Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Homily for August 23, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Service for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Service for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Service for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Service for the Fifth Sunday in Easter

Bishop Haynes' Easter Message

Homily for the Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost - How can I love my neighbors?

Matthew 22:34-46

Homily by the Reverend Mitzi Noble

How can I love my neighbors, if I don't like them?

Since, we are on a weekly journey, if you did not hear the sermon last week, there are copies at the back of the Church if you desire to have one.

Last week, I was honored to hear from many of you and appreciate your guidance and comments regarding the Church at large and Emmanuel specifically. I will be available for a little while after service today as well. Again, I repeat, the Holy Spirit is among us with the promise of God's presence.

Matthew's Gospel is showing the intensity of Jesus' teachings as he nears Jerusalem. As we saw last week, the Sadducees were trying to challenge - actually trick - Jesus, by using the teachings of the Covenant and understanding of the Law, taught by the Jews, with whom, Jesus was one.

Today, the Pharisees get into the discussion after seeing how Jesus stifled the Sadducees. Today's Gospel shows the same trickery: Which one of the Ten Commandments is the most important?

Homily for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - God Works in Mysterious Ways

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Homily by the Reverend Mitzi Noble

Prayer

O, God of grace and mercy, you are the source of all love and relationship. You created us for relationship, called us your people forever, granted us wisdom and freedom of choice. We believe that you came among us as Jesus Christ and commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. You sent your very power to guide us through the Holy Spirit.  We understand that we are Christ's Body in this world serving, working, caring for our brothers and sisters, striving to  be reconciled to  you and each other even through our differences.

We have learned that you taught us to come together, to love and out of many to be One People.

Coming together and seeking answers, not just for our own needs and concerns, but to help others as your Body, the Church at Emmanuel, in our town, nation-indeed, throughout your creation to share our feelings and thoughts, trusting that you are present with us, guiding us, through our dialogue to reconcile within your Church universal.

We long to hear you say at the end of our days on this earth, "Job well done good and faithful servants!" Christ, you called us-- sinners and saints-to be God's witnesses, to bring about the peaceable kingdom. Grant us the patience, gentleness and love, accepting your forgiveness for all of our short comings and trusting that when you return, we may present to you a people, though individually unique, reconciled as One Body.

Now, as we worship and praise you, O God, may we know and feel your presence, 0 Christ, at our Communion, through the Word and Prayers, throughout our coming days, forgive us and walk beside us as you walked with all those be

May we love and honor you and your commands, as you love and accept us. We pray to you O God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Homily

What does the Lord require of us? As I prayed about being with you today, I realized that the only real help I can offer is what I believe.

God works in mysterious ways. Not controlling us, our behavior or our future like operating puppets, but God is with us. I believe that God came among us to teach us how to love and live with each other, being faithful to God's dream for us. Created for relationship-DREAM.

Homily for the Reverend Dr. John Samuel Ruef

Delivered by The Rev. James West Mathieson on November 29, 2016                

John Ruef had a great sense of humor.  And if you question his humor, consider the idea that he named me in his final request to be the “preacher” and give the sermon at his Burial Service.

John, you see, was noted for his brevity in the length of his sermons – 4 to 5 minutes at the most.  One person remarked after church, “we never get our seats warm when John preaches.”

I, on the other hand, am a story teller.  There is no limit to what I have to say.  The seats of the congregation are given a lot of time to warm up.

Now I know John is laughing in Heaven.

John really was the “ideal” – the role model that every Episcopal priest yearns to be.  Brilliant -- educated at the best schools, a teacher, a degree that would be the envy of each of us.  John not only memorized his sermons, he memorized the Prayer Book, the hymnal, the Bible.  Plus, he was the published author of a commentary on “Paul’s First Letter to Corinth.”

John and I would travel together to various functions:  clergy conferences, retreats, funerals.  We would travel along – mostly just rattling along, story after story -- John laughing at the appropriate time, quiet and respectful at other times.  But even if I ran out of stories that simply kill time I would engage John in various questions:  academic or pastoral or church problems. 

That was the best of times – an unfolding of that wonderful mind.  A disciplined mind!  Words coming forth that unraveled the mysterious, the rough prattle, the puzzles that a priest is so often confronted with to realize “the ocean is too big and my boat is so small.”

Rector’s Charge, Annual Meeting 2016

Download Rector's Annual Report 2016-1

The Reverend Dr. Regina Christianson

It is the privilege of the rector to stand atop the mountain, search for glimpses of the Promised Land, witness to its reality, discern the patterns that will lead fellow pilgrims in the right direction, and exhort the company to rise up in joy to follow the Way. That is what a Charge is.

My charge to you is that we pay especial attention to four focuses in this next year. During my Rector’s Report, I quoted the Canon on Ministry of All Baptized Persons. The four focuses actually arise from it.   Allow me to repeat it:

Sec. 1. Each Diocese shall make provision for the affirmation and development of the ministry of all baptized persons, including: (a) Assistance in understanding that all baptized persons are called to minister in Christ's name, to identify their gifts with the help of the Church and to serve Christ's mission at all times and in all places. (b) Assistance in understanding that all baptized persons are called to sustain their ministries through commitment to life-long Christian formation.

The first is communication. While it may not be evident that this has anything to do with the Ministry of All Baptized, without it, the rest will fail. We have reinstituted the telephone tree because you have a good history with it. We will also recommit to regular communications through weekly mail announcements, monthly newsletters, and regular communications from the vestry. Exactly how each one of you individually receives these communications will be up to you. You will need to communicate to the church office how you wish to receive written communication. It may take us a while to get this all in place and working smoothly, but with your ongoing help and participation, we can accomplish timely, content-worthy communication.

The second is stewardship. Stewardship covers a lot of ground – everything from maintaining the church property to making sure money, energy, and gifts are used wisely. As we learned through the Creation story, we are created to be stewards. We are entrusted with God’s precious and beloved creation. In our context, being stewards means that we are entrusted with the legacy of Episcopal worship and values, the care for our parish family, our fellowship with other parishes and civic groups, and our responsibilities towards the larger community. We are gifted with stewardship so that we might follow Jesus, so that we might use these opportunities to find and be found in Christ. Walter Coles has written a document for us to help us identify our call to stewardship of time and talent. As part of our stewardship drive, For Emmanuel: Illustrative Goals and Committees for Discussion, is meant to inspire us, giving us concrete examples, inviting us into the process of creating meaningful ministries. To be Emmanuel Church in Chatham, Virginia, in 2017: where in this do you find God? Where in this is your stewardship? Those two questions are the heart of the next area of focus, holy discernment.

