by Nathaniel Philbrick (New York: Viking, 2026)

https://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/the-rush

How hard it was to found the American state of California - and how characteristic of the best and worst in us. Josiah Royce provided a modern perspective on the beginnings of this civilizational epic, in California, from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in San Francisco: A study of American character (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886).

Like the current author he strove to tie his story together with a few large themes, in his case more successfully. Royce broached a lifelong theme in this, his first book: a concept he came to call “the beloved community.” Finding something lovable in the characters he and Philbrick both portray is sometimes a tall order. And yet—

Royce finds a progression from initial civility to chaos and conflict and on into a more permanent foundation for community. Picture the development of mineral boomtowns from tent city to wooden firetraps to brick and cast-iron buildings, and you find an image that fits.

Philbrick chooses wider themes, that the reviewer in the New Yorker finds easy to lose in the chaos, characters, and anecdotes he relates, and the reviewer decides at last that that’s okay. The point is the journey, apparently, not the wandering on the way.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/11/02/the-rush-nathaniel-philbrick-book-review

Kathryn Schulz, “The Gold Rush and the Making of Modern America” (The New Yorker, October 26, 2026)

This season, in which we encounter these lessons, is in some churches the season of creation. It began, in most churches, on September 1 with the feast of creation, and ends on October 4 with the feast of Saint Francis, which is a day really to celebrate creation.

So in the midst of a very long green season, as we may call the season after Pentecost, as we come to the end of summer, the end of summer on the calendar anyway, you have something new to think about as days shorten, temperatures drop a little bit, and we begin a new year for school in college students and teachers, and in programs in congregations.

We are in the middle of the creation season and anticipating its end. Last week I was in the middle of a forest overlooking a lake in the Sierra at a cabin long owned by family members, cousins. It was my first visit there, but in many ways, it was familiar territory, as it was in those mountains as a Boy Scout, summer camp lifeguard, and earlier with family camping.

In the season of creation it is good to get outside and remember and be a part of something older and larger. Big trees, old trees, ancient mountains, and glacial rocks serve as a lesson, as much as the parable of the Psalm. We are called to remember and pass on something older and larger for us as a church, older and larger than ourselves.

Our host in the mountains gave us a challenge: to explain to someone who lives in a cottage in England built in 1335 that the oldest Protestant church building in Arizona still in use for its original purpose dates to 1882. However the Tucson city of gastronomy celebrates 4000 years of local food culture. That brings home how old these new traditions of the new world are.

Exodus and the Psalm remind us not to forget or to set aside the old stories, however embarrassing, that are part of our heritage.

We have in the story of Exodus a heritage we have been invited into. We are new to it, new people, comprised of churches, congregations, and individuals. We can tell the story, the story that becomes ours as we pass it on to others to make it their own in turn. We now tell it as our own.

We remember the dark days of God‘s glory when shining before us he let us out of slavery in Egypt, how he found us food and water in the desert, led us to a new home; and how we rebelled and drew far from him along the way at the sea, or hungry and thirsty and complaining in the desert. And yet we are ever receiving Grace and Providence at the hand of a faithful God.

Recently I have been studying another origin story, another history of the founding of a people. It is the Aeneid of Virgil, the Roman epic poem, in an adult class at the university in Tucson. This poem was a secondary epic. Unlike the Iliad or the Odyssey which seem to have grown out of the ground, it was invented by a poet in Rome at just around the time of Jesus.

It was composed to give the people of the empire a story of origin, how they came to be where they were and how they were.

It’s about not the greatest warrior in the Trojan war, but a survivor who then took his household gods, that is the images of his ancestors, with him on a long journey, to fulfill what he believed was his destiny to found a new city, as if it were a second Troy.

He fetches up in Carthage and then in Italy, where he founds Rome.

Not the greatest warrior: he was a leader, he made mistakes, and he got into a lot of trouble, but somehow he survived and so did the people that he led.

And it was all made up out of old stories creatively reused to build a new epic, a sense of foundation, of the history behind their present situation.

The emperor was Caesar Augustus. He was called the Prince of peace because there was a cessation of violence, but that was because he had vanquished his rivals, after two civil wars, in his peace through victory.

And yet another kingdom was emerging.

Another kind of victory, another kind of peace, another Prince of peace were at work at the same time, bringing our story to a new apex, a new summit, and that that summit was on Calvary, where the true Prince of peace had his victory not by vanquishing rivals, force of arms, but by force of soul.

Were you there? The psalm for today begins by the psalmist announcing that he will sing of the mysteries of God, the mysteries that are the parables, which means stories that apply to us. The stories he tells are of the exodus, of the journey through the Desert, of hunger and thirst and of the people’s rebellion and complaint against God and of God’s inexorable, unrelenting grace.

Were you there?

A comment on this passage was that any good history book is a list of mistakes, including names and dates. Certainly this ancient people in the desert made a good list of them. They’re full of them. But of course, their history is also one of God’s love and sometimes of their faithfulness.

Were you there? Two of my ancestors were at the battle of Shiloh. I could brag about that, but they were there to fight each other. Our history is not entirely one of our triumphs, but of our mistakes and defeats.

Were you there with the people of Israel?

You may not be able to trace your DNA to Abraham and Sarah or even Isaac or Jacob. But the story we have told today, the story of the people God loves, is a heritage we can embrace if we choose to become and make it our own.

We don’t earn our history, but we can embrace it.

And we are met the other way from God, the true hero of that epic who embraces us.

The story of God’s love for humankind is not restricted to anyone, nation or people or time.

Ultimately, in its crucial moment, Christ draws all people to himself.

Were you there? Were you there when they crucified our Lord?

No, and maybe yes.

Because you can be part of God’s people just as much as Abraham or Moses, or the complaining people in the desert, or the people who jeered at Jesus on the cross, or we can be part of those who wept as they watched him die and who were with him when he said:

This is my body broken for you, this cup is the blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin. When we drink that cup and eat that bread, we proclaim his death until he comes again.

And we embrace that awful history, that glorious history, that gracious history, that can be ours, as we are and become evermore God‘s people.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21

Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

Now there was time to ask that question; now there was time to think about it.

What was it all about? Why did we go? Was it just to prop up one economic interest against another? Was it to fight for freedom?

These questions asked by an American soldier in 1919 are still questions we need to ask today. These are questions we need to ask ourselves as we welcome home people who have served overseas. Why serve? Why did they go? Why did we expect them to? How shall we welcome them home? How shall we explain to them what it was all about?

We can imagine him running in from stage left, looking about distractedly, and then, finally, sleep overcoming him, laying down his head upon a stone. A stone that in the morning was transformed into a monument. This certain place, as the story calls it, that Jacob did not recognize, in the night set itself apart.

Angels, messengers of God, communicated between heaven and earth, and then the LORD was right beside him.

The promise he heard, the promise made to him, was the promise that Abraham, his father, and Isaac had received before him. It has been remade. It is new, in his hands, and old again.

Jacob has received the promise - from God. Not only the blessing stolen from his father. Now he has been chosen, like it or not, and he goes on from this place a man newly charged with a mission. He must carry forward, what he has received alone, into a new beginning, a new life.

He came into this place alone, and here he heard God. He was able to hear him, now. He is no longer son or brother, he is not yet husband or father. He is just Jacob, alone, before God.

And it is in this place, this in between place, on his journey from one place to another, one state to another, from son and brother to husband and father, that he is alone enough to listen.

When are we listening? When are we in a holy place? When are we on sacred ground?

There are plenty of times I know to touch stone, to call back a memory of a special place or person, and those times and places I cherish. I hope to experience them again soon. But the holy place is different: it is where we experience something of the sacred mystery that is God.

This is not necessarily a big deal, with trumpets, or a certificate. It may be in an otherwise insignificant place, or a place we did not know. Jacob said, “I did not know this was holy ground.” But now he does. Something changed. In him. In what he experienced. In what was there all along.

It may have been there all along, for you or me. But we did not know it. And that’s okay.

The spirit comes to us. We seek holiness. We do. We seek to do God’s will. Or an experience. Or just to be better today so we can be better tomorrow, than we were yesterday.

Where will we find sacred ground? Or is that the right question? When will it find us?

And where will we go from there?

But of course located sacredness is not a matter of place only but also of time.

We find our freedom in the present moment.

The past is unalterable and sometimes stupid, and sometimes brave, as Jacob’s was. The future is an unknown country. (as Jacob anticipated).

We map upon it our hopes and desires, our fears and despair. Or we do what we can as if it all depends on us, and leave the rest to God (as Mother Teresa put it).

Jacob is in between. He is alone. A solitary man, as he never was before and (as we learn) never will be again. In this existential moment he is free. God speaks to him here in his nakedness. Not with condemnation or words of judgment. But with words of courage, and accompaniment.

