Jonathan
Gilbert
March 29, 1978- April 12, 2022
June 25, 2022
+ Well, we gather today not really wanting to be here.
We
really shouldn’t be here.
Jonathan,
in this holy moment, has gained life eternal.
And we can celebrate.
May angels welcome you, Jonathan.
May all the saints come forward to greet you.
And may your rest today and always be one of unending joy.
June 25, 2022
Dear St. Stephen’s family-
As
you all know by now, yesterday the Supreme Court made its landmark decision to
reverse Roe v. Wade, which will greatly limit healthcare for women in our
country.
Presiding
Bishop Michael Curry issued a statement (which I include at the end of this
message), in which he said, “Today’s decision institutionalizes inequality
because women with access to resources will be able to exercise their moral
judgment in ways that women without the same resources will not.”
For
many here at St. Stephen’s this decision by the Supreme Court is a painful,
difficult and personal situation that affects us deeply on both collective and
personal levels. Many of us have fought hard for many years for women’s rights
and for full and protected healthcare for all. Some of us have suffered personally
from the effects of a lack of healthcare for various reasons. This decision by
SCOTUS seems to many (including myself) to be several steps backward in on the
path of progress.
In
addition to the shock of that decision, the House of Bishops has received
information “from federal authorities of credible security threats against
clergy and churches…” and that “there is concern that clergy who have advised
parishioners about abortion access and their reproductive rights may face
threats or violence.”
As most of you
know, I have been speaking out vocally on both my own social media accounts and
on the St. Stephen’s Facebook page about this issue and so far, I have received
overwhelming support. But, as we have experienced in the past when have stood
up for LGBTQ+ rights in this Diocese and state, we are aware there are people who
do not share our commitment and who are willing to lash out at those with
different opinions. Please know that despite such threats, I will continue to speak
out as I have. I will also be preaching on this issue tomorrow at Mass.
I repeat what
I have said on social media: I will continue to support full access to
healthcare for all people and will do everything in my power as a Christian, as
a priest and as a citizen to make sure such access is made available.
I also
mention, though I do not mean to unduly alarm anyone, that Justice Clarence
Thomas made a comment yesterday regarding the possibility that SCOTUS may be eyeing
future issues such as gay marriage. Considering those comments, I am advising
all our married LGBTQ+ parishioners and friends to get wills, as well as power
of attorney and healthcare power of attorney documents as soon as possible. If any
of you need legal help or suggestions, please contact me.
And for those not married, please
know I am more than willing to officiate at any weddings while we can still
legally do so.
Be assured that St. Stephen’s
will remain a haven for all people, and we will continue to provide care,
safety and protection for anyone who needs it. We renew our commitment to
uphold the “worth and dignity” of all people now and always.
The
consequences of SCOTUS’ decision yesterday are long-ranging and will be affecting
all of us for some time to come. With that in minds, please pray. Pray for our
country during this divisive and contentious time. Please pray for women whose
lives are now in jeopardy because of limited or non-existent healthcare. Pray
for the leadership of this country during this time that strong
leaders may stand up and speak out. And please, do so yourself. Stand up
and speak out.
-peace,
Jamie+
Rector, St. Stephen’s
O great God,
mighty and awesome.
You show no partiality.
You defend the cause
of the fatherless, motherless, and
the widow.
You love the stranger.
We
believe and we feel overwhelmed—
sometimes it is hard to believe
that you actually care about
injustice and suffering.
When we don’t see your work.
When we sense the apathy
from the church and the world.
When we feel small and forget
that we were designed to be
different
and to make things different.
When
we feel overwhelmed
by the darkness in the world—
the violence, injustice, poverty, oppression, abuse.
Give us hope not to be overcome.
Give us eyes to see your goodness for our world.
Give us the strength to hold the pain of injustice in
our world and faith that it will end.
Give us courage to be honest with ourselves about
why and how we are doing justice.
We believe.
Empower us to disrupt our broken
thinking by learning truth from diverse leaders.
