A Sturdy Table

5th Sunday in Lent
April 6, 2025
Atonement Episcopal Church, Westfield, MA

A recording of worship including the sermon is available here: https://www.youtube.com/live/3pspQn7vIz4?si=2TLohMBJS1X_uTmm

¹ Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ² There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. ³ Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ⁶ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) ⁷ Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸ You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” – John 12:1-8

They had a dinner for him.

It seems like such an ordinary line in the gospel reading, an ordinary kind of thing that happens all the time. Their friend was in town, so they had a dinner party. Mary and Martha, their brother Lazarus, their friend Jesus…his closest 12 friends, a few others, perhaps. A few dishes prepared, maybe some simple comfort foods, nothing too fancy. A chance for friends to talk, relax, be themselves.

But this isn’t an ordinary dinner party. If we were reading along in John’s gospel we would be fresh off the story where one of the dinner guests – Lazarus – got ill and died. He was four days in the tomb before Jesus arrived to weep with his friends. Four days gone when Jesus called him out of that tomb, graveclothes and all. Now the once-dead man is sitting at the table, at this dinner table.

And, John tells us, it is 6 days to the Passover. The stage has been more than set for the events we ourselves will revisit once again in the coming Holy Week. The raising of Lazarus has finally pushed the authorities over the edge – they are now really coming for Jesus. Preach love, heal the sick, ok…but raise the dead? They were afraid of Jesus and his power. So they were plotting. The story immediately after this one is the one we will read next Sunday in our churches – the parade on coats and palm branches as Jesus enters Jerusalem one final time, a servant king, a different kind of leader. This dinner party is right at the moment where things are rolling quickly to their inevitable end. Their end on the cross. Jesus is nearing death. And they threw a dinner party for him.

At this dinner party sits both the newly resurrected one and the one about to die. Not only that, but the one who will betray him. We assume the one who will deny him is at the table, too. And several who will run away at the hour when it counts. The poor are named at this table, too, even if they aren’t physically present. Judas, for reasons of his own, raises the issue of poverty and the need that exists in the world.

I think you’d have to be a pretty gifted host to make this all work. I’m not sure there’s a seating chart, an etiquette list, or a menu that can fully hold all that is present at this dinner table. And in comes Mary, motivated, I always think, by some deep spiritual pull to offer with incredible generosity and care a gift to the one she loves – the one who even though he raised her brother will himself go to die. It’s quite the dinner.

But then, I’m not so sure it’s that unusual, when we think about it. I’ve no doubt that all of us at some point or other have found ourselves in the midst of an awkward meal. Thanksgiving dinner when not everyone agrees about what’s going on in the world so there is either awkward silence or all-out arguments. The first Christmas dinner after a loved one has gone on to God’s heavenly embrace. A family wedding when two sides just aren’t getting along. A work dinner where power dynamics can’t be erased by everyone sitting down to a meal. A community gathering where everyone is invited and one just can’t quite find the right thing to say to someone who comes from such a different walk of life.

I don’t have any real sage advice for how to handle awkward meal conversations. Listening more than speaking is often a good start. Honoring the humanity of the person or people before us is another. And because our modern context is quite different and requires different acts of generous love, I wouldn’t recommend pouring oil on the feet of your guests. But we aren’t going to eliminate awkwardness at our tables.

We’ve been called into relationships with one another. The whole human experiment is about learning to be community together. In God’s great wisdom, which I honestly sometimes question, we were made to live in community. And that means living with people who are different. People who don’t think like us. Yes, I mean politically, but also just who think differently – those who organize their thoughts in mental spreadsheets and those whose creative ideas weave in and out in a beautiful pattern that only makes sense to that person; those who come from great privilege and those who come from not; people from different places of the country and different parts of the world; people who all carry their own trauma and pain. Human community is difficult work. There is a lot going on and a lot of people sitting at the metaphorical table trying to have a meal together.

Church at its best is a place where this meal, hard as it is, can happen. Church is community. As such we hold a lot. Every time we gather someone is likely celebrating some great joy and another some great sorrow. Every time someone is probably in pain and someone feeling the joy of recovery. And all of us carry with us all the weight of our lives – the stressful daily tasks, the big, deep hurts, the breadth of human feeling. No wonder we sometimes bump up against each other. Sometimes it feels as if our tables might not be sturdy enough to hold it all.

You know something about that here at Atonement. You have found a way to support the community farmers’ market – a place that draws together the people who tend the earth and grow our food, the people who long for fresh and healthy nourishment, and people who need financial assistance to get that nourishment. You know what it is to invest in a community meal for people in recovery and for people in need of food. You know what it is to set a broad table, where those on the edge of life and those full of new life sit together and break bread.

