​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter VII, Year A
May 24, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
The scene opens with a misty, wooded landscape.  There is a castle in the background.  From a distance, there is a lone horseman riding through the fog and we can hear the clip clop of hoofs the rocky road.  The figure emerges with chain mail armor, a steel helmet, and a royal tunic.  But then, the scene broadens and the knight figure is, simply skipping along as if he is riding a horse.  There is a scruffy attendant behind him clapping coconuts together to make the clopping horse trot sound.
 
If you have a certain sense of humor, you recognize this as the opening scene of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and what follows is a hilarious spoof of the whole story of Arthur gathering his knights to Camelot.  But first, he has to explain to one knight where in the world he found the coconuts, as England is hardly a tropical region.  The whole plot digresses from there, and the film is the stuff of comic legend.
 
I have to admit that this troupe of comedians, known collectively as Monty Python, are comic heroes of mine.  Their keen sense of irony and their farcical look at historic events have, forever changed how I think of certain events.  Their follow up film called Life of Brian is genius, if not very close to heretical.  In that story, Brian is born in a stable next door to Jesus and spends the rest of his life being confused with Jesus as people mistakenly follow him, supposing him to be the Messiah.  It is an amazing critique of blind faith and the irony of religious followers trying to exclude other religious followers as not following the true way to whatever they perceive salvation to be.
 
Naturally, when the film premiered, fundamentalist religious groups decried it as blasphemous, which is, of course, the whole point.  Those protesting the film’s content only bolster its point of view.  Thus, the joke is on all of us. 
 
My particular take is, and has always been, that if we cannot laugh at ourselves, life becomes way too serious, and we are lost to way too stuffy piety.  This is not to say that the tensions of good and evil, sin and salvation, or judgment and grace, are not real and serious business.  But somewhere in all of that we have to take into account that all of our religious understanding and interpretation is mediated through the limited cloud of human knowing and being.  We can count on the Holy Spirit for guidance and revelation, but we do well to be careful in proclaiming that we know absolutely anything beyond the basic fact that God creates us, Jesus loves us, and all of life is about living with, and discerning, how these facts lead us in becoming closer to being One with in God.
 
Of course there is much more to living a life of faith, but we have to approach the whole exercise with what some call a low anthropology.  That is, we ought to accept that we are limited, culturally conditioned, subjective, and woefully self-centered.  As Mark Twain once said: God created people in his image, and people have been returning the favor ever since.  God is not of our creation, possession, and does not work at our direction, much as we would like that to be.
 
In this week’s Gospel, we meet with Jesus and his disciples for another farewell sounding monologue.  In John’s telling, we overhear Jesus’ prayer for the world beyond where he stands in time and space.  Thursday was the feast of the Ascension.  In the Catholic tradition, it is a holy day of obligation.  Nevertheless, you cannot find Ascension Day cards at the CVS, and nobody goes home to celebrate that with the family.  The significance of that day, when we remember Jesus being taken into heaven, is not about some magical jump into the sky.  It is not about where heaven is and how Jesus gets there.  It is about affirming that Jesus moves beyond time and space, and is not limited to being with a very few first century people.  Jesus continues to live among us and reveal God to us, not matter where we are and when we live.  This is an important reality.  Or, as one brilliant humorist summarizes: Now, like many of us, Jesus is working from home.
 
Jesus closes his prayer asking God to be with them, meaning us, so that “we may be one” as He and God are one.  The Holy Spirit is part of that one too, but that is a matter for next week’s proclamation.  I have to admit that that statement is a bit haunting.  God in Christ prays, desires, and insists that we be one, one with God and one with one another.  So far as I can tell, that is not the case.
 
This is not where I insert the Universalist interpretation that all religions point to the same God and that we are all about the same thing.  That is not the case.  The God of Jesus comes to us as generous, creative, and sacrificial love.  You don’t get that in any other narrative across the pantheon of religions.  At the same time, we are not the be all and end all of religious experience and influence.  Our faith needs to be broad enough to trust God’s work in the hearts and minds of others.  Our best mode of living God’s love is to promote what we have been given, rather than condemning others through some sort of holy exclusion policy.
 
Even among those who call themselves Christian, we are not one.  The world is full of denominational divisions, great schisms, and doctrinal lines in the sand.  Wherever two or three are gathered together, someone has a different experience, opinion, or preference.  This yields the old joke that on a tour of heaven, you have to walk by the Catholic, Episcopalian, and Baptist rooms quietly, because each group is sure they are the only ones there.
 
If we hear Jesus prayer for us to be one as a command, an order, or God’s sovereign law, we are in big trouble.  But let’s remember that this is Jesus message, not his blueprint.  He is telling us that despite everything we do to divide, judge, include, exclude, and proclaim pure piety, we are all gathered into one anyway.  In the vast span of life eternal, we are all brought together and we all are together in God, of God, and for God.  This is of great comfort in a week where our parish and community has experienced deep loss.  This is of great comfort in this time when we are feeling isolated, weary of cancellations, and frustrated with how many of God’s people are acting out.  This time is not the only time.  Our lives are not the only lives.  Our world is not ours, exclusively.  As the Psalm 24 affirms: “the whole earth is God’s, and all of its fullness therein.”
 
We may not be united and of one mind on just about anything, but that will never separate us from being one in God.  And here is where the tragedy of our petty division becomes the great comedy all time.  Whatever heaven is, and however we are gathered in, I cannot imagine that it is not full of holy laughter as we come to see the fullness of all, the love of all, and the oneness of all that is or ever will be.
 
