God Passes By

God Passes By
A Sermon preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ
July 11, 2010

In the 2005 movie the 40 year Old Virgin, Steve Carrell finds himself in a strange situation. His date, who has had one too many to drink, gets into the driver’s seat and asks him to breathe into a Car Breathalyzers, also known as ignition interlock devices. Judges require people with drivers with multiple incidents of drunk driving to have a breathalyzer installed in their car to prevent them from driving while drunk. Ignorant of the purpose of the breathalyzer, Carrell blows into it and his drunken date swerves down the road, on the verge of yet another drunk driving accident.
In the new ABC Series, What Would You Do?, such an incident happens. A drunken woman, really an actress, tries to get a passer by to blow into her breathalyzer so she can start her car and drive it while drunk. So what would you do? The series goes on to present a variety of situations which ask the ethical question: What would you do? What would you do if you saw a customer berate a cashier with downs syndrome? What would you do if you witnessed a restaurant owner sexually harassing a young hostess?
What would you do if you witnessed a person being racially harassed?
Ethical choices confront us every day. Did you ever read the letters to the editor of the Clifton Journal? Many of the letters involve ethical dilemmas faced by our fellow citizens in Clifton?
What do you do when a pagan baits Christians about their beliefs?
What do you when a person proposes that it is ok to berate a person because they do not speak English? What do you do when a person alleges that the female pastor of First Presbyterian church is out to destroy the faith of the city of Clifton?
In today’s readings, God is posing the ethical question to us: What would you do if? Now if you listened to the readings today, I am sure that you are imagining that we should look at the parable of the good Samaritan.
Let’s begin with the first reading from Amos. There was a line in the text that caught my attention: I will never again pass them by. We might look on this line as a word of comfort, a reassurance that God is with us, that God will not pass us by but will be with us. This passage assures us that God’s presence comes to us as a word of confrontation and judgment and not always as a word of comfort and assurance.
Do you remember how Amos is confronted by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel where King Jeroboam is ruling. We would imagine that the King would go to the temple to be comforted with God’s presence.
Jeroboam built an impressive kingdom with people living the life of luxury. Amos described the life style of the rich and famous of Israel in these words: they “…lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; 5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; 6who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils.”
I doubt if any of us here have a bed of ivory and live a life of lavish luxury. If you do, perhaps you might want to invite us all over for a lamb feast with fine wines and a band providing idle songs to the sound of the harp. Let’s not let the language of upper class wealth cover up the word that God is saying to us as God passes us by. Are you living a self absorbed life? Are you living an ethically responsible life?
An ethically responsible life involves us in caring for the needs of others. An ethically responsible life challenges us to look deeper than we are accustomed to look. An ethically responsible life is the life that God lives and God passes us by to invite us to pass through the world as God does: Caring for those unjustly deprived of liberty, advocating for the undocumented and the illiterate, women and men and children who are hungry and homeless.
God has given us the gift of worshiping in this section of Clifton where we rub shoulders with those who are different than we are, who speak different languages, who have a different educational level, who come out of a different culture or religion.
God has placed us in a situation where we are given a choice: to behave like the priest and the levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan or to behave like the Samaritan and make the needs of the person on death’s door to be our own needs. If we close our hearts to the person in need, if we blind our eyes from seeing them, if we turn our back on them in Path Mark or Shop Rite, we run the risk of God closing God’s heart on us, of God ignoring our prayer, of God turning God’s back on us when God passes us by.
As we come to this temple to worship, God invites us to play What would you do? God is standing with us, inviting us to a change of mind and heart, a change before it is too difficult to change. What would it take for you to shift your mind and heart to see the world not from the narrow perspective which blinds us but from God’s point of view which heals us. Then God will not pass us by.
As the priest and the levite passed by the person hurt by robbers. We will discover the identity of that unnamed good Samaritan. The good Samaritan is Jesus. The good Samaritan is you.

What A Friend We Have In Jesus

A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on May 17, 2009
It is not news to you that someone like me who is so involved in movie ministries watches a lot of movies. Recently Carl and I saw an outstanding movie: The Things We Lost in The Fire. If you have not seen it, rent it. It’s one of those movies that opens your heart and searches for the truth.
The story begins on the day of Brian’s funeral. Audrey, Brian’s wife, sends her brother to pick up Jerry, Brian’s best friend and a junkie, and bring Jerry to the funeral. With the exception of the Reel Jesus movies, Brian must be the best person ever depicted in a movie: a loving father to his two children Harper and Dory, an adoring husband to his wife Audrey, a successful real estate developer and a loyal friend to his best friend from grammar school, Jerry, a lawyer turned junkie.
Brian embodies what Jesus spoke about in today’s Gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15: 13) One night, Brian ventured forth to get some ice cream for Audrey and the children. Coming out of the store, he witnesses a man brutally beating up a woman. When Brian steps in between them, the man shoots and kills Brian.
In a series of flashbacks, you see how Brian unsuccessfully struggled to get Jerry to kick his drug habit and how Audrey becomes increasingly disturbed that Brian is placing himself in danger whenever he visits Jerry in the worst section of the city. Audrey invites Jerry to come live in a one room house on their property and help around the house. Jerry provides Audrey, Harper and Dory with emotional support as they manage their collective grief. But as Jerry draws closer to Harper and Dory, Audrey cannot tolerate how Jerry can get the children to do things Brian could not. In her anger against the senselessness of Brian’s death, Audrey banishes Jerry from the house and Jerry tumbles back into his drug use. As she realizes her mistake, Audrey gets Jerry to enter a rehab program and as the movie ends we are left with the impression that Jerry is on the road to recovery.
All these people, Audrey, Harper, Dory and Jerry were transformed by the life of this one Christ like man: Brian. The heart of the story is about friendship, just as the heart of today’s gospel is about friendship. Brian was a man who could do nothing but good. He ardently believed in the power of love to change people. Yet he could not change his friend Jerry. Jerry was not ready to change. Only after Brian’s death could Jerry begin that road to recovery, only when Jerry began to act responsibly for Audrey, Harper and Dory could he climb out of the pit of addiction.
Friendship exerts such power in our lives. I am sure each of you can think of a person whose friendship you treasured and whose friendship changed your life. I am sure that each of us can think of a person who was there with us when we graduated from school and who held us at the funeral of a member of our family. Friendship brings us to that place of the heart where we find total acceptance, unconditional love, a sometime brutal honesty, and fidelity in the face of the worst crisis.
We might feel surprised when Jesus calls us his friends: “I no longer call you servants…I have called you friends” (Jn. 15:15) Yet everything that Jesus has been saying and doing in the Gospel according to John was leading to this disclosure: that Jesus has been in search of friends and then proving on the cross that he is the true friend. Just think for a minute about Jesus in this gospel, how he goes about drawing people into the circle of his friendship.
Jesus calls his disciples and we see Jesus sharing his life with them and drawing them closer to him and to one another. We meet Lazarus, Martha and Mary, Jesus’ family of friends. Lazarus is described as the one whom Jesus loved and Jesus raises Lazarus from the tomb. Mary would later anoint Jesus’ head with costly perfume as a sign of her love for her friend.
Jesus is preparing them for the greatest reversal of all, when he reveals to them that they are no longer servants but friends.
All too often we address Jesus as Lord Christ, Master, Rabbi, Messiah. All these titles place Jesus in a position above us, as superior to us. Should we not give him respect? Should we not revere him? Yet Jesus is the one who invites us to consider ourselves not as servants but as his friends. Such an invitation opens up to us a relationship of mutuality, of care, of trust, of honesty, of love.
All friendship begins with love and so the beginning of our friendship with Jesus begins with Jesus loving us: “As the Father has loved, so I have loved you. Abide in my love (Jn 15: 10) Love unites us with Jesus.
Yet Jesus asks even more of us in our friendship, Jesus asks that we should love as he loves: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15: 12) Even as Jesus went about gathering friends around him, so does he continue to gather friends not only around him but with one another.
Many times, we imagine the church as the family of God. I would suggest that Jesus offers us a different model, a community of friends. Into this community of friends, Jesus invites you, invites you to love the other friends of Jesus with a love that accepts, that cherishes, that challenges, that supports.
We are not all called to give our lives for one another as Jesus did for us. Yet we are all called to that difficult task of loving one another with that same passionate love that carried Jesus through the cross to the transformation of the resurrection.
Jesus opens his arms to you in friendship. Jesus opens his arms to you in sacrifice. Will you follow and do the same?