Celebrating a new beginning – the Reign of Christ

The Reverend Dr. Regina Christianson

Last week we remembered Veterans and their families with a special collect and the singing of America the Beautiful. The last week in October we remembered our ancestors in the faith as we sang joyfully I sing a song of the saints of God.

The lighting of candles during the Sunday Service for All Saint’s and All Soul’s Day, while the choir and congregation sang, gave opportunity to express in solemn ritual both our sorrow and our lively faith.

Today, as we remember that all things come to an end, we celebrate it as a commencement – a beginning – the Reign of Christ. As T. S. Eliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

November calls us to remember - from All Saints and All Souls through Veteran’s Day to Thanksgiving to the Last Sunday in Pentecost, closing out the liturgical year. As the days shorten, the sun is lower on the horizon, the leaves turn and fall, and the colder wind scours the land, we become aware of our own vulnerability, our own losses.

At our best, we remember that the thin places between this world and the Golden Land – paradise – are always there, we remember that God always holds all souls in life, and we remember it is by blessing those memories that we bring healing into this wounded world.

Sunday, after all, is always a recalling of the Easter Mystery - Sunday worship a re-entry into the feast of victory over fear, evil, and death. By fully entering into the liturgical life we hold again the touchstone of the reason for our lives of faith, hope, and charity.

This particular season, both individually and as a community, we experienced several losses. The death of the Rev. Dr. John Ruef on All Hallow’s Eve was keenly felt by all. Alice Overbey and Richard Chaney, though not members of our parish, were nonetheless mourned, their memories cherished. Several members of our parish have recently lost beloved pets. The shock of sudden or repeated hospitalization has challenged others.

And it would be remiss of me as your spiritual leader not to mention the loss felt by members of our parish and community at the national and local election results, even as others among us rejoiced. We have been called in this time to be particularly tender towards each other, to lead by example in compassionate presence.  

Thank you for the tender care you have given, the steady presence of compassion in our parish.

Homily for Ascension Sunday - Betwixt and Between

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Here we are again. 

Here we are again in a place that despite its ostensible strangeness may seem hauntingly familiar to us, a kind of déjà vu, as if we may have been here before.

Here in the “betwixt” and the “between” (see Charles La Shure, “What is Liminality” 18 Oct. 2005, retrieved 16 May 2015).

Here betwixt that which was so familiar that we may have begun to take it for granted and that which is as yet unknown and unknowable.

Here between an old paradigm so comfortable it is much like a well-worn, beloved blanket we can wrap around ourselves and a new paradigm yet to be broken in. 

Betwixt and between. Much of our lives will be spent there—betwixt and between.  So much that it actually has been given a name—liminal space. “Liminal” from Latin “limin” or threshold, a crossing space, from one reality to another reality.

For many—perhaps for most—this betwixt and between, this liminal space, is as uncomfortable as it is uncertain.  As we find ourselves upon the threshold of a new reality, our minds (and hearts) tend to return to that which has been so familiar to us that it is ever in danger of becoming distorted through rose-colored glasses.

Consider the Hebrews, delivered from bondage in Egypt and now headed to the Land of Promise.  There in liminal space, we find them grumbling, not just a little but a lot, as they, tired of the bland food God is providing them in the wilderness, forget the harsh reality of slavery and hearken back to that time when stomachs were full of savory food. 

And we know what they do not yet know, of what is to come in the promised land of milk and honey, of judges and kings, and, one day, of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

It is in liminal space where the first disciples find themselves today, betwixt the ascension of Jesus last Thursday and Pentecost ten days later (seven days from now), between the leaving of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent - Sir, we would see Jesus

Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year B

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13 or Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Some of you no doubt have seen the movie, Life of Pi. 

I confess that I have not seen it, but I have read Yann Martel’s book on which it is based, the story about a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Piscine, better known as simply Pi. 

Pi, together with his zookeeper father, mother, and brother, are emigrating from India to Canada, together with a goodly number of those animals that weren’t sold when they closed down the zoo, when out on the Pacific Ocean, their cargo ship goes down, leaving Pi to survive 227 days on a lifeboat together with—most improbably to the say the least—a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. 

For those who have neither seen the movie nor read the book, you need not fear a spoiler from me.

I think what fascinated me most was the beginning of Pi’s story, back in India, where as the pious son of the religiously indifferent parents, Pi has an insatiable thirst for religion. 

He describes how as a Hindu boy of 14 how a kindly priest, Fr. Martin, tells him the story of Jesus.   In first person narrative, Pi explains:

Homily for Christmas Eve 2014 - Will you let him in?

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Some moments are so profoundly holy that the veil which normally seems to separate the divine from the human and human from the divine becomes translucent, and in that birth which we recall and make present this night, heaven enters earth and earth receives heaven. 

In that nativity of Jesus, God welcomes us into that kingdom where mercy and truth meet and righteousness and peace kiss (Ps 85.10) in the one who is a child born for us, a son given to us who is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Is. 9.6), in the one who is as the angel declares, Savior, Messiah, and Lord.

That we might be a part of this union of heaven and earth is not a foregone conclusion, for in the prologue to John’s gospel, we read that “he came unto his own and his own received him not” (1.11).  There seems to be an inviolable freedom in whether earth is willing to receive what heaven gives.  Divinity does not force itself on humanity.  Though he may have once been described as “the hound of heaven” (Francis Thompson, 1859-1907) for his relentless seeking after us, Jesus will not force either himself or his way upon us.

On that night so long ago, a young expectant mother and her betrothed did not force their way into some comfortable hotel room but accepted the humble accommodation they finally received.

The story of that search for a place is told through a four-hundred-year-old tradition celebrated in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, beginning 16 December and running through tonight, the 24^th, nine days, one day for each month of Mary’s pregnancy.¹ 

This tradition, called “Las Posadas,” is increasingly celebrated here in the Unites States of America, among a burgeoning Latino population.  “Las Posadas” is Spanish for “the inns.”

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent - Empower us for the work of ministry!

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126 or Canticle 3 or Canticle 15
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

With the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry!

Could we imagine a more apt, prayerful refrain to our opening hymn as we elect three new vestry members to continue the “work of ministry” that has been going on in this community for the 170 years since this church was consecrated to God in 1844?