We may not have all of the answers.  We may not have all wisdom and knowledge.  We are definitely fallible and foolish.  But in Jesus, we have a clue as to who to follow, who to thank, and who to believe.  It is the comedian who is most free to speak the truth.  As Mark Twain said,  “I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.”  So, on we go, rejoicing.  Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter VI, Year A
May 17, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
It was in a time before Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and binge-watching television on demand.  Remember, we had favorite shows then too, but we had to watch them a specific time and day of the week and, then, only one episode per week.  Networks wrestled and competed for sweet spots in prime time.   There was art and science to what shows played on which networks and when.
 
When I was in college, Thursday nights were the night to watch, and we did whatever we had to do to reserve the television and get a prime seat in the dormitory common room.  Without fail, my friend group gathered at 10 pm for our favorite show: Hill Street Blues.  It was an hour-long series set in major metropolitan police precinct, following the lives, adventures, and exploits of police officers, detectives, prosecutors, and public defenders.  It was a brilliant mix of crime show, legal thriller, and nighttime soap opera.  The characters were deep and compelling, the writing was wry and clever, and we could not miss it even if we had a test or paper due the next day.
 
Hill Street Blues always opened with early morning roll call in the precinct.  Over coffee and donuts, all of the characters gathered for their daily assignments and updates on ongoing investigations.  In rapid succession, alliances were formed, tensions were revealed, and the chaos of crime and punishment was organized.  Leading the meeting is Desk Sergeant Phil Esterhaus, a veteran cop, clever communicator, and well-respected father figure.  After the rundown of purse snatchings, narcotics investigations, and murder suspects, the Sergeant ends the meeting, somehow, commanding absolute silence from a room full of side conversations.  He stares them all down and says “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”  It is cautionary, heartfelt, and absolutely the same, every week. 
 
The Sergeant’s admonition has resonated through my own life, long after its show has ceased to be.  When heading off on a new adventure, sending a child to camp, or handing over the car keys, those words have spilled from my own consciousness.  “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”
 
It is such a loaded phrase.  Hey: pay attention, if only to this.  Let’s: we are in this life together.  Be careful: be attentive, cautious in our actions, and full of care for self and others.  Out there:  It is a big wide world, full of woe and wonder.  We cannot always control that.   Nowadays when we pick up our mask and gloves, put the hand sanitizer in the car, and head out into the vectored world, I think it often, even if I do not say it.  Hey, let’s be careful out there.
 
As we meet Jesus this week, we are in there with the disciples, and Jesus is telling them what will happen when he is no longer among them physically.  They are scared and unsure and perplexed.  As with the previous passage, Jesus brings them back to the main thing: when you love one another, you are loving me and you are with me.  He has to repeat this in many ways for them to hear it, and he does. 
 
The gospel writer’s Greek does linguistic backflips to fuse action with being.  Now I am no great student of philosophy, but this loving as more than an action – this loving as a way of being is a pretty sophisticated thought.  I read lots of philosophy in my theological studies and could not make sense of much of it.  I find more cogent philosophy in songwriting and storytelling than in Immanuel Kant or Martin Heidegger.  Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and the Avett Brothers bring it home more effectively.  But that is another sermon.
 
Thankfully, Jesus adds the next bit to get us out of our heads and into the mind of God.  He says that God will send the Advocate (also known as the Holy Spirit) to be with us forever.  The Spirit will move in and among us and help us connect our actions to our very being in God.  This is a big thought, a big idea, and a radically new thing.  Jesus is saying that God has got our back, there is no space between us and God, and it is all about God’s movement among us.  All we need do is accept this, and live in it.
 
And while we consider Jesus final words to his disciples, at the end of the entire Bible, in the last chapter of Revelation, the writer says this: “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus is with all of you. Amen.”  This is an outstanding, mic dropping statement of all pertinent philosophy and theology wrapped into 16 words.  It is all there: God’s radical presence, hope for the future, and grace – like mamma’s love, gravy on the biscuit, or grits with your eggs – grace is unearned and unmerited, but always abundant.  If there is any signpost pointing to the Spirit among us, it is grace.
 
While we are unsure of how we will gather again, while we are unable to sing together, praise together, and share God’s communion.  We are not orphaned or left out in the cold.  The Spirit is moving in and among us just as surely as the wind blows and grace abounds.  Know that.  Believe that.  Rest assured in belonging with God.
 
I guess the reason Sergeant Esterhaus’s words have resonated in my mind and echoed in my heart for many years is that they ring with a holy tone.  Their sentiment is the same is that of Jesus and of Revelation.   It is Sunday morning roll call for all of all saints.  Can you hear Jesus, commanding silence from all of the world’s noise, telling us we have his love, the Spirit’s presence, and God’s enduring grace always?  He is staring into all of our beloved faces
saying, “Hey, Let’s be care-full out there.” Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter V, Year A
May 10, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
“Be careful in Between.” 
 
We used to say that to one another when making the car journey from Athens, Georgia, where I grew up and the big city of Atlanta, 66 miles away.  Before the Olympics and the great push to have a four-lane highway to Atlanta, we drove there on US 78: a two-lane road winding through the red clay foothills of North Georgia.  Exactly half way between Athens and Atlanta was a little crossroads town called Between – that is how it got its name, from being between Athens and Atlanta.  As far as we know, the town’s only purpose for being was to have one police car, stopping all passers through that violated the sudden 25 mile per hour speed limit.  It was a really nice and shiny police car.  They must have done well.
 
If you told people you were going to Atlanta, inevitably, they would say, “Be careful in Between.”  Even after the four lane went in and we drove four miles north of Between on the new road, people kept saying it.  “Be careful in Between,” became a mantra for watching out for speed traps, and eventually, for just being careful on the journey from home to the big city.
 
