Leading with Joy

Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17When I pray I am grateful for the assured confidentiality that comes with that arrangement.I can say whatever I want to God, and God won’t tell anyone.I am also grateful for the grace that comes to me in those conversations. I do not feel harshly judged, or shamed, or ridiculed for the questions in my head or the contents of my heart. Any judgement or shame or ridicule I do hear or feel, comes from a source other than the God of love to whom I am praying.I am grateful, too, for the perspective my conversations with God give me. For a time, I’m able to see the struggles of my life, my deepest questions and longings in a perspective that is bigger than my own. A view from above, if you will.Most of all, though, I am grateful for the love I feel surrounded by when I pray. Though I am over 50 and my parents are now deceased, the desire to be held, assured and loved unconditionally has not waned. God seldom disappoints, though I may not feel it all the time.We are, in this season of Lent, in the “Pray” part of our Way of Love journey this year. Teach me your ways, O Lord. Teach me to pray.Being able to pray is a gift, and it is not one I have always enjoyed. The ability to pray can seem to come and go as unpredictably as the wind Jesus references in the reading from John’s gospel. I believe prayer is a response to, not a conjuring of, God. That is, whenever we pray, we are responding to an invitation from God to “come and have a chat.” When we worship, it is the same. We are here this morning not to make God happen. We are here because God happened and we responded.Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Now, erase from your mind that paradigm of “pharisee-bad, Jesus good.” The Pharisees were one group of Jewish people in the time of Jesus. The Pharisee is a learned man, as Jesus was, who would have known the Torah inside and out.But he has something to say to this fellow Jew and rabbi colleague Jesus. “We know,” Nicodemus says. “We know that you are from God.”I see in this story a man who has made his life about being an authority invited to consider that, despite all his training and his stature in the community, there might just be something left for him to learn. There might be something new to understand about how God might be moving in his life.Nicodemus couldn’t doubt, he didn’t feel like he had permission to wonder. He needed the cover of night to hide this encounter for fear his friends and family and other colleagues might discover he didn’t have all the answers. It's not Nicodemus’ fault. It’s how he was groomed.For his courage, for taking this risk in asking the foolish question or seeking a connection with Jesus he isn’t supposed to want, Nicodemus is rewarded. In this encounter, he receives grace. Jesus doesn’t send him away and tell him to come back when he isn’t ashamed. Jesus doesn’t say, as I may have, “Come back when you can sit with me in the daylight.” Further, Jesus tells him that his seeking and his wondering shows that he has, in fact, been borne from above. He is able to see things others cannot see. He has a perspective that is beyond his grooming. It is a God perspective. What a beautiful, wise, loving response to Nicodemus. Nicodemus teaches us to pray. And Jesus shows us what we might expect when we do. Like any time we spend in prayer, Nicodemus is met with Grace, and Wisdom. Oh yeah, and Love.“God so loved the world” Jesus tells Nicodemus near the end of their encounter. God SO loved the world. That’s why Jesus is doing what he is doing, and saying what he is saying. Not to condemn the world, but to love it into transformation. “You are loved, Nicodemus. You are loved more than you can imagine.”This interaction with Nicodemus teaches us to pray in our conversations with God. But it also holds deep wisdom for how we might pray through our actions in the world.As a white male in America, I have been groomed to believe that I should know all the answers and be able to imagine all the possible solutions. Not knowing the answer, not having a way to fix a problem undoes me in a way I am often embarrassed to admit. I struggle, as a leader in the church, that I don’t know what will fix all the problems we face as a people in this world; poverty, racism, sexism and misogyny. I am confronted with my limitations as I try to face these challenges that are generations, centuries or millennia in the making. Despair tempts me as I think of the work in front of us, and the time it will take to get there.Too often, I am forced to stand with Nicodemus as he wonders with God simply, “How can these things be?”Sometimes, when I am at my boldest, I might seek wisdom under the cover of darkness, afraid I will say the wrong thing, ask the wrong question or betray an ignorance I ought not to have.I wonder if this interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus doesn’t hold deep wisdom for how we might move forward together as God’s people in the world today.I wonder if, like Nicodemus, we might risk asking questions we don’t think we should have. If we might risk vulnerability we have been encouraged to seal over. If we might open our hearts to the wisdom of someone we aren’t “supposed” to listen to. If we might practice sitting at the feet of those we have been told to stand over.I wonder what might happen if we encouraged each other to have all the questions, not all the answers. If we supported each other in listening for the way the Spirit is moving and held one another in abundant Grace and abiding Love while we fumble our way through, together.We might begin by speaking aloud to God what we cannot yet imagine ourselves saying out loud to anyone else. We might begin by asking God the questions to which we are supposed to have the answers. We might start by asking God for the perspective we can’t yet see or the way forward we don’t yet know. And maybe, just maybe, when we take it to God, and we receive that Grace and Love and Wisdom Nicodemus received, we might just risk taking it to one another.And when we take it to each other, we create relationships of grace, communities of mercy built on the solid foundation of the love God has for us, made known to us in the one who came because God loved us, loves us, so.So, then, in word and deed, let us pray.AMEN.© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