With the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry.

I include in the bulletin FACTs on Episcopal Church Growth,¹ and I hope you will read it (only 19 pages with lots of pictures)to see what insight can be gained as we at Emmanuel face the challenges and opportunities God gives. FACTs is the largest survey of its kind, 4100 Episcopal churches, and it takes into account an even more comprehensive examination of 14,000 churches, synagogues, parishes, temples, and mosques in the U.S. 

Most churches say of course that they want to grow, but the numbers reveal that many, if not most, are not growing. Beyond intuition and hopeful thinking, beyond the Jerry Falwells and the Joel Osteens, FACTs gives statistical evidence for what has an impact on growth and decline in The Episcopal Church.

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent - Where are you?

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Where are you?

Whoever we are and wherever we may be, we are invited to go out into the wilderness of our lives, there to hear a wild man address each of us directly and personally, “Where are you?” 

Where are you? 

Are you in that place to which Peter just beckons? 

That while we wait for the fulfillment of God’s promised life, we might be in a place of “peace, without spot or blemish,” grateful for the patience God shows us because God does not want any to perish but all to come to metanoia, or in English, “repentance,” defined not as “a self-loathing for bad behavior” but rather an invitation to recognize where we actually are and then to metanoia, repent, to change our mind, to change our heart.  And  go in a new direction, toward that place God wants us to be, a place of life and peace. 

Life and peace.  That is what John invites us to through a “baptism of repentance,” a new and life-giving direction through a change of mind, a change of heart.

Where are you?

Homily for the Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost - Will you be ready?

Amos 5:18-24

Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

What are we to make of it? 

What are we to make of these lessons the church gives us here at the end of the church year?  Only two Sundays now stand between us and a new year beginning with the First Sunday of Advent on 30 November.

It is increasingly clear that there is no stopping it now!  With each of our lessons this morning we are careening not just to the end of the year but actually to the end of it all—to that very moment when the jig’s finally up, the dance is over, and Elvis has left the building!

Each of the lessons this morning yields a little different flavor of that decisive moment.

Take Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. He gives us a very hopeful picture of that end, doesn’t he? When the Lord comes with the archangel’s call and the sound of the trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise first followed by any of us who may still be alive.  So then we may grieve for those who have died, but we do so not without hope, for eventually we will all be with the Lord, together again, forever! And “forever” is a very long time indeed.

But before we get too attached to these warm fuzzy feelings that may be bubbling up inside as we consider this “forever” with Jesus and those we love, Jesus shares a haunting story about ten bridesmaids, five foolish and five wise. 

Homily for All Saints Sunday on the Occasion of the Coles Window Blessing

Revelation 7:9-17,   
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon by R Christopher Heying on the Occasion of the Coles Window Blessing, Sunday 2 November 2014.

This All Saints’ Sunday we have John’s vision of “a great multitude no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,”  who have come through “the great ordeal,” with robes made white in the Lamb’s blood and now sing God’s eternal praise.  (Revelation 7), a vision wholly consonant with the Letter to the Hebrews which refers to a “great a cloud of witnesses” who now watch us “run the race that is set before us” (12.1).

As we give thanks this day “for all the saints, who from their labors rest” we remember those whom we knew and loved but see no longer, who in their day gave to us a glimpse of God’s love.  These are they who have now joined that “great cloud” to encourage us and remind us we are never alone but are part of one great communion and fellowship.

This fellowship includes others, others we may not have known directly but who in their own day and according to their circumstances, were, as the Book of Common Prayer says, “an example of righteousness” and “the lights of the world in their generation.”

We remember their light, ultimately Christ’s own light, light that still shines to overcome the darkness if we but look with the eyes of faith. 

These luminaries include bishops such as William Meade, John Johns, A.M. Randolph; priests such as the Rev. Dr. George Washington Dame and the Rev. Dr. Clevius Orlando Pruden; faithful lay persons such as Walter Coles and Lettice Carrington Coles, who were among the founders of this church and in whose honor and memory we bless and rededicate a stained glass window this morning; and it includes always at least one or two outside “our group,” however we may define it!

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost - All of It Belongs to God

Matthew 22:15-22

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” 

In this well-known response to the question put to him about the licitness of paying tax, Jesus is not articulating a carefully developed philosophy about the separation of church and state, somehow dividing the world into two distinct and perhaps opposing realms.  Rather, Jesus maneuvers past a trap being laid for him.   

Here in the Temple precincts things are heating up, for the Pharisees have made up their minds.  They have already decided what is needed and have only to figure out how to get it, and politics, they say, make odd bed fellows. 

So here the disciples of the Pharisees come with natural enemies in tow, the Herodians who support Roman rule with its payment of the census tax which to the Pharisees was hated symbol representing Roman dominance of a land given to the Jews by God, the Roman denarius being particularly problematic for it bore the idolatrous image of Caesar and the blasphemous inscription, Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest. 

And so here they come to trap Jesus, for they know that they must get him out of the way, by discrediting him if they can, by killing him if they must. They begin with somewhat artless flattery: we know you are a person with no regard for opinion polls and will tell us straight up—is it okay to pay tax to Caesar or not?

Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - A Call for Peace

Matthew 22:1-14

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

I hope you will agree with me, I hope you will agree with me to leave, for a moment anyway, that disconcerting image with which our gospel reading has just left us, the boorish man who slipped into the wedding party in a T-shirt and booty shorts now bound hand and foot in the outer darkness, where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Because I would like us to turn to that “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding that guards are hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” which Paul proclaims, even as he bids us focus on whatever is true, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, so that if there be any excellence, anything worthy of praise, we should think about these things.”

“That we should keep on doing the things that we have learned and received and heard and seen in Paul, so that the God of peace will be with you.”

This peace is so much more pleasant, is it not, than that gnashing of teeth in a darkness that yields no solace?

Homily for Labor Day 2014

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

It is more than the end-of-summer backyard barbecue, let alone the final day of the year on the fashion calendar to wear seersucker or, like the Fort Worth church that sponsored me to seminary, the last chance for the vicar to sport his summer-white cassock and matching biretta.

Labor Day celebrates the social and economic achievements of the American labor movement which gained strength in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. 

Though once prosecuted as a “criminal conspiracy,” collective bargaining practices resulted in many things we may too often take for granted, such as higher wages and a safer work environment, health and unemployment insurance, a forty-hour work week, etc. 