The foundation of that table is this one, where you gather each week to receive Christ’s very flesh again. This table is the one that gathers you the living saints of this community with the beloved saints who have gone before you here and throughout the generations of the earth. This table is where we meet Christ – Christ who has died. Christ who is risen. Christ who will come again. This is an extension of that table set long ago in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, where Jesus is present. Where our broken and imperfect selves sit down for renewal and nourishment. This is the table where death looms and where new life has already sprung forth. This table is strong enough to hold it all.

But this table is not just for a good meal, not just for a moment of comfort or a pause from the hard things beyond. It is also a table that stirs things up in us. This is where Mary’s beautiful gift comes in again. I always imagine that this action is more or less unplanned. Something happens in the meal that stirs her to action. Something in this coming together of life and death, this strange and magnificent meal, something stirs her to an action that maybe she herself doesn’t even fully understand. The meal moves her to give something precious for the sake of the other. She offers something we don’t even fully understand. It’s an action that Jesus himself will emulate on his last night with his friends when he bends down to wash their feet. An act intended to show us the way of serving our neighbor.

That’s what sitting together at this incredible table does. It may stir things in us beyond our understanding. It may open our hearts to a radical love for the ones we have defined as other. It may open our hearts to questions about why poverty persists and how we might reorient our communities to actually serve one another in a deeply relational way. Eating at this table may stir us to acts of generosity that serve the one in need, the one facing death, the one facing pain, suffering, rejection, and exclusion.

So come, eat again at this table, where life, death, and resurrection are joined in Christ and all our complicated communities are not only held but transformed and resurrected.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Embodied Vulnerability

Presentation of Our Lord
Sunday, February 2, 2025
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ashfield, MA

²² When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, [Mary and Joseph] brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), ²⁴ and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
²⁹ “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
³⁰ for my eyes have seen your salvation,
³¹ which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
³³ And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵ so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸ At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
³⁹ When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. – Luke 2:22-40

Many of you are probably familiar with the old story that goes around about a Christian who is facing a looming disaster – often the story is about rising floodwaters at his house. He prays to God to be saved. Along comes a car offering to help him evacuate before the roads are cut off. “No,” he replies, “God will save me.” The waters continue to rise and he continues to pray. Leaning out a window he sees a boat go by, and the people in the boat offer to rescue him. Again, “No, God will save me.” The floodwaters reach the roofline and terribly desperate, the man climbs onto his roof, praying all the harder. A helicopter comes by to rescue him. “No! God will save me.” Finally he is consumed by the floodwaters and arrives in heaven asking God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God replies, “What do you mean?! – I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter!”

Now usually this story is told as a bit of a mockery of the man who missed God’s practical interventions in favor of waiting for some supernatural fix that is more clearly – in his mind – divine intervention. Those of us who grew up in certain faith traditions, like the Episcopal church among others, that have long had an emphasis on God’s embodied action in the world, might easily fall in the category of those who are smugly judgmental of this silly man caught in the flood.

And yet, I wonder…how many of us have missed moments of God’s saving grace placed right in front of us because it didn’t match our expectations of what God can or should be doing?

What makes the presentation of Jesus at the temple one of my favorite biblical stories is that Simeon and Anna, through the wisdom earned by years of life experience, or years of prayer, some innate sensibility, or some combination of the above, recognize the divine salvation embodied in front of them in a tiny newborn infant. I am struck the by the faith it requires to see God’s salvation fully realized in this moment when very little has been revealed about what lies ahead.

Growing up I imagined that they had been somehow granted a holy vision of what was to come. If not the full picture, then some clear understanding of what Jesus would become, how he would die and be resurrected, and how this incarnation of God would transform the world. As an adult, I think…well, maybe that could be the case.

More and more, though, I am drawn to the dimensions of God’s salvation that are already fully realized just by God inhabiting a vulnerable human body. Not by any means to discount all that is to come and the importance of our being an Easter people. But that we have a God who takes on vulnerability and weakness, a God who joins the weak and disempowered ones, a God who gives priority to the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed – that in and of itself is salvation.

I think that’s what Simeon and Anna see. Maybe they are primed because they themselves inhabit bodies that have become more vulnerable with age. Though they carry deep wisdom and a lifetime of prayerfully nourished spiritual depth, they know, too, the fragility of life and the impermanence of being embodied creatures. They recognize that an infant, though full of possibility, is vulnerable just by virtue of being at the other end of the life spectrum. This, this infant who cannot even sit up much less walk or talk or feed himself, this is God’s salvation, now, in this moment. This is holy.

