Christmas Eve 2020

Christmas Eve 2020 A letter to Vanessa, Lillian, and Becky upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Vanessa, Lillian, and Becky, Today, after a really long wait, you are going to be baptized into the body of Christ in this, your faith community. This is not how any of us expected it to be when we first planned your baptism. It was supposed to happen months ago at Easter. It was supposed to be inside the church surrounded by those most important to you with the sweet fragrance of Easter lilies wafting around you. It was supposed to be different. No other year has taught us how our faith must grow and change in the face of the unexpected, the disappointing, the difficult. We all have known some dark times this year, and you girls are no different in that. We all continue to learn that things don’t always work out the way we think they are supposed to. But even in the midst of darkness, difficulty, uncertainty, God does not abandon us. Today/tonight, we gather to remember the ancient truth and wisdom of Emmanual—which means God with us. We remember that God chose to be born into this world as a testament to God’s love for us and that Jesus, God with us, proves that God does not abandon us, even when things seem their darkest. Today, you are being baptized into that God who is with us, “a long-sought withness for a world without.” i You have, ever since your creation, been claimed as God’s beloved and “marked as Christ’s own forever.” In and through your baptism today, you are saying “yes” to your belovedness and you are promising to live your life as one of God’s beloved; you are promising to set your life and to follow the path of faith as one who lives as a part of “God with us.” And we do this with you as we renew our own baptismal vows. It is a joyfully daunting task, this year more than ever. And the good news is that no matter how dark or difficult the way may be, you are not alone. God is with us. We are all in this together. Today/tonight, we remember that the church is so much more than a building. We, the church, are the people for whom God is with us. And when we the church are at our very best, we take turns lighting the way in the dark for each other; we take turns holding up the light of Christ for one another when one or many of us feel too weary or heart-broken or disappointed to go on. We take turns carrying each other through the seasons of darkness and doubt and disbelief. Because that is the truth of this night: that God is with us and that God’s love is stronger than anything. God’s love is stronger than the darkness of this world. God’s love is stronger than plague or pestilence. God’s love is stronger than our daily disappointments or our loneliness. God’s love is stronger than the worst things we can do to each other. God is with us and the light of God’s love that shines forth in the person of Jesus Christ is stronger than absolutely anything we may have to face in this life. Even death. And so, on this day of your baptism which is also the eve of the birth of God with us, may you each be given some of the gifts of those who first knew and experienced God with us on this night so many years ago. May the gift of the bold courage of Mary be yours to light your path. May the gift of the quiet faithfulness of Joseph be yours to steady your heart. May the clear vision of the angels be yours, along with their song of joy. And may you also know the shepherds willingness to be dazzled by a light that will always shine for you, even in the darkest of nights. God is with us. And we are with you. Now and always. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. This line is from the poet Malcolm Guite’s poem “O Emmanuel”

