15 Pentecost

September 20, 2025

 

Amos 8.4-7;1 Timothy 2.1-7; Luke 16.1-13

 

+ This past Wednesday at our Wednesday night Eucharist, we celebrated one of our very favorite saints on her feast day.

 

St. Hildegard of Bingen.

 

Sandy brought her beautiful icon of St Hildegard.

 

We joyously rang our bell named after her.

 

And we celebrated Hildegard in all her defiant, independent brilliance!

 

Oh, how we love St. Hildegard!

 

We love her because she was something else!

 

She was a defiant force. 

 

And she was one of the first feminists.

 

In fact, we love St. Hildegard so much that we even named our bell after her.

 

St. Hildegard was a German Benedictine nun, a mystic.

 

She was also a great musician, which is also another reason why she is the namesake for our bell.

 

But the real reasons she was chosen as the patron saint of our bell is because she was quite the force to be reckoned with.

 

And let me tell you, St. Hildegard would’ve loved St. Stephen’s and all it stands for.

 

She would fit in very well here.

 

At a time when women were not expected to speak out, to challenge, to stand up—well, Hildegard most definitely did that.

 

She was an Abbess, she was in charge of a large monastery of women, and as such she held a lot of authority.

 

An abbess essentially had as much authority in her monastery as a Bishop had in their diocese.

 

She even was able to have a crosier—the curved shepherd’s crook—that is normally reserved for a bishop.

 

And she definitely put Bishops and kings in their place.

 

There is a very famous story that when the emperor, Fredrick Barbarossa supported three of the anti-popes who were ruling in Avignon at that time, she wrote him a letter.

 

My dear Emperor,

 

You must take care of how you act.

I see you are acting like a child!!

You live an insane, absurd life before God.

There is still time, before your judgment comes.

 

Yours truly,

Hildegard.

 

(That could be written to certain leaders—I won’t mention any names—right now!)

 

 

That is quite the amazing thing for a woman to have done in her day.

 

Even more amazing is that the emperor heeded her letter.

 

And as a result of that letter, she was invited by the Emperor to hold court in his palace.

 

By “judgement” here, Hildegard is making one thing clear in her letter.

 

There are consequences to our actions.

 

And God is paying attention.

 

For us, we could say it in a different way.

 

If you know me for any period of time, you will hear me say one phrase over and over again, at least regarding our actions.

 

And let me tell you, this phrase has often felt like ashes in my mouth!

 

That phrase is  “The chickens always come home to roost.”

 

And it’s true.

 

That phrase was made famous in the last 60 years or so by Malcom X, who said, following the assassination of JFK in 1963, (this quote is actually from the film, Malcom X)

 

 

“I don't think anybody here would deny that when you send chickens out in the morning from your barnyard, those chickens will return that evening to your barnyard, not your neighbor's barnyard. I think this is a prime example of the devil's chickens coming back home to roost. That the chickens that he sent out, the violence that he's perpetrated …. I think this same violence has come back to claim one of their own. Now, being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never made me sad. ln fact, it's only made me glad.”

 

One of the things so many of us have had to deal with in our lives are people who have not treated us well, who have been horrible to us, who have betrayed us and turned against us.

 

It’s happened to me, and I know it’s happened to many of you.

 

It is one of the hardest things to have to deal with, especially when it is someone we cared for or loved or respected.

 

In those instances, let’s face it, sometimes it’s very true.

 

“The chickens do come home to roost.” 

 

Or at least, we hope they do.

 

Essentially what this means is that what goes around, comes around.

 

We reap what we sow.

 

There are consequences to our actions.

 

And I believe that to be very true.

 

And not just for others, who do those things to us.

 

But for us, as well.

 

When we do something bad, when we treat others badly, when gossip about people, or trash people behind their backs, who disrespect people in any way, we think those things don’t hurt anything.

 

And maybe that’s true.

 

Maybe it will never hurt them.

 

Maybe it will never get back to them.

 

But, we realize, it always, always hurts us.

 

And when we throw negative things out there, we often have to deal with the unpleasant consequences of those actions.

 

I know because I’ve been there.

 

I’ve done it.

 

And I’ve paid the price for it.

 

But there is also a flip side to that.

 

And there is a kind of weird, cosmic justice at work.

 

Now, for us followers of Jesus, such concepts of “karma” might not make as much sense.

 

But today, we get a sense, in our scriptures readings, of a kind of, dare I say, Christian karma.