We sit now, as we honestly always have, in a world that defines itself by power over others, by success measured by physical strength and financial wealth. We are in a time when the struggle to be in control outweighs the collective work toward a common purpose. We are in a time when winning is celebrated and losing is mocked. Even as many of us ask what we can do to counter that kind of power, we, too, are deeply steeped in the culture of power and all too often contribute to its misuse.

In the midst of all that God comes to be embodied among us. God is embodied among us in the immigrant who is dismissed because they do not speak the dominant language or do not have the right papers. God is embodied among us in the people whose homes and schools and hospitals have been destroyed and whose loved ones have been killed as nation-states fight for land and resources and power. God is embodied among us in fragile ecosystems already tipped far out of balance and species on the brink of extinction. God is embodied in the very young and very old and the ones society has written off for their illness or for their different way of existing in the world. God is embodied among us in those who have lost their jobs and lost loved ones. Here is a hard one for me – God is embodied in those with whom we vehemently disagree, for they, too, are God’s beloved creations. And dear people of God, I dare say God is embodied here, in you and me, broken people imperfectly seeking to live out our faith and transform the world toward God’s kinship community here on earth.

That is a risky move on God’s part, because all the people I just listed including you and me are vulnerable. Some even more extremely so than others. And God chooses not only to love us all deeply anyway but to be physically present in that vulnerable space with us, in us.

I think as we figure out where our calling is in this moment – in any moment – we would do well to model ourselves on Simeon and Anna, prayerfully looking to discover what God is doing. I do not mean that we ought to be passive and simply pat ourselves on the back for identifying God’s presence in very real suffering. But I do think we do well to approach every situation with their openness to the unexpected presence of God. I suspect that too often God shows up in our lives in ways we miss or dismiss.

I find myself too often convinced I know what God is up to. I have lots of opinions about how the church should meet the needs of the 21^st century. I have opinions about how our society might run better. And those all get in the way at times of my seeing God’s salvation, of recognizing God’s transforming love showing up in my life and the life of the world around me. When I stop and listen, when I honor the humanity of the person before me, when I try to remain open to connection, those are the moments I most often find myself caught up in the work of the Divine. Whatever the circumstance, I long always to pause to recognize the face of God in the person in front of me.

Wherever we find ourselves in that this morning, God is embodied here – in this gathered community and in the bread and wine we share. In the Eucharist we experience again the body of Christ made vulnerable to our human need, broken apart that we might be joined together. It’s that feast that might again open our eyes to the presence of God unexpectedly appearing in our midst.

I share with you in closing the words of a hymn but Lutheran pastor and poet Susan Briehl. In the stanzas she highlights for us that God’s way of being in the world turns things upside down, the ways that God shows up often counter to what we expect – with glory in the ordinary, power in weakness, beauty in that which is despised, wisdom in folly, and ultimately life found in death:

(As the text is copyrighted, I share it here as a video and the text can be viewed here: https://digitalsongsandhymns.com/songs/6547)

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Mom, Really?!

2nd Sunday after Epiphany
January 19, 2025
Trinity Episcopal Church, Milford, MA

¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. – John 2:1-11

I know it’s a cold winter weekend, but my mind is on vacation. I’ve been starting to plan a family trip for April school vacation week. Since my father’s death several years ago, my mom has joined my husband and daughter and I for some kind of trip together every year. It’s a wonderful time together, we share the costs, rent a place where we can cook our own food, and visit some interesting destination near or far where all of us can enjoy something fun. I look forward to it every year.

But…if you’ve ever traveled with family, you probably know that no matter how wonderful and how much we look forward to the time, there are inevitably moments of conflict. Whether it’s with a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend – it’s rare that I’ve taken a trip without at least one moment of conflict. Too hungry and irritable about where we’ll eat dinner, judgy about how someone else is packed in a tightly shared space, introverts over-stimulated and extroverts longing for more engagement, or just general bickering when sharing close quarters and there’s lots of togetherness. I’ve noticed that even though my mom and I have a fantastic relationship, talk regularly, and see each other often despite living several hours drive apart, when she’s with us on vacation there are moments where I suddenly revert to being a rebellious 18 year old wanting to make my own way, thank you very much.

So I’m feeling sympathetic to Jesus and to his poor mother as they attend the wedding of some dear family friend at Cana. No doubt Jesus is looking to be there on his own terms as a fully grown adult, despite what must be plenty of connections to people who still see him as the precocious 12-year-old boy who ran around playing among them. They are well into the multi-day celebration when his mother comes running up to him, “Do something! They are out of wine!”

