. It’s a big concept in the United States of America, where our motto is E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. One nation, under God, indivisible. These national sentiments come from the language of faith. We talk about One God, one bread, one body, one faith, one baptism, one holy catholic and apostolic church. The catechism of our prayer book in its outline of the faith says the mission of the church is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” We have been printing that on the front of the bulletin every Sunday for the last few months. Unity. Oneness. Jesus prays for it. We like to talk about it. But what is it, and has it ever really existed? That mission statement to “restore” all persons to unity implies that at one time there must have been unity, otherwise how could we restore it? But when was that? Seems like all the stories we read in scripture are about division and discord. The history of the church has been one split after another. We talk about getting back together, we talk about reunification of God’s people, but I don’t think there was ever a golden age. The unity and oneness for which Jesus prayed seems more like an ideal but not one that we have ever attained.

We speak romantically about being one nation, one church, one community. But what is so great about unity? When it comes down to actually being one with each other, sitting next to the people who annoy us, offend us, bother us, it’s not that glorious. Even those of us who have tried to live under one roof with just one person whom we love, we often discover that the reality of trying to be one is pretty hard. I remember this couple, Anne and John, who had been married for forty years and they both retired from their jobs. Anne told John, “I promised to be with you for better for worse, but not for lunch!” So if unity is something that we’ve never really experienced, and it’s hard and complicated even we love each other, then why does Jesus pray for it? The church, over the centuries, has responded to Jesus’ prayer for unity by trying to make everyone the same: enforcement and policy. Make everyone look the same, pray the same, act the same. Move in lock step. In the early decades of the Book of Common Prayer in the 1500s, the book was used as a way to unify the kingdom of Great Britain, literally getting everyone on the same page. But these attempts by the church to make people one tend to backfire eventually. So why does the church claim unity as its mission? Let’s quit banging our heads against a wall, trying to achieve an impossible ideal. Let’s just admit that we tend to be divided and do our best to live together without hurting each other too much. Unity, oneness – it was a nice prayer, Jesus, but it’s more than we can do.

Maybe the problem is in how we have understood Jesus’ prayer for us. Maybe the reason why unity and oneness seem so impossible is because we need a new way of seeing. Jesus never explains what he means when he prays for us all to be one, to be completely one as he and God are one. With our limited understanding, we have assumed that unity means conformity and consistency. We have too often hurt each other with that understanding.

I was pondering these questions as I was driving this week to a conference at Shrine Mont, and on the way back I was listening to a radio podcast interview with a Nobel-prize winning physicist named Frank Wilczek. I probably should have thought twice before listening to a podcast about physics on a long drive, but this one actually kept me awake! Dr. Wilczek was talking not just about physics but about beauty, about how the whole cosmos works in ways that are amazingly beautiful, elegant, perfect. And the more science learns about the beauty of the universe, the more we understand that things fit together in different ways depending on where you stand and how you look at them. We’re going to talk a little bit about science for a minute here…so get ready and put your thinking cap on. For example, Isaac Newton, centuries ago, thought the colors of the spectrum were distinct one from another. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. If we are operating under our normal conditions, then that’s how colors look…different from each other. Then Albert Einstein came along in the last century and realized that if you were to start moving really fast, closer to the speed of light itself, colors would start to look more like each other. All colors are really one thing, just seen in different states of motion. Any color can be derived from any other color if you travel at the right speed. So in a deep way, one color implies all the rest, this is what Dr. Wilczek was saying in this interview. There’s a deep unity to the cosmos that is real, even as things may look different from one another. That’s a truth about the physical universe. Now it makes my head spin just trying to understand what he’s talking about. I had to go back and listen to the interview a few times. I’m a preacher and not a physics professor, so we’re not going to get into equations or anything! I offer this idea, though, to suggest the possibility that maybe there’s a way that unity exists which is not at all like what we’ve been thinking all these centuries.

It is a property of the physical universe…that when we are standing still, things look distinct and not unified, but when we start traveling near the speed of light, they look more and more like one thing. I believe there is a similar property of the spiritual universe…When we look at each other under so-called normal conditions, we look like a group that will struggle to find unity. We’re as different as colors of the rainbow. And when we mix together, it can sometimes be an ugly mess. But instead of struggling for unity, trying to force each other become one, we could realize that we are already one, the way that the colors of the rainbow are already one when viewed at certain speeds. Maybe Jesus meant for us to think of ourselves not under normal conditions, but traveling at the speed of light, the light of God’s love for us. When we are traveling at this speed of light, the light of God’s love or we might shorten that and call it the “speed of love,” we do start to seem more and more like one.

The speed of love…are you following me here? The speed of love is the velocity where we see ourselves as one with each other and God. The speed of love is when we are catapulted by the Spirit, moving in compassion, flying through space by giving and caring for each other. The speed of love. If the church’s mission is to restore all persons to unity with God and each other in Christ, then perhaps that mission is to get us in motion, to propel and accelerate us closer to the speed of love. When we stay in one position and get stuck in our normal conditions, the laws of our human nature would predict that we see ourselves as distinct and divided. But when we are moving at the speed of love, time and space change, we begin to see ourselves as more like each other, more like the children of God, one body in Christ. It is our mission as the church to restore that unity, not by going back to some golden age, not by enforcing holy procedures, not by conforming everyone to the same standards. It is our mission to restore the speed of love again and again and again, through prayer and worship that lifts us heavenward, through service and caring and feeding that throw us into each other’s orbits, through study and wonder that excite our imaginations, through telling and listening to our diverse and delightful stories, through whatever God calls us to do, so that we will have more and more glimpses of what it means to be one as God and Christ are one, to be perfectly one in the glory of God the maker of heaven and earth. And heaven moves at the speed of love. At the speed of love, I am Christ. At the speed of love, so are you, so are we. We are one, and may we see each other more and more as one, as we move at the speed of love.