Looking Toward Change

PROPERS:          PROPER 19, YEAR C 

TEXT:                1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2025. (My last Sunday at St. Paul’s, Mobile)

 

ONE SENTENCE:        Life’s direction can always be changed – to “The Road Less Travelled”.

 

            My first Sunday to preach here, last November, I began with a “point of personal privilege” to welcome my two grandsons, Wilt and Harris – who incidentally are here today.

            

            My reason is different today… especially since my daughter has observed that this may be my last Sunday to preach. That sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

            But here are my observations.

 

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            For most of my 38 years of ordained ministry, I have dealt with solving problems. Attendance… clergy behavior… budget issues… clergy placement… parish vacancies. I guess you could say that I came to view ministry with somewhat of a jaundiced eye.

 

            And then I came to St. Paul’s.  I had always been a bit skeptical of large churches. Bloated… privileged… spoiled… under functioning – those were some of the words I would use to describe large parishes.

 

            Then I was blessed to come to St. Paul’s – and those adjectives disappeared into the mists.  

 

            It has been my pleasure to see, especially, the many aspects of lay-led ministry.  I’ve watched as people organized meaningful efforts to touch people’s lives. I’ve seen the weekly ministry to deliver flowers to those challenged by life. The regular activities of Eucharists in homes, hospitals, and personal care facilities. I’ve witnessed the ministry of the Cracked Plates. I’ve seen the dedication of Daily Bread and Meals on Wheels.

 

            Gospel ministry, we could call it.  And that was just a sliver of volunteer ministry in this congregation.

 

            Then, the staff. The clergy staff, Jody and Brad, are like Joe DiMaggio – they make the hard ones look easy. Peggy and the choir make our worship sing in ways we wouldn’t otherwise. The lay office staff has been a pleasure to work with.

 

            And my thanks to a wonderful group of octogenarians who have welcomed Nora and me into your midst.

 

            Not bad, I would say, for a swan song.

 

            Thank you.

 

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            Rob Nichols, a fellow Mississippian now a priest in this diocese, tells the story of a seminary classmate taking the final, comprehensive General Ordination Examination during his senior year at Virginia Seminary.

 

            The test was comprised of short answer, essay, and some objective criteria. Open book and closed book. Some single essays lasted all day. Much like a Bar or CPA exam. It was aimed at seeing how much the student had learned during three-years in graduate school. Wags called it God’s Own Exam.

 

            As Rob tells it, one question was this: Who was the mother of Augustine of Hippo?

 

            The answer was obvious – St. Monnica. We had learned that fact during our middler year.

 

            But Rob’s friend was flummoxed. He did not know. Who was the mother of Augustine of Hippo?

 

            Indeed. He did not know. He wrote his answer: Mrs. Hippo.

 

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            Monnica’s son was one of the great figures of the early church.  Some call Augustine the greatest of all theologians.

 

            But he was not always so. Augustine lived an early profligate life in North Africa.  This was the fourth century. He was very bright – schooled in rhetoric and philosophy. 

 

            He was spoiled. He had a succession of concubines, eschewing marriage.  He was an adherent to pagan beliefs, especially Manicheanism, which saw the world as either evil or good, with nothing in between.

            

            It was during this paganistic period that he uttered his insincere prayer: “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

 

            One afternoon, when he was 31 years old, Augustine was sitting in a courtyard, and he heard a child’s voice repeating, “Tolle legge, tolle legge” – take up and read, take up and read.

 

            He looked to his side, and there was a copy of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

 

            He read it, and life and the church were never the same. 

 

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            Augustine’s life was like Paul’s – not simple, righteous, or one-dimensional.

            In the epistle today, Paul writes to his close friend Timothy: 

 

              “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” 

 

            Paul knew a truth that Augustine lived as well – the pathway of our lives is never set in stone – nor is it ever beyond redemption. No matter where we go, we can always change paths. The ability of God to change lives is remarkable. 

 

            My ordaining Bishop Duncan M. Gray, Jr., observed, “No one’s life is a complete loss.  They can always be a negative example in a sermon.”

 

            But it is much greater than that. We can be transformed.

 

            That is one reason the Twelve Step Programs are so important – people can change and lead new lives. Healing can take place. Wounds can be mended. Broken lives can find new direction. We can emerge from the pit.

            And more. Much more. Paul, Augustine, and countless others through centuries tell us we can change. We can be touched by the healing hand of God. We, too, can find – and take – The Road Less Traveled. 

Guideposts for Decisions

PROPERS:          PROPER 12, YEAR C 

TEXT:                COLOSSIANS 2:6-15, (16-19)

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, JULY 27, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        Our actions and teachings as Christians should be grounded in the teachings of Christ and virtues described by Paul, and not in transient, popular movements.     

