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The Chalice Sunday, March 08 2020
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (Collect for Lent II). I know that there are a lot of people today that believe in God, but just can’t wrap their faith around the miracles, the resurrection, and that Jesus was the Son of God. This is probably the fastest growing religion in America right now. Loving God and your neighbor is the formula that Jesus recommended for all of us and I think that we would all agree to the two great commandments. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Again, it is easy for us to believe in a historical figure and we all want to go to some happy place after we die. But the unchangeable truth of thy Word is a little deeper than that. God is present in the water of our Baptism, in the bread and wine at the Eucharist, and in the Holy Spirit in the world. I believe that God claims us at our Baptism and anoints us with the Holy Spirit as a member of the Christian Church and that we are empowered with gifts that we will use to be the person that God calls us to be. Life is a spiritual journey and we are taking it together at St. John’s. Join us on Tuesday night for Journey to Freedom and Saturday, March 14th for our Lenten Retreat, “Journey with the Ammas: Words and Wisdom from the Desert” with Leslie Valentine. We celebrate the Eucharist by remembering the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The prayer of remembrance is called the Anamnesis. This Greek word for remembrance comes from one who has lost their amnesia. Those who have lost their identity or purpose need to re-member the mighty acts that God has done for them and to know to whom they belong. I urge you to call your friends and family who have wandered from the church and invite them to re-member that Jesus Christ is Lord. It takes steadfast faith to proclaim Jesus Christ as the one who died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead to prove to us that we will have eternal life. This is the unchangeable truth that we must not only believe, but the truth that we must tell to the next generation. If we are falling into the group that feels that Jesus was a great human being and that he taught a wonderful pattern for us to follow then the future of our church is bleak. One of the youth in our confirmation class asked me if the miracles in the bible were real. I told her that they are still real today and gave her several examples of miracles that I have witnessed to the power of God. The Holy Spirit is plain to see in the hearts of those who minister here and in the ministry that we do. We live in scary times with the coronavirus, the changing weather patterns, and the hostility that we have for one another. Re-member the marvelous things that God has done, open your eyes to what God is doing now, believe in the unchangeable truth of Jesus Christ, join us this Lent on a spiritual journey that will deepen your relationship with God, and help bring the next generation at St. John’s to Christ as our good folks have been doing for 275 years. In Christ’s love, The Lessons Sunday, March 01 2020
Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word Lent is the time when we realize that the distractions of the world have kept us from God’s purpose in our lives. If we want to be an authentic expression of Christ’s light, we need to pray, study, listen, and make God the center of our world again. For the first week of Lent please consider putting your full trust in God. Please observe a Holy Lent and take a few quiet moments to re-examine your commitment to God’s purpose. Please invite your family and friends to join you each Sunday in Lent. Please attend our five Tuesday night programs and our retreat on March 14th with Leslie Valentine. This is the season when those who have been away, come back to the love and mercy of God. The church offers the practice of fasting in the season of Lent. This is not recommended for seniors, children, or those with medical issues. Fasting means skipping a meal and using the time to pray. Some people will give up an expensive habit or extravagance like lattes at Starbucks and give quarters to Laundry Love. An even better practice would be to give up some TV or social media time and volunteer at the thrift shop or clean out your closet of cloths that you no longer wear and bring them to St. John’s. God is very near to us and loves us dearly. Each week I share the body and blood of our Lord with the good folks at St. John’s on Sunday morning. These sacraments are an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. When we can let go of our petty need for control over others and our enmity with others, we can live in love and charity with our neighbors. We are asked to lead a new life, following the commandments, and walking in Holy ways. The Holy Eucharist is essential during Lent to bring us back to the place where God can do the most good with us. During the recessional hymn there is an energy and spirit in the congregation that leads us to hospitality to our guests and sends us into the world with a mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. Please join