Fifty days after Jesus had risen from the dead, ten days after Jesus had been raised up into heaven before their very eyes, the disciples were once again gathered together when a great sound of rushing wind filled the place where they waited. In the midst of this commotion, the disciples received the gift that Jesus had promised them, the disciples received the companion who would be with them; the disciples received the Holy Spirit, and so celebrated the first Pentecost.

Emboldened by the Spirit, they rose up and left the place that had protected them from prying eyes, they left the place that had given them a sense of safety, and they went out to stand in the public and be seen by all. In the midst of this crowd of people, the disciples, so empowered by the spirit, began to speak God’s truth plainly so that all could understand, they began to prophesy and the people who gathered around to listen to them were amazed.

This day that had begun like so many before for these disciples was changed in a moment when the Holy Spirit rested upon them and made them all prophets. When we think of prophets and the prophecies that they make, our minds go to predictions of future events. That is a rather modern and restrictive understanding of the word and in Biblical times a prophet was more generally understood to be a person who spoke God’s truths. Sometimes those truths could be about events that were yet to come, but more often than not, they were truths spoken about events that were unfolding around the prophet.

As is often the case, speaking God’s truth about what is happening in the world around you is a dangerous business and the Bible contains references to prophets who found themselves relieved of the burdens of living when their words became too irritating to kings and rulers. We often focus on the miraculous events of this first Pentecost with the tongues that were like flames and the disciples’ sudden ability to speak in the native tongues of all who gathered in this public place to hear them. When the spirit descended upon the disciples, they received the ability to speak in many tongues. When the spirit descended on the disciples, they received the ability to prophesy and speak God’s words. Just as importantly, and perhaps more importantly though, when the spirit descended on the disciples, they received the courage, they were empowered, to make use of these gifts that God had given them. Whereas in the time after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples were amazed and terrified, terrified of what was happening around them and terrified of what might still happen to them, in the time that begins at Pentecost, they suddenly find the strength and boldness to go out and do their ministries publically, to speak God’s truths where all could hear and to continue Christ’s work where all could see.

While the word “Pentecost” is a reference to the fiftieth day after Easter, the gift and miracle that happened on this day was not a one-time event. The disciples continued to experience Pentecost-events when miraculous things would happen around them and they would find themselves empowered to speak the words and truths that needed to be spoken, to share the good news that needed to be heard, and to continue Christ’s work of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and casting out demons, all in the face of incredible danger. In fact, the entire book of Acts has a surreal quality to it, as it recounts story after story of these Pentecost-events filled with the power and work of the Holy Spirit. Whether it was Saul’s conversion to Paul on the road to Damascus when he was transformed by the Spirit from one of the most ardent persecutors of the first Christians to one of the most passionate evangelists for Jesus, or Peter’s vision from the Holy Spirit that convinced him that the Good News of Jesus was for all people and not just his fellow Jews, or when the Holy Spirit gave Stephen, our Parish’s namesake, words to fill his mouth and courage to fill his heart as he gave witness to his faith and convictions in a trial, knowing that his words would be his death.

Nor did Pentecost end with the first disciples; the history of our faith is covered with the fingerprints of the Holy Spirit in other Pentecost-events. The spirit rested upon Augustine as he wrote words of truth that helped heal fights in the early church caused by the stresses of persecution that Christians experienced from the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity was a spirit-filled moment that would end the fear with which Christians had lived for so many years. Francis of Assisi experienced his own Pentecost, which empowered him to radically change his life, taking vows of poverty, forming a new religious order, speaking truth to the then powerful Pope, and retaining through all of it a sincere humility.

Countless individuals experienced Pentecost events when the spirit gave them courage to speak truth and work to reform the church during the years of the Protestant reformation, even though their actions and words could have led to their death, and often did. Even under Nazi rule, Christians in Germany experienced Pentecost as the spirit filled them with the courage and conviction to form the Confessing Church and stand in opposition to the evil that was unfolding around them. In our own country, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no stranger to Pentecost as the Holy Spirit rested upon him, giving him a vision, the words to fill his mouth, and the courage to speak them to a country filled deeply with racism and fear. And just over thirty years ago in our own Episcopal Church, members of the body of Christ knew Pentecost and received the strength, perseverance, and conviction to overcome thousands of years of tradition and sexism and lead our communities to a place where we ordained women to the priesthood for the first time.

Fifty days after Christ rose from the dead, the Holy Spirit descended upon those who followed Jesus, and two thousand years later, it has not stopped. While we often imagine the Holy Spirit as a dove, the most innocuous of birds, and as a bringer of warm and fuzzy feelings, several things probably stand out to you from this brief tour of Christian history. First, when the Holy Spirit descends, it doesn’t solve problems, but causes them. This is because when we speak God’s truth, it rarely supports the status quo; when we watch and then point out where we see God active in the world around us, it is rarely where we want God to be active, and when we heal brokenness in the world, it normally means upsetting those who had come to feed on that brokenness. The Holy Spirit gives us many gifts and foremost among them is the gift of courage to face the adversity that comes hand-in-hand with a life of faith.

Second, when the Holy Spirit descends, it creates things anew. In the midst of the turbulence and upheaval caused by speaking God’s truth and continuing Christ’s work, God creates new things, new opportunities, and new relationships. In Pentecost, creation continues to unfold around us.

Finally, in Pentecost we learn humility while we also are required to cultivate humility. We learn humility because we see how much of what we do is entirely dependent on the power and authority that we receive from the Spirit and not on our own merits and qualifications. We must learn to cultivate humility because it can be disastrous if we do not learn to distinguish God’s truth from our own words. Just because we think it does not mean that God said it. Just as the history of Christianity is filled with amazing Pentecost-events, it is also filled with terrible and dark chapters that were brought about in part because individuals and communities confused their own desires and prejudices with God’s.

We come together today to celebrate the first Pentecost and all the Pentecost-events that have followed since that day so long ago, and we remember that first Pentecost so that we might be able to identify and be ready to experience Pentecost in our own lives. I encourage you to spend some time reflecting on when you have felt the Holy Spirit rest upon you in your own life because I suspect that many of you can identify such a Pentecost-event. They can be big, history-changing events like some of the ones I mentioned earlier, and they can be more intimate events that maybe went unnoticed by most other people.