It is funny how expressions develop and take on new meaning.  That one is time bound and localized, but it sticks with me because of its deeper meaning.  “Be careful in Between” is good advice even without the original intent of avoiding a speed trap.  Between places are places of transition and change, places of risk and unknowing, places bttween the safety of home and the destination of new promise.  It is good to be careful when we stand at the edges of experience.
 
Normally, we mark transitions with ceremony and rites of passage.  I cannot help but grieve for those who are supposed to graduate this weekend.  All of the ceremony has a purpose of marking the moment, so that the student does not hover in between high school or college and whatever is next.  Even in quarantine, there are virtual attempts at commencements.  John Krasinsky, the actor and comedian who does the “Some Good News” webcast each week, even hosted an on-line prom with some really great musical talent.  People need to mark the substantial moments of life and we are having to get creative in the face of restrictive gathering.
 
Of course, today is Mother’s Day.  It is not a church feast day, but it is a cultural one.  It can be a day of great appreciation for some, and a day of sadness or longing for others.  Nevertheless, we mark this day in light of the reality that all of us were born and became in this world through the labor and love of others.  For sure, birth is one of those between places where pain and worry and joy and new life all come together.
 
The Gospel we read today is really evocative, mostly because it is so often read at another between place.  This is a go to lesson for funerals, and it is spoken when the earth is freshly dug and we are making the transition from loving someone in this world and lifting them up to be loved on the other side of eternity.  That space blends a mix of gratitude and grief.  The words are of comfort and assurance.  They bridge across betweenness.
 
The story takes place as Jesus is in Jerusalem and his arrest and trial and crucifixion is eminent.  The disciples are well aware of the risks that await their friend and they wonder why he has to go toward such a confrontation.  Jesus prepares them, not by saying he will avoid pain, but in showing them how his love will abide with them, and remain in them, as they love like he does.  He tells them not to let their “hearts be troubled.”  He tells them “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  That is present tense.  It is not conditional or dependent on the disciples’ action.  It is not subject to whatever human machinations there are that work against him.  “From now on” he says, “you know God” because “you have seen God.”
 
In meeting with our diocesan clergy and bishops this week, it became clearer than ever that we are far from being able to gather as have traditionally.  I will admit that this realty hit me hard.  Like many of you, I may have been magically hopeful that somehow, this pandemic would blow over with a change in seasons, or that in flattening the curve, we would be able to return to gathering and going out in groups.  It is difficult to see conspiracy theorists are having a field day, and individualists claiming violations of personal freedom.  Sniping and accusing are not of love, and do not help.   People of faith have an important role to play in our response, our calm, and our commitment to using our God given reason to work together.  We can produce targeted volumes of testing.  We can develop therapeutics.  We can create a vaccine.  That is our greatest hope and opportunity to serve all persons, loving them as we love ourselves. That is where our prayer, our energy, and our work can come together.
 
“Be careful in Betweeen”
 
That phrase rings more true than ever in my heart and soul.  When things are uncertain and unknown, faith can erode and humanity can be lured into the madness of power grabbing and self-service.  Jesus brings his disciples together to see the power of love as the long view: the long game of life eternal.  He does not leave them wondering where God is for them.  He shows them in person.  He creates and inhabits a future for all of us, together.
 
When I spent a year as the Interim Rector at Grace Church, Kilmarnock, I was put in mind that there is no such thing as interim ministry.  The people of that parish continued to be church even in the uncertain space of future leadership.  I am grateful that Neal Goldsborough had the same view of ministry here in Emmanuel Church.  You kept on keeping on, praising God, doing the work of the Church, and loving one another.  You were careful in the in between space to keep the Jesus at the center of life.
 
If recording sermons, Zoom meetings and prayers, planned and distanced outreach is how we have to do it, that is what we will do, keeping Jesus at the center of life.  We will need to be creative and intentional.  Being joyful and maintaining a sense of humor is helpful in this space too.  Maybe God is birthing new ways of us being Church.   Even if things are different, we are not in between people.  We are God’s beloved family, now and always.  Amen.
 
Incidentally, the newer and faster four lane from Athens to Atlanta takes a more direct route.  And there is a stoplight at the halfway point.  That place is a little town called Bethlehem.  I am not making this up…

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter IV, Year A
May 3, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
I have always been interested in livestock.  Maybe it is because my grandfather Thomas tended a herd of cows on the family farm, and I always wanted one as a pet.  Even now, I am drawn to the pastoral setting of fields and beasts.  Fortunately, I have a gorgeous, agrarian drive from home to just about everywhere I go.  I have been known to stop and take pictures of cows, horses, sheep, goats, donkeys, llamas or whatever I see, and bring them home for show and tell.  They always seem to look so thoughtful and practical, pointing onto the wind, lying down before a big rainstorm, or finding shade and grass even at the extreme edges of captivity.
 
During part of a college summer I spent in England, a friend and I hiked from town to town in the Lake District, and all of the trails meandered through farmer’s fields where there were thousands of sheep on seemingly endless hillsides.  That is the setting that launched William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, and the other Romantic poets into ecstatic, nature fueled reverie.  Thinking about it makes me use words like ecstatic and reverie.
 
Even then I took lots of animal pictures.  English sheep are so well fed, and moppy looking in the dank gray drizzle that settles on just about everything.  Even though there are legions of them and regular thru hikers in their fields, it is not that easy to get a good close up.  In the days before digital pictures, I wasted lots of rolls of film catching sheep’s backsides as they ran out of the frame, and out of my way.
 
There were shepherds of a sort.  They were not the young angelic looking ones we see in the nativity scenes from the Bible, rather, they tended to be old, crusty men in layers of woolies and thick soled wellington boots.  We would see them in the pubs at night, nursing pints of bitters, and looking at us as suspiciously as their sheep did.  Each one of them had lots and lots of sheep, and they wandered the perimeters of the rock walled fields keeping out the odd fox or feral dog. 
 