 

            There is an oral tradition which circulates in this part of South Alabama that describes a somewhat cynical approach to human motivations.

 

            It is said that the late restauranteur Oliver Wintzell, founder of Wintzell’s Oyster Bar, once ran for sheriff of Mobile County.  It is said that his campaign slogan was “I’ll stand for whatever the people will fall for.”

 

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            Regardless of your theological orientation, I suspect you can identify with that philosophy being used by some folks – past or present. Various movements have claimed adherence to the truth, but there have been times when those movements were nothing more than theology du jour.

 

            When I first preached here last November, I mentioned a book, The Kingdom, the Power, and Glory, written by Tim Alberta. As well and thoroughly as anything I have read he describes the golden calf many congregations are worshiping today. I suspect, while they flourish today, they will pay an enormous price in the future.

 

            False gods turn to dust.

 

            Our patron saint, Paul, issues a warning to the church in very clear terms in the lesson from Colossians today: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.”

 

            That’s good counsel.  And fair enough. But here’s the rub. One person’s treasure is another person’s trash. Sometimes there is a difference between which course should be taken.  Look back over history. Ample examples abound. Wherever two or three gather, there are four or five opinions.

 

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            But I am not a nihilist or a relativist.

 

            Our choices are not the equivalent of options at Morrison’s Cafeteria. We are not left to guess about what we should do.  There are guideposts along the way.

 

            First and foremost are the essential teachings of Christ, also known as the Summary of the Law – to love God, ourselves, and one another with all our being. We affirm that wisdom in our liturgy. It is the core Christian admonition. These are more than words in a prayer book.

 

            Secondly, we have the scripture.  There are motivations that are verboten for us. Our lesson from Galatians four weeks ago quotes Paul: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.”

 

         That’s a pretty good start. But the church – over the centuries – has designated seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. 

 

            In addition, we Anglicans can draw on tradition, reason, and experience.

 

            Can we agree that – regardless of our perspective – these directions and prohibitions are significant?  That we can guide our ministry and lives on these directions and these barriers?  Does your life and philosophy align with these?

 

            If not, you better think again.  Or you may need to look in a mirror and do some personal moral accounting.  Not because I say so, but because Christ, Paul, and the church say so.

 

            On which side of that ephemeral moral line do you wish to reside?

 

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            But here’s the upshot: No matter how despicable a person’s approach to life is… no matter how much you disagree with that person’s philosophy… no matter how liberal or conservative they may be… that person is still a child of God.

 

            We are under Christ’s most explicit directive to love them and love ourselves. Not with pride or a sense of superiority… not with condescension or judgement… but with humility. Just as Christ loved and loves us. 

Reversing the Trend

PROPERS:          PENTECOST, YEAR C 

TEXT:                GENESIS 11:1-9; ACTS 2:1-12

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The Feast of Pentecost expands the reach of God’s covenant to world at large.

 

         Picture this vivid scene in your mind’s eye:

 

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            Thousands of people – masses of humanity, from many nations, with many languages – are crowding narrow streets.  The one-mile square walled city of Jerusalem – literally a fortress – is packed for the sacred feast day of Shavuot. The festival commemorates the divine gift of the Torah – the first five books of the Jewish scripture. The Books of Moses.

 

            It’s like Mardi Gras is taking place on the eight-foot wide, narrow, winding streets of Jerusalem.  So thick were the crowds on the tiny, steep streets, you couldn’t stir them with a stick.

 

            The day would also be called Pentecost, but no Christians were celebrating the festival. The small band of Jesus’ followers were cowering in a closed and locked room.  They had seen what had happened to their rabbi on the last festival – Passover – and they didn’t want to be the next group nailed to a Roman cross.

 

            They were afraid.  The doors were closed. They wanted no part of the festival in the streets.

 

            Then, it started.

 

            First, there was a breeze. Then a gust. Then a whirlwind like the one that had taken Elijah into heaven. Flames appeared and danced on the heads of the frightened disciples. Their fear was transformed. They grew bold. Their spines stiffened. They no longer cowered. The Spirit had come.

 

            They flung open the doors.  They walked out… into the crowded streets. They were not intimidated by the mixed multitude… the hordes of humanity.  Language barriers did not matter. They were united by the Spirit. They proclaimed what would be known as the Good News.

 

            The story of Jesus Christ was loosed into a diverse world.  The Tower of Babel collapsed. The story of God’s love was meant to unify. Instead of a covenant with a chosen people, the net was cast into the waters of all humanity. It’s all in our second lesson -- the second chapter of Acts.