 

Jesus’ comments in today’s Gospel are very difficult for us to wrap our minds around.

 

But probably the words that speak most clearly to us are those words, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in much.”

 

Essentially, Jesus is telling us this simple fact: what you do matters.

 

There are consequences to our actions.

 

There are consequences in this world.

 

And there are consequences in our relation to God.

 

How we treat each other as followers of Jesus and how we treat others who might not be followers of Jesus.

 

How we treat people who might not have the same color skin as we do, or who are a different gender than us, or how we treat someone who are a different sexual orientation or sexual identity from our own.

 

What we do to those people who are different than us matters.

 

It matters to them.

 

And, let me tell you, it definitely matters to God.

 

We have few options, as followers of Jesus, when it comes to being faithful.

 

We must be faithful.

 

Faithful yes in a little way that brings about great faithfulness.

 

So, logic would tell us, any increase of faithfulness will bring about even greater faithfulness.

 

Faithfulness in this sense means being righteous.

 

And righteousness means being right before God.

 

Jesus is saying to us that the consequences are the same if we choose the right path or the wrong path.

 

A little bit of right will reap much right.

 

But  a little bit of wrong, reaps much wrong.

 

Jesus is not walking that wrong path, and if we are his followers, then we are not following him when we step onto that wrong path.  

 

Wrongfulness is not our purpose as followers of Jesus.  

 

We cannot follow Jesus and willfully—mindfully—practice wrongfulness.

 

If we do, let me tell you, the chickens come home to roost.

 

We must strive—again and again—in being faithful.

 

Faithful to God.

 

Faithful to one another.

 

Faithful to those who need us.

 

Faithful to those who need someone.

 

Being faithful takes work.

 

When we see wrong—and we’re seeing a whole lot wrong right now in our world!—our job in cultivating faithfulness means counteracting wrongfulness.

 

If there are actions and reactions to things, our reaction to wrongfulness should be faithfulness and righteousness.

 

Now that seems hard.

 

And, you know what, it is.

 

But it is NOT impossible.  

 

What we do, does matter.

 

It matters to us.

 

It matters to others.

 

And it matters to God.

 

We must strive to be good.

 

Hildegard would say the same thing to us.

 

She would wave her finger at us and say, “Do good! God—who loves you!— is watching!”

 

Those good actions are actions each of us as followers of Jesus are also called to cultivate and live into.

 

As Christians, we are called to not only to ignore or avoid wrongfulness.

 

We are called to confront it and to counter it.

 

Hildegard did it when she wrote to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

 

And we too should do it.

 

We are called to offer faithfulness in the face of wrongfulness.

 

So, let us do just that in all aspects of our lives.  

 

Let us offer kindness and generosity and hope and truth and forgiveness and  joy and love and goodness, again and again and again whenever we are confronted with all those forces of wrongfulness.

 

Let us offer light in the face of darkness.  

 

Let us strive, again and again, to do good, even in small ways.

 

For in doing so, we will be faithful in much.

 

“For surely I will not forget any of their deeds,” God says in our reading from Amos today.

 

What we do matters.

 

God does not forget the good we do in this world.

 

We should rejoice in that fact.

 

God does not forget the good we do. 

 

What we do makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

 

So let us, as faithful followers of Jesus, strive, always to truly “lead a…peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”

 

Amen.

 

Holy Cross

 

September 14, 2025

 

John 10: 11-16

 

+ I always say this:

 

If you come into church and see red paraments—the red altar frontal, the red hangings, the red chasuble—be prepared.

 

We are commemorating something not so pleasant.

 

Well, except for Pentecost.

 

Then, we celebrate the Holy Spirit.

 

But usually when we have the red up, it means we’re dealing with martyrs.

 

This morning, we have the red on.

 

But, no, we’re not commemorating a martyr.

 

But, still, sadly, we are commemorating something not that pleasant either.

 

This morning we are commemorating probably the one most important symbols of who we are as Christians.

 

We are commemorating the Holy Cross.

 

The late, great Father John-Julian of the Episcopal religious order, the Order of Julian or Norwich, writes about this very important feast in his wonderful book, Stars in a Dark World, which we use regularly at our Wednesday evening Eucharist. 