Eighth Sunday after Epiphany; February 23, 2020 (Year A); Preached at St. Paul’s BrooklineExodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9This morning we remember the Transfiguration, when Jesus ascends the mountain with three of his followers, is transfigured before them, and stands with Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets. This morning we remember Peter, whose impulse it is to build places for Jesus and Moses and Elijah to stay. We remember God’s voice again proclaiming Jesus God’s beloved child. And we remember that all of this disappeared as quickly as it arrived, as Jesus and his followers go back down the mountain, toward Jerusalem and all that waits for them there.This morning, we are invited to consider how we might “practice Transfiguration”in our own lives, today.Chances are that most of you are here this morning because, at some point in your life, you experienced a transfiguration of your own, though you may not have used that language.But you may have had an experience of God that planted a seed within you that would keep you seeking that experience for the remainder of your lifetime; a word spoken by an elder; knowing the unconditional love of another, or offering it yourself.I know I have had mine. The reason I find myself ordained and leading a congregation is due to a deep desire I have for others to know what I have known in my life about the transformative love of God in Christ, and to experience those moments of Transfiguration again for myself.I wonder what transformative, if not transfigurative, experiences are being held in your heart that have sustained you in your lives.Or maybe you are here because you have heard someone talk about an experience of God they have had in their life and you long for a mountain-top experience like that for yourself.Whatever longing you have in your heart, God has placed it there, and it’s all there in this story from Matthew’s Gospel. Though it seems ancient and maybe a little sci-fi, I love this story because it strikes at a basic truth for all of us who strive to follow Jesus. And that truth is that we might glimpse God on a mountaintop, and that glimpse might leave us certain of the presence of God in our life, but we are always led, from those experiences, back into the “real” world where we are to serve God, no matter how unsure of the presence of God we might again become.We keep trying to climb mountaintops, and God keeps sending us into hard work of the world.Peter wants things to stay like they were at the peak, up in the clouds. He offers to build tents for Jesus and Moses and Elijah. Set apart from the world, basking in the certainty of God’s voice and Jesus’ glow, Peter wants things to stay just like that. And who can blame him? Peter, quite literally, has his head in the clouds.But Jesus knows that the Kingdom of God is not on that mountain peak. It is back down the mountain and toward Jerusalem where he is certain of the task in front of him. The path down the mountain will lead him to the cross.We climb the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John this morning as we do every year on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before Lent.This feast is, in our liturgical calendar, the moment we descend the mountain top seasons of Christmas and Epiphany and head into the forty days of Lent that leads us to Jerusalem and to the cross. We will turn our attention from the radiant experiences of God’s revelations among us; as an infant, as one worshiped by the Magi, presented in the temple, and baptized in the River Jordan. For weeks we have heard the stories of our faith that center on the revelation of God to the world, weeks reminded of where God is in the world and how God is moving. Weeks of mountaintop experiences.But we cannot stay there. We cannot build tents and live in Christmas or Epiphany. We must head into the world where the Kingdom of God lives.We must practice Transfiguration. (Many thanks to Carl Greg for his ideas on “practicing transfiguration.” https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2011/02/lectionary-commentary-practicing-transfiguration-for-march-6-2011/)To consider how we might practice Transfiguration in our own lives, we might ask ourselves how we are intentionally creating time and space to climb the mountain with Jesus as our guide. How might you place yourself in the presence of God? What feeds your relationship with God and how intentional are you about practicing it? Maybe it is weekly worship, or daily prayer. A time of intentional silence or a long quiet walk along the Muddy river. Where is God waiting to meet you, to show you the radiance of God’s glory that you might be fed and sustained for the work ahead of you?That is practicing Transfiguration.Practicing Transfiguration is also asking ourselves what tents we have built in our lives to keep God from slipping through our grasp. Is it hard to see Christ in the world because we have left him back up on the mountaintop?The tents we build have power over us. Nostalgia tricks us into thinking God was more present “back then” or “back there.” We invent the “good old days” and we place God in a place and time not our own. Remember back when Sunday schools were overflowing, back when churches were packed, back life was easier and people were nicer.More than shining faces and voices from clouds, the real myths of the Transfiguration are the tents we have built for God in our lives. These tents do nothing but rob us from God’s presence in the here and now and they ignore the reality that, while some might have