I am with you. I will keep you, take care of you, wherever you go. I have promised you what I will do. And I will do it.

That is God’s promise, his pledge to Jacob.

And what has he promised us? Not so different–

The promise that he will be with us to the end of the age– that he will send us a comforter and a teacher, to guide us– and we in this season after Pentecost are in that time of promise: and of mission.

Go into the world, Jesus told his first followers, and teach what I have taught you, by word and deed: that the kingdom of heaven has come among us and is not far from us, even now.

Each of us carries in him or her a mental map and a spiritual timeline. We hold these maps and calendars up against the world, the outside experience. There on the wall we could post a Bible timeline. On another wall could be a map of the travels of Jacob, his fathers, and his descendants. We can place ourselves on that map, for we too are children of the promise, children of the faith that kept Jacob, and Abraham and Isaac, on the right path– even when they did not know it.

Where our faith will lead us, if we keep faith with God, we do not know from day to day. We know, however, that the crooked paths will be made straight, and in our own existential moments we will be led to God, to a home that we never knew but always knew us, knew we were coming.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.

– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, page 79. (https://sacredpoetryworkshop.com/a-prayer-of-unknowing-by-thomas-merton/)

AProper11, Genesis 28:10-19a, Genesis 28:10-22, Jacob, Jacob’s Ladder, Thomas Merton

She, following a vow she had made, presented her child to Eli to be raised as his helper – and as it turned out, his successor.

Here is part of what she prayed as she rejoiced in her expectancy:

And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.

There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.

Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.

He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.

1 Samuel 2:1-3, 7, 9

Sound familiar? In her praise and exultation, Hannah hearkened back to the joy of barren women made fertile in the past: from Sarah and Rebekah to Rachel, and echoes on through time, to Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. (And the song Mary sang after visiting Elizabeth.)

And the prayer of Hannah echoed the song of Miriam, sister of Moses, at the Red Sea:

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Exodus 15:20-21

All these women, from Sarah to Elizabeth, form a sisterhood that is powerful. God over and over again turns over human expectation. The younger (as we shall see) is preferred to the older; and the weak to the strong. It is all in fulfillment not of human purpose but that of God.

So you see there is more to the story of Isaac and Rebekah than just a sandwich generation, between their parents and their sons. Isaac had prayed, Rebekah had inquired of the Lord, and God answered them.

Because of them, of their pursuance of God’s fruitfulness, the promise and the covenant continued. God would make of their descendants a mighty nation, a nation of priests to serve their God, and all nations would be blessed in them. Them too.

And then there are their sons. Their vexatious children, contending from inside the womb and on into adulthood. Our Scripture portion for this morning only goes so far, in what it gives of their story. Later, spoiler alert! Esau in his anger vowing to kill his brother, is overheard by their mother, and Rebekah persuades Isaac to go away for a while. He goes east of Canaan, east of Edom, and back to ancestral Harran.

God has a purpose in this exile – as in so many other occasions. When he brings back Jacob with his newly acquired household, it is to meet Esau in reconciliation. The brothers embrace when they meet.

That is long after the story of ‘that red stuff’ and the birthright scorn.

Today we see the consequences emerging of his impulsive, brash, brusque, rude as rude can be, disregard of his heritage - and duty.

Esau will not be the one to bear the promise and the mission. It was Abraham and not Lot, Isaac and not Ishmael, so it will be Jacob and not Esau, that God chooses - not of their virtue but of his will.

What will happen when these boys grow up? Will the two nations continue to strive, one east, one west, of the Jordan River? And what in our own day will come of contending nations, and brawling brothers?

Will we do better than these, God’s chosen ones, who in their folly and pride and humanness, end up furthering his mysterious purpose.

The vindication of Rebekah was a strange joy, unearthly in its origin, and whether or not she saw the fulfillment of her own hopes is an open question. We see, from this distance, hope in the story, but wonder:

Do the people in the midst of the story have hope in the promise, or are they despairing in the desert? Only faith can make the difference.

And the providence of God – sometimes shown by human hand. In our own day, there are people wandering in the desert, or across seas, seeking a future with hope, in a land that God may show them.

*****

But wait, there’s more: after today’s reading, there is a whole chapter, a big chapter. It is between this week’s scripture portion, and next week’s. Chapter 27 of Genesis relates the astonishing story of how Esau, who had already bargained away his birthright for “some of that red stuff” loses the blessing of his father as well.

And when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim (so that he could not see) he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son. And he answered him, I am here. Then he said, Behold, I am now old, and know not the day of my death. Wherefore now, I pray thee take thine instruments, thy quiver and thy bow, and get thee to the field, that thou mayest take me some venison. Then make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it me that I may eat, and that my soul may bless thee, before I die.

Genesis 27:1-4 (Geneva Bible, 1599)

But Rebecca, who had favored her younger son since before he was born, now intervenes. She bids Isaac to forestall his older brother by getting two kids from the goat herd and preparing a stew, and then disguising himself as the red and hairy older brother. In this way, he will receive the elder brother’s blessing instead of Esau.

At this Esau finally wakes up enough to realize there is a problem and becomes very angry, but Rebecca has a solution for that too. She sends her favored son off to the land of his ancestors to find a wife.

As she explains to her husband, she’s tired of these Hittite women (Esau married two) and wants her son to marry from among his own kin from back home.

While she had been found for Isaac by Abraham’s servant, her son will discover for himself his bride.

It is on the outward journey that Jacob stops and dreams the dream of the ladder that we will hear about next Sunday.

Eventually, after long years of labor on behalf of his bride’s brother, he will return, unsure how he will be received by his own brother. He will encounter him by a brook on his way home.

AProper10; Benson; Isaac and Esau.

Genesis 25:19-34

Psalm 119:105-112

Romans 8:1-11

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Not “I believe because–” but simply “I believe.”

Go to the mountain that I will show you. Take your son. Take firewood. Take a knife.

Not as happy a portent though entirely as strange as when the command was, Go to a land that I will show you and I will make you the ancestor of nations. And all nations will find their blessing in you.

Not as happy but at least as strange. What did Sarah think as she waved goodbye to her husband and son? She had seen him send Hagar and Ishmael away. What was he doing with Isaac?

We are going to a distant mountain, that God will show me.

Trust me, I’ll be back? We will be back? He could make no such promise. Just, trust me. I have to go. I have to do this thing, I have to do what God commands.

And what is required of thee O man? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God? And how does this fit into that?

Perhaps, we hopefully conjecture, God simply wants to show the progress of mankind from human sacrifice to the sacrifice of other animals. After all, they did it in the Iliad. Why not us? Though come to think of it, those soldiers mostly feasted on what they put to the knife. We can hardly expect Abraham - and Sarah? - to do that.

No this is beyond that, beyond human comprehension. It does not make sense, really, not in any human way. The command is absolute: ultimate and strange.

And Abraham sets out.

He takes the boy, and the wood, and the knife. And he goes to the far mountain.

There he stretches out his hand, takes the knife - and …

And what? An angel, a messenger of God, stays his hand. Wait, look around you. There is an alternative. God provides.

Perhaps the message is this: have faith, God provides.

God provides. Over and over in this passage that message is repeated. And it fits what has gone before. And what continues. From the moment of departure from the land of his family, Abraham has put his faith in God and God provides.

Abraham travels a strange way, a long way, a journey down and up again from Mesopotamia through Syria and down through Canaan to Egypt and back at last to the land of promise. Indeed, the place Abraham lands at last is called Beer-sheba, in Hebrew, well of the oath. Promise fulfilled. Oath kept.

So was his faith well-placed? Was it worth it?

So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

The story continues in Genesis 22:15-19: The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba, and Abraham lived at Beer-sheba.

And they all lived happily ever after. Was it worth it?

Certainly when they got back to camp, Sarah, who now goes unmentioned until she is dead and buried, and mourned by father and son, must have been relieved to see them. What ever had they been up to? Did they tell her? What would Isaac have said to her?

And what did he think, all along? Kierkegaard says that he lost his faith on the mountain. I don’t read it that way, but he does seem to have played the innocent. And not only here: at the end of his life he will be bamboozled into giving Jacob his blessing.

Okay, Dad, I’m coming. Wow.

No wonder he missed his mother. Even though Abraham gave all he had to Isaac (25:5) except for the gifts he gave the sons of his concubines as he sent them away (25:6).

***

Abraham had faith, even when the promise no longer made any sense.

He was old, and his wife was old. Thinking perhaps that it was the way to keep the promise, he had a son by Hagar. But that’s not it. Sarah bore him a son, in her old age. But that’s not it. That is not enough. He must sacrifice that son, the only son he loved. God commands.