Since the 1880s America has marked this celebration of labor on the first Monday in September, and there are similar celebrations around the globe, some like Canada even on the same day.

At creation we were given responsibility for stewardship of the earth and tilling the garden.  Scripture suggests that our work will never end but will continue even as members of a heavenly choir.  From the beginning to the end, and beyond, labor or work is a universal and inescapable part of what it means to be “human.”   

Homily for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - What is a Parable?

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

In this season after Pentecost, we mark time according to whatever the number of Sundays there are after the Feast of Pentecost, today being the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.

This is the longest season of the church year, what the church refers to as “ordinary time,” a time focused not on the great events of Jesus—his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—but on following him as Lord, on growth as Christians, growth even symbolized by green being our liturgical color. 

During ordinary time our focus is discipleship, following Jesus as Lord, living day by day in the Spirit of God that has been poured into us so that we may move further and further into “the kingdom of God,” that time and space—or better, that arena and sphere—of God’s presence and activity, where God’s rule is established and God’s will is done even here on earth even as in heaven.

To grow as disciples of the Lord Jesus we gather near him as our teacher.  The scriptures show that, like the rabbis of his day and great teachers since, Jesus often taught by telling odd and perplexing stories which we call “parables.”

Today, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, we begin a few weeks of such stories, these which happen to be in the narrative and theological center of Matthew’s gospel for they are parables on the kingdom of God, a “kingdom” not as something that exists somewhere over there beyond the grave but a kingdom that is drawing nigh, breaking in, in the life of Jesus Christ and in the life we have as Jesus’ disciples.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - Where is your hope?

Acts 17:22-31 , Psalm 66:7-18 , 1 Peter 3:13-22 , John 14:15-21 

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

“Always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3.15).

As a relatively newly ordained priest, I was invited by the rector for whom I worked to sit in with him as he did premarital instruction for a couple. 

Toward the end of the hour, Father Wise looked at each of them and asked, “Now, if you could change anything about the other person, what would it be?”  

Each responded much the same way, “Oh, I wouldn’t change anything about him.” “I love her just the way she is.” Now I couldn’t help but wonder—thankfully to myself and not out loud—“Are you kidding me?! You’ve got to be on drugs!”  I just assumed that they were lying to Father Wise, to each other, and, most problematically, to themselves. 

By then Cindy and I had by been married for ten years, but I don’t think it took ten days to figure out that each other might benefit from at least some improvement!  Isn’t it funny how opposite qualities which at first attract (she’s so smart and thoughtful and he’s so lively and talkative) can become such sore points (why won’t she say anything?! Won’t he ever just shut up?!).

No doubt such examples could be multiplied, but in the hope of avoiding divorce by the end of the morning, I’ve probably said quite enough already.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter - Basking in the Light

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Rowan LeCompte died this past February at the age of 88. Rowan was born March 17, 1925 but often spoke of a different day as being his “second birthday.”¹ 

That special day was July 1, 1939, when Rowan was just fourteen.  It was an unusually cool and crystal clear Saturday in summer. It was a day that captivated his attention and inspired a lifelong passion.  

Having been torn between his interest in architecture and painting, that day was the key that unlocked the door to both, when Rowan was taken by an aunt to Washington, D.C., to see the august buildings of the nation’s capital, including an eventful stop at the National Cathedral.   

The National Cathedral, begun three decades earlier, was still very much a work in progress. Walking up those steps and through the temporary west doors along scaffolding-lined walls, Rowan recalls that the organist was playing Handel and then he saw what seemed to be light “floating in the dark,” the rose window on the cathedral’s north end. 

In a 2009 NPR interview, Rowan said that the cathedral that day was “a magic, marvelous, dim, ravishingly beautiful place, and I was stunned.” He said, “It was as if heaven opened.”

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter - Good Shepherds Live with their Sheep

Acts 2:42-47
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
Psalm 23

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

I have a picture in my office of Father Carl Wayne Babcock.  

Father Babcock served as a parish priest in Arkansas and as a teacher at the Episcopal school in Mississippi where I would later meet Cindy.

During his time in Arkansas, he took an interest in helping the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees and over the course of the next several years had some 140 Vietnamese living in his own home for various lengths of time while they moved toward self-sufficiency.

When I was a freshman at the University of North Texas, Father Babcock began as the Episcopal chaplain.  Being active in the Episcopal campus ministry and taking survey classes in the Old and New Testaments from him, I got to know him well.  In my senior year, I lived with him together with a lovely Vietnamese couple whom he had taken in.

He was one of those brilliant people who despite his humble manner seemed to know an amazing amount about ever so much.  When he was in seminary, he had been able to live for a time in Jerusalem (where he picked up Modern Hebrew), in France (where he perfected his French), and in Oxford, before returning to finish his Master’s of Divinity at Seabury Western. 

A perpetual student he would later go on to earn an additional master’s degrees in counseling, bolstering native gifts with study. He just had the knack for counseling, for being “fully present” when you spoke with him, a way of making you believe that your hangnail was a matter of genuine concern not only to him and maybe even to God.

His life was one of considerable suffering. 

Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter - Seeing More Clearly

Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

All too often and usually without much thought or particular intention on our part at all, we can find ourselves looking at our world and maybe even ourselves, in a sort of fixed and rigid way.  Seeing things, if you will, through a particular lens, one to which we have grown accustomed and, in their familiarity to us, have become comfortable. 

Some of us see our world through rose-colored glasses, especially when we look back upon a particular time and place and all those stresses and strains that may well have caused more than a few vexations are now thankfully faded memories, and we idealize the way things were, and maybe we feel ought to be now.

Others of us tend to be more oriented to the present.  And of those present-minded folk, some of us are “uniquely” blessed with such exacting vision that we are able to see with amazing clarity all the cracks in the walls and even the ever-so-slight discolorations and imperfections in the way things are.

Yet there are still others who seem to have an uncanny clairvoyance, the remarkable ability to peer into future, imagine the way things not only could be but can be with initiative, guidance, and, if need be, blood, sweat, and tears.  “Visionaries” we call them.

John Hughes, the late bishop of Kensington, will apparently not go down in history as such a visionary.  In the mid 1980s, an oil executive in his early 30s went to see the bishop in order to share with him his growing sense that God was calling him to leave the business world and become a priest.  After some time Bishop Hughes declared rather flatly, “I see no future for you in the Church of England.”¹ 

That young oil executive with no future in the church? 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent - Imagine what God sees.