My own Pentecost experience was of the more intimate variety and happened when I was serving as a chaplain in a hospital in Chicago. It was a tense situation between the hospital security, a family, and a police department that was colored with racism that the Holy Spirit descended and gave me the courage to stand up to authority and take a grandmother to see her deceased grandchild. To be honest, I doubt that it made a big impression on most of the other people involved, but it created a new understanding within me. I learned that day that my authority does not come from a collar, does not come from ordination, and does not come from a degree, but comes only from the Spirit, which we all receive.

When have you felt yourself filled with the courage and authority to say the truths that needed saying and to do the work that Christ showed us how to do? And then be ready my friends, because the Spirit will call on you again to be a healer, or perhaps a teacher, or a feeder, or preacher, to be a comforter, or even a prophet.

Preached by Adam Yates

The disciples had been through a lot recently. To be fair, they had been on a bit of a roller coaster ride ever since they first met Jesus, when he first called to them from the shore or from the side of the road to come and be his disciples. They had followed him on the roads, all over the countryside and through the towns. They had listened to his often-cryptic teachings, they had witnessed his miracles and signs, they had witnessed the crowds that chased after Jesus, and they had felt fear over the attention he received from the powers and authorities.

It was with terror that they watched as Jesus was taken away by the religious leaders and was crucified by the Romans. Most of his disciples were too afraid to come and bear witness to his death, and they gathered together in secret, in small rooms behind closed doors as they tried to hide and remain out of sight for their own safety. Soon they experienced shock and amazement (and still a bit of terror) when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, and for these past forty days they had grown as accustomed as a person can be to the presence of the resurrected as Jesus continued to appear to them, teaching them, and reassuring them.

Now they gather together with Jesus for what will be the last time, and as he commissions them to go out and make disciples of all nations, Jesus begins to float up into the air. This is why I really like today’s story—it is so visual that it is impossible not to see this scene in the mind’s eye. The disciples crane their necks back as they watch Jesus disappear from sight, their mouths held slightly agape. Perhaps this one last wonder left them amazed, or perhaps so much had happened that they had a hard time feeling amazed anymore. Whatever they were feeling as Jesus finally disappeared from sight, their thoughts were brought crashing back down to earth when two strangers appeared and asked them why they were staring up into the sky.

Though the scripture doesn’t say what they were thinking as they looked around at each other, I believe that there was only one thing that they could have been thinking, “Now what?” The one whom they had followed for so long, the one whom they had loved, the one whom they had watch die, the one whom they had seen rise from the dead, the one whom they had come to understand was God incarnate, was no longer with them. No longer was Jesus there to eat meals and share stories, and no longer was he there to explain his elusive teachings or provide comfort in the face of adversity. For so long their lives had been defined in one way or another by the person of Christ, the presence of God who walks in our midst, and now he was not with them any longer. What were they going to do now?

Reading this story calls to mind a “what now” experience from my own life. I remember very clearly my last day of seminary; I had defended my thesis, taken my last test, and turned in my last paper, and I returned to my apartment. I remember puttering around, doing some small chores while in a bit of a daze. I finally sat down, not sure of what to do with myself. The question, “now what?” loomed large in my mind.

It wasn’t just that an intense three years had come to a close; it was that for the first time in twenty years my life was no longer shaped and measured by the rhythm of school and academics. I no longer had readings, tests, and papers, or even the promise of readings, tests, and more papers to fill my time and dictate my schedule and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Now, I quickly found plenty to fill my time with a move to Connecticut and the start of a new job, but I remember writing to a friend the November after I graduated about how odd it felt for it to be Thanksgiving and not be studying for exams or writing term papers.

Today’s story from the Acts of the Apostles challenges us to think about how we deal with change. The disciples looked up as Jesus was lifted from sight and asked themselves, “now what?” What is our purpose after something so completely and utterly defining of who we are has come to an end?

This is a question that we all have faced and will face many times in our lives whenever we experience a major life change. It could be the experience of being a new mother or father, when you bring your new baby home for the first time and the reality of the responsibility you now bear for a new life settles in, and you have to ask yourself, “now what?” It can come at the other end of parenthood when your child leaves home and for the first time in eighteen years (or more) your daily life isn’t shaped by the needs of your children and the demands of parenthood. Now what?

We experience this when we retire and on the first morning of retirement, wake up and no longer have a job that needs going to. Now what? It could be that we are recovering from some addiction and must ask ourselves, who am I and what will I be now that drugs or alcohol no longer defines my life? Those who have lost and those who will lose a spouse or partner whether through divorce or death also find themselves asking themselves this same question when the one who had been at their side for years or decades is no longer there. Now what?

What will we be, what is our new purpose when our lives are no longer defined by school, or children, or jobs, or drugs, or the care of relatives, or a life-long partner? It is a question colored all at once with possibility and fear, with excitement and loss, and with love and grief.

The disciples grappled with this question as their eyes searched the clouds. Would they just pack up and go home—and I am sure that some considered this possibility—or would they adapt and redefine themselves in this new era now that Jesus had ascended into the heavens? This is one of the great moments when the early church matured the disciples learn to claim their faith for themselves and begin figuring out what a life of faith looks like in the absence of Christ’s physical presence.

Nor would it be the last time that the Church had to face this question, whether it was when it was no longer a persecuted religion but now the state religion of Rome, or when Rome would collapse but the church would persist, or when dissent within the church would finally cause fractures as those who protested the Roman Catholic Church formed the first denominations of the Protestant Reformation, or more recently as the church was faced after 1,700 years with the collapse of Christendom and an increasingly un-churched society. In almost every generation, in one way or another, the church has to re-answer this question as it adapts to an ever changing world and an ever changing people. Our individual communities face this question time and again in the life of a parish with the change of leaders, community conflict, or new opportunities. Who are we now, why are we here now, what is our new purpose?