This would be considered a bit of a crisis at many a celebration – not enough of whatever the guests need. But there was a particular culture of hospitality that would bring shame on the couple and the family and even perhaps foreshadow bad luck for the marriage ahead. Mary, of course, knows her son and knows something about the divine presence in, with, and under his humanity. Even so, it is a little unclear the way John relates the story to us just what it is Mary expects Jesus to do.

Besides, Jesus is not ready. Whatever his reasons in the moment, Jesus is suddenly again the rebellious teenager again – “Ugh. Moooommm…. What is that to me and to you?!” And Mary, squelching the anger at his response and channeling her mom energy, turns to the servants and tells them “Do what he tells you.” Jesus, now committed by his mother, has no choice but to come up with a plan on the fly. I imagine with a big sigh, he commands the servants to fill the water jugs. And so happened the first of his signs, done at Cana in Galilee, revealing his glory, and instilling belief in those who witnessed it.

I hope I am not offending anyone’s piety by imagining the scene this way. Please know that I do so with a deep reverence for the full humanity of Jesus as much as the full divinity of Jesus. And because it just feels so deeply relatable to be trapped suddenly back in a pattern with our families that we thought we’d long overcome.

This is what we do, right? We suddenly let out on the ones closest to us the burdens we carry of stress at work or at school, our anxiety about health, our grief about what has been lost, our fears about the future. All of that weighs on us, and sometimes it’s the ones we love the most that get the brunt of our frustration. Perhaps because of that deep love we are suddenly confronted with something in ourselves that we don’t actually want to see. So we blame, lash out, or shut down, we return to old patterns where we push each other’s buttons. We don’t mean to, we don’t – hopefully – set out to hurt anyone. But we do. We’re human. And in this little exchange between Jesus and his mother we see a bit of their closeness of relationship and their humanity.

One of my ongoing challenges as a person of faith is to actually lean in to God with that same kind of deep and abiding trust. To actually fully trust God to be in charge, fully trust God to lead me out of tough spots. That’s a trust that Mary models in this moment. Not in a pious, well-worded prayer or in a well-thought out process of partnering with God in the work of ministry. Just in everyday relationship, one so close she can call him out to be fully himself, close enough that he can bristle a bit about the well-work pattern, close enough that she can keep rolling even when he is brusque in return.

We long for that kind of closeness with God. And perhaps some of us some of the time find that kind of closeness. The kind of closeness with which we can bring our deepest yearnings, fears, hopes, and also just the ordinary stuff of our days. And what a gift that is in those moments to be in relationship with a God of such abundance, a God who transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, who joins us in our celebrations, who desires for us abundance and joy.

But there are times, sometimes much of our lives even as people of faith, when we fail to lean fully into that level of trust. Maybe you find yourself in one of those times now. We are in a time when the world is in turmoil – perhaps you know people devastated by the wildfires in LA, perhaps you know people who have ties to the devastating violence in Israel and Gaza or to violence that happens in cities and towns closer to home. Maybe you are living your own grief at the death of a loved one or at illness and aging that strips away parts of ourselves, or things are clouded by anxiety or depression. Maybe you are simply exhausted from trying to hold things together. And all of us are in a time when churches as institutions are struggling to make ends meet and the future of our ministries requires a different kind of investment than we know what to do with.

While these difficult challenges will sometimes bring us to deeper faith, often they leave us feeling the weight of scarcity, of not enough. The wine has run out. What will we do?

Here, I think, is of the deeply beautiful things about this story: very few people know what happened. The servants, Mary, Jesus, perhaps a few of his brand-new disciples. But nowhere does it indicate that anyone else is in on the mysterious sign. The lowly ones – they are invited to see. But everyone – everyone! – present at the party gets to experience God’s abundance. They aren’t all aware. Many of them will miss, at least for now, the deeper things this sign points to about Jesus and the presence of God in their lives. But they experience the abundance all the same.

So come again to the table of mercy. Experience today God’s abundance poured out for you – the body of Christ the bread of heaven, the blood of Christ the cup of salvation. Bring your deep faith and your wildest doubts. Bring your passionate energy for your faith and your tired and weary souls burdened by sorting out life and ministry. Bring it all to this table, and wherever you are, whoever you are, experience the abundance of God.