 

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         Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Fifty days after Easter Day. One of the great feast days of the church year.  The birthday of the church.

 

            But we have a curious first lesson – completely at-odds with what this day means. Consider this:

 

            In our reading from Genesis, we are told the story of Babel – not the computer software, but the tower. The passage seeks to explain why the known world, which has its roots in a small number of human beings, devolved into a mixed multitude with many languages.

 

            The story is that the people – speaking one language – aspired to build a great city, with a tower into the heavens. Their plans, it seems, troubled God – because there would be no limit to their ambitions in such a case.

 

            God, we are told, said “Let US go down there,” scattered the people, provoked a variety of languages, and threw the multitudes into chaos.  All to divide… and to spoil their plans of omnipotence. Confusion reigned.

 

            It was the divine wish to scatter the people. Compare that divine action to scatter to the story from Acts of the first Christian Pentecost.

 

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            Archeologists tell us that the remains of the ancient tower associated with the story of Babel can be found today in the ruins of Babylon, some 90 miles from Bagdad, Iraq.  It is symbolic of the arrogance of humanity in a part of the world where so much division and violence have been sown.

 

            But that was not the last word.

 

            Just a short distance away, in another country and city, we are given the example of God’s ever-expanding mission. Not to divide people, but to unite them.

 

            Four weeks ago, we heard the words of John, written on the island of Patmos, from his ecstatic vision we call the Book of Revelation:

 

“I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” 

 

            As Jody reminded us last week, words matter.  They can divide or unite.

 

            Unity is the reason we are here today.  That is the reason the churches down the street and across town gather.  It is the reason we do what we do and why they do what they do. Because we are all one people.  We are all God’s children. All. Everyone. 

The Kingdom: Here and to Come

 

PROPERS:          FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C 

TEXT:                REVELATION 7:9-17

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The Kingdom of God, as embraced by John, is at hand – both the now and the future.

 

            We tend to think of the Christian scriptures – the New Testament – as something that came to us whole, in one fell swoop. But, in reality, the canon of New Testament scripture – all the books – were not listed together until St. Athanasius’ Festal Letter in 367 A. D. – 330 years after Jesus’ earthly ministry.

 

            There had been much discussion as to which books would be included. Ultimately, there would be 27 books. The last books added were the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Revelation to John – a portion of which we heard today in our second lesson.

 

            In seminary we participated in rotating groups which designed the weeks’ services for the academic community.  Each team was called a “rota”.

 

            We were discussing the lessons for a community Eucharist during my middler year.  One wag posed a question about the assigned lesson from Revelation and asked, “Do we end the lesson with The Word of the Lord… Maybe?”

 

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            Our second lesson is, of course, from the last book of the Bible, the Revelation to John. It recounts his ecstatic vision of God’s kingdom.

 

            William Alexander Percy, the Greenville, Mississippi poet, lawyer, and author, described John, the youngest disciple, in Hymn 661: “Young John, who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died.”

 

            John had been sentenced by Rome to isolation on that small island in the Aegean Sea, hard between modern-day Turkey and Greece.  There he lived out his life of seclusion, where tradition holds that he died as the last of the disciples.

 

            Tradition also holds that one gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation came from John’s hand. Scholars are not so sure. Some other writer may have had the name.

 

            But in the Revelation to John we have what Winston Churchill said of Russia – a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.  It is highly symbolic. For 2,000 years scholars have sought to decode its images. Books and movies have proliferated.

 

            It still remains to be fully understood.

 

            But we know this:  It is a polemic against the Roman Empire of that day, and a vivid description of a Kingdom of God, including a New Jerusalem.

 

            John was a solitary figure on the island of Patmos.  When one is alone for a long period of time, the mind can begin to play tricks.  Dreams become delusions. The solitary figure is open to visions. Like prophets of the past, God may speak. The land on which one stands becomes a thin place – a place very near to the Holy.

 

            John had such a vision, and we hear a portion of it today.  He points us toward the world to come – with angels, multitudes of faithful, and ultimately, a New Jerusalem.

 

            As we age and face our mortality, we take great comfort in John’s vision.  That is the reason that portions of the Revelation to John are included in our burial liturgy.  It gives us a glimpse of the next world as we stand at the foot of the grave of a loved one… or we face our own.

 

            But clearly the Kingdom of God is about much more.  As scripture says, the Kingdom is at hand.  It is near to us.  It is both here-and-now and in the reality we will ultimately face.

 

            It is not a choice. We will not be a Christian in one and not another.  We can and should embrace both. We can live into Christ’s teachings and ethical mandates to enrich the here-and-now.  Where we are at this moment. The world around us becomes a better place for all God’s people.