 

He writes:

 

“It is noteworthy, I think, to see that the Church celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross not with the penitential purple of Lent or the mortal black of Good Friday, but with the brilliant passion red of celebration and honor! And the propers of this feast do not dwell on the bloody death of Christ but rather upon the wonder of the utterly holy [instrument], because the executioner’s instrument has been exalted as the means of the salvation of the world. The salvic resurrection of Christ transformed the gross and ugly Cross of death into the most enduring symbol of life and hope.”

 

Now, we probably don’t really think about the Cross as an object too often.

 

We find of take it for granted.

 

We see it every Sunday.

 

We see them on the churches we pass every day.

 

We probably wear the around our necks or hang them on the walls of our homes.

 

For us, of course, the Cross is more than just two pieces of wood bound together.

 

For us the Cross is our symbol.

And more than that.

 

We have essentially been branded with the cross.

 

Each of us were marked by the Cross in our baptism.

 

And as a result, it is ingrained into our very souls.

 

We make the cross very nice and pretty.

 

But we sometimes forget that it was, in its day, a symbol of execution and death.

 

You will notice today that we have this black, hand-made cross in front of the altar.

 

This cross was made by my father fifteen years ago last April.

 

He made it for me to use at our Good Friday liturgy.

 

Well, if you follow me on social media, you will have seen my post about the fact that fifteen years ago today—on the feast of the Holy Cross—my father died very suddenly.

 

Some of you remember that time in the life of your priest.

 

And you’ll also remember how it came in the middle of a string of deaths in our parish—I think we had seven that month alone.

 

I always thought it was apt that my father made the cross we use for Good Friday during his last Holy Week and that same year he would die on the feast of Holy Cross.

 

It’s especially apt, since my father knew a few thing about bearing crosses in his own life.

 

He knew how to endure hardships and difficulties.

 

And I am grateful he taught me that lesson in my own life.

 

For me this feast day takes on so much meaning, but so too does the cross itself.

 

This symbol of death and degradation has been given to us and we are told to bear it with all the strength and dignity we can muster, just as Jesus did.

 

I’ve shared this quote with you before, but I love this saying by Blessed Charles Grafton, the Bishop of Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.

 

He said that our job as Christians is to “preach the Cross from the Cross.”

 

By that, I think, he meant that we should preach the cross from our own imperfection, our own limitation, our own brokenness.

 

And doing so is not easy.

 

It is not easy to preach about this symbol of death when we are surrounded by such death and violence.

 

 

In our Gospel reading for today, we hear Jesus say to us,

 

“Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”  

 

Those words resonate for us.

 

We have often felt as though we have been overtaken by darkness.

 

Certainly recently.

 

I know most of us here this morning followed the events that happened this week in Utah.

 

It was ugly.

 

And that event just proved to all of us how divided we are, how broken we are.

 

In the day or so that followed, I like many of us had to endure some brutal reality about our country, and some terrible ugliness.

 

And it would be easy to counter such hatred with hatred.

 

But the fact is: countering hate with hate isn’t the answer.

 

It never is.

 

Countering hate with hate only leads to even more hate—more negative energy, more conflict—in our world.

 

Besides, we as Christians, are never once called to hate.

 

What are we called to do?

 

We are called again and again to. . . love.

 

Even to love those we find despicable.

 

Even those who are hatemongers.

 

And racists.

 

Even those who want to blame others for their pain, for the consequences of their own actions.

 

Even those who want to wage war against others.

 

Loving them, I want to be clear, is not the same as accepting their hatred.

 

Loving them simply means counteracting their hatred.

 

Our empathy is a defiant act again the lack of empathy from others.

 

And it is vitally important as well to recognize that most of the hatred and fear and paranoia going on right now stems from the fact that we are all suffering.

 

We are all enduring our own pains, our own struggles.

 

And when we are suffering, we often time act out in anger and fear and hatred.

 

But to take up the cross is to not let hatred and fear win out.

 

Taking up the cross means we take up our love—we carry our love—even despite our own pain and suffering.

 

We must be children of light in this oftentimes dark place.

 

And in doing so, in the end, we know, love will transform hatred and fear and suffering.

 

Father John-Julian wrote,

 “In a sense, the Cross underwent the first transformation of the Resurrection; and that same transformation has been part of the salvation offered by the Crucified and Resurrected One. Pain and death became resurrection and exaltation—and that has never changed. The sign of the Christian’s salvation is not some giddy, mindless, low-cost bliss, but rather an entry into the deeper parts of the reality of pain and death [and I would add, fear], soaked, as was the Holy Cross, with the blood of sacrifice and finally emerged, brought by God on the other side, resurrected, exalted whole, and in heaven.”

