4th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 14C)
July 6, 2025
Christ the King-Epiphany Church, Wilbraham, MA

Worship, including readings and sermon are recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/live/waWnW3J3gXY?si=EgT8dsQN4rLayl0h

[¹ My brothers and sisters, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. ² Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. ⁴ All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. ⁵ For all must carry their own loads.
  ⁶ Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.]
  ⁷ Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. ⁸ If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. ⁹ So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. ¹⁰ So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.

  ¹¹ See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! ¹² It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. ¹³ Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. ¹⁴ May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. ¹⁵ For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is everything! ¹⁶ As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. – Galatians 6:1-16

¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. ² He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. ³ Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴ Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. ⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ ⁶ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. ⁷ Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ⁸ Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹ cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

  ¹⁶ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

  ¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” ¹⁸ He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹ Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” – Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

There was a time, hopefully mostly in the past, when we told our children and our peers to just get up, dust yourself off, and move on. 

And I can appreciate that advice on the one hand. There are times when we make a mistake, we fall and get mildly hurt, something we have worked on just doesn’t work, and there’s some level of resiliency that is good – to be able to pick up and keep going. 

On the other hand, sometimes it has been used to cover up pain that needs attention, to suppress emotions, to ignore a process of repair and amends when wrong has occurred, and promote a kind of toxic bravado. Just push through, carry on. 

And all that rings in my mind when Jesus tells the seventy that he sends out in pairs what they are to do when they encounter an unwelcoming community. Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Just dust yourself off and keep going. 

On the one hand, Jesus is in a moment of urgency to communicate the good news of God come near. He encourages the seventy apostles to keep moving and do the work where its possible to do it, and not carry with them the lack of welcome that they will inevitably encounter. 

But on the other hand, we all know that trying to do good work, God’s work sometimes we get burned. People resist, complain, argue, and sometimes outright disparage one another. The ways of the world prevail against the equality and justice and compassion of God’s realm. And you know what, sometimes it leaves us scarred, bruised in soul if not also in body. It can leave us feeling defeated, questioning the power of God to be at work in the world, and afraid or too tired to try again to work toward the sharing of good news in word and deed that our baptism calls us to do.   

We can support food pantries and feed our neighbors, donate our resources, and advocate for policies that support everyone around the globe having enough to eat. But people still go hungry and our calls for care in our policies go too often unheard. 

We can take a strong stand against gun violence, support neighborhood programs that develop community bonds and reduce harm, but down the street and around the globe weapons destroy bodies and lives at an alarming rate and wars that seem bent on destroying whole peoples rage on as if that is normal. 

We can support immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, honoring the biblical call to welcome the stranger, but we cannot seem to overcome our own and our communities’ fear of the other, the ways we draw lines between peoples and create hierarchies based on race, citizenship, language, and so much more. 

We hold here in our local parish communities this incredible gift of grace. We have a message of love and compassion, of welcome and joy. This parish is one of our most vibrant communities. I know you’re not perfect – none of us are, but you’re doing pretty darn good work being Jesus people together. And yet, so many don’t know or don’t even want to know the transforming love that we feast on here in this place and at all our tables across the synod and diocese and beyond. 

I don’t know about you, but it feels like we encounter the unwelcome far too often. It feels as if the world is bent against the transforming nature of God’s love. And we can follow Jesus’ advice and shake the dust off our feet and carry on. But after a while it gets harder to find the energy to brush the dust off. And at the risk of carrying the metaphor too far, the dust starts to cake on, and harden, and make it harder and harder to take the next steps and harder still to brush it all off. 

And what of the communities that resist the apostles? Is Jesus’ advice simply to abandon them to their own brokenness? I’m not one who worries about evangelism as a means to make sure as many people as possible end up in heaven. That’s God’s business and I tend to lean into my experience of God’s ever-expanding grace and love in that regard. But I do worry about evangelism in the sense that my faith and my experience in a faith community has been an incredible gift in my life, challenging me and comforting me, connecting me to God and neighbor. And I grieve that so many who long for those things have not found them.

And this is where I think there is a great gift in Jesus’ advice. Jesus isn’t interested in his apostles’ success rate. His call is to keep doing the work and lean into the places where it flourishes. It’s not meant to kick us forward when we’re feeling run down or ignore the hurt of rejection and the frustration of the world’s lack of welcome to the gospel. It’s about working where we can and seeing what happens. 

Something that strikes me is that no community exists in isolation from others. If some of the pairs of apostles find themselves in a place where God’s transformative love flourishes, that cannot help but affect the communities around them, welcoming or not. I understand the world to be deeply connected. When we work in one place it is not an abandonment of others, but a trust in God’s Spirit flowing beyond boundaries and transforming the world through us, and because of us, and in spite of us all at the same time. 

