St. Paul's Westfield

No doubt there were people in the crowd that day who had decided that Jesus was the real thing. They'd heard his words, they'd seen his miracles, and they had decided ‘yes, he is the One; we must follow him.' Their decision did not follow days of prayerful thought; they hadn't carefully considered all the pluses and minuses, all the pros and cons of following Christ. They heard, they saw, and they got it. Let's go. And to them, Jesus speaks words – not of congratulations, but of warning. Before you make a promise count the cost. Don't promise what you can't deliver.

Aren't you tired of the transactional life? Are you fed up with issuing invitations with the hope that you will give something in return? The opposite of the transactional life is the life of grace – the life of following Christ, the kind that forces us to give and give with no expectations because we just have to,

Love was more important to Jesus than being doctrinally pure. Human beings are more important than religious correctness. So, if you have ever been denied the ministry of the Christian church because you have broken religious rules, then know this – Jesus welcomes you and lavishes his grace on you. If you have been refused the sacraments because you are divorced, Jesus welcomes you. If you have been denied the sacraments because you have not been confirmed by a proper bishop, Jesus welcomes you. If you have been told that you can't join a congregation, or serve in a leadership role, or be ordained, or minister the grace of God in some way because of who you are, then Jesus welcomes you.

Don't resent the training, and don't despise fourth place. Accept your weakness, embrace the darkness, celebrate the suck. Look to the Hebrew heroes and notice not just their faith but also their failings. Notice how those moral breakdowns and character meltdowns did not exclude them from God's grace and did not evict them from the Hall of Faith. They are seated in the crowd – part of the cloud of heavenly witnesses. Those stands are full of sinners, but their sins were not as powerful as God's grace.

This wallet will pass away. It will be consumed by mold, and its contents by moths. It is earthly treasure and contains earthly treasure. But we will invest in our spiritual wallets, won't we? You can't see it, but it holds a full and beautiful record of who you really are. Your acts of love, kindness and service will last for all time. When I compare my two wallets, I confess that the earthly one weighs more. It is stuffed to capacity. My spiritual wallet has a lot of room in it. Jesus says it is when we sell our possessions and give to the poor that we fill our spiritual wallet. In other words, acts of kindness, works of service, gifts of love. That multitude of little gestures and simple words that demonstrate the love of God to those who need it. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near, and no moth destroys.”

The first casualty of suffering is perspective. When we are in the crushing pain of here and now it is desperately hard to leave the dance, climb to the balcony, and survey the world from the perspective of the reign of God and the Lordship of Christ. We live with disorientation, instability, bewildering change. Confusion and decay are all around us and within us. But we have died with Christ and have been raised with him to the balcony. Seated with him, we receive a new vision of hope and serenity.

If you are looking for a foolproof way to turn your family and friends off God, then let me suggest one way that guarantees success. Be a hypocrite. There is nothing like it, especially if the person you are seeking to drive away is a under the age of thirty.

We are people on a mission. We live with intention. We are not willing merely to drift through life from one meaningless experience to another. No, we are here for a reason. Our lives have purpose. Each morning when we get out of bed, we do so with the clear goal that today we're going to be better people, today we are going to be more ethical workers, today we will be more loving partners, more loyal friends, more faithful disciples. The Christian life is about focusing on something – and that ‘something' is the back of Jesus as he strides ahead of us. Oh, and don't forget where he's going - a cross; but ultimately to glory.

Disintegration is the flavor of our day; alienation is the curse that defines this moment in human history. Uncle Edward, that old legalist, that guardian of our morality, drives our divisions between gender, race, and economics. But we are free from his guardianship. In Jesus we have grown. Filled with his Spirit we can make mature, holy choices - that build reconciliation and prosper our community.

The Rev. Christopher M. Decatur , Assistant Rector St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Westfield NJ June 12th, 2022

So this week, I found myself feeling frustrated and asking God how we can remain undefiled by the spirit that lures us into forming factions, judging, rejecting, and dividing, and how we can embrace one another - not just despite our differences, but because of them, because we recognize that we're incomplete without each other. Our task is to joyfully listen to the views of Christians we disagree with because we know that they are made in God's image, have God's Spirit, and have an experience of God's revelation that I do not have.

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” “People of Union County, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” There's work to be done. Don't look up, look out – to our community. Don't look up, look in – to the resources that God has poured into our lives. Don't look up, look forward – to the future that God is designing Don't look up, look out; and in; and forward.

It's hard to live in exile. When you're miles from home; when you no longer see the people you love; when you have your freedom denied you. But when your exile is just 2,000 yards away, it's maybe harder. 2,000 yards away you can hear the sounds of the parties taunting you, mocking you, reminding you of your captivity, and the life you are missing. It's hard to live in exile when freedom is 2,000 yards away. But how much harder is it when your exile is just a few feet from freedom?

We're very aware, painfully so, of Jesus' command to love our enemies. But it can be just as hard to love Christian brothers and sisters. Doing something compassionate for someone on the other side of the planet or reaching out to a person we see only occasionally doesn't require great emotional investment. But when it comes to members of our parish, people we see up close and interact with frequently, it can be a different story.

We human sheep need a whisperer. A Good Shepherd. Someone who is not just powerful to protect us, but knows us by name, cares for us, loves us, even lays down his life for us. And the promise is this: “No one will snatch them out of my hand.” God's promise to you is this: “No one will snatch you out of my hand.”

Sermon from The Rev. Christopher M. Decatur, Assistant Rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Westfield, NJ Rector: The Rev. Dr. Duncan Johnston Assistant Rector: The Rev. Christopher Decatur Director of Music: Mark Hyczko

Sometimes we try to keep God out of our lives. We hide behind locked doors, like the Eleven - afraid of what might happen if we open up the doors of our hearts or minds. But even when we pull down the blinds, board up the windows, lock all the doors and install metal bars, we are not beyond the reach of God. Locked doors are not a problem for the Risen Christ.

What are you running from? I run from voices – especially that one in my soul that tells me I must perform perfectly if God is going to love me. I don't work hard enough, my heart is not committed enough, my results not stellar enough. I have disappointed God and I've let people down. And this voice knows exactly when to whisper – after a grueling day, when I've had a disappointment, when I've messed something up. But the grave-shattering, life-instilling truth of Easter Day is this - stop running. Just stand, turn around, and behold the empty tomb.

Am I prepared to take the time and effort to search for the real Jesus, looking past my own thoughts and wishes about him? Are we ready to search for the Christ of Holy Week? Because he's out there. He is the servant who stoops to wash our feet. He is compassionate with the sick, he befriends children, he is merciful to those who have been rejected. He speaks words of comfort to the uncomfortable, gives rest to the weary and companionship to the lonely. He never tramples on anyone's dignity. He is never patronizing to the marginalized, but sees the likeness of God in the disabled person, the foreigner, the child, the woman. Does our Jesus match up to the real one, or does he have favorites?

In these final two weeks of Lent Mary breaks open a perfume jar, and breaks open my hard heart. She kneels before Jesus to pour her ointment, and she stands before me and challenges me to worship with the same uninhibited, sacrificial service. She touches those divine feet and calls me to touch people in my life who need compassionate connection. She literally lets her hair down and challenges me to abandon myself in the worship and service of God.

The lost son runs away, wastes his father's money, and works for pea pods in a pigsty. But what if the Church has got it wrong these 2,000 years? What if the lost son is not the runaway, but the stay-at-home; not the lad who reeked of swine, but the one who smelled of apple pie?

In effect, Jesus says, “Don't spend too much time wondering why God allowed this terrible thing to happen. Instead, think about how you are going to live in response to the evil and the catastrophe of this world. What are you going to do in the light of it – how are you going to change because of it?”

We worship a God who stoops to our level, who came to live with us to be like us; not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as the means of rescue. God will not be an imperious eagle, soaring above us, untouchable and unmoved, aloof and remote. God will not be the gorgeous songbird – elusive, shy, nervous, defensive, always out of reach. God will be the mother hen.

Hear God's word to you. You are not what you do – you are God's beloved child. You are not what you consume – you are the pride of God's heart. You are not what people think of you – you are what God thinks of you. You are loved with a never-ending love. Let's live in the joy of the truth.

Sermon from The Rev. Christopher M. Decatur, Assistant Rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Westfield, NJ Rector: The Rev. Dr. Duncan Johnston Assistant Rector: The Rev. Christopher Decatur Director of Music: Mark Hyczko

We live with minds that are decaying and bodies that are wearing out. With every ache and pain, I remember that I'm not made for this. With every pang of envy, I remember that I'm not made for this. With every flare of anger, I remember that I'm not made for this. With every failure of memory or lapse in self-control I remember that I'm not made for this. We were made for justice, and yet we watch good people suffer and bad people prosper. We were made for peace, yet we see aggression all around us - in world leaders, and just as troubling, in our own families and places of work. We were made for joy, yet we experience out of control chemicals or the lack of them in our brains. We were made for community, yet we throw up barriers between ourselves and exclude the other. We were made for love but every day social media, cable news, and bumper stickers provoke us into judging our neighbors, feeling threatened by our differences, and forcing us into artificial tribal identities. We were made for Eden, but we live in Babylon.

When we cross the road or turn the page or change the channel, or click out of the website, to avoid the people Jesus calls blessed we are depriving ourselves of the chance of basking in their honor. People who lack resources are our role models. They have discovered true riches, they are the ones we should look up to, the ones we should strive to be like.

Of all the metaphors Jesus could have used when he called these four brothers to the task of leading men and women to God, fishing has to be the most vivid and the most accurate. And the most troubling. Because it is tough out there. To share your faith with someone is all of the things trawling is - uncomfortable, inconvenient, and risky. You know it is. Most of us would be brave enough to say something personal about our faith in the safety of this building, to another Christian, but doing that with people who do not share our beliefs is frightening.

Paul had known certainty all his life. Now, in one moment, his convictions were trampled under horse feet. His old swagger was gone, the reassurance that he was right demolished, the secure castle of religious correctness flattened. O, the urge to cling on to the old certainties, the old prestige, his old cozy existence.

You may have been hurt by someone. Slandered, insulted, lied to, disrespected. They owe you. They really do. What they did to you was grievous. It has cost you your happiness, destroyed your trust, wrecked your friendship. You deserve to be treated better than that. They owe you an apology. They owe you an amends. Well, this is the Year of the Lord's Favor. Declare a jubilee – drop the debt.

It's a beautiful picture of what it means to be a child of God, and indeed, the Christian Church – sensitive to the needs of the world but open to the possibility of miracles. Standing in the gap. At this moment in history, as we daily grope our way through the mess and the suffering and the despair of the pandemic, we have a task – a noble calling. We are charged with standing in the gap – noticing and feeling the pain of this fractured and needy world, because we are a part of it. Its agony is our agony, it's frustrations our frustrations. And yet we are more than that. We are ambassadors of God, mini bridges, channels of reconciliation, crying to God, along with Mary, “Lord, they have no wine.”

As I stand on the banks of American Christianity, and watch the river flow, I think I detect two baptisms, two gospels. The baptism of syrup and the baptism of mud. The gospel of sugar, the gospel of soil. The sanitized gospel, the earthy gospel. The synthetic life in God, the organic life.

The God of justice gets it. The God of suffering understands. He knows what it's like to be us, and has taken decisive action in the life, death and resurrection of his Son to end the suffering of humankind.

Magnifying God? You can't make the creator of the universe bigger – not in a literal sense. But I can make God bigger in my life. I can hold up my magnifying glass and make God bigger in my thinking, my words, my interactions. I can magnify God's reputation and fame. We can hold up our magnifying glasses in our worship – drawing us to focus more intensely on God and allowing the warmth of God's love to be intensified back to us like the rays of the sun to warm their hearts.

People come out to see John in the desert. He tells them to shape up and live right – and then he sends them back to their old lives. ‘Go home, do what you've been doing, but do it better, more ethically, more lovingly. Be a better person while you're doing it – compassion, integrity, contentment.'

All Aboard! There's a Train Coming! by Rev. Duncan Johnston

We are suffering. We are in pain. We have experienced all kinds of loss. But our suffering is not a sign that evil and death have won. The signs do not reveal God's powerlessness or our destruction. They do not show us that God's plans have been thwarted or that goodness has lost. They do not predict that the madness of our world has triumphed. No. These frightening and cataclysmic events are signs that the Kingdom of God is close at hand.

Like most people, Pilate is not interested in theology. He doesn't care about religious debates. He wants truth. THE Truth. He wants the solution to his own deep hunger, the healing of his sense of alienation, the stilling of his internal troubled waters that tell him that he is missing out on the purpose of his life. He's searching for the thing he was created for. In that way, I'm Pilate's brother. Pilate has put into words the question at the heart of the human story - What is Truth?

God the Dome, God the Castle, God the hazmat suit? Well, as thinking, realistic Christians we survey our lives, and we know that our experience of God does not match these images. We get sick. We die. We stagger under the burden of suffering. Christians are still killed for their faith. We are tired of the daily struggle, weary of the weekly routines, heartily sick of the cycle of alienation. At this point of the pandemic, many of us are feeling deskilled, disconnected, kind of lost. We've succumbed to financial strains, relationship pains, and emotional drains.

The clunk of the big coins, the ting of the small, and one more sound - how about the crack of our hearts? Because this word hurts. That impoverished woman drops her coins into the chest and a bomb into our chests. I hear her story, and I wonder how much I ever truly give. Because if I don't really notice that it's gone, if I am not feeling a personal loss when I give, then maybe I've not really begun. That widow challenges the custom of naming public buildings after big donors. Maybe we should not name the new wing of a hospital after a wealthy person who gave a million dollars to the appeal, but the senior citizen who gave 200. This word hurts. It rips the mask off the superheroes of giving and reveals them to be not the wealthy philanthropists, but the ordinary men and women who give proportionately more of their income to their churches or charitable causes. Yes, this word hurts.

Next Stop: The Kingdom of God by Rev. Duncan Johnston

we've grown out of our pacifiers and security blankets, haven't we? Or have we? Maybe all I've really done is graduate from one blanky to another – a more grown-up one. Maybe the source of my security now is my public persona, what people think of me, or my career, or my relationships, or my physical appearance, or my 401K, my portfolio or my insurance policies, or my status symbols, my badges of honor, my medals of accomplishment. Even my guilt and my inadequacy can be my security cloak. Because being inadequate can get me out of all sorts of challenges I'd rather not face.

Reaching out to God by Rev. Duncan Johnston

‘Enough' is what we all have. 'Enough' is a gift, 'enough' is a blessing, 'enough' is the attitude we must have if we are going to thrive in life. 'Enough' might not be what we want – we might strive for more, but 'enough' is all we need.

God still holds up perfection as the goal, because it should be, shouldn't it? It is right and good and natural and noble that when a couple marries, they think big, they plan to be together forever; they don't intend to mess up, neglect each other, or just drift apart. But if Jesus were standing here now talking about marriage, I think he'd remind us of this sobering truth that we're all members of the Club of the Broken. Yes, let's aim high – in all our relationships – let's aim and being the best parents, children, siblings, friends, co-workers, church members we can. We've got to aim high, haven't we? The love of God compels us to. But let's remember that we're broken.

The overwhelming tone of the music that James writes is this – we can't do this alone. Following Christ is hard enough without trying to do it in isolation. Being a Christian is demanding enough without trying to do it in superficial relationships. We need each other.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church 414 East Broad Street Westfield, NJ 07090 Rector: The Rev. Dr. Duncan Johnston Assistant Rector: The Rev. Christopher Decatur

Words are often unnecessary, but they are always powerful. So, when you use them, says James, think about the power you're wielding. Words change lives. Words shape destiny. A single word uttered in an unguarded moment can end a career, as any broadcaster who has been caught in ‘hot mic' moment can attest to. A sentence yelled in five seconds of uncontrolled anger can end a relationship. An idea poorly phrased or badly translated can even lead to war.

If you have ever wondered if your faith is real, then let me excite you. What James is doing is drawing this link between genuine faith and action. Without the action, the faith is dead. In other words, how do you know that your faith is genuine? Because you act on it. Sometimes we think our faith is weak, when actually, all we're are experiencing is lack of certainty – which is not the same as lack of faith. Because faith shows itself, not in being certain about our beliefs, but in action.

But, even when God's perfect mirror points out something unattractive in our character, there is always more wonderful truth it reveals. We may be scared to look into the perfect mirror of God because we know we will see imperfection in ourselves, and we'd rather not know. I don't want to know how I need to change – that requires too much self-denial, discipline, hard work. And yet, what we see is God's perfect love for us, that remains constant and unaffected by whatever faults we have.

I'm sure there are not as many atheists as people think. I am convinced that very many modern folks, especially in younger generations, think of themselves as atheists but are not, in fact. For them, there is meaning and purpose in life; there is something outside human beings, an intelligence or a principle, that gives order and the framework to make sense of life. They might not name it God – they may call it the universe, providence, science, new age philosophy, traditional wisdom schools, but whatever they call it, it does what God does – provides meaning, but without the personal nature of God.