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They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

1 Timothy 6:18-19 NRSVA

This week, we sent out our annual pledge cards so that the vestry could plan the budget for next year. I humbly ask you to pray about your stewardship at St. John’s, fill out your pledge card, and send it to the office. Stewardship should be a joyful celebration of giving back to God what God has already given us. “God’s initiative is always to bless, and that blessing is never earned, it is freely given. Christians primarily know the blessing of God’s grace in the gift of our baptism. The Book of Common Prayer tells us that in our baptism the bond that is established cannot be dissolved. We share the same blessing given to Jesus in his baptism: 'This is my beloved, in you I’m well pleased.' By virtue of our baptism, we are blessed to be a blessing. We, in turn, bless God by offering praise and thanksgiving for the goodness of gifts given. To worship God is to offer something of value. We offer praise and thanksgiving not only with our lips but with our lives. The annual pledge campaign can be an opportunity to bless God and bless the community from the offerings of the labor of our lives. Through our commitment to proportional giving, we offer a pledge of thanksgiving for all we have received and for all we will become as we grow into the image of Christ” (Blessed to be a blessing). 

Give of your time, talent and treasure to God because you truly believe that Christ died that you might have abundant life. When a heart is filled with the love of God, the desire to give a portion back comes from deep within, not from a rational sense of obligation. We use the gifts that God has given us to do the work God is calling us to do. God will never ask you to do anything unless God provides the means for you to do it. You should give proportionately to God what God has given to you. If you have time, give of your time. If you have talent, give of your talent. If you have treasure, give of your treasure. God wants to bring you to wholeness in your life. Give from your heart and St. John’s will serve this community with generosity as we have for the past 275 years. Both for the individual and for the community, stewardship is a joyful act for the sake of God's world. Please give joyfully from your heart. God is well pleased when we give in this manner and will provide everything we need to do the work that God calls us to do.

God’s abundance is a feeling that what you do matters and that your life has meaning. God’s abundance includes our worship, our music, our pastoral care and our physical buildings and property. In a time of despair and worry, God offers hope and contentment. In a time of enmity and separation, God offers love and unification. In a time of uncertainty, God offers us eternal life. By the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we know that God’s unending love for us is real and that God’s promises are true. I urge you to see your life as a precious gift from God and to give of your time, talent and treasure accordingly.

In Christ’s love,

Rev. Duncan Burns

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“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:4-7).

Paul asks us to pray for one another in times of trouble. The early church had strong divisions very much like the divisions that exist today in our church and in the nation. We are asked to do everything in thankfulness. Each day I give thanks for this community and the way we support one another and the folks that live around us. While many are fighting with one another, we must press forward in the love of God. Bishop Curry tells us that, “The way of love is a commitment to seeking the good and well-being of others” (Love is the Way p.242). We all know the bible verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16). This word love is translated from the Greek word agape. Bishop Curry defines agape love as “sacrificial love that seeks the good and well-being of others, of society, of the world” (Love is the way p. 14). He goes on to tell us that love is a verb that is meant to be fierce. Jesus told us that, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). We are starting our second session of Sacred Ground and I am thankful for all those that have continued to support this program as we continue on our journey to becoming a beloved community. This month I ask all parishioners to support our Harvest Fair any way you can. Buy your raffle tickets, donate a basket, help mark the White Elephant merchandize, buy some Vermont Cheese or St. Hilda’s handmade gifts.  

Today’s Gospel invites all of us to the heavenly banquet, but warns us to be wearing a wedding robe. A white robe represents our intention to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, respect, and follow him by changing the way we live our life. We do this not for the church, but for our soul. Jesus offers forgiveness to all those who turn from sin. John Wesley said that all are called to glory, but we have a claim to glory only through the righteousness of Christ. Only through our faith in his redeeming grace, can we be saved from sin, made holy, and find everlasting life. We know that we are invited to the banquet, but how do we put on this wedding robe so that we will be holy in God’s sight at the heavenly banquet? We begin with the understanding that we were formed in the image of God’s love and given the whole world into our care. Unfortunately, throughout our history we have turned from God and each other. The Good News of the Gospel is that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. God has forever shown his unconditional love for us and we are invited to attend the heavenly banquet by following the way of love. Presiding Bishop Curry asks us to walk in newness of life through the love of God, through the redeeming grace of Jesus, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. “Love can help and heal when nothing else can. Love can lift up and liberate when nothing else will. May God love you and bless you" (Love is the Way p. 248).

