St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
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Homily Highlights for February 21 – The Second Sunday in Lent
WHOM CAN WE TRUST?
“The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)
TRUSTING GOD
In a world filled with damaged relationships, personal disappointments, public scandals, disrespect, misleading rhetoric as the common currency of political communication, and increased terrorist threats, trust is difficult to extend. The question “whom shall I fear?” in the psalm today might bring a long list of possibilities in response. The need to trust God is compelling but not easy.
The final verse of the psalm is honest even while it offers encouragement.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage, wait for the Lord.”
This psalm is a prayer for patience, for trust, for the ability to wait for the Lord. To wait even when the answer to prayer is not clear or quick. To wait and to seek:
“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
“Your face Lord do I seek.” (v. 11)
SEEKING GOD IN A SPIRITUALITY OF COMPASSION
Jesus calls us to seek his face in the needs of others. “When I was hungry, you gave me food.” (Matthew 25)
In today’s Gospel, even as he is being hunted by Herod, the focus of Jesus is on his works of healing in body and spirit. Jesus models and teaches a spirituality of compassion. Fear for himself is eclipsed as his heart reaches out to the struggling children of Jerusalem: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” There is a confidence in God in the face of the threat of death and rejection by his people, “On the third day I finish my work.” The day of resurrection.
WHEN JESUS TAKES US BY THE HAND
It is wise advice when we are told that in times of trouble, when our problems might seem overwhelming, to seek a way to help someone else. Try to be part of the answer to someone else’s prayer for help. Do not be surprised if when we pray for Jesus to take us by the hand for comfort and strength that he leads us to the place where his own ministry continues. In the final step of the 12 step recovery programs—there is a call to use the lessons of the 12 step journey to bring the message to others; pain transformed to mission. A new comfort and strength that grows from purpose. This is the work of a God I can trust.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for February 14 – The First Sunday in Lent
JESUS FULFILLS THE LAW WITH LOVE
“Love your neighbor as yourself, for love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:9, 10)
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
(Matthew 22:37)
THE DEVIL IN THE CANDY STORE
A story is told by a professor of religion about a mother talking to her young son concerning a lesson he had just heard in Church School about being tempted by the devil. The mother asked her son, “If we were at a store, and Dad and I were in one aisle and you were in another aisle, and there was candy, and the devil said, ‘You should take some!’ What would you say back to the devil?” She notes that her son’s face lit up with a genuinely sweet grin as he replied, “Oh, I would say, ‘Thank you!’”
Discerning the devil in the candy store is not always easy for adults let alone for children, so it comes in handy to have a clear and simple commandment from God that says, “You shall not steal.” Jesus, who does some serious confronting of temptation in today’s Gospel, appreciates the value of God’s law that he would have learned himself as a child in the synagogue and from his parents. He often commends and praises the observance of the commandments in his Gospel encounters, but he is always moving us deeper, deeper into the love that is the fulfilling of the law.
LOVE’S LESSONS ARE FOR ALL AGES
We properly start teaching our children very young not to take what does not belong to them but we also follow the lead of Jesus in leading them into the deeper kingdom of love: “Share with others, help those in need.” A child who can bring a can of soup to the food bank collection can start learning a walk with Christ that moves from proper restraint to active compassion. It is the walk of a lifetime.
WALKING IN GOD’S KINGDOM OF LOVE
The season of Lent is about strengthening our walk in God’s Kingdom of Love. There are spiritual disciplines of restraint and spiritual disciplines in which we strengthen our life of prayer, study of God’s Word, and service in Christ’s name and power. The Gospel today reminds us of the temptations that come between us and God. Jesus overcomes them and invites us into the power of his grace by which we too can overcome. We are to know that we don’t live by bread alone even while we are called to feed the hungry, We are called not to put God to the test even while we trust in God’s providence and presence in our lives in prosperity and adversity. Jesus rejects the power of “the kingdoms of the world” as offered by the devil saying “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” This is a chilling temptation, for the world of power is for adults the candy store where the devil’s temptations are not easily discerned. Christ’s guidance is simple and sure; it is in serving God that the Wisdom to serve the people rightly is found. Whether we carry the authority of a parent or a public official, we need God’s guidance, for without it an idol will move into the spiritual vacuum. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” In this we will serve others well and follow the law of love which is the heart of all God’s commandments.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for January 31 – The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
We are accustomed to hearing our New Testament lesson from 1 Corinthians 13 read at weddings, and it is always a good choice for holding up the biblical model of love for newly married couples. Paul had such a strong view of the centrality of love that he places this message in the context of teaching the communities of faith how to be “The Body of Christ” in all their diversity of personalities and gifts (1 Corinthians 12). His message is that however gifted we may be, without love we are nothing and ultimately will not be able to accomplish anything for God.
LOVE IS A DECISION
To focus on the good of the other and the good of the whole community in a disciplined way in spite of what our feelings may be at any given moment is a decision and a way of life. Romance can be a good gift but it is not reliable for the long run because it is centered in our own ecstatic but changeable feelings and idealizing another person in a way that no one can live up to all the time. God’s love on the other hand is steady and faithful and loves us just as we are, strengthening our strengths and teaching us repentance, humility and wisdom through our weaknesses.