God does not abandon God’s people. Not us, not anyone. Whether we are eager apostles, reluctant followers, welcoming communities, or closed off towns, God does not abandon us. Instead God plants seeds here and there and everywhere. Some grow, some don’t. But the persistently invasive realm of God is always pushing its way past our resistance and reluctance. 

Paul admonishes the Galatians not to weary in doing what is right and to work wherever there is opportunity for the good of all. Siblings in Christ, sometimes that work is wearying. We face resistance from others and even resistance within ourselves. And yet God chooses us and sends us out as the vehicle for the spreading of God’s love and mercy and compassion. God does not force it on anyone, but also never lets go. 

Keep striving to follow the call. Keep planting – literally in your pollinator-friendly gardens and figuratively out in the world. Keep welcoming – into this wonderful place and out there in the community making space for others. Keep striving for peace – in your own hearts and in the global community. Don’t do it alone. Go together, two by two, or eight by eight or 100×100. Join with others wherever there is an opportunity for the common good. Jesus cannot promise your message will be welcomed. But he can promise that he is with you always in everything, and that Jesus’ presence with you is enough – in fact, all you really need. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Trinity Sunday
June 15, 2025
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Worcester, MA

 ¹ Does not wisdom call,
  and does not understanding raise her voice?
 ² On the heights, beside the way,
  at the crossroads she takes her stand;
 ³ beside the gates in front of the town,
  at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
 ⁴ “To you, O people, I call,
  and my cry is to all that live.

 ²² The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
  the first of his acts of long ago.
 ²³ Ages ago I was set up,
  at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
 ²⁴ When there were no depths I was brought forth,
  when there were no springs abounding with water.
 ²⁵ Before the mountains had been shaped,
  before the hills, I was brought forth—
 ²⁶ when he had not yet made earth and fields,
  or the world’s first bits of soil.
 ²⁷ When he established the heavens, I was there,
  when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
 ²⁸ when he made firm the skies above,
  when he established the fountains of the deep,
 ²⁹ when he assigned to the sea its limit,
  so that the waters might not transgress his command,
 when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
  ³⁰ then I was beside him, like a master worker;
 and I was daily his delight,
  rejoicing before him always,
 ³¹ rejoicing in his inhabited world
  and delighting in the human race.” – Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

[Jesus said,] ¹² “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:12-15

With thanks to Amy Frykholm for her wonderful lectionary essay that inspired the focus for this sermon and from whom I have quoted Julian of Norwich: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3875-divine-delight

            I have a friend who says that when we get to heaven she thinks that God doesn’t ask us for an accounting of our work: Did you do enough? Did you pray enough? Did you stay on the straight and narrow? But instead she imagines that God asks whether we enjoyed the ride: Did you eat enough ice cream? Did you enjoy enough sunsets? Did you get and give enough hugs? Mostly, though, did you get enough ice cream?

            Now, who knows what heaven is like – we can only ponder what God has in store. But I do think there there’s something to this. I think we have a God who delights in our delight, who wants us to enjoy life, to know love, to celebrate abundance.

            My friend is not alone. The famous 14^th century theologian Julian of Norwich, known for her ascetic lifestyle locked away in isolation for prayer, said this: “Our soul must perform two duties. The one is that we must reverently wonder and be surprised. The other is we must gently let go and let be, always delighting in God.” 

            Again, who knows the mind of God, but it sounds like a beautiful midrash on the summary of the commandments to love God and neighbor. 

            In our first reading we hear the ancient words about wisdom: “When God marked out the foundations of the earth, then I [, wisdom,] was beside him like a master worker; and I was daily in his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

            God delights! In us!! God playfully, artistically, masterfully sculpts a world in which God takes delight. And God invites Wisdom, often associated with the second person of the Godhead – the same one who incarnates in Jesus – to delight in the process. 

            Today is Holy Trinity Sunday – a day when we ponder the mystery of God, too vast and expansive to make sense in human language. I think we rarely do well to attempt complicated explanations of this doctrine. But what always draws me is the idea that God is fundamentally relational and that God opens up that relationality to delight in creating us, human beings. And that God doesn’t just delight in the idea of human beings, but delights in each and every specific creation of a human person. And in the trees and flowers, rocks and waterfalls, insects and elephants and all the rest. 

            God dances and sculpts, paints and brings to life in playful, loving delight. And then invites us to dance and sculpt and paint and bring to life in similarly playful, loving delight.            