In Christ’s love,
Fr. Duncan

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And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians10-13)

In bible study this week, we studied the profile and praxis of a prophet. N.T. Wright tells us that “if we are to follow Jesus as Lord, we must know more about the one we are to follow.” Jesus says in the temple, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” (Isaiah 61:1). Jesus explains the coming of the Kingdom of God through parables and more importantly, shows us what the Kingdom of God looks like by his actions. N.T. Wright says, “What Jesus was to Israel, the church must now be for the world.”

In today’s Gospel, we hear, “a man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go” (Matthew 21:28-30). Like the second son in the Gospel, many of us in the church want to do the right thing, but often we just get distracted. There are many factors to distract us today. If only one good thing comes out of this pandemic for you, I hope it is a rekindling of your faith in Jesus Christ. God brings us from bondage into freedom, from sin into righteousness, and from death into life.

You can bring the Good News to others by proclaiming that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Our church can bind up the brokenhearted by visiting one another or calling each other on the phone. Invite those you do not see on Sunday back to church again either on zoom, Facebook Live, or in person. We can proclaim liberty and release by letting our friends know that they are loved by God and forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. We can clothe the naked by sending items from our Thrift Shop to Central Islip. We can feed the hungry by donating rice, beans, pasta, and other items to the local food pantry. We are bringing racial reconciliation and social justice through our Sacred Ground Program. Most of all, we can work together for our Harvest Fair on October 24, 2020. Please participate in any way you can. Buy raffle tickets, make a raffle basket, donate an auction item, volunteer to mark some white elephant items, or just pray that we will be able to support local charities and this church’s ministries as we have in the past. This COVID pandemic has made life and business very difficult for many of us in our community. Let us each do what we can to help one another get through it. Jesus taught us that if we share a little of what we have, there will be plenty for everyone. Jesus also taught us to love God and our neighbor. Loving everyone is difficult, but possible through the grace of God.

I give thanksgiving for Jesus Christ, who taught us to love one another as God loves us. I give thanksgiving for Coral, Claire, Fr. John, Jen, Alex, our nursery school teachers, and all our parishioners at St. John’s. I give thanks to all our parishioners, thanks to the ECW and Chris Boccia, thanks to Spirituality and Patti Aliperti, thanks to the Thrift Shop and Nancy Feustel, thanks for Laundry Love and Sue Cronje, thanks to Huntington Rapid Response, thanks to Racial Reconciliation and Social Justice and Heather Kress and Pat Ahmad, thanks to Sacred Ground and Bill Kiley, thanks for EFM and Leslie Valentine, thanks for Bible Study and Fr. John Morrison, thanks for St. Hilda’s Guild and Janice Burnett, thanks for Morning Prayer and Earl Matchett and Claire, thanks to the vestry and wardens, and thanks to Samantha Burns and Barbara Burns.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan

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On the surface, today’s Gospel is about fairness. The landowner hires workers early in the morning and agrees to pay them a full day’s wage. He goes back in the early morning and hires more workers. At midday and in the afternoon he hires more workers. Even at the eleventh hour, he hires more workers. The landowner asks the steward to pay all the workers the same wage beginning with the ones that only worked for an hour. When the steward finally began to pay the ones who had worked all day, they were fuming mad. The fact is that we can be easily annoyed with trivial matters that we deem as unfair. Jesus gives us a prime example. The laborers in today’s Gospel got paid one day’s work, regardless of how long they worked. Those workers who worked the longest earned a fair wage, but they were upset by what the others received.