God commands. Abraham obeys. Abraham trusts. He keeps the faith. God provides.

Somehow there will be a way through this.

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Maybe that’s it?

Maybe not.

Maybe it is as radical as it claims to be. It is beyond reason that faith begins.

And sometimes, we admit, life does not make sense. Things happen to us, awful things.

But here is something unreasonable that happens, not just to us, but because of us.

Abraham obeys. And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3) And he became the ancestor of all who believe – and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them (Romans 4:11b).

Obedience.

Beyond obedience with any hope for himself was this sacrifice. For Abraham it was giving up what he held most dear, what he loved more than his own life itself.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Is that what is happening here? Is Abraham becoming the ancestor of nations by giving up his right to be a father on his own terms?

He gives up. And God gives.

Not gives back. Don’t throw your car keys in the collection plate, hoping for a Ferrari in return.

God provides. First, last, always. Can we trust that?

Perhaps only as we become children of Abraham, children of the faith of Abraham. He becomes the father of faith, the first ancestor of all people of many nations who have faith.

We find righteousness, our right place in the universe, by receiving God’s providence.

Not by works, lest anyone should boast. But just by trust. By faith. Incomprehensible, and all comprehending.

***

“...the single individual, as the single individual, stands in absolute relation to the absolute” – Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843). Fear and Trembling: A New Translation, by Bruce H. Kirmme. New York: Liveright, 2022. 145.

JRL+

28 June 2026

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 8

Track 1

Genesis 22:1-14

Psalm 13

Romans 6:12-23

Matthew 10:40-42

June 20, 2026: World Refugee Day (UNHCR)

‘Each year, 20 June marks World Refugee Day, the international day to honour people who have been forced to flee. Together, we can champion their right to seek safety, build support for their economic and social inclusion, and advocate for solutions to their plight…World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe. It falls each year on 20 June and honours the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution.’ (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

Hagar reminds us of people who have been forced to flee. She reminds us, and exemplifies for us, the strength and courage of people who have fled their home country - or in her case, been thrown out of the home they thought they knew.

Hagar had been brought up, probably, by Abraham and Sarah from her homeland of Egypt. Whether she was enslaved there already, or not, by the time she comes into the story of Abraham and his family, she is serving Sarah. And in those times, apparently, it was considered legitimate for a woman to give her servant to her husband to serve as a surrogate parent (both egg-mother and birth-mother).

Legitimate, but hard to live with.

Was it exploitation? Our modern customs may not apply. But Hagar fell into a trap of expectation and subservience. What would become of her and her child - who was also the child of Abraham? They are cast out into the desert, away from the home they knew, in the opposite of hospitality.

It is through divine reassurance that she bears up and raises her son. And they became the progenitors of princes. This may be a just-so story, to explain how Jacob’s children came to have Arab cousins. More important to us is that it shows God sees, God hears, even the outcast, even the people on the margins, and through them does extraordinary things.

What happens nowadays with surrogate mothers is different. There is, in the United States, a practice of surrogates carrying another woman’s child. This can be a family member. Or it could be a commercial transaction. Sometimes these latter lead to legal disputes or poor treatment of the children and their birth mothers. (As reported in The New Yorker.)

Certainly Hagar could speak to the modern women and children who are at the receiving end of the abusive possibilities. But in the Biblical story she is twice told by God of unfailing acceptance and a hopeful future.

We would wish the same mercy and protection for all women and children who are exiles or refugees. We would wish them a welcome and support.

Lutheran Social Services, through its partnership with Global Relief, is directly involved in this ministry in Arizona.

Hagar can speak to all mothers who have faced the challenges of exile and migration, refugees, wanderers, and trafficked human beings. And to mothers and children, and fathers too, all who have had hope dashed or squandered, or raised and fulfilled. Whether their voices are raised in sorrow or praise, like Hagar, they have a place in God’s kingdom.

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” (Genesis 16:13, ESV)

Loving God, open our hearts to be generous, hospitable and welcoming to our neighbours. On this week of World Refugee Day, help our communities, our countries and indeed the world be generous, hospitable and welcoming to the increasing number of refugees and displaced peoples. Help us to be advocates for these our world neighbours, your beloved children in need. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Collect at the Prayers of the People:

Holy and righteous God, you created us in your image. Grant us grace to contend fearlessly against evil and to make no peace with oppression. Help us, like those of generations before us, resist the evil of slavery and human bondage in any form and any manner of oppression. Help us to use our freedoms to bring justice among people and nations everywhere, to the glory of your Holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

###

https://www.episcopalct.org/resources-for-juneteenth/

https://www.clwr.org › wp-content › uploads › 2025_wrd_prayer_01.pdf

https://faithinformed.org/resources/juneteenth-liturgy

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/juneteenth.htm

https://www.britannica.com/topic/General-Order-No-3

https://www.genealogy.gailbrinsonivey.com/cousin-chart-family-relationships-explained/

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-jordan/the-end-of-refugee-resettlement

https://www.unhcr.org/get-involved/take-action/world-refugee-day

https://www.gcsynod.org/news/world-refugee-day-walking-alongside-our-neighbors-in-hope

https://blogs.elca.org/disasterresponse/world-refugee-day-a-call-to-accompaniment-justice-and-hope/

https://blogs.elca.org/elcaracialjustice/juneteenth-know-that-you-are-free/

https://os.dc.gov/am/page/dc-emancipation-day

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/what-is-dc-emancipation-day-history-behind-april-16-observance

https://www.lectionarypage.net/

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

21 June 2026

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 7

Track 1

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

How interesting to have this reading the Sunday after Juneteenth. That federal holiday commemorates the day word finally reached people in southern Texas that they were free, and had been since President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

“Texas was the farthest of the Confederate states, and slaveholders there made no attempt to free the enslaved African Americans they held in bondage. This meant that President Lincoln’s proclamation was unenforceable without military intervention, which eventually came nearly 2.5 years later. Juneteenth celebrates the date of June 19, 1865, when enslaved people of African descent located in Galveston, Texas, finally learned of their freedom from the slavery system in the United States.”

Here is what they heard:

General Orders

No. 3.

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, “all slaves are free”. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor….

By order of Major General Granger

F.W. Emery

Major A.A. Genl.

Hagar never had a Juneteenth. She had exile. Twice. Flight, then expulsion.

In an earlier chapter of Genesis (16:6ff) we learn that she had fled from the sight, and jealous anger, of Sarah, only to find that she had been found, and seen, by the unseen God. She was not alone. She was not unheard. She was seen. In her prayer she named the God of seeing, or God who sees. Her son was named Ishmael, God hears. And so she went back.

“According to ancient surrogate motherhood customs, a wife could give her maid to her husband and claim the child as her own (30.3,9)”

Thinking that this is how God would keep his promise, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to bear him a child. But after Hagar gives birth to Ismael, Abraham’s son, Hagar and Sarah regard each other differently: Hagar disrespects her mistress, while Sarah sees her handmaid as insufficiently submissive. Relations between mistress and servant become fraught.

Meanwhile Abraham continues to have faith that his son Ishmael would be the father of princes, but that Sarah would bear the son of the promise.

Trouble brews. Two nations are being formed, at least: Arab and Israelite. Both from children of Abraham.

Father Abraham, father of many nations. In a wisely-excised scene from the movie “Holiday Inn” Bing Crosby appears as a sort of comical Abraham Lincoln. He is portrayed as the benevolent father of freedom for the formerly oppressed. The connection is made between slavery, freedom, and Lincoln. Children of Abraham, that Abraham. Like Hagar, enslaved.

But Hagar was never freed. She went into the wilderness. After she gave birth she raised her child for some years. Peace in the tent of Abraham. Then Ishmael gets a new little brother. He makes Isaac laugh.

Sarah sees it and she is not laughing. Hagar is cast out: Abraham has divine assurance she will be okay, but she is cut loose. In the desert once more, she seems despairing, but God, or an angel, rescues her and reassures her. She finds water in the desert. She finds hope, and courage.

She lives, and her son will grow up. Hagar finds Ishmael a wife from her own people, from Egypt. And he will have children, as God had promised.

***

June 19, 2026: Juneteenth National Independence Day (USA)

Almighty God, you rescued your people from slavery in Egypt, and throughout the ages you have never failed to hear the cries of the captives. We remember before you our siblings in Galveston, Texas who on June 19, 1865 received the glad tidings of their emancipation. . . .