 

            And then, when we cross the Jordan for the last time, we can share in John’s vision.  We can be a part of the divine mystery in which there is neither suffering nor pain, neither sighing but life everlasting.

A Whole New World

PROPERS:          SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER 

TEXT:                JOHN 20:19-31

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The resurrection of Jesus introduced a whole new reality into the world; we can never see the world the same.     

 

            Let me take you back a few years.  Eighty-six years to be precise.

 

            We go to the silver screen – and one of the two big motion pictures of 1939. One, of course, was Gone With the Wind.  The other one – and the one to which I refer – is The Wizard of Oz.

 

            People still get the heeby-jeebies about the black and white images of Margaret Hamilton taking Dorothy’s dog, Toto, away in a bicycle basket. And many of us had our first encounter with tornadoes in the scene which follows.  Frightening for young viewers – images that stay with us for a lifetime.

 

            But I want to focus on a different scene – immediately after Dorothy’s house, swept up by the tornado, has been transported to Munchkinland.

 

            Dorothy tentatively steps out of her house.  And suddenly her black-and-white world erupts into a world of color.  The flowers, the trees, the munchkins – they are all vividly colorful.  It is the same for the viewer.

 

            We could never see the world the same again.

 

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            The apostle Thomas in today’s gospel is clearly still residing in the tornado-tossed house.  He has not yet opened the door. He is sticking with what he knows.

 

            Thomas gets a bit of a bum rap for his skepticism.  How many of us would not share in those doubts?  Could we really believe that someone who had been crucified – and who was truly dead – had come back… and had been revivified.

 

            Doubting Thomas shared something with us.  He would not know the term nor would he know the names, but he was hamstrung by a post-Enlightenment world view. He believed that the laws of nature – defined by Newton, Einstein and others – always overruled the miraculous.

 

            In short, he was being asked to believe something that the rules of the world he had known precluded.

 

            Then, the door to the house opened.

 

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            John Claypool, the noted Episcopal priest and Baptist preacher, wrote a book called Opening Blind Eyes.He recounted an experience when symbolic scales fell from his eyes and he saw the world anew. He was never the same.

 

            Thomas – enclosed in a locked room for fear of safety – had a similar experience. His world was transformed when the Risen Jesus appeared in that locked room.

 

            Like Dorothy’s experience in The Wizard of Oz, Thomas’s world would never be the same.  Both what he knew to be and his expectations had been shattered into a million pieces.  Like Dorothy, his monochromatic world had been transformed into a palette of brilliant colors.  He was not in Kansas anymore.  Theologians would later call this a new creation.

 

            We are called to join Thomas. We are invited into that same world view.  When we experience losses… when we try and fail… when we stand at the grave of a loved one… when we encounter our human limitations… we are called to be like Thomas. 

 

            We are called to look through a new prism – the eyes of faith – and see God’s work in our midst.  As Jesus says in the Book of Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new.”

 

            Let the scales fall from your eyes. Greet the New World in which you live. 

Signs of the Times

PROPERS:          GOOD FRIDAY 

TEXT:                JOHN 18:1 – 19:42

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The cross is about self-sacrifice and the tender love of God, and not about the acquisition and exercise of power.  

 

            From my childhood in the Methodist Church, I recall a hymn, “the Old Rugged Cross.” I remember, too, gathering around my great-grandfather’s piano as my aunt would play that hymn… and we would sing.

 

            Those words come back to me today: “On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame…”

 

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            Yet, today, on a hill near my home stands another symbol.

 

            It is a billboard – two matching billboards, as a matter of fact.  They are promotional signs for a local religious radio station.

 

            I find them heretical.

 

            They depict a cross, emanating bolts of lightning.  The station advertised as Power 88.  A cross emitting lightning.  Think about that.

 

            We just heard the passion gospel read. Nowhere within those chapters is the power of Jesus mentioned. Because it is not there.

 

            The King of Love.  The Prince of Peace. The Word of God.  The Good Shepherd. The Son of God. Emptied of all worldly dignity – he is nailed to a cross.  And there he dies a criminal’s death.

 

            Where is the power in that moment?

 

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            Christianity, from early roots on that lonely hill outside the walls of Jerusalem, has been counter-cultural.  Compared to religious and political systems of his day, Jesus was revolutionary – non-violent with a small R.

 

            Christianity continued on that track, shunning power and influence, for the first three centuries.  Any idea where the word martyr came from?