Mature love can find patience, kindness, perseverance, genuine celebration and creative channels of bringing the best out in each other. It takes a steady dependence on God, for love lives and grows in the power of God’s Spirit. True love is always seeking God’s will and so we offer at our Marriage Service a prayer that is at once a blessing and a perpetual challenge. “Grant that their wills may be so knit together in your will, and their spirits in your Spirit, that they may grow in love and peace with you and one another all the days of their life.” (BCP p. 429)
LOVE IS ETERNAL
What is our best and most enduring legacy in this life? What connects us to the eternal so that we can dare to dream of life with God forever? What is really living in this life in which we “see in a mirror dimly”? Our deepest hopes and dreams may be elusive but walking in God’s love together we can appreciate the journey and find that it is a gift. It is a journey from birth, made holy in Baptism, fed and nurtured by the bread of life, blessed in sharing in ministry, named as family in marriage, returned to its Creator in burial-eternal in God’s love. Divine love is the vision that faith perceives and the reason for hope to endure. And so “Faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for January 24 – The Third Sunday after Epiphany
ONE BODY, ONE SPIRIT
“For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." 1 Corinthians 12:13
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...to let the oppressed go free.” Luke 4:18
THE LIES OF “SURVIVOR”
In this tough world do we really think we survive by thinking of ourselves first and last: Hoarding resources against catastrophe, outwitting others to “vote them off the island”, using strength to oppress the weak, “winning” at any cost? The lessons of human history do not give favorable witness to these lies. The might of Rome was defeated by a cross and a Spirit that rose from that cross to tell us that different as we are, we must work together or die.
THE COOPERATIVE BODY
The Wisdom that God our Creator built into the design of our bodies is a truth that all organizations must learn to prosper, even those that would not acknowledge the author of that truth. “As it is there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you...If one member suffers, all suffer together with it, if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Cor. 12:20-21, 26-27)
It is an ideal we know and experience to be true and we are blessed in those moments of Holy Communion, Holy Cooperation. Yet, we often fall short of that ideal and even contradict it in all institutions including the Church. In such times we are reminded of our deep need of a Savior.
THE CHRIST WHO FREES US
Jesus proclaims the keynote of his ministry in today’s Gospel: in God’s Spirit, bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed in the year of the Lord’s favor. From this Gospel we have learned many ministries of healing and compassion. But have we learned that we are the poor who need the good news, we are the captives who need release, we are the blind who need recovery of sight and we are the oppressed who need freedom in Christ. Freedom to serve, freedom from fear that there will not be enough if we share, freedom to cooperate knowing that the gifts of others enrich us and do not diminish us for we “are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
The year of the Lord’s favor is the song of Amazing Grace that rings through every struggling year to bring imperfect people together as God’s beloved community, for the “joy of the Lord is our strength.”
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for January 17 – The Second Sunday after Epiphany
THE MIRACLES THAT SURROUND US
“Jesus did the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.’" John 2:11
THE WEDDING AT CANA
Our Gospel today calls to mind the Sacrament of Marriage in the Church. We begin a wedding service by proclaiming that “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” (BCP p. 423) The marriage and the celebration was blessed with new wine. Jesus teaches that there are seasons of celebration to be embraced in our lives but this new wine means much more. It is the first of his signs that reveal his glory for this is the meaning of the unfolding Epiphany Season: To reveal boldly.
NEW WINE, NEW LIFE
The new wine of the life of Christ will flow after the wedding reception is over into a new order of life for a world needing redemption, an order of life that is captured well in our prayers for the newly married couple in the wedding service:
“Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.
“Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.
“Give them such fulfillment of their mutual affection that they may reach out in love and concern for others.” (BCP p. 429)
Mutually giving love that overflows in outreach to others. This is very good wine for all people of all generations.
THE MIRACLES THAT SURROUND US
We need not be discouraged or misled by the incredulous questions of a rational scientific age. How could Jesus really turn that water into wine? Having visited the great wineries in Napa Valley, California, I can testify that God does it quite regularly. However, God takes his time and lets us share in the creative work. This is the story of all ministry and all work that is offered in God’s service. This is the story of God’s generous gifts of creation entrusted to our care. This is the story of the miracles that surround us that can make each new day a new Epiphany. This is the story of the hand of Jesus pointing our dulled vision to the glory of God who is the generous giver of this precious gift of life.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for January 10 – The First Sunday after Epiphany
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS AND OUR BAPTISM
“On hearing this they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them the Holy Spirit came upon them.” Acts 19:5-6
“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’" Luke 3:21-22
ORIGINAL MEANING
The public ministry of Jesus begins with his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. John is surprised and believes Jesus should be baptizing him, (Matthew 3:14) but this is a time of humble obedience for Jesus looking ahead to his bearing of the sins of the world in his suffering and death. We see the heavens “torn apart” and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus. The voice of God the Father is heard from heaven declaring, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Perhaps in this picture from the Gospel, we can understand better why we begin our service with the acclamation. “Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit” and why we baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The fullness of God is present at this critical moment of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Mark’s Gospel does not even give us an account of the birth of Jesus but begins his Gospel here with the Baptism of Jesus.
EXPLORING WHAT IT MEANS TODAY
The feast of the Baptism of Jesus is a Sunday when we celebrate the sacrament of Holy Baptism whenever it is possible. Ant it is always a day when we are led to recall our own Baptism and our Baptismal Covenant, for here is a statement of the faith in an historic creed that has reflected core Christian beliefs in a Trinitarian God for centuries. In fact, we call the first part of the Baptismal Covenant, the Apostles Creed, because we trace it all the way back to the Apostles. The five promises that follow give us a wise and balanced guide for living the Christian life: continuing in Christian Education, prayer and the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and resisting evil, always returning to the Lord. It is a faith that is always reaching out, “Proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” (our parish mission statement) It is grounded in love with a concern for justice, peace, and God-given dignity for every human being. Here is the statement of beliefs and ethics that bind us together as a faith community. It transcends all the divisions of our times and all the labels that would demean or dehumanize. It is a guide for every generation of this parish family and the foundation of our Confirmation program. So it is fitting on this day that we renew our Baptismal Covenant together. (p. 292 Book of Common Prayer)