​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 16, Year B
August 22, 2021
 
The late columnist, humorist and author, Lewis Grizzard, once wrote a book entitled Elvis Is Dead, and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself.  While it was not great piece of literature, it was a funny take on nostalgia which, I would like to remind us is not what it used to be. 
 
I was reminded of his book as I read about the annual observation of Death Week at Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.  While I have made the pilgrimage to Graceland, and taken the Platinum Tour, Death Week goes to a whole different level.  Elvis fans show up in large numbers, bearing the August Memphis heat.  They dress up, hold candle light vigils, and on the fated day, make a somber walk to the eternal flame at the King’s gravesite to pay their respects.
 
For his eighth birthday, Elvis wanted a bicycle.  Coming from a poor family in Tupelo, Mississippi, there was no money for a bike.   Nevertheless, Elvis’s mother, Gladys splurged, spending $6.95 on a small guitar.  That changed everything.  Thank Gladys!
 
I am an Elvis fan because he was a fascinating blend of talent, opportunity, and a case study in how fame ravages all naiveté.   Elvis was a connector, a bridge builder, and an unexpected phenomenon.  He crossed rigid boundaries of class, race, musical genre, fame, and family.  His favorite place at Graceland was the kitchen, where he and his friends ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  Don’t knock ‘em til you have tried ‘em!  For sure, young Elvis had a rhythm all his own, moving those hips like nobody had done before.  His style was both ecstatic and scandalous, like most big changes.
 
Now, I do not want to go into a psychosocial or theological analysis of fandom, but most of us have time bound touchstones in our life such as music.  Whether that music is Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Beyonce, or Taylor Swift, we connect certain soundtracks to important times in our lives.  The Texas folk singer, Nanci Griffith, died this week, and as I listened to her catalogue of music, I remembered many good times in my life.  I remembered some hard times in life too.  Most of all, I heard the poetry and rhythm of seeing and feeling deeply.  Of course, Nanci was no Elvis.  She did not have the flash, but her art is a touchstone all the same.
 
When Lewis Grizzard wrote about Elvis Death, he was both philosophical and wickedly funny.  Yet, even among the laughter, there was a well-articulated grief about love always including some loss along with it.  Time does not stand still.  People age.  All things fade. Then world presses in on us, and it is hard to make sense of it.
 
This has been a hard week.  As the virus resurges, people are frightened, suffering, and angry.  As disaster after disaster strikes Haiti, people are frightened, suffering, and angry.  As Afghanistan implodes and, people are frightened, suffering, and angry.  Fires continue to burn.  Tempers are hot all around.  Human fragility is on full display.  It doesn’t help that much of the public energy in response is to focus on blame, on self-interest, and rage.  None of that will be helpful.
 
To be a Christ follower is helpful, but it is difficult too.  It is hard to shake of the fight or flight instincts embedded in our DNA.  It is hard to shake a sort of globalized anxiety that leaves us suspicious, accusatory, and just plain mad.  Jesus’ Way asks that we shake off the dust of the world, and follow a new path where unity overcomes estrangement, forgiveness heals guilt, and joy conquers despair.   While all that sounds good, it is really hard to do.  Our hearts and minds are full.
 
We come to a serious inflection point in John’s Gospel today.  Speaking through the metaphors of body and blood, Jesus tells his followers that it is the “Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.”  Wait, what.  John started this whole thing out saying the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”  Now the flesh is useless?  Hardly.  The flesh he refers to is the earthy kind: the finite and shot lived mercy of humanity versus the infinite mercy of the Creator.  Jesus own physical body is a container for God’s Spirit.  His fleshy, time bound, earthy body will not permanent.  It is the Spirit’s ongoing life that animates a new and eternal body that goes way beyond skin and bones.
 
“This teaching is difficult,” his disciples respond, “who can accept it?”  It is difficult for us too, requiring as complete reframing of our well-worn assumptions and instincts.  Sadly, many strike camp and take off.  They do not want to go the Way of love and peace.  They close the door on this Son of God business, but Jesus leaves it open.
 
He asks Peter, “do you want to leave too?”  And good ole Peter, the one who always addresses the elephant in the room, says “where would I go?  You have the words of life beyond just this life and we have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.”  Of all of Peter’s great proclamations, this ranks highly and pushes us deeper into faith.
 
If not with Jesus and God’s Word of life, where will we go?  To the altar of self-help?  To the comfortable echo chambers of tribe or party?  To the competing gods of exclusion, self-righteousness, and material idolatry?  That might be easier and more comforting, but in the end, those are empty calories of spiritual nourishment over against the Bread of Life. 
 
All week some lyrics from my musical touchstone, Nanci Griffith, have rung in my soul.  “It’s a hard life, it’s a hard life, it’s a very hard life.  It’s a hard life wherever you go.  But if we poison our children with hatred, then the hard life is all they’ll know.”
 
We may not feel so good right now, and with good reason.  It is ok to be full, overwhelmed, and upset.  God does not call us to permanent positivity, or to wall off suffering.  God calls us to keep love alive, even in the face of loss.  There may not be enough water in our bucket to put out the fires, or quench all the massive thirst for justice.  But we can use our bucket to cool things off, to help somehow or some way no matter how small or simple.  Then, where will we go?  Not off alone and empty, but back to the deep well of the Word of Life --  that is God -- to refill, to refresh, and renew… the steadfast and ever-present Spirit within us.  Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 15, Year B
August 15, 2021
 
Lizzie was three years old.  Each week she took her place on the front row with the rest of Mrs. Belk’s PreK-3s for Episcopal Day School’s weekly chapel service.  On the major feast days of the Church, we celebrated Eucharist, and as an orientation to this rite, I visited with the PreK3s before chapel.  I brought down some wafers and some wine.  I showed them the chalice and paten.  As a newly minted priest, I tried to explain Eucharist so they would know what was going on.  My big error was trying to “explain” the Eucharist, and my young charges kept me honest.  “Is that really bread?  Is that real wine?  Is that really a piece of Jesus?  Isn’t it just gross to drink blood?”  These students were on to something that adults think but do not ask.
 
