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.
Read More’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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreAlright, 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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreGood 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.
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