4th Sunday of Advent Year B

The 4th Sunday of Advent Year B December 20, 2020 This week, I learned of a spiritual construct that I’ve never heard of before. I am now calling it Holy Indifference. I was listening to a podcast with a spiritual director and writer named Ruth Haley Barton, and she was talking about this spiritual gift of indifference and the importance of indifference in personal and communal discernment and in accepting God’s will for your life. But here’s the thing. Often when we talk about indifference, we mean apathy; not being too hot or cold about particular issues. Indifference often has the suggestion of a coldness or an uncaring. But Ruth Haley Barton’s definition of indifference is not apathy; it’s actually very different. She says, “In the language of spiritual formation [this holy indifference] speaks to being indifferent [or not attached] to anything but the will of God, so it means that we’re indifferent [or not attached] to matters of our own comfort or safety; we’re not thinking so much about ego gratification; we’re giving up appearances. We’re indifferent to that. We’re indifferent [or not attached] to our own pleasure, and we’re even indifferent [or not attached] to what our own personal preferences are, and what it is we think we want. It is a state of wide-openness to God in which we are free from undue attachment to outcomes, and we have the capacity to relinquish anything that might keep us from choosing for God and God’s will and God’s loving plan. Outside of Jesus himself, Mary is the clearest expression of this spiritual indifference.”i So, let’s look at our readings for today because they give us two different glimpses, one of someone who is not practicing holy indifference and one who is. First, we have King David in our Old Testament reading for today. David has this great idea that now that he is established as king in Israel, he is going to build a house for the Lord. He gets buy in for his plan from the prophet Nathan, but then God lets them know God’s indifference to this plan in a lovely, playful way. “Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" David’s plan is somewhat self-serving (but cloaked in piety, which is a temptation we all face) because if he builds God a house, then that will not only confer some status on the king who houses the Lord, but it also means that David can always know exactly where to find God when David gets in a pinch. But God reminds David that up until this point, God has been at large, loose and wild and free, working in the world. God does not want to inhabit a temple or a building but rather God wants to inhabit a people. And we get this, don’t we? We who have had to struggle with not being able to come into this space, this building, where we are accustomed to connecting with God. But this is an important reminder for all of us that God is not and will not be bound to this building or any building. One of my colleagues was talking about this and about how she has grown and changed in her faith over the years. “For many years,” she said, “the church and the liturgy were the container for my faith. It was like going to the gym. I would go to the gym to work out. I would go to church to pray and to work on my faith.” Now, she quotes another writer who says that “faith is in the mutable and messy processes of our lives.”ii My friend is learning to look for God in the change, in the mess of her life, and that has shaped her faith in ways she could not have imagined before. And then there’s Mary. She offers the model of holy indifference for us in her response to the angel’s perplexing news: “let it be unto me according to your word.” In that one prayer of indifference, Mary shows that she is willing to embrace the invitation of God, even though it is going to completely blow up the plans that she and her parents have for her life—marriage to a good man who will take care of her. In embracing God’s invitation, in living into that holy indifference, Mary sacrifices her own vision of her life and gives it up with complete trust of God and God’s work in the world. In and through her indifference, she puts herself completely at God’s mercy, and she seems completely composed about that. One of my other friends talked about how normally this week, she would be preparing her guest room for her mom to come and stay. But because her mom isn’t traveling this year, her guestroom is full of so many things: her husband’s guitars, all of her supplies for her knitting, so many other aspects of the detritus of their lives that have accumulated in that room over the year. She noticed that our collect for the day has us praying that God will purify our consciences by God’s daily visitation so that when Christ comes, he may find in us “a mansion prepared for himself…” and my friend confessed that she would most frequently maybe invite Christ into the cluttered guest room of her heart to stay when it was convenient but that she didn’t think that she had made the room of a spacious and lovely mansion for him where he could stay always. And I resonate with that, too. For me, I think it is because I am nowhere near where Mary was. Most of the time, I do not practice holy indifference. I struggle to hand my life over to God and to relinquish my attachment to my preferences, my comfort, my ego, and what I think I want. But fortunately, Ruth Haley Barton reminded me in her podcast that coming to indifference isn’t like flipping a switch. There is a process to coming to indifference to anything but the will of God, and we are not alone in that process; for Mary it was the angel who accompanied her; for us it is the Holy Spirit and, I would say, the communion of the saints and all believers—the Church that isn’t the building. The first step in this process is to pray the prayer for indifference; this means acknowledging our attachments, our preferences, our commitment to keeping up appearances and our egos and asking God to free us from all that. It has been eye opening for me this week to realize that I really need to do that work around Christmas and what that experience is going to be and feel like for us this year. So, your invitation this week is to join me in praying the prayer for holy indifference, for an openness to God’s will and the willingness to embrace God’s invitation. If you find that you have attained indifference at some point, then your prayer may shift to a prayer of indifference: “let it be unto me according to your word.” If you are struggling with the connection of your faith with this building or in gathering together, then I invite you to not only pray for holy indifference but also to begin looking for God who will never be contained to this building but who is found out loose and wild and at work in the world and in the “mutable and messy process of our lives.” i. From the podcast Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B ii. Wiman, Christian. My Bright Abyss: Meditations on a Modern Believer.