Anoint us with your Spirit to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of your favor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect at the Prayers of the People:

Holy and righteous God, you created us in your image. Grant us grace to contend fearlessly against evil and to make no peace with oppression. Help us, like those of generations before us, resist the evil of slavery and human bondage in any form and any manner of oppression. Help us to use our freedoms to bring justice among people and nations everywhere, to the glory of your Holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

###

https://www.episcopalct.org/resources-for-juneteenth/

https://www.clwr.org › wp-content › uploads › 2025_wrd_prayer_01.pdf

https://faithinformed.org/resources/juneteenth-liturgy

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/juneteenth.htm

https://www.britannica.com/topic/General-Order-No-3

https://www.genealogy.gailbrinsonivey.com/cousin-chart-family-relationships-explained/

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-jordan/the-end-of-refugee-resettlement

https://www.unhcr.org/get-involved/take-action/world-refugee-day

https://www.gcsynod.org/news/world-refugee-day-walking-alongside-our-neighbors-in-hope

https://blogs.elca.org/disasterresponse/world-refugee-day-a-call-to-accompaniment-justice-and-hope/

https://blogs.elca.org/elcaracialjustice/juneteenth-know-that-you-are-free/

https://os.dc.gov/am/page/dc-emancipation-day

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/what-is-dc-emancipation-day-history-behind-april-16-observance

https://www.lectionarypage.net/

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

21 June 2026

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 7

Track 1

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

In the story last week, we heard of Abraham and Sarah leaving their family to follow the promise of God into a new land. There God would make them a blessing to many nations.

Now we are getting deeper into the cycle of readings about Abraham and his family, which begins in the 12th chapter of Genesis and continues through until the 36th chapter. Last week began that cycle as soon-to-be long-suffering Abram and Sarai left the place their family had begun to settle and ventured south into the promised land. Only to find that it was a temporary respite.

In today’s first lesson, they share that respite with others. They extend classic Middle-Eastern hospitality to strangers, offering water and rest and food to three travelers. Sarah and Abraham are tent-dwellers, with their herds and flocks and servants around them, and they are resting under the trees and the tent-flap on a hot day.

[This reminded me of the journey of the Odyssey, where a long-suffering hero travels through many countries before he could reach his own. Like Abraham and Sarah, on the way he encountered divine messengers.]

We can imagine who these three travelers are, who turn up at the Oaks of Mare. What comes of it, along with the hospitality, is a promise. “I’ll come back this way next year and Sarah will have a son.” A pleasant prophecy but unlikely to be fulfilled - unless God is speaking.

And so there is a promise given. It will be renewed and repeated, to Abraham and then his son and then his grandson. Abraham and Sarah are already traveling, venturing, on the basis of earlier promises. Go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. But how are you to become - here it is! the Fathers’ Day reference - father of many nations? Abraham and Sarah are old, they have journeyed far already; they are in the midst of – what proves to be – a very long wandering navigation of the Fertile Crescent, from Iraq to Syria through Palestine, down to Egypt and then back north again to Palestine where they settle down at last.

And yet they are following a promise that will be fulfilled: for a child will be born to them, as subsequent events bear out.

There is a promise - and there is more: for faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

We see faith at work in the relentless courageous obedience and trust of Sarah and Abraham as they venture forth from home ground, seeking beyond the familiar what is only familiar to them as they are God’s people.

We see hope at work. Hope that persists beyond toil and travel and despair, injury, bad weather, woeful barrenness and impossible pregnancy, there will be a child, and children. There will be a place for them at last, in the promised land. War will not prevent them, nor drought, nor incapacity. They will make it there. They will find it home.

We see love at work. Love between husband and wife. Love, compassion, caring for the strangers. Love, in the expectation of a child. Love, in seeing a future with hope. Love, in the strangers’ promise. And love, in its fulfillment.

This is part of the ongoing story of Abraham and Sarah, and their family. Of love, hope, and faith. And through faith, hope, and love, it is our story too.

We seek a future with hope. We come to expect the fulfillment of the promise. The promise that is behind and beyond all these other promises.

Beyond despair or deprivation or strife, animosity or the cessation of good will, there will be and is, a greater good, a greater peace. And we are called to proclaim it, and to live into it. The peace of God, the love of God, hope in God, faith in God.

You will see from the day’s prayers, and from the gospel, that we can have that expectation, that is more than a dream, a hope and faith and love that will bring God’s love into the world, in the children of Abraham that are all those who share his faith. And that promised land will begin right here, as we, children of the promise, of faith and hope and love, seek and make a new community and a new home with all those who respond to the call.

###

As he sent them out for the first time, Jesus commanded his disciples: “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

That is the message. The one who sent Abraham and Sarah on their journey is the one who is sending the disciples on theirs – a mission that belongs to all his followers, from then on. It is ours as well as theirs.

Abraham and Sarah were told that they would be a blessing to many nations. Those nations are us. And the message that in those nations would be established the kingdom of peace. The reign of God is what encompasses and embraces all who seek the peace of God.

Jesus sends out those first disciples on an early mission. They go before him into the villages of Israel, with a message and a ministry. We too proclaim the kingdom in both deed and word. This congregation, I am told, has many ministries to those around us, strangers and residents, as they are in need.

This congregation has a ministry to those around us as we welcome them into our celebrations. In these ministries we proclaim the good news, we live the good news, we celebrate the good news. The ministries make manifest the reign of God. We show that the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Those early disciples, messengers of the reign of God, were so urgent on their mission that they traveled light. Lucky for them that ancient Mideastern tradition of hospitality had not worn off.

As they entered villages where they might find a welcome, and be able to rest and even, we can imagine, receive water and food. They might find a welcome for their message. Not everywhere, nor with everyone. Where they did not, they could move on.

Where they did receive a welcome, there was much to talk about with those who received the message: How do we live out the good news? How do we live as citizens of the kingdom of heaven? What does the reign of God look like? How does it begin to show? How do we live into it?

We receive, and we give. May God’s love go with you today and always. May you carry with you Jesus’ message of peace, and the promise of Abraham and Sarah. May faith, hope, and love abide with you, and go with you.

For the kingdom of heaven is near. Right on top of you. Proclaim it with joy.

JRL+

June 14th 2026 : 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. San Rafael, Benson.

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Sunday Closest to June 15

Proper 6, Year A, RCL, Track 1

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

The Collect (Episcopal)

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Prayer of the Day (Lutheran)

God of compassion, you have opened the way for us and brought us to yourself. Pour your love into our hearts, that, overflowing with joy, we may freely share the blessings of your realm and faithfully proclaim the good news of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen.

***

From the Lectionary Page (https://www.lectionarypage.net/):

“What are “Track 1” and “Track 2”?

During the long green season after Pentecost, there are two tracks (or strands) each week for Old Testament readings. Within each track, there is a Psalm chosen to accompany the particular lesson. The Revised Common Lectionary allows us to make use of either of these tracks, but once a track has been selected, it should be followed through to the end of the Pentecost season, rather than jumping back and forth between the two strands. The first track of Old Testament readings (“Track 1”) follows major stories and themes, read mostly continuously from week to week. In Year A we begin with Genesis, in Year B we hear some of the great monarchy narratives, and in Year C we read from the later prophets.

I was not Donald Gelpi’s best student. Although I was one of his faithful hikers. We went to Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and Yosemite, in a group he organized from the Jesuit community and their friends. With him I studied theology for two years at the Graduate Theological Union. He drew upon Scripture, tradition, and Spirit-inspired reason.

He drew upon the American philosophical tradition, from Jonathan Edwards through Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Saunders Peirce, William James and Josiah Royce, to Thomas Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead. From them he derived the philosophical category of experience, over against the traditional Thomistic / Aristotelian category of being.

Substance, accidents, all that language, could be set aside to begin to understand all in terms of experience. To jump ahead, God is the experience that experiences all other experiences.

At the time I took his courses he was still using deeply technical language, but had begun to realize the benefits of writing, like George Santayana, in more intelligible, apprehensible prose. Nevertheless he gave his students the task of turning his foundational theology into communications that could be taught in religious education.

I would say that he imbued the concept of panentheism with a deeply religious sensibility. It was the experience of God that he was trying to express, in ways that could be normative and healthy. Prophets or mystics, we all could use guidance on the path.

Don came to Berkeley from Notre Dame, which had experienced itself as an early epicenter of the Catholic charismatic movement. (Later the People of Praise gathered there, making the opposite journey from the Bay Area.)

There and in Berkeley his early project was to establish a coherent theological underpinning to that movement. While the watershed experience of emotional release was often the most evident feature of the prayer gatherings of the time, conscientious discernment required more of the tools of the Spirit.

So he was a leader of prayer, and of wilderness experiences, as well as a teacher of wisdom.

We were walking along the road talking about everything that had happened in the last few days. We spoke about how Jesus had come to Jerusalem.