It is no magical solution to all your problems. While it may draw you closer into that deep and abiding relationship with Jesus, that also will not magically solve all your problems. But it will call you into God’s abundant life where God comes again and again to be close with you, to be in relationship with you, to love you into new life.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

The Hungry Crowd

10th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 17B)
July 28, 2024
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Oxford, CT

¹Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jewish people, was near. ⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶Jesus said this to test Philip, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a child here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. ²⁰But Jesus said to them, “Here I Am; do not be afraid.” ²¹Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. – John 6:1-21

What stands out to you from the gospel I just read? If you were to go home and tell someone this week what the gospel reading was all about, you might start by saying that Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people and walked on water. Those are the miracle moments. That’s what we call these stories that appear in multiple gospels – the feeding of thousands occurs 6 times in all four gospels, and the story of Jesus walking on water appears in three of the 4. It’s one of the ways we have come to identify Jesus – miracle maker. And who among us couldn’t use a miracle or two in our lives? And certainly our world is in need of a few miraculous moments.

But…I wonder…with our attention drawn to the miracle moments, what else are we missing in these stories? By naming the stories by the miracle moment, what is forgotten or ignored? We never, for instance, refer to this story as “the hungry crowd chasing Jesus,” or “the angry mob set on crowning Jesus king.” We rarely refer to the walking on water as “the story of frightened disciples rowing for their lives” or even more simply, “the stormy sea.” And yet, those things are very much a part of the story.

We do this a lot don’t we? We say we are an Easter people and, despite lots of cross imagery, we often do not talk about ourselves as people of the cross.

I get it, of course. This is how we remember our lives. We look back on a trip we took and pour over beautiful pictures and smiling faces and forget the awful 24-hour fight delay, the flat tire on the side of the road, the tired, cranky moments when we took things out on our traveling companions. Those of us with kids in our lives have likely had the experience of remembering earlier ages of those kids and smiling over cute phrases, tender moments, silly fun, while forgetting the sleepless nights, tantrums, and diaper changes.

There might be other instances where we remember only the bad. That was the year my loved one died. That was the year we lost our house. That was the year I was diagnosed with cancer. It marks a whole year – those kind of monumental experiences. And yet, it is never the whole picture of a year of our lives. Every year filled also with celebrations, coffee with a friend, a beautiful sunset, a good book.

Perhaps we are even more shaped this way now in our lives, with so much information accessible to us at our fingertips. Our news cycles feed us nonstop coverage of national candidates and world-scale tragedies, often missing the important and often difficult work of governing and peacemaking that happens, most of which happens in ways that don’t make for easy headlines, and neat, tidy happy-ending stories. And we know, I hope, that social media is designed to feed us cultivated stories that create longing in us for perfect lives, perfect bodies, perfect homes, perfect trips – none of which tell the whole story.

What else is going on around the miracles of Jesus? The crowd that gathers in this moment was not called together to sit and listen to teaching, they weren’t there just because they were curious. They were there because they had seen Jesus healing among the sick. Many certainly in awe of that and looking to understand who this miracle-worker is. But many of them are there because they, too, seek healing – healing for bodies broken by disease, healing for spirits beaten down by life. Or they are there because someone they love is near death, or living with chronic pain, or just down on their luck. Too, perhaps, some are there to make him king, which they try to do later in the story, because they live in the midst of an oppressive empire. That’s the scene – a crowd of regular ordinary people, with lives full of joy, yes, but also full of challenges. A crowd desperate for renewal, for resurrection.

The disciples, surprised, perhaps by this pressing crowd, are looking at least to feed them. Perhaps they themselves are hungry. But they look around and see not enough. They look at what they’ve got and realize they, too, are in great need. Hunger and longing – awareness of being empty, aware they are lacking. They see only what it is that they don’t have.

So, too, the disciples in the boat later in the story. Afraid, alone, miles from shore. Exhausted from rowing. It was dark out, so they couldn’t see much of anything.

Sometimes, when we stop and look, we see a lot of pain, longing, fear, and emptiness. Hunger – real, honest-to-goodness hunger for food exists in every community. Longing for wholeness is present in some way for nearly every human I know. We wish for a world renewed and restored, if not to Eden, at least without war and violence.

How we hold all these things together – hunger and miraculous feeding, fear and relief – affects the story we tell. If our story is about God’s miraculous fix, we may very well feel the lack of God’s presence when the miracle is absent or delayed. If our story is all about scarcity and what we don’t have, we miss God’s presence with us even in our longing.

What if we called this story “Christ with us in hunger and plenty” or “Christ walking with us through the storm”? Would that change how we think about it?

I know that here at Immanuel you all are anxious to call a pastor. No congregation has an easy and smooth process these days, but you have been through it more than most congregations. You’ve had candidates back out multiple times through absolutely not fault of your own. We’ve tried to match you with great candidates, but they’re hard to find right now. We’re not giving up, and we can talk more after worship about that. That said, I wonder what story you are telling yourselves in this moment. Are you the congregation without a pastor struggling along until the miracle moment? Or, and this is what I think, you’re a congregation engaged in good, exciting ministry, who care about each other, who care about your community, who extend a broad welcome to all, who are alive and Spirit-filled. And, I know, tired. Because transitions are tiring. Ministry is tiring. I just hope you know God’s presence with you now, in this waiting, in the ministry you are doing, in the hunger and the feeding, in the exhausted rowing and in the arrival of God in your midst in surprising ways.

Because while we associate Christ most with the miracle moments, he is there in all of it. He is there drawing the crowds in need of healing. There with compassion for those who are hurting. There planning ahead and helping us discover abundance in the midst of our scarcity. There helping us pick up the pieces – broken and abundant. There coming to us in the storm. God is not hanging around waiting for the big moments but joining us in every moment.

As you bring your own burdens, needs and cares today. As you carry the weight of a world divided and at war. As you worry about your own church community and the call process that isn’t going as you’d hoped. Come. Christ calls the hungry and hurting, the longing and hoping, the grieving and broken to the table. Where there is a miracle waiting. A miracle in which God offers a taste of the abundance that is always there, a miracle that reminds us of God’s presence in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, a miracle of community gathered to feast and experience God with us every step of the way.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

The Hands Tell the Story

3rd Sunday of Easter (Year B)
April 14, 2024
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Cornwall, CT

^36bJesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. ⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence.
⁴⁴Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.” – Luke 24:36b-48

This sermon was inspired by Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon on this text published in Home By Another Way.

The hands tell the story.

In the book My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem tells the story of spending time with his grandmother as a child. Often as they sat together watching TV she would ask young Resmaa to massage her aching hands. One day he thought to ask her why her hands were so thick and swollen. She explained to him that as a young black girl in the south, at the age of four she had begun picking cotton on a plantation, joining other black workers struggling under racial oppression. The sharp burrs had scarred her hands forever. He is making the point that racism lives in the bodies of black and brown siblings. The hands tell the story.

Our hands tell a story, too. In a different way than other parts of our bodies, they say something about us and our lives. The cuts, bruises, dings, and maybe even missing tips of those who work with heavy duty machinery. The sun-weathering and wind-chapping of the hands of farmers and construction workers who do that work outside in all weather. The dirty fingernails of the gardener and the paint-flecked hands of the artist. The highly decorated nails of those who enjoy making them artful and beautiful. The calluses – on fingertips of string players and seamstresses, in the joint creases of the weightlifter or gymnast. The changes in the hands that come with age, visible in the hands that have tended to daily life year after year. The fingers of an infant still trying to coordinate with the brain to learn fine motor skills. The intertwined fingers of those who love one another. Of all the parts of the body, it is often the hand that we hold when a loved one is seriously ill or taking their last breath. Our hands tell our stories.

So, too, Jesus’ hands tell a story. Perhaps already worn from carpentry work before he began his ministry, they are almost certainly weather-worn from a first-century life mostly outdoors. As the sun was setting, early in Jesus’ ministry all those caring for any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him, and Jesus laid his hands on each of them and cured them. To the leper who asked Jesus if he was willing to heal him, Jesus reached out his hand, touched the man and said “I am willing. Be made clean.” It was Jesus’ hands that plucked grain to eat on the sabbath angering some of the religious authorities. When Jairus’s daughter dies, Jesus takes her hand in his and proclaims, “Child! Get up!” He laid hands on the woman who had been bent over for 18 years and restored her body. It his his hands that are nailed to the cross on Good Friday.

Now, at the end of the gospel account, when Jesus first appears to some of his most beloved followers, it is not his face that he draws their attention to. That would tell them it is Jesus. We recognize people best by their face. But the face does not tell them what has happened in the same way as the hands. That’s where Jesus draws their attention. Jesus’ hands reveal where he has been. They tell the story. In resurrection we and the disciples are drawn back through the story. Not just the healing and feeding and blessing, but the dying. There in the resurrected Jesus are the wounds of the cross. The hole, the scar. The sign of the immeasurable pain and suffering and humiliation that occurred just days before. This is a fully embodied Jesus, fully resurrected from the dead. He is hungry from his journey through the tomb to hell and back. Have you anything to eat? Do the nerve endings of his resurrected body still twinge with the memory of those nails?

