On this Third Sunday in Advent, there are no more fitting words than “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”   Christmas is just two weeks away and we look forward to gathering on Christmas Eve for beautiful worship services, either here or with family and friends elsewhere, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, and the coming of Christ to be with us in the flesh.  There is no greater joy than that.  And this afternoon, we will get a sneak preview of Christmas with our Lessons and Carols service, where we will be together with fellow Saint Georgians and with people from the larger community to experience this lovely treasure from our Anglican tradition.  If you didn’t get a chance to see our Minister of Music, Dr. Ben Keseley’s, Dragon Bytes article in video form this past Thursday, I highly recommend watching it when you get home today.  Ben recorded it inside the organ chamber and it’s both educational and funny.  I was especially interested to learn that the first Lessons and Carols service was held in 1880 on Christmas Eve at 10 pm and was intended to keep people “out of the teeming public houses,” a.k.a. rowdy, crowded bars.   

his summer my husband Nick and I traveled through West Virginia for a week-long summer vacation. We entered West Virginia on highway 55 (US 48) headed toward Blackwater Falls State Park. As we drove on Rt 55, I was in awe at how flat and smooth the road was as we headed across the mountain range. The highway led us over tree covered valleys with beautiful rushing streams and rivers. As we gazed up at the mountaintops we saw hundreds of windmills that I am told power Northern Virginia. This highway through these rugged mountains, forests and streams was awe inspiring. It reminded me of the Isaiah 40 passage in our gospel reading that speaks of making a level, straight and smooth path so the glory of the Lord will be revealed. 

Wow, this has been quite the last couple of weeks!  The aftermath of the presidential election has left some of our fellow Americans feeling completely elated and triumphant, and others altogether bereft and discouraged about our future as a nation.  And most people in Arlington and here at Saint George’s are in the latter group.  Roughly 80% of voters registered in Arlington voted for Vice-President Kamala Harris and roughly 20% voted for President-elect Trump.  But whomever we voted for, whether we voted with the majority of Americans overall or whether we voted with the majority of people in Arlington, we can all agree that this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes to date.  When people are having a hard time agreeing on much of anything right now, we can all generally agree about that, whichever political perspective we are speaking from, that this election signals a major shift in direction.  There will be a lot of changes and yet we do not know for sure what initiatives will come to fruition.  There is so much uncertainty right now and human beings do not deal very well with uncertainty.  So it is especially important for us to be reminded of how we are called to live as Christians during this time.   And our reading from Hebrews today has a lot of wisdom to offer us. 

Today is All Saints Sunday, the day in the church year when we focus on what it means to be knit together in the communion of saints.  We are reminded today that we live our lives in the here and now mindful of all the faithful people who have gone before us.  Those people are still with us as our heavenly cheerleaders, encouraging us and helping us onward.  Today I am mindful of faithful Saint Georgians who have died.   I remember seeing them at church every Sunday and hearing what was going on in their lives.  I can still see where they sat, and recall the ministries they served in.  I remember visiting them and sharing communion when they weren’t able to be in church anymore.  I really miss them but take comfort in knowing that they are with us still.  I am also aware of family members, my grandparents, my father, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law.  You may be mindful of people in your own life who have died.  Even if it has been a while, their memory is still alive, and not only that, they are very much alive in a spiritual sense.  Every Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer we praise God with the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven.  They are  the company of heaven , all those who we love but see no longer, and that is a comforting and empowering thought.   

While reading Mark, I sometimes wonder if sight is overrated. Generally we regard sight as the most valuable of the senses. Some 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Aristotle ranked the five senses in hierarchical order, and praised sight as the most noble of them all. No doubt he was influenced by his teacher, Plato, who wrote that sight was the foundation of all knowledge in a work called Timaeus, which some biblical scholars associate with our Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in today’s Gospel lesson, whose name literally means ‘Son of Timaeus.’ This is possibly an ironic head nod to the wisdom of an unsighted man overturning the wisdom of a man praising sight.