The Third Sunday of Advent Year B

Third Sunday of Advent-Year B December 13, 2020 Last week, I read an opinion article that was titled, “What if instead of calling people out, we called them in?”. This article talks about a college class that is being taught at Smith College by a woman named Professor Loretta J. Ross. It highlights the cultural phenomenon of “calling out”: “the act of publicly shaming another person for behavior deemed unacceptable”. This behavior is frequently seen on social media, and Professor Ross says that the call out culture is toxic because it alienates people and makes them fearful of speaking up. She also thinks that call-out culture has taken conversations that could have once been learning opportunities and turned them into mud wrestling on message boards, YouTube comments, and Twitter… In her class, Professor Ross tells her students, “I think [calling out] is also related to something I just discovered called doom scrolling…I think we actually sabotage our own happiness with this unrestrained anger. And I have to honestly ask: Why are you making choices to make the world crueler than it needs to be…?” “The antidote to that outrage cycle, Professor Ross believes, is “calling in.” Calling in is like calling out, but done privately and with respect. ‘It’s a call out done with love,” she said. That may mean simply sending someone a private message, or even ringing them on the telephone (!) to discuss the matter, or simply taking a breath before commenting, screen-shotting or demanding one “do better” without explaining how.” i. After I read the article, I realized that it doesn’t really explain further how to do this “calling in” that Professor Ross is referring to (and perhaps that is intentional because the article does say that she has a book on this subject forthcoming). But as I’ve been pondering it over the last couple of weeks, I have realized that our scriptures for this week actually give us some indication of what not to do and what to do. In our gospel passage from John’s gospel today, we see John the Baptist coming on to the scene, but he is not our typical wild-eyed, angry John the Baptist. He is someone who is clear in his calling: one who has come “to testify to the light.” And where, in other gospels, John the Baptist is the one who is usually doing the “calling out” of the religious authorities (“You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come!”), in John’s gospel, it is the religious authorities who are actually “calling out” John the Baptist; just listen to the questions they ask him and how they ask them: “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” In our Isaiah passage, we see the children of Israel returning home to the promised land after being in exile for many years. There are three voices in this passage: the voice of the prophet, the Divine voice, and the voice of Zion, who is being restored. In all three of these voices, we see a calling in of the people back to their special relationship with Yahweh, a promise of the restoration of grace and good things in the midst of hardship and suffering. And there is an added layer of significance in this Isaiah passage for today; Jesus’s first public act of ministry in Luke’s gospel, after coming off his baptism and wilderness temptations, is to go to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. He is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he unrolls it to this portion from today and reads: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bring release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Then he rolls up the scroll, sits down, and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It is both the ultimate calling out of those who are in power and the ultimate calling in, inviting everyone into the reign of God’s kingdom that is being brought to fulfillment in and through the person of Jesus. So, what does all that have to do with us? What if instead of calling people out, we called them in? When I am being truthful, I am much more like the religious authorities calling out John the Baptist than I am like John, unwavering in my commitment to testifying to the light. I am much more likely to “doom scroll” and to become indignant over what I see on the news or on social media than I am to invite someone into a conversation that challenges us both to go deeper, to learn more, to practice kindness and empathy. I’m much more ready to assume the worst about someone than to assume the best, and to give them the chance to live into their better selves. So my invitation to myself (and to anyone else who resonates with this) for this week is to commit to being a witness to the light; to look for ways to seek out the light of Christ who has come to draw the whole world to himself in each and every person I come into contact with—stranger and friend and family member. And to be like the John the Baptist, unwavering in my commitment to testify to the light. I. What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