God turns our world upside down. Jesus is creating a community where the last are first and the first are last. The world isn’t fair and maybe God helps to even things out a little. Have you ever felt God’s generosity when it is unearned and undeserved? When the generosity of God exceeds our expectations, we are surprised in a way that fills our heart with the peace that passes all understanding.                         

When you understand life to be an incredible gift, God’s grace and mercy flows over us like a river. Jesus is teaching parables that turn our world upside down. Suddenly, everyone is eligible for God’s love! It is no longer just the outwardly religious folks that find God’s favor.. The workers that were hired late in the day might have needed money to buy food for their families. When they received their pay at the end of the day, they must have been elated. “Maybe this is the break I have been waiting for,” says the unemployed person trying to get back in the work force. “Finally,” says the child that is back at school with their friends. Someone shows up with cases of water after a wildfire because someone half way around the world heard their cry while praying to God. Someone remembers those essential workers that have served our needs right through this pandemic. We remember those who gave their lives on 9/11 and pray for those who put their lives on the line for our safety.

Have you ever felt blessed by God? When we receive our fair wage it feels right, but when we receive more than we deserve, it is a blessing from God. I give to this church because God has blessed me in so many ways. I receive blessing upon blessing. They just keep coming. I am blessed by my beautiful children, my lovely wife, my mom, my brothers, my friends, by our Morning Prayer group, for my home in this wonderful town, and by the ministry of St. John’s. The list goes on and on for me. I love my ministry and my call to St. John’s. Today is my sixth anniversary of serving at St. John’s. The year 2020 has been tough for all of us, but I believe that God will get us through it. We will begin Eucharist in October and slowly and safely, we will get back to church. I pray that God will bless me with many more years of service at St. John’s. Please join me in giving praise and thanksgiving to God every Sunday. We have an outdoor service at 8AM. We have an indoor service at 11AM. There is an 8 AM zoom Morning Prayer and a 9:15 zoom Morning Prayer with incredible music. If you have not joined the M-F Morning Prayer community at 9 AM, I highly recommend this service of praise and prayer. If you have been away for the summer we invite you back. If you are new, we invite you to be a part of our community. We are blessed at St. John’s and God calls us all to be a blessing to each other.

In Christ’s love,
Fr. Duncan

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In August of 2014, Susan and I sat in the packed church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Oxford and listened raptly to Baroness Caroline Cox speak about the persecuted church and the forgiveness extended by those persecuted to those who tormented them, sometimes to the point of martyrdom. Rather than comment, I will let these brief synopses speak for themselves and I hope that the witness will compel us to come to grips from within, not just as theory but in practice, with our Lord's command to forgive those who sin against us as we have been forgiven.

On the night before he was murdered, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached his “I have been to the mountain top” sermon.” His last words were “I have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The Rev. Fleming Rutledge preached on Dr. King with these words: “It was not human happiness that he felt. It was not human hope that he held. It was not human promises that he trusted. It was God that he trusted, the God who makes a way out of no way. He trusted that God's glory would be shown forth in his weakness as he 'shared in the sufferings of Christ.'”

In October 2000, 21 year old Pastor Liu Haitao was beaten to death by the police in Henan province, China.

As he died, suffering injuries from torture, as well as denial of medical treatment, he told his mother: “Mum, I am very happy, I am fine. Just persist in our belief and follow him to the end. I am going now, Mum. Pray for me.” His final word before he died was a very weak, but unmistakable 'Amen.'

In the historic Armenian land of Nagorno Karabakh, Baroness Cox met a man who had vowed revenge for the death of a child, but when the opportunity arose he broke his vow. An American responded by saying that for the first time he understood what was meant by “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord”; thank you for the dignity you have shown.” The man responded, “Dignity is a crown of thorns,”

In Jos, Nigeria, the Most Reverend Benjamin Kwashi was away from home when militants came to kill him so instead they brutalized one of his sons and his wife. After visiting his wife in hospital he wrote that “we praised God that we had been found worthy to suffer for his kingdom; and we prayed that all Gloria's pain, humiliation, and anguish would be used for his kingdom, his glory, and the strength of his church.” Then he gave this challenge to the wider Christian Church: “If we have a faith worth living for, it is a faith worth dying for. Do not you in the West compromise the faith for which we are living and dying.”