This past Friday, the sports world was shocked to hear the announcement that UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett was retiring.  Bennett is one of the “winningest” coaches of all time.  He has had a stunningly successful career.  He is also widely regarded as a person of deep integrity.  He said that he could longer continue because he did not believe in the direction that college sports were going and feared for the well-being of his athletes within a system that was becoming more and more like professional sports.  Coach Bennett said that he knew it was time to acknowledge that he was not equipped to take the program forward in this new environment, describing himself as a square peg in a round hole. 

Last Sunday Reverend Shearon preached an excellent sermon on the faithful Christian response to suffering, and today I’d like to continue that thread by exploring the question of what, then, is God’s response to suffering?

How can we profess that God is good in the face of all the human suffering we witness every day?  Wars rage around the world, people die from starvation, and hurricanes wipe out whole communities.  The list goes on and on.  Some suffering that we experience in life is the result of our own actions.  And that requires us to take responsibility, asking for God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of those we have hurt and asking God to help us live differently going forward.  But so much suffering in this life just happens to us.  It has nothing to do with anything we have done and is totally undeserved.  That is the central dilemma that he Book of Job explores.    

The dean of Virginia Seminary has a habit of opening his sermons with a joke, and he even wrote a book about Episcopal humor, which I’d highly recommend, so I thought I’d take a proverbial page out of his book today.

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?

When I was in seminary, I had a professor who always said that when you are trying to decide which reading to preach on to “find the passage that begs a lot of questions and preach on that.”  And our reading from Proverbs today certainly does that.  “A capable wife who can find?... She is far more precious than jewels.  She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong…She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue….” 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has just had a dust-up with the Pharisees, the religious authorities who were always challenging his teachings.  Jesus has just called them hypocrites and chastised them for failing to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” as the law of Moses demands. Then Jesus leaves the predominately Jewish region where he has been preaching and teaching and heads to a mostly Gentile, or non-Jewish area.  He wants to keep a low profile, according to Mark, but the news of his healing ministry has preceded him, and a Gentile woman approaches him and throws herself at his feet.  She is desperate because her little girl has an “unclean spirit”.  This could have been a physical illness, a mental health issue or something else.  We just know that the little girl was seriously unwell in some way and that her mother is beside herself with worry.  She has heard that this wandering preacher heals people.  

Hello, my friends!  It is so good to see all of you!  I am very happy to be back with you after my sabbatical.  My time away was wonderful, refreshing in so many ways.  We had time for travel, time with family and friends, time in creation, and time at home.  I came back on Tuesday and wow, what a lot of great happenings to get caught up on!  The top hits of the summer seemed to have been the preaching series, the youth service trip and the choir residency in Gloucester.   So much life, so much joy, so much for which to give thanks. 

’d like to tell you a story today. It was written in 1897 and the title of the story is The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men, which I think is a hilarious title. The story goes like this. There was a man named George Hell (which is also very funny) and George was a selfish man of many appetites. He was a gambler, a flirt, and he loved nothing more than a raucous all-night party. Then one day he met an incredible woman named Jenny and became enraptured with her. Now Jenny was everything that George was not. She was selfless and kind, generous and humble, and she loved God far more than any worldly delight. Hopelessly smitten by her goodness, the scoundrel George confessed his love and asked for Jenny’s hand in marriage, but Jenny playfully replied that she would only marry a man with the face of a saint.

I have a dog who is what dog trainers call “food-motivated.” I gather that not all dogs are like this—I have friends who have a dog who, when they put food down for her, will eat a few bites and then walk away. Not our dog—when we put her food down, she eats it in approximately 15 seconds and then looks up at us, expectantly, as if to say: “is there any more?” 

Whether or not all dogs are food-motivated, I’d venture to say that all of us humans are, at one level or another, food-motivated. We are hungry beings. We are bodies that need to be fed, and this is why Jesus meets us through giving us food and drink. This is why the only one of Jesus’ miracles to be recounted in all four Gospels (and twice in Mark and Matthew) is the feeding of the multitudes. This is also why the feeding of the 5000 in John’s Gospel unfolds into Jesus’ longest discourse in John, and also, in the church’s lectionary, is spread over five weeks. We began hearing the story last week, and the implications of this miraculous feeding continue to unfold, in our Gospel readings, this week and for the next three weeks after that—because this feeding story speaks to our most basic physical need.