I was stumped.  With a head full of theology, I was trying to convey an experience, poorly.  God love Mrs. Belk, a seasoned pro; she turned to the children and said “what do you think?”  This was my first and best lesson in becoming a teacher:  get out of the way, they know things.  Hands shot up all over the front row.  “I think Jesus wants us to remember him.  I think Jesus knows that we must eat and drink, and he wants to be food for us.  I like communion because it is special and because we get to move around instead of just listening all the time.  Jesus is here because we believe.”
 
Lizzie was clearly interested, but quiet and reflective.  I had explained that they could come forward for a blessing if they did not want to receive and they could cross their arms across their chest and pray with me.  When the time came for communion, Lizzie came forward with her classmates with her arms crossed.  Mrs. Belk went first.  I spoke the words: “The Body of Christ the bread of heaven.” and gave Mrs. Belk the bread.  Lizzie was next.  She was thinking, hesitated, then unfolded her arms, reached into the sanctuary with both hands, and looked up and into my eyes.  I want this, she whispered.  Yes.  “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”
 
In its infinite wrestling with mystery, the Church and her theologians have an entire language for conversing about what the Eucharist is.  We have the Greek term anamnesis which is a liturgical remembrance that takes us where it points.  There is transubstantiation, which is big for Roman Catholic doctrine, that is the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus.  Ironically, in dialogue among Anglicans and Catholics, both affirmed the principle of transubstantiation, but then could not agree on its definition.  This is not to shade theological ideas or dismiss thoughtful conversation, it is just to say that being sure of something that is a matter of faith can be tricky, as our head cannot always take us where our heart needs to go
 
There is a running argument in the church about children and communion.  On the one hand, we should not cheapen the experience in being too casual or relative, and on the other hand arguing that a child does not understand what they are doing implies that adults do.  When any one of any age knows they belong, and seek to be part of something big and beyond mere explanation, when any one of any age reaches into the sanctuary hands and heart open to receive, Jesus is mightily present. 
 
Driving home the gift and grace of the Eucharist is where John’s Gospel takes us today.  This is his version of the last supper.  His words and images are meant to have shock value.  Eat my flesh and drink my blood.  How can this be they ask, and we do too.  We do not know it all, but we know that touch, and taste, and smell are powerful and evocative senses.  The words John’s Jesus uses have greater meaning than they do in English.  Bread is necessary, life sustaining, and holy food in Hebrew history.  God provided it in the wilderness and helped the people survive the desert.  Bread goes bad fast if it is not broken and eaten.  And wine is a common drink in a world with lots of bad water.  Blood is a big word as it is seen as the life force and energy literally pulsing in our veins.  Jesus tells his people that he comes to be in us and among us.  How can bread and wine become body and blood?  How can a rag tag bunch of imperfect followers become the body of Christ?  These things happen as gift and grace.  We do not control them, earn them, or define what God can and will do.
 
Back in that same school where I started as a chaplain, there was another kid who was new to any kind of prayer.  In one of our lessons, he said that he liked the prayers because they all end with “I’m in.”  He mistook amen for I’m in, and to be honest, that is not bad theology.  The word amen literally means so be it.  And if we listen to what we pray, and take it seriously, it may sound rote, but it is important.  To say amen is to say we are in, we affirm what we pray, and we challenge ourselves to believe what is hard or mysterious.
 
Very soon, it will be our turn to rise, come forward, and take in the very life of Jesus.  Whoever said that we are what we eat is right on.  These are the gifts of God for the people of God.  Are we in?  Yes. Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 13, Year B
August 1, 2021
 
My first full sentence was this: “I want more beans.” Lest you believe I started out life as legume loving vegetarian, I am sure these were Great Grandmother Swope’s recipe, cooked to death beans with onion and a ham hock.  Our son, Sam’s, first sentence was “I want a donut, now.”  Our parish church at the time had fresh, hot donuts every week, and we had a robust children’s program.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Our daughter, Emily’s, first sentence was “No, no I do it myself.”  Clearly, we had some work to do on subject and verb agreement.  Janice is the last of six children, and with all of that noise, nobody heard her first sentence, hence her enthusiastic extroversion is well developed.
 
I am fascinated with developmental milestones in the life of children.  As an educator and teacher, I studied a lot on how people learn what they learn and know what they know.  As a priest, I remain fascinate with how all God’s children come to believe what we believe.  No two stories about that are the same.
 
What I do know is that as children grow and develop, they do what experts call: individuation.  Gradually, they move from dependence to independence, and an expert once said in a lecture that “adolescence happens when children become aware that they have something to hide.”  Hence there is the push me pull you relationship with so-called adults.  It is no picnic for the adolescent or the adult.
 
As I consider the first sentences of my family, I see how that individuation begins.  With words, we are able to express preferences, speak up for our wants and needs, and claim our personal power and space.  However, we have to get along in this world, so the first lesson in the sandbox is all about sharing shovels and buckets.  Those who are not good at that have a hard way to go… as senators and members of congress.  Occasionally we get it right, and good things happen when we do.  As humans we dance between asserting our will, and belonging to that which is great than ourselves.  This requires practice.
 
And speaking of human nature, the lessons of this week begin with some pretty unvarnished truth about the Israelites.  They are in the desert, finally free after more than 200 years of being enslaved.  They get hot, tired, and hungry and resort to whining.  “Moses, where there not enough graves in Egypt?  Why bring us here to die?”  Never mind the miracles of deliverance, the Red Sea parting, the pillar of fire to lead them, and when they get thirsty, they are led to fresh cool water flowing from a rock. God provides for them every step of the way.  And yet, the whiny Israelites say yeah, great, but what has God done for us lately.  In response, we hear of the abundant provision of bread in the morning and quail in the evening.  Even then, they become picky eaters – “Moses, what is this manna stuff?”  --and quail in the evening.  “Oy,” Moses says, “it is bread from God, enough to sustain you very well.”  They do not like being dependent.  They do not stop complaining for another 40 years.  Moses is a patient.  It is a good thing that God is too.
 