            Of course, we must wrestle with the reality that much of life is not sunshine and roses. This is not a call to deny reality and stick a smile on our face. We live in a world of inequality, where some are given the opportunity to satisfy their hunger to excess while others starve. I am deeply disturbed at the celebration of violence that seems to mark the wars that are happening around the world – in Russia and Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Congo. We live in a time when nationality, language, skin color, gender, and all kinds of other factors can make it more difficult for someone to fully live with delight in our communities. 

            If we have a relational God who delights in creating a diverse and joyful world, we also are called to live into that open delight for others. How can we delight in a world that is so broken, so full of pain, so challenging for others without engaging those things and seeking to bring the world into closer alignment with God’s vision for creation? 

            I know that here at St. Matthew’s you are deeply engaged with your community. Lots of congregations have food ministries, and you are one that not only feeds people but seeks to connect and be in relationship with all your neighbors. You have found a way to care for and delight in one another and then open that up to the neighborhood. I got to visit you last fall on a day when you were getting food ready to share, and I had had the sense you were all excited to be preparing and meeting the community. What a reflection of holy relationship and mutual delight! 

            You have welcomed in this time of transition the gifts of many – supply preachers and your own leaders who bring themselves and their gifts to leading morning prayer. I have heard you delight in one another in that way -honoring each other’s gifts and presence as you go through a time of clergy transition. What a reflection of holy relationship and mutual delight! 

            You are known for the way you honor the worship traditions of the church. You bring your musical gifts together from different backgrounds. You lean in to the holy. I don’t believe there’s a “right” way to worship, except insofar as it has to do with delight in God and one another. That’s something I sense here in your Sunday morning gathering. What a reflection of holy relationship and mutual delight! 

            In the midst of hard things – challenges in the church, challenges in the community, challenges in the world, challenges in our own lives, we often lean in to our anxiety. Fair enough. I do plenty of that. All of us do. But anxiety sometimes leads us to fear and fear to closing ourselves off and locking ourselves into the way we’ve always done it, only talking with those we already know, relying on what we’ve already learned. 
            But today invites us to something different. Invites us to join the dance of God. The playful interweaving of three persons, the beautiful mystery of unity in one God. The delight that Wisdom models for us. The delight God has in each of us. It invites us even in the most difficult and intractable situations, in the midst of violence, conflict, and even facing death, to ask the fundamental question of where we can honor the holy delight God takes in us and in our neighbor and in the ones we have labeled as enemies. Reshaping our every interaction around that idea of delight in the existence of the other, may well move us closer to the vision God has for our world. 

            So go forth this week looking for delight. Look for God’s unique delight in your neighbor. Look for God’s unique playfulness in creation. Look for God’s gifts and opportunities for you. And look in the mirror sometime this week and rejoice that God takes delight in you, welcoming you into the holy and life-giving dance of the Trinity. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)
May 11, 2025
Grace Church, Great Barrington, MA

²² At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. ²⁴ So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” ²⁵ Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; ²⁶ but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰ The Father and I are one.” – John 10:22-30

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

                  If you’ve ever attended an orchestra concert, perhaps you remember what it is like in the moments right before things get started. The audience members are all chatting which creates a dull roar in the room. The musicians are all running their own individual  warm-ups – scales and little passages from what they are about to play – creating a cacophony of sound that clatters over the dull roar of the audience. Then the lights dim, the concertmaster walks on stage, the roar of the audience quiets to silence. At the nod of the concertmaster the oboe sends into the hushed silence one, clear, loud A. The clarion call for each instrument to tune together to that note. 

                  I often long for that kind of clarity in our lives. Out of the cacophony of our world and clear tone that draws us all together as one. As I read the gospel passage this week, I kept coming back to Jesus’ shepherd voice. The one that all the sheep recognize. 

                  In our world there are so many voices that claim to speak for God. I’ve heard a lot of conversations again lately about who gets to the be voice of Christianity in our public discourse. Is it the voice of those who claim God for their political ideology on the right? Or claim God for their political ideology on the left? Is it the voice of those who assert a God of welcome or those who assert a God of judgment? Is it only Christians? Only the Abrahamic traditions? Is it those who speak of God in nature or in music or in contemplation or in justice work? Which voice of God is the one we are all supposed to recognize? 

                  Add to that the cacophony of voices in our world. How will the voice of peace prevail over the loud intractable violence in the holy land, between India and Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine, among factions in the Congo and Sudan? How will we tune in to a voice for justice in a world where so many needs demand our attention and sometimes seem to compete with each other for priority, pitting the marginalized against each other while those in power prevail? How will we tune in to a voice that shares truth in a world with so much deception, falsehood, and for good and ill the development of artificial intelligence? How will we tune in to a voice that speaks life when the power of death continues to resound in our lives with every turn? 