Alright, I’m gonna just jump right into the Gospel today. The feeding of the five thousand. This is one of Jesus’s most iconic miracles, so iconic, in fact, that it’s the only one of his miracles to appear in all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so it’s clearly important. Now, there are two common interpretations of this miracle and I’d like to lay them both out for you and then we’ll work on figuring out what we should take from this event. The first interpretation is that this is truly a miracle, a miracle of bread being physically multiplied by Jesus. The second is that it’s more of a miracle of people sharing what they already have. I’ll start with the first interpretation, the miracle of multiplication.

I get it.

He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile. (v, 31.)  Curious as to just what had so upset Jesus to make Him want to withdraw, I remembered further back in Mark’s Gospel—to where we had left off last Sunday (MK:  6: 14 – 29.)  Seeing what that was, well…I can understand it.

Good Morning! Thank you for allowing me to be with you! I am the Rev. Chanta Bhan and I come to you from fair Richmond where I live and provide sacramental ministry to an historically black church, Calvary Episcopal Church in Hanover, VA, one of the most racially conflicted counties and towns in Virginia, as you may well know. I have found great joy in serving the community there and learning from them. The parishioners started the church during segregation. It was founded in 1919. They hosted church suppers and other fellowship events to help them raise the money to build the sanctuary; and, later, they raised more money to add a parish hall. As I listen to their stories, I am impressed by their love for Jesus, their courage, and their resilience! And, of course, I am delighted that you gave me a reason to come to northern Virginia, a place that feels quite familiar to me after my time at Virginia Theological Seminary during the pandemic. 

“An eternal weight of glory,” Paul says; quite a phrase. Paul juxtaposes images such that the phrase seems both heavy and light at the same time. An “eternal weight” feels overwhelming. “Glory”, however, Glory feels uplifting, even freeing. 

If I said we would talk about uncertainty this morning, you might reasonably wonder “Uncertainty about what?” And with that question a very wide door opens to all sorts of possibilities.  This is Trinity Sunday when we think about the nature of God— always a straight path to ambiguity. But this is also an election year, a time that is unpredictable by definition since we do not know the outcomes. Then there are undecided wars in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; angry divisions in our country; immigrants on the border; oceans on our doorsteps; greenhouse gasses over our heads; and around us there are children growing up, adults juggling careers, and seniors aging. These are all full of unknowns that can make us nervous if we let them. Uncertainty is ubiquitous. It is found everywhere, including in the lessons for this morning. Come with me for a few minutes, bring along the particular form of anxiety that unsettles your mind these days, and let’s see what these lessons say about how living with uncertainty.

Good morning everyone. My name is Sam Arny, a senior from McLean High School. I

normally attend the 8:00am service, so this is a slightly bigger crowd than I’m used to. I

started attending St. George’s in 2013 but left for 3 years as I moved to France until 2017.

When we came back, we were welcomed back into the church and have been here ever

since, even during COVID when we had those online services. But as a member of St.

George’s for all of these years I’ve heard countless sermons, maybe zoned out during a

couple of them more times than I’d like to admit, and I didn’t want to add my sermon to

that list for you. I had a couple ideas on how to avoid that, such as getting everyone

standing up and singing, doing call and response, or even walking through the aisle with

Paddy and splashing some Holy Water on everybody. However, after some long talks

with Paddy and Shearon about St. George’s customs and rules, and a lot of self-restraint,

I’ve decided to stick to the script. So bear with me for a couple minutes.

Good morning St. George’s, it is so good to be back with you after being away for our Shrine Mont retreat and a few weeks of vacation this past month. Now it is Rev. Shearon’s turn to take some well-deserved time off for her sabbatical which began this week. She will be back with us at the end of the summer on August 20th and I hope you’ll join me in lifting her up in prayer while she’s away resting, traveling, and re-grounding herself in God’s love.

The Fourth Sunday of the Easter season is Good Shepherd Sunday.  On the first three Sundays of Easter, we hear accounts of Jesus’ post- resurrection appearances to his disciples.  And today, instead of hearing about Jesus showing his hands and feet to astonished disciples, Jesus talks about what kind of relationship he wants with his followers going forward.  He describes himself as the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep, who even lays down his life for the sheep.  And, as Jesus says this, we hear psalm 23 in the background.  