Finally, the following poem, written by David Aziz, is a chilling illustration of “faith and forgiveness which shines like a light in the darkness.” The poem was published in a pamphlet entitled The Coptic Christmas Eve Massacre: A Youth Perspective—Please God, be our Guide, You decide/You are there as I die and my mother cries./I was looking forward to the fata,/But now I'm getting colder and wetter./l lie on this blood-stained road,/With my lifeless body on show,/I wanna be free, I wanna be free,/I wanna be free from this body, ye/I wanna be free, let my spirit roam free,/Lord please receive my spirit from within me,/I am filled with lead but I survive,/And though I am dead I am still alive,/I don't hate those who shot me so please don't be bitter (bold mine),/'Cos life with Christ is much better./But this is for the best,/When your faith is put to the test,/But it's all over now and I rest,/I said it's all over now and I rest,/...I can rest.

There are many other illustrations in Baroness Cox's little book The Very Stones Cry Out and, in its own way, each story cries out: How ready am I to respond to my Lord's command to forgive? How ready are you?

-Fr. John+

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In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples, “But who do YOU say that I am?"

So, I ask, “Who is Jesus for YOU?”

We come together each week – unique individuals – and we become the church. Just as St. Paul told us in Romans, “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” How can we be the church Jesus had in mind? What does it demand of us?

Christians are called to follow Jesus, just like the disciples. Where are each of you on that path? Are you still on it? Have you veered off in a different direction? What does following Jesus look like? What would you say if someone asked you why you are on the Christian path?  Do you have your elevator story ready?

Who do you say that I am? To answer this question, we need to be in relationship with Jesus – we need to find room in our hearts – allowing him to dwell there and then we need to listen. Many of us are using Facebook and other forms of social media in the hopes of making more friends and learning more about each other. But I maintain that we really need to be in personal relationships, where, in real time, we can have conversations that demand give and take. To listen. Our zoom morning prayer group has developed a deeper intimacy and trust with each other…enabling us all to grow. We also need to enter into a lifelong conversation with God – which is what prayer is all about, to immerse ourselves and inwardly digest the holy scriptures, and to attend Bible studies where together, we can further clarify our understanding of who Jesus is. This is how we begin to answer that “who” question.

The Church is made of individuals. We are made stronger, however, in coming together to support each other, to learn from each other, to challenge each other and then, collectively, with the help of the God and the Holy Spirit, to go out into the world and be Jesus’ voice, hands, feet to our hurting world.

We often hear criticisms of today’s church – our numbers are declining. We are no longer relevant. Our world is bursting with individualism – “I can find fulfillment by following my own path.” Religion is relegated to our own private sphere of personal values. People say, “I am not religious, I am spiritual.” We have become more isolated, fragmented, and polarized. We hide behind social media and voice our extreme positions when it comes to religion, politics, race, or our environment and then avoid considering the responses. We are not willing to engage in meaningful and heartfelt conversations with each other, where listening may be more important than speaking.

But, people of St. Johns, we are the Church. God is a living God, not frozen in the past. God doesn’t just exist in the memories of the good old days or the way things used to be. How is this living God moving and working in our world today? 

On this rock – we shall not build a nation where millions of children are homeless and hungry. On this rock – we shall not build churches (communities of faith) that oppress the poor and women. On this rock – we shall not turn a blind eye to the racial injustices and violence towards our black brothers and sisters. Thank God that Paul reminds us that, “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:6-8) What we each do on earth matters.

We are a strong church – when God’s heart becomes one with our own. To be Christlike, we must know Christ. We need to come together to recharge and then go back out into the world to be Christ in every encounter we have. As we widen our circle, all are enriched. I dare say, “We are NOT irrelevant.”

In Christ’s Love,

Claire Mis, Seminarian

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