                  I would love to give you a definitive answer this morning. I would love to have a definitive answer to give you. You and I know that any attempt to do that is to claim our own perspective on the world as God’s and puts us in dangerous territory. Too many have claimed God for their own. Even when used at first for positive transformation in the world, it too quickly becomes a means of power and control. 

                  I don’t think that’s the kind of voice God offers us. I wonder if the voice God offers us is something more akin to what comes after the tuning. The concert itself. Multiple instruments, each with their own part, their own tone quality, their own voice, speaking in interwoven harmonies. It’s a voice that can play jazz or classical, pop or gospel. It’s a voice that can take form in Western-style harmonies, in old Eastern-European melodies, in the percussive harmonies of an Indonesian gamelan, the polyrhythms of some African music, and so much more. Distinguished as music by the common purpose of instruments and voices working together. The voice of God is really a harmonized song of love for creation. 

                  It is still not easy to hear. We live in a time when celebration of diversity and harmony is not a universal sentiment. We live in a time when anxieties run high and our instinct is to turn to voices that speak clear, single notes that draw people in. Even those of us who value the beautiful harmony of people in this world find ourselves sometimes othering people out of God’s song. What is Jesus’ voice calling us to in this moment and how will we discern? 

                  In the Anglican tradition we speak sometimes of the 3-legged stool that supports our approach to faith and life. As we seek to discern God’s voice we tune in to what Scripture has to say. Scriptures that point us again and again to healing, liberation, and welcome. We tune in to tradition – listening to those who have gone before us, not because they got it right but because they, too, were seeking to discern the voice of God and may have something to teach us. And we tune in to reason – using our God-given gift to sort through the many voices and determine where to tune in. 

                  We do this not alone, but in community. That is the gift of gathering together for prayer and song, to feast at the table, to serve others and speak for justice together – in that we learn to listen to one another, and there find the voice of God harmonizing with us.  

                  I want to offer you a practice that we were invited into this past week as the clergy of our diocese gathered for prayer, community, and renewal. Your nearby neighbor the Rev. Michael Tuck shaped our morning and evening prayer and invited us to one old way of praying together in community. He asked us to quiet our usually assertive voices – we clergy are sometimes bad about that – and when we recited psalms and prayers together that we might listen deeply to one another. To attempt not so much to listen to our neighbor, but to our neighbor’s neighbor. It’s a fascinating exercise, and one that takes weeks of communal effort to really live into. To listen across your neighbor means that everyone must continue to speak but gently enough that their own voice does not drown out those around them. It’s harder than it sounds. But the image he offered us was not of a cluster of people praying, or a chain of people praying, but with the overlapping listening, more of a woven tapestry of prayer, so that each voice is offered in just the right way that all the voices have a place and all the voices are held together in sacred relationship. The strength is in the interconnectedness of the voices. Perhaps today if even just a little, as we speak together we can practice embodying that careful listening. 

                  What I know is that we will sometimes get it wrong. Sometimes we will follow other voices. Sometimes those will be the voices of others leading us astray. Sometimes those voices will even be within us, calling us to question our belovedness. But much as I want to listen carefully for Jesus’ voice, that isn’t what Jesus asks of us in this passage. Instead he reassures that we will know it, and, more importantly that Jesus will know us. The truly miraculous thing is that God will know us, our individual part in the harmony of all creation. God will draw us together into the common song. 

                  It always boggles my mind that we celebrate a God who created each of us, called each of us, loves each of us. Made to be exactly who and what we are. Loved just as we are, no questions asked. Jesus’ love is fierce and protective, gentle and caring. Jesus sings that harmony to us in ways that comfort us in sorrow and rouse us to courageous action for the sake of the world. It resonates in us until our bodies join the song of creation, God’s voice singing harmony for all. 

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Pastor Steven Wilco

Third Sunday in Lent
March 23, 2025
St. Luke’s, Lanesboro, MA

 ¹ Ho, everyone who thirsts,
  come to the waters;
 and you that have no money,
  come, buy and eat!
 Come, buy wine and milk
  without money and without price.
 ² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
  and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
 Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
  and delight yourselves in rich food.
 ³ Incline your ear, and come to me;
  listen, so that you may live.
 I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
  my steadfast, sure love for David.
 ⁴ See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
  a leader and commander for the peoples.
 ⁵ See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
  and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
 because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
  for he has glorified you.

 ⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found,
  call upon him while he is near;
 ⁷ let the wicked forsake their way,
  and the unrighteous their thoughts;
 let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
  and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
 ⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
  nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
 ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
  so are my ways higher than your ways
  and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:1-9

¹ At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.² [Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?³ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴ Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
  ⁶ Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷ So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ” – Luke 13:1-9

               They say, “There’s no such thing as a free meal.” 