Fast forward to Jesus at Capernaum.  The day before, Jesus fed five thousand folks with five loaves and two fish.  He walked on water and calmed a storm.  Prior to that he has healed and helped and loved on everyone he meets on his way through all of Galilee.  And the people, ancestors of the Israelites, come to him with this: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  Simple, nuanced, but clear.  And then, we get their yeah, but…  “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?”  Good grief, these folks never stop nit picking.  What complete whiners?
 
But then, they are us.  While the Gospel is revelation, it is also a mirror.  We want to believe, but we want to believe on our own terms.  We want to will of God to be done, so long as it matches up with our will.  Wwe want to serve God, but mostly in an advisory capacity.  In his epic work called Confessions, Saint Augustine, writes “Lord give me chastity and self-control - but not yet.”  The question of the day is what is holding us back? Where are we expecting God to do more and better for us, and in the process, forgetting everything God has done and is doing for us?
 
The reason I am fascinated with babies and child development is that they show us how to be dependent, spontaneously joyful, and content in being part of something large they do not understand.  It is wonderful when they can dress and potty and walk on their own, but there is a loss there too.  Those first words tell that story.  Perhaps that is why there are second children.  Islam has a beautiful teaching about sin called “the forgetting.”  They articulate that we know how to be dependent on God, we just get out in the world and forget.
 
This drives me to a Mary Oliver poem, encouraging us to remember.  It is called 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 happened 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.”
 
Remember: in our telling of God’s story, in the beginning there was a formless and desolate void.  God’s first words are “Let there be light.”  God sees that light is good, and God keeps on creating and creating and creating.  God still does.  Deep in the basement of time, at all moments of creation, and even now, God’s Word echoes.  Let there be… light, life, love, forgiveness, grace.  Can we be God’s children, lean in, and silence our own noise and to hear that?  What God done has for us lately is…  Everything.  To believe is to begin.  That is the first full sentence of faith.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 12, Year B
July 25, 2021
 
Cause I try, and I try, and I try,
I can’t get no. No, no, no.
 
Satisfaction, the Rolling Stones classic rock tome makes this important observation.  The harder we try to find satisfaction, the farther away it seems to be.  Such is the paradox of being human.
 
I wonder if Jeff Bezos is satisfied this week.  The Amazon billionaire turned rocket man went to space cost him somewhere north of $19 million dollars to spend five weightless minutes.  That is $3.8 million per minute, or $63,333 per second for that… “achievement.”  When they landed in a Texas desert, Bezos got out of the craft, put on a big ole cowboy hat, and said a few words.  While I am sure his flight helped with some research, employed some folks, the adventure burned 902,000 pounds of fuel.  The claim is that there was no carbon emissions for the flight, but the production, transportation, and storage of that much liquified natural gas fuel begs that question.
 
I wonder if Richard Branson is satisfied following his Space X flight into a short while before Branson’s.  He only got three minutes of weightlessness and has not revealed what it cost, but they are talking reservations for future flights at $250,000 per person.  His vehicle is more plane-like rather than a rocket, so that may have some future applications.  I don’t know.
 
Satisfaction is different for different people, I guess, and people are free to do what they wish, but the whole thing looks like a race to fill some emptiness of spirit, to make some sort of power statement, or find a new frontier to dominate as they have seemingly conquered the world of commerce and industry already. 
 
Satisfaction can be understood as the state of contentment.  What does that require?  Perhaps the bar need not be so high, so complicated, or so costly?
 
We get a glance into the quest for satisfaction in our lessons for today.  King David, the Mac Daddy of the Old Testament, the accomplished statesman, warrior, and empire builder finds himself seeking some other satisfaction.  In the painfully detailed Bathsheba incident, he spies another man’s spouse from his roof top perch, while his people are out at war. David exercises his power and might to bring her into his chambers.  When she reveals that she is with child, David tries to cover the whole thing up, leading to the calculated murder of Bathsheba’s husband, General Uriah.  David’s fall from grace, favor, and fortune is thundering.  He hits hard.  And from then on, his life, his reign, and his spirit crumbles.  The child of that sin dies.  His eldest son rebels against him, and is killed in that same rebellion.  Israel, the great hope for a holy kingdom falls with him.  There was no satisfaction.
 
In absolute contrast, we hear John’s version the feeding of the five thousand story.  This is the only story that we find in all four gospels.  The details are all remarkably similar.  There are hordes of people following Jesus.  They want to be healed and helped.  They want to accept his invitation to abide in the Kingdom of God, though their understanding of what that is… is a bit vague at first.  You know how it goes, it gets late, and folks get hungry.  There is a good bit of chaos and complaining.  A little boy appears with five loaves and two fish.  Jesus tells everyone to sit down, as he takes the loaves, blesses them, breaks them open, and all are fed.  And get this: “When all were satisfied, he told his disciples to gather up the leftovers.  They filed twelve baskets.  There was enough.  There was plenty.  There was more than they could eat.
 
All were satisfied.  They encountered tangible experience and reality of God’s Kingdom, right there and then.  Whatever Jesus was connected to, they want in on that.  But as the only model they had for leadership was a monarchy of dominance, they sought to take him, by force if necessary, and make him king.  As is the way feeble visioned humanity, they got it, but then, they didn’t get it.  Jesus slips away and retreats, as this is not the kind of reign he will fulfill.  He does not play earthly power games as a way to God.  When anyone dominates, someone else is dominated.  That did not work out so well for David.  Later, Jesus is praised as great David’s greater son.  And how.   Satisfaction happens when the power of love is ultimate, when all are fed, all are loved, and, all are saved, finally, from our worst power hungry, self-serving, and empty quests for domination.
 
The novelist and critic Samuel Butler observed that “People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, as they are at seeing it practiced.”  To which theologian G.K. Chesterton added “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”  Indeed, it is really hard to see through the lenses our world sets up as filters for what is real and life giving; that is what the Rolling Stones decry as no satisfaction.
 