1 Samuel 16:1-13 
Ephesians 5:8-14 
John 9:1-41 
Psalm 23 

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In Tel Aviv and select venues around the globe, well over 150,000 people have seen the poignantly named Not by Bread Alone, a production of Nalaga’at Theater.¹ 

Remarkable on many levels, it is especially so because the eleven actors and actresses are in varying degrees both deaf and blind, some completely.  Most have Usher’s Syndrome, where one is born deaf and then with adolescence becomes increasingly blind.

In Not by Bread Alone, they make, knead, and bake dough on stage while sharing their memories, their dreams, and their joys through the use of different kinds of sign language and physical comedy.  The audience sees, hears, and even smells the production as the bread bakes on stage and then shared with the audience at the conclusion of the play.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany - God Alone Gives the Growth

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37
Psalm 119:1-8

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

It is said that Henry Ward Beecher, a famous nineteenth-century Congregational pastor in New England, entered the pulpit one Sunday morning to find there an unmarked envelope. Opening it, he discovered a single sheet of paper on which in large script was written the single word FOOL.

After chuckling to himself, he held the paper up to the congregation and said: "I have known many an instance of a man writing letters and forgetting to sign his name. But this is the only instance I've ever known of a man signing his name and forgetting to write his letter."

This story is a poignant reminder to the clergy that a thick skin and a sense of humor can go a long way in dealing with our feet of clay.

I have known a lot of clergy, all with some gifts, most with extraordinary ones.

But even so, as we get to know our clergy better, weaknesses also tend to become apparent.  Great pastors are not always the strongest preachers.  Great preachers not always the strongest pastors.   Some have remarkable gifts as envisioning what can be. 

Some are better at simply loving in the midst of what is right now.  A few have such charisma that they build large congregations, some of which dwindle immediately following their inevitable departure to a new cure or death.

Most advertisements for clergy positions seek a priest who will address declining numbers and finances by growing the church without changing anything, or at least not things I like.  Bring us lots of children but don’t let them disturb us.  Clergy are not immune to this desire.

Homily for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany - Share the Light!

Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23
Psalm 27:1, 5-13

Homily by Fr James W Mathieson, Visiting Preacher and Celebrant

Epiphany – “WOW!”

Epiphany is that time of the church year, like the times in your life – those moments when you’ve been wrestling with a question and the answer comes to you like a beam of light. Or maybe you thought you knew the truth and then circumstances change and make you realize that there is another way of looking at things.

Last week, after Jesus’ baptism, John was stunned by the truth: “I didn’t know him!” John and Jesus were cousins. They probably grew up together, and yet John was now seeing a new side of Jesus, a new light had dawned.

Many scholars think that John and Jesus both went to the school of the Essenes together, down in the Quam Ran Society.

The Quam Ran Society was composed of a group of people who made the choice to separate themselves from the society of Israel. They didn’t like the Temple priests at Jerusalem, or the corrupt kings. They didn’t like the growing Greek influence in Israel, or the Pharisees with their constant adding to the law. They thought the people of Israel were not devout enough, and they certainly did not like the Romans, their customs, their language, or their moral laxness.

So they decided to separate themselves and to shut out the world. They read nothing but Scripture; they were very pious. They performed baptisms as a rite of cleansing, as a way to seek forgiveness of sins.

John decides he’s a prophet of God, a missionary, calling a wicked world to repent. He goes out into the desert and preaches to anyone and all who come by, chastising them as “you brood of vipers.” John must have been delighted when his cousin Jesus came to his baptismal ministry. After baptizing Jesus, John hears a voice from God,” this is my son in whom I am well pleased.”

John knew Jesus one way and now knows him as “the Lamb of God.” Wow! The lamb who carries the sins of the world on his shoulders.

Homily for Christmas Eve 2013

Isaiah 52:7-10 
Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12) 
John 1:1-14 
Psalm 98

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet. . . .         

From the incomparable beauty of that powerful echo of Genesis in the opening words of John’s gospel—in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God–from such words to words about feet, even beautiful ones, may seem counterintuitive.

Yet ordination can yield surprising insights, and one such insight for me has been about feet.  Prior to being ordained, beyond noting splashes of color here and there or the occasional toe bling, I am not sure I paid that much attention to feet. 

But as a newly minted priest I discovered just how terribly self-conscious many, if not most, people are about their feet, especially that first Holy Week when I tried to coax them out of their shoes so they would come forward and allow me to wash their feet on that night we remember Jesus not only took bread and wine but water and a towel and bid us follow his example.

There may be no more tender moment in the church year than when we remove our socks and our shoes and bare our feet before God and everyone else, and allow another person to take them into his hands, pour water over them, dry them with a towel.

Among the most poignant images of 2013 may be that of Francis, the new pope, kissing the feet of a young Muslim woman at just such a Holy Week service at a juvenile prison in Rome. 

Homily for the Feast of Christ the King

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

This Sunday is a significant milestone, marking our first full Christian year together.  

A year in which we have journeyed through “extraordinary time,” waiting with expectancy in Advent, celebrating God’s enfleshed presence with Christmas, walking the Way of the Cross during Lent, finding new life through Easter, receiving a fresh anointing of the Spirit at Pentecost: “extraordinary time” where we celebrate those “mighty acts of God.”

But the year has also included the long slog through “ordinary time,” moving not from season to season, but from Sunday to Sunday—after Epiphany and after Pentecost, the latter stretching from late May to late November to the last Sunday after Pentecost where we crown the year with this feast of Christ the King: “ordinary time” where we learn to be disciples of Jesus, not only on the mountaintops or even in the valleys but in the choices and actions of everyday life.

Discipleship is living in an intentional, disciplined way.  By daily discipleship we grow more and more into the full stature of Jesus Christ.  Discipleship reveals what we believe, who really is King for us.

So on this final Sunday of the church year it is meet and right that we get a spiritual check up, have a look at our spiritual vital signs, see just how this discipleship thing is working out for us.

Homily for All Saints' Sunday - Created in the image and likeness of God

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

In one of the “proper prefaces” for a saints’ day (the short prayer indicating the particular occasion for our eucharist is celebrated), we thank God:

For the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all your saints, who have been the chosen vessels of your grace, and the lights of the world in their generations. (BCP 380)

But we recall that in John’s gospel Jesus declares, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (8.12). 