We welcomed him with branches strewn in the road and cloaks spread across the path where he passed. Hosannas were in the air.

Then he went into the temple and taught. Even as he left for the day he had healed people. His words and his deeds were powerful. Everyone could tell that he was a mighty prophet.

But then our chief priests and the elders themselves handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.

Here we had hoped and had hoped. All our hopes were in him that he would be the one: the savior, the Messiah, the one to redeem Israel.

All these things had happened just three days before.

But then, we recalled what had happened earlier that day. Some of the women had gone to the tomb in the morning and found an empty tomb, and angels who said that Jesus had risen. and when Peter went to check, he found no one there at all.

It was strange and disturbing to hear these things and we had left town. We were on our way away from all this when a stranger came alongside us and became our companion on the way and we told him what was in our minds and on our hearts.

Somehow, he was someone you could trust. So we told him.

He surprised us, though, by rebuking us, saying we were foolish and had not understood.

We were going the wrong way in what we were thinking and what we were feeling.

We thought it was all over, but he said, this is something that had to happen.

I wish we had taken notes. He told us from the beginning of the scriptures all that the prophets had to say about the Messiah.

The miles passed more quickly and we found ourselves at the village as evening was drawing in.

We did not want the conversation to end. We wanted to hear more. He seemed to be ready to walk on alone, but we pressed an invitation on him to stay with us. It was after all drawing on to night and it was not a time for travelers to walk alone.

So he came in with us to the Inn and at the table he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to us.

And that is when we recognized him.

It had only been three days after all since we had last broken bread with him.

And here he was breaking the bread again and sharing it. Alive, as always alive. More than always. He shared the bread with us, and then as our eyes were opened he – disappeared.

On the way as he had told us what was happening, our hearts were warmed. Our minds were opened so that we understood

that

• what had happened and

• what was happening

• was not the end,

• was not cause for despair,

• but that in it,

• even in the worst of it,

• was hope

• and that now a new hope was beginning:

• for he has risen.

So we could not help but turn around and run back up the hill to Jerusalem to tell our friends.

***

They were there, they told the story. But did they understand it? Weren’t they headed the wrong way, thinking that all was over, when in fact all was only beginning?

When they are most despondent or at least baffled, the holy one appears…but he is transformed and unfamiliar.

He meets them where they are. He joins them on their journey.

They admit to this stranger, this unexpected companion on the way, that they are discouraged and uncertain how to proceed… except, apparently, to head away from the center of action.

He invites them to reveal their thoughts, wonderings – to tell their own story of what had happened these last days.

He encourages them to share their perceptions, hopes, questions, disappointments.

They take him for a foreign visitor, and a particularly clueless one, as even those seem to have been aware… but he is not offended.

Jesus never takes his interlocutors for granted. He gives them the dignity of supplying their own answers, as he did when he asked the blind beggar Bartimaeus “what do you want me to do for you?”

(Of course this enhances the storytelling quality of the narrative, drawing us further in, as the dialogue continues.)

The other disciple is unnamed - could it be us?

There was a common understanding of Jesus as a prophet.

Everybody, it seems, knows what to expect and what it meant – except this stranger.

Then: It looks like it’s all over….. but he is risen.

How could this possibly be?

As if they were blind and needed their eyes, and their hearts, to be opened, just as the blind and the lame and the deaf needed healing, beyond the physical, to the spiritual, so these need the ‘opening’ of their minds, the healing of hearts.

From the beginning until now, he taught them, Christ was coming.

(heightened tension) He explained what the Christ is, on the road, but they wanted to know, who is he? “Where can I find this living water?”

In the great Middle Eastern tradition, they show hospitality … and find themselves entertaining more than an angel, unawares.

They fully recognized him in the breaking and sharing of the bread, rather than only in the exposition of Scripture. Now he is real.

This is the one who only three days before had last broken bread with his disciples. Now he is transfigured in the resurrection.

It was in the ‘opening’ to them of the scriptures that they first became inspired, and left behind their ‘folly’ and disconsolate past.

But: this is their moment of illumination. They recall, only now, after his glory is revealed, all that he had taught them – on the road to Emmaus that day, and on all those roads they had travelled before his death.

He has turned them around – from despair to hope.

They encountered him on the road; he opened their minds through his teaching. In the action of communion, he opened their hearts.

In the bread, in the wine, of Eucharist, when we are in the presence of each other in communion, we may truly perceive his presence, in the Spirit, in our midst.

Open our eyes, that we may see… beyond our own preconceptions and preferences. Perhaps the Christ we need to see comes to us similarly veiled.

Do our eyes need to be opened? Our hearts? Our understanding? Do we need to be healed, as the blind were healed, but in our souls?

Who or what has prevented us from recognizing Jesus? Our fear? Anxiety? Preconceptions of the Messiah? Preoccupations?

I wonder: Do we truly know him in the breaking of the bread? In the communion we share? Do we see the stamp of Christ in each other?

When do we fully see Jesus for who he is? When do we see each other in fullness? And then, as we go out into the world to spread the word and serve the world in its breathless need, do we see its goodness, the love of Christ reflected in his care?

• Acts 2:14a,36-41

• 1 Peter 1:17-23

• Luke 24:13-35

• Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

Lord Jesus, be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen. *

*(from A Collect for the Presence of Christ, Book of Common Prayer)

Instead we would only have time to visit the (Crusader era) church commemorating the encounter “on the road to Emmaus” of two disciples on the afternoon of Easter Sunday with an unrecognized man who turned out to be Jesus.

At first they thought him to be ill-informed as, while in their grief-struck flight from the city they went over the events of the past few days, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday and on to the supposed-hysterical reports of the women who found the tomb empty that morning, he asked them what they were talking about and, with all the sarcastic astonishment of tourists in the know, they react: “Are you the only one who doesn’t know what’s been happening?”

Then he in turn with patience interprets the events of the past few days, not on the surface level of what’s happening but on the deeper level of what is really going on, preparing them for the deeper revelation of what is really going on in the Breaking of the Bread, that is, the revelation of the Messiah.

In his converse on the road the apparent stranger lays out for them, we are told, all about the Messiah throughout the Scriptures.

I sometimes thought of this Emmaus story in seminary, in the course Systematics 100, because each week we’d read a new theologian, and I thought it could be that we are trying to fit God (or Christ) in a box and just when we think we’ve got him in there with the lid closed, he leans over our shoulders, and asks, Hey, guys, what’ve you got in the box?

What really opens their eyes is not theological argument by itself but the experience of the living Lord, his loving presence, … as they are there with him, in conversation, their hearts burning as they hear the Word, and then their eyes, opening wide, as he takes, blesses, breaks, and offers, the Bread that is his own Body.

What happens to us when we listen to the Word he speaks to us?

What happens when we accept the Bread that he offers us?

Yes there is sustenance, nourishment, and reassurance of his presence.

And yet there is even more going on, when we accept that bread.

We become what we receive. -- Rabbi Thomas Louchheim pointed us to these words in the communion song “El cuerpo de Cristo” during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood for Bishop Gerald Kicanas.

It is not only about how he is present in the bread (or how we take in that bread) it is about how we are incorporated into him.

It is not just about getting the body of Christ into you - or how that happens - it’s about getting you (incorporated) into the Body of Christ.

When have you been on this road, away from disaster and disappointed hope, headed perhaps back to the familiar, the secure, however wise your decision to leave it in the first place?

When have you fallen in with strange company and learned something new, something that changed your perspective?

When have you received the bread, blessed and broken, that changed your life? That caused you to look with fresh eyes on the world around you, on your companions and yourself?

How about today?

Abide with us - abide in us.

Abide with us as the stranger encountered on the road.

Abide with us as the unrecognized teacher revealing the hidden mysteries of faith.

Abide with us as the patient companion, the inquisitive fellow, who seeks us out for fellowship and a mutual opening of hearts.

Abide with us as the priest, who takes, blesses, breaks, offers… himself, that we might see him and hope anew when hope was lost.

Abide with us as the Messiah you yourself prepared us to accept, the one who is Redeemer and Salvation for all people.

Abide with us as the mysterious stranger who knows our hearts and warms us to the core.

Abide in us as the fire within, enkindle by knowledge and love, en-flaming experience, your holy spirit, lead us into all truth, not merely pointing the way, but being the way.

For you are the Road on which we must travel, the journey’s end at its beginning, the impetus of our movement and the welcome of our rest. AMEN.

• Acts 2:14a,36-41

• 1 Peter 1:17-23

• Luke 24:13-35

• Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

Matham - Maaltijd te Emmaus. Rijksmuseum.

Who do you break bread with?
Who do you invite to stay with you?
Who is the perfect stranger?
How will you know him?