been living on the mountaintops of the “Good Old Days,” it was only because countless others were living out their lives on Calvary.We are not meant to live out our lives on the mountaintop. They are but momentary and fleeting glimpses of the Divine. These glimpses serve to nourish us for the journey back into the world where we see the face of Christ in everyone we see. Down the mountain and in the world where we clothe the body of Christ, liberate the prisoner Christ, free the slave Christ, feed the hungry Christ, soothe the suffering Christ, and heal the broken Christ. We do all this, sustained by the power of the Risen Christ who is always waiting to greet us at the empty tomb.So, come. Hear the Good News. Receive the Peace of Christ and hear that you are God’s beloved. Share with us in the Breaking of Bread where we know the Lord Jesus. Experience the healing power of Christ’s Love. Bask in the radiance of God’s glory sung in joyful voices. Be transformed, and maybe even transfigured. Enjoy this time on the mountain, for there is a world of Jerusalems waiting for you, needing you, just on the other side of those doors. Alleluia. Amen.While all direct and indirect quotes are always cited, there are sources I read regularly in preparation for sermon writing. Chances are thoughts have been spurred by these sources and so I list the usual suspects here: David Lose, In the Meantime, The New Interpreters Bible, Sacra Pagina .© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

2019 Annual Meeting Rector’s Annual AddressFebruary 9, 2020Good morning, church! And welcome to the one hundred and seventy-first annual meeting of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline. This is my 11th Annual Address as your rector. And, as is my practice each year, I want to start by reminding you how much I love you, and how much I love being your rector. Let me state, once again, that it is a privilege to walk your journeys of faith with you and I am humbled by your faithfulness and your trust.I do not wish to subject you to a reading of the Annual Report. I hope you read the digital version emailed to you this week. If you didn’t get a chance to, please do. You will be amazed -- even those of you who have been here for years will be amazed -- at the breadth and the depth of ministry happening in and from this place.I do want to take this opportunity to make sure you know who our ministry leadership team is. These are the people with whom you should talk if you are curious about what God might be needing you to do next in this place. If my math is correct, though I’m sure my count is incomplete, we are blessed with over 26 ministries at St. Paul’s led by over 30 members of the community.As I read your name, please stand and wave. Let’s hold our thunderous applause until the end.Personnel Committee Ouida Foster Altar Guild Sharlene Wing and John Ferguson Chalice Bearers Maryann KurkjianFlower Guild Maureen CarterHealing Prayer Steve Morrissey Lectors Michael Scheffler Ushers Sam Scott Eucharistic Visitors Maryann KurkjianPastoral Care Team Maryann Kurkjian and Kate Kelley Stewardship Stephen Morrissey and Leah Rugen Yard Sale Steve Estes-Smargiassi Be an Angel Paul Daigneault B-Safe/B-Ready Piper Trelstad and Kate KelleyMinistry Outside the Parish Matshai Motimele and Tim Hintz Mission Sundays Melissa DullaPrison Ministry Leahanne Sarlo Gardens Julie Starr Archives Pat Dunbar Education for Ministry Leah Rugen and Linda Sanches Scripture Group Leah Rugen Church School Teachers Julie Starr, Janet Rankin, Andrea Brue, Jason Fairchild, Chris Dulla, Maria O’MearaHospitality Alan Fried Knitting Group Maureen Carter Greeters and Newcomers Melissa Dulla, Leah Rugen, and Ayanna McPhail Yoga Martha CurtisCentering Prayer Ann ColageoThank you to our ministry leaders. And our Vestry, led this past year by our Wardens Julie House and Brett Foster. If you were on the Vestry this past year, please stand and accept our gratitude.And, finally, our staff. This group of people we ask to work miracles each and every day. Our nursery staff, our section leaders, our finance administrator Christine, our sexton James, our Parish Administrator Jill, our Director of Music and Organist Andy, and the best clergy team a rector could ask for; our Deacon Pat, our Curate Isaac and our Associate Rector Elise. Let’s hear it for our staff.So many people to thank, and so many more of you who showed up and made 2019 at St. Paul’s another year to remember.2019 was yet another year in which God stretched us, stretched me, in new and unexpected ways.The budget certainly captured our attention. Three years ago we made the decision to use a chunk of our endowment to match funds raised from the congregation for the renovation of the lower level, parish offices and backyard. This might just be the year that work is completed!This decision was made carefully and with the understanding that the increased income from a lower level tenant would exceed the draw we would have taken on that amount. And then our grand tower proved jealous of the attention our lower level was getting and required urgent repair to the tune of $700k. Rather than shrinking before the challenge, we decided to meet it; and meet it we have.Over the past three years, our deficit at the end of the year has ranged from 48K in 2017, to 72K in 2018 and 33K in 2019. This year, we are projecting to cut that by 2/3rds with a projected deficit of about 10K. I am so proud of the work the budget committee has done to get us here, under Brett Foster’s rigorous leadership. It hasn’t been easy and tough conversations needed to be had, but I stand before you this morning feeling like I can look each one of you in the eye and promise you that each and every dollar you have entrusted to us for the work of God in this place is being stretched to its limits and not a penny is wasted. Transparency and trust has always been at the core of our financial leadership. If you want to know more about how your finances