So these saints are the lights of the world not because they have their own light, some secret illumination unique to them, but because in the midst of whatever circumstance they find themselves however dark, they shine forth with the piercing light of Jesus Christ.

Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthian church, speaks about his own ministry underscoring that Jesus is the focus:

We do not proclaim ourselves but we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. . . .  For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (4.5-6)

Paul goes on to say that “we have this treasure [this ministry] in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that . . . power belongs to God and does not come from us” (4.7). 

These lights, these blesséd saints of God, get that.

Sermon for All Saints' Day: A Joint Service of Chatham Baptist Church and Emmanuel Episcopal Church

 Daniel 7:1-3,15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31

 Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Greetings to the Reverend Doctor Charles H. Warnock III and the saints from Chatham Baptist, to the saints at Emmanuel Episcopal, and any saints that may have come from other traditions. I greet each of you in the Name of Jesus Christ and with the kiss of peace, notionally and symbolically if not literally.

I am so thankful that we saints have come together this All Saints’ Day to celebrate all the saints of God and to give glory to the one who gives them and us life without end.

I want to begin and end with this use of the word “saints”: how it is used in holy scripture to refer to those who have been baptized, born again, put on Christ, share in his death and resurrection, are members not so much of this church or that church but the one church, the very Body of Christ, that lives and dwells under the headship not of Chuck nor of Christ but of Jesus Christ and him alone.  This, I think is the foundational meaning of the word saints.

This is certainly how it is used some 68 times in the New Testament.  The first time we stumble across the word saints is when after Saul-turn-Paul is struck down on the road to Damascus and Jesus asks “why are you persecuting me,” so closely does Jesus identify with all who have “put on Christ.”

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost - The Grace of Humility

Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Luke 18:9-14

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Two men went to the temple to pray.  One was proud and justified, or righteous, in himself, the other humble and justified by God.

I am sure that I have already mentioned to at least some of you one of my favorite preaching jokes:

Did you hear about the clergyman who said he had prepared an incisive sermon on humility . . . but was waiting for a large crowd before preaching it?

Thankfully you have in me a much more humble servant of God to preach on humility.  J

In all seriousness, though, it would seem that “humility” may be one of the least understood words in the Christian dictionary.  That may be because our common usage has little to do with the Christian virtue of humility.

If we say that someone is “from a humble birth,” we mean that she comes from little or no money or a family of no prestige.  When we think of humility we often conflate it with low self-esteem or self-worth, maybe even a devaluing of one’s own gifts and abilities. 

Worse, we may think that for ourselves to be humble we need to become much like a doormat, never protesting against things, which in reality are abusive. 

And yet it may be even worse when we turn “humble” into a verb and “humble” or humiliate someone, so that we ourselves are not treating others, even others who have done bad things, with the dignity and respect that befits one who is, as all people are, born “in the image of God.”

An Instructed Eucharist

Download Instructed Eucharist Emmanuel-1

During the morning service on September 15, Emmanuel held an INSTRUCTED EUCHARIST during which Father Heying made some remarks about our liturgy and what we do in the Eucharist. 

The attached document has considerable information about the worship service, the vestments, the altar ware and linens, pious gestures used by the priest, etc.

The side-by-side commentary with the liturgy was intended to be helpful to all in gaining not so much an "understanding" of the service as a deeper "appreciation" for this ancient liturgy we call by various names.

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proclaiming the gospel of peace

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Let there be no doubt that the Gospel of peace is a costly gospel. Scripture is clear that even just to be a Christian is to engage in battles, not just with flesh-and-blood opponents but with rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of darkness and spiritual forces of evil that dwell even in heavenly places.

First Peter tells us that we must be vigilant for the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5.8) and Ephesians urges us that even as we stand firm against the wiles of the devil to put on our feet shoes that make us ready “to proclaim the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6.14). 

For as we engage in hand-to-hand conflict with the very personal forces of evil, we must proclaim in word and deed that God was and that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself and giving us the message of reconciliation, the gospel of peace (2 Corinthians 5.19ff).

But where there be no justice there can be no peace. 

True peace is not ultimately about the absence of anything: tension, vexation, anxiety, stress.  True peace is about the presence of justice—palpable, real, accessible, actionable, and not just for us but for every person, for each person is made in the image of the living God.

So it is with that critical need for justice in mind that we meet today a not-so-meek and not-so-mild Jesus this morning. 

Homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Penetecost - Be not afraid

Genesis 15:1-6
Psalm 33:12-22
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

For everything there is two creations, first the blueprint, then the building.  First we imagine; then we create. With imagination apprehending the finished product we can build it correctly. 

Stephen Covey proposes this as one of the habits of highly successful people: they begin with the end in mind. They envision where they want to go, so they can actually get there.

But if our vision is off, if the compass is pointing to the wrong wall, then every step taken will just move us to the wrong place faster!¹

So each of our scriptures today plead with us to orient our spiritual compass toward the right wall, the one that is as solid and sure as God’s promise, though we may see not and feel not.  But holding in our hearts and imagination obedience to God, we can move forward with confidence.

From the end of Chapter 11 to the beginning of Chapter 15 of Genesis, from which our first reading comes, we find a spiritual compass being reset, being redirected toward the right wall.

The story begins with Terah setting out from Ur of Chaldeans, heading toward the land of Canaan togethre with son Abram, daughter-in-law Sarai, and grandson Lot, Abram’s nephew. 

Homily for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost - Death and dying well

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

From dying suddenly and unprepared,
Good Lord, deliver us!

In Name of the Living God and the God of the Living:  

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, 
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Such of course is the poem by Emily Dickinson that reminds us that Death will come for each of us.

Ars moriendi,¹ in English, “the art of dying,” refers to a genre of literature that grew from two Latin books in the 1400s which dealt with death and dying, the shorter of which being a “block book,” complete with wooden images upon which one could meditate and learn to “die well.” 

Homily for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - Learning to Pray

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

If you want to make an Episcopalian uncomfortable, ask him or her a question that requires some biblical literacy. 

In general, many of us feel we know very little about scripture despite the fact that our worship services often have more readings from holy scripture than do the worship services of many denominations we associate with biblical literacy.

But if you want to make an Episcopalian really uncomfortable, ask about his or her prayer life.¹ 

I suspect that reluctance comes out of some embarrassment, fear that we would have to admit that our prayer life is not as developed or as satisfying or maybe even as existent as we sense it ought to be. 