Whether we ask this question as a church community, just like the first disciples, or we are asking this question in our own personal lives, Jesus left us final instructions in his last days that can be summed up like this, “I have taught you what you need to know, I have given you the good news that you needed to hear, I have given you each other, and I will send you a companion, and you will never be alone.”

This is the good news, my sisters and my brothers, Jesus may have ascended into heaven, but Jesus has not abandoned us, the God who created us and all things seen and unseen has not abandoned us. Just as God was with the disciples and the faithful of the early church as they grappled with these questions, the God who creates all things new invites us to join in the new creation and will be with us, guiding us, and loving us as we come up with new answers to the great question, “now what?”

Preached by Adam Yates.

Have you ever had a time in your life where you felt completely unsure about what was next—where you felt like you didn’t know how to move forward, where they way before you felt cloudy and obscure?  I know that I have on several occasions.  One that comes to mind was the time in my life when I first began to feel a call to ministry.

I was in college and was studying the environmental sciences.  I had my life planned out, at least for the next few years—I was going to graduate from college and then go to graduate school to continue my studies and eventually pursue a career in environmental research or something of that ilk. It was a neat little plan that I had for myself and I had already started looking at graduate programs around the country, when I finally was forced to come to terms with the call I was feeling to seminary.

To make a long story short, it finally came down to a decision between the two tensions I was feeling in my life.  I was faced in one hand with the clear and carefully laid plans I had made for myself, and in the other the uncertainty of this call that I was feeling and the unknown process and path that lay in that direction.  I experienced it like a fork in the road where one way was clear and sunny and the other way obscured by thick fog so that even the path was hidden from sight.

I suppose it is obvious which way I chose.  It would make a nice story if I could say that the path soon became clear and everything was okay, but that wouldn’t be true.  Instead, I came to know well the feeling of uncertainty, the feeling that I didn’t know which direction to make my next step, the feeling of having no plan, the feeling of unknowing.

I think that Jesus is warning his disciples about something similar.  Our gospel story comes from the Farewell Discourse of John, which relates a number of stories and sayings of Jesus as he says goodbye to his disciples as he prepares to leave these people who have followed him.  Jesus warns them that there will come a time when they will feel lost, when they will feel as though they are walking through a thick fog.  He has walked with them and showed them how to follow The Way for so long, but soon he will not be able to make the path clear for them any longer.

Jesus says, “you will feel alone and scared, but don’t worry, I will send the advocate to you.”  Now, Advocate strikes our modern ears a bit oddly, as it calls to mind lawyers and legal advice.  While there are times that having a lawyer is very helpful and useful, a spiritual crisis tends not to be an example that comes to mind.  A more helpful interpretation is “friend” or “companion, and a more literal translation would be, “one who will be with you.”  Jesus knows that his time with the disciples is drawing to an end, so he promises, “I will send one to be with you and to guide you through the fog and along The Way.”

The truth is that I did feel the presence of one who will be with us during the often-uncertain times along my path to ordained ministry.  Sometimes I was aware of that presence in the midst of what was happening around me and at other times I am only aware that the presence was there when I look back, remember, and reflect on experiences.  When I think back, I can see this presence at work in the people that I met, the friendships that I made, the mentors that I found, and the opportunities that became open to me.

I am not alone in this experience—I suspect that most of us, given some time to think back and reflect on different times in our lives, can identify moments when the one who is with us was active in our lives.  It is often easier to see the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives in memory and hindsight, and I think that is because the many little distractions that fill our lives and occupy our minds in daily life melt away in memory.  Like panning for gold, the worries and concerns that cloud our minds—bills, chores, problems at works, or strains in relationships—fall away with time and are forgotten so that the golden flakes and nuggets, the presence of the one who is with us, becomes clear.

But it doesn’t have to be this way; our relationship with the one who is with us does not have to be relegated to memory and reflection.  We can learn to be aware of the Holy Spirit at work in our present life.  Jesus promises to send the one who will be with us so that we can have an active and present relationship with the Spirit.  Jesus promises this companion to the disciples so that they will open their eyes and unstop their ears and watch and listen sharply for the spirit’s presence.

We too can do this by learning to be mindful, by learning to see through the many distractions that vie for our attention and cloud our perception.  By cultivating prayer and stillness in our lives, we can learn to recognize the presence of the one who will be with us, and not just recognize, but become open to being guided.  And, my sisters and my brothers, being open to the movement of the spirit is a strange and wonderful experience because when you are open to the spirit, the improbable and miraculous happens.

The story from the Acts of the Apostles is one such story of what happens when we are open to the work of the spirit.  The story opens with Paul receiving a vision to go to Macedonia, and so he and his companions packed up and went. They made their way to Macedonia, but once they got there, they weren’t sure what to do next, and it seems that they didn’t really have any plan either.  The disciples weren’t always the swiftest group of people, if you know what I mean, and sometimes it seems like they just bumbled through things, but it can’t be said that they weren’t open to the working of the Holy Spirit.

And work the Spirit did.  The disciples found themselves speaking with a group of women one day.  As they spoke, a certain woman named Lydia was listening to what they were saying, and she was no ordinary person.  Lydia, a dealer of purple cloth, was a wealthy and influential woman in her community.

The disciples weren’t the only ones open to the work of the Holy Spirit, though.  Lydia, as a wealthy businesswoman, had certainly heard the words and pleas of many religious sects peddling their doctrine and looking for her financial support.  We might imagine that she was somewhat jaded towards these types of people from her past experiences.  Yet, Lydia was open to the Holy Spirit, and the one who is with us brought Lydia and the disciples together that day, and she believed.  So Lydia was baptized, along with her household of family members, servants, and employees, and she became one of many wealthy women and men who would care for and lead early Christian communities.  To put it more succinctly, because Lydia and the disciples were open to the one who is with us, the disciples traveled to a distant land and found Lydia ready to establish the first church in a new land.