are being managed, please speak to Brett. He’d be more than happy to talk with you. I mean, way more than happy to talk with you.And the even better news in all of this is that we have the power and the opportunity to erase that projected 10K budget gap before we’ve even closed the books on February. If you haven’t yet submitted a pledge card, I ask you to seriously consider it. More than a financial commitment to the work of the parish, it is one way of saying “I’m in” to the values we hold and the ministry we share. No pledge amount is too small or not needed. And if you have submitted a pledge form, I ask you to have a real conversation and spend time in real prayer about whether there might be room to stretch your pledge.Why would I ask you to do such a thing? Because I believe we are making a difference. I have proof. And because I believe there has never been a better time to be the church, or to be St. Paul’s Brookline.There is a scripture passage that has been on my mind and in my heart these past few months, and it keeps popping up, which is usually God’s way of getting my attention.It comes from the book of Esther. It’s a great story, and tells the story behind the Jewish festival of Purim. But, in brief, Esther is queen and secretly Jewish. Her uncle Mordacai discovers a plan made by the king’s right hand man to kill anyone who is Jewish and begs Esther to intercede on her people’s behalf.Esther is afraid. She is not supposed to take audience with the king unless summoned, an offense punishable by death, and she is afraid to tell the king that she is Jewish.Her uncle Mordacai pleads with her and asks her this question:Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for a time such as this?That’s a great question for the church. Maybe it is exactly a time such as this that the church is needed most.And it’s a great question for St. Paul’s. I have every reason to believe it is for a time exactly like the times in which we live for which St. Paul’s might exist.And it’s a great question for each one of you. Maybe this is exactly the time in our community’s life for which you are needed the most, maybe now is the time for which God brought you here.This is the time. As Jesus reminds us in this morning’s Gospel, we have a calling to be salt and light in a world losing both its flavor and its vision. St. Paul’s continues to be salt and light.As racism and oppression continue to stain our national life, our Anti-Racism Group is choosing to go deeper in unpacking racism and white supremacy through their participation in Sacred Ground. Salt.This fall, Elise, Pat, Jocelyn Collen and Leahanne Sarlo brought the sacrament of the body of Christ to women at the South Bay correctional facility. It was the first time most of them had seen a woman preside at the altar. Light.As anti-semitic and anti-muslim rhetoric and violence feels increasingly common, we invited our Muslim neighbors to come and share their story with us. Light.We participated in the first ever Brookline Interfaith Service in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Temple Sinai. Salt.These are not small things. As individual acts they might not change the world, but they go along way to make sure the world does not change us. Our longing to be in closer relationship with God continues to grow. This past year we started three new ministries meant to feed our Spirits; to keep us salty and burning bright.We experimented with “Eat, Pray, Work” during lent, offering a daytime monastic-like co-working space. Our first Education for Ministry class began in the fall with 11 participants and two co-mentors. Ann Colageo and Isaac began our new Wednesday morning Contemplative Prayer Group.2019 was a year that St. Paul’s continued to live into Frederick Buechner’s concept of vocation, or calling. He writes, “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need.”How blessed are we that our greatest joys as a community is exactly what the world needs right now.When we committed to repairing the tower, one of the most convincing arguments I heard was from a long time parishioner who reminded me, reminded us, that this place; the buildings, the ministries, the spirit of this place, we are the stewards of all of it.Those who have come before us, those whose names surround us etched in granite, they have passed it on to us for a time. And we will, one day, pass it on to those who will come after us. It is our job to care for it and all it represents with all the love and courage that it demands.But we are not meant to leave it just as we found it. God needs us to leave this place better than we found it; healthier than we found it, more robust than it was when it was given to us. We are meant to leave it saltier and more filled with light than it ever has been.God needs us to push this place and the people in it to be no less than a glimpse of Kingdom that God dreams for us to be.And that is what this next year is for. Each year, a new gift, a new opportunity for us to ask, as a community and individuals where God needs us next, where God needs you next. This will be a year that tries the fabric of our country. This will be a year that demands we remember who we are, whose we are and who God needs us to be. We will not all vote for the same candidate, we will not all vote for the same party. We can, however, show the world, show each other that we can love one another as fiercely as we disagree with each other. We can show the world, in ways big and small, what it means to be a people who can most easily be described for the love we have for one another, and for the ways we love and care for the least, the lost and the lonely.We can be salt in a world losing its flavor and we can be light in a world losing its vision.People of St. Paul’s, may 2020 be exactly the time for which we were made. AMEN.© 2020 The Rev’d Jeffrey W. Mello

BU journalism student Colby Lucas interviewed me about the history of the solar panels at St. Paul’s. Here is her interview.