What was so interesting to us was how the sheep followed, just the one person.  They could tell that particular caretaking person’s voice, their whistle, or even their grunts.  Centuries of collective instinct, passed from ewe to lamb in whatever sheep school there is, must have taught them to stay close to the one who looks out for them.
 
Today is known far and wide as Good Shepherd Sunday.  For this preacher and Christ follower, it is a sentimental favorite.  It is the Sunday we sing The King of Love my Shepherd is and we recite the ever-popular 23rd Psalm.  The scriptures we read have inspired really great ‘Jesus as the Good Shepherd’ art too.  Google “good shepherd art,” and you will get thousands of examples.
 
We love this image because it is peaceful, comforting, and pastoral in all senses of that word.  Even before Jesus, we have lots of Old Testament shepherd characters and stories.  King David started out as a lone shepherd.  All of the patriarchs and matriarchs maintained flocks of sheep for food, clothing, and used them as practical vehicles of wealth and prosperity.  Caring for the flock was a matter of life and death necessity for most of those old biblical folks.
 
Like the poets, we can get caught up in romantic notions of these beasts, and derive comfort from the protective care that Jesus, the “great Shepherd of the sheep” provides.  As most of us have moved away from such agrarian roots, we do suffer a sort of ‘nature deficit disorder’ in our full understanding of the image.  To reify and recapture the breadth of this metaphorical meaning requires a little sheepolgy.  This Sunday, annually, provides an opportunity for that too.
 
While we are apt to get the shepherd role for Jesus, we are not as apt to understand the corollary, that is, that we are sheep.  And here is where a deep dive into sheepology is helpful, if not humbling.  There is a reason that sheep have learned to follow the shepherd and to listen for the shepherd’s voice and guidance.  It is this: they are not naturally smart.  Apart from being particularly smelly and overwhelmed with matted fur, sheep do not have much in the way of defensive capability.  They have no claws, no fangs, or particularly frightening roar.  Their panicked and cacophonous bleating only serves to tell a predator exactly where they are.
 
About the best they can do for defense is to run away and clump up together so the predator can pick out the slowest or fattest one and leave the rest alone.  In extreme danger, sheep tend to scatter, and that leads to no good.  Sheep have been known to run off cliffs or fall into deep ravines.  I will let you do you own interpretation of sheep and the parallels to human nature.  It is not such a flattering exercise.
 
Even so, the best defense is a good offense.  If they stay close to the one willing to risk life and limb to protect them, if they go where that more enlightened mind leads, and if the way they do so, is to recognize that caretaker’s voice, then they have the best opportunity for peace and safety.  Here again, I will let you draw your own conclusions about this image and our current state of our own health and safety, but the best nugget of the day is that deep and insightful listening for God’s voice the best instinct. 
 
With all the talk of vectors, droplets, and risk factors, the one phrase that gets me in all of this is so called “herd immunity.”  That one takes us to the elemental level of the beasts that we are, or could be, if we scatter in all directions and do not take care of each other.  There has to be some balance between reckless freedom and cowering fear.  It comes from accepting our sheepness and knowing the limitations of going all of this alone.
 
The gospel does not advocate herd immunity, but H-E-A-R-D immunity: heard immunity.  That kind of peace and safety comes from listening to the most basic tenet of our baptism: seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Hearing that call is practicing H-E-A-R-D immunity.
 
There are immense challenges and there will be plenty more as our economy shifts and whole swaths of our fellow humans will need basic, living resources.  We can be about each other and seek creative solutions.  That is the voice need to hear.  That is the direction we need to follow.  Blame, shame, and acrimony, will not serve any good purpose.  Seeking just, mutual, and loving care and concern will lift us all, and brings us safely home.
 
In those great hymnic words:
 
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed
But yet in love he sought me,
And on his shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
 
When we hear the voice that sings that song, we are practicing heard immunity
 
Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Easter III, Year A
April 26, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
A while back, I spent a whole month in the Holy Land.  As anyone who has been there will tell you, it changes everything about how you encounter stories from the Bible.  To see the hillsides by the Sea of Galilee, it is not a stretch to see how Jesus could use them as natural amphitheaters for preaching and teaching.  To see the gates into the Old City of Jerusalem, we can see how people could pack in together for Jesus to parade in on a donkey.  In the bustling, narrow streets on a busy Friday, we made the same walk that Jesus did from the Praetorium to Golgotha, only he carried a weighty cross.  There is something about the sensory and visual experience of a place that fuels imagination and memory gives the narrative a different dimension.
 
We do not have to go to the Holy Land to claim sacred spaces of memory.  Lots of places are sacred: our childhood homes, school campuses, and generational home places.  Our family has been going to the same beach in South Carolina for most of my life.  We have built memories there even as it has changed, and we have changed.  Our little kids ran around on the same beach in swim diapers where we once brought our now spouses to meet the family.  With the wind and the waves as a persistent soundtrack, and the sand as common ground in the passage of time, we reflect and remember.  It is a place where we can look back, look around, and look forward and see the shapes our lives have formed.
 
Church is one of those places for many of us.  Church is where we marry, bury, and baptize.  It is where we go to pause, to ponder, and to pray.  It where we go to be changed and become who we hope to be.  Kathleen Capshaw recently Facebook shared a 2008 video of Emmanuel’s Vacation Bible School.  Many of the children in there are young adult high school graduates and current college students.  It is an incredible timepiece.  No matter when we came to it, our church place is a container for valuable memories and visions of who we are and how we are.
 