It was a long time ago – it was earlier today. On the Emmaus road two of us were walking – and a third man came alongside. Who was the third man? They did not think to ask. They were preoccupied, overwhelmed, with troubles of their own.

Our news, the good news, was hidden in a maelstrom of fear and anxiety – even terror: for it was an act of terror that set their feet on the road, drove them from Jerusalem. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate. And then, on top of that, the truly incredible news the women were telling: the tomb was empty. He was not there. Angels spoke to them.

When the disciples set out down the road to Emmaus they did not know where they were going. Sure, they knew where the road led – but they did not know what adventures the future held. They were talking with each other about what had happened, trying to sort out what was really going on. What did it mean?

The third man approached, and walked along with them. They did not recognize him. And at his inquiry they rehearsed for him the events of those days, almost like a creed, beginning with the words and deeds of Jesus, a prophet mighty before God and the people. They spoke of his betrayal and death, the empty tomb, and the angels’ message. But they didn’t get it – they did not know what it meant.

The disciples did not see him – had not seen him – not yet.

O you foolish Emmæans! How slow you are to grasp it – this is what the prophets were talking about – that the Messiah must suffer, must pass through passion and death and resurrection, before he can reach his glory.

The passion, the death, the resurrection – these are all part of God’s plan, and now Jesus can enter into glory.

As they reached the village he made as if to go on. But they stopped him, offering hospitality.

Stay with us, for evening is at hand, and the day nearly spent.

So he went in—

“But let me tell you, that to approach the stranger
Is to invite the unexpected, release a new force,
Or let the genie out of the bottle.
It is to start a train of events
Beyond your control. So let me continue.”

[“The Cocktail Party” by T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952) p.306]

And there in that place the guest became host. He became host, as he must always do, when we invite him in. When we take Jesus in, as guest, as host, we are transformed, we are enlightened.

For now the stranger – for it was he – took, blessed, broke, shared the bread; and they knew: this is his Body, and we are in his Kingdom, now. We are at his Table, fellowshipping with him.

And he is the Bread; he is the Life.

As he left them, they were no longer afraid. They turned to each other and said,

Our hearts warmed
as he taught us
on the road, opening
to Word to us
to our understanding.

Word and Table –
in these they knew him –
in these we know him—
as we break the bread
and tell the tale,

of the marvelous events of Jesus, Lord, God with us.

They returned immediately to the City and to their company, to tell their friends, to share the news, the good news, that all the world soon should know, that Christ is risen from the dead, Alleluia! That he arose, that he is made know to us in the breaking of the bread.

And so we ask— how is Christ known among us?

Who do you break bread with? Who is it that you see at the table? Is Jesus there? Jesus, who told us, I will be with you. Jesus, who said, when I was hungry you fed me. Jesus, who said, I am the bread.

Is he there at the table?

Yes— for whenever we bless the bread and break it and share it, whenever we take the cup of wine and share it, we remember his death until he comes. And we know that he is risen— that he is alive and among us— that in this action he becomes known to us.

Do we walk with him on the way? Do we welcome the stranger? Share our table fellowship? With whom do we, now, break the bread? Do we know, in them, friend or stranger, the fellowship of Christ? Do we hear him teaching, are our eyes opened, do we see him, as we study the Scriptures?

Open our eyes to your presence,
open our hearts to your love,
that we, openhearted, open-eyed, open-handed,
may share the bread and tell the story,
that you may be present
in the midst of us,
and that we might share
that good news with all those we meet on the way.

Travel with us, Lord, show us the truth;
stay with us, Lord, show us your love;
send us, Lord, forth from this place,
newly strengthened by Word and fellowship
with the knowledge of your love,
and full of news, good news,
to share, in word and deed, with the world.

Elusive God, companion on the way,
you walk behind, beside, beyond:
you catch us unawares.

Break through the clouds of doubt,
the disillusionment and despair,
that obscure our vision,

that
wide-eyed with wonder
open-mouthed with awe
we may find our way
and journey on
as messengers
of your good news.

Amen.


JRL+

AEaster3, Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35

We hear and hear but do not listen; we listen but we fail to hear.

– Complementary aphorisms from two seventh-grade teachers, on the same day.

Walking through San Francisco from my office in the Financial District up into Chinatown and North Beach was a favorite lunch break for me. One day returning from Caffe Trieste or Molinari’s Deli, as I waited at the stop light at Columbus and Broadway, I heard someone quietly walk up next to me. First I saw their tennis shoes. Then, looking up, I found myself looking into twinkling blue eyes of– what at first appeared to be a middle-aged woman– but it was a man! Not a man in drag, like my old neighbors on Lily Street, but a man impeccably made to look like a woman. A man in drag I could’ve understood, but this was something else. It freaked me out.

Years later I found out: an actor, during a break from filming, had left the film set, and gone on his own lunchtime walk, still in full makeup and costume. He was playing a middle-aged woman.

Mrs. Doubtfire.

And so he had a little fun seeing people’s reactions, like mine, to see if the illusion would hold up. [Apparently Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon did the same thing, when they tried out their wigs and dresses (and heels) for “Some Like it Hot”.]

So I did not recognize him.

I feel a little sympathy for Cleopas and the other disciple. Who would be the last person they would expect to see, on the road to Emmaus? – besides Robin Williams. The master.

The one crucified just three days ago. Sure there were rumors, crazy stories. But now?

It was all too real. You could excuse them for freaking out. But they did not. At first they did not see Jesus, they saw a stranger. And by time they broke the bread, he had walked them through what had happened, what had to happen, according to all the Scriptures.

Like a mythical character in Near Eastern mythology, the ‘grateful dead’, they had met a stranger on the road who imparted strange truths to them.

Only these truths were not so strange, and he was no stranger. He was their teacher.

And so they returned to Jerusalem, with the news.

AEaster3 2026

• Acts 2:14a,36-41

• 1 Peter 1:17-23

• Luke 24:13-35

• Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

St. Michael’s, Coolidge. JRL+

http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter3a.html

http://edgeofenclosure.org/emmausrijck.html

http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter3aextraemmaus.html

(Robin Williams was an Episcopalian.)

Holy Saturday was my last day working at the Jesus Seminar. I had spent a year as marketing director and general factotum for Polebridge Press and the Westar Institute, sponsoring organization for the biennial conference.

On that day the Scholars of the Jesus Seminar had met, discussed, debated, and in its inimitable straw-poll fashion, voted, to shape a consensus on the proposition put before it by co-founder Robert Walter Funk:

Jesus’ body decayed.

This reflected the apex, or frontier, of the scholarly inquiry possible with the premises and methods of the seminar. Was the New Testament record historically reliable? Put up to modern critical scrutiny, what facts could it yield? What could be affirmed, of what was said and done by Jesus in the documents of the time, to be verifiable as any historical fact could be?

Two paths of umbrage could be taken: how dare you scrutinize Scripture as history? how dare you assert that it could be?

For some people the scandal of the resurrection, and of the Jesus event generally, was that he was indeed a real person.

For others, the articles of faith (cf. Historical Documents in the back of the prayerbook) were unquestionable.

If you could stand the cool light of scholarly inquiry, you might pick up something valuable, even – in management jargon – actionable. Because if Jesus is real, and he said and did things that ordinary historiography can assert as true, are not those things of such extraordinary, even unique, character, as to challenge all our assumptions about life and faith and church and God? If what is said that he said and did can be true, how shall we live?

This was the kind of revolution that Bob Funk was looking for – to take the words and deeds of Jesus so seriously that we examine them, verify them, and act on them. Act on them.

Go ahead and try it. People have. People have tried to live the gospel precepts. There are modern comic versions, as in ‘my year following Torah’, and there are more challenging, historic, attempts. When Francis of Assisi submitted his ‘primitive rule’ for approval to the Vatican, there was objection among the curia. “Nobody could live like that!” Cardinal Ugolino pointed out that the whole rule was nothing but quotations from the gospels. Oh, dear.

Less ambitious versions, perhaps including the Rule of the Master, or the more practical Rule of Saint Benedict, came to be applied to particular life paths, or vocations.