Christmas Eve Children’s Service 2019Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brookline, MA A video came out from New Zealand in 2012. It is the inspiration for this Children’s Christmas sermon. You can see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY

Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 1:47-55; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11There is a line in a favorite hymn of mine that causes me to stumble a bit. The hymn “The Angel Gabriel from heaven came” tells the story of Mary’s discovery that she is to be God-bearer for the world.But there’s that line “Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head.’” The problem? Mary has never struck me as anything meek or mild. Even calling her a lady, as in “most highly favored lady” seemed, to me, to be the writing of men, taking this most radical and powerful of biblical characters and domesticating her, making her palatable and non-threatening -- to serve an example to the women in their own lives who they wished to be more palatable and non-threatening.But, as we know, well-behaved women seldom make history.And so I did some research, and what I found is what I often find when I take the time to unpack my knee-jerk reactions.“Meek and mild” has nothing to do with being weak. It is, in fact a showing of great power. Meek and mild means that she wasn’t reactionary. She didn’t yell back at the Gabriel, and who would have blamed her if she did. The angel just gave her the news that her hard and marginalized life was about to become harder and more marginalized.Instead, she took a deep breath. She sat with God. She considered the task in front of her and then she agreed to partner with God in God’s work in the world, despite what it would mean for her life. If you wonder, “Mary did you know?” the answer is, yes, she did.She knew. And she said yes anyway. She didn’t bargain or barter, she didn’t pass on the offer or come up with a million excuses why she was the wrong candidate, like so many of the male prophets do. Turns out, Mary’s meekness and mildness is an example for all of us and perhaps most especially for the men among us who are often quick to speak before thinking, those who listen only to respond, not to actually hear what the person is saying. Meek and mild is about strength and inner-control.But Mary’s quiet demeanor doesn’t last very long. In Luke, where the story of the Annunciation is told, Mary is visited by her cousin Elizabeth. I like to imagine the door shutting, Elizabeth now inside. Mary closes the curtains and makes sure Joseph is out of earshot. They share a knowing look that breaks into a grin and then great laughter.And then, in the safety of Elizabeth’s company, Mary lets it rip. And out of her mouth pours the Magnificat; The Song of Mary we heard this morning.God has shown God’s strength in choosing her. God has scattered the proud in God’s choice of this poor peasant girl. In choosing Mary, God has cast down the mighty, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away. God has come to the help of God’s people in Mary, because God has remembered God’s promise of Mercy.God has remembered. And so has Mary.Meek, mild, powerful and revolutionary.This scene would make no sense to those who passed by on the streets outside Mary’s house.How could she possibly see this as God’s triumph? How could she see her pregnancy as a bringing about of God’s dream for the world and not a further punishment that would bring her grief and suffering. It would certainly put her further outside her community and make her the source of whispers in the public square and in the church for centuries.How could she react the way she did? Because she knew. Because her trust in God was solid. And it would be her faith in God that she would pass on to her son. Later in Luke, when Jesus is called to read from the scroll, he chooses to read the passage from Isaiah that announces,“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” (Luke 4: 17-21)NRSVSound familiar?Like mother, like son.For six weeks now, as we have been observing our extended Advent, we have, each week, sung two verses from the Canticle of the Turning, a setting of the Magnificat.And though we have tried, as a church and a culture, to silence women’s voices, to edit them to make them less threatening, to doubt them to make them less trustworthy, or to shame them to make them less of God, Mary’s song tells the truth. Mary’s song puts the patriarchy on notice. Mary’s song is the shot across the bow that the way things have always been are not the way they will be when God’s work is done on this earth.Her reaction might not make any more sense to our modern ears than they did to her neighbors. Her response might seem foolish or naive. Dorothy Day once said, “you should live in a way that wouldn't make sense unless God exists.”Perhaps she got that idea from Mary. None of what Mary proclaims makes any sense in her context, or in ours, unless God exists. In which case, they make perfect sense.I want you to imagine a young woman, no older than 15, who chooses to believe enough in the hope she has for the world that she makes a choice to do something that no one truly understands.She has been ostracized and told by the world around her that, because of who she is, she would have nothing to offer the world.But she turns all that upside down, and uses the very things that she is told are her greatest liabilities to do the turning.Her courage frightens the powers that be, and those powers come after her, because that’s what challenging the status quo will get you.I’m talking, of course, about Greta Thunberg.Greta was just 15 years old when she started a school strike for climate