Even though we cannot be in that space together right now, the place is still there.  We are taking care of it and keeping it ready for more life and memory.  If you miss it, take a drive through and walk the grounds.  The dogwoods are in full bloom and the spring flowers are at their peak.  If we cannot have Easter together, we can see Easter life happening as the earth awakes and makes itself new again.
 
On our last day in the Holy Land, we studied the Gospel story we read today.  And like we had done with many of the Jesus stories, we set out to experience the place see the context of the narrative.  There was only one problem.  Nobody knows where exactly Emmaus is.  Its location has been lost in history.  We read that it is about seven miles from Jerusalem.  That’s it.  We went to some places seven miles from Jerusalem, and found a monastery, a vineyard, and the ruins of a Byzantine church.  They were all nice places, but did nothing to connect us to the story or its context. 
 
As we prepared to leave the Holy Land, the ambiguity of this journey served as a valuable object lesson.  We were preparing to go our separate ways, and make our way of faith in our own places and spaces.  And we reflected, we realized that Jesus did not appear to the disciples in Emmaus.  He joined them on the road to Emmaus.  He met them along the way.  As they walked, he taught them about the power of God’s word to some truth.  When they rested, Jesus’ identity came clear.  When they fed their hunger and quenched their thirst, Jesus blessed it all as he had done before.  Symbols became reality.  A risen and refreshed relationship with God came into being.
 
With all kinds of energy, they ran back to Jerusalem, covering all of the distance they had traveled all day in an hour of urgency.  There, they met the others, compared stories, and found that Jesus had met them all in their various places.  He had shown up, refreshed and alive in their lives.
 
It really isn’t about the place after all.  A trip to the holy Land is great, but with the risen Christ, whatever ground we inhabit is made holy.  We can woe and lament about missing out on sharing the sacraments, and that is a loss, but a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  Jesus feeds our hunger and quenches our thirst as we recognize God’s presence and activity wherever we are.
 
I do not mean to say that we don’t need our precious sacramental gifts.  We need the milestones of baptism and Eucharist to help us remember and sanctify life.  But holiness can break into anyone’s life, and any time, and in any place.  The realization we are given today is that all of life is grace.  God is not contained or limited to properly appointed spaces or churchified wording.  We do church to sharpen our vision of the rest of our life.  We do church to remember to remember.
 
So, in your own home place, for now, break some bread.  Drink deeply remembering the well of God’s love.  In doing so, we might quiet and order whatever fears we have in our hearts, touch the heart of God and lift up our lives to hope.
 
Even now, we are on the road, together.  Amen.
  

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Lent V, Year A
March 29, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
Why?  Why would God visit this particular illness on us, an illness that targets those who are most vulnerable and fragile?  Why?  Why would God give us the gift of one another, only to make being together the main thing we cannot do to counteract the spread of this disease?  Why God?  With all of the world problems we are already fighting, why would economies be decimated, stripping us of the wherewithal to respond?  Why God? Why?
 
I would be a lousy faith leader if I did not address that elephant in our room.  And I am not here to provide easy answers or produce trite or formulaic words in response to real and serious questions of our faith that our current circumstances raise.  That being said, the Word of God often addresses the problem of human suffering, and today we are given a story that helps us unpack where we might find God even in the middle of a hot mess.
 
Lazarus, along with his two sisters, Mary and Martha are some of Jesus’s best friends.  He stays with them whenever he is in town.  And while Jesus is elsewhere in the region, Lazarus gets sick.  They send word for Jesus to come, but he delays going to their house for several says to preach, teach, and heal where he is.  Before he can get there, Lazarus dies, and then and only then, Jesus decides to go back and see them in Bethany.  It should be noted that Bethany is close to Jerusalem and the leaders and crowds there are looking to capture Jesus, so going back there is risky at best.  Nevertheless, he goes.
 
Where is God in the midst of human suffering?  As God in humanity, Jesus goes right toward it.  And that is an important point to realize.  Far from being some random and removed sky God, the God of our faith shows up to be present for those who are hurting, suffering, and even, dying.
 
Before he even reaches the house, Lazarus’s sister, Martha, goes out to meet him.  And Jesus catches her anger immediately.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died…” Jesus tells her that he will live, and she gives him a little more sass.  Yeah, sure, “he will live in the resurrection on the last day…” But we get that she is no less mad at Jesus for handing out healing for others and not being there for one of his best and most faithful friends.
 
This is an important exchange and John makes sure we hear it.  In the midst of suffering, God is not only present, but God can take our anger and our rage at things we cannot control or understand.  Jesus does not tell Martha to get lost and God does not tell us to do so either.  Instead he goes with her to see her sister, Mary.
 
While Martha is the pragmatic, get things done person in the family, and most families have that character, Mary is the sensitive one in the bunch.  She is the weeper, and the mourner who wears her feelings on her sleeve.  She, too, gives Jesus a piece of her mind saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died…” These are the exact words Martha said, but Jesus does not even attempt to reason with her.  He goes with her to the tomb, and as Mary weeps, Jesus weeps with her.  It is important to know that the Greek term John uses is not merely shedding a tear, the word he uses connotes what I call the ugly cry: the kind that renders us a sloppy, snorting, and inconsolable puddle.  As God in person, Jesus meets her where she is and goes there with her.
 
Finally, he tells them to roll the stone away from the tomb.  Pragmatic Martha protests, telling him that Lazarus has been dead for four days and there is a stench.  The King James translation is the best.  It simply has Martha say: “He stinketh.”  If we were tempted to think of this as some mythic or symbolic tale, this little detail beings it back to reality, to the earthy messiness of death.  Here again, God in person goes there, to the real fleshy rot that befalls all of us at some point.
 