Saint Paul steers us this way: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
 
There is one Way to satisfaction.  One Truth.  One God.  One love.
It will not come through holding office, making some kind of conquest, banking a few billion dollars, or a finding few minutes of weightlessness in space.  Satisfaction comes when God’s abundant love is known, shared, and celebrated.  Satisfaction guaranteed.  Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 9, Year B
July 4, 2021
 
In a mere sixty days, it will be time to awaken the nation.  We have a ritual for game day.  I have a big red G flag that I fly proudly.  We prepare special foods.  We decorate the house.  We wear special clothes.  We sing special songs.  We chant special chants.  In a mere sixty days, it will be time to awaken the “Bulldog Nation.”
 
For the uninitiated, I am speaking the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team.  I grew up right by the campus in Athens.  My father taught there for thirty-five years.  Our family has had season tickets for more than forty years.  Ever since I can remember, fall Saturdays have been reserved for game day.  Some of you share passions for other teams.  To each her own.
 
If I am fortunate enough to be in town, I go to the massive cathedral of SEC football.  I go to tailgate party feasts.  I go to the “Dawg Walk” when the team processes into at the stadium hours before game time.  I get in my pew in time to see the Redcoat Marching band spell out G.E.O.R.G.I.A. on the field while playing Glory, Glory to Old Georgia before the team takes the field.  We tend to win, but the National Championship has eluded us since 1980.  I went to every home game that season. I can still name the players.
 
For the life of me, it all sounds like an Easter church service.  Special clothes, food, hymns, chants and other ritual.  More than one doctoral dissertation has been written on college football as modern religion.  But we have to remember that these are young men who fumble and drop passes sometimes.  Coaches are not perfect.  Our devotion to our cause is not ultimate or life giving.  Fandom may look religious, but life does not depend on a game.  It is important for us remember that.
 
Incidentally, my father played football for Virginia from 1958-1961.  They lost all but one of their first year Cavalyearling games in 1958.  In 1959 and 1960, they lost twenty straight.  In his fourth year they ended a 28 game Cavalier losing streak which was a dubious record at the time.  That year they won four of ten games.  Thus, the potential and reality of defeat is part of my DNA.  If football is religion, it is a bad one.
 
As you all know, today is a game day for America.  We celebrate the birth of the American Idea, wearing our team colors, feasting on grilled food, singing patriotic songs, and cheering with parades and fireworks.  My devotion to our nation is strong, and the national flag is flying at our home.  Many have given much more than I to preserve the best of American ideals.  And we owe them deep gratitude.
 
And yet, today is also Sunday, the day on which we remember and celebrate our ultimate devotion.  The cross stands above the flag, reminding us that we are but one nation in the Kingdom of God.  It is important for us remember that too.
 
Not without coincidence, the lesson from Second Samuel is all about the formation of a nation: Israel.  This is not the modern country of Israel’s founding, it is the establishment of an idea, a nation devoted to God and God alone.  The narrative is prescient and powerful.  David, who will be the greatest leader of that nation, ever, makes a covenant, a promise to lead faithfully with the people, but more importantly to God.  In doing so he is a uniter, bringing people of differing religious factions together for good.  All is well.  Until it is not.  David will come to abuse his power.  Subsequent leaders will go their own way.  Corruption and greed do their worst.  Eventually they all fail.  The nation fails too.  As nations are constructs of human design, they are never perfect, though they may aspire to the best of ideals.  In 586 BCE, the Assyrians and Babylonians wipe out Jerusalem and take them into slavery.  While they attempt form again after hundreds of years, it never really works to be a nation and practice faith in perfect harmony.
 
When God takes human form in Jesus, the people are under the thumb of an elite religious ruling class and the militaristic empire of Rome.  As Jesus challenges the powers that be as greedy, self-centered, and oppressive, he gets run out of his own home town.  Unfazed, Jesus goes to other towns and villages, and sends his disciples two by two to go tell the story of God as loving, forgiving, and just for all people.  He does not hand out jerseys.  They are not going out to conquer a foe.  They are to take nothing, and depend on the kindness of those they serve.  If that doesn’t work, he tells them, they are to shake it off are to keep on keeping on.  And when they do, they bring healing and help to hurting people no matter their nation, religion, or station in life.  That is what God does.
 
In this very parish, during World War II, the rector was a known and avowed pacifist. On a Sunday in 1942, The Rev. H Lee Marston processed down the aisle and when he turned to face the congregation, he saw a giant American flag hanging from the middle of balcony where the organ is today.  Promptly and with few words, he dismissed the congregation and left the building.  He held fast and proclaimed that the parish would worship God and not America.  That took courage, and showed deep conviction.  While we have an American flag in our sanctuary, it is a symbol, not an idol.  We have an Episcopal Church flag here too.  It is a symbol, not an idol.  There are no adjectives before the word Christian, neither American nor Episcopalian.  God does not do boundaries or play favorites.
 
Thomas Jefferson once said “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”  He was speaking of slavery which would not be abolished for another 82 years.  It is hard to question Jefferson’s patriotism, and yet his words stand as fair warning that striving for a more perfect union does not make us perfect.  Perfection is God alone.
 
The American idea is worthy of celebration to be sure, but liberty and justice for all does not happen just because we say it.  We have to remember that God calls people, not nations to embody God’s love.  Liberty and justice for all happens when people, people like us, awaken to seek and serve God’s power, God’s kingdom, God’s glory.  Glory, glory to God first and forever.  Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 8, Year B
June 27, 2021
 
I am forever grateful for a number of phrases we use in the south that speak far beyond the few words they utilize.  “Bless your heart.”  “She’s just not right.”  “He’s a mess.”  You can purchase signs, doormats, and dish towels that say: “In our family we do not hide crazy.  We parade it on the front porch and give it some sweet tea.”  Mostly, such things are said out of love or as a way not to dismiss the human behind questionable behavior.  I appreciate these phrases as nuanced theological statements as well, not as excuse for outright cruelty or bigotry, but as acknowledgement that there is little bit of crazy in all of us.  Life is messy.
 
Yes, sir, there is a good bit of crazy mess out there these days.  As we stumble out of this pandemic, lots and lots of things are opening up again.  We can dine indoors at restaurants, go to parties, send kids to camp, and wander around mask free in the grocery store.  At the same time, there has been a precipitous rise in gun violence, road rage, and seemingly random assaults in grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations.  We may be reopening but the new normal includes free floating anxiety, volatility, and misplaced anger.
 