change all by herself.The image is quite something. Just Greta and her sign.So here she is. A girl of 15 with Asperger’s Syndrome living in Sweden who believes enough in the capacity of the world to turn itself upside down to save the climate that she behaves in a way that makes no sense, unless you believe in the possibility of change as much as she does.And as for her Asperger’s? Her direct speech, ability to focus and courage to move forward are gifts she claims because of it. Thunberg writes, “I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.”It is, she says, her “superpower.”And what about her age? She’s now just 16 years old, has 3.6 million followers on twitter and was just named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.So, we can no longer believe that age has anything to do with the ability to get things done, to turn the world.What some would call her liabilities are, in fact, her greatest strengths, because she believes she can make a difference in this world.Mary’s “liabilities” were her superpowers, too. For who else could have believed in God’s promises of mercy more than someone whose life was completely dependent on them?What,I wonder, do you think are your greatest liabilities? Are you too young or too old? Are you differently abled? Do you learn differently? Do you live with a mental health diagnosis?Are you just the kind of person the world would walk by if you were sitting outside by yourself with a sign proclaiming God’s longing for the world?Are you just the kind of person the world would write off as undesirable, unhireable, unimportant? Maybe, if we live our lives in ways that don’t make sense unless God exists, our courageous act of living might just bring God’s existence into view.Maybe the very thing that we worry stands in our way, that makes us unfit, God knows is our greatest superpower.The first hymn of Christmas are words spoken by a poor, unmarried pregnant middle-eastern teenager. And they are revolutionary. They are the words of the oppressed set free. They announce that, through her, the world is about to turn. And they are the truth of what it is we proclaim when we say “Emmanuel, God with us.”What hymn will you sing to tell the world the very same thing? Let us live our lives in ways that only make sense if God exists. It is time to be meek. It is time to be mild. And it is time to turn the world upside down.AMEN.© 2019 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello MICHAEL CAMPANELLA/Getty Images and REUTERS/Kate Munsch

At St. Paul’s, we observe an extended advent. So this sermon uses the readings for Advent 1, though at St. Paul’s it was our Advent 4. For more info on extended Advent, check out the Advent Project. Listen Here: Read Here:Advent 4/1 – Year ADecember 1, 2019Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brookline, MAThe Reverend Jeffrey W. MelloIsaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44; Psalm 122Just before the passage we heard this morning from Matthew, Jesus is talking with his disciples about what sounds like the end of the world. In this morning’s reading, Jesus anticipates their question. He certainly anticipates mine. “When, Jesus?” When will all of this happen? They want to be ready. I want to be ready. They want to be prepared. I want to be prepared.Ready for what, though? Prepared for what?While many will read these passages and interpret them to mean that Jesus is talking about the physical destruction of the world as we know it; the end-times, what Jesus is really talking about is the turning upside down of the world. Just like we sing each week in Advent.The world, Jesus predicts, is about to turn. And it won’t be pretty when it does. But after it turns? Oh, after it turns it will be beautiful. It will be paradise. It will be the Kingdom of God here on earth.Jesus’ followers want to know when, exactly, this will take place. But Jesus says that’s just not how it works. Just like Noah had no warning (though, to be fair, he had time to build the arc), the kingdom of God will break in suddenly even as we are about the most mundane of tasks, working in the field, or grinding grain. One will be taken and one will be left.Yet, somehow, by the time Saint Paul writes his letter to the church at Rome, the question of when has been decided. “Now,” St. Paul writes. “Now is the moment to wake from sleep.” Now is the time Jesus foretold.But, how does he define “now?” Now, as in two thousand years ago? Now as in at the time of his writing? Or now, when we are hearing this letter? How could he have known that “now” was going to be sometime “later?”All Jesus tells his followers is that we are not to fall into the same trap as the homeowner who didn’t let his house be broken into.But doesn’t that make getting broken into a good thing?And, wait...doesn’t that make God the thief in the night?And I think that the point. God is the thief in the night. And, using Jesus’ metaphor and following his logic, God does not want us to know when God might arrive because God is afraid we won’t let God break in. God knows us well enough to know that we will be too busy trying to make God happen that we won’t be able to let God happen.We won’t, if we have time to prepare, let God break into our lives, or break into our hearts. And God desperately wants to do just that.Perhaps the wisdom gained by the early church in the intervening years between Jesus’ ministry on earth and Paul’s letter to the community in Rome is that the key to be reading for the coming of Jesus into the world isn’t to be prepared for some time in the future, but to live every moment expecting it happen in the here and now; to live each moment as though it is happening. The key to letting God break into our lives isn’t to busy ourselves with behaving in a way we think will make God happen, but to live our lives everyday, in every moment, with our hearts open, unarmed, and vulnerable to a break in by God.Maybe the way to be suprised by God is to assume the surprise at every turn. To expect it. To look for it. To wonder where God is in the world around me, not if God is in the world around me.