Just as the one who is with us is active in the lives of the disciples, in our own lives, and in the life of the early church communities, so to is the Holy Spirit active in the community of St. Stephen’s.  If you think back and reflect on the life of this community over the years, I am know that you can think of times when it is apparent that the Holy Spirit was at work because I’ve heard the stories.  And just like the first disciples, just like Lydia, we can learn to have sharp eyes and ears so that we can watch and listen for where the Holy Spirit is leading us.  There have been times in the past here in this community and there will be times again in the future when it will feel like the way before us is obscure, where the path seems hidden as if by a thick fog, but we can trust and rejoice that Jesus has sent us a companion and a guide who will be with us on the way.  We can trust and rejoice that we are not lost, that we are never lost, and that many improbable and miraculous things await us on the way.

Preached by Adam Yates.

One of the things that I find endearing about Connecticut and New England in general, are its many stone walls.  There is something very quaint about a house with a low stone wall along its front, whether it is a carefully constructed and very neat wall, or something that is little more than a long pile of stones.  But what I truly love are the stone walls that run, seeming without reason, through the woods, carefully dividing the land for purposes long forgotten.  You can see them crisscrossing through the thick trees along our country roads (I’ve even spotted them cutting through the median along parts of 84), or when walking along the many trails in Eastern Connecticut.

These abandoned old walls evoke a sense of history, calling to mind the many hands that placed each stone where it now rests.  I find myself wondering about the people who built them, and to what end they spent so much backbreaking labor—was it to clear fields for cultivation so that they could feed their family?  Was it to wrangle livestock into place and protect them from predators?  Was it to settle property disputes with neighbors?  Did these walls ever serve as a barrier to hide quarrelsome neighbors from sight?

The truth is that humans like building walls and are quite good at it.  Sometimes they are for very practical reasons, clearing the soil for farming and keeping the animals in for example.  But most of the walls we build, be they physical walls of stone and wood or steel and iron, or walls of laws and customs, are meant to keep the “other” at bay.  The reading from the Acts of the Apostles is a story about these walls.

The first followers of Jesus were all Jewish, and it was with some concern and scandal that they had received word of some of Peter’s activities during his travels.  “You ate with them?” they ask when Peter returned to Jerusalem one day.  “They were uncircumcised, they were gentiles, and they were unclean!” Peter’s contemporaries exclaim in surprise.

While the concern that these people felt at Peter’s transgressions of the barriers that separated Jew from Gentile might seem somewhat foreign of a concern to us today, the underlying sentiment isn’t.  After all, we have our own walls that keep us separated from people who are different than ourselves—we call them things like “immigration reform” or “Jim Crow laws” or “gender roles” or “Ghetto” or “Defense of Marriage” or even on occasion, “Planning and Zoning.”

I witnessed this last one in a city in which I once lived—I have never seen so many citizens publically concerned about the potential of a building to impact traffic flow as when a local Muslim community kept trying to find a location to build a Mosque.  And I have experienced first hand the concern that arises when one of these barriers is transgressed when a church community to which I belonged once learned that I was living in the ghetto—it was all that I heard about for a few weeks.

Like I said, humans are very good at building walls, and we are not content to stop at building barriers designed to keep “others” away, we also build walls within ourselves to hide parts of ourselves from others and even from ourselves.  These are walls not built of stone but of judgment, shame, and even fear.  We erect these walls to cope with things like divorce, abusive relationships, addiction, mental illness, and even sexuality.  For example, much attention is given to “coming-out” stories, when individuals first share with family and close friends their sexuality.  What isn’t talked about as much is the internal “coming-out” that these individuals must first go through when they break through the walls built within themselves and acknowledge and accept their own sexuality.

The most tragic of barriers of all are the walls that we put up to separate others and ourselves from God.  We build up walls to define where God can be found in the world; we build walls to say who God will save; we build walls to set apart what we think should be holy and sacred to God; and we build walls to say who God can love.  We build so many walls that you would think God was some sort of livestock, at risk of wandering off or being attacked by wild animals.

Yes, we humans are very good at building walls, and we worship a God who excels at breaking them down.  The funny thing about God is that every time we build up a new wall, whether it is to keep others out and in their place or walls for us to hide behind, God ends up on the other side.  God is always found at the fringe, along the barriers we have erected, looking in at us, calling to us.

God beckons to us to transgress the barriers we have raised so that we can approach God and enter into a relationship with God.  God invites us to climb over our walls so that we experience a new thing, so that we can see that everyone is worthy of God, so that we can see that God loves all of us, regardless of the color of our skin, regardless of our gender, regardless of our immigration status or the country of our origin, regardless of our faith tradition, regardless of our sexuality, and regardless of whether we think ourselves to be worthy.

Regardless of all the things we think are important enough to build walls around, God loves us and has made us all holy.  And if all are made holy in God, then we are called to break bread and share our meals with all people, whether they are immigrants from foreign lands, ex-convicts, those of other religious traditions, those who look and speak differently than ourselves, and those who have had different life experiences than our own.

This is not easy work and it will make many upset and uncomfortable because we will be transgressing the barriers of tradition and taboo.  Like Peter in today’s story, we do it not because scripture or the teachings of the church say to do it—after all they are more often than not concerned with maintaining walls than tearing them down—we do it because our experience of God compels us to do so.

God called to Peter in a vision, “break down these walls, for I know what I have made holy.”  So too does God call to us, “break down your walls, for I know what I have made sacred.”  My sisters and brothers, soon we will gather together at this table, should to shoulder, to share a meal.  Come and break bread with us, because God has made all of us holy.  And if God has made all of us holy, then God has made the whole world holy, so may this be the first of many meals that we share with the whole world.

Thanks be to God!

Preached by Adam Yates.

I think that it is safe to say that Psalm 23 is the best known of the Psalms. It has been popularized beautifully numerous times by singers and musicians, and everyone who has ever attended a funeral has most certainly heard it. If I say, “psalm,” I am confident that the words of this particular psalm are what come to all our minds. We hear the words, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want,” and we instantly begin to feel a sense of peace, comfort, and reassurance.

It seems to me that this is a week when we could do with a sense of peace, comfort, and reassurance. It was a terrible start to the week as we all watched the news in horror as the two bombs went off at the finish line at the Boston Marathon. As if that weren’t enough though, it seemed as if every day this week brought more bad news, more stories of fear and danger. First there were the poisoned letters sent to the White House and a Congressional office, the devastating floods and tornadoes in the Midwest, the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas that has claimed the lives of fourteen people, and then to close it all off, a shootout in Boston that claimed two more lives and a wild manhunt that saw Boston and its surrounds shutdown as we all held our collective breaths and watched and waited. It has been a week filled with suspense and we could all use some comfort and reassurance right now.

