Ephesians 6:10-20Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley, Bishop of Connecticut (ret.)
John 6:56-69
Have you ever been lost? I mean, physically lost? I can think of one occasion. It would have been forty years ago. I was solo camping and climbing in the White Mountains during the Memorial Day weekend. On my day to return home, the weather turned foggy and cold. Looking at my trail options, I decided to follow one off the barren granite peaks above timberline, stay on that trail for a time, and then bushwack straight off the mountain to where my car was parked. And then it happened; I misread the contour of the peak, and I was lost. Lost in the wilderness of the White Mountains National Forest on a cold and foggy day.
That’s one sort of lostness. This morning, as part of our series on the Holy Eucharist, I want to talk about another, I think much more serious, lostness.
Otto Heino's ashes rest in a burial urn that he made, wood-fired with his famous yellow glaze.
Otto Heino was one of the most famous potters in the world, certainly in the United States. He died in July 2009 at the age of 95. Though he and his potter wife Vivika lived and worked in California, Mr. Heino grew up and wished to be buried in Weare. His funeral was held at Holy Cross Church. The following is the homily preached by the Vicar on that occasion.
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Ecclesiastes 3:1-11Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
John 14:1-6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
When I was in seminary, one of the books we were assigned to read was entitled Money, Sex and Power. It was sort of fun to read this book in public places – on a plane or a bus; people looked at you kind of funny. The book was assigned for our ethics class, and it pointed out that all the things people fight and struggle over in life, the things we make laws and rules to regulate, can be reduced to those three basics: money, sex and power.
These days when we read about funerals for famous people – celebrations of their lives – it is usually their attainments in terms of money, sex or power that are being celebrated. Think about Michael Jackson, to pick just a recent example. We watch  celebrity funerals on television, or read about them in People magazine, with a kind of gloating curiosity. Part of this is envy: we wish we were as rich or as beautiful or as powerful as the celebrity. But part of it is our knowledge that the celebrity’s worldly success is never the whole story; there are always shadows, dark sides. Think again of Michael Jackson. And that makes us feel better about our own sins and failures.
If life were only about the pursuit of money, sex and power, it would be a hollow thing indeed. But it isn’t. There is another triumvirate that also calls to us as human beings: the pursuit of the good, the true and the beautiful. And our lives have value in the end to the extent that they embody these three things: goodness, truthfulness, and beauty – though in worldly terms we may be poor, homely and powerless.
Proverbs 9:1-6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
John 6:51-58Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
One of my fondest memories of Holy Cross will always be the ecumenical Thanksgiving service we celebrated at the Town Hall with Christ Community Church. This was back when Christ Community was just a house church, before they built their building in South Weare. A team of people from Holy Cross and a team from Christ Community worked together to design the service. We read the lessons and sang together, and then when it came time for Communion we had parallel tracks. Their pastor, Bob Christiansen, explained what they believed and how they celebrated Communion. I explained our beliefs and practices. And then we each did our thing, and people came forward separately, the Christ Community people in their line and the Holy Cross people in theirs.
The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley, Bishop of Connecticut (ret.)
I Kings 19:4-8
 John 6:35, 41-51
The year is 1955. I was a young priest, serving Trinity Church in St. Louis, Missouri. It was a tense time in that city – very much a southern city confronted by the changes brought on by the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court of the year before which had ordered the desegregation of racially-segregated schools. Trinity Church was in a neighborhood in transition, its sturdy single-family homes in the path of real estate interests which were block-busting, scaring white residents to sell to an expanding African-American population being forced out of neighborhoods closer to downtown which were being bulldozed in a citywide plan of urban renewal.
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
John 6:26-35Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
On my first Sunday as rector of St. Charles’ Church, the congregation produced a lavish coffee hour – tables laden with sandwiches and pastries, cheeses and crackers. Some of my little nephews and nieces were visiting for the special celebration. “This is cool!†one of them pronounced. “Let’s go to this church.â€
We do come to church to be fed, but of course not with the doughnut holes of coffee hour, nice as they are. We come to be fed with the bread of life, conveyed to us in the word of God and in the sacraments. Last Sunday in our summer series on worship, Bishop Walmsley talked about how we’re fed by the word. Today I want to reflect a little with you about our response to that feeding, the Prayers of the People, and about our prayer here in church generally – what is called our “common prayer,†because we do it together, in common.
The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley, Bishop of Connecticut (ret.)
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
I was very taken by last week’s service, when Josh Thomas, the Diocese of New Hampshire’s missioner to college and university students, led us through a process of imagining how young people in our very secular culture can begin to connect with Christian faith. “How is God real in your life?” he asked not just them but us.
This morning I want to take you on a similar sort of journey. Imagine that you are living in about the year 100 AD. You are in a small city somewhere on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, say in Asia Minor or Greece, and you have been invited by friends to attend a religious ceremony.
This past Friday night my wife’s office had a party. Over dessert I found myself talking with our hostess, a fascinating woman who was raised in the Congregational Church and converted to Judaism after her marriage to a Jewish man. She is the first convert to serve as president of her synagogue, a position of great honor.
Our talk turned to our children: were they continuing to practice the faith in which they had been raised? We agreed that this depended to a large extent on who they ended up marrying or living with. “Mixed marriages†– a Christian and a Jew for instance or, most commonly these days, a person with a religious background and a partner without – usually end up doing nothing about religious faith, for themselves or their children.
In twenty-some years, my hostess told me, their synagogue has had only one marriage, because even Reform Jewish rabbis usually will not officiate at mixed marriages – and all the other marriages of children of this synagogue in those twenty years had been to non-Jews. “This can’t continue,†Carol said, “or we will all die out. In this day and age, religions have to learn to reach out and engage with other religions or with people of no religion. They can’t just keep to themselves. They have to open up and change.†(Or at least that’s what I heard her saying!)
Which statement I want to use as a way into this morning’s topic, which is about the formation of Christians in a secular society — something that is called evangelization, a Greek word meaning the sharing of the Good News of God. Evangelization is of the very essence of Christianity. We exist as a religion because a tiny group of women and men, St. Peter, St. Paul and the other apostles (a word meaning “sent outâ€), went forth to spread the Good News they had encountered in Jesus Christ.
Amos 7:7-15Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Mark 6:14-29Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Children’s literature is full of stories in which someone discovers a magic doorway – the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, the back wall of a clothes closet in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – through which they pass into a world where everything is different. The sacrament of Holy Baptism, symbolized by the baptismal font that stands by the entrance to our worship space, is such a magic doorway into the world of Christ.
“that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will. . . “
Collect for the Nation, Book of Common Prayer, p. 258
The Constitution of the United States of America was adopted by a Constitutional Convention which met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 17, 1787. Two years later, on October 16, 1789, the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church met, also in Philadelphia, ratified a constitution for the Church, and adopted its first Book of Common Prayer. These two events are not unrelated: both the nation and the Episcopal Church emerged from the War of Independence from Great Britain sharing a common vision of what independence would mean for our people.
Mark 5:21-43Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
If we were worshiping in the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Kentucky, two weeks ago, we would have heard a sermon on “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry.â€* Inspired by this message, telling us that America was built on God and guns, we might have attended the “open carry†celebration at the church last night, at which everyone was invited to come to church carrying their firearms, enjoy a picnic and participate in the raffle of a handgun—chances $1 each.
Instead, we gathered here at Holy Cross for worship this morning have this story from Mark’s gospel of two healings—two stories really, intertwined together.