 Just as the cross was transformed from an instrument of pain and suffering and death into a symbol of love and eternal life and resurrection, taking up our cross and carrying it transforms our own pains, our own sufferings, our own fears into life and love and strength.

 If we take the crosses we’ve been given to bear and embrace them, rather than running away from them, we find that fear has no control over us.

 If we become children of light, the darkness will not overtake us.

 Hatred has no control over us.

 Death has no control over us.

 The Cross destroys fear and pain and hatred and death.

 The Cross shatters hatred and pain and death into a million pieces.

 And when we do fear, we know we have a place to go to for shelter.

 When fear encroaches into our lives—when fear comes riding roughshod through our lives—all we have to do is go to the Cross and embrace it.

 And there, we will find our fears destroyed.

 Because of the Cross, we are taken care of by our God, who truly does love us.  

 Because of the Cross, we know, all will, somehow, in some way, be well.

 Through the Cross, we must pass to find ourselves, once and for all time, face-to-face with God and with each other.

 Face to face even with those others who are so caught up in their ideologies of hate and fear.

 Face to face even with those others who are trapped in their suffering.   

 So, let us do as Jesus tells us to.

 Let us be children of light.

 Let us take up our cross and follow him.

 He knows the way forward through these dark and frightening times.

 He is the light that shines in the dark, leading us forward.

 He knows that the only way to maneuver through these times is with love and empathy and understanding.

 It is with non-violence and peace and a clear vision of the way forward.

 This is our only option, after all.

 Because just look at the alternative.

 Hatred?

 Fear?

 Division?

 Anger?

 Those simply isn’t an option for us who follow Jesus.

 Let us bear our crosses patiently and without fear.

 Let us continue to preach the cross from the cross.

 If we do, we too will be following the way of Jesus.

 After all, the Way of Jesus doesn’t end at the Cross.

 Rather the Way of Jesus ends on the other side of the cross.

 And that is our truly destination.

 Amen.

 

Dedication Sunday

 

September 7, 2025

1 Kings 8:22-23,27b-30;

+ This past week, our candidates for the next Bishop of North Dakota were in the state.

 On Tuesday St. Stephen’s showed up in force for the Meet and Greet at the Cathedral.

 Several of the Candidates came up to me and said, “Wow! There are A LOT OF St. Stephen’s people here!”

 We made up half of the gathering of three congregations in town!

 Then on Wednesday, we hosted a breakfast and tour of the church for the candidates before they left for a tour through the rest of the diocese.

 After they ate, I showed them the church and explained to them how far St. Stephen’s had not only come in the last 69 years, but also with in the last 15 years!

 They were (I think) genuinely impressed with us.

 And I even heard from them and others who were there at the Clergy Meet and Greet on Thursday which I helped facilitate, that they were genuinely impressed with St. Stephen’s and all that we stand for and have been an advocate for.

 We should all be very proud (in a holy and healthy way) about who we are and what we are.

 It is this kind of place that we celebrate today on our Dedication Sunday.

 Why not, right?

 It’s all very exciting.

 I love Dedication Sunday.

 And you know what I love even more than Dedication Sunday?

 I especially love our scripture readings for today.

 I love all this talk of a building being God’s house.

 I think we sometimes forget that fact.

 We forget that this is God’s house.

 God, in a very unique ways, dwells with us here.

 But this is Sunday is more than all these physical things.

 It is about more than just a building, and walls, and vestments and paraments and holy water and incense.

 It about us being the House of God.

 It is about us being the tabernacles in which God dwells.

 It is about us and our service to God and others.

 And you know what it’s really all about.

 It is about LOVE.  

 Yup, it’s gonna be another love sermon.

 Years ago, I read an amazing biography of the American poet Denise Levertov, I came across this wonderful quote, from another poet, St. John the Cross:

 “In the evening of our lives, we will be judged on love alone.”

 Later I heard a friend of mine comment on that quote by saying

  “we will be judged BY love alone.”

 I love that!

 That quote has been haunting me for years.

 And it certainly has been striking me to my core in these days leading up to our Dedication Sunday celebration.

 If this congregation could have a motto for itself, it would be this.

 “In the evening of our lives, we will be judged on(or by) love alone.”

 Because this, throughout all of our 69 year history, is what we are known for at St. Stephen’s.

 Love.

 We are known for the fact that we know, by our words, by our actions, by our faith in God and one another, that it is love that makes the difference.