First Sunday of Advent Year B 2020

First Sunday of Advent Year B November 29, 2020 This past week, one of my friends shared a bunch of music on Facebook, and I’ve been listening to one of the songs, over and over. It’s call “Dark Turn of Mind” by the singer Gillian Welch. The song is about how the singer has been treated unkindly by a lover in the past, and this has opened up for her a new way of seeing the world that at first appears to be a burden but turns out to be a gift. Her way of seeing the world with “a dark turn of mind” opens her up to seeing beauty that is found in melancholy, in sorrow, in the shadows. Welch sings: “Now I see the bones in the river And I feel the wind through the pine And I hear the shadows a-calling To a girl with a dark turn of mind But oh ain't the nighttime so lovely to see? Don't all the night birds sing sweetly? You'll never know how happy I'll be When the sun's going down And leave me if I'm feeling too lonely Full as the fruit on the vine You know some girls are bright as the morning And some have a dark turn of mind You know some girls are bright as the morning And some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind”i Today is the first day of the new year for the church. It is the beginning of Advent, a season of longing and of expectation, a season where we are invited to have a dark turn of mind, for at least a little while. Our readings for today certainly offer us this lens to look through. Isaiah gives us a song of lament from a people in exile who are longing for God to break into their reality and to restore them to their rightful place in the promised land, to once again give them the gift of peace and hope and belonging. And today, we begin in Mark’s gospel, not at the beginning, but near to the end. Jesus is approaching his crucifixion, and he invites his disciples and us to dwell with him for a while under the shadow of the cross that is looming over him. While the disciples may not fully grasp the dark clouds that are gathering, the original hearers of Mark’s gospel are no stranger to them. The earliest of all the gospels, Mark was written right after a Jewish uprising brought down the full wrath of the Romans upon Jerusalem, and these early followers of the Way are living in the rubble of the destruction of their city and, perhaps even more grievously, the temple. This Advent season, in the midst of chaos and disease and turmoil, we are invited to recognize the longing of this season by seeing the shadows of despair, war, sorrow, and hate, in our own hearts and in the world around us, even as we are actively waiting for Jesus to come, lighting candles of hope, peace, joy, and love. “Likewise, to really hear what Mark is saying, we first need to enter the shadows, those places where all hope seems lost. Roman armies desecrate and destroy the temple, ruining the sacred heart of the world — not just in first-century Palestine, but also here and now. And in a time of pandemic, many people are already in the shadows of suffering, anxiety, exhaustion, and grief. A key message of Advent and Christmas is that such shadows are precisely the place where Jesus comes, and where the church is called to go.” ii One of the commentaries that I read this week had this to say about seeing the world through a dark turn of mind this season and dwelling in an among the shadows this Advent: “I recall a comment that our country has changed over the past years from one that wanted to be good to one that wants to feel good. We see some of this desire every Christmas season as people run from store to store… searching for the things that will bring them and their families some sort of fulfillment and happiness. Peace, the kind of peace that the world is hungering for, will not come from trying to fill ourselves up with material things. We try to stem our hurt and pride by running away from pain and caring only about what is ours. We cannot create peace through selfishness, but by opening ourselves to hope. Hope is what is left when all your worst fears have been realized and you are no longer optimistic about the future. Hope is what comes with a broken heart willing to be mended.” iii So many of us are longing for peace that we often try to create it, to manufacture peace ourselves. But Advent is an invitation to all of us to dwell for a bit in the darkness, to come along-side the suffering, the longing, the heartbreak until we can become friends with it. When we allow this world to break our hearts, then we create space for God to fill us with hope, and it is only then that we discover true peace. Your invitation this week is to spend some time with the shadows, to open your heart to the suffering that you feel or that you encounter in the world around you, and then offer that to God in prayer. And as you begin to make friends with the shadows, to see the world through a dark turn of mind, may you also begin to look for signs of hope. i. Dark Turn of Mind by Songwriters: David Todd Rawlings / Gillian Howard Welch; https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=57ms9XDjs64; ii. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2017/11/27/keep-awake-lectionary-commentary-advent-week-one iii. Feasting on the Word Year B Vol 1. Ed Bartlett and Brown. WJK: 2008. Pastoral Perspective: Isaiah 64:1-9 by Patricia E. De Jong. P 4.

24th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28 A 2020

24th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 28A November 15, 2020 A few years ago, I read a blog post by the Quaker spiritual writer Parker Palmer. Palmer was writing about his own discernment work that he was doing as he move further into his 70’s. He had been pondering the question: “What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to hold onto?” But, he realized that he needed help in this discernment process, and so he assembled a group of trusted friends whose work was not to answer the question for him but to help him see the issue with a greater clarity. He writes, “Their role was not to advise or ‘fix’ me, but to ask honest, open questions and simply listen to me respond, giving me a chance to hear my own inner wisdom more clearly. He continues, “I emerged from that little gathering with something more important than an answer. I emerged with a better question. I’m no longer asking, ‘What do I want to let go of and what do I want to hang onto?’ Instead I’m asking, ‘What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?’” Palmer concludes, “I now see that ‘hanging on’ is a fearful, needy, and clinging way to be in the world. But looking for what I want to give myself to transforms everything. It’s taking me to a place where I find energy, abundance, trust, and new life.”i There are many different ways we can read Jesus’s parable for this Sunday of a harsh but generous master who gives three servants three different astounding amounts of money. For me, during this strange, fearful season, it is helpful for me to use the parable as a lens for my own life, to examine the places where I have been so fearful that I buried gifts and to examine the places where I have stepped out in faith with bold daring to brave a new venture through the gifts or resources God has given me. And truthfully, we are all a strange mix of the fearful and the bold, the daring and the overly-cautious. This is why Parker Palmer’s question is helpful for me these days. It is a way that I can look at my life through a different lens and seek to discern where I am putting my energy and if there are better places, better ways to share my energy, my attention, my time, my money, my resources. “What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?” We can’t hold on to everything, and we need to hold on to some things, to give ourselves whole-heartedly to God, to each other, to causes greater than ourselves. Your invitation this week is to spend some time in discernment with Parker Palmer’s question: “What do I want to let go of and what do I want to give myself to?” Are there things that you have been holding on to that you can ask God to help you relinquish? Are there things you need to take up, to give yourself to, that you can ask God to give you courage and daring to do? I’m going to conclude with one my favorite poems by Mary Oliver. It is titled In Blackwater Woods. Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.ii i. https://onbeing.org/blog/the-choice-of-hanging-on-or-giving-to/ ii. Oliver, Mary. American Primitive. Back Bay Books: 1983.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 27A