                  Well, in our world, that’s more or less true. Unless you are the beneficiary of a fluke seed sprouting in your yard that bears edible fruit or vegetable that you just happen to pick, food comes at a cost. It must be grown or hunted or gathered – it costs time and energy. In our modern world most of our food is purchased with money – from a supermarket, farmer’s market, or neighbor. Some of us, myself included, spend more than we intend each year to plant an edible garden. 

                  And churches among others have been leaders in providing food to people in need often at little or no cost to them. Food collections, monetary donations to food programs, community meals, gift cards for groceries and other needs. We have tried where we can to follow God’s commands to feed the hungry. But those of us who have been around church a while, or really anyone paying much attention at all, knows that while those meals might be free to those who eat them, they are not, in fact, free. I did a little research this week and while any kind of estimate is difficult to come by, it seems that the cost of food donated to those in need by churches across the country is measured in the billions of dollars – that’s billion with a “b.” 

                  So we would be right to be a little skeptical when God’s word to Isaiah is an invitation to a free meal. “Come! You who are thirsty, drink. Come! You who are hungry! Eat – without price.” A meal, truly without cost. I think it’s something we can’t even imagine, because we live in a world that exists on transactions. Why don’t we have an accurate number of how much food churches give away? Because most don’t really write it down anywhere. It’s intended as gift, not transaction. 

                  And yet so much of what we do in our lives is transactional. Not just buying goods and services, though certainly that. Not just employment and paychecks and taxes, though certainly that. But even gift giving which is often a relational transaction even when it’s not intended as such. We expect to put in a vote for a candidate and get back what we want from the government. We expect sometimes that if we show up to church and put in our time, church will be there in the ways we want it to be. We put good out into the world and hope that our communities are transformed for the better. Input – output. And those of us who plant trees, plant them in hopes that they bear fruit. 

                  Which brings us to the gospel parable. A vineyard owner plants a tree. Three years later he walks by and says, perhaps as much to himself as to the gardener, “Three years – and nothing!” Then, perhaps with anger quickly growing he does speak to the gardener directly: “What good is this fig tree if it doesn’t produce anything?! Cut it down.” And the gardener, for reasons the parable does not explain asks for one more year. One more year to care for it, tend to it, perhaps coax out some fruit from it. Whatever the reason, the gardener is not ready to chop it down just because it hasn’t produced the expected output. The gardener, like so many who till the soil, love the plants dearly, even the ones that don’t seem to do what was expected. 

                  Jesus tells this parable not so much as a warning to bear fruit, but in response to people asking the age-old question: did bad things happen to people because they did something bad? Did the tower of Siloam fall down and just the right moment to punish some egregious sinners who were drawn by cosmic karma to stand right there at the wrong-or depending on your perspective, right – moment? 

                  We might, I hope, be a bit skeptical of that kind of theology. The kind that posits that bad things happen to people who break the rules and good things happen to people who follow the rules. Life just isn’t that simple. We could read thousands of pages of debate about this from any number of world religions, and at the end of the day I think we’d be hard pressed to draw any real correlation. All of us have saint and sinner within, all of us sometimes experience rewards and consequences of our actions, and all of us sometimes experience bad things through no fault of our own and good things through no merit of our own. 

                  And yet, even if our thinking is more complex than that, we are so mired in the world of transactions that we often approach our lives with the expectation that we’ll more or less get what we deserve, good or bad. And we bring that to church, where sometimes we think we’ve got such a good thing going why don’t more people come, or more money flow in. 

                  Our texts today have God reminding us, that life is just more complicated. Sometimes towers fall down and people get hurt. Sometimes fig trees don’t bear fruit. And sometimes the world just doesn’t make sense to us. God’s ways are not our ways says the Lord to us through Isaiah. We don’t have answers to why these things happen, and we aren’t going find them in trying to add up the points. 

                  That’s our mistake, I think. We sort of know the world doesn’t work that way, but we’re so used to counting money, counting votes, counting power, counting compliments and slights, counting, counting, counting… that we keep trying to rerun the numbers and make it all add up. 

                  But God steps into our world of counting and says, “Just one more year.” And “Come, eat and drink, truly a free meal.” God just doesn’t operate in our world of points and accounting and transactions. What God does isn’t about transaction. We don’t come to church to become good or just to get what we need or only to give what we have. It’s about being with God. It’s about our lives being upended into something more Christlike. It’s about transformation from beings whose lives are marked by death into beings who live in resurrection. We don’t get to resurrection by adding things up, by counting fruit, or finding the best deal on a meal. We get to resurrection because it’s a party God’s gathered us up into. Transformation, not transaction.