Engaging the Wild Things
A Sermon by the Rev. Peter De Franco
on the First Sunday in Lent
given at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ

Today, I would like to read to you a story, Where The Wild Things Are. “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another. His mother called him “Wild Thing!” And Max said “I’ll eat you up!” So he was sent to bed without eating anything. That very night in Max’s room a forest grew and grew. And grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around. And an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.
And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws. Till Max said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things. “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
“Now stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
Then all around from far away across the world he smell good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.
But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!” And Max said, “No!”
The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot.
On the first Sunday in Lent, we always hear the story of Jesus in the desert. The Spirit of God drives Jesus out into the wilderness. Jesus goes into the desert.
Now if any of you have gone into a desert you are in for a life changing experience. Deserts have little water, little protection from the ravages of the hot sun, little contact with people who can comfort you. There are wild things in the desert.
Jesus goes into that wasteland for forty days. Mark tells us that in the desert Jesus was tempted by Satan. But we do not know how Satan tempted Jesus. Mark tells us that Jesus was with the wild beasts. Mark also tells us that the angels waited on Jesus. For forty days….that is why we have forty days of Lent, so that we too like Jesus can go into the desert. I wonder what this story has to tell us?
Like Jesus, we are all entering into a desert. That desert is called Lent. I hope that each of you has selected something special do to during Lent. I hope that each of you has a plan for yourself. That plan should be for you to work on something you want to improve about yourself.
So some of you might try not to talk back to people. Some of you might want to work on the way you act when you get angry. Some of you might want to change the way you relate to other people be that giving up the need to control people, giving up patterns of manipulating people to do what you want them to do. Some of you might want to work on your addictions: to food, to computers, to video games, to talking on the phone, to texting, to spend hours on Facebook and not interacting face to face. Some of you might want to pay more attention to your body, to give yourself more exercise, to spend less time as a couch potato. Each of us has our own desert place to go, our own Lenten strategy of change, our own plan of self improvement.
But before we can start that plan, we have to take another look at the Gospel story. Because an important thing happens to Jesus before he goes into the desert. Before Jesus confronts the hard things in his life, something phenomenal happens to Jesus. Jesus is baptized.
When Jesus is baptized, he not only has water poured over him. God speaks to Jesus in his heart. God tells Jesus that he is God’s child. God tells Jesus that God loves Jesus. God tells Jesus that God is pleased with Jesus.
So before you go into the desert this lent, I invite you to rediscover your own Baptism experience. Take some time during this Holy Eucharist to listen to that soft silent voice of God who speaks to you in your heart and tells you: “You are my child, You make me very happy, I love you.” Hear that voice of God telling you: “You are my child, You make me very happy, I love you.”
Say these words with me: “I am God’s child. I make God very happy. God loves me.
Let’s say them again: “I am God’s child. I make God very happy. God loves me.”



Now you can go into the desert. Now you can go into the desert and not fear the wild beasts that you will meet there. For like Max, you will discover that the wild things are not that savage, that the wild things can be tamed, that the wild things can become your friends.
Now you can do battle with the evil forces that restrict you, that limit your freedom, that prevent you from becoming the person you want to become. And not fear that you are not strong enough to come out the winner. For God has started out ahead of you. God assures you that you are loved, that you are God’s beloved.
And at the end of your Lenten journey you will find yourself on the other side of your fear, on the other side of your faults, on the resurrection side of the world.

Becoming like the Good Shepherd

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Peter De Franco
on Good Shepherd Sunday,
May 3, 2009
at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

Of all the psalms in the bible, perhaps all of us know the words of Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. Every fourth Sunday of Easter, we read the story of the Good Shepherd, we say Psalm 23, at one service we sing various settings of Psalm 23.
The feeling we tend to get is one of comfort, of feeling good, of knowing that we have a shepherd who is with us. I wonder if you feel that Jesus is always with you, constantly by your side, opening your lives to that experience of being loved and cared for by our God. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Say those words with me. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
I hope that all of you feel that those words bring you comfort and peace, a sense that God loves you. Jesus is indeed our shepherd. We are all the members of the flock of Jesus. We are all sheep in Jesus’ flock.
If any of you have been paying attention to the news, a different animal has dominated the headlines. I wonder what animal that is? (PIGS!)
I am going to do something and I will ask you not to tell the bishop. I am going to call this good pigherd Sunday. So today, I would like to tell you the story of a pig and a flock of sheep.
Perhaps some of you know the story of Babe. Now this is a very sweet story, perhaps too sweet for some of you, so some of you might want to take a shot of insulin before we begin.
Babe was a baby pig, the smallest baby pig in the litter. Do any of you know what they call the smallest pig in the litter? The Runt!
Well, Babe was taken away from his brothers and sisters and brought to a country fair where Babe was the prize for the person who can guess his weight. When Farmer Hogget sees Babe, he connects with the pig, Farmer Hogger felt a common destiny with the pig. I imagine he felt like the way Jesus feels about us. Like the way Jesus looks at us, Farmer Hoggert looks at Babe and knows that Babe is going to be his pig. Just like Jesus looks at us and knows that we are his special people.
Farmer Hogget wins Babe and takes him home to the farm. Babe finds no other pigs on the farm so Babe is adopted by the Fly, the mother sheepdog, and her puppies. Babe begins to get confused and Babe thinks he is a sheepdog. Babe starts to act like a sheep dog. Rex, the father sheepdog, does not like Babe. Rex thinks dogs should herd sheep and pigs should stay on the farm and get fat.
One day, Farmer Hoggert takes Babe with Fly and Rex out to the pasture with the sheep. Babe sees how Fly and Rex herd the sheep, running down the meadow, forcing the sheep to return to the sheep fold. Let’s take a look and see what happens to Babe.
You might wonder what does Babe have to do with Jesus the Good Shepherd. I wonder what would happen if we thought of Farmer Hoggert as a symbol of God? And if we thought of ourselves as Babe.
We all could help the Good Shepherd with the sheep. We all could be good shepherds. We all could help the good shepherd with the sheep.
There is a phrase in today’s gospel that I want us too look at closely. “I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also.” (Jn 10: 16)
We all think of ourselves as part of the herd of Jesus. And we all belong to that herd of Jesus. Jesus is going to bring new sheep to this herd.
At least once a month, you see new people come into this church. Perhaps you are among those new people. Perhaps you have heard Jesus calling you to come to this herd of Jesus.Perhaps you are among those who welcome the new members into the church.
We all are like Babe, all of us have heard Jesus calling us here, all of us are like Babe, we are all invited to become sheep dogs, inviting others into this flock, protecting the flock like Babe, caring for the sheep like Babe did: with a gentle manner, a loving heart, a kind soul.
Jesus is indeed our good shepherd. But we too are shepherds. Loving the one another. Caring for each other.
Perhaps you do not feel like a sheep dog. But there is a shepherd out there who knows that you can bring in new sheep. Just try it. See how Jesus will make you into a good shepherd. Then we all can not only say: The Lord is my shepherd. But I am also a shepherd.

Call to a Prophetic Ministry

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco
at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, New Jersey
on January 18, 2009, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday

Today’s first reading presents us with a familiar story of the call of Samuel. You know the story how the boy Samuel was given to by his mother Hannah as a gift to God when Samuel was only weaned. Hannah left the child Samuel with the Priest Eli and his two sons. We might imagine that Samuel was enrolled in a sort of seminary run by Eli since Eli began to teach Samuel how to minister in the temple. Perhaps some of us might imagine Samuel as a cute little cherub of a boy, a sort of Jewish Altar boy who lived in the temple and perhaps he looked a lot like some of our own sweet altar servers.
But the two sons of Eli were priests who considered themselves above of others. When people would come to offer animal sacrifice to God, the sons of Eli would take the best cuts of meat, the parts which should have been sacrificed to God, they took them for themselves. Not only did they desecrate the sacrifices, they also took sexual advantage of the women who came to the temple. I wonder if Hannah knew of the moral character of these men if she would have brought little Samuel to another seminary.
The reading today begins with the description: The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. (1 Samuel 3: 1) The word of the Lord was rare in those days. Considering the moral depravity of the family of Eli, I wonder if that was the cause of the silence of God. Was the word rare since there were no ears to hear the word? Were visions not widespread since there were no eyes to behold those visions?
Yet God is about to do something new with Samuel. God calls out to Samuel. Unlike all those around him, Samuel hears the word. Not only does Samuel hear the word, he responds to the word. Now Samuel is not entrusted with words of comfort for Eli and his sons. Samuel is given a word of confrontation. The bible says that Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. (1 Samuel 3: 15) Yet somehow the heart that heard the word found the courage to speak the word and from that time on Samuel took on his prophetic calling.
The bible says: “As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.” (1 Samuel 3: 19)
The Lord let none of his words fall to the ground. I think all of us understand that prophets are people who hear God’s word and communicate that word and all too often to a people not eager to hear the word.
This weekend, we celebrate the life of another prophet of God: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a book of the Saints in our church, Dr. King finds his place with the other holy men and women of our country and Dr. King is called a Prophet and a Civil Rights Leader. Now Dr. King was a holy man; he did have his moments of weakness but Dr. King was indeed a holy man, a prophet who did not let one of God’s words fall to the ground. In retaliation for his prophetic ministry, Dr. King suffered the fate of so many a prophet, from Jeremiah to John the Baptizer to Jesus of Nazareth: they were not only a prophets, they were also martyrs. He did not let one of God’s words fall to the ground, but his own blood fell to the ground and watered the ground so that the prophetic words of racial equality might be watered with his blood and bear fruit in the a nation where today we stand vigil at one of the most historical events in our history: the inauguration of the first African American President.
I wonder what would have passed through the mind and heart of Dr. King if he would have attended that inauguration. I think of the tears streaming down the face of the Rev. Jesse Jackson on the night President Obama was elected, tears of joy that we all had entered the promised land, tears of joy that we were finally living into the reality of which Dr. King but dreamed. Dr. King is celebrated in our church as a prophet and civil rights leader.
For many of us, prophets are people usually relegated to the past, the ancient past when Samuel lived in ancient Shiloh Isaiah walked the streets of Jerusalem or perhaps the ancient past when John the Baptizer was dunking people in the River Jordan. Prophets are safe in the past. Safe because we cannot hear their voices, we cannot see their actions, we cannot be bothered by their message. Prophets possess an uncanny ability to get under our skin and irritate us by their message.
I think that Samuel had his moment when he realized the cost of his prophet ministry, the cost Samuel had to pay was his own fear of proclaiming the word. Samuel was not afraid to pay the cost.
All of us share in that calling to be prophets, all of us are asked to take on that socially difficult role, all of us are invited to speak, to proclaim, to summon others with the word that God gives to us. Jesus shares with us his prophetic ministry. All of us share in that uncomfortable role of prophets.
Many of you have shared stories of how you are teased or ridiculed for being an Episcopalian. I heard one of you tell how she was invited to spend some time in a Roman Catholic Community to try and get them up to speed on issues. We not only have women as deacons and priest and bishops but our presiding bishop is a woman. We not only let gays, lesbians and bisexuals openly worship in our churches but we are ordaining them as deacons, priests and now even a bishop.
We are prophets entrusted with a simple message: All Are Welcome. It is shorthand for saying three other words: God Loves Everyone. We are given the uncomfortable task of being prophets in our community which does not always want to hear our word of universal welcome, of God’s inclusive love.
What do you do with the prophetic word you have received? Do you let your fear silence your prophetic voice? Do you let the comfort of sitting with people you know keep you away from the difficult task of welcoming the person who is new in this community, in your neighborhood, in your work place?
I invite you to take up your prophetic calling, I encourage you to take up the ministry of Samuel and Dr. King, and speak those three words in your community. All Are Welcome. God Loves Everyone. Don’t let the word given to you fall to the ground.

The Baptism of Jesus and Our Baptismal Priesthood

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco
at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
January 11, 2009

On the beach at Asbury Park, while a gentle snow was preparing to cover the sands, a group of swimmers, called polar bears, braved the frigid water of the Atlantic Ocean, and the below freezing temperatures to take a dip in the water. Wearing only a bathing suit, these swimmers, some might call them brave, others called them crazy, they commented that the day was perfect for a swim since, in spite of the frigid temperatures, the wind was not blowing, so they considered it a good day. Now don’t imagine that just because we are celebrating the Baptism of Jesus that I shall invite us all to imitate those Polar Bears and go for a dip in the Passaic River. Yet today we celebrate a person going to a body of water, not for a swim or a bath, but to participate in a purification ritual.
Mark clearly writes that only Jesus sees the heavens tear open, only Jesus hears the voice from the heaven affirming that Jesus is God’s Beloved Son, only Jesus feels the Spirit, not hover over him, but penetrate the very heart of Jesus and change him into a spirit possessed person. He puts on his tunic and mantle. The river Jordan continues its slow move toward the Dead Sea, another person approaches John to be dunked under the water and Jesus moves into the world, forever transformed, forever transfigured, forever god’s Child.
In a hymn that celebrates this event, we sing of the moment when Jesus is manifest at Jordan’s stream, prophet, priest and king supreme. Like that ancient baptism in the River Jordan, we too have been baptized, we too have come into the heavenly realm of God where we too have been singled out as a prophet, priest and king or queen. This week, I would like us to reflect on our baptismal anointing as priests.
When we think of priests, we usually imagine those people who wear funny clothes on Sunday and plastic dog collars during the week. Yet we seldom consider ourselves as priests. All too often, images of priests in vestments and strange clothing bar our imaginations from claiming the priesthood that is ours, a priesthood which most members of the first century church took for granted. Our patron, St. Peter, describes this priesthood in these words: ‘You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”(1 Peter 2: 9) All too often our imaginations inhibit us from realizing our identity as priests of God. Yet that is what we are. Yet why are all of us called priests?
Primarily because of our consecration in baptism. Like Jesus at the River Jordan, the Spirit comes to us in Baptism, not with a lot of fanfare, not with a blast of trumpets, but with the silent, interior conviction that we are indeed God’s beloved children and, in our hearts, God’s Spirit dwells. Whenever a person is baptized, all of us in the congregation welcomes them with these words: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” (Book of Common Prayer)
We all share in the eternal priesthood of Christ Jesus. Priesthood involves more than just special clothing. In any culture that has them, priests usually are the ones who offer sacrifice. The Christian covenant no longer practices the priesthood of the Jews with the offering of animals, grain and wine. As the letter to the Hebrews makes clear, the ministry of Jesus as priest took place once for all when he offered to God the sacrifice of himself. That sacrifice was made once for all. We do not need to offer that sacrifice again and again. What we do as priests is to make the offering of ourselves in union with that offering of Jesus.
In our Rite I service, we pray these words that speak of our priestly offering: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.” (Book of Common Prayer) In the prayer that we will say today, we ask that God “grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ, to the praise of your Name.” (BCP Eucharistic Prayer D) We ask God to make us a living sacrifice.
To this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, we bring our lives, we bring our hearts as gifts, and as priests, we offer our hearts, that sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
Some among us do function as priests in a different manner.
Some of us are given the gift of the ordained priesthood. That gift includes gift to forgive sins in God’s name, to sanctify the gifts of bread and wine, to bless water for baptism and oil for healing and people in their various times of need. This gift to the community of the ordained priesthood emerges from our common priesthood yet marks some in the community as exercising a different ministry. Even if that gift is different it grows from that same branch of our common baptismal priesthood.
We show that each of us functions in our unique ways by the way we say the prayer during the Holy Eucharist. We all say the Eucharistic prayer yet ordained priests say those parts which sanctify the gifts and offer them to God We all say those prayers which celebrate the great mystery of God’s gifts to us and we make the oblation of our selves, our souls and bodies to God.
Perhaps the understanding of your priesthood comes as a new reality for you. Perhaps your priesthood comes as a long lived reality to which you put a new name. Perhaps you exercise an ordained priesthood, perhaps you might realize that you might have the call to ordained ministry. However you find yourself as a priest, may you exercise your ministry with the grace of bringing your part of the world into the great priestly song of Christ that with Christ we may offer ourselves along with the great sacrifice of Christ Jesus as God establishes among us God’s reign.