“Maybe this is God,” you might suggest to yourself walking down the street, or waiting on hold, or looking in the mirror. “Maybe this is God.”Maybe one is taken and one is left because one was expecting God to show up in the mundane details of life and the other was too busy working to notice God had, in fact showed up. God will show up, but only the one who expects God to be there in the field, or at the grain mill, or in the meeting, or on the street, while raking leaves, or shoveling snow, while grocery shopping or visiting the sick will know it.Last week Chris Dulla, Andrew Tanis, Art Wing and Melissa Dulla played in a band at a restaraunt who was celebrating their second anniversary. They call their band the “Embers,” because they trace their origins to the campfire at the Parish Retreat. As I watched them play, I saw the church at its best. “God did this,” I thought. God brought these folks together to create joy and connection. When Sarah Dulla joined Chris for a Lady Gaga duet, I thought my hear was going to burst out of my chest.In that restaurant, I saw God. I’m sure everyone there saw a “nice group of people” singing in front of them. But I’m not sure they expected God to show up in that restaurant in Dorchester on a Sunday night in November.I’m not sure how many were left, but this one was definitely taken.We sing the hymn “Were you there when they crucified my Lord” every year while we say the Stations of the Cross. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? When they nailed him to the tree? When they laid him in the tomb? Sometimes, it causes me to tremble.”Just as the Coming of God into our lives is not bound by time to some point in the distant future, Christ crucified is not bound by time to some point in the distant past.Was I there when they crucified my Lord? Well, that depends whether I have spent time looking for Christ in the world around me. But as Jackson Caesar sang this spiritual last night here at Saint Paul’s and asked me the question of whether or not I was there when the sun refused to shine I had to say “yes” I was there. Yes, I was there when immigrant parents died on the border. Yes, I was there when young men of Color were shot dead in the street. Yes, I was there when wars were raged on my behalf and when creation was stripped for my dependence on fossil fuel. Yes, I was there. Yes, Lord, I am there now. And sometimes it causes me to tremble.And I was there when God broke into the world at the hospital bed of a parishioner, in the conversation with a colleague over coffee, on retreat at a monastery. Yes, Lord, I was there, too. And sometimes, it causes me to tremble.I was there when you were born into the world again this morning, and I will be there when you are crucified in the world again tonight.Don’t miss the ways God is crucified every day in this world by looking to the past for when it happened to Jesus on the cross.Expect God to be Crucified today.And please don’t miss the ways God’s love and truth and mercy is already breaking into your life today by looking and planning for the way God might break in sometime in the distant future. Expect to be surprised by God today.The breaking in of God into our lives and hearts isn’t meant to be a surprise. It is not a Pop quiz on our behavior. It is not a carrot meant to reward us or a consequence meant to punish us.God wants to break in, all the time. Is breaking in, every day. Now is the time. It need not come as a surprise. AMEN.© 2019 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

At St. Paul’s, we observe an extended advent. So this sermon uses the readings for Advent 1, though at St. Paul’s it was our Advent 4. For more info on extended Advent, check out the Advent Project.Listen Here: Read Here:Advent 2 (extended) Proper 28 (Year C)November 15, 2019 Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brookline, MAThe Reverend Jeffrey W. MelloMalachi 4:1-2a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19Few plot points in movies and plays get to me emotionally like those in which the persecuted stand up and say “no.”The strength and courage that comes from their desperation and hope connects to something deep in the core of my soul. This week I went to see the movie “Harriet.” Based on the story of Harriet Tubman and her heroic work as a conductor for the underground railroad, this movie was full of moments of fierce desperation and hope.When Harriet, for fear of being sold, decides to run off the plantation, on her own, dogs and guns mere feet behind her.When she, who was born Araminta Ross and called “Minty” claims her new name, her free name, Harriet Tubman.When the Fugitive Slaves Act is passed and escaped slaves in free states are no longer safe, the conductors of the Underground Railway meet to discuss the end of their work as they knew it. Moving slaves on foot to freedom in Canada was a 600 mile journey no one thought possible. Their only hope now was to wait for a war to settle the matter.Harriet snaps. And she says “no.”