And then the tragedy turns to comedy.  Jesus commands Lazarus to rise and come out of the tomb, and as he does, he is tripping over all his mummy costume.  Even renaissance art depicts this as an awkward and funny scene.  Finally, Jesus commands them to unbind him and let him go. 
 
We never hear anything else about Lazarus.  We do not know what he did with the life he got back.  Poets have often mused that he might not have been pleased that once dead, he was brought back to the suffering and pain of the world.  We do know that he did die again at some point, and surely, he was raised to life with Jesus in new and larger way.  After all, Jesus really loved him.
 
The problem of being human is that with all of the goodness, the beauty, and the pleasure of being fully alive also comes pain, suffering, and perhaps hardest of all, uncertainty as to how it all fits together.  We tell these stories to remember and know that God cares deeply for those God loves.  We tell this story to see that our anger and grief is known, felt, and heard.  We tell this story to see deeply into Jesus as God with us, as the One who, in God’s good time, will unbind us and set us free to be and be most fully alive in God.
 
This is also part of a larger and longer story where Jesus himself will suffer and die at the hands of human folly.  But not even at that will Jesus leave us to suffer alone or forever.
 
On this third Sunday of the Covid-19 lockout, our world is suffering.  We are seeing the worst part of being human right up next to some of the most beautiful expressions of human connectedness with people are feeding others, caring for the sick and dying, and racing to put all of the best minds to work, seeking medical and logistical solutions.  The bonds of our common humanity are so much before us that we will never deny the essential nature of community.
 
And if nothing else helps, let me say this.  I love you.  I am just as scared and unsettled as many of you.  The best thing going for me and for all of us right now is the sure and certain hope of God’s deep love for us too.  This is why God comes to us in Jesus.  This is why God continues to create a world of breathtaking beauty.  This is why we will stick together to divide our sorrows and multiply our joys.  Whatever is to come, we will come out on the other side with a deeper appreciation of life and a mandate to savor the all moments of Grace that much more.
 
And now more than ever we know:
 Life is short.  And we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us.  So be swift to love and makes haste to be kind.  And may the blessing of God Almighty: Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you forever.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Lent II, Year A
March 8, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
He said he was “born again.”  In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the democratic nominee for president spoke about his faith in ancient, but loaded terms.  His declaration sent news people toward theological dictionaries, biblical texts, and histories of the movement.  Remember that back then, the term news media was not operative.  The news was consumed as print, morning or evening, or as a half-hour broadcast from trusted people like Walter Cronkite.
 
Carter had been Governor of the state in which I lived.  He had a buttery smooth accent, a big, toothy smile, and a great American story.  He was a Naval Academy graduate who had served on a nuclear submarine.  When his father died, he came home to Plains, Georgia, and made his family’s peanut farm successful.  His mother, Lillian, had joined the Peace Corps at the age of 68 and had worked tirelessly for desegregation in South Georgia.  He had taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church regularly.  He seemed to be an antidote to the Washington machine of connected cronyism and whatever unsavory webs of power and influence that Richard Nixon had spun.
 
When he was elected narrowly, the world met a different kind of American.  In the middle of the Cold War, he favored peace initiatives over parallel armament.  He established cabinet level departments of Energy and Education. The great scandal of his inauguration was that, during the parade, he and his wife, Rosalind, got out of the car on Pennsylvania Avenue, walked and (gasp), held hands!  Can you imagine?
 
By all counts, Carter’s presidency was a mixed bag.  His idealism and relatively liberal ideas, for the times, failed to take hold.  Later, Walter Cronkite dubbed him the smartest president he had known, but not all that effective.  In the end, his one term ended with the sweeping Reagan revolution, and history is still figuring it all out.
 
I once heard Carter speak in Atlanta the late 90s.  He was generous and humble.  He told us that being President was not his greatest call in life.  He said he believed God had called him to grow beyond that office and use his influence to serve causes of peace and justice.  And boy has he.  He is a well regarded international peace broker, he has helped Habitat for Humanity become a national and global force for decent housing, and he and Rosalind have leveraged their own fortune to eradicate the guinea worm in Africa: a disease that caused blindness and formerly incapacitated roughly 3.5 million sufferers.  It is now 99.9 percent gone.
 
Carter maintains that he is still a born again Christian, despite the baggage the term carries.  At the age of 95, and having confounded cancer twice, he still teaches Sunday school every other week at Maranatha Baptist.  His still speaks of his faith as the principal guiding light in his life.  While many others who call themselves born again adhere to more strict and fundamental tenets, Carter does not.  He has evolved in his acceptance of women as faith leaders and his acceptance of those who are gay as full members of the body of Christ.  Not long ago, as his congregation disaffiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, Carter held that he was born again, again, citing the call to be inclusive, welcoming and understanding in the name of Christ.
 
The whole concept and language of being born again comes to us in the story of Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus under the cover of night.  Nicodemus is a trusted religious and political leader that finds Jesus compelling, but cannot quite go all with him, at least in public.  He brings his intellectually learned mind to a conversation, trying to understand.  Jesus talks about the wind and its mysterious comings and goings.  He speaks of the mystery of himself as God’s body for the world.  He challenges Nicodemus to get out of his head and stop seeing life as a dual reality where faith and reason are mutually exclusive.
 
And here we get the football poster, most quoted of all bible verses: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  The born agains love to quote John 3:16, but equally or more important to our born againness is John 3:17:  “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Therein lies the heart of the call and the challenge for us to fling open the doors or our faith.
 