I think the disciples are still in shock when Jesus appears to them, but soon enough they will be ready to go again. Resurrection! Life after death! Now we can go back and keep doing all the things we’ve been doing! And how wonderful would that be! For Jesus and the disciples to go back out on the road, now with an even more amazing story to draw the crowds. They can heal the sick, feed the hungry, proclaim the coming of God! Won’t it be great! And after a meal of broiled fish, they’d be on their way again as if the cross never happened. And it would be wonderful. And maybe they could if Jesus were just an apparition as they first feared, or if they just looked at the face of their beloved friend and teacher.

But the hands. The hands won’t let them forget. Won’t let any of us forget. Resurrection is not just a chance to go back and do what they’d already been doing. Resurrection changes things. It is something altogether new. Yes, Jesus came to teach and heal and work miracles. But Jesus also came to die. In resurrection they are not returning, but doing a new thing. They are living with the knowledge that love is stronger than death, that death is not the worst thing or the last thing.

Now, look at your hands. What stories do they tell? What do you see there? What memories and stories do your hands tell? What joys and sorrows are brought to mind when you look at them?

And consider this. In baptism we are baptized into Christ’s death that we might also be baptized into his life. We are people of the resurrection and we bear that marks of our own hardships and suffering as well as the marks of cross. Our story and Christ’s are forever bound. Our hands become his and his become ours.

At the communion table, it is our hands that we stretch forth, begging for a crumb of grace. Like Jesus appearing to the disciples, longing for something to eat to fill out need. Our hands reach for the bread, take the cup. Our hands hold God and bring God within.

So, too, then hands bless. The last time the disciples see Jesus’ hands he raised them in blessing as he ascends to heaven. Here in this place we bless one another with our hands in a sign of peace – whether that’s a handshake, a hug, or a touch-free gesture. And we bless as we go out to be the hands of God in the world.

And I wonder – a congregation doesn’t have a physical hand to tell its story. But we have a motto in the ELCA – “God’s Work. Our Hands.” Your hands, my hands – they are way God’s story is told in our world. What story is being told through this congregation? The steady presence rooted in this close-knit community, offering worship and care week after week. The partnerships you have been developing, getting to know your fellow Christians here in this community. The ways you connect through community events. The support you offer to the shared work of the whole church. And, perhaps the biggest impact, the way your hands serve one another and all the people in your lives.

Take a look at your hands again. What story do they tell? What story are they being called to tell next? Where might God be asking you to serve?

I know that here at St. Peter’s you’re aware of questions about the future. There are practical realities that have to be named and understood and contended with. But there is also a story of faith, God’s story in this place, told through your hands. That Christ is risen does not promise smooth sailing. Christ’s resurrected hands tell the whole story, not just the good parts, not just the life but also the death. Your story, this congregation’s story, all of it folded into God’s holy story.

So come again to the table today and offer your hands for the bread. Receive the blessing. Then go, serve God and serve your neighbor. And know you are lead by God’s wounded hands into whatever the future holds.

Pastor Steven Wilco

A Cross-bearing God

2nd Sunday in Lent (RCL Year B)
February 25, 2023
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Brookfield, CT

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. ²And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” ³Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ⁴“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁵No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁶I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and rulers shall come from you. ⁷I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”
¹⁵God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; rulers of peoples shall come from her.” – Genesis 17:1-7,15-16

³¹Jesus began to teach them that the Son-of-Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²Jesus said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son-of-Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” – Mark 8:31-38

According to a variety of studies by the Pew Research Agency over the last decade or so, churches are no longer the first or best place to learn morality.

Now, churches are a place that should and mostly do operate and teach in a moral way. This is not a sign that churches are somehow slipping in their morality. Just that people can and do learn morality in schools, in scouts, in sports, in Rotary, in conversation with others and in reading a variety of books and staying in touch with the world. They learn them through community service with or without religious affiliation. My own moral formation was largely spurred in early years by church participation but influenced for the better by all manner of secular experiences. If we are here to be “good” people – whatever we think that means, I hope that’s reinforced here, but I also hope church doesn’t stop there.

What we’re called to is cross-bearing. And that something above and beyond moral values and actions.

Take Sarah and Abraham for example. Back when their names were still Sarai and Abram they were living a prosperous and likely fairly moral life. Not perfect, but good decent people. God calls them not to shape up their moral life, but to go. To give up their security, their home, their way of life, to follow a call and a blessing, and absurd one given their age and their lack of an heir to carry on their family. God promised not a comfortable life with 2.4 children, but descendants more numerous than the stars. He’s told to go settle in the promised land, but it turns out that land is occupied by others. He is called in his blessing to give a 10^th of his wealth. He is called to liberate his brother from an army of kings. The promise isn’t straightforward, but in fact God reveals that not all will be ease and blessing for him and his descendants. There will be long centuries of oppression and more warfare ahead.