                  So come again today to this table. Where, yes, there is a budget line item for bread and wine, but where God’s very flesh is offered freely to us. Come, eat and drink and be transformed. Not in the consuming as much as in the communing with one another and with God. Be transformed into people whose lives reflect God’s point-free feast. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco

7th Sunday after Epiphany
February 23, 2025
St. Michael’s-on-the-Heights, Worcester, MA

A recording of this worship service is available on the congregation’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/live/oeSVsoxSPWY?si=O0YplK0foQTkWRJO

[Jesus said:] ²⁷ “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.
  ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
  ³⁷ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; ³⁸ give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” – Luke 6:27-38

Oh, dear people of God, sometimes the words of Jesus are difficult. Turn the other cheek, pray for your enemies, extend mercy, share even the shirt off your back, and don’t judge anyone. 

These are likely familiar admonitions, even for those who might not have a long history of Bible reading. And certainly we manage to do them some of the time. But to really live a life this way – to really follow the way of Jesus, the way of love, the way of mercy. That is a radical way of life that I struggle to even come close to. In part, so much of it seems to mean sacrifice and giving up. But maybe today we can look together at these difficult commands of Jesus and see what life they might offer not just others but to us who seek to live in this way. 

In part I think Jesus is urging us into a way of living that author and speaker Brene Brown calls strong back, soft front. To have a strong back means having a clear sense of who you are and what you stand for. It means you’re confident in who you are and you’re going to stick to it when someone challenges what’s really important to you. At the same time to have soft front means that we make ourselves vulnerable and open to others. 

But as she herself points out, some of us – maybe most of us? – want to have a strong everything. Strong front, strong back, strong top and bottom and everything in between. The culture we swim in teaches us to stick to what we think is right, to struggle to get ahead and hold on to power, wealth, and success, to put forth an image of being together, confident, and independent. Strong at everything, show no weakness. If asked in a job interview what your greatest weakness is, we’ve learned to play off some theoretical weakness as something that is actually a strength. And sometimes we put all this on God as if God is asking us to buck up and stay strong, power through. What it does is leave us tired, afraid, and isolated from others. 

Today Jesus is inviting us into something different. Jesus invites us to stay present in conflict – not ever to suffer abuse, let me be clear – but in the regular conflict and disagreement that exists in our relationships to stay present to those we love and care about, to be open to learning, growing, and changing. Jesus invites us to offer to those in need what we can give, to know that we are people rooted in community, love, and grace and from that place allow ourselves to share something of ourselves that might even open us up to hurt or pain. Jesus invites us to set aside our judgment and make room for others. Again, a tall order to live up to, yet something that might be life-giving in ways we might not expect. When we take such a stance, we might even feel it in our bodies. A fighting stance is one that is tense, often curled forward. But a strong back soft front allows us to pull our bodies up tall and take in a deep breath, strong but relaxed.

Yesterday, three of you from St. Michael’s joined 50 others from across this part of our diocese to talk about our mission together. We have long thought of ourselves as a set of connected outposts of mission. Individual churches who each do their own thing. We’ve perpetuated a narrative that we’re strong when we can fund our budget on our own, call our own clergy person, maintain our own building, and call the shots on our own ministry. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves, but as someone from this congregation pointed out, none of those things are actually our mission as Jesus people. And they tend to push us into the corner of “we’ve always done it that way.” We’ve tried to be strong in the way the world defines it and that has sometimes worked ok. But if it ever was, it’s not now a time that it’s working well for the church. Maybe Jesus intends not a word of law but a word of grace in teaching us to open ourselves up. What if all of us found a softer front that allowed us to name our challenges and seek strength in working together, trying new things. This is work you are doing now at St. Michael’s. In this challenging time of transition, taking time to tune in to who you are as a parish and naming what you need. 

If what Jesus suggests is actually more along the lines of what Brene Brown calls strong back, soft front, then we have an opportunity to find strength in returning again and again to our core values as God’s people. We can find a strong back in knowing who we are as Jesus people, as people called to the way of love. We can find a strong back in renewing again our baptismal covenant: 

To continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; persevere in resisting evil, proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. 

We can find a strong back in knowing and calling each other’s attention to the constant presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, comforting, challenging, calling, enlivening. These, not our own achievements or even our own ministry and church accomplishments are where we find real strength – God’s strength shared in and through our lives. 