Getting born is precarious business in this world.  And for anyone who has been present for birth, it is equal parts difficult and miraculous.  I remember the delivery rooms of our children as sacred spaces of being part of something and being witness to something all at once.  The idea that it can happen to us again defies logic, but also makes complete sense to anyone whose life has been changed through instances of impact, brilliance, or light.  The work of saving us has already been done.  We are reborn when we get that, accept that, and live into it with a whole and full heart.  Sometimes, we have to get born again, again.
 
We can only surmise what Nicodemus did with all Jesus gave him to ponder and practice.  While he receded into the darkness, Nicodemus appears again when Jesus is on trial and advocates for them to meet the man in person.  Perhaps he hopes they will see what he saw and cut him loose, but he could not stop the tide of recrimination. And finally, he stepped out into the light and went to the cross, witnessing the tragedy and helping Jesus get a proper and relatively extravagant burial along with Joseph of Arimathea.  Like most of us, he was a work in progress.
 
While some may have taken over the title of being born again Christians, and given that title baggage and stereotyping, it is an apt descriptor for all of us to embrace.  Rightly taken, it is not a ‘one and done’ proclamation we make about ourselves, rather a grace filled opportunity to keep our faith and practice lively.  And perhaps we can look through the Jimmy Carter kind of lens, appreciating that God is not done with us, and God is not done with the world.  Jesus Christ is born again and again and again in us, as we rise and stand for him and with him, today.  Amen. 

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Lent I, Year A
March 1, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
I was not prepared for the beauty of the place.  Having spent three days in a hotel ballroom attending a conference, I was glad to get outside and see a part of California I had never visited.  I had been told about a Holy Cross Monastery that took in guests, and I planned to tack a few days onto my trip to visit and retreat.  As I followed the map, I found that I was driving up and up the hills outside of Santa Barbara.  And when I arrived at the monastery, I discovered that it had been an estate belonging to the Huntington family whose fortune was vast.  As it turned out, on of the sons of the railroad, mining, and oil baron had become a monk and procured the place for his order.  I had not done my research, only following the advice of a good friend, so what I expected to be spartan was far from it – at least at first.
 
A robed brother, Robert, met me at the door, showed me to a sparse room.  He told me that silence would be observed from evening prayer through to lunch the following day, and that there was not cost for me to be there, but I would have a work to do all morning in exchange for my room and board.  Spiritual direction was available in the afternoons when we could speak.  Other than that, we worshiped in the chapel five times a day.  My room had two books: a Bible and the Rule of Benedict.
 
Now, I am a priest of the prayer saying and Bible studying ilk, but I am also verbal and curious about people and more than a little fidgety by nature.  I was to be in silence for half the day?   I was to work with no conversation or verbal direction?  This is not exactly a hardship, but for me a neophyte to this kind of strict observance, I had no idea what I would do, or how I would do with all of this.  My normal mode was multi-tasking, working through a busy schedule, accomplishing tasks, and talking with people for most of the day.
 
After I unpacked, I met my spiritual director, Brother Clement, and told him of my anxiety, seeking a plan and goals for my retreat.  Instead, he asked me about my life, what burdens I was carrying, and how God might be speaking to me in this time of my life.  It was a great conversation.  He was a great listener.  But there was no plan, no list of readings, no spiritual exercises to work.  I had all this time.  “What do I do now,” I asked?  “Just pay attention,” he said.  And then he left the room.
 
I fidgeted for an hour and looked around.  Finally, it was time dinner: a simple buffet.  I was excited to meet the brothers and the others that were on retreat.  The food was hearty, fresh, and delicious looking.  In took my place in the middle of a table of eight.  But when I sat down, there were no introductions or conversations.  Instead, one brother began reading from a book of Benedictine devotions, something about waiting on God.  When we were done, they cleared the table, did the dishes and it was time for Evening Prayer.  They sang beautifully and slowly… and then we were in silence.  Wait, I thought, who are these people?  Why are they here?  What will I be doing in the morning? I fidgeted for an entire evening, read from the rule of Benedict, and began to understand, a little.
 
I was up early for prayers, then to breakfast, where we remained in silence.  I made some granola and fruit and when I looked up, yogurt and milk and a spoon were in front of me.  I poured some coffee from the carafe and when I finished, cream and sweetener bowl were in front of me.  I ate quickly, eager to get on with the morning, but everyone else ate slowly.  I was looking at my food, but the rest of them were looking up and around, anticipating how they would help one another.  When I was done, I sat and waited and waited while all were served and had eaten.  A bell rang, we cleaned up, and then went to sing Morning Prayer.  When that was over a brother motioned for me to follow and we went into a garden.   He took a rake, and gave me a rake, and he started cleaning a bed for spring planting.  I watched and then went to another bed and did what he was doing, for hours.
 
Finally, we broke to bathe and have noon prayers, then lunch.  Finally, I could speak.  Finally, I could find out who all of these people were and what they were doing here.  Brother Clement sat next to me. “Before you speak,” he said, “remember just to pay attention. That is the only reason you are here.  That is the only intention for your time here.  Just pay attention.”  I never did meet the others or talk much with anyone except Clement.  I guess they were all just paying attention too.
 
I never begin a season of reflection without thinking about Clement’s direction.  He explained that it came from centuries of contemplative theology and practice.  He saw right through me and cut to the simplest and most basic direction.  I did not have to know everything.  I did not have to relate to everyone.  I did not have to establish my place in their order.  Clement told me to be a human being rather than a human doing.  I still struggle with that.  I know I am not alone.
 
We embark on a Lenten season together, hearing our annual recounting of Jesus time in the wilderness.  We hear of the devil tempting him with pleasure and comfort, status and prestige, and finally with power and absolute dominion.  And Jesus passes on all of the worldly posturing and functioning in favor of being a vessel of servant leadership.  This is not a lesson on how to avoid or deny temptation.  As the old country song says “Lead me not into temptation, I can get there by myself.”  Instead this is a window into how radically different God’s priorities are than the those we might embrace. 
 