for Sunday services as you are able in Lent. I have preached the last two weeks how deeper relationships can bring us to a place of great joy, even in the midst of pain. Once we see each other as broken vessels in need of the love and mercy of God, we love all our neighbors because we know that they are just as broken as we are. We begin to walk the path that our Savior walked, who hung on a cross that he might know our pain and we might know the hope of the resurrection. Life can become more fulfilling and wonderful when we align our lives with the purpose of God. This is the true meaning of Lent, to align ourselves once again with God. God calls us to an abundant life and the only things we should give up are those things that draw us away from the love of Christ. This Sunday is Newcomer Sunday. Please make a special effort to greet our newcomers with a radical hospitality. St. John’s is always about community. Please join us today for a cup of coffee and a few pancakes after the service in the Great Hall. In Christ’s love, The Lessons Sunday, February 23 2020
“Joy is the meeting place of deep intentionality and self-forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formally seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world…Joy can be made by practiced, hard-won achievement as much as by an unlooked for, passing act of grace arriving out of nowhere; joy is a measure of our relationship to death and our living with death, joy is the act of giving ourselves away before we need to or are asked to, joy is practiced generosity. If joy is a deep form of love, it is also the raw engagement with the passing seasonality of existence, the fleeting presence of those we love understood as gift, going in and out of our lives, faces, voices, memory, aromas of the first spring day or a wood-fire in winter, the last breath of a dying parent as they create a rare, raw, beautiful frontier between loving presence and a new and blossoming absence. To feel a full and untrammeled joy is to have become fully generous; to allow ourselves to be joyful is to have walked through the doorway of fear…the sheer privilege of being in the presence of a mountain, a sky or a well-loved familiar face - I was here and you were here and together we made a world” (David Whyte). In the Gospel, Peter, John, and James go to the mountain to pray. Jesus face changed in appearance and his clothes became dazzling white. Then they see Moses and Elijah, talking to him. It was obvious that they were outside the temporal realm. Do you believe in a world outside the temporal world in which we live? Last week I spoke of a path that brings us to wholeness in our lives. I explained that two of the characteristics of the abundant life are deep relationships and deep joy. The poet David Whyte helps us to understand what deep joy is. If we live our life (to the best of our ability) as God intends us to live, we are promised the peace that passes all understanding. This inner peace is the key to a life filled with joy. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life because if we follow him we will experience the abundant life that we are promised. The abundant life is filled with experiences outside the temporal realm. This fleeting presence of the Kingdom of Heaven is a foretaste of what we will experience in eternity after our resurrection. In today’s lesson Jesus crosses the temporal realm so that the disciples may have this foretaste, but the disciples are not in the right place to understand. I imagine that most of us miss out on the deep joy and peace that we are offered by God because we are too distracted by our egos, our anger, and other “stuff.” The trick in life for me is to let go of the “stuff,” give of ourselves to others, and to forgive others as we are forgiven by God. This deepens our relationship with God and our neighbor and allows us to experience the full benefit of God’s love and mercy. We are not only able to recover from bad things that happen to us, but somehow the glue that puts us back together makes us stronger than we had ever been. Once we see each other as broken vessels in need of the love and mercy of God, we love all our neighbors because we know that they are just as broken as us. We begin to walk the path that our Savior walked, who hung on a cross that he might know our pain and we might know the hope of the resurrection. In Christ’s love, Fr. Duncan The Lessons or Psalm 99 Sunday, February 16 2020