And though we may have been Christians most of our lives (and some of us can’t remember a time when we weren’t), when it comes to prayer we can often feel like inept beginners.

In part we often are!  Many of us really haven’t developed too much in our prayer life from the time we learned some version or another of that morbid bedtime prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

To that we may have added concerns for others, “Bless my mom, my dad, my dog Tippy, and my teddy bear Theodore.  Or please, Lord, I need an X-Box 360, and if you would throw in a Corvette that’d be super.” 

We might, at least at times of formal meals, say a blessing for the meal: “Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest; let this food to us be blest.” 

And then I suspect in time some of us stumbled upon prayers of penitence, “O Lord, if you just let me recover from this headache, I’ll never do that again.” 

And for many, if not most, our “prayer life” seems to have too little “prayer” and even less “life.”

Homily for Trinity Sunday - The Mystery of the Trinity

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8 or Canticle 2 or 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

Homily be Fr R Christopher Heying

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday.  It is often said that more heresy is preached this Sunday than any other, but I confess that I have always enjoyed preaching on this Sunday.  I trust that such is the case not because of a heretical bent nor even because I think the dogma fascinating, as it is revealed in scripture and discerned and, to a degree defined, over the first four centuries of the church’s life.

Intellectual speculation on a dogma however interesting is of course nothing compared to the actual encounter of the living God, engagement with the immortal, invisible God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes, yet the very same God who reveals God’s self to us that we might share God’s life. 

That revelation comes in many ways of course, in creation, in scripture, the giving of the Law, prophetic voices, in Jesus Christ in whose face we see the love of God and in the coming of the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth.  Revelation of God comes even from within ourselves, for we are created in the image and likeness of God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit, a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Being.

Homily for the Day of Pentecost - Come, Holy Spirit, come!

Acts 2:1-21 or Genesis 11:1-9
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:14-17 or Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17, (25-27)

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

When the Day of Pentecost had come, the disciples of Chatham were all together in one place for the Holy Spirit to come . . . to come and to seal Susan, to come and to mark her as Christ’s own forever.

Come, Holy Spirit, come!

From that first Pentecost—with its sound of rushing wind and appearance of divided tongues, as of fire—to the fact of the church’s very existence despite two thousand years of failings that would assuredly have shut the doors and turned off the lights on any purely human enterprise, the coming of the Holy Spirit has always been attended by signs and wonders, the most clear of which is the transformation of lives and of communities.

Yet at one level the baptism of Susan does not seem that amazing, for if we were to look for someone to give testimony about how he or she was a wretch until by God’s grace saved, you and I would probably not think of Susan! 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - The peace of God it is no peace.

Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 14:23-29

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

“My peace I leave with you.  My peace I give you.  Not as the world gives peace give I unto you.”

I remember when I heard it—maybe not for the first time but for the first time really heard it—this hymn which we sung just before the gospel reading: “They cast their nets in Galilee” (Hymnal 661). 

It was at a vocations retreat in summer of 1994 to which Cindy and I had gone as part of the vetting process to become a priest.  The priest who gave the talk used the hymn as a guide to the challenges, which can be faced in priestly ministry, but he could just as well have used it as a talk to vet anyone who thought they might want to become a Christian.

The hymn begins with reference to “simple fisher folk” who were happy, contented, and peaceful just the way they were.  They no doubt had family, friends, a decent education, and a good job. Life was sweet enough, filled with value and meaning that most of us, if we are at all reflective, desire.

Then along comes this Galilean carpenter who calls out to us and invites us to follow him, to watch with amazement as he teaches with authority, casts out demons, heals the lame, proclaims the God’s favor, bestows peace.  

What was pretty darn good now seems to get even better.  It’s seems that it is much like Coca-Cola: everything goes better with Jesus.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter - Alleluia. Christ is risen.

Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Alleluia. Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. 

On this Day 29 of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, it is a happy thing that our waning emotional fervor has not tempered in the least the church’s bold Easter proclamation this morning: Jesus is risen from the dead and that changes everything.

We see this in the four visions that the church gives us in this morning’s lessons, three that are straightforward and obvious and one that, while more obscure, has within it the very key to resurrection and its transformation of everything. 

Our lessons reveal that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not only something that happened about two thousand years ago but has ongoing consequences for us and for the whole world.  What we once may have imagined as being not only impossible but even undesirable or unacceptable has come to us with the unqualified stamp of God’s acceptance, God’s approval. 

What we thought had been written in stone and unalterable has been utterly transformed by the one who never ceases to make all things new.  And that all of these amazing, wondrous and transformative things happen through the one thing that you and I arrogantly thought we knew so much about, only to discover we might have been as tone-deaf as those first disciples who heard, who even saw and touched for themselves, and yet had no understanding at all, but, thankfully, it is not that we love God but that God loves us.

Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter - My Lord and my God!

Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
John 20:19-31

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

I think it is fair to say that most of us in the course of our life have had and will have doubts and crises of faith. 

At times a certain doctrine or a tightly held opinion may seem to unravel before critical examination or growing indifference.    What we once were so dang clear about may grow blurry with shifting values and changing norms. Over a long, protracted period, a belief can fade until it disappears into the darkness. 

At other times, a crisis of faith may come crashing through the door like a thief in a home invasion who robs us of things we have held so dear, not the valuables but the values, our sense of security, our trust, our good name and carefully guarded reputation, our carefully constructed self-definition.  The peg that we have hung our life on can come loose and in a split second our equilibrium is lost.

Be it subtle and slow or definite and immediate, most of us will at some time be confronted with significant challenge to our belief structure.

Such was the case of course not only with Thomas but each of the twelve.  Despite repeated teachings that he must suffer and die and then rise again, no one expected the resurrection.  It was only through an encounter with the risen Lord, his bidding peace, his showing them his wounds, that they were able to rejoice at seeing the Lord.

Homily for the Great Vigil of Easter - How Shall We Live?

Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation]
Genesis 22:1-18 [Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac]
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea]
Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]

Homily by Fr R Chrispher Heying

In the late fourth century—50 or so years after Constantine’s Edict of Toleration for Christianity—a woman from Galicia, Northwest Spain, named Egeria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and described what she witnessed in a letter she sent back home to a circle of women friends. 