It does not require deep psychological analysis to identify the source of this messed up behavior.  We have endured a traumatic event.  It may have been more like a slow drip than a sudden impact, but the effects are real and lasting.  My friend, Kevin, is a psychiatrist who works with soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Through wartime stresses they have become ever aware of their mortality, deeply suspicious of others, hyper alert, and constantly on guard.  His take is that living with a pandemic checks most all of those boxes in the volatile behaviors we are seeing.  His patients become his patients because they have come home, just tried really hard to be normal, only to revert to their war-scarred brain unexpectedly.  His work is focused on helping them tell their stories, write about what happened to them, and even, with the help of some Nashville song writers, to sing about it.
 
We read from the relatively obscure book of Lamentations today, and this book was written when the Israelites were off in exile, in slavery in Babylon.  It is all about trauma and grief.  Even as they return to their homeland, they continued to tell their story, the whole story, to ask God the hard questions of why, and to find comfort together, again, in being and belonging together.  The ancients knew that story telling was the best way to acknowledge grief, loss, and begin to rebuild their lives.
 
We are not very good at remembering.  The recent acrimony about telling the story of American slavery and its racist tentacles is white hot right now.  My people participated in some of that regrettable story, and I suspect that some of you share in that truth too.  There is confusion among many that telling the whole story is about blame or shame.  It is not.  Telling the story is about doing what the Israelites did: acknowledging grief, loss, and beginning to seek a better way forward.  We are not good at this right now.
 
Like my friend Kevin’s soldiers, it looks like, for all the world, that we are coping with regathering in trying really hard just to be normal again.  Instead of whistling past the graveyard of so much loss, we need to remember and tell the story of those who died, and of missing out on vital experiences: funerals, weddings, school years, graduations, family and holiday gatherings.  We did not skip eighteen months of living.  We spent those months seeing and fearing our fragile mortality, suspicious of who has it and how it spreads, hyper alert to be safe, and constantly on guard.  That is exhausting and we need to take a collective deep breath and speak those truths.  This is one way church can help.
 
This week’s gospel is a long one, which is completely atypical for Mark’s style of telling the story.  He is a just the facts kind of guy, but this packet of stories must have been really important to his listeners for him to go into so much detail.  And these stories are really messy.  Jesus meets a rabbi, Jairus, whose daughter is deathly ill.  As Jairus pleads for his help, we can hear his parental desperation.  As he kneels before Jesus, he crosses a line rendering himself unclean according to strict Jewish purity laws.  As Jesus heads off to help, he is interrupted as people are pushing in on him.  And when the bleeding woman touches him, he, too, is rendered unclean. 
 
Instead of running off to take on cleansing ritual before going back to work, Jesus stays present in the chaos.  He takes time to hear the woman’s story and tells her that her faith has made her well.  By this time, word comes that Jairus’s daughter has died.  Nevertheless, Jesus stays with it.  He goes to the child, and takes her by the hand.  The whole story is a hot mess of boundary crossing: touching an untouchable, touching a woman not your wife, and touching a dead body.  He speaks to the dead little girl, telling her to arise, and she does.  The text says that people were amazed.  What it does not say is that they were appalled, but we find that our later.
 
All of this speaks straight into where we may find ourselves in this time and place.  Jesus makes no effort to whitewash pain and suffering.  He does not encourage a “just get over” it kind of amnesia.  He looks into the deep need to show what God does with grief and loss. God redeems it.  God does not deny it or sweep the suffering under the rug.  God gets down in the mess with us and helps us arise and be made new. 
 
In these instances, Jesus provides a cure.  But as we know, all cure is temporary.  The woman’s hemorrhage stopped.  The little girl lived.   Those things happened for a time, but not forever.  But what Jesus shows is how healing happens.  Healing happens in acknowledging the suffering, feeling the grief, living with the messy reality, and telling the whole story.
 
I love nuanced southern sayings, but I am not a fan of dismissive or trite lines to explain away life’s messiness.  “Everything happens for a reason.”  “God will never give us anything we can’t handle.”  “Thoughts and prayers, hashtag blessed.”  Nope, we do not get back to normal and just get over grief.  Ever.  We can frame it, learn from it, and grow from it, but it is never neat and clean.  God can be found in the love that surrounds us, the person who listens, and in the truth telling of loss, but grief does not go away.  It becomes part of our story.
 
There is one more detail Mark includes at the end.  Instead of carrying Jesus off on their shoulders to celebrate his godly miraculous powers, Jesus turns the attention back to the child.  He says “give her something to eat.”  Eucharist.  Share the feast of life here and now.  Take care of her.  Take care of each other.  Life may be messy, but we gotta eat.  And when we do that, we come together, we belong, we take our place at the table, we say our prayers, we tell our stories, and healing happens.  Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 7, Year B
June 20, 2021
 
“There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!”
 
Saturday mornings always had a ritual.  My brother and I would get up as early as we wanted, leaving our parents alone.  We turned on the old black and white TV. to warm up, and we poured cereal and milk for breakfast in front of the Saturday morning cartoons.  No on TV demand then, just on when it is on, and we had our favorites all mapped out. 
 
Along with Rocky and Bullwinkle, our favorite cartoon was Underdog.  Underdog was like a parody of Superman, wherein the lowly Shoeshine Boy would turn into Underdog whenever the forces of evil took hold. Usually, he swooped in to rescue Sweet Polly Purebred, who was a canine television reporter.  Obviously, the willing suspension of disbelief was never the problem for us.
 
By the time our parents awoke, we were all sugared up, and diving/flying from couch to chair, proclaiming, like our hero, “There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here.”  When my grandparents came, Grandmother Taliaferro took some old bath towels and safety pinned them you our pajama tops, so we would have real capes to help us fly.  I think yielded was my brother’s first trip to the emergency room.  Maybe they should put a “not for flying” warning label on old bath towels.
 