Light in the Darkness

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco on
November 30, 2008, The First Sunday of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent. Does anyone know what the word advent means? The word advent comes from two Latin words that mean coming toward. I wonder what is coming toward us? Or who is coming toward us? Christmas is coming toward us. Jesus is coming toward us. For some of us, Santa Claus is coming toward us.
Do any of you remember from today’s gospel what Jesus said is coming? Let me remind you of what Jesus said is coming:
Jesus said that something terrible is coming. Listen to Jesus’ words: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” (Mark 13: 24-25) What does that sound like to you? It sounds like I don’t want to be around to see that happen.
What would that mean if the sun is darkened and the moon does not shine and the stars fall out of the sky? It would be pretty dark when that happens. We would all be living in shadows. We would all be in the dark. How would that make you feel? I think that I would be afraid. I would be scared.
What happens when everything is dark? What do you need? You need light. You need something to shine in the darkness. You need a light.
I think that Jesus is not only telling us that something terrible is going to happen. But Jesus is also telling us that something wonderful is going to happen. Jesus tells us that when terrible things happen, that kind of world has to end. Jesus is telling us that a world where people do bad things to other people has to end. Jesus is telling us that a world where people do not have enough clothes to wear, enough food to eat, enough space to live has to come to an end. So when Jesus talks about the sky becoming dark, it is only part of the story. Jesus is talking about a world where bad things happen. That bad world has to come to end.
Jesus is also saying that he will come to make everything better. Jesus called himself the light. But Jesus is also talking about the dawning of a new light to replace the darkness. This are the words from the Gospel: “Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. (Mark 13: 35-36)
Do you notice the references to time in the Gospel and how time progresses from evening to midnight, to cockcrow to dawn. Jesus is advising us that we need to keep alert. To pay attention, that we might see when the light dawns and perhaps even more than see.
I want to share a story with you about the battle between darkness and light, a story that played itself out only a few blocks from us. Last Sunday, as the congregation from the 10:15 service were going into coffee hour, a tragedy played itself out at St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox church on Third Street. You know the story of how an angry husband traveled from California to New Jersey to take his wife, the wife he brutalized and beat for years, back with him to California. We all know how that story played itself out in the Narthex of the church, how the husband came into the Narthex, demanded that his wife return with him, how a young man intervened along with the woman’s cousin. Shots rang out in the church, leaving the wife dead, the young man mortally wounded and the cousin still is in a coma on life support in St. Joseph’s Hospital.
On Thanksgiving night, I spent evening at St. Thomas Church along with other clergy, members of the family of Dennis John and the many people who were touched by his short life. Again on Friday night, I sat in the pew, praying for Dennis and his family, for his congregation, and listening to the words of friends, of priests who knew him, of members of his congregation. They spoke of his outgoing character, his profound love for people, his deep caring for others.
When I was asked to speak, I did not have a prepared text and these words of the Gospel came to my mind: Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friend. Jesus spoke of those words to describe how he would lay down his life for us. But countless Christians after Jesus have laid down their lives for others. Dennis did what Jesus did. In the midst of that dark hour, Dennis’ sacrifice was a shining light.
Priests came from all over the country. From India came a bishop who is the equivalent of our presiding bishop to lead the prayers and to comfort Dennis’ family and the congregation. Now I am not asking you to become a martyr. Only God can give us that grace. Seeing his mother crying without comfort let me ask God not only for her comfort but that other mothers be spared similar sorrow. Let us pray that none of us are called to that role.
But when a martyr arises in our community, we should recognize that what the world sees as darkness, we Christians see as the dawning light. What the world sees as loss, we see as gain. For the weakness of our human condition, God transforms into God’s own strength. The tragedy of human loss, God transforms by the power of the resurrection into new life. We are all called to be a light in the darkness. Not as dramatically as Dennis in his sacrificial death. But in smaller, humbler, hidden ways.
Perhaps by giving a Christmas gift to a stranger, providing food for someone who is hungry, showing love and affection for someone who is forgotten, you become a light in someone’s darkness. Make your heart a shining light that when you find darkness, the light of Jesus may shine through you.

An Incomplete Sermon on Stewardship

If you were to put an anxiety thermometer in the mouth of our society, you would see the mercury explode the thermometer and bounce in bubbles on the floor. Unless we exert extraordinary concern, each of us can become infected with the collective unease our society is feeling over the ups and down turns of the stock market, fears over the possibility of yet another buyout by the federal government of first insurance companies, then banks and now perhaps the auto industry.
If you think that today’s stock market is a gamble perhaps you did not pay careful attention to today’s Gospel story. The parable of the talents comes close to high rolling with mutual funds.
But for us to understand the high risks of the story, lets start by converting the biblical money into dollars.
When the Gospel talks about talents, a talent is not a good trait you have, a talent is a sum of money. A talent is worth about 6,000 denarii. A denarius is a day’s wage. How much do you make in a day? If you make $80, then one talent is $420,000. Two talents is $840,000. Five talents is $2,100,000.
If you make $160 a day then we are looking at $840,000, $1,680,000, and $4,200,000. I think we are now in the league with Warren Buffit and Bill Gates.
The investors in the Gospel story take the money they receive and the first two double it.
The third one sits on it and does nothing. What is this money that Jesus is talking about? Let’s face it, Jesus is talking not about small amounts of money, he is talking about excessive money. Money that we might imagine a Wall Street Stock Broker makes. Money being given to the CEO of a major corporation. Money that a Mafia godfather collects.
What is this excessive money in God’s eyes? When God invests in the world, God throws out money in abundance. God flings the money at us. God’s mercy overflows. God’s love is endless.
God wants to invest lavishly, loving without restraint, showing mercy without limit.
The parable invites us to be lavish spenders, unrestrained givers, limitless hosts. God does not hide God’s money under a mattress. God invests it in the world.
You know that today is the day we are going to look at our parish’s money, where it comes from and where it goes. I guess that when I was talking about lavish spenders, unrestrained givers, limitless hosts you might have begun to wonder if that is the way the Vestry spends your money or perhaps worse, how the Vestry expects you to make your financial commitment to the church. If our congregation included Warren Buffit and Bill Gates, I would hope that they would exercise some excess in giving. I don’t know about you but I am no Warren Buffit or Bill Gates. So let’s take a look at this budget and see where the money comes from and where it goes.
Most of the money we receive comes from you. The members of the parish contribute $104,000. Our next biggest source of income comes from donations from the various groups who use our property. You can see that in our budget, on line 24, we are not taking any money out of our endowment. That means that we have a balanced budget.
Let’s now take a look at where our money goes. We give money back. On line 29, you see that we give $7,567 to the Diocese and $630 to Episcopal Relief and Development which supports a variety of charities throughout the world.
We clergy are a large expense: on line 47 you see that we account for 45.6 % of our expenses.
Our buildings make up a good deal of our expenses. Starting at line 62, you will see the cost of our utilities, maintenance and insurance comes to 40,900.
Beginning on line 70, you will see the cost of our office supplies on l77 the total is 17, 300.
Our education costs start on line 78 and with Sunday School, the youth program, and other expenses, we come, on line 87 to $6,500.
Those of you who have been members of the parish for a while know that for many years we have been taking money out of our endowment to balance our budget. When that money was taken out of the endowment, it was called a loan.
On line 96 you can see the repayment of that loan back to the endowment.

I think when it comes to the expenses of the church we are not practicing today’s gospel message of liberality. We really try to keep our expenses in check. In a letter I wrote to you, I invited you to consider your own situations from the perspective of abundance. I invited you to consider that God has provided enough for you to do what you need to do for yourself, your family and your community. I invited you to consider your priorities and work to arrange your priorities so you would be able to support yourself, your family and your community and your church.
I know that we are entering into a difficult economic time. When considering your pledge, I ask you to try to at least sustain the level of giving you presently make.
At this point in the sermon, I think that I am on National Public Radio or Channel 13, doing a fall campaign. So bear with me as I make this pitch. If each of us sustains that level of giving, we could easily make our budgeted amount of $100,000. If you have not pledged before, I invite you to consider making this your first year. If you have pledged before I would ask you to consider moving your pledge to a new amount.
All of us have found a home at St. Peter’s Church. Together, we make this place the inviting community it is. Together, we make possible the ministry by which we serve the broader community.
Remember the God who has so lavished you with love, and be generous in your own giving.
Now I bet you think the sermon ends there.
It only begins. I invite you during coffee hour to talk with someone about your experience of giving.
Not about how much you give. Not about how much you plan to give. But what it means for you to contribute to St. Peter’s Church. Tell someone why you do it. Tell them what you get out of it. Tell them how it changes your relationship with God. So you see, the sermon is not ending, it is only beginning. Amen.