Abraham and Sarah demonstrate plenty of moments of morality – following the codes of hospitality and generosity of the time, asking God for what is right, waiting patiently. But they also demonstrate plenty of less than stellar moments. On two occasions Abraham and Sarah tell a ginormous lie that gets them in big trouble. They fail to trust God’s promise and try to take matters into their own hands. They banish Hagar and Ishmael to die in the desert, oblivious it seems to God’s miraculous care for them.

So are they courageous? Very! Loyal? Fiercely. Bold risk-takers? You bet. Faithful? On the whole, yes, deeply faithful. But moral? Well… sometimes more than others. Centuries before the Romans even invented the cross as a means of public torture and execution, even more centuries before Jesus spoke about it and then endured himself the cross, Abraham and Sarah take up their cross to follow God. They give up everything to live a life of bold risk, trusting in something that they didn’t even see fulfilled in their lifetime, something beyond what they could touch and hold and know. God didn’t send them out for the purpose of experiencing suffering, but God also didn’t beat around the bush about the fact that suffering would be a part of the experience.

So, too, Jesus with the disciples. They aren’t ready to hear the depth of risk and suffering that will be involved in maintaining God’s commitment to radical and inclusive love. Peter takes the opportunity to rebuke Jesus: “Enough of this talk about crosses and death, we’ve been healing people and talking about God come near! Let’s do more of that!” But Jesus isn’t having it. Jesus knows all the good work they’ve been doing comes at a price. Not a monetary one, but a much costlier one.

You see, Jesus didn’t get killed because he went around doing good things, preaching nice things. He got killed because he suggested God, God’s love, and all living things were more important than maintaining order or power or even doing “good.” The call is to bear the cross

The question then becomes – what kind of cross-bearing is God calling us to in this present moment?

Doing good stuff is important if not always easy. Serving community feeding programs like Daily Bread in Danbury. Donating resources for world hunger, disaster relief, and many other important causes that affect real change in people’s lives. Caring for each other and tending to one another’s mental, physical, and emotional health in caring community together. Caring for the earth. Caring for young people and older people, lonely people, struggling people. This is work I know you do. It is so deeply important and a clear expression of your faith. And yet I wonder if it is quite yet cross-bearing.

Keeping the congregation going, especially through pastoral transition, isn’t always easy work. Making sure committees are functioning and sign-up sheets filled. Tending to stewardship and finance. Holding broad opinions together as you seek to move together as a community into the future. All of that supports and makes possible the deeper mission you have, but it is not yet quite cross-bearing.

Cross-bearing, I think, is that thing that is asking you to pick up all that you have and all that you are and go – into something new, something uncertain, something maybe even a little or a lot terrifying. Cross-bearing is that call that’s nagged at you deep within that you’ve been trying to avoid but it will not let you go. Cross-bearing is being okay with the kind of grace from God that will break you apart into a thousand tiny pieces and put you together again as a whole new creation. Cross-bearing is clinging to hope despite the crumbling of everything around you. Cross-bearing is submitting to death because you trust the one who says it’s the only way to life. What Cross-bearing is God calling you to in this moment of your life? In this moment of the congregation’s life?

It’s not easy. I’m with Peter ready to rebuke God for even suggesting it. And yet…

Lectionary blogger Dan Clendenin puts it this way: “The deist God is remote, safe, and silent. He won’t bother you. He won’t intervene in human history or answer your prayers. And he sure won’t speak to you or do the impossible.” That is, the God we often imagine, the God we often pattern our lives after is a nice God of moral action in the world. That God is safe. The problem is that God also doesn’t resurrect us from the dead.

But the God we proclaim as a church, is the one who does intervene in human history, answer our prayers, speaks to us, and does the impossible. And the one who calls us to the way of the cross. Those things are intimately bound up together. Death and resurrection.

With Abraham and Sarah, and so many saints before us, with Jesus who leads the way not only to the cross but to resurrection, we are called to uproot ourselves, give up some of the things dearest to us, take bold risks, try out some things that might be deeply uncomfortable at first, and even attempt to do the impossible. Lent is a time not just to reflect together, but to spur one another on to this kind of cross-bearing.

And that’s a whole lot harder than being a good person. Most days it’s not particularly appealing. But it comes from a God of deep love. A God of deep compassion. A God with the power to pull life from a barren woman and bodies up out of the grave. A God who bears the cross lest we have to bear it alone. This call comes from the only God who knows that we all end up meeting death one way or another and from the only God who knows that it’s the only way to resurrection.

-Pastor Steven Wilco