This past Monday, people all over our country were caught up in the wonder of the solar eclipse.  Many people travelled to the places that experienced totality, including some Saint Georgians.  And here in our area, it was wonderful to see people, even for just a day, joined together in a way that had nothing to do with anything going on that divides us.  I was out in our front yard from 3 to 3:30 that day with the glasses that Ben Keseley, our Minister of Music, gave us from his stash.  And I was amazed to see the eclipse. Even if it was only 89% here, it was still incredible.  Parents were walking back from the school across the street from us, after a viewing party, with their children chattering away about how great it was.  Two of my older neighbors walked by and wanted to show me the cool crescent-shaped shadows that the eclipse made on the street, as the light was filtered through the leaves of a tree.  It was a lovely moment of shared spiritual connection.  Moments of wonder are a wonderful thing, they are part of what makes us human, and seasons of wonder are even better.  

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  (The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.).  What a joy it is to come together today to proclaim these words.  We join with Christians around the world and across the ages to rejoice that God has conquered sin and death and that we live forever in the risen life of Christ.  

In the Eastern Orthodox Church there is one sermon preached at the Easter Vigil and that is the paschal homily of St. John Chrysostom, written in 4th century. And as far as I’m concerned, it is the best sermon ever written. So when I sat down this week to write my own paschal homily, I swiftly realized that there is no point in trying to imitate perfection, when perfection is already before us. So I’d like for us to be Orthodox for the next ten minutes and I’ll preach it for you. Chrysostom captures so perfectly the theology of Easter, which is the theology of Christ Jesus himself. And the theology of Easter is that Christ, through his death and glorious resurrection conquered once and for all any power which sin and evil holds over us. Christ conquered death and we are free. Full stop.

Today is Good Friday, the darkest day of the church year.  We gather to remember Jesus’ death, just as Christians throughout the ages have gathered on this day to remember that day, that day of unspeakable cruelty, violence, and injustice.  We gather because looking at it alone would just be too painful.  And we come together to remember not just the first Good Friday, but to also look at ourselves and our world today.  

Today, Palm Sunday, we are thrust directly into the drama of Holy Week. There is no soft peddling or easing into things. We begin this liturgy in the exact manner we know this story will end – with triumph. Jesus’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem is a foreshadowing of what is to come on Easter Day with Jesus’s triumphal resurrection, and on the last day, with Jesus’s triumphal return. 

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day and we might expect to focus on that in church today.  But when Patrick’s feast day falls on a Sunday, we don’t observe it because the readings for the Sundays in Lent supersede  lesser feast days.  Patrick’s life and witness does inform our understanding of today’s Gospel, however.  Patrick lived in Britain during the fifth century.  He was captured by Irish slave traders when he was 16 and was forced to work as a shepherd.  After 5 years, he escaped and returned to Britain.  He could have lived out the rest of his life in privilege, being from a wealthy family, but he felt God calling him back to the land of his captors, so he returned to Ireland to share the good news of Jesus with them.    It’s amazing to think that Patrick had such love for the people who had once enslaved him.

This Sunday we are deep in the season of Lent, equally far from the celebration of Shrove Tuesday and the rejoicing of Easter. The midway points of our journey through the Lenten wilderness often bring the toughest trials as we struggle to maintain our enthusiasm for the discipline and repentance that the season calls for. We might find ourselves grumbling at the thought of several more weeks of sober liturgy, we might find ourselves getting lax in our prayers and our Lenten commitments. We might just be getting tired of the color purple. 

As we approach the halfway point of Lent, there’s a particular spiritual discipline that I’d like to commend for your consideration: foolishness. And not just the variety you may or may not have partaken of on Mardi Gras.

But before you tell your friends that your priest told you to go out and ‘act a fool,’ as they say where I’m from, hear me out. Foolishness is baked into our theological tradition from the very start. We hear St. Paul gesture towards the notion of holy foolishness. In his letter to the Corinthians as he writes: “God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe… for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, God’s weakness is greater than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:21ff).