It is from this letter—maybe the earliest example of formal writing by a Western European woman—that we are given a glimpse of the shape of worship and liturgy in Palestine, indicating among other things the observances there in the late fourth century of  Epiphany, Lent and each day of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter.

From Egeria’s letter, of which there is a later extant copy, we know, for instance, that celebration of the nativity—Christmas—was not yet universal, but the events of Holy Week and Easter are given in surprising detail.¹

In Jerusalem, Egeria writes²

Paschal vigils are prepared in the great church. . . . The Paschal vigils are kept as with us [back in Galicia], with this one addition, that the children when they have been baptized and clothed, and when they issue from the font, are led with the bishop first to the Anastasis.

By anastasis, Greek for “resurrection,” Egeria apparently means a chapel in the cave believed to the empty tomb.

Egeria continues:

The bishop enters the rails of the Anastasis, and one hymn is said, then the bishop says a prayer for [those who have been baptized], and then he goes with them, where, according to custom, all people are keeping watch.  Everything is done there that is customary with us also, and after the oblation has been made [that is, communion is celebrated], the dismissal takes place.  After the dismissal of the vigils . . . they go at once with hymns to the Anastasis, where the passage from the Gospel about the Resurrection is made.  Prayer is made, and the bishop again makes the oblation.

So what we do this night, this holy night, is fully consonant with Christians all over the globe for at least some sixteen hundred years. 

Homily for Good Friday - Naked, exposed, vulnerable.

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25 or
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
Psalm 22

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Good Friday. Naked, exposed, vulnerable.

We have entered a church that has been laid bare.  Gone are the customary hangings and ornaments that adorn, beautify, even obscure.  As we gather tonight we are stripped of customary labels—Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian—with which we clothe ourselves.

We encounter a God who in Christ is laid bare and vulnerable.  Naked between thieves, he is mocked, rejected, despised, by some he is admired, perhaps by others he is even loved, but stripped, vulnerable, hands and feet nailed to the cross, a wound in his side, the crown of thorns tearing at his head. 

Before the God unto whom all hearts are open and from whom no secrets are hid we too are exposed and vulnerable.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent - Servant of Servants

Former Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, lovingly washing the feet of a young person living with HIV/AIDS

Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

As I read the gospel story about Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, pouring expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and then wiping them with her hair, I thought to myself, I want to do that, but then I remembered that I have no hair.

Much like when on Wednesday white smoke following the fifth ballot made clear that I would not only not be pope but that my eBay purchase of red shoes and a white zucchetto was in vain.

But when I got over the bitter disappointment of yet again being passed over for the See of Peter, I—maybe not unlike many of you—was charmed by this man, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was elected to be the 266^th successor of Peter, the first from South America, the first from the Society of Jesus (founded in 1534), and the first to take the name Francis.

We can’t know if he was the first in two thousand years to ask for the prayers of the people in the Square and to bow low on the balcony as some 100,000 people were instantly silent.  We don’t know if he was the first bishop elected who had sold a bishop’s palace to live in a simple apartment, cook his own food, take public transportation, and care for a disabled priest. 

We don’t know if he is the first pope to go in person within twenty-four hours to pay his own hotel bill.  Nor yet do we know if he is the first to wear a simple, plain iron pectoral cross or to keep the black shoes that were given him shortly before he departed for the conclave because there were those who were concerned that the shoes he was wearing were particularly dilapidated. 

But together with his choice of the name Francis in honor of the thirteenth-century saint who stripped himself from the life of luxury into which he was born in order to embrace the radical discipleship of a life of poverty and service, the new pope has endeared himself not only to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics but to Christians of all denominations, adherents of other world religions, and indeed all people of good will.

In the new Pope’s first sermon on the day’s propers given in Italian without notes to the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel he made clear the values by which he lives and intends to lead:

We can walk all we want, we can build many things, but if we don’t proclaim Jesus Christ something is wrong . . ..

When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly.  We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord . . . .¹

It matters not who we are if we are not first and foremost disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It matters not what we do if we do not first, as Saint Paul says, proclaim Jesus and him crucified.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent - Finding True Joy

Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Homily by F R Christopher Heying

This man’s grandson murdered this man’s son, and today they brought us all here in the power of compassion and forgiveness. ^[1]

Those are the words whereby Azim Khamisa and Ples Feliz are introduced to students at Gompers Charter Middle School in the 2007 documentary The Power of Forgiveness.

Azim Khamisa explains that when introduced this way it is often the first time in their young lives these children have actually seen an alternative to violence.  Most of what they have seen is an eye for an eye. 

Azim tells the middle schoolers that on the evening of January 21, 1995, his twenty-year-old son Tariq, an art student at the University of San Diego, delivered a pizza to a group of teenagers who had been drinking and using drugs all day and planned a robbery.  It was Ples Feliz’s fourteen-year-old grandson Tony who pointed a gun at Tariq and demanded the pizza. When Tariq refused, Tony pulled trigger and killed him with a single shot.

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent - The Lord is my light and my salvation

Luke 13:31-35 

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? —Psalm 27.1

While I was working yesterday on this morning’s sermon, Mary Grace called to say that we had received a letter from Grandpa Bob, my father. 

Apparently when I spoke to him last week I happened to be working on a sermon, so he proffered this advice:

“The secret to a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and then to keep the two as close together as possible.”

While he has apparently retained his sense of humor at 92, I have to confess that I have not always followed my father’s sagacious counsel, sometimes to my regret and perhaps now to yours.

As I reflected on today’s gospel reading, a story came to mind that ironically had all the makings of a good joke: there was a rabbi, a priest, and two Protestant pastors.¹

But when these four men came together for the first time it was anything but a joke.  When they met at the Army Chaplains School at Harvard in 1942, each was responding out of love of country and fellowman, just as my own father did that summer when he joined the Navy immediately after his college graduation.

Homily for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany - the Transfiguration

Luke 9:28-36

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Today we celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus.  Over the course of the church year, we actually celebrate the transfiguration at least twice, and sometimes, three times.

We celebrate it on the Feast Day of August 6th. And then we celebrate it again on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.  A third time may occur if the church is named for the Transfiguration and then uses the propers (lessons) for the Patronal Festival.

Remember the context of the Transfiguration story in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  It occurs a week after Peter confesses Jesus as the “Messiah.” Jesus has made the first of the three predictions of his passion.  And in Mark, Peter rebukes Jesus, and Jesus says, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

As Luke tells the story,