The thing about Underdog is that he is kind of a deconstructed super hero.  He is not strong.  In fact, when he flexes his muscles, the bulge goes down instead of up.  He has no lasers or knock out punch abilities.  Usually, he prevails through an awkward series clumsy mistakes whereby things get knocked over and fall on top of the ne’er-do-wells.  Sweet Polly Purebred is always grateful.  Then, Underdog flies off, though awkwardly, declaring “There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!”  When folks look up in the sky, they do not mistake him for a bird or a plane, they think he is a frog.
 
The lessons for this week are all about underdogs.  First, we have the epic David and Goliath tale, where the small and ruddy last child and shepherd boy defeats the massive imposing champion of the dreaded Philistines.  This elevates the young nobody to hero status right quick, and the story leads to him becoming a mighty king who will unite the Israelites and build a great fortress at Jerusalem.  He does not get there through size, strength, or layers of armor.  He gets there through faith in God, l who will prevail through him, and when he is successful, it is always through faith in God’s guidance.  When he eventually fails, it is because he goes it alone and abuses his power.
 
Next, we have Paul writing to the Corinthians who seem to want success, power, and victory in exchange for their good works and obedience.  It is a kind of early yearning for the Prosperity Gospel that megachurch stars tend to put forth on TV.  Paul writes eloquently about the faithful “having nothing and yet possessing everything.”  He tells them that they cannot earn God’s favor or salvation, as that has already been done and assured through the person and work of Jesus.  Abundant life is not about earning holy merit badges that exempt us from suffering, it is about accepting the grace of being loved and loving others in kind.  It is about reframing what we see as abundance.
 
Finally, we come to Jesus and the storm.  To put this in context, we are hearing from Mark’s gospel near the beginning.  Jesus is a nobody from nowhere too.  He is still in Galilee, but gaining some notice as he has been casting out demons.  His people believed that all forms of sickness comes from some form of evil overtaking a person or people.  As love in person, Jesus counteracts such forces and sends the demons packing. 
 
After a long day of that work, he asks to be taken to the other side of the Sea of Galilee where he might rest and refresh.  As the story goes, he falls asleep in the stern of the boat, and a huge storm comes up form nowhere.  The word for this storm in Greek implies something otherworldly, devastating, and much larger than an afternoon thunderstorm.  Such a thing is like the destructive and capricious Goliath.  Seen as an evil foe as much as a meteorological event, Jesus rises, speaks of having faith, and stills the thing to a dead calm.  And this leaves the disciples wondering… “who is this that even the wind and the seas obey him.”  The story sets the stage for more casting out of demons, but also for the constant challenge of those who find Jesus threatening and who plot against him.  Such challenges will follow him all the way to the cross.
 
We cannot help but root for the underdogs of this world.  When someone unlikely prevails in sport, or business, or even to get to college from a tough upbringing, we love to hear about it.  These events help us see the world turned upside down and shaken out.  They give us hope for humanity.  They speak to our feelings of never being enough.  Many such stories often involve deep faith and good-hearted help from others who believe in the underdog.
 
Over and over in our sacred stories, the people who go for God, and make a difference, are those who have nothing particularly earthly going for them.  At the very least they challenge us not to look at might, strength, status and wealth as precursors for being worthy of love or as signs of holy favor.  The bible is not about super heroes.  It is about ordinary, flawed people made extraordinary through love and faith.
 
And who is this Jesus?  He travels only on foot around a relatively unimportant outpost of the Roman realm.  He never went beyond a 90-mile radius in his whole life.  He had no money and no stuff.  He hung out with the wrong sort of people.  Most of his followers were illiterate.  He had no governmental office, no corporate sponsorship, and no mass media publicity.  People only heard about him through word of mouth, and they came to believe him as God through personal experience and experiencing the power of love over all.  People still do.
 
Who is this Jesus?  He is an unlikely underdog come to save us, all of us underdogs.  And there is no need to fear, this Underdog is here.  Amen.

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 6, Year B
June 13, 2021
 
Grandaddy Thomas was a grower.  He had a farm and, over the course of years, he raised cows, sheep, chickens, horses, and lots of rotating crops.  Fortunately, he had furniture store too, because farming is a precarious business.  When he retired, he leased out the land for someone else to do the planting, harvesting -- letting them place their faith in forty sacks of seed and good weather.  But at heart, Grandaddy Thomas was a grower.  When he stopped tending creatures and field crops, his vegetable garden became epic.  It’s bounty filled cases and cases of mason jars for the stovetop canner, and boxes and boxes of plastic bags to be filled, labeled, and stuffed into one of the three chest freezers.  If a great famine ever came, Grandaddy Thomas was ready.
 
It all started in the dead of winter.  After the Christmas cards cleared out, P.O. Box 35 was crammed with thick catalogs from Burpee, FedCo, and any number of seed club publications.  The Thomas garden was hip to heirloom seeds before that was even cool.  As hope soared, Grandaddy ordered some of everything.  He grew rows of silver queen corn, fifteen varieties of tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pole beans, wax beans, snap beans and butter beans, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, and all kinds of onions.  He grew vegetables nobody liked just to see if he could.  Thus, a summer trip to the farm meant cool mornings in the garden, picking our favorite foods for supper, oh, and some mandatory weeding.
 
Right now, we are on the front end of that season when all of that winter dreaming would come to fruition.   This is the time of fruition following winter’s dreaming, ordering, and planning, spring’s back breaking tilling, and delicate planting of row upon row of seeds: those tiny little containers of promise, gently placed, and covered, and watered.  And, of course, there has been constant weeding and thinning, and more watering, and thank God for good farm dogs who know it is their job to keep the rabbits, moles, and groundhogs running to safety at the margins of the woods.
 
Even now, though Grandaddy’s garden plot is covered with grass, the heat, humidity, and afternoon storms remind me that it is about time for the produce to come in.  It is kind of built into me troll the farmers markets and find what is fresh or just ripe, to find out what is coming in.  As important as procuring fresh deliciousness is talking with the growers about what crops are flourishing and what crops are struggling.  Inevitably we get too little rain or not enough and we look to the heavens for signs.
 