Forming Character

Most of us live with laws. In this area of Clifton, we put the garbage out on Monday and Thursday nights. If you want the garbage collected you have to obey that law. Driving down the street, we come to a traffic light, or a stop sign or a yield sign. For the common good, we obey these laws so that we, or the other driver, does not slam into another car. Every April 15, we have to meet the deadline for filing our taxes. Now while here in New Jersey we always hear of government officials not obeying that law, most of us dutifully file our taxes and most of us comply with the laws that regulate those taxes. If you are a young person living at home, you know full well how your parents regulate your lives with rules to be followed. How many of us have heard or how many of us have said: If you live under my roof you live by my rules.
We all live according to rules, some of those rules are imposed on us by the government, some are accepted as rules for polite society, some regulate our private lives at home. Yet most of these laws do not impact our relationship with God.
It was not so for Jesus and the Jews of his day. Any observant Jew in Jesus’ day would observe 613 laws. The same is true for most observant Jews today: If you want to be a true Jew you must observe the Law, all 613 commandments. Read through the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and you will see laws covering every possible situation in the ancient world. These rules established a system of justice and equality, sometimes to an exacting degree. The law ranked high among the Jews, not only as a way to establish their society, but foremost as the revelation from God and the means of keeping the covenant they made with God.
In today’s gospel, when the lawyer comes to Jesus and asks him what is the greatest law, Jesus knows that the lawyer is setting a trap for Jesus. Everyone knew that the correct answer would have been: all 613 laws are important and all are to be observed.
Now this Lawyer would have known that Jesus failed to observe some of those 613 laws. He broke the law when he worked on the Sabbath by healing the sick. He broke the law when he associated with sinners and those who did not observe the Law. He broke the law when he and his disciples did not follow ritual laws about bathing, hand washing and eating particular foods. If Jesus does not praise all 613 laws, he is breaking down respect for the entire law. If he does endorse all of those 613 laws, he condemns himself and discredits his ministry.
Notice what Jesus does: He turns the question on its head.
He establishes as the highest law the commandment which every Jew would have said every day from Deuteronomy 6: 4-5: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Therefore you shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your mind.” Then he adds to it a small verse from Leviticus, 19; 18: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. He shifts the argument away from the law to the heart. Jesus does not deny the value of the law, for he quotes the law in his answer. But he makes observance of the Law subservient to the movement of the heart.
For all of us here today, if we are the ones who impose the laws or the ones who observe the laws, or if we are both, I would ask you how do the laws you impose foster the development of love? If we think about the purpose of the laws we impose on our children, or the laws our parents imposed on us, those laws are intended to develop good habits, patterns of healthy behavior that become second nature to us. We do not usually hear much talk about character development, but I think that many of us would agree that laws are in place so that we can develop those habits which we believe to be the mark of a responsible and healthy individual and a person who has developed those habits we call a person of character.
Jesus lays out for us two important areas of character development: love of God and love of our neighbor. I would summarize those gifts as worship and service. Notice how Jesus frames our worship and love of God as engaging our not only our hearts and our souls but our minds as well. We Episcopalians do not shy away from engaging the hard questions and we do not give out predetermined answers to the questions. Episcopalians wrestle with the hard questions about the faith and we form our own answers to the questions. It is not always easy living under a big tent where the answers to the questions are all slightly different.
But we agree on the boundaries to the questions. We call those boundaries the Baptismal Covenant. We agree to a minimum of beliefs which are summarized in the Creed. We also agree to a standard of behavior, we commit ourselves to worship and to respect for others.
As we look at the way we carry out our baptismal covenant, today’s Gospel challenges us to look at our motive for doing what we do. Are we engaged with God and with one another because of love? Are we working with each other because of love? When we come together for worship, do we go from this place with our hearts expanded? When we gather during this week to work on the Rummage Sale, when we cook a meal to share with others, when we prepare a lesson for Sunday School, when we bake for coffee hour, when we sing in the choir, are we doing these things to grow in love? For all of us love because we have been loved, loved with a passionate love by this God who has taken on our flesh, lived our life, suffered our death and in the power of his resurrection opens to us possibilities we have not even imagined.

The Spiritual Gift of Water

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco
At St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton NJ

Today we heard in the first lesson the story of the parting of the Reed Sea. That story brings a variety of characters. Whom would you say are some of those characters?
(Moses, Pharaoh, the Chosen People, the Egyptian Army) One character we tend to forget, and it’s the character whose name appears in the title of the story: The Reed Sea.
Bodies of water play major roles in many stories in the Bible. When you open the first pages of Genesis, in the second verse, you cannot move deep into the chapter one before encountering the primeval waters over which hovers God’s Spirit. When you come to chapter 2 and the description of the Garden of Paradise, four great rivers water the garden home of Adam and Eve. Only a few chapters later, Genesis tells you yet another story of water, when God destroys the earth and rescues Noah, his family and the sets of animals.
We hear stories of wells of water. You will recall how Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac and Rebecca is discovered at a well. Moses finds his wife when she and her sisters draw near to a well in an oasis to water their sheep. Jesus also meets a woman at a well in Samaria. wonder if God is telling us that if you want to meet the love of your life you should go to the local watering hole. But let’s get back to Exodus.
Moses and Aaron changed the waters of the River Nile into blood. Moses gives water to the Chosen People out of a rock in the desert. Joshua leads the people through the waters of the Jordan River. That Jordan River witnesses the cleansing of Naaman the leper. Later, John the Baptizer will baptize people in that river Jordan and the disciples of Jesus will continue that water bath as they also baptize.
Not only in today’s story but throughout the bible, water is a significant character in many stories. Water brings life to people, it nourishes crops, it provides for cleansing.
Water also brings death. Its destructive forces overwhelms people. Just recall the fate of the Egyptian army in today’s story about the Reed Sea. All of them are drowned in the waters. Noah’s flood makes us think of the December 26, 2004 Tsunami that struck in the Indian Ocean. We have only to consider Hurricane Ike and the water destruction along the Texas coast line.
Water is both beautiful and terrible, a source of life and death.
We all live close to some body of water. What is the body of water closest to your home? What is your relationship to that water? How many of us know what is happening in Weasel Brook? What are the issues around the Passaic River as it moves through Clifton? What do you know about Barber’s Pond in Garrett Mountain, or the New Street Reservoir, or the Great Notch Reservoir? Does anyone know where Highland Lake is? When was the last time you visited the Paterson Falls?
Or the Dundee lake and dam in Garfield?
We are all surrounded by water. Much of that water is in danger. The Passaic River is slowly being restored after once being called the most polluted river in the country.
The water that surrounds us on all sides forms part of the great mystery of water about which we read in the bible.
While we considered it as a character in many stories from the Bible, water is also a character in our lives. I wonder what would happen if we make the water near us a part of our lives?
I wonder what would happen if we began to relate to the water around us in a more conscious way? Would we take time to find a favorite spot on the water and watch the water flow at different times of the day? In the dance of the soft morning sun, in the strength of the afternoon’s light, in the beauty of the sunset, in the gentle moon light? Would we weep when we saw the water polluted? Would we cry when we saw bottles and other debris floating down the water? Would we be concerned when we knew about the chemical pollutants that infect the waterbeds and aquatic life in the water?
Water is not just out there. We are water. Do you realize that we about 50 or 60% water? If you understood that you are about half water how would you relate the rest of the water that surrounds you? Would you begin to see that the water that surrounds you and the water that is you are but one?
Would you begin to see that the water that surrounds you, the water that is you is part of that original sacred water, that original holy water, over which the Holy Spirit hovered and sanctified? Would you begin to see that the sacred water in which you lived in your mother’s uterus is part of the sacred water in which you received the new life of baptism? Would you see that our most important sacramental actions involve water, bread and wine? Would you begin to see that you are part of one sacred pool of water that flows through the earth as its life blood, spreading the holy life of God through the planet, through your body, through your soul?
As we consider the water of the Reed Sea, I invite you to consider the sacredness of water in your life. To open your heart to the mystery of water that surrounds you. To feel the beauty of water that is you. To sense that you are one with the water of the world, one with the sacred flow of water from the heart of our God. When you come into the church, touch the water not only to remind yourself of your baptism but of the mystery of water in God’s creation. Of the mystery of water that is God. Of the mystery of water that is you.

