Going DeeperWith Christ Episcopal Church

What is Our Function? Matthew 21:33-46 The contours of our lives can be shaped by our desire to know Christ, as we pursue what we know to be the function of our lives—to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection. We can get so caught up with the form of our lives, of our church, that we forget the function. Outer form may be all important. This was the case of St. Paul until, for Christ’s sake...

In Hard Times Matthew 21:23-32 The chief preachers and elders feel threatened by Jesus, for a number of reasons. They challenged his authority. He responded with hard questions. Unlike the chief preachers and elders, we have Jesus to be with us when we face hard questions. And God provides for us in hard times. Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 Nati...

Reward of the Vineyard Matthew 20:1-16 This week’s Gospel is the parable of the householder, landowner, and the day laborers. We who live out our lives in a market economy might have trouble with this parable. But Jesus begins this parable with “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…” From the householder’s view, the point is not what you get, but the fact that you work in the “vineyard,” the spiritual re...

Forgiveness Matthew 18:15-20 Houston Smith, the great scholar of religions, said that forgiveness is most characteristic of Christianity. Two-thirds of the teachings of Jesus are related to forgiveness, says Fr. Richard Rohr. Forgiveness was fundamental for Jesus. He forgave those who had tortured and crucified him. But payback and its cousins is rampant in our world today. There has even been a p...

True Community Matthew 18:15-20 Matthew was concerned with community. We all say we want it, and we generally have no idea it is to come by The framework for reconciliation provided in this week’s Gospel is much harder than talking behind people’s backs. Many of us have no background in resolving conflicts. Walking away is what we know best. In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus is teaching a skill...

Lose Your Surface Life Matthew 16:21-28 Jesus rebuked Peter for setting his mind on human things, not Divine things. Peter’s mind was rooted in the culture and beliefs of his day. We, too, are immersed in our culture and draw on human ways of doing things to solve our problems, not on God’s ways. Our minds, hearts and will must be transformed to not be captured by the ways of our world. How do we...

Being Christ for One Another Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 Was Jesus human, Divine, or some mixture of the two? Was He born knowing everything, or did He have to learn as all humans do. Seven times in the Gospels, Jesus is described as “amazed.” If He already knew everything, how could He be amazed? We’re also told that “Jesus grew in wisdom and maturity.” In other words, Jesus learned. He was truly...

Be Not Afraid Matthew 14:22-33 The disciples were terrorized when their boat was battered, tormented, by the waves. The wind was like a demonic adversary fighting against them. Their fear of otherworldly beings was heightened by a “ghost” walking across the waves toward them. Then Jesus said, “It is I. Do not be afraid.” Jesus’ earthly life is bracketed by warnings against fear. In our lives, fear...

Whose Transfiguration? Luke 9:28-36 Humans memorialize great moments, mystical experiences, by building structures such as the church at the site of the Transfiguration. We don’t want to lose the experience of a Divine encounter. The institutional structure of the Church, the New Testament, and Holy Communion, are efforts to preserve and pass down what originally were mystical experiences with the...

Reprioritize and Recenter Matthew 13:31-33,44-52 We explore more of Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, this week. We might be emotionally and energetically drained by events over which we have no control, like a power outage. Rather than being actors in the drama of our own lives, we might be re-actors. Instead of being whole, much of the time we might be shattered, in p...

Weeds and Wheat The Gospel is Matthew 13:24-30,36-43 We explore another of Jesus’ parables this week.  Humans may tend to be compulsive weed-pullers—we want to pull out and get rid of whatever we don’t like. But, as in the parable, “wheat” and “weeds” often are indistinguishable.  Trying to pull up what we think are “weeds” may harm the whole, and this distracts us from positive activities includi...

Sowers, Seeds and Soil The Gospel is Matthew 13:1-9,18-23 Today we explore the first of eight parables in this Gospel. The parables are not straightforward declarations; they initiate the process of changing our consciousness, how we see the world, ourselves, and God. They are transformative. Rather than explaining the parable, we examine some of the features so that our consciousness may be trans...

We Were Made for This The Gospel is Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 What does Jesus mean when he says, “I will give you rest"? What is he asking us to do when he invites us to “take my yoke upon you,” and to learn from him? Rest happens when our true nature is realized, and we live in harmony with ourselves, our neighbors, nature and with God. He’s not inviting us to loaf, but rather to live from our...