So perfectly, produce season always follows Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday.  This is my favorite part of the liturgical calendar, and I have to admit that though I really enjoy the big church days, there is some sweet relief as we move through the things that are large and hard to encapsulate and fathom.  There is real joy in getting back to basics, coming back to earth and where we live and move and have our being.  Taking the cue from spring becoming summer, the rhythm of our remembering invites us to hear Jesus teach though the word pictures of parables, opening our mind’s eye to see God’s abundance and grace.  As if on cue, today he speaks of the tiny smallness of a seed becoming something great and prolific.  He speaks of how the earth mirrors the love and creativity of God, working to make all things new.
 
In one of his poems about finding the meaning in things, Billy Collins laments that all folks want to do is “tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.”  Likewise, we have to remember that a parable is a picture, not moralistic fable.  Sometimes we are the seeds, sometimes we are the soil, and sometimes we are the weeds.  Most of the time a parable is not about us, really, at all.  They are about God, seeking, searching and finding a way through to us.  Jesus knows that his hearers are inextricably tied to the land and dependent on it for survival.  It is be good for us to remember that too, not matter far removed we may seem.
 
There are so many things that parables can do with us.  This is the genius of speaking and thinking of God in big and bold pictures, opening our minds, rather than narrowing them down.  Those little seeds we planted in lent are now bushes of rosemary and blooming marigolds – so long as they were tended and watered.
 
Today, we are back inside our beloved sanctuary.  This space which housed a big wedding yesterday, is a suitcase for growing us in love too.  We are back in the space of remembering and a space where we host crucial rites of passage.  Here, we plant seeds, we work the soil of our hearts, and we name the weeds and worries that beset us with doubts or uncertainties. Here too, we find comfort, hope, and weekly refreshment to live abundant life.  
 
Emmanuel Church has not been dormant, we have just been doing things differently, improvising where we have needed to do so.  I am grateful to all who have schlepped chairs and tables, loudspeakers, boxes of masks and hand sanitizer.  With some of that behind us, we are in a new space, a new season, and it is ripe with opportunity.  As worship is the work of the people, we welcome all of us into the privilege of ushering, acolyting, welcoming, setting the altar table, and adorning the space with flowers.  If you used to do some of these things in here, and want to do so again, it’s time to return.  If you never did any of this before, there is a place for you.  If you want to do something different do something new, there is a place for that too.  We have a nice long summer ahead to plant and grow and weed and water.
 
From last week’s Book and Author Day, we saw how so many hands and hearts came together for something really special.  When the food truck crashed it’s hood and had to shut down, the Emmanuel Hot Dog Miracle came together and folks got well fed.  We do not have to do big things like that all of the time, but the ingredients of that day: welcome, play time, feasting, and loving on each other, that is what Emmanuel does well. 
 
We are in a new season.  It is time for us to dream and hope and plan.  Not everything will just get back to whatever we thought was normal.  At least, I hope not.  Surely, we have learned from being apart, and outside, and covered up.  This is a great season in our life and in our history to fling the seeds of love and faith generously, to pull the weeds that bring us down, and gather whatever produce is ready to come in.  We are God’s growers in this world, and the garden ripe.  Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 5, Year B
June 6, 2021
 
When I was little, may parents had one of those really high up antique beds.  I think they made them that way to get those poor colonial folks far off the cold, cold floor.  Their bed had this white floor length skirt and underneath it was a really great hiding place.
 
Rumor has it that my brother went missing when I was being born.  My grandmother phoned the hospital in a panic, adding a little more tension to the day.  Out of her labor haze, my mom told her to look under the bed, and there he was.  She stretched the phone cord and handed it to him under the bed, where and he said, and I quote “She won’t feed me.  She won’t give me a thing to eat.” 
 
Despite my parents knowing full well that under the bed was our go to hiding place, we sheltered there whenever we needed alone time, or to escape from the wrath of whatever was sure to come our way when we did something wrong.  We stocked supplies in there: pillows, books, and a stuffed animal or two for company.
 
Whenever I read the Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the garden, I think of that space.  It is a familiar story that, often, passes without being unpacked.  I want us to go there today and reflect on how the story tells us about ourselves, and more importantly, about God.
 
The caper begins when they eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The crafty serpent convinces them that when they eat the fruit, their eyes will be opened and they will be and see like God.  The first thing they see is that they are nekkid.  I say nekkid because if they were naked, it would just be artistic or freeing.  Nekkid is the state of having done something wrong, and being self-conscious about it.  So, they hide in the shrubbery – the moral equivalent of under the bed. 
 
As the story goes, God moves about the garden and asks where are you.  God being God knows where they are, but Adam says they are hiding because they are nekkid.  God asks the following question:  Who told you that you were naked?  And then, the whole blame game starts.  First Adam: “It’s Eve’s fault, she gave me that gosh darned fruit.”  Then Eve: “It’s the serpent’s fault because he convinced me to eat the gosh darned fruit.”  And so it goes.  In that all too human moment, the move to deflect, deny, and blame is set in motion.
 
In all of the casting out from Eden, and cursing the serpent, and all that stuff about labor pains and the necessity of work for survival, we might overlook the important question.  Who told you that you were Nekkid?
 
Most of go through life figuring that we are somehow broken, guilty, or unworthy.  When we are loved, it helps, but the urge to hide, deflect, and deny is in there.  It is part of the soup of being human.   Largely, that is a prison we build all on our own.  Yes, we are sinners, because we are not God and we are not perfect.  The rest of the story endeavors to show us where to look for help, and to show us that we are completely and utterly forgiven.  All we need do is accept that, stay close to God, and clean up whatever messes we make.
 
When Jesus comes on the scene and those who oppose him proclaim him mad or demonic, he explains that human nekkidness comes division and distraction.  If we will cannot, or will not, work together, we are exposed to all kinds of rotten thinking and acting.
 
Finally, he looks at those who sat around him, family, friends, foes, scruffy fishermen, squealing children – the whole lot and says “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Those are Jesus’ family values.  As I said a few weeks ago, a good translation here is “y’all means all.”
 