Transitions in Leadership

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ
November 9, 2008

In any society the transition of leaders brings no small amount of worry. In today’s first reading, we heard about the end of the rule of Joshua. This reading follows on what, if it were not for All Saints’ Sunday, we would have heard last week: the transition from Moses to Joshua. When Joshua began to lead the people, Israel entered a significant new era. The generation of slaves who escaped from Egypt under Moses had died. The bible says that because the slave generation rebelled against Moses and God they could not be enter the land of promise. I read biblical commentators who state that a generation of slaves could not inherit freedom. That slave generation needed to die off and a new generation, a generation of free persons, a generation which did not experience slavery in Egypt, would inherit the land of Israel. Joshua brought the free generation across the river Jordan into the land God promised to Abraham. Just as the generation of slaves crossed through the Reed Sea, the freed children of slaves crossed the Jordan River into the land of promise.
When Joshua crossed into Canaan, all hell broke loose.
He unleashed a wave of terror on the inhabitants of Canaan, killing kings, decimating armies, destroying the entire populations of cities. We are spared those chapters of the book of Joshua which detail the war of conquest by which the Jews overtook the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. Today’s reading brings us to the completion of the conquest. Today we hear Joshua speaking to the nation of Israel at another historical crossroad. Joshua is about to die. He is asking Israel not to backslide and betray the God who brought them into the land of promise. The people stand at this historic moment and promise that they would be faithful. They promised fidelity and then the tribes slip into the greatest period of anarchy among the Jews.
For four hundred years, the Jews existed as a loose confederation of tribes and they were constantly attached by one of their enemies or another. That generation did not live up to the challenges of freedom. It would take 400 years until Samuel was called as a prophet in Israel and he would anoint as King first Saul and then David, the greatest of the kings of Israel.
The Sunday readings do not always present a parallel between the situation of the bible story and the times in which we live. The story from Joshua is one of transition. We as a nation are in a similar situation of transition.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, you must admit that we have witnessed a most historical week in our national history. We elected the first African American President in our history. If any of you stayed up on Tuesday night, you saw tears streaming down the faces of so many people as they heard the CNN and NBC declare at 11:01 that Barack Obama was elected president. General Colin Powell, in an interview following the election, said that he was profoundly moved, moved to tears, at the news of the election of President Elect Obama. Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee all cried at the news of the election results.
I was a high school student in Paterson when Dr. Martin Luther King visited the city only a few months before his assassination. Many of us remember Dr. King. We remember the struggle for civil rights which Dr. King lead. Who among us could have imagined we would have lived to see the day an African American would become president. No wonder tears flowed on that night.
I do not want to celebrate the triumph of one candidate over another. I think something profound is happening in our country,
Something profoundly religious is happening. Just think back with me over the past two years since the candidates began the road to the White House. Think back with me, not on the bickering and the political antagonisms. Think back on the language the candidates used. Were you startled, as I was amazed, by the religious language which the candidates used.
Both candidates used the word change in looking at the past few years in our country. We have a religious word for change.
We call it conversion. In religious terms, both candidates were saying that the United States needed a conversion.
Then other words crept into the political discourse. Words like hope and humility and healing and cooperation.
I do not think that any one person can change our country. I doubt if any of us think that we have elected the messiah. But like the Jews of old, we too stand at a crossroads.
Many of you know Maya Angelou. Some would consider her the premier African American writer. When she was interviewed by CNN about Barack Obama’s election as President she remarked: “With this, the country is finally able to see through complexion and see community.”
Together let us pray that God is using the election of Barack Obama to heal our nation of the sin of racism that has divided us for centuries and is uniting us as a community.
Together let us pray that God is healing our nation in the sight of the other nations of the world so that we can assume our place, not as the political or economic or military leader of the world but as the moral leader of the world.
Together let us pray that God is healing our nation of the uncontrollable greed that has undermined our economy and brought our nation to the brink of disaster.
Together let us pray that the Spirit of God will so blow over this country with a purifying fire to cleanse us of all that has defiled us and bring us today, like the people of Israel of old, into that land of promise, rich with promise for all people.
We stand at a crossroads, as did the people did in the days of Joshua. Let us be attentive to the ways God is looking to heal us, bring us together, lead us forward, forward into a land of promise.

The Cross and New Life

A Sermon preached by
the Rev. Peter De Franco
at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
August 31, 2008

Last week, we heard the story of Peter identifying Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus thought that God gave Peter a unique insight into Jesus and his mission. Jesus was so impressed with Peter’s understanding that he called Peter the Rock on which Jesus would build his church. Peter must have thought himself very special.
I have some Spanish friends and they gave me a word to describe Peter: Especial. It means someone who thinks of himself as better than others, as velvet compared to cotton, a Don Perignon champagne to Boon Wine, a Lamborghini rather than a banged up Impala. People who feel themselves to be Especial usually have a bit of an inflated ego. And that was Peter.
After all, Jesus singled him out from all the apostles and let him know that he saw things that they did not understand. Since Peter recognized that Jesus was unique, Peter must have felt that he needed to protect Jesus. He must have felt, as any friend would feel, that he had to protect Jesus from harm, shelter him from danger, shield him from disaster. We all would feel the same. None of us would want any disaster to fall on our best friend. If Peter was anything to Jesus, Peter was his dear friend.
Just after Jesus called Peter the rock on which Jesus would build the church, Jesus then goes on to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Peter hears those words and goes into protective mode. Just imagine Peter as a huge Israeli shepherd; Peter would not allow anyone to touch his Jesus. Suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests, being killed, and that nonsense about rising on the third day – Peter would have none of that for his Jesus. We all would have felt the same. We all would have tried to protect Jesus. All of us except for Jesus.
Just as quickly as Jesus inflated Peter’s balloon, so Jesus did not fail to pop that balloon. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Satan – that is what Jesus called Peter. The Rock becomes the demon. The most important becomes the least important. Apostle Especial becomes first class devil.
If the rest of the disciples do not understand what Jesus is saying, Jesus spells it out for them in no uncertain terms: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Those are very hard words. But let’s just look at the week that has passed. I am sure you read the newspaper articles about two young boys, athletes both, who died tragically while preparing for the football season. On Thursday, we received the tragic news that Fred Richter, a beloved parishioner of many years, died suddenly and his funeral was on Friday. Another member of the parish buried her aunt. Another member of the church underwent major surgery. We could go through a litany of woes that we are all carrying, problems with children, spouses, finances, work and health. Just because it is summer does not mean that problems take a vacation.
As we gather on this the last Sunday of the summer, we find that Jesus is talking to us about a cross. Perhaps this is God’s offer at making sense of the crosses that come our way. To be a follower of Jesus involves us in a process of death and resurrection.
Now I don’t want you to imagine that I am endorsing a Christianity that is all about suffering. Let’s thanks God that Jesus suffered once for us all and we do not have to repeat that cycle of suffering. I think its bad theology to imagine that we have a God who delights in disrupting our lives with anguish, pain and suffering. God does not send pain into our lives to crush us, to punish us, to get back for those offenses we committed at one time or another.
But Jesus knows that suffering is part of all our lives. When Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, Jesus is asking us to enter into the life process where we let go and surrender the old patterns of life that new forms of life might begin.
There is a tendency in all of us, when we listen to these passages about death and resurrection, that we stop at the death part and don’t move on to the life part. We get stuck. Jesus is addressing that pattern of getting stuck.
In today’s Gospel, Peter got stuck. When Jesus told the disciples about the process of death leading to life, Peter could only hear the death part and not engage the life part. For that reason, Jesus calls Peter Satan since the Rock was caught and could not imagine how life could come from death. But God could imagine that process. God could think of a way to get beyond death and make the way of the cross a way of life and peace.
I invite you this day to find those places in your heart where you are suffering, where you feel the pain of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender of your old life to allow space for new life. I invite you to look into your soul, to find those places where you feel the weight of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender in order for resurrection to happen. For in this holy process of life and death, we are not in it alone. God is the one who is drawing new life out of the old. God is inviting you to leave behind the old patterns and enter into the new life God is preparing for you. God is the one who is inviting us to leave behind the womb of our old lives to enter into the new birth of a life we cannot imagine.