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 27A November 8, 2020 When I was going through the process to become a priest, I had to answer a series of questions about my personality and my theology. One of these questions that I’ve been thinking about lately is “How are you with uncertainty?” It’s really a horrible question, and I have no idea how I even answered it in all my 25-year old glory. How are you with uncertainty? Over the years, I’ve pondered why they would even ask us this question: How are you with uncertainty? And the older I get, the more I realize they ask us this question: “how are you with uncertainty?” because nothing, really, is ever certain. Our readings highlight that for us today. The community in Thessolonika are upset because they had expected Jesus’s imminent return, and yet some of their community have died before Jesus has returned. Paul seeks to reassure them in their uncertainty. And Jesus, near the end of his earthly ministry, tells a parable that is all about uncertainty and about how different people deal with it. Some people, who he calls “wise,” try to be as prepared as possible for uncertainty, while others, who he calls “foolish,” find themselves unprepared for uncertainty, and as a result, end up being locked out of the party. We who are no strangers to uncertainty, this week, this last 7 months….We might wonder what we must do to be prepared for uncertainty? And really that’s the better question, isn’t it? Not so much “how are you with uncertainty?” (“Fine?” she says uncertainly?) But really how do you prepare for uncertainty, in your life, in the world around you? What are the spiritual practices that you deploy during times of uncertainty, and what are the spiritual practices that you normally access to strengthen your spiritual muscles for when you must face uncertainty? Jesus parable has a hint for us there, too. One of the spiritual practices we can deploy in both uncertain and in more stable times is to be surprised by joy. Because that’s what the wedding banquet is; it’s an invitation to be surprised by the joyful, unexpected, and long-awaited presence of the bridegroom. It is the invitation that all, the wise and the foolish, have received to the joyful occasion that is the wedding banquet, and it is the reminder that we must position ourselves so that we are fully present when the party starts, and not racing around looking for that which is unimportant to try to stave off our own anxiety and uncertainty and unpreparedness. So, what are ways that we might be surprised by joy? One of those is through a regular practice of thanksgiving. A few weeks ago, we began the annual giving campaign here at St. Thomas which is titled: Sheltering St. Thomas: Giving in Gratitude. It has been such a gift to me to listen to how different parishioners are grateful for the life and ministry of this place, and their stories continue to feed and nurture my own gratitude. Also, for the rest of this month, we’ll be doing the litany of thanksgiving that is found in our BCP to help us strengthen our gratitude muscles. It’s something that you could make as a daily practice during this season if you are so inclined. Another way to be surprised by joy is to do something creative. The creative process is chock-full of uncertainty. You never know exactly how the creative process is going to turn out, and for me this week, I’ve found creative outlets in the humble and mundane practices of singing and cooking. I was also delighted this week with Peggy V’s video where she talks about how they’ve been surprised by joy through creatively connecting with St. Thomas during this past summer. The third way is by paying attention to what is going on around you. When we are fully present in the moment (as opposed to be checked out in our own worries or on our phones, we are more likely to be surprised by the goodness of what is in our immediate vicinity. And the fourth and final way to be open to being surprised by joy in the midst of uncertainty is in remembering and giving thanks for joyful moments from the past. This past week, Jim Joyce has offered me a wonderful example of this in his Facebook series “Project Spread Joy” where he’s been sharing photos that are chock full of the joy from their life together. Your invitation this week, in the face of uncertainty, is to reflect on how you prepare for uncertainty and how you deal with it in the moment, and to create space for you to be surprised by joy.