"The great malady of our time, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is 'loss of soul.' When soul is neglected, it doesn't just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning... The emotional complaints of our time, complaints we therapists hear every day in our practice include, emptiness, meaninglessness, vague depression, disillusionment about marriage, and family, relationship, a loss of values, yearning for personal fulfillment... All of these symptoms reflect a loss of soul and let us know what the soul craves." (Thomas More). There is no doubt in my mind that our nation suffers from a loss of soul. David Brooks describes the problem as, “The foundational layer of American society — the network of relationships and commitments and trust that the state and the market and everything else relies upon — is failing,” he writes. “And the results are as bloody as any war.” The consequences of our rampant individualism — tribalism and social isolation reflected in an epidemic of suicide, addiction and despair — have reached crisis proportions, he writes. But personal renewal, second-mountain-style, can do more than save our souls. It can rescue us from societal collapse.” This second mountain or recovery of soul can be achieved if we allow the Gospel to change our thoughts and actions. Jesus says that our righteousness has to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees or you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As we grow older, we realize that there is more to life than money, success, and recognition. We realize that relationships are the most important thing to revive our soul. Many of us have created barriers to loving our neighbor. We don’t like their politics, the color of their skin, or where they come from. Today’s lessons ask us to love God and our neighbor. We are promised abundant life, the second mountain, the Kingdom of Heaven or whatever you call the feeling of deep contentment, relationship and joy. We must turn from the tribalism and individualism in this nation that are destroying our soul. St. John’s offers an opportunity to shine our light to the community of Huntington as we have for the past 275 years. Lots of people will hear our story and visit us during our 275th Anniversary celebration this year. I ask you to deepen your relationship with Christ and one another. Love those in need by volunteering for our Thrift Shop, Laundry Love, HIHI homeless ministry, or any of our many ECW activities. Treat one another with respect and dignity and welcome the stranger with radical hospitality. Teach our children that church still matters by attending regularly. Fill the church with your prayers, praise, and worship. In today’s Old Testament reading, Moses is talking to the people of Israel as they prepare to enter the Promised Land after forty years of struggling in the desert and leaving their captivity in Egypt. The People of Israel have sinned or turned from God again and again. Moses tells them, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess” (Duet. 30:15-16). In Christ’s love, Fr. Duncan The Lessons Friday, February 07 2020
“Shine in our hearts, Lord Jesus” Since the year is 2020, one of the things that I’d like to do is explore briefly the theme of sight, of clarity of vision, of beholding with so much more than merely our physical eyes. The key to all this seeing is to behold the one who is the “light of the world” and then respond to his summons to us to follow him and fulfill our vocations and become light-bearers to the world. In one sense, Jesus’ declaration that he is “the light of the world” can function as a song that signals an entrance into the acts and events of individual lives and out the other side, a journey that commences in response and concludes in glory. This is music that sings of a pilgrimage; it is a tune that is played with many variations throughout the world, but the theme is always the same: that Jesus died for our sins and that God raised him from the dead; it is a hymn whose music rises and falls until it finally erupts in action while there is still time; it is a composition that announces some of the great themes of our redemption. For us to fulfill our vocation, to be a light in the dark culture of the world, will be to “know the joy of Jesus.” Perhaps an analogy will help. Do you remember the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets’ Society? At the beginning of that movie, the new and charismatic English teacher, Mr. Keating, takes his class from the security of their J. R. Pritchard text book with its suffocating definition of poetry and the sanctity of the classroom into the hall and invites them into a relationship with the “living presence of the past” and engage themselves with all those dead who are pictured on a corridor wall or memorialized in a trophy case. Then he asks his students to hear the voices of the dead calling to them “Carpe diem! Carpe diem! Seize the day.” Well, the music of the Sermon on the Mount functions in a similar way; it whispers to us to go beyond the hillside setting and some magnetic and mesmerizing words spoken by Jesus, beyond the narrow confines of a Sunday morning service snuggled in comfortable pews, and engage ourselves with a Lord and Savior who is eternally present, to see ourselves embracing intimately all that he has done for us as living Lord, and to fulfill our vocations to be “the light of the world.” We sing that we want “to see the brightness of God, to look at Jesus,” and we ask the “Clear sun of righteousness” to “shine on [our] path and show [us] the way to the Father,” which means that we desire to be enabled to fulfill our vocations to be the light of the world. We look up and see, but sometimes we are mesmerized, sometimes we don’t stop to drink in or behold so in a hurry are we to get somewhere else and thus we lose all that the moment has to offer. Perhaps