As Jesus let’s all of that go, the invitation for us is not to contort ourselves in complex disciplines or give up so much that we will win the holiness contest.  Lent is a chance for us to peel away the layers of aspiration and activity that use as a mask to project purpose or importance.  Lent is a reflective season for us to see ourselves as human beings rather than human doings, so when do what do, we act thoughtfully and with non-reactive intention.
 
The good news for us is that we are here.  We were able to make it to this space this week.  We are taking this time and this moment the stop the spinning world of confused priorities and frenetic activity to be with Jesus.  The best direction I ever got was not an action plan, a series of spiritual exercises, or a moral makeover.  It was the simple direction: “Just pay attention.”   

​Do not be afraid?
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Last Epiphany, Year A
February 23, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
“Don’t be afraid, this won’t hurt a bit.”
 
How many of you heard that as a child just before you got a shot or had blood drawn?  I know I did.   Nobody was fooling anyone, because the received tradition of transferred wisdom from older siblings and good friends had already warned us that the “this won’t hurt a bit” business was all a ruse – a code word – for ‘this is going to hurt but I don’t want to tell you,’ or ‘I believe you will believe me the medical person as an authority figure and live in blissful denial of impending agony or blood-letting  just because I say it won’t hurt a bit.’  Maybe if they call it booster, they thought, kids would not know what was coming.  But kids are not so easily fooled.
 
Back in the day, I am not sure that medical folks gave much thought the inner workings of childhood anxiety, anticipation, or their basic intelligence.  All I know is that, thankfully, from my time to the time our children went to the doctor for immunizations and check-ups, some progress has been made. 
 
As you may know, I live with one who is on the front lines of pediatric medicine.  She gives lots of shots and draws lots of blood in her line of work.  And because she has been known to bring the flu shot home for me, I know her to be a pretty good shot giver.  Through more thoughtful training and intuitive compassion, she goes about the whole process carefully.  First, they focus on telling them about all they are doing to help them be well.  They only focus on what they are doing at the moment because anticipated pain can be much worse than that momentary stick that is over one it is felt.  And if the child asks, they tell the truth, but go about it quickly and carefully.  It helps that there is an ice cream store next to the office and the promise of reward, with the parent’s permission, is really helpful.
 
One of the realities of modern life is that we receive and process more information than ever.  Technology has given us many gifts, but its shadow side is that we are on the receiving end of all that might go wrong, thus, our consciousness is flooded with threat assessments: to our health, our safety, our way of life, and our future.  There is nothing wrong with being informed and making good decisions for our health and safety, but for sure, anxiety, depression, and worry is as bad of an epidemic as all of those external threats.  Thankfully, we are learning more and more about how connected our emotional and mental health are to our overall well-being.  The stigmas surrounding such disorders and diseases are fading as we appreciate and realize that most of us are directly or indirectly affected.  The anxiety and depression spiral has been part of my own landscape and I am grateful for the help I get, and have gotten, to name it and work with it as but one of life’s challenges.
 
“Do not be afraid, Jesus tells his disciples.”  He does this more than once, in fact, he says it 33 times in his life and ministry.  It always gets my attention, because there has to be more, and there always is because he is always responding to something that is deeply troubling or difficult.  If we take the one line, it rings hollow as something akin to ‘this won’t hurt a bit.’  But Jesus never says it as a stand-alone panacea or a shallow advice to distract or deny pain or struggle.
 
Today’s delivery of “do not be afraid” happens as he has withdrawn to a mountain, retreating from the grueling tour of teaching, feeding, healing, helping, and then, being threatened with bodily harm from those who he troubles and upsets.  Even Jesus needs a break, so he leads them to a place apart – a mountaintop.  Mountaintops are important places all over the Bible.  They tend to symbolize a time and place of closeness to God.  Moses got the ten commandments on Mount Sinai, the prophet, Elijah is taken up to God in a whirlwind. 
 
In this encounter, God is not some far off mist or thunderous wind.  Here, God’s light and image is infused in Jesus himself.  Moses and Elijah are there too.  And the words that come from heaven “This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him” are the same words that came at Jesus’ baptism.  What they see is that Jesus is not just as god as the biggies, Moses and Elijah, he is One with God.  The disciples fall on their faces in fear, because in all of holy history, it is not good to see God directly.   “Get up and do not be afraid,” Jesus tells them.  In effect he says you can see God because you see me.  And with that, the whole cosmology, the whole picture, the whole image of God changes.  God is Jesus for us to know, to love, and to follow.  This whole business is called transfiguration: a re-figuring, a re-calculation of how we see, know, and understand God.
 
As they return to their work in the world, Jesus tells them not to tell people about all of this until he is raised from the dead.  Why?  Because Jesus is in this for the long game.  He knows that in the short term, it will look like he is defeated and that God’s love will be overcome through the machinations of human fear, hate, and recrimination.  And he knows that there will be pain and anxiety and confusion for those he loves.
 
When Jesus says do not be afraid, he never stops there.  And he never says this will not hurt.  As human, he knows how it feels.  As God, he knows that pain is only temporary and joy is never far from the horizon.
 
To be honest, we have lots of fears.  We have lots of worries.  We are not in control.  The reason we look to Jesus and the reason we come to Church is to remind ourselves and to remember that we are always in God’s presence, to remember that we are always part of God’s wider picture of life, and that even when pain happens, it is not going to last forever.
 
As we go on our way, I close with the words of a Mary Oliver poem.
 
Don’t Hesitate
 
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
 
Amen.