But the words of Jesus, those even the most skeptical of honest scholars could ‘print in red’, are unique, and compelling. “

For example, to quote the Westar Institute website:

Seminar Findings

The sayings the Fellows voted as most likely to be authentic were:

1. Other cheek (Q) Matt 5:39, Luke 6:29a

2. Coat & shirt (Q) Matt 5:40, Luke 6:29b

3. Congratulations, poor! (Q, Thomas) Luke 6:20, Thomas 54

4. Matt 5:3

5. Second mile (Q) Matt 5:41

6. Love of enemies (Q) Luke 6:27b, Matt 5:44b, Luke 6:32, 35a

7. Leaven (Q, Thomas) Luke 13:20-21, Matt 13:33, Thom 96:1-2

8. Emperor & God (Thomas, Mark) Thom 100:2b, Mark 12:17b, Luke 20:25b, Matt 22:21c

9. Give to beggars (Q) Matt 5:42a, Luke 6:30a

10. The Samaritan (L) Luke 10:30-35

11. Congratulations, hungry! (Q, Thomas) Luke 6:21a, Matt 5:6, Thom 69:2

https://www.westarinstitute.org/seminars/jesus-seminar-phase-1-sayings-of-jesus

And:

The deeds of Jesus the Fellows voted as most likely to be authentic are:

• The Beelzebul controversy

• A voice in the wilderness

• John Baptizes Jesus

• Jesus proclaims the good news

• Peter’s mother-in-law

• The leper

• Paralytic and four

• Call of Levi

• Dining with sinners

• Sabbath observance

https://www.westarinstitute.org/seminars/jesus-seminar-phase-2-deeds-of-jesus

***

Whether it was because of the competence and hospitality of its convenors, the collaborative spirit and faithful commitment of its members, or the compelling content of its examination, the Jesus Seminar became a treasured page on the calendar. Here scholars met not to hear and critique each others’ papers in an ambitious competitive spirit, but in a collaborative congenial one.

It did help to stick around for the banquet, and the after-hours hotel-room chat.

Bull session one evening included a round-robin question: who would you cast as Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Just as movie director Paul Verhoeven walked into the room, wouldn’t you know it, Stephen Patterson turned the question to me. Tongue- tied I did not respond. (I will tell you now what was on the tip of my tongue: Denzel Washington. Gravitas. (But how do you pronounce “Denzel”? DENzle or DenZELL?) and, not so oddly for the time, Whoopi Goldberg. (I did not put as much importance on that role.)

There were generous members, eminent members, members sub rosa (afraid for their places in conservative institutions). There were members ‘for a while’.

And it could be challenging. Working for Bob was not as good as working with Bob. Best to be on the level. But he was honest in his irascibility - and his scholarship. And there was room not to share those most challenging goals: those of actually putting into practice what we learned.

If he really said that, if he really did that, if he really lived, how are we to live?

In the first eleven verses of the eleventh chapter of the gospel of John, the focus seems to be on Jesus’ delay in responding to the news of his friend’s illness. He seems very cool: hearing this news he stays put another two days.

What kind of friend does that? You or I might, for a start. For practical reasons. Transportation, lack of information, other commitments. But Jesus has a practical reason he does not mention. He has just come from Judah where it has become too hot to hold him. The occupiers are on his trail, and the collaborators are not far behind. The Romans, the Herods. So he has just arrived in Galilee but then turned around and journeyed back through the hill country of Samaria to Judah again. At the risk of his life. But his friend is ill. And so he shows some compassion and bravery in the midst of apparent passive indifference. It’s a risk. But he goes.

Show me where they have laid him. That is what sets him off. Up till now the fancy talk of showing the power of God. Now he has too – if it is there, if it is real. He weeps at the tomb of his friend. Then he calls, “Lazarus, come out!”

The unbinding of Lazarus prompts us to ask, how are we bound? What holds us back from the fullness of life, resurrection life?

Lazarus. The resuscitation of a corpse. Not yet the fullness of resurrection. He will die again, and his sisters will mourn him. Or predecease him.

What does it show us? The power and compassion of God are intermingled. He is not remote. He is on his own time table, for reasons we do not know.

When he comes. In a sense he is already there. In the compassion and the grief. But it is the presence of a friend, a personal touch, and his voice, that brings us to the miracle. The miracle: God’s showing, through extraordinary events, that he is real. That love is stronger than death. That hope, not fear, is at the end.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

Grief has lingered with me this week. Not much to do with Lazarus or his sisters or his friend Jesus from the hill country. It began with a musty old cupboard underneath a window. I’d filled it with cardboard cartons shortly after we returned to Tucson from exile in the Pacific Northwest. It contained some easily discarded decades-old retirement planners. It contained a copy of the Leach family coat of arms crusted with mold: a blot indeed on my family’s escutcheon.

But it also contained old letters, and old photographs, and old prayerbooks, and old appointment diaries. The letters had all been scanned in by my brother Dave, who has since died. The prayerbooks are obsolete (if pretty) and the diaries too.

The photographs included slides from the 1960s taken by my mother and father. Maybe there is a technique to recover them, though they too have probably been scanned.

What has not been preserved, but has survived the mold, are pictures of my past, from college through about 2002. There for example are pictures of a camping trip on Point Reyes in 1977. And from 2000 a picture of a friend in my parent’s driveway, on his motorcycle, there to welcome my return from an earlier, solo, exile to the East Coast.

What brought grief up for me in these artifacts, and these pictures, is remembering what I had lost, or never gained, in those years; and those things now slipping away. Friends die, move away, fade. Even die of neglect.

Relationships shift. New ones are painfully bought. Old ones are even more painfully lost.

So as I go back through the ages, seeking what can be saved, and what must be forgotten, old griefs are awakened, connected to new joys or sorrows. Practically speaking, knowing that my brothers’ stewardship was more careful than my own, I can refer family members to the essential items in new electronic form.

But what lingers are the memories awoken.

Jesus had no such problem, apparently, with memories awaking. “Lazarus, come out!” he said and he did. Martha and Mary had each chastised him earlier with the worthy words, “if you had been here he would not have died”. Not a claim many of us could make, though many have tried. “If I had only’” met by “there was nothing we could do”. In all that, “thanks for the memories” seems pretty vague.

Were Martha and Mary ever annoyed with their friend? I think so. But then his grief was genuine. Became genuine. “Where have you laid him?” and “Jesus wept.”

The evangelist John can be so abstract it can seem painful, even cruel. “I am glad for your sake that I was not there” is not going to fool anybody.

Yes, you are the son of God. Are you also a friend? Yes. The ‘son of Man’, better, ‘the human one’, is a friend and not a stranger. When it comes down to it, he is real. Jesus is real. God is not an abstraction. A difficulty. A philosophical proposition.

The compassion of the Lord is personal, real, and immediate. Lazarus does not go down to the grave unmourned. He does not rise unaided. And when he dies again, not to be resuscitated from a corpse, he or his sisters, God will be with them too.

In the name of God, merciful, compassionate, and wise.

“Jesus wept.”

ALent5,Ezekiel 37:1-14,Romans 8:6-11,John 11:1-45,Psalm 130. St Michael’s, Coolidge.

A quarter isn’t worth a nickel these days — so it’s no surprise that a penny costs more to make than its face value — but you know that a penny here, a penny there, sooner or later amounts to real money.

That’s why I suggest that Arizona make its own Penny.

The euro one cent coin by the way is copper covered steel. (I remember an impromptu Irish wishing well at St Enda’s Chapel in the Aran Islands. An old stone with a hollow was filled with .01 euro coins. Unfortunately the color bled and tainted the water in the basin. I poured them out.)

But the Arizona penny should be made of 100% Arizona copper …maybe instead of a penny it should be worth what it’s made of… maybe it should be a $.15 piece.

https://www.visitgalway.ie/explore/religious-and-spiritual/religious-ruins/church-of-st-enda/

As submitted as a Letter to the Editor of the Arizona Daily Star on Tuesday 17 March 2026.

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts and the deeds of our hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

America’s best soldier quit his job four times. He resigned three times from the military: first as a Colonel, second as an honorary brigadier general of the militia,and third as Commander in chief of the regular army. And fourth…

America’s best soldier made a lot of mistakes: setting up a fort in the middle of a swamp surrounded by hills…

Being defeated and retreating several times…

But when it counted, he stayed the course…

And when victory was one or the job was done or it was simply time to go

He resigned. He went home.

George Washington

Born February 22, 1732

When he was a young colonial officer in the Virginia militia, he was sent into the western wilderness, the wilds of Ohio beyond the Appalachian mountains, to engage in battle with the French, and I think that he was the one who ‘opened the ball’ – that is, began the first firefight– of what became the French and Indian war, known globally as the seven years war between France and England.

But it became clear to him that colonials were not held in the same respect as British regulars, and so he resigned his commission as Colonel.

But soon he was called back into service and eventually put in charge of all Virginia troops.

The time came when his work was done, and he resigned his commission and went home and got married and began the life of a gentleman farmer in Virginia.

Then it became clear to him that America needed to become independent of Great Britain, and so he put his uniform on again and became commander-in-chief of all the continental forces of the nascent United States of America.