we’re just in a hurry to move on to the next part of the service. But such haste is a mistake because the landscape on the mount and the call to be the light of the world offers a pageant that takes time to unfold. This song opens up for us the entire drama of salvation through the acts of Jesus and our responses to those acts. So, what are we to do? Well, again, we are to look up and see, but what are we to see? Let me suggest that what we behold is a glimpse of glory, a glimpse that teases and tantalizes because the complete composition is not yet fully unveiled. We sing; may we behold as well “the light that shines in our hearts through Jesus our Lord” so that we may be “a light to light all nations.” Can you and I apprehend for just a moment that such seeing is what we are made for, that such seeing is a gift, a vision that has the power to alter what one is on the inside as with cleansed sight one beholds the Lord who is the light of the world and obeys his summons. As Bishop Tom Wright points out so poetically and perceptively in Christians at the Cross, a marvelous collection of Holy Week meditations, “If you want to know what Christ’s death and resurrection mean, you have to hear the music, to listen not just to the tune which says he died and rose, but to the harmony which says ‘and this is what it means.’” To look and behold Jesus coming as the light of the world and to fulfill our vocation to be the light of the world—well—it is to begin to see that it is he and he alone, this beaten, battered, broken, and shattered man—who holds the key to salvation and who is the sole response to the dominion of sin in our world. To look and behold Jesus coming as the light of the world and to fulfill our vocation to be the light of the world—well—it is to begin to see that it is he and he alone, this beaten, battered, broken, and shattered man—who holds the key to salvation and who is the sole response to the dominion of sin in our world. Ecce—behold—look and see the Lamb of God “who takes away the sins of the world.” If you and I want to walk as children of the light, if we want to “see the brightness of God,” if we truly want to be the light of the world and “look for the coming of Christ,” then we must act and bring others to the Lord of all. As Bishop Wright argues, we must “Learn to see the glory in the cross; learn to see the cross in the glory.” If this is a lesson that we can manage, then the response to our Lord’s call is under way. That unmistakable voice will be a clear tocsin sounded with power and beauty and love. “This is what I’ve longed for,” sings Emile De Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Well, when we become the light of the world, we get the awesome sense that this is what we’ve longed for, that this is what we were created for. Fools will attempt to give us a reason for this; the wise dare not even make the attempt. When everything is placed in its proper perspective, we are left with a clear vision, an awareness that to be called to be the light of the world is to be given a loving invitation to a new way of life. The eternal joy of Jesus becomes a living reality as he shines in our hearts. “Shine in our hearts, Lord Jesus.” Fr. John+ Sunday, February 02 2020
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8) I would like to thank all our parishioners on a beautiful year in 2019 and encourage you to make 2020 even better at St. John’s. This will be our 275th Anniversary. Thank you for your leadership, your generosity, your ministry, and your continued faith in Jesus Christ. We are very blessed by your presence. I would also like to thank Coral, who has done an outstanding job as our administrator, Alex our talented musician and choir director, Jen, our St. John’s Nursery School superintendent, our wardens, Scott and Rob, our vestry, and committee chairs. We give a special thank you to Camille, who has faithfully served as our vestry clerk. This week our service times on Sunday are 8:00 am and 9:30 am because we will have our annual meeting after the late service. Please join us for food, fellowship, a brief annual meeting, and a special Taizé service. We will elect a warden, a vestry clerk, and three vestry members. In 2020, our priorities are the 275th Anniversary, Growth, Children and Youth, Outreach and Mission, and Hospitality. We are especially focusing on living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Jesus Movement. My hope for the coming year is that you will deepen your faith and love in Jesus Christ. Please live out your Baptismal Covenant by coming to church, helping those in need in our community through our ECW, striving for justice by supporting our racial reconciliation committee, and getting involved in the ministry of St. John’s. I ask each committee to personally invite new members to join their group. If you are a new member or would like to help out please consider joining one of the following ministries: Laundry Love, Racial Reconciliation Committee, HiHi, Thrift Shop, ECW, Altar Guild, Lay Eucharistic Ministers, Youth Group, Christian Education, Readers, Breakfast Group, Spirituality Group, Nursery School, Ushers, Lay Eucharistic Visitors, Prayer Shawl Ministry, St. Hilda’s Guild, or one of our other committees. 