At the same time as we find strength in those things, we might also find a soft front. To live as Jesus suggests in today’s reading, to live as Jesus himself lived, is to be vulnerable. This is the only way to stay connected. When we spoke yesterday of what is making our hearts sing in ministry, I was not surprised to hear Marie’s Mission lifted up. This is a ministry born out of a moment of deep pain, grief, and vulnerability. It has encouraged you to open your doors to people in this community, to see the deep need that exists in a way that I know continues to break your hearts even as you meet those needs with generosity and kindness. You have a found a soft front that has allowed you to be in relationship with the community and, I daresay, allowed you a deeper experience of God at work among you. Do good and expect nothing in return, Jesus admonishes in today’s reading – you have done this incredible work not because Jesus said, or because you thought it was right, but because your hearts were open to God and neighbor and you have stayed rooted in who God has called you to be. Strong back, soft front. 

 The way of Jesus is difficult, no question. Turn the other cheek, pray for your enemies, share what you have, hold back your judgments. These things are difficult. And if we approach them of things we must force ourselves to do, we will find the yoke of Christian life challenging. But if we see them as an invitation to strong back and soft front we may find ourselves discovering new and abundant life, which is ultimately God’s deep desire for each of us and for all of creation. 

The most incredible gift God gives us in this is walking the way ahead of us. These are not just things that Jesus tells us to do. These are things Jesus lives out in his ministry and ultimately in his death. Jesus remains through every moment of his ministry both committed to his values and clear on his purpose but also radically open to relationship in a way that makes him vulnerable. He is deeply in touch with the needs of the people he encounters and the incredible and unique giftedness of the people he encounters. It is his strong back – his commitment to love above all – that leads him to the cross. In an act of true strength that required deep vulnerability – his soft front – God in Christ offers himself to death. And from that comes resurrection and new life. 

Dear friends, walking the way of Christ is hard work. It always has been and always will be. But Jesus comes again and again to us in scripture, prayer, wine and bread, to call us back to who we are as beloved children of God and to invite us more deeply into open and vulnerable relationship with one another. We may wish some days – maybe many days – to be strong in all the ways the world tells us we should be. I’d love to have all the answers and the power to make things happen. But the call we have from Jesus is different: reconnect with the way of love and stay open. Who know what then God will do among us next?

-Pastor Steven Wilco

3rd Sunday after Epiphany
January 26, 2025
St. Andrew Episcopal Church, Longmeadow, MA

Worship at St. Andrew was streamed to Facebook here: https://fb.watch/xnYyC1DvNs/

¹ All the people [of Israel] gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. ² Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³ He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. ⁵ And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶ Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lordwith their faces to the ground. ⁸ So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
  ⁹ And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” – Nehemiah 8 (selected verses)

¹⁴ Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵ He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

  ¹⁶ When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
 ¹⁸ “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 proclaim release to the captives
  and recovery of sight to the blind,
   to let the oppressed go free,
 ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” – Luke 4:14-21

            My family and I are big fans of the musical and now motion picture Wicked, nominated this week for 10 Oscars. I have always liked it, but a few years ago my daughter really, really got into the music, which we now know by heart in our respective assigned parts. Besides the delight of magic, the wonderful costumes, and well-composed music, there is something absolutely captivating about the story. 

            In some ways, that because it’s an intentional retelling of an older story. The old Wizard of Oz story has clear good and evil and the wicked witch of the west is the enemy who must be destroyed. The good witch, Dorothy and her crew, and the residents of the land of Oz all join forces and defeat the enemy, sending Dorothy home, getting the heart’s desire of the lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow, and all live happily ever after. 

            In Wicked, however, though it opens in the context of this rejoicing at the death of the enemy, the whole narrative shifts as we come to understand Elphaba, the so-called wicked witch, as a marginalized outsider who cannot seem to control her passions and her rage at injustice. Over time she tries over and over again to right wrongs from outside the system sometimes with unintended disastrous consequences. And we meet Glinda the so-called good witch who presents as bubbly and shallow, but who underneath has and further develops deep empathy and kindness and tries to fix things from within the halls of power, sometimes also with unintended consequences. The two are forever changed by their unlikely friendship which develops in the face of confronting the Wizard, who, we discover, is just a simple man trying to do good but radically messing things up in the process. The characters are all just so…human. 

            It’s an saying, but still true – history is written by the victors. Who you see as the hero in the story depends on who you are and where you sit in the narrative. Wicked highlights that in delightful ways, inviting us into different perspectives on the story, different points of view, and ultimately a story about being deeply human.

So, beloved ones, much as I love to talk about Wicked, what I really want to ask is what story do we have to tell as the people of God in this time and place? How will we tell the story of our life with God? 