Let us pray.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Hunger for Heaven

A Sermon Preached by the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on August 3, 2008

Nothing about the history of Sara Miles would have brought her to the place where she is today. An avowed atheist who was raised by atheist parents, A radical reporter on the staff of the left wing publication, Mother Jones. A journalist who covered the 1980’s war in Nicaragua. A sometimes cook in New York restaurants. A Mother of one. A wife of another woman. She is the last person you would have expected to walk into a church. But stranger things have happened.
When Sara Miles walked in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, little did she anticipate it would be the day of her conversion? Why did she do it? This is what she said: “I was curious. You know, I'm a reporter, and it's a big, beautiful, wooden-shingled building. And it has this gorgeous mosaic icon outside and a sign that says, "All That Is Prays to You." You walk inside and you are struck by this huge mural of dancing saints, only the saints are people like Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez. It's very surprising.”
Sara Miles walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Church and heard the invitation to receive communion: “Jesus welcomes everyone to his table and so we offer everyone, without exception, the bread and wine, which are Christ’s body and blood.” Deacons and priests came into a congregation standing around a circular altar giving to all a piece of bread broken from a loaf. They passed around chalices with wine. Sara describes her experience in these words: “A woman put a piece of fresh bread in my hand and gave me a goblet of some rather nasty, sweet wine. And I ate the bread and was completely thunderstruck by what I felt happening to me. So I stood there crying, completely unsure of what was happening to me. I thought I’ve got to get out of the church as quickly as I could before some strange, creepy Christian would try to chat with me. And I came back the next week because I was hungry, and kept coming back and kept coming back to take that bread.’
Completely Thunderstruck by what was happening. Now how many of us are thunderstruck when we receive communion?
Here is another way she describes communion: "It was pretty good bread, a nice whole-wheat bread. The other was that God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."
But that was only the beginning. She came back, week after week, drawn to satisfy a hunger that she had long known but could never find the food to fill her. Sara knew that the invitation to receive the body and blood of Christ echoed the radical welcome Jesus gave to all whom he invited to share his table.
We heard that invitation which Jesus extended to 5,000 men. I wonder why Matthew did not include the women and children. To all of them, to girls and boys, women and men, anyone who could eat food, Jesus and the apostles spread out, like those priests and deacons spreading out through the church, giving to one and all a lunch of bread and fish. It was a bountiful meal. There was so much food that they put together doggie bags, twelve baskets of leftover food.
Let’s recall that the gospels speak in symbolic language and when they talk about 12 baskets of extra food, they mean food to feed the 12 tribes of Israel, all of God’s people have enough to bring home. Sara knew something of that generosity of Jesus. She knew that hunger not only touches the heart, as it touched her. Hunger cripples the body.
San Francisco is close to the bountiful fields of northern California. People in the city began to organize food pantries where the bounty of the fields would be sold to food pantries. Sara had the bright idea of starting up a pantry.
St. Gregory’s church does not have a parish hall. The church is a double room. One room has chairs that are set up to face one another. The other room has only one piece of furniture in it: an altar. Sara asked to set up the food pantry in the church, with tables surrounding the altar. Food would be brought in every Friday morning. Volunteers would set out the food on tables surrounding the altar. Melons, fruit, tomatoes, lettuce, rice, beans, boxes of cereal, pasta. People would come with their bags and slowly enter into the church. Candles would be burning in front of icons. Flowers decorate the church. Five tons of food would be handed out to 450 people. They do that every Friday.
The Food Pantry at St. Gregory’s Church was only the start. When you do God’s work, God sees that the work will spread. Money started to come into her pantry and she gave the money to other places to start pantries. Only one church joined her effort. But parents in schools, people in the projects, volunteers started to come from all different places to find food. It all sounds a lot like us.
I invite you this day to come to this table that Jesus sets for us, come with your hunger, come with your heart desiring to be filled. Perhaps this day you too can say with Sara: God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."

Cultivating A Garden of Weeds

A Sermon Preached by the
Rev’d Peter De Franco at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church,
July 27, 2008

Just think about what will happen today at St. Peter’s Church. We celebrate the baptism of our youngest member and the birthday of one of our oldest members.
So you would imagine that with the parable of the mustard seed, I would preach a sermon where I would compare Ava to the mustard seed and Rosemary to the mustard tree. We would all think that the sermon would encourage Ava’s parents and family to help her grow into the tree, that they would water her soul with love and instruction and discipline and all the things that good parents do for their children. Sort of like the thinks that Rosemary’s parents did for her so that one day Ava will sit in this church and celebrate her 90th birthday and someone will read this same gospel and compare her to the mustard seed that has grown into the mustard tree. Wouldn’t that be a perfect sermon? No, not by a long shot. That sermon would be too predictable.
Whenever we hear Jesus speaking in a parable, we should train our ears to discover the unpredictable. So let me tell you a story.
Someone, way back went in the history of St. Peter’s church, thought that it would be nice to plant morning glories around the church. They thought that morning glories would look really nice where they could do what they did best: climb. So they found the things on which the morning glories could climb: the railings up the steps of the parish hall and the pole in the front of the church. I am sure that the first year the morning glories were planted they were beautiful. Lovely blue flowers opening up to the sun, and every week more and more flowers began to grow on the vine. Every week, the vine must have taken over the railings so that it became impossible to use the railings going up to the Parish Hall.
Every week the vine must have grown up the sign at the front of the church till it covered the sign with a waterfall of blue morning glories cascading down the sign. Were the morning glories a thing of beauty or a weed?
When I first came to St. Peter’s Church, three years ago, there were huge bushes that flanked the entrance to the parish hall. Growing on the crooked branches of those overgrown bushes were morning glories. As they grew closer to the railings, people would pull out the morning glories. I cannot remember a single morning glory flower. No flowers mean no seeds. But, even this year, you can see morning glories sprouting on either side of the parish hall and Fr. Ed pulls them out so they don’t take over the new gardens. And next year, I am sure that we shall continue to find those morning glories continuing to sprout in places where they have not been seen in years.
Morning Glories are invasive. Once you plant them you will have them forever. For those of us who are gardeners, morning glories are like bamboo, or mint, or dandelions, they have a habit of taking over the garden.
In Jesus’ world, mustard was like dandelions, morning glories, bamboo or mint. You would have to be out of your mind to plant it in your garden. Unless you wanted your entire garden to be taken over by the weed. Does that make any sense?
Now every parable of Jesus has something in it that does not make any sense. There is always something in a parable that baffles the one who hears it. A smart shepherd would not risk the lives of 99 sheep for the sake of one lamb. A thrifty housewife would not spend a hundred dollars on a party when she found her silver dollar. A smart gardener would not plant a weed that would take over the garden. Who would plant dandelions? Who would plant morning glories?
Perhaps a God who knows about dandelion wine. Perhaps a God who loves the blue of morning glories. Perhaps a God who knows that mustard can heal and season and prevent disease. Perhaps a God who invites us to look into those places in our lives where we do not expect or even want God, in the dark crevices, in the ordinariness of our days, in the disorders of our minds and hearts, all the places we neglect.
Perhaps, if we anticipate God coming to us in those places we neglect, as we would neglect a weed, we will find God lightening the darkness, cheering our ordinariness, restoring us to peace. It is the crazy seed of God. It is God’s unconditional love. Available to us this day in the sign of water poured, bread broken and a shared cup.
It is the crazy seed of God’s love, that spreads through the world as much as dandelions, when, on a windy spring day the breeze lifts the seeds and spreads them through all the gardens. Not many of us deal with mustard seeds, but many of us know about dandelions, and morning glories, and mint and bamboo.
Today God plants a seed in the soul of Ava. It’s the seed that God plants in each of our hearts when we are baptized – that wild and crazy seed that God plants in mustard plants, dandelions and morning glories. It is God’s unconditional love. That we are loved by God, no matter what we do or say or become.
If you ever watch very young children, and those of us who are parents might remember this happening to us, young children do not seen dandelions as weeds. Children love to go to the lawn and pick a bouquet of dandelions because of their ready made beauty. They see them as a heaven sent gift of God planted in the lawn as a ready gift to pick and bring to mom or dad. Children have that eye to see the beauty of ordinary things. I think they have that eye because they see like the God from whom they have come.
Let us pray this day that we might be overrun with weeds, with dandelions and mustard and mint and bamboo. Let us pray that Ava’s soul will be overgrown with that weed of God’s Love. Let us pray that Rosemary’s heart will continue to be overrun with that same pesty weed. And let us all go out and gather the dandelions and give and receive bouquets of God’s love.