1st Communion classes are beginning with Sue McGinnis on Wednesday February 12th at 5:00 and 1st Communion will be April 19th at the 10:00 service. Confirmation classes will continue on Sunday, February 23rd at 5:30pm. Confirmation is May 9th at 11:00am at the Cathedral in Garden City. Our Youth Group meets at 6:30pm on most Sunday nights with Ford Spilsbury and the rector. Outreach is a focus again this year. Today is the Souper Bowl of Caring and our Youth Group is collecting donations to fight hunger in the Huntington Community. St. John’s will be hosting people who are homeless on February 14th through our HIHI program right here at St. John’s. Please bring in food for the Food Pantry and donations for our Thrift Shop. We are particularly looking for men’s jeans, t-shirts, boots, and sneakers. If you are interested in volunteering for the Thrift shop on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays, please see Nancy. In Christ’s love, Rev. Duncan Burns Sunday, January 26 2020
"Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return" (Annie Dillard). In the book of Acts, we are told that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on earth is the joining of the earth and heaven in the Kingdom of God. We pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” God is active at St. John’s and the Holy Spirit gives us the power to witness to the love of God and to be the light of Christ in a land of darkness. The Good News is that Jesus came to show us that God loves us, equips us with the gifts we need to respect and love one another, and gives us what we need to live an abundant life. We are a healthy and active church in the Diocese of Long Island. If we are healthy, it is because of our relationship with Jesus Christ and our willingness to witness to that love. If we are active, it is through the grace of God, in the love of Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can shine a great beacon of light because everything we do comes through the peace, love, and grace of God. Ask yourself this, "If St. John's were not here, would it make a difference to this community?" My hope for the coming year is that the 275th Anniversary will light a fire within our hearts. This past week a group from St. John’s went to St. Augustine’s to the MLK service. Fr. Anthony sang in the choir and gave the closing prayer. They sang of their love of Christ and of the hope that the work started by Martin Luther King Jr. will continue. But what really touched my soul was the passion in the dance and singing of the children, youth, and adults. They truly witnessed to their deep faith and love of God. At St. John’s, we can witness to our faith by coming to church, worshiping and praising God, and being sent out to the community to love and serve Christ. We are a parish in an ever secular, fast moving, polarized, and violent world. Paul asks us to, “be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” In other words, we are all one in Christ. Please be confident that God has the strength to bring us to the Kingdom, that place where heaven and earth intersect, if we will only allow ourselves to see the light of Christ and be drawn out to where we can never return. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:2-4). In Christ’s love, Fr. Duncan Sunday, January 19 2020
The Journey of the Magi - T. S. Eliot 'A cold coming we had of it, When I think of the traditional story of the magi in the gospel, I most often recall pageants, at least the ones my children were in. Camera at the ready, all was recorded for posterity, that is if the flash attachment worked accordingly. Fifty years ago, I didn't focus on the deeper implications; no T. S. Eliot version for me, nothing that would call into question all too easy associations that didn't raise any important responses. Way back then, my journey into Christ didn't encounter any obstacles, largely because it was rather superficial, an equation grasped easily, a life without doubts, and certainly no voices telling me that the journey “was all folly.” Following the star seemed a piece of cake, at least on Sunday mornings, for an hour, until I actually began to encounter the “three trees” of Golgotha, the “white horse” of John's apocalypse, the “vine-leaves” of the Eucharist, the soldiers at the foot of the cross “dicing for pieces of silver.” And more, certainly. The encounter altered the nature of my journey, changed the course of my life, a slow process accompanied by occasional perplexity, but in the end leading to a new life in a risen Lord that was much more rewarding as well as more demanding. What is the nature of your journey? Fr. John+ Sunday, January 12 2020