Suspense is a powerful and exhausting emotion and state of being. When we experience suspense, it is as though everything seems to hang as we wait for something to happen. It is like we are floating, disconnected from the ground—disconnected from any certainty. When we are in suspense, we are unable to move forward, we feel unable even to act.
The people who gather around and question Jesus in today’s Gospel story seem to know something of suspense as they ask him bluntly, “ How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” They have heard of this Jesus person from others; the stories about him precede him. Perhaps they have even heard some of his teachings. It all seems to be pulling at them, tugging at their hearts and minds. They sense that he is something more, that his words and deeds point to another reality, but they can’t be sure!
They cry out to Jesus, “Are you the one for whom we have waited? Are you the messiah? Are you God?” They have waited so long for God’s salvation; for generations they have shared the promise of hope, parent to child to grandchild and on. These people want so badly for Jesus to be the one, but they want to be sure, they want him to just tell them plainly who he is and what he is about so that they may believe. After all, following a messiah is risky business; following Jesus is risky business. They could be persecuted, they could be rejected, and if they make their choice hastily, they could be put to death for their religious treason.

These people who question Jesus hope and long that he is who they think he is, but they are not stupid. They understand what it could cost them if they were to follow Jesus and they want some assurance. They are caught in a state of suspense, watching and waiting for something to happen, some sign to become manifest, so that they can act and move forward. If only Jesus would speak plainly and break this suspense!

But that is not what Jesus does. The reality of who Jesus is dwarfs our ability to accept and believe by simple words. “I have told you, and you do not believe,” Jesus replies. We do not come to faith by statements and logical proofs and we do not come to faith by dogma and creed. What Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel is that we come to faith by first becoming a part of the flock; we come to faith by first entering into a relationship with Jesus.

This sounds counterintuitive, but really it is not. If you have ever been in a relationship, then you know that you didn’t start by meeting a stranger who claimed, “I am you best friend, or boyfriend, or girlfriend, or partner, or spouse.” No, you discovered who they were, who they would become in your life by first entering into a relationship. It seems to me that Jesus is doing the same in today’s story. We ask, “Tell us who you are and tell us who you will become to us.” Jesus replies, “come and be with me, come and get to know me, come and share with me your story, come be in relationship with me and you will know who I am and what I will become to you.”

I think that the Psalmist is saying something similar. To a people who are hurting and afraid, to a people who are anxious and filled to the brim with suspense, and to a people who have seen enough violence and death, God says, “Come and rest with me. Come and I will prepare a great meal for you and I will moisten your parched lips with cool drink. Come and I will watch over you—my goodness and mercy will chase you and pursue you even through the darkest valleys so that you will not have to fear again. Come and be with me and you will know that I am your God.”

My sisters and brothers, in a few minutes we will be invited to the table that God has prepared for us. Let us approach the meal God has set for us seeking relationship that we may come to know the one who created us, the one who has always watched over us, and the one who loves us as a mother loves her children.

Preached by Adam Yates

We need a number of different supplies for decorations, crafts, and other activities. If you think you can supply one or more of these needs, please contact Lynda Hickey. Thank you for your support in making this year’s VBS program at St. Stephen’s a success!

• Rolls of paper – brown or white (approximately 3 feet tall, such as deli or florist paper)
• Rolls of cellophane
• Large rectangular sponges (4″ x 8″)
• Paper towel & toilet paper rolls
• red & orange tissue paper
• latex paints – black, grey, and white, a few gallons of each
• 1 package of large plastic dinner plates
• 5 rolls of silver duct tape
• large pieces of construction paper (black, white, yellow, red, & grey)
• 25 wooden dowels 1″ in diameter
• 15 pairs of hiking socks
• any kind of medieval props for a castle theme

And of course:

• monetary donations to buy supplies

The last time they had been gathered together like this, wrestling with boats and the frustration of empty nets had been before they met Jesus. The man who stood on the beach and called to them was a stranger; they did not yet know whom Jesus was. So many things had not yet been revealed to these people who would become disciples. They could not yet imagine what lay before them. There was no way that they could have known the wonders that they would witness as Jesus taught and worked in the countryside and towns. Neither would they have suspected the love and devotion that they would come to feel for Jesus. A stranger stood on the shore and called to them, and for reasons that they couldn’t explain they felt compelled and able to respond to his words, “Follow me.”

I suspect that it is the same way for most of us. Whether we were raised within the Christian tradition or have come to it later in life, our first encounter with Jesus is an encounter with a stranger. We maybe have heard others speak of him, we maybe have picked up a few stories that still circulate through our society, or we may have even started reading about this Jesus person on our own out of curiosity, but our first encounter with Christ is always an encounter with a stranger, one whom we do not yet know, who calls to us. We cannot know where this call will lead us or what wonders we will see on our journey, yet something within us stirs and feels compelled to respond to his call, “Follow me.”

Follow me. These are the words upon which the story turns; they are the hinge upon which our lives pivot.

The disciples certainly experienced this. Before these words were first uttered, they had known so little. Now, after the stranger on the shore had called them, they had come to discover so much; a new door was opened for them, and they knew more than they had before. The disciples had walked on the way with Jesus. They marveled at the signs he worked and did their best to follow and understand the teachings he taught.

It took them a while, but they finally discovered that the way upon which Jesus was leading them was the way of the cross, and they had watched in disbelief, horror, and deep sadness as the one whom they loved and had followed for so long was crucified and lay dead upon the cross. Now the disciples were afraid. They were afraid because they didn’t know how to follow the path any longer without Jesus to lead them. They were afraid because they understood that their lives were at risk, that the stakes were high. They were afraid because through their witness of his death and now his evident resurrection, they were finally beginning to realize who Jesus was, or perhaps more accurately, who Jesus is. Most of all, they were afraid because they understood for the first time the true cost of discipleship.