No Condemnation

A Sermon Preached by the the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church,
Clifton, New Jersey
July 13, 2008

Over the last six weeks, we have been reading sections from the letter to the Romans. The first week came as the most positive of all those readings and it has been a steady downward spin as we listened to Paul describe the increasingly dire situation in the world. Last week we heard one of the most difficult passages in Paul, not because we cannot understand what Paul says but because his words are as a mirror to our souls caught in the dilemma of wanted to do God’s good works but also drawn away from God’s good works. Each of us is painfully aware of that tension between what we would want to do that is good, holy and blessed and what we actually find ourselves doing which is less than our idealized plans. Paul speaks of an energy in us that spirals downward, not unlike the flush of the toilet that spins the water and the refuse in a circle and down the pipes and into the sewer. Last week, we ended the reading on a terribly depressing note with the question: What A wretch I am. Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death? Not the best news in the world.
But today, we come to a turning point in the letter to the Romans. Today the water is not being flushed down the toilet. Today the water is dancing like a fountain, spraying upward in joy and delight, as we hear described for us the effect of living in the Spirit. Today’s reading begins with those phenomenal ords: “There is no condemnation for you.” Just imagine that: No Condemnation for you!
I shall speak for myself, but I am not a sterling saint. There are some of us here who have been living the Christian life with devoted energy for a long time and they approach that sterling shine, but for the rest of us sinners, I cannot imagine greater words of joy: There is no condemnation for you.”
Just imagine the person who for their entire lives was told that they could not meet the standards that their parents set for them as children, who for their entire lives lived as underachievers since they could never hope to reach that impossible standard: There is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine that person living with family members who constantly live on a downward spiral so no matter what they do, they cannot reverse that negative energy: There is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine that person who knew that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual and were told that they would be condemned to hell realizing that God does not create to condemn, that there is no condemnation for you.
Just imagine whatever your circumstance in life, whatever situation drains you of energy, whatever circumstance hampers you from feeling the fullness of life and joy, there is no condemnation for you.
In Christ Jesus. That is the hitch. Condemnation has been lifted because of a relationship. A relationship with Christ Jesus. That relationship begins with our Baptism. Something mystical happens to each of us at Baptism. Something of a miracle. We become part of Jesus. That dipping in water, those words spoken over us, effect a miracle in our souls. We become one with Christ. So when God looks at us, God sees us as part of God’s own Child, Jesus.
If we search deep in our hearts, not just on the surface, but in the very depths of our souls, we will discover an energy deeper than our own spirit, in the depths of our hearts, God’s Spirit is welling up, like a fountain of water, springing up to water our souls and lead them to discover new ways of acting, new ways of seeing, new ways of relating.
I would like to tell you a story about a couple of girls who experienced this strength to follow Christ. The story is told by a woman, a shy woman, who stepped out in the public to become a community organizer. When she was asked why she took this step she told this story: “When I was a young girl in North Caroline, my sister and I began to attend the local Roman Catholic Church. In those days, blacks sat in the back pews. Now I was a very large young girl, rather heavy, and so was my sister. When we went to that church, I saw no reason why my sister and I should sit in the back. So one Sunday we went right up and sat in the first pew. The pastors and ushers were upset. The pastor came over before Mass and asked me if we would please sit in the back, like all the other blacks. I was scared as I could be, but I just couldn’t see where God would care where we sat, so I said no. Finally, the ushers came and carried me and my sister to the back. Carried us right down the aisle of the church. On the next Sunday, my sister and I sat in the front pew again, and the priest came and the ushers came and they hauled us off again, huffing and puffing. On the third Sunday, the same thing happened.
By this time, we were pretty well known. The black girls who got carried away to the back of the church every Sunday.
“My family, my mother particularly, was frightened at what we were doing, but she said we were doing the right thing. On the fourth Sunday, the priests and ushers didn’t do a thin. The Mass started, the choir sang, we took our seats, and from then on we sat where we wanted in that church and in any Roman Catholic church we ever attended.” (Roots for Radicals by Edward Chambers)
God’s Spirit lived in those two girls. God’s Spirit gave them the courage to do the right thing.
Each of us also faces unique challenges, those places where we need to find the grace to move into greater freedom. If you wonder how to find such freedom, just listen to what Paul says: Set your mind on the things of the spirit and you will find life and peace.(See Romans 8: 6)
Those two girls found that peace. They experience that life. You too can move into that life and peace. You too can experience that freedom.

Peter & Paul, A study in Contrasts

A sermon preached by
the Rev’d Peter De Franco at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ
on June 29, 2008,
Feast of Saints Peter & Paul.

Famous pairs find their way into every area of human life.
Just think of a few you might know: George and Martha Washington, Abbot and Costello, Venus and Serena Williams, Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, Sonny and Cher, Chip and Dale. In Christian tradition, Peter and Paul endure as a matched pair of saints, as two sides of a coin, as matching book ends in your library. Peter and Paul are as different as salt and pepper yet closely linked as those two spices are bound together on every table at which you sit. Let’s think of the two for a minute and let’s start with Peter.
Of the two of them, only Peter saw the Lord Jesus in his fleshly existence. From the Gospels, we know Peter as an impetuous, hot headed, loud mouthed leader of the apostles. He is hardly the person whom I think would qualify as the CEO of a major company. Don’t you wonder what Jesus saw in Peter?
Jesus saw in Peter a strong leader. Jesus changed his name from Cephas to Peter, the Rock. Jesus wanted Peter to serve as a stone in the temple Jesus was building, the temple of which we are all a part. Perhaps it was Peter’s big heart that so loved Jesus that Peter left behind his family, his expensive fishing enterprise, his prominent place in his society to follow Jesus for that year of intense preaching, healing and even confrontations that lead Peter with Jesus through the backwoods of Galilee to that fateful week in Jerusalem when Peter would deny the Lord he loved and then see that Jesus transformed from the crucified one to the Risen Lord. After the Spirit descends on Peter and the other disciples on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit transforms those fearful men into bold evangelists, proclaiming the word of Jesus’ Resurrection to their fellow Jews and at the Spirit’s urging to include the Gentiles among the people of God. I cannot imagine Peter, a devout Jew from Galilee, ever thinking that he would be the one who would ever eat with Gentiles. Just imagine whomever it was that your parents told you not to associate with, the kids who always got in trouble, the girl who was a little loose with herself, the boy who would find himself on the other side of the fence, just imagine finding out that those very people were devout believers and that you would join them in a supper at church. Strange things that God has in store for us.
Then there is Paul. The Acts of the Apostles first calls him Saul, a Pharisee, a ancient version of the Congregational style of Christians whom some of you know as going to church at least twice on Sundays and rigidly observing the Sabbath.
They are the Christians of the no: No cards, no dancing, no alcohol, no work on the Sabbath, perhaps even no fun. Hardly Episcopalians! Saul was like them. The No Saul had in his head was No Christians and he started by helping to stone Stephen to death and then leading a band of self appointed self righteous bounty hunters to search out, jail and execute those Christians.
Such would have been his lot in life, and a life which later generations would have forgotten, except for that voice from the heavens and that blinding vision that called out to him: Saul, Saul why do you persecute me? Strange words when you think about it. Saul was not persecuting Jesus, he was persecuting the Christians.
Yet from those words, Paul would understand that all Christians are linked together with Jesus in a mystical bond that makes us but one body with Christ.
Saul would become Paul, the one who persecuted the Church changed into its premier apostle, going through the what is now Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and ending up in Rome where his preaching of the Gospel lead to his death. Those words from Second Timothy reflect what must have been Paul’s sentiments in the Roman jail when he knew that his execution would be immanent: I am already being poured out like a libation and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Saul, turned into Paul, another hot head, another zealot, another one who, like Peter, Jesus turned around and made into a herald of the Gospel. Strange things that God has in store for us.
What does it all mean for us? Are Peter and Paul only a quaint pair of saints we polish off once a year and use their day to do what we do best: have a party? I would suggest that Peter and Paul come to us as a pair to remind us of what is remarkably similar in the lives of these very dissimilar saints: that God has strange, unexpected tasks in store for us. Strange and unexpected tasks – for those of you who love adventure, you are thrilling at such possibilities. Strange and unexpected tasks – for those of you who hate change, you are appalled that God would so upset your apple cart with such a world shattering proposal. Perhaps you would prefer the words of today’s collect, you know standing firm on the one foundation of Jesus Christ and not venturing into the unknown fields where the lost sheep are scattered.
Peter and Paul fulfilled those words of the prophet Ezekiel; they were shepherds who sought the lost, brought back the strayed, bound up the injured and strengthened the weak. They did it all because of love, love for Jesus who called them, love for Jesus who loved them.
As you share in the same Eucharistic feast that fed Peter and Paul, I invite you to draw strength from this table not to stand on the one foundation, but to go into the world. Find those who are on the edge and invite them to the table that nourishes you. Find those who are wounded and invite them to share in the cup that heals you. Find those who are lost and lead them to the home you have found.
For then Peter and Paul are not two dusty saints from the past. They are living models for you and I to imitate. For we, like Peter and Paul, hear those last words from today’s Gospel, words beckoning, not Peter and Paul but you and me, those two words leaping off the page into your ear, into your heart, those two inviting words of Jesus: Follow Me!