Divine Hospitality The Gospel is Matthew 10:40-42 The Gospel this week concludes the description of Jesus sending out the Apostles. They were to rely entirely on God and the hospitality of those they met. There are two interconnected messages in today’s text. Do we identify with the Apostles, prospective guests, or the prospective hosts for them? Do we identify with the message of hospitality to b...

Our Calling to Love The Gospel is Matthew 10:24-39 The Pax Roman wasn’t truly a time of peace, and dissent was brutally suppressed. During this time Jesus taught his path of true peace, maintained by the power of divine love and forgiveness.  A major theme of Matthew’s Gospel is the clash of kingdoms. Jesus’ nonviolent Kingdom of God was a threat to the worldly culture of that day, resulting in th...

Purpose The Gospel is Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23) One definition of compassion is a deep feeling of sympathy for another’s suffering accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate that suffering. Jesus had compassion for the harassed and helpless crowds. We’d expect him to take action to alleviate their suffering, but he did not do this. Instead, he commissioned his 12 disciples to do this work. This was...

Love Tenderly, Vulnerably and Fiercely The Gospel is Matthew 9:9-13,v18-26 It is easier to define what is pure than what is holy, so we pretend these are interchangable. Holiness is about “union with” and purity is about “separation from.” Jesus is holiness incarnate; the Pharisees were about purity codes. There was no separation between Jesus and the bleeding woman. Jesus touched a dead girl and...

Diversity in Unity The Gospel is Matthew 28:16-203 God is three (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and also One. This is irrational in the minds of some. We remain Trinitarians because this affirms a deep truth about God: at the heart of the Godhead are diverse persons, whose love is so close and intimate that they are One. At the heart of the Godhead is diversity. We can look at Creation and see that...

Receive the Holy Spirit The Gospel is John 20:19-23 Lay members of our congregation, Linda and Mike Smith, provide the sermon and practice today. It took awhile for the disciples to understand what they had received. They surely reflected and prayed to come to a deeper understanding of the teachings of Jesus, not a one time event but an ongoing revelation of the kingdom of God as Love which opened...

Participation in the Divine Life The Gospel is John 17:1-11 Jesus came that we would have life, and have it abundantly, thus reconnecting the Creation to the Creator. What is the Divine life, the eternal life, that Jesus conveys?  That we may know God in Jesus, whom God sent. This “knowing” is not head knowledge, but heart knowledge, intimate relationship. This participative knowing is eternal lif...

God Our Mother The Gospel is John 14:15-21 There is an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the United States, and this has significant impact on our health. Too, a huge number of teens feel despair and suicidal. We can be around people all the time, but feel lonely. We want to be around people who will be there for us, and who love us. We need someone who will stand by us, encourage us, have o...

The Way, Rich in Wild Mystery The Gospel is John 14:1-14 Thomas and the disciples don’t know where Jesus is going, but Jesus has shown The Way in its many aspects. The Way isn’t like roads on a map, but something, Someone, we can trust: Jesus is the way, the Truth and the Life. Some might call this the Way of Love. We can let go our certainties, no longer cling to what we know and what is familiar...

Beholding the Risen Christ The Gospel is Luke 24:13-35 The Risen Jesus wasn’t recognized at first. He didn’t first appear to his inner circle of disciples, nor in the holy city of Jerusalem, nor in the synagogue or temple. He didn’t return in a blaze of glory, but more like a candle flame in the dark, flickering here and there. God shows up in our normal, everyday lives, when we are not expecting...

Known By His Wounds The Gospel is John 20:19-31 Evidence, evidence, evidence. Is this what believing in the Risen Christ is about? In today’s Gospel, Thomas isn’t demanding arguments that can be learned from a book. He didn’t demand to see Jesus, but to see and touch His wounds. This is the same thing that convinced the other disciples, after which they rejoiced in seeing the Lord. Jesus knew that...

Easter 2023 The Gospel is John 20:1-18 How do we understand Easter? We cannot make sense of it. The accounts of the Resurrection differ from one Gospel to the next, which highlights the skepticism of the first witnesses. They could not wrap their heads around the idea that Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus didn’t just arise from the grave alone. In the Eastern Church, he is depicted as pulling...