Good morning, St. John's! You never know what  you are going to find when you come to church on Sunday  mornings, do you?  

​I just have to say to you this morning how good it is to see  you! It is so good to see you every Sunday morning.  

​So here we are. This morning we will spend a few  moments looking at what Scripture has to teach us this  18th day of September, 2022.  

In the reading from Jeremiah he asks, “Is there no balm in  Gilead?” Is there no healing in Gilead? Gilead is an area  east of the Jordan River. Today we ask, “Is there no  healing in Florida? In Arizona? In Wisconsin? Where do we  look? In St. Louis? We pray in Psalm 79, “Remember 
not our past sins; let your compassion be swift to meet us;  for we have been brought very low.”  

According to the introduction to the Gospel of St. Luke in the New Oxford Annotated Bible:

Right from the get go, when we read Luke, we notice something very different about this Gospel.  First it is extremely inclusive: whenever Luke relates the story of a man, he follows it up with a story of a woman.  This, of course, begins with the Angel Gabriel appearing first to Zechariah to herald the birth of John the Baptist, followed immediately by the story of Gabriel appearing to Mary to herald the birth of Jesus.  As we move through the Gospel, we will also notice that the narratives often couple together men and women, such as in the first miracle stories in which we read about Jesus casting out a demon from a man with an unclean spirit followed immediately by the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law from a high fever.  

And if that were not powerful enough in itself, we quickly learn that for Luke’s Jesus, in the reign of God, up is down, the center is a bit to the left, and what we thought was east is really somewhere around southwest.  In other words, the reign of God is substantially counter-cultural.  And Jesus has been sent by God to show us what that looks like and how we ought to participate in it.

The Vestry approved the minutes for its July 2022 meeting in August. Those minutes are available at the link below.

The Vestry approved the minutes from its June 2022 meeting in July. Those minutes are available at the link below.

Editor's note: Normally, we'd publish the text of the sermon along with the video, but Pastor Nancy is having computer trouble... we'll get the text posted as soon as we can.

​I missed you all last week.  But I had a wonderful break.  The sun and sky and water are very restorative.  Of course, I heard about the Supreme Court’s decision last Friday overturning Roe v. Wade.  But I waited until I got home to read the opinion.  And as expected, it was troubling.  

​In this first year as your new priest, I have avoided preaching about political matters.  That is, in my view as it should be.  Unless and until something comes up that causes us to question our government, our society, our way of life in view of Christ’s teaching.    Jesus called out political leaders and institutions,  but often did so in parables, perhaps to avoid charges of sedition.  Of course, I am not gifted in this type of rhetoric, so I will make plain my concerns.  

The Vestry approved the minutes of its May meeting at its June meeting. They're available at the link below:

The vestry approved the minutes for it April meeting. You can download a copy of them at the link below.

The Vestry has approved the minutes for its March, 2022, meeting. They're available at the link below.

​Our Gospel today is a story of deep friendship and imminent loss.  I love the Mary, Martha and Lazarus stories.     It is clear from these passages that Jesus shared an intimate bond with this family.  And in this one, Mary, the sister with her head in the clouds, offers Jesus a physical sign of her affection and a warning of things to come.