 And by love we will, ultimately, be judged.

 That’s what the Church—that larger Church—capital “C” Church— should be.

But sometimes we forget what the Church should be.

This morning, there are many people here who have been wounded by that Church—the larger Church.

I stand before you, having been hurt be the larger Church on more than one occasion.

And for those of us who are here, with our wounds still bleeding, it is not an easy thing to keep coming back to church sometimes.

It is not any easy thing to be a part of that Church again.

It is not an easy thing to call one’s self a Christian again, especially now when it seems so many people have essentially highjacked that name and made it into something ugly and terrible.

A Christ-less Christianity.

And, speaking for myself, it’s not easy to be a priest—a uniform-wearing representative of that human-run organization that so often forgets about love being its main purpose.

But, we, here at St. Stephen’s, are obviously doing something right, to make better the wrongs that may have been done on a larger scale.

We, at St. Stephen’s, (I hope) have done a good job over these last 69 years of striving to be a positive example of the wider Church and of service to Christ who, according to Peter’s letter this morning, truly is a “living stone”—the solid foundation from which we grow.

We have truly become a place of love, of radical acceptance.

 As God intends the Church to be.

 In these last 69 years, this parish has done some amazing things, some truly radical things.

 It has been first and foremost in the Diocese of North Dakota in the acceptance women in leadership, when women weren’t in leadership, when in fact there was open opposition to women serving as acolytes or Wardens or Lay reader or Deacons and Priests.

 It was first and foremost in the Diocese in the acceptance of LGBTQ people, when few churches would.

 It was the first parish in this Diocese to do something as simple as changing its liturgy—the words of these service we use to worship God—to use language.

 Doing so has been a source of consolation for people who have struggled with the false image of a vengeful, fearsome white male God.

 And instead has shown us a truly loving God who is so much bigger than all the images we can put on God, which limit God and make God in our image, rather than us in God’s image. 

 How many countless people who have been hurt or abused by the church have spiritually limped through that door and found a home here?

 And not just a welcoming home.

 But a home that included them, that saw them as one and equal with everyone else here, that not only told them, but showed them that they were truly loved Children of a loving, accepting God.

  Seeing all this we need to give the credit where the credit is truly due:

the Holy Spirit.

Here.

Among us.

In our reading from First Kings today, we hear Solomon echoing God’s words, “My name shall be there.”

God’s very Name dwells here.

As we look around, we too realize that this is truly the home of God.

We too are able to exclaim, God’s name dwells here!

And, as I said at the beginning of my sermon, by “the home of God”  I don’t mean just this building.

We’re the home of God.

Each of us.

We are the dwelling place of the Most High.

After all—God is truly here, with us, in all that we do together.

The name of God is proclaimed in the ministries we do here.

In the outreach we do.

In the witness we make in the community of Farg0-Moorhead and in the wider Church.

God is here, with us.

God is working through us and in us.

Sometimes, when we are in the midst of it all, when we are doing the work, we sometimes miss that perspective.

We miss that sense of holiness and renewal and life that comes bubbling up from a healthy and vital congregation working together.

We miss the fact that God truly is here.

So, it is good to stop and listen for a moment.

It is good to reorient ourselves.

It is good to refocus and see what ways we can move forward together.

It is good to look around and see how God is working through us.

Many of the ministries that happen here at St. Stephen’s go on clandestinely.

They go on behind the scenes, in ways most of us (with exception of God) don’t even see and recognize.

But that is how God works as well.

God works oftentimes clandestinely, through us and around us.

This morning, however, we are seeing very clearly the ways in which God works not so clandestinely.

We see it in the vitality here.

We see it in the love here.

We see it in the tangible things, in our altar, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in our scripture readings, in our windows, in the smell of incense in the air, in our service toward each other. In US.

But behind all these incredible things happening now, God has also worked slowly and deliberately and seemingly clandestinely throughout the years.

And for all of this—the past, the present and the future—we are truly thankful.

God truly is in this place.

This is truly the house of God.

WE truly are the house of God.

This is the place in which love is proclaimed and acted out.

So, let us rejoice.

Let us rejoice in where we have been.

Let us rejoice in where we are.

Let us rejoice in where we are going.

And, in our rejoicing, let us truly be God’s own truly loved people.

Let us be God’s people in order that we might proclaim, in love, the mighty and merciful acts of God to those who need to hear them and experience them in their own lives. Amen.