When that job was done, and independence was won, he bid his officers farewell at Fraunces Tavern in New-York and reported to Congress in Annapolis and resigned his commission and went home…

To the life once again of a gentleman Virginia farmer.

But the United States in its infancy did not have cohesion; they were a loose confederacy and they needed a form of government that would last, and so he went to Philadelphia to serve his country once again, and presided over a convention which created a constitution.

Part of that constitution was describing the chief executive: after having described the Congress in the first article, the second article of the new constitution described the president. It was a portrait, actually, of the right person for the job.

Everyone knew who the first person to take that job should be.

But the day came when that job was done.

And he knew that it was important that power be transferred peacefully.

And he resigned.

And went home for the last time to the life of a gentleman Virginia farmer.

***

I’m bringing him up not just because this is his birthday, but because he in his day, as we in ours, struggled with temptations–

Temptations, for glory. for power, and for kingdom–

When he became president, it was a time when there was no such thing as a government without monarchy, and there were people who held out to make him King, but he refused. He refused that temptation for the good of the people, the country and his own soul.

When his men were starving in the snows of Valley Forge, he could’ve capitulated. He could’ve given it up and they could’ve walked into warm Philadelphia as prisoners, and that would’ve been the end of the United States of America.

“Plenty of bread here! Only worship us and you can eat. You have the power to feed your men– just say the word…”

But he resisted that temptation.

And he resisted the temptation of despair, of just giving up and hoping that God will take care of him. He resisted all temptations thrown at him.

Not to him were temptations exactly as the Temptations of Jesus.

And he was no secular Messiah.

He was the man of the hour, the father of his country, someone who had lifelong trained himself for the job and succeeded in it.

But he was not Messiah. He was a vestry member of an Episcopal Church. He was the husband of a wife, the father and grandfather to stepchildren, a soldier, a farmer, and a statesman.

***

In our time we face our own temptations as a people and individually: temptation to grasp for security, the first temptation: Jesus faced was the temptation to seek first for material security, and not for obedience to God and dependence on God.

The second temptation was simply temptation to test whether God really loved him.

Should’ve been obvious. A call to despair and doubt:

It was a test of his own fear. Do I have faith strong enough?

The third temptation Jesus faced was to subordinate himself, to the will and power of someone not God: it would’ve been so much easier to end the conflict and simply give in and be rewarded… to be a king– like Herod!

Jesus passed all the tests: he passed through the furnace of doubt, temptation, the lure of despair, the lure of ambition.

And then he was ready to serve.

###

What we see from then on, is Jesus’ acts of compassion, words of truth to power, and ability to give from apparently nothing but faith a greater abundance, suzerainty, and self-confidence, than any tempter could provide. Strength in faith.

Give us this day our daily bread. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. The power, the kingdom, the glory: all are yours O God.

Those are the three temptations in reverse. Power, Kingdom. Glory. All of which belong to God.

And Jesus is content to rest in the same hands that hold those three realities.

***

It goes all the way back to that first temptation. Because he lived not for himself but for us. He did not betray us for a crust of bread. He did not sell us out to rule. He did not need to prove anything, for himself or for us, and in that he showed the strength of faith that he gave us. He did not surrender to temptation. And he kept the faith to the end.

***

Of course our temptations will be different from Jesus – and George Washington. But the call to faithfulness is the same.

The challenge for us is this: are we ready to be servants of love, not rescuers; challengers of self-seeking ambition, not power-seekers; active in perseverance, not passive victims of doubt? Are we ready to live, not by bread alone, but in hope, and faith, and love, by the sure and certain promise, and presence, and challenge, of the word of God?

Are we ready to be transformed? To be servants of God? Proclaimers of his word?

To trust God, serve him only, and become bread for the world?

Lent is a call to conversion, to taking responsibility for our own growth and development as people of faith: for our own behavior, as individuals, and as a community, for all the emotional, intellectual, moral, religious, social and political, and economic aspects of our lives. That is our challenge, and our calling.

How do we in our world acknowledge that the power, the kingdom, and the glory belong to God? How do we see that kingdom come in our lives? Our world? Our community? Our church?

How do we reveal our dependence on God for our daily sustenance, thank him, and share it?

How do we share the gifts of providence, thinly spread or overwhelmingly abundant, that we have received?

How do we acknowledge that all things come from him, and in that knowledge offer our gifts?

God is the source of all blessing.

***

***

God of the desert, as we follow Jesus into the unknown, may we recognize the tempter when he comes; let it be your bread we eat, your world we serve, and you alone we worship. Amen.

(New Zealand Prayer Book, 573)

First Sunday in Lent

He did not betray us for a crust of bread.

--Ladislaus Boros, In Time of Temptation (translated by Simon and Erika Young)

http://edgeofenclosure.org/lent1c.html

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

• Romans 5:12-19

• Matthew 4:1-11

• Psalm 32

This Sunday being “Temptation” Sunday - and the actual anniversary of the birth of our first president - I looked for a way to tie together seeking kingdom, power, and glory, for oneself, to both.

The first president had military and legislative experience, commanding Virginia militia in the French and Indian War, the Continental Army, and federal troops during an insurrection (Whiskey Rebellion) and presiding over the Constitutional Convention, but his first civilian role in public administration I think was as president. I like it that he resigned twice from the militia, once from the army, and then retired from the Presidency after his second term (Farewell Address of September 19, 1796) -- ensuring a peaceful and model succession. As every (public) school child would know.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Washington

Matthew 4:1-11

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

• ● Malachi 3:1-4

• ● Hebrews 2:14-18

• ● Luke 2:22-40

• ● Psalm 84

Today we celebrate a feast that bears a variety of titles: The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin, aka Candlemas - or in Spanish, Candelaria, and also known as The Meeting, as in the meeting of Simeon and Anna with Jesus.

All these titles have meaning, all converge on this day, the feast at the beginning of February, forty days after the Nativity. And on this day, both the day of the parish annual meeting, and of considerable turmoil in our society, and therefore challenges for the church, there is much to learn from each title.

The Purification:

In accordance with the law, Mary makes a sacrifice so that she is cleansed from the state of ritual impurity that comes as a result of childbirth. Now she will again be able to participate in the full ceremonial life of her community.

The point is that she, and Joseph, are completing the requirement of the law, as in this as in all things, they are faithful people.

Throughout his life, this child, Jesus, fulfills the law, and fulfills the expectation of humanity and the promise of God.

The Presentation:

In presenting her firstborn son to the Lord, Mary, with Joseph, also fulfills another provision of the law, as laid out in the book of Exodus.

“Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.” (13:2)

“The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.” (22:29b)

Again the gospel makes the point that in all things Jesus is the fulfillment of the law.

He is also the fulfillment of promise, and the promise of future fulfillment.

Anna the prophet “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” – looking for a Savior, the Messiah, to free them from the captivity of sin and the fear of death.

The Meeting:

And Simeon, “righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel,” saw in this child what he had been looking for, even living for. And he took the child into his arms and said a prayer of praise and blessing:

The Song of Simeon Nunc Dimittis
Luke 2:29-32

Lord, you now have set your servant free *
to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, *
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations, *
and the glory of your people Israel.

Anna and Simeon welcomed the child and offered God their blessings and praise. But in their prophetic words was not only hope but a warning.

A savior for all is not welcomed by some. Having sung his Nunc dimittis, his song of blessing and farewell, Simeon goes on to say to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

It will become personal. It may touch you directly. And that is a warning we ourselves may take to heart as well.

Candlemas/Candelaria:

Over the centuries of the Church, a tradition has formed, to enter the sanctuary in procession this day carrying candles newly blessed, and singing a song - the Nunc dimittis. We bless the candles in worship this Candlemas, this Candelaria, for use throughout the year. These little lights of thine and mine sing out the glory of the Lord, the light of Christ.

In him appeared life and this life was the light of humankind. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out. (John 1:3-5)

As we go forth bearing this light into the world we bring with us the good news of the redemption of the world through Christ. And we carry with us the joy and the warning of the prophets.

We may be called upon to bear uncomfortable witness. In our calling to bear his light into the world, we may encounter darkness, despair and fear. But we are not alone, and we are not the first. We follow our Savior’s footsteps.

When Simeon gave his blessing to the Holy Family, I wonder what he said to them. The words most appropriate might well have been these, which the child grown to adulthood said to his own chosen family, his disciples:

● “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

● “Blessed are you that mourn, for you shall be comforted.

● “Blessed are the meek, for you shall inherit the earth.

● “Blessed are you that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall receive fullness.

● “Blessed are the merciful, for you shall receive mercy.

● “Blessed are the pure in heart, for you shall see God.

● “Blessed are the peacemakers, for you shall be called children of God.

● “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

● “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:1-12)