A Positively Poetic Priest

Good Morning! Welcome to St. John's at Home. In our denomination we love our national slogan, "The Episcopal Church welcomes you." But what does it mean to really welcome someone? Jesus pulls no punches in the Gospel passage from Matthew today.  Its two sentences long and he says the word welcome as a strong active verb  six times!  There is no mistaking the theme of these two sentences.  Welcoming.  Apparently welcoming has a cascading effect, especially when welcoming Jesus. When we welcome each other, we welcome Jesus,  and when we welcome Jesus, we welcome God. A three for one type of deal. Because of this cascading effect, being welcoming, showing hospitality is a discipleship trait.  When we are welcoming in the name of Jesus, we welcome Jesus and God. When we welcome others, even strangers, we are welcoming Jesus and God. But what does it mean to really welcome someone? Jesus doesn't set the bar very high. No, its fairly low. "Whoever gives even...

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 8 BCP 230) The Church is really the unity of the community. As the Collect of the Day for this coming Sunday says, "Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you." I have seen lots of statements about churches closing and reopening in the last couple of months, but my favorite was a cartoon drawing of an empty church with people doing other things in the community. It said, the church is empty because we are all busy being the church: sharing food, running errands, social distance visiting, creating online worship. (...

Jimmy and I tend to watch a lot of architecturally themed shows, you know, house building, ancient ruins, that kind of thing. We like seeing the combination of function and design, we like seeing how things work together, and the diversity of how humans live. While many of these shows are very different, one of the things these shows have in common is that they always mention the foundations. The foundations are never the prettiest things. They tend to end up hidden in dirt and rock. But they are what keeps the rest of the building standing up and together.  So they are always mentioned, at least briefly.  When it comes to ancient ruins, usually the foundations are the parts still standing when other, more decorative, parts of the building have fallen down. When I have gone to visit ancient places, I always have a tendency to look at the sewer and road systems, they are part of the foundational system of how the town works. Good foundations and sewers means the town has a...

6/19/20 What is your foundation? O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 7 BCP 230) "The wise man built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock and the rains came tumbling down. The rains came down and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up, and the house on the rock stood firm." This popular Sunday School song is based on the parable about the wise and foolish builders from the Gospel of Matthew. The song and the parable point to one small difference between the houses built by the wise man and the foolish man, the foundation. The wise man built his house on rock whereas the f...

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, - in practice there is." As uttered by that baseball master, Yogi Berra. Jesus was and is a lot of things to us. God, our Lord, our Savior. He was also a really good critical thinker  and  teacher . As a teacher, he taught his disciples where they were. Kind of like a traveling home school.  Everywhere they went, there was a lesson there. Sometimes the disciples saw it and sometimes they didn't. While we hear a lot about how he taught Simon Peter, or perhaps about how Simon Peter didn't learn, it seems to me that Jesus taught each of his disciples in different ways. His response to James and John wanting the best seats in the house is different than if Simon Peter had said it, or if one of the women disciples had said it. Jesus knows his disciples and that they learn in different ways  and need different kinds of experiences in order to learn the truth. I have sometimes wondered if Jesus took James and...

I want you to imagine the year the disciples are having, centered on this moment. Six months prior to this encounter with the Resurrected Jesus on top of a mountain in Galilee, they were wandering around Galilee teaching and healing and praying with people. Six months prior, they had no idea what was going to happen to them and to Jesus and to their world. Weeks of increasing tension with the religious authorities, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, betrayal, abandonment of Jesus, crucifixion, and death and their frustrating despair - they are reeling - and then resurrection, Jesus returns looking different - what happened?? - then the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and now here they are seeing Jesus on top of a mountain top near where things started, not knowing what is to come, but knowing that the next six months are also going to bring huge changes in their lives. I imagine there were a large number of different emotions swirling around for those disciples on that mounta...

  Week 6 Word Ecclesiastes 11:1 – 12:26 (NRSV) 11 Send out your bread upon the waters,    for after many days you will get it back. 2  Divide your means seven ways, or even eight,    for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth. 3  When clouds are full,    they empty rain on the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,    in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. 4  Whoever observes the wind will not sow;    and whoever regards the clouds will not reap. 5  Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything. 6  In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. 7  Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to se...

Take a long drink of something good and think about the act of drinking. How we humans drink is kind of funny.  Head turned up, neck vulnerable to allow passage, usually involving at least one hand. I don't know if you have ever watched someone else drink, or tried to watch yourself drink something. Its one of the few things we have a hard time doing while doing other things. Drinking does not lend itself to multitasking well.  I mean, I know I can drink water while riding my bicycle or running, but I can't write while drinking, at least not well. I can't text or wash dishes well. Taking a sip of water requires a pause in everything else.  It doesn't last long, but there is pretty much always a pause. Even in the metaphorical ways of drinking drinking in music or art, or seeing someone else, the act of drinking in is a pause to let something enter us. Jesus knows what it is to drink and he uses this metaphor in a lot of ways. In the Gospel passage from John today,  J...

"Oh good Lord! You are awesome!" "Oh good Lord, I pray..." "Oh good Lord." Full stop. I don't know about you, but this has mostly been my prayer life lately. Every sentence starts with "Oh good Lord," and every time the attitude is different. Sometimes weary, sometimes baffled, sometimes frustrated,  sometimes annoyed, sometimes joyful, sometimes grateful. The words, and sometimes the lack of words, are jumbled and confused, my desires, my needs, my hopes for our community, my concerns and worries for our town, all add up to a very hilly experience of life and prayer. Jesus on the other hand, seems to know exactly what he is saying  in the prayer we overhear in the Gospel passage from John today. Jesus is focused on relationship. His relationship with God, his followers relationships with God, and the ending completeness of all things in God. We hear from the Gospel passage much about Jesus' relationship with God. Jesus was with God befor...