 

            All that began to change with Emperor Constantine and the embrace of Christianity by the Roman Empire.  Power had become the church’s – and it has been downhill since. Think of the Reformation, religious wars, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust… just to name a few.

 

            What we witness and what we worship today is a God who so loves the world that he allowed himself to be stripped of his humanity so that we would realize twenty-two hundred years later the immensity of his love for this rebellious world.

 

            And it is love that is not manipulative – love that does not thirst for or wield power. I read an article years ago written by a Jesuit scholar.  The name of the article was “God’s love is not utilitarian.” God’s love – as shown by the cross – testifies to his tender love for this world – just like the father looked longingly down the road for the Prodigal Son. He doesn’t expect a return on investment. He just wants us to accept it.

 

            The cross is a symbol of sacrificial love, because that is the nature of God.

 

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            When I say a blessing over a child not receiving communion, I first pronounce the blessing and then I add “Remember that God loves you.”

 

            We cannot hear that enough. It is evidenced in the life and death of Jesus. And he calls us to share that love.

 

            Just ponder this: What difference would it make if you heard those words, God loves you, again and again and again. 

A Gentle Nudge

 PROPERS:          THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT 

TEXT:                EXODUS 3:1-15  

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2025.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        God’s movement is frequently subtle and awaits our need for him.

 

 

            The first lesson today, from Exodus, is certainly one of the most familiar scenes in all of scripture.  The calling of Moses.

 

            Moses… rescued from the bullrushes… former prince of Egypt… is now tending the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro in the desert wasteland of the Sinai.

 

            You likely know this scene well – even from childhood. After all, a talking, burning bush is hard to forget. God is acting very dramatically to touch Moses.

 

            Would that all divine nudging would be so dramatic.  Usually, it is subtle. Here and there. Now and again. A faint whisper in our hearts, which can easily be denied.

 

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            As Paul Harvey said, “page two”: 

 

A thirty-year-old woman lived a secluded life near the North Sea in England.  She was a nun who took her vows seriously and would be secluded in her cell throughout her life. 

 

These were dark times in her community.  The Black Death had ravaged her town. She found herself ill… desperately ill.  Near death, she had a divine vision.

 

Against all odds, she survived.  Years later, Julian of Norwich would write these words: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The year was 1373. Her account of the darkness of that experience became known as Revelations of Divine Love – a classic which transcends the centuries.

 

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            Now, “page three”: 

 

The 32-year-old Anglican priest had been educated at some of the finest schools, including the prestigious Lincoln College in Oxford.

 

            He answered a call to foreign lands and set sail for Georgia – with instructions to evangelize the indigenous people.  He fell in love with a young woman in his parish, but refused to marry, believing in a call to clerical celibacy.  When the target of his affections married another man, he excommunicated her – and soon felt the wrath of the law.

 

            He sailed back to England, a failed pastor.  When he got to London, he attended a prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street.  Hearing the preface to Paul’s Letter to the Romans read, he felt his “heart strangely warmed.”

 

            In his failure, the Second Great Awakening was born – as was the Methodist movement. John Wesley’s life pivoted.

 

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            “Page four”: 

 

Drafted into the Nazi armed forces at age 16, the teenager knew little of faith.  His German family had not been religious.

 

            When World War II ended, he was taken prisoner of war in Belgium at age 18.  He and his fellow POWs were confronted with stark images of the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They were devastated by what had been done in their name.

 

            Soon he was transferred to another POW camp, this time in Kilmarnoch, Scotland. In the depths of his despair, a chaplain gave him a small New Testament.  He read it voraciously, and his life changed.

 

            Some years later, Jurgen Moltmann, one of the greatest theologians of the 20^th century, wrote A Theology of Hope.Hope emerged from the ashes.

 

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            In hearing the account of Moses’ call, we are tempted to expect God to move in something akin to a burning bush. Yes, sometimes – but typically, not so.  God’s movement is usually much more subtle, nuanced.

 

            One of the great spiritual movements of the past 100 years has been the 12-step programs. For healing to be true and deep, a person needs to “hit bottom.”  Like the struggling father said in the Gospel according to Mark: “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!” 

 

Tired. Frustrated. Broken. Shattered relationships. At wit’s end. At that point, the addict is open to God’s movement in his or her life.  New life is available.

 

            Addicted or not -- we are no different.  It is when we are most lost, tending our father-in-law’s sheep at Mount Horeb, in the daily grind of life, we are most open to God’s movement.

 

            It happened with Julian of Norwich, John Wesley, and Jurgen Moltmann – it can happen to you.  No flashing lights… no lightning strikes… no burning bushes.  It is in the midst of human brokenness that God can move. Just the subtle, quiet nudge of God in your life.