Today, we welcome Roger Hutchison whose published art and poetry and texts invite us into belonging.  As crazy as family can be, we are all part of God’s great family.  And today’s event with games and art and food and cake is all about being a place and people of welcome, nurture, acceptance, support, and encouragement.  This is not a complicated theology.  Even though it is hard to be in a world that divides, labels, categorizes, blames and shames at its worst, there is an easier and softer way.  Love them all.  Feed, clothe, help, and refuse to empower whatever demons work to divide us.  We do not have to hide.  God knows where we are anyway.  In the whole of the story God shows us that we are wonderfully made, and capable of so much creative love, because, plain and simple, God loves us.  All of us.  That is what we celebrate today, and every day.  Welcome to the family.  Amen.     

Trinity Sunday
May 30, 2021

Let's go Phil!  Let’s go Phil!  Let’s go Phil!
 
This was a constant refrain chanted last Sunday, as Phil Mickelson hung on to win the Professional Golfers’ Association Championship, earning him the record for being the oldest golfer ever to win a major tournament.  If you are not a golf fan, I get it.  It is a sport of privilege, it can be nap inducing to watch, and it is maddeningly difficult.  My focus here is not talk about golf, though I can talk about golf a lot.  My focus here is on an unexpected human moment, a seemingly random encounter, a relatively little thing that really stuck out last Sunday afternoon on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, South Carolina; a moment that made a difference, and given my proclivity to watch for such things, a Holy Spirit moment.
 
Phil Mickelson has not been universally beloved.  He emerged on the professional golf scene thirty years ago.  He was kind of bratty, mouthy, and very, very talented.  Even Phil admits that he is best taken in small doses.  On his way to winning 45 professional golf tournaments,  and amassing a large fortune, life happened. Phil’s wife, Amy, nearly died giving birth to one of their three children.  Then she battled breast cancer.  Phil dropped out of the tour to care for her.  He gained weight and got arthritis.  Together, Phil and Amy established a foundation that funds cancer research and helps at risk youth gain access to a quality education.  All the while, Tiger Woods was roaring through tournaments and swallowing up victory after victory.  Phil was on his way to becoming a has been.
 
To his credit, he made some changes.  He worked hard, tuned up his body, and his game.  He brought his brother along to be his caddy.  Even so, the sport favors those with younger backs and much greater flexibility.  This year, Phil had not finished in the top 20 even once and his ranking fell to 115th in the world.  Last week, he came out strong and had the three-day lead going into Sunday on a kill-you-to-death long and windy course.  The big question was could he hold on to the lead, handle the pressure, and finish strong.
 
On hole number one, he dropped two strokes, and out of the lead.  Heads were shaking.  It looked like he was crumbling.  On hole number five, he landed in a sand trap: another bad omen.  But then, he made an impossible looking shot, punching out to within inches from the hole.  He made the putt, and took the lead.  As he walked to hole number six, he walked by a wheel chair bound fan with cerebral palsy who was cheering “Let’s go Phil!”  Phil stopped, walked back, talked with the young man for a full minute, and handed him the lucky ball he had just put in the hole, thanking him for the support.
 
From that point, Phil Mickelson never wavered.  He was strong and confident.  And I have to think that his softness in taking a moment to serve someone else reminded him what it was all about.  The older Phil knows failure, and disease, and difficulty.  He knows that success in not all about him.  He was joking around with his brother, the caddy, whose wife was texting them both advice.
 
That happened on Pentecost when church people celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Phil proclaims Christian faith and speaks openly about it.  I know nothing of his heart, but I know what we saw between holes five and six.  It was a little moment and a footnote in the bigger story, but that stuff really matters.
 
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday.  It is the only day we give to a doctrine.  It is the bane of preachers everywhere as they try to unpack or explain an enormous mystery of the Godhead.  Like the Sunday after Easter, it is often handed off to an associate or a seminarian.  Properly approached, Trinity Sunday is not a day for explanation at all.  It is a day for observation.  God shows up as creator, as Jesus, and as the Holy Spirit: all one God, all kinds of expressions.
 
Back in Isaiah’s day, they did not have the witness of Jesus, but the prophet was not short on God encounters.  In today’s reading, we hear of a wild and fantastic experience in the Temple as Isaiah meets some six-winged seraphs who touch his lips with live incense coals.  Holy, holy, holy is about all he can say about that until God’s question thunders in the Temple as he says, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Wait.  Who will go for us?  Us?  We are part of this?  Holy, holy, holy indeed.  Without hesitation, Isaiah says “Here am I; send me!”
 
After that, the rest of the lessons are interesting and puzzling.  Romans delivers the word that we are all adopted as God’s family.  Jesus plays linguistic ping pong with Nicodemus talking about being born anew.  That gives born-again fanatics lots of talking points.  But essentially, that is all mystery, better experienced than explained. The Isaiah lesson – though - that one is the one that rings in our ears.  It has all of the mystery, but the clear invitation to be sent into this world to go with and for God.
 
For all of the theologizing and systematizing and liturgizing, we might get caught up in some intellectual spin cycle of trying to figure everything out, trying to create a construct that makes sense, and trying to out holy those who have not digest Augustine’s or Aquinas’s theology whole.  It can be daunting to contemplate the big things and the big words and bigness of God’s love for each and every one.  We can’t find God through more self-actualization, more deep breathing yoga, or some big plan to fix all that is broken in this world.  We cannot really find God at all.  The Word of today is that God finds us.  God has finds us in making us so intricately wonderful and creative. God finds us in the person and work of a self-emptying love as Jesus.  God finds us in the mischievous and persistent Spirit that blows through all kinds of material moments – in bread and wine and hymns and prayers, but also in a meals dropped at the front door, the silence of listening to someone’s grief or anxiety, and the simple moments of saying thank you, I am with you, and I love you.
 
It was not about the golf ball last Sunday.  It was about reconnecting to the ground of belonging and being grateful.  It was a moment that got swept away in the roar of the crowd and big excitement - but not for that guy in the wheel chair, and not for Phil either.
As we go into our world to pick up the pieces of what got really broken and disjointed since last March, and we are relearning how to be together, we have an amazing chance to do so with intention, with sharpened attention, and with a pure love of the little things, that are not little after all.
 
Who will go for us?  Send me.  Send us.  We have hearts to love and hands to serve.  Let’s go Emmanuel!  Let’s go God’s beloved people!  Let’s go!  Amen.