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching (Isaiah 42:1-3). The Gospel of Mathew weaves together scripture from both the Old and the New Testament. Mispat in Hebrew means justice. Justice is relationship with God that brings the servant to do the will of God. As we explore the Gospel of Matthew in the coming year, we will constantly be looking at Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. At St. John’s, we celebrate our 275th by following our mission, To Know Christ, and Make Him Known. Please draw nearer to God by listening closely to the Word of God in the coming year that we might know Christ intimately and witness to his love, hope, and mercy. Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem (Acts 10:34-39). At St. John’s, we proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. By this we mean that the grace and forgiveness of God is offered to everyone. At St. John’s, we proclaim that “all are welcome” which means that we believe that God shows no partiality. This does not mean that God approves of everything that people do, but that we are called to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Part of living in community is understanding that we do not all agree on what is right and acceptable to God, but that through the Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ, we can get a glimpse of God’s grace and mercy. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well please” (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus comes out of the river, still wet from the waters of baptism and goes to the margins of society. He heals the sick, gives hope to the poor, and becomes the servant that he is called to be. Jesus then teaches how to give your life for the sake of others. This is what we mean by the Epiphany. God’s will is manifested in the actions of the Son. Jesus doesn’t worry about what the powerful are going to do to him, he prays and heals everyone he meets with a broken heart, every person that is lonely, sick, hungry, alienated and suffering. Jesus gets into the muddy waters of our messy lives and shows us the way to new life. God up in heaven loves us so much, that God shows us this path of emerging from this water into new life. In Baptism we are fully initiated into the body of Christ by the pouring of the water and by the indwelling of the Spirit. God has acted in our lives in the waters of Baptism, filled us with the Holy Spirit, and we have the power to emerge, as faithful witnesses to the love of God. In Christ’s love, Fr. Duncan Sunday, January 05 2020
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, It is my prayer that you will have the “eyes of your heart enlightened.” Paul begins with a compliment to the Ephesians because he has heard of their faith. He assures them that God is working through them and there is immeasurable greatness of his power. In the third chapter of Ephesians Paul said, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” This spirit of revelation and wisdom is the knowledge that God loves us and gave us God’s only Son that we might have abundant life in this world and eternal life in the next. I was watching 60 Minutes last week and one of the people on the show came to the realization that love is the key factor in the world. He said that even though we all know the importance of love in the world, we often get distracted by all that is going on in our lives. He turned back to love as the most important factor in his life and his life took a tremendous turn for the better. At Christmas, we experience the eternal love of God in a crude manger in Bethlehem. Kings travel from the East to pay homage to Jesus Christ. God calls us to fill our hearts with this love and share it with others. Our first act of love should be thanksgiving to God in heaven for the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to enlighten the eyes of our hearts. Our next act of love should be to those around us. When loving God and loving our neighbor are combined, our brain stops playing the fear and anxiety video that leads our reptilian brain to increased heart rate and stress. We play the hope video that leads our brain to a healthier pattern of rational, moral behavior. This in turn sends the signal to our reptilian brain to produce endorphins, lower our heart rate, and reduce our stress. Most of us are aware that when we listen to music that triggers happy memories, laugh, exercise, have sex, or eat certain foods, our brain triggers the release of endorphins and other chemicals in the pituitary gland which gives us that sense of being in a euphoric state. Likewise bad experiences and traumas trigger feelings of pain, fear, and anxiety. Since we all experience these triggers to different degrees, we need to love one another in the knowledge that we have all been damaged by the actions of others and are all in need of love and comfort. We especially need to care for those who are most vulnerable and least likely to be loved and comforted. Christianity leads us down a rational, moral path that helps us to feel good about ourselves and trigger that feeling of contentment and satisfaction in our lives. Instead of selfish, egotistical, controlling and sometimes hurtful behavior, we follow Jesus Christ in self-giving, humble, loving behavior. This leads our brain to a healthy pattern of releasing chemicals that give us a sense of wellbeing. A healthy diet, lots of clean drinking water, loving relationships, exercise, and good sleep contribute to a happy and heathy life. In Christ’s love, Fr. Duncan Latest Posts
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