“I ain’t givin’ up rescuing slaves because it’s far! Many a you don’t know slavery first hand. You were born free, or maybe you been free so long, you forget what it’s like. You got comfortable and important... ...You got beautiful homes, and beautiful wives.... But I remember [...] Tryin’ not to think a what dey went through... What those still enslaved are goin’ through right now! I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free ‘em! So I ain’t givin’ up! I’ma do whatever I got to, go wherever I got to, however I got to do it - to rescue as many slaves as possible, til dis beast, dis monster call slavery is slain dead!”Heroic strength and courage, born of deep desperation and abiding hope.In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus, walking with his followers, knows desperation. And he knows hope. In this moment, however, it seems his followers have forgotten. or they’ve grown complacent. Or they have given up.In the midst of Jesus’ urgent work to reconcile the world to God his followers stop to appreciate the glory of the temple as it stands around them. What an amazing architectural feat. What a sign that there God is back on top. What a testament to the glory of the status quo. What proof that they have arrived and all is right with the world.Who need be desperate, when the temple looks so pretty? Who needs hope when what you have been hoping for soars around you in exquisite detail?Jesus knows what the prophet Malachi predicted. “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; .... But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”Malachai knew it. Jesus knew it. Harriet knew it.But do you know it? Right here, right now in this moment, is the sin-sick nature of this world propelling you out into the very thick of it that God’s dream for the world might be made known?Or do you just not think it’s possible?Are you worn down, worn out? Frustrated that the closer we seem to get to God’s justice, the stronger the forces that rebel against God seem to get?Or, maybe, the temple looks pretty good from where you stand. Maybe the cries of the oppressed are hard to hear with our ear buds in.No matter what force of evil you are battling, whether it is the global sin of income disparity and hunger, our national sin of racism, or personal wars of addiction or depression. No matter the battle, we know that things always get worse before they get better.We know that power is not given up by the powerful without fierce resistance. And we know that “the way things have always been” can be an uncomfortable but predictable balm against the unknown future hope for which God made us.Have we forgotten? Have we gotten too comfortable? We all have our pretty temples that distract us, and tempt us to turn away from brutal reality of others’ lives, or of our own.Did the glory of marriage equality make the world a safe place for transgender women of color?Did the splendor of the election of our nation’s first black president heal the centuries old sin of racism?Did the advent of the #metoo movement give women economic parity or safety from human trafficking?Or maybe the current state of affairs in this world makes it seem to you like the task in front of us, bringing about the Dream of God in this world, is simply impossible? And it just seems to get harder everyday, like a 100 mile escape on foot turning to a six hundred mile journey through the wilderness?What will we do? Do we, like the committed abolitionists of Harriet’s day, simply wait for some kind of war, some kind of outside force, wait for someone else to solve the problems in the world? How has that worked out in the past?And do we wait for some kind of epic battle to end the deep pain in our families? How does that end?Do we wait for a war to solve for us the battle that rages in our hearts? How many victims of those wars do we have to bury before we’re convinced it’s too many? How many guns will be enough? How many overdoses? How many suicides?Maybe it is time for us to stop running. Maybe it is time to turn, and to look again at whatever monsters are chasing us and say “no?”This season of Advent is, or at least it can be, about so much more than getting ready for Christmas. It is, or it can be, about getting ready for Christ.It can be a time to invite Jesus into our lives, time to take an inventory of where we are heading and where the focus of our lives is, and to say “No.” A time to say that we will not give up simply because the work is hard.We will not give up simply because it looks pretty good from where we sit. Advent is a time to turn from the forces that chase us, the voices that tell us to give up, to face again the future which God intends for us. It is a time to turn away from the ways we numb ourselves to the pain in this world, while waiting for someone else to heal it. It is a time to remember again that we are not to be wearied in doing good just because doing good is scary, or because it is hard, or because the results are often generations in the coming. As Jesus asks his followers to turn from the distraction of the temple, he asks us to turn and look at him again. Seek him again. Follow him again. Don’t be distracted or complacent or hopeless, but turn and face the brokenness in this world because that’s exactly where Jesus waits for us. That is where Christ will be born to us. That is where God will break into our world, into our lives and rise, like the sun of righteousness, with healing in its wings.Hear the words of the prophet Harriet. “I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free ‘em! So I ain’t givin’ up! I’ma do whatever I got to, go wherever I got to, however I got to do it.”Don’t give up.Do whatever you have to do.Go wherever you’ve got to go.You’ve got to do it.Stop running.Turn around.Get desperate.Claim hope.Don’t let anyone tell you the limits of what you can do.And rise. Rise like the sun of righteousness bearing healing on your wings.AMEN.© 2019 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello