We look to the cross and our neighbors as signs of God’s love and healing in the world. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Feast of Holy Cross 
Texts: Numbers 21: 4b-9, John 3:13-17 

They needed a sign. 

Journeying through the wilderness away from everything they knew, experiencing pain and exhaustion and grief and loss, trying to figure out how to be in community with each other, learning what it means to be God’s beloved.  

The Israelites needed a sign to show them that God was really with them and that God was going to lead them into the Promised land. They needed to know that there was a future beyond the dry dangerous desert they were living in.   

First, they needed food and then manna and quail fell from the sky. They ate their fill and continued on with their journey. A sign that God was listening to their plea. But it wasn’t enough.

Eventually they needed water so they complained to God until water poured out of a rock. It sustained them for a part of their journey but it also wasn’t enough.

And then they needed safety and healing, so they got a serpent on stick.  A visual reminder of God’s presence and protection that was with them and leading them on their journey.  But it still was wasn’t enough.

No matter what happened in the wilderness, the people of the Triune God, struggled to trust that God was really going to lead them into an abundant life. And to this day, the people of the Triune God continue to search for signs of God’s presence in our wilderness journeys.

Especially as we see and experience death and destruction and sin and suffering all around us. Looking for signs that show us what is good verses what is evil, signs that point us to rest and nourishment, signs that lead us into lives of service and love.

Just like the people who were wandering in the wilderness, we too need signs of God’s love and presence in our lives and in our world. 

So on this day, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Cross to remember and discern how Christ’s sacrificial love and transformative power on the cross is the ultimate sign of God’s enduring love, care, and presence in our world.

Christ incarnate born into our world in an unexpected place, teaching us a new way of life that puts love and grace at the center of who we are and what we do. Christ on the cross, taking on all of the sin and suffering of the world, so that we may hope and trust in abundant life, both here on earth and in heaven. 

Christ’s death on the cross is a sign of God’s self-sacrificing love showing us that oppression and injustice, suffering and illness, destruction and death went to the grave and out of the grave came abundant life and love and forgiveness and healing.

The cross is our sign that God comes to us in our pain and brokenness and transforms us into people who embody God’s love. Not because we are perfect or we’ve done all the right things, but because of who God is and the promise that God has made with all of creation.

John writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who trusts in him may not perish but have abundant life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17).

The promise God continuously makes throughout scripture to never leave us or forsake us is shown to us through God’s love on the cross. The cross is the ultimate sign of God’s enduring and steadfast love for each and every one of us.

And God’s love doesn’t just stay on the cross. God’s love resurrects and enters into our lives and becomes woven into the DNA of who we are as God’s beloved.  Living our lives holding onto the promise God makes with us in our baptism. Taking seriously that through our baptismal waters, we embody the cross of Christ on foreheads for everyone to see.

That through us God is actively working in the world feeding and nourishing, serving and loving, caring and healing.  Each of us as the body of Christ resurrected in our communities to do what we have been created to do. To Love. To Heal. To Forgive.

So when we feel like we are perishing, struggling to discern where God is active in our lives and communities.  We look for the signs… in creation, in art, in music, in each other, in the unexpected, in the pain and suffering.  We look to see where God is entering our humanity in order to bring wholeness.

And when our seeking eyes and discerning minds our weary, we come together with open hands and open hearts to Christ’s table clinging closely to the promise of Christ. Feasting in the meal in remembrance of Christ. A sign that will nourish us and transform us and a sign that will continue lead us into abundant life here and now and with all the saints forever and forever.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in a world that is in deep need of God’s healing, we continue to discern how we can be opened to be a healing presence to all of creation through who we are and what we do. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Lectionary 23 B
Texts: James 2:1-17, Mark 7:24-37  

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Do your actions really reflect the love of Jesus Christ?

This is what James asks us today. It’s a fair question. James wants to know if you are willing to roll up your selves and get to work so that the love of Christ may be reflected through how you are loving your neighbor.

Suggesting a life of service that puts our actions of caring for our neighbors at the center of who we are and the center of what we do. Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

It should be simple. It is simple. We are empathic people who know how to show love. But as Pastor Crippen shared last week, doing good in a world filled with evil systems and structures of power is really really complicated.

So complicated at times it can leave us dormant. Moving through our days doing what we need to do just to care for ourselves and our families. Turning away from the pain and suffering and disasters that uproot peoples and communities. Going from point A to point B trying to find rest and nourishment in our exhaustion. 

Doing so we turn inward. Into our own wants and needs. Into our own biased perceptions of people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, income, and wellness. Into our own patterns and expectations of success, wealth, and knowledge.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus acts in a way that suggests he is turned inward. Traveling to a new region, he stops at a house to rest and doesn’t want anyone to know that he is there. A woman who doesn’t fit the norm for various reasons comes to Jesus asking for healing for her daughter and she is met with undeniable rudeness. 

The woman experiences Jesus’ rudeness and challenges him to turn outward. Seeing her and her daughter as people in need of healing rather than the labels that society had placed on them, Jesus heals the little girl.

As he continues traveling, Jesus encounters a man who is also in need of healing. In this event, Jesus realizes that he can’t bring healing to this man alone. He turns toward the heavens, sighs, and says to the man “be opened.”   The man is healed.

And Jesus is transformed through his encounter with and the healing of the woman and the man. Moving away from the regions he had been doing ministry and into new regions with different people showed Jesus that his ministry is more expansive and more life changing than he could have ever imagined. 

And it shows us that God’s healing and love and grace is not limited by location or laws. It isn’t found only in certain places or through certain people. If anything, God’s love and healing is happening where we least expect it.

So if you are feeling dormant in this season of your life, it is time to take Jesus’ lead and be open to a new way of imagining what the Triune God can do in your life and community.

Move out of your routine and your comfort zone. Take a new way to work, shop at a different grocery store, volunteer with or donate to a new organization that sparks a passion. Listen to and share stories of love and healing and hope. Go to new areas of our cities. Speak to people you’ve never met. Be open to new ways of seeing Christ at work in your life.

Doing so will challenge the ways that we have ignored the pain around us thinking that someone else would do something about it, challenge when we have been negligent in caring for creation suggesting that the problems are out of our control, when we have put our comfort before the needs of others.

All of it is going to transform us while God works through us to transform the world.

God is healing the world through all of us. Through the way we turn our ears to hear the cries for justice. Through the way we open our hearts and show love to a neighbor we have never met. Through the way we look at the brokenness of the world and trust that even the most broken thing can be made whole through God’s love.

Seeing the Gospel embodied and proclaimed through each of you and this community, reminds me of the love and grace and healing that God is doing. So try not to let the evil and injustice of the world make you dormant, the world needs your love, your passion, your hope.

But if you are feeling dormant, water and nourishment and sunlight are all around you. And God will continue to use it to heal you.

So be opened from the healing that comes from Christ. Be opened from God’s love for you. Be opened from the transformation that is taking place in your life.

And let it guide you in love and service. 

The world needs you, your neighbor needs you, God needs you, to zealously proclaim God’s healing, God’s justice, and God’s love.

Not just through your words, but in every action.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How do we know? How do we trust? How do we discern?  These are the questions we ask as we look outward into our communities and inward into ourselves to witness to the Word of God active in our lives. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Lectionary 21B
Texts: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18,  Ephesians 6: 10-20, John 6:56-69 

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Does it challenge you and make you think and act differently?
Does it change your perspective of your neighbors?
Does it make your heart break open again and again from the injustice and suffering of the world?
Does it tell you that you are beloved and that you have received grace upon grace?
Does it lead you, protect you, comfort you, and guide you?
Does it show you love and hope?
Does it give you life?

If so, then it is the Word of God.

Not just the literal words of the Bible, but the embodiment of the Word being made flesh, the Holy One of God that is moving, and stirring, and breathing life and hope and love into our world.

But how do we know life and love when we look around us and see violence, climate disasters, illness, racism, houselessness, and poverty? How do we trust in this love and hope and life that has been shown to us, told to us, and passed down through generations?  How do we discern what is the Word of God in the world versus what is evil and filled with wrong doing?  

Perhaps these are the questions that the disciples are asking in today’s Gospel reading. The same questions that many of us carry with us every day.  The questions that we bring into this community.  

How do we know? How do we trust? How do we discern?

Peter’s answer is that we don’t fully know, but through the transformation that has taken place in his life and the ways that he has witnessed to Jesus’ ministry he discerns the path forward is with the Triune God because he trusts it will lead him to abundant life.

Joshua’s answer is similar. Gathering the people who he has been with for 40 years in the wilderness and asking them if they are ready to make a proclamation.  A proclamation that they will trust and serve the Triune God who has been their hope and their protection.

Paul’s answer is that we have to continue to wrap ourselves in that protection and be ready to discern what is lifegiving in this world by walking in peace, sharing the love and grace of God, and praying at all times.

What’s your answer? 

I know you have one.

I see the joy on your face when you come to this place to Worship. Feel the love when you talk about your family, your friends, and this community. Know your heart aches from all the pain and suffering in your life and all around us. I notice the discernment as you think about how you can continue to grow in serving your neighbor and give up privilege for the sake of equity. I hear your song, your prayers, and see your tears as you proclaim God’s love and faithfulness that has carried you this far.  

You have an answer to how we know, trust, and discern the love of God because you have been transformed by God’s love and you are an embodiment of God’s love.  You are the answer, this whole community is the answer.

Living as an example of God’s love and proclaiming the ways you see God’s presence in your life. Moving where the spirit is calling you to serve—at your job or at school, on the playground or in the grocery story, in the car or on the street—so that God’s love is known through you.

Discerning the ways that we can use our bodies, our voices, and our gifts to impact our community so that others can know and trust the life and hope and grace and love that is found in Christ.

It doesn’t mean that it is going to be in easy, rather it is going to be difficult and confusing and it is going to disturb our lives. It will make us look at the world around us an discern what truly is lifegiving—even questioning things that have provided life before. Perhaps we will even want to turn away or things will hold us back.

But we must actively work to put away the forces that try to convince us that power, and wealth, and comfort are more important than unity, empathy, and love. Rid the shame and judgement that have filled us to make room for the nourishment our bodies crave.

We continue to be filled with the Bread of Life and when we are filled with God’s love and justice, we have the conviction to proclaim it. Not because we have all the answers or because we fully understand it, or that we are perfect at it, but because we trust that it has the power to transform.

Look around you right now and you will see it, walk in the community and you will see it, look toward nature and you will see it, look in the mirror and you will see it.

The Word of God active in our lives.

It challenges us, it changes us, it pushes us out of our comfort zone, it nourishes us and fills us with hope and love.  

And all of this is going to lead us to abundant life.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are nourished through Christ to be nourishment for others as we journey together. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 19 B
Text: 1 Kings 19:4-8 

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Don’t grieve over who the Holy Spirit has created you to be.

Listening to voices that say that you are too young or too old, or don’t have enough skills or experience or training to engage in the tasks ahead. Being so overwhelmed or filled with fear and anxiety that it stuns you. Having a sense that no matter what you do, it is not going to be good enough or have a big enough impact.

Perhaps these are the voices and messages that got into Elijah’s head.  The voices that drove him restlessly into the wilderness and that caused him to have no choice but to lay down and rest, suggesting that continuing the journey was going to be too much for him.

Elijah has a justifiable reason for his overwhelming exhaustion and yet it is easy to look at his situation and think that he is just being a little over dramatic.

But Elijah gets to a point in his life that resembles what we call burn out. Feeling so exhausted that he’d rather give up than continue to do what he has been called to do.  It’s incredible he went a day’s journey into the wilderness to begin with.

The way I see it is that Elijah had two options. He could run away from the call the Triune God had placed on his life and go live a more comfortable life someplace else or he could run into the wilderness of the sin and suffering of the world and learn how to find rest there.

One instinct is to look at Elijah and just say, come on, get up, we have work to do. That’s what our society would tell us to do. To ignore our need to care for ourselves so we can produce more and do more.

But another instinct is to have compassion and empathy for Elijah and just say, it’s okay to rest, here have some nourishment. The angel in the story today does the opposite of what the pressures of world teach. The angel sees Elijah under the tree and tells him to eat and rest.

The need to rest and find nourishment in the midst of chaos in the middle of the wilderness is what the prophet Elijah teaches us today.

Elijah figures out how to go into the wilderness and find rest, not through what he does, but through what he finds on the journey. Not because he alone has all the strength that he needs but because he realized that he can’t go on the journey alone.

We are the people called by God to go into the wilderness to proclaim a message of hope, a message that Christ is the bread of life and light of the world. A message that we proclaim to each other and to our community.  It is a lifelong task and if we don’t find places to rest and nourish ourselves on the journey, we are going to burn out.

So if today you are feeling tired, or overwhelmed, or lonely, or anxious, or afraid. Worn down from the sin and suffering of the world. There is a place for you to rest, even in the midst of chaos, even on this wilderness journey.

Following God’s call will lead us to find places where we can release the burdens the world has forced us to carry.  Release the anger, fear, all the things that hold us back.

We may not always know what rest will look like for us and so we are challenged to find places to rest even as the world challenges us to keep moving and to keep doing.  Finding a way to even rest in the unknown of what is next.

God isn’t going to lead us to places where we are going to fail. God isn’t going to leave us alone in the wilderness. This is the purpose of the angel and the tree and it is the purpose of each of us.

To be the presence of God, filled with love, forgiveness, and passion for caring for all of God’s creation. Peeling back layers of exhaustion so that the light of Christ continues to shine from our hearts and nourishes all around us.

But we can only be nourishment if we are nourished.

Nourished by being in community with each other and seeing and being with people embodying God’s love and forgiveness.

Nourished from having a sense of routine and enjoying spiritual practices, such as meditation, music, gardening, whatever helps us to express who God calls us to be. Finding ways to use our bodies, our voices, and our minds to care for and advocate for our neighbors and all of God’s creation.

Nourished by being who the Holy Spirit has called us to be. Living out our vocations at work, or in school, or during retirement. Joyfully loving who we love. And finding meaning and happiness in all of the unique things that make each of us who we are as God’s beloved.

Nourished by believing that our worth is not assessed by our performances and our work, but solely for being who we are and trusting that we are worthy of the love and the calling the Holy Spirit has placed in our hearts and sealed on our forehead.

It is simple and profoundly complex at the same time. But the more we know and trust that we are loved and the embodiment of Christ’s love in the world. The more beauty, and life, and love, and nourishment we will give and receive.

When we continually lean into the person the Holy Spirit created us to be, we find rest and find nourishment that can only come from God who truly is our bread of life.

At the very least my hope is that this place, this community is a place where you find rest. Taking what you learn about yourself, about God, about love, grace, and justice here. Taking in the nourishment you receive from Christ’s table and finding places in which this table extends into our daily lives.

Where all can find love and forgiveness.
Where all can find rest and nourishment for the journey

Get up and eat, feast on the bread of life, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.

Amen.

Through the love and grace of Christ, we are sent out into the world to look toward and listen to cries for justice and peace and proclaim the Triune God’s love and healing. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 15 B
Text: Amos 7:7-15; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It leaves an unsettling feeling. The image of John’s head on a platter.

Reminding us about situations in our lives that leave us unsettled.

A fire burning in the ocean.
A drought and record-breaking temperatures.
A pipeline threatening our watershed.

Homelessness and poverty.
Racial injustice.
Gun violence across our city.

The headlines of today show us that today’s Gospel reading could easily have been a headline in this morning’s paper: “Man executed after speaking out against the King’s relationship.”

We absorb so much information daily that we have been trained to keep it from touching us, likely a way to cope with all the brokenness around us.

We hear our Gospel lesson for today and we may unknowingly numb the emotions and the message.

Questioning what is wrong with the characters in the story.
Distancing their situation from ours.
Laughing about a birthday party we would never want to attend.
Hearing it and thinking, can a story like this really be the Word of God?

Our emotions and our bodies can only hold so much pain and brokenness happening in society, let alone the pain and grief that we experience in our lives, families, and communities. 

 The shock of John’s head on a platter leads us to be filled with fear of danger. And perhaps a gut reaction to not want to have anything to do with the message that John is proclaiming.

The challenge then, is to not be swayed by violence and displays of power, but to see what is really going on in the story. John is in jail and he speaks up about injustice and about people in power taking advantage of the law.

Like John, we have inherited the grace and love and courage to see the injustice and oppression happening all around us. And we have been anointed by the Holy Spirit to speak and act against unjust power and oppression.

We see situations in our lives every day and ask ourselves what role we have in it.  If we’re following God’s call like John, and like the prophet Amos who we heard from today, we know that we have a part in sharing the love, grace, and hope of the Triune God.

We do this by being who God has created us to be, finding avenues where our skills and talents match with the needs around us as we boldly step in directions that help us to proclaim justice and peace.

We do this by looking around in our community and listening to our neighbors. We do this by transforming our church community and our church building to be a place of hospitality.

So that when we look at the headlines about climate change, we know that we are continuing to strive to do our part and commit to environmental justice. And when we look at the headlines about houselessness and poverty, we know that we are impacting our community by being in relationship with and caring for our neighbors.

To look at the brokenness of the world and listen to the cries for justice around us is going to lead us down a path of discipleship where we continue to be and become people who: 

speak truth to power.
speak healing to brokenness.
speak love to hatred.

Speaking not only through our mouths by through our actions that at times are even more powerful than words.

Doing so will lead us down paths that will change us and ask us to step outside our comfort zones. It will cause us to have many unsettling feelings and emotions and we try to discern where we are being called and sent.

But we know that we do not do this alone, we do it in community. Caring for each other and caring for ourselves.

Like the disciples at the end of our Gospel reading who find ways to hold space and grieve, we find ways to lay to rest the brokenness in our lives and hold onto hope and believe with our hearts that God can resurrect and heal the world.

And then we go out to look and listen to the pain and brokenness around us and listen to where God is calling us to be agents of healing and love.

Like the prophets and people called throughout scripture and time, we too are called by God out of who God has created us to be. Perhaps this is the message that Paul is speaking to the Ephesians: Reminding them and reminding us of the love and grace that we have in Christ.

And that this love that we’ve been transformed by is going to send us into places where we see deep brokenness and are called to proclaim love—Love that will always transform. 

It leaves an unsettling feeling. The Holy Spirit stirring in our lives.

Reminding us of who we are created to be.
Calling us out into the world to proclaim justice, healing, and love.

Amen