After all of this had happened, they were once again gathered together on the edge of the sea, wrestling with their boat and feeling frustrated with the emptiness of their nets. We might well imagine that they were all thinking to themselves, maybe even questioning out loud to each other, “Can’t we be disciples and continue as we were before?”

It is not just the disciples back then who felt this way; it is us now who also feel this way. There comes a time in each of our faith journeys, and if we are being honest, there are in fact many such times in our lives, when we start to understand where it is that the Way of Jesus leads, when we start to realize who Jesus is, and when the consequences of our faith start to dawn upon us. At those times, we may ask ourselves, just like the disciples seem to be asking themselves as they attempt to return to their old lives in today’s story, whether we might be able to be disciples while continuing as we were before.

As if in response to this unspoken question, the risen Christ appears once again to the disciples, just as he had before. At first all they see is a stranger standing on the shore, but when he calls out to them, they know it is Jesus. When the disciples come to him, they find that Jesus has prepared a meal for them, and they eat together, like they had so many times before. Jesus then questions Peter three times, “Do you love me?” and when Peter insists that he does, Jesus responds with the commission to feed and tend to his flock. Jesus’ answer seems clear—we are disciples by more than name and by more than even belief; we are also disciples by the actions we make.

The Gospel of John is written with the anticipation of the Ascension always close at hand—the anticipation of a time when Jesus will not walk in our midst. This is not surprising, as this Gospel was one of the last to be written, as late as sixty-some years after the crucifixion. The early Christian community was just starting to come to terms with the fact that the second coming wasn’t going to come as soon as they had thought; they were just starting to come to terms with how to be the church, how to be faithful disciples, when Jesus wasn’t physically with them any longer.

So this early group of Christians remembered. They remembered how Jesus came and spoke with the first disciples, terrified after the events of the crucifixion, just as they were terrified by the persecutions that they experienced in the first few centuries of the Church, just as we are terrified by the consequences of our faith. They remembered that Jesus called the disciples, that Jesus calls all disciples in all ages, to do his work in the world. They remembered that Jesus comes to us again after we start to understand who he is and what it is that he asks, and calls us once again, saying, “Follow me.”

Jesus says, “Follow me and feed my lambs, follow me and tend my sheep, follow me and feed my sheep.” Jesus says, “look, I have given you the fish you need to feed my flock, and look, I have given you the courage you need to be my disciples. Follow me.”

This is the good news, my sisters and my brothers. The Way of Discipleship does ask a lot of us, and it can be scary, but Jesus always equips us with what we need to do the work that we are called to do. After all, before Jesus sent the disciples out to feed and care for his people, he showed them where to find the fish.

Towards the end of March, the Vestry went on their annual retreat for worship, sharing, and discussion. One of the big things we worked on together in the question of how we engage in mission here at St. Stephen’s. Many of you remember that we spent Lent engaging in a study series around the topic of the many ways that God is at work in the world and how we might be able to engage with that work. The question that the vestry tackled flowed out of our Lenten Study Series, “how might we focus how we engage in God’s mission?”

Why do we need to focus our mission engagement? There are so many ways for us to answer Jesus’ call to tend his flock that it can feel overwhelming, like being pulled in many directions at once. Picking one direction helps us to focus our collective energies and engage deeply in God’s mission and work. And as many of you know from experience, a few constraints often lead to creative and exciting new ideas and opportunities. So with all of this, the vestry discussed and deliberated several different missional directions we might take as a community and in the end settled on food and feeding people. As you can see, it is specific enough to give us some direction and loose enough to give us many new and exciting opportunities to do the work that Jesus calls us to do.

We’re going to try it on for a while and see if it fits. I am personally very excited about where this might lead us as a community. Though I don’t have any specific new projects to announce today, in the coming weeks and months there will be opportunities for all of us to look at how we are already engaging in God’s work and how we might engage in God’s work in light of this mission focus. There will be opportunities for us to learn together, there will be opportunities for us to serve together, and of course there will be opportunities for us to feed and be fed together.

After all that had happened, the Risen Christ appeared on the shore and called the disciples to feed the flock, and thanks be to God, we’re going to do our best, trusting that Jesus will equip us with what we need to do the work we are called to do.

Preached by Adam Yates

Lord: Speak in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my mouth and the thoughts that we form. Amen.

Well, here we are. Almost three and a half years later. I knew this day would come, but it just feels so soon.

My first Sunday here was October 4, 2009. It was a warm welcome and I looked forward to being your Deacon. Mother Rachel was your priest and together we discussed and prayed how God would use my ministry here. We were off to a good start. Then, after my being here about a year Mother Rachel left and I was left with a choice. After conversation with the Bishop I learned that I could stay or leave. It was my choice. Well, it didn’t take long to decide! God had already placed you in my heart and I really was curious about the process you were about to enter, that of choosing a new priest. It was a good decision for me. The plans that Mother Rachel and I had discussed never happened. God had other ideas. If you read the March Witness and saw the article in The Deacon’s Corner, you may remember lesson number 1. Never second-guess God.

We, St. Stephen’s, went through some rough times and I told the wardens that I was their cheerleader. It was a long and difficult process and all of you stepped to the plate. Because of changes elsewhere you really were on your own. What a strong and gracious group you are. I would always choose you for my team!

We met some wonderful priests along the way who came with their God given gifts to help us in our time of need. It truly was a picture of the Body of Christ working together. During those mad dash years you ran a capital campaign and put on a new roof. Harvest House continued to flourish, committees were formed and the work of those committees was astounding and there were other projects and ministries that continued with amazing grace. We celebrated births, baptisms and weddings then mourned as we said goodbye to too many loved ones. You graciously allowed me into your lives during sickness, and mourning, and for many celebrations.

We had a lot of good fun and ate very well. You still eat very well I will miss that, a lot!

I have watched as your little ones have grown into bigger little one’s. When I first came here, I remember greeting folks after church and a group of very young girls came bounding through the line holding hands and chattering away in complete joy in the way of little girls They were and are all friends and so excited to see each other here at St. Stephen’s. I looked and thought, “they look like bubbles” and they have since been known to me as the Bubbles. You see them as the Angel Choir; I see them as the Bubbles. What a joy!

It has been such a pleasure ministering with your children as acolytes in the service of the Lord at the altar. Some have graduated from high school and moved on, as they should. What a gift it is to see your beautiful children grow to amazing adults.

There is barely an area of church life where you are not fully engaged in ministry. However, there is another opportunity on the horizon to serve here at St. Stephen’s and that is the Stephen Ministry. Stephen Ministry is a pastoral care ministry who train folks to be outstanding pastoral care-ers. That training will begin in the near future and if you are interested talk to Fr. Adam. I’m sorry I won’t be here to see the fruit of this ministry but I will keep my ears tuned to E. Haddam and will certainly hold this special ministry in my prayer for you.

As I read the Gospel for today I was struck with the words in the first paragraph. We so often hurry on to the next verses regarding Thomas and belief, and that too is important. But I think today we need to hear the words of that first paragraph again. “ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

These are very powerful words filled with much meaning. If anyone was worthy of holding anger and resentment toward anyone it was the disciples. They had suffered horrible persecution and they had seen their leader, the Lord, tortured and unjustly put to death in a most horribly devised way. Jesus knew their hearts and their needs.

Looking a little closer at this verse we see that the doors were locked, and yet Jesus came and stood among them and gave his gift of peace to them. Remember, the last time they saw him he had been beaten & executed, yet there is no comment about his appearance. He calmly showed them his hands and feet. Is it possible that the reason they and others did not recognize Him was that the sin He had borne on His body had been cleansed, put away, and what remained was the sign of the new covenant that Jesus carries with him for eternity as a holy sign of His promise to us? After showing them His wounds they knew who He was. What a time of revelation and understanding that must have been for them from fear to joy at 100 mph. They rejoiced! Jesus once again greeted them with Peace. Shalom alechim. Peace be with you. Then Jesus gave them their marching orders. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He breathed on them. God’s breath; the Holy Spirit. Wow! As He breathed on them He said, “ Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

What I am about to say is extra biblical, that means you can’t look it up in the bible. But I think it is implied and I have certainly lived it. I think that we are not able to forgive with out the power of the Holy Spirit. I think Jesus knows us as well as he knew his disciples. They needed to hear the words and be empowered to forgive and we are no different. We were never created to carry anger and bitterness. It makes us sick and we find no freedom with its weight. We cannot go forward to live in peace and to love others unfettered until we forgive because love does not live beside unforgiveness. To forgive does not mean that what ever happened to you was ok. It’s never ok. Forgiveness is about your walk with God in the world and it is at the core of our relationship with God. The choice to forgive or not is ours. What God calls us to do is the mirror image of what He has done for us. He empowers us to walk in forgiveness. The reward? God’s Peace that passes all human understanding.

There is a very wise man named Louis Smedes who taught at Fuller Theological Seminary, Calif. and has authored many books, but one in particular answers questions we may have about forgiveness. It is called The Art of Forgiving; when you need to forgive and you don’t know how.

We all struggle with the need to forgive and we know that we are empowered by God to forgive but hardly anyone tells us how to do it. Dr. Smedes gives us tools to help us toward that end. It is important to understand that forgiving is a process. Give yourself grace. You are worth it. God is calling you to freedom.

Every time we think of the person who has offended us we see nothing but the offense. They become that offense. The first order of help is for us to begin to reclaim their humanity. They are more than what they have done. They need the Lord every bit as much as do we.

The second help is to give up our need for revenge. Revenge comes in many different flavors. Sometimes we even turn revenge upon ourselves. Revenge solves nothing and only further complicates our need to forgive. God will care for the other person the same as He cares for you.

The third help according to Dr. Smedes is to change your feelings. Now you ask, “ how can I do that”! Well, experts tell us that our feelings follow our thoughts. Think about it. If I deliberately change the way I think about someone my feelings about him or her will change. That may happen through gritted teeth, but it can and does happen. We have been given the power of the Holy Spirit to do that which we cannot do alone.

Forgiving is never as easy as 1-2-3 but all things are possible in God who forgave us first and knows how it’s done.

God has given us a wonderful gift in Fr. Adam & if you need help through the process of forgiveness, here is your gift. (Adam)

Well, knowing this day was coming doesn’t make it any easier. Although I will not physically be here God has placed you in my heart and that will not change. I will continue to pray for you.

God has gifted this parish with all things necessary to accomplish His purpose here. What God wants he pays for, so stop worrying about things! Listen to Him in prayer and conversation and be obedient to His promptings and walk in the good works he has prepared for you. I suspect that God has much work for St. Stephen’s to do.

Soon our wonderful choir will sing a song that is one of my favorites. Let the words and music wash over you and settle in your heart. Be blessed.

I’d like to add just one more thing. That would be my prayer for you.

I pray that Jesus becomes part of the very marrow of your bones. That He moves into the center of your heart and brings healing to the wounded places and strength through the trials of life. That He gives you Peace in the midst of the storm and joy in all of life. I pray that His Love will allow forgiveness to flow and grant you the gift to embrace your differences and find unity in the Holy Spirit.

Please wish me well on my way.

Thank you for 31/2 wonderful years. Amen.

Preached by Dianne Warley

Jesus was dead. They had all seen him die, they had watched him hanging on the cross as he cried out and breathed his last. They had been there when he was lifted off the cross and placed gently into a nearby tomb. Now this group of women were coming back to make the final preparations for Jesus’ burial, to anoint him lovingly with spices. But when they came to the place where Jesus’ body had been so carefully laid, they found the tomb open and his body was nowhere to be found. Then prompted by mysterious strangers, they remembered what Jesus had told them, remembered for the first time the predictions he had made of his resurrection, and they ran back terrified and amazed to tell the other disciples that to which they had just been witness.

And that is what they did, they witnessed to their fellow disciples, this group of women who were the first to experience the resurrection. And the other disciples called their story laros. Laros is the word that appears in the original Greek of Luke’s Gospel. The English translators who interpret the gospel for us were concerned for our apparently delicate dispositions and so render the word as the vaguely sexist and dismissive, “idle tale.”