All Saint's Day-Year A

All Saints’ Day Year A November 1, 2020 A letter to all the faithful of St. Thomas Isle of Hope on this All Saint’s Day Dear Beloved of God, It’s our first day in over 7 months to be back in worship in person together, and yet still, we are spread out-in our pews and chairs and in our homes--among three services, one of which is virtual. It is 2 days until the most difficult and contentious election of my lifetime. We all need some good news. It is my usual custom when we have a baptism to write a letter to the baptismal candidate or candidates about what we believe we are doing when we baptize them. Since All Saints’ day is one of 7 major feasts of the church when baptism is especially appropriate and when it is also appropriate to renew our baptismal covenant when we don’t have a baptism, I thought we all might benefit from a letter to all of us who will be renewing our baptismal promises today. Our epistle reading for today reminds us of the truth of our baptism: that each one of us is God’s beloved child; that we claim that belovedness in and through our baptism and we recommit ourselves to living as God’s beloved every time we renew our baptismal covenant. It is a reminder that “we are the people who love one another” whether that is the strangers we meet, the people in our lives or in our households, and especially those we know too well and don’t like very much or disagree with. Our gospel reading for today is the portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount that is known as the Beatitudes. It is an unorthodox list of blessings that Jesus promises to his disciples who have gathered near to listen to him on the mountain. It is both “a description of and a summons to a new kind of life, kingdom-life…Jesus is trying to help his disciples and us envision what life will look like when we live according to God’s will and rule.”i It is also an important reminder for us that “when God is present and we live according to the logic of the kingdom, all is not as it seems. Note that the list of those ‘blessed’ does not align even remotely with a typical list of the blessed:” those who are wealthy, powerful, independent, beautiful, charismatic, healthy, happy. Instead, Jesus lists as those who are blessed those whom the world would consider to be cursed: “those who are mourning or are humble, or [those who] extend mercy rather than exact revenge, or [those who] strive for peace rather than exert their will through violence, just to name a few.”ii And today, on this All Saint’s Day, especially, we remember and lift up this kingdom notion that all is not always as it seems as we remember and believe that those who have died are still near us, surrounding us, upholding us with their prayers and presence. We remember and hold fast to the hope that is woven throughout our burial liturgy: that death is not the end but a change and that when our mortal body lies in death, Jesus goes before us through death into the resurrection to prepare a place for us there in God’s kingdom that is both already and not yet alongside the vast company of all the faithful who have come before us. This sermon on the mount and our renewal of our baptismal covenant this day both serve to invite us to transform our vision of where God is at work in the world in and through us. God is alongside and at work in the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. And God is alongside and at work in and through us when we renounce evil and proclaim the good news of God in Christ; when we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves and strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. Beloved, this week will be difficult, and it will probably be divisive. One news source reports that 70% of Americans are anxious about the election. The renewal of our baptismal vows and the reading from the Beatitudes on this All Saints’ Day are timely reminders of a truth articulated by Richard Rohr: “voting is a deeply moral act-a decisive statement of Christian faith that I matter, that justice matter, and that other people matter.”iii As followers of Jesus, we are called to live out the principals of our baptismal covenant and to vote for leaders who will lead us to be our very best selves. Today, it is also important to remember, through the glorious example of the saints in light, those who have come through their own ordeals of their own times and entered fully into God’s kingdom; may they remind us of the hope of our calling: through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, God has shown, once and for all, that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything. God’s love is stronger than Covid-19. God’s love is stronger than partisan politics and a deeply divided nation. God’s love is stronger than the forces of anxiety, grief, and fear that threaten to overwhelm us. God’s love is stronger than anything, even death. As we renew our baptismal covenant today, let us recommit ourselves to following the way of God’s beloved, to following the way of self-giving love. And may the Holy Spirit renew in us the faith, hope, and love that we need to face the days ahead. i.David Lose in his blog post for Nov 1, 2020: http://www.davidlose.net/2020/10/all-saints-a-transformation/ ii.Ibid. iii.Adapted from Richard Rohr, “A Deeply Moral Act: Voting Is a Decisive Statement of Christian Faith that I Matter, Justice Matters, and Others Matter,” Sojourners, vol. 47, no. 10 (November 2018), 19;