Today we have two scripture stories that are themselves about the story-telling. In the too-rarely quoted book of Nehemiah, the Hebrew people are gathering again in Jerusalem. Decades ago their kingdom was split and ultimately defeated, their temple destroyed, and many of their people sent into exile in a foreign land. They now find a remnant gathering again at what they hope will be the beginning of their rebuilding. They are not gathered to create and action plan and start rebuilding. First they gather to tell their story. They read the books of the law, the Torah, the story of God’s coming again and again with promises and covenants and new life in the face of slavery, exile, destruction, and death. They tell the story of God walking with God’s people. The story of God with us. The story of imperfect people stumbling along the path of faith with a God who never tires of walking with them. 

I cannot help but think of the people facing the rebuilding of their whole lives after devastating wildfires in California, after any of our natural disasters, or the smaller scale but no less devastating individual losses that come to our lives. In the face of this destruction I’ve seen people blaming God, blaming government officials, insurance companies, fire prevention methods; arguing about how much is related to climate change. We are looking for a story of fault. We could tell this story as one of right and wrong, good and bad, saved and not. While there are clearly things to learn and things to do differently in the future, I wish instead we could tell the story of God with us, with all of us, in the challenges we face that are beyond any of our capacity to overcome. 

Though hardly the same thing, you here at St. Andrew are also facing a rebuilding after a challenging few years of COVID, rebuilding, and the departure of your priest. You are standing at new threshold of what comes next. And part of the question you are being called to ask is how you’ll tell your story? Is it one of heroes and villains? One of winners and losers? Of success or failure? Or is it a story of how God has been with you as you travelled the long, winding, and often difficult journey of faith together as a community? Where have you seen God at work in the midst of hard moments? Where have you experienced God’s grace in this place and out in God’s wonderful world? 

            That’s the story we have to tell about where we’ve been. 

Fast forward several centuries from Ezra and Nehemiah to another congregation gathered to hear the stories of God’s people. The hometown boy turned preacher is prepared to share the word of God. Jesus unrolls the scroll of Isaiah. “Today! Fulfilled in your hearing, good news for the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, the oppressed set free, and here, now, is the year of God’s favor.” He is telling the story of God’s liberation of old, those centuries of stories of God’s people living their lives of faith and telling it in a way that brings it to the present moment and invites them into a new way of living going forward. It’s not a story only of the past, but a story of God working miracles then and there in the presence of Jesus. 

I think that is in part what Bishop Mariann Budde of the Diocese of Washington was speaking in her now well-known sermon from this past week’s national prayer service. She called for unity based not in superficial niceties or political posturing but in the dignity of all people, honesty in public and private discourse, and humility to recognize our own fallibility. She quoted Solzhenitsyn, “The line separating good from evil runs not between states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart.” We are in a time – by which I mean not this week, this month, this year, but this millennium when injustice reigns, where people are pushed to the margins, where people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake. And we can tell a story of heroes and villains – one in which we the tellers of the story are inevitably the heroes and the other people inevitably the villains. We are surely sometimes participants in God’s liberating work, sometimes the ones being set free, and sometimes, too, the ones who oppress others. But what Bishop Budde spoke was the story of God’s call for mercy that resounds not just today but in every age. In all the years to come, part of our story as baptized people of God is to call forth that good news to the poor, release to the captive, and the setting free of the oppressed in ways that allow us to see God’s bringing that to life in our own community. 

And so again I turn to you, beloveds of God at St. Andrew, how will you tell the story of the people you are becoming in this moment? Are you people focused on what you once were or where you’ve been? Or are you a people curious to see what new thing God is setting free in your midst? You are a people through whom God has accomplished a great deal in this past year – your church school, your creative arts ministry, your adult formation, your fellowship, your music and worship life, your support of the community through Lydia’s Closet, and so much more. Are you a people who tell the good news not just of a thriving parish but of a place where people encounter a living God who has the power to transform our lives, breath life into our bones, and gather us to resurrection here, now and forever? Because the ministry is not about St. Andrew’s successes or failures, but about experiencing God’s breaking into the life of our community and doing something new.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I fail to tell the story in that way. Sometimes I’m stuck – stuck in a story that is too simple, a story that is ultimately divisive or makes me and my side out to be the hero. Or I despair because I see the ways I fail to live out the values I believe or the liberation I long for or simply just fail to achieve what I intend. Sometimes I’m still in the black-and-white that begins the Wizard of Oz movie or the black-and-white thinking that persists in that story even when technicolor sweeps across the screen. But we are a people of a God who brings a new story to life, one full of beautiful complexity, broken humans swept up into God’s incredible work of liberation for all creation, and the opportunity always to live into new life after death. 

-Pastor Steven Wilco