But that is not what laros means. It is an expletive and a more accurate translation would run along the lines of excrement of a bovine persuasion, or really any word that would have gotten you in trouble had you said it in school.

These women, who were the first to witness to the resurrection, were told that they were full of it by the other disciples. But Peter, who also heard their story, ran to the tomb, saw that it was as they had said, and became himself a witness to the resurrection.

The miracle of Easter is ludicrous, absurd, and full of it. How many of us have questioned it ourselves, how many of us have felt that it is a little to out-there, how many of us have at one point or another felt a niggling doubt as we hear this tale? I know that I have. It is complete laros—even the disciples said so! How can we believe it unless we have encountered the risen Christ ourselves?

The miracle of the resurrection turns the world on its head! How do we make sense of the world when the dead won’t stay dead? The ultimate power of the state is the power over life and death. What authority does the state have when it no longer has that power? How do we order our lives and society when final power and authority is taken away from the government? It is absurd! How can we possibly believe this story unless we have encountered the resurrection ourselves? How can we believe until we have stumbled with disbelief upon the open and empty tomb and say to ourselves, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”

The laros of Easter is that death no longer has the final word, that death has lost its sting. Where before death was final, where before death was the terminus, where before death was terminal, after the miracle of the resurrection, it is no longer! The ridiculous claim of Easter is that nothing can come between us and the power of God. In the words of St. Paul, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But how can we possibly believe such an outlandish claim? The truth is that we cannot. We cannot believe until we, like Peter before us, find the open tomb, enter it, find it empty, and so cry out even from the grave, “Alleluia, alleluia, Christ is risen!”

The great tragedy of the Christian story is that God walked among us, in our midst, and we rejected God. The one who was there when the word was first uttered and the earth was raised from the watery depths, became like us, taught us, and loved us and we betrayed him, abandoned him, and left him on the cross to die. The great tragedy of the Christian experience is that God is in our midst, God appears to us, and we still reject God.

The preposterous miracle of Easter is that God still wants to be in relationship with us. The incredible claim of the resurrection is that in the face of our constant rejection, God says, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” That is not how the world works! How can we possibly believe this outlandish claim until we have gone and found the open and empty tomb ourselves? How can we believe until we can say with our own lips, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”

We are all sinners. No matter how hard we try, it seems that we always end up falling short of the mark for which we were aiming. Our best and purest intentions quickly become clouded by self-interest, the inability to forgive, or even the frailties of being finite creatures. We have a hard time loving others, we have a hard time loving ourselves, and we have a hard time loving God.

The insane and outrageous reality revealed in the resurrection is that God does love us even when we feel utterly unlovable. God loves us with the intimacy that a mother loves her children and God wants to be in relationship with us! How can we believe this unless we have gone out and found the tomb open and empty? How can we believe this until we have found the joy that lets us shout, “Alleluia, Christ is risen?”

My sisters and my brothers, Christ is risen, and is waiting for us! The world has been changed for ever; it will never be the same again, for what was old has been made new. Many will witness this to us, but how can we believe, for it is utter insanity? Let us go therefore, following in the steps of the disciples of every age before us, out into the world and seek the open and empty tomb. Let us go out into the world and seek the risen Christ so that we too might become a witness, proclaiming for all to hear, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”

Preached by Adam Yates

When I was young, I remember that I always enjoyed Palm Sunday. For one thing, in Virginia, it was almost certainly the start of spring—the grass was getting green again and flowers were starting to appear on the trees and from bulbs pushing up through the ground. Palm Sunday was also often close to my birthday and quickly became associated in my mind with the general excitement of the birthday season. But if I am being really honest, what excited me the most about Palm Sunday when I was growing up were the palms themselves.

I don’t know who first came up with the idea of handing out long and pointy palm strips in church, but they were genius! My brothers and I discovered, as has every child in the history of Palm Sunday, that palms are immensely useful for poking each other, waving about in the air to the consternation of parents, and serving as a wonderful distraction during sermons.

Palm Sunday is still a special day for me, although perhaps for different reasons now. There is something immense about this day, a sense that something great and unstoppable has been set into motion. You can feel this largeness, this weight, in the Gospel story this morning. Jesus sends some of his disciples into town to take the young colt of a random person with only the words, “The Lord needs it” by way of explanation.

Can you imagine being the person who stands there as two strangers come and take your colt from right in front of you saying only, “The Lord needs it?” Can you imagine being the two disciples who have been asked by Jesus to go and commit what amounts to grand theft equine, can you imagine how uncomfortable that would have been? Can you imagine their shock when this complete stranger accepted their vague words, “the Lord needs it?”

It is the first indication that we are entering a surreal realm, entering into a period of time, a piece of the story, where something much larger is at work. The two disciples bring back the young horse and Jesus rides it into the town. As he enters, people spontaneously appear to throw their cloaks on the ground before him. We don’t know who they are or where they came from, or even how they knew Jesus was coming into town. Events are happening now as though they are inevitable, as if there was no other way that they could happen.

The only people in this story who seem to question what is going on around them are the Pharisees who appear, concerned about all the commotion Jesus is causing and the attention that he is drawing to himself. They may have disliked what Jesus was about, but remember many of the Pharisees were sympathetic to his cause and work, so they could have just as easily been concerned about his safety if the wrong people were to take notice of what he was stirring up.

But Jesus only confirms our sense that these are immense, unstoppable, and inevitable events unfolding before us, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” It is as though he is reassuring them, “don’t worry, this is how it is supposed to happen, this is the only way that it can happen.”

God is moving and God is working God’s salvation, and creation is being pulled along in it. Jesus has been walking on the way throughout Luke’s gospel, walking on the way to the cross, and now the way has grown short and the cross has grown close. The story is picking up pace, events are slipping by, and we, the disciples, and the whole world are being drawn into it all.

The story in which we are now participating is much bigger than a single day, a single gathering, a single remembering, or a single telling. I invite you to join us as we take part in the unfolding story of Holy Week that begins today, continues through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the glorious resurrection of next Sunday. I invite you to join us as we bear witness to the immensity of what God is working. I invite you join us as we make this a holy week.

Preached by Adam Yates