Enable us to discover the beauty
of justice and inspire action in
others.
Embolden us to display your
goodness in the world. Amen.
Adapted from a
prayer from A
Liturgy of Longing by Sandra Maria Van Opstal, found in Sarah
Bessey’s A
Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal; Convergent Publishing, 2021.
Statement on Supreme Court
Dobbs decision by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
June 24, 2022
Office of Public Affairs
Today the Supreme Court released its decision in
the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The
court has overturned the constitutional right to abortion that
was recognized in the seminal 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
While I, like many, anticipated this decision, I am deeply
grieved by it. I have been ordained more than 40 years, and I have served as a
pastor in poor communities; I have witnessed firsthand the negative impact this
decision will have.
We as a church have tried carefully to be responsive both to
the moral value of women having the right to determine their healthcare choices
as well as the moral value of all life. Today’s decision institutionalizes
inequality because women with access to resources will be able to exercise
their moral judgment in ways that women without the same resources will not.
This is a pivotal day for our nation, and I acknowledge the
pain, fear, and hurt that so many feel right now. As a
church, we stand with those who will feel the effects of this
decision—and in the weeks, months, and years to come.
The Episcopal Church maintains that access to
equitable health care, including reproductive health care and reproductive
procedures, is “an integral part of a woman’s struggle to assert her dignity
and worth as a human being” (2018-D032). The church holds that
“reproductive health procedures should be treated as all other medical
procedures, and not singled out or omitted by or because of gender”
(2018-D032). The Episcopal Church sustains its “unequivocal opposition to any
legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would
abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the
termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them” (2018-D032). As
stated in the 1994 Act of Convention, the church also opposes any
“executive or judicial action to abridge the right of a woman to reach an
informed decision…or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of
acting on her decision” (1994-A054).
The court’s decision eliminates federal protections for
abortion and leaves the regulation of abortion to the states. The
impact will be particularly acute for those who are impoverished or lack
consistent access to health care services. As Episcopalians, we pray for those
who may be harmed by this decision, especially for women and other people who
need these reproductive services. We pray for the poor and vulnerable who may
not have other options for access. We urge you to make your voice heard in the
way you feel called but always to do so peacefully and with respect and love of
neighbor.
Galatians 3.23-29;Luke 8.26-39
+ This past week I had lunch with our very own Cathy McMullen
and her daughter-in-law Alissa.
Invariably in any conversation I have with people, the subject
of films comes up.
And for some reason, the subject of one of my all-time favorite
films came up.
That film?
The Exorcist.
Yes, I know.
It’s not what you expected.
Or maybe it’s exactly what you expected.
Either way, I love that movie for several reasons.
One, I love the characters of the two priests in the film, Fr. Damien Karras and Fr.
Both are Jesuits (why, oh why can’t there be an Anglican-equivalent
order of Jesuits? If there was I would join in a heart-beat).
But both are really prime examples of great pastors—priests who
genuinely care, but who are also solidly human.
They each have their own issues.
They are not saints, but they are not horribly conflicted characters
at all.
And I especially love the Fr. Merrin character because director William
Freidkin has confessed that he actually based the character solidly on one of
my heroes, another Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
But the film is more than that in my opinion.
It is also a strangely redemptive film.
The final scenes in that film actually directly reflects our
Gospel reading for today, in which Fr. Karras, directly referencing the Legion of
demons going into the pigs and being driven off the cliff, does so as well so
he can release the girl Reagan from her possession.
Now, I know what you might be thinking.
Wait, The Exorcist is Fr. Jamie’s favorite film?
I thought he was a Christian Universalist?
I thought he didn’t even believe in hell.
Well, yes.
I preach about this on a very regular basis, but, as you all
know, I am a very proud Christian Universalist.
In other words, I do not believe in an eternal hell.
I remember saying that once in a sermon and had someone audibly
gasp.
But I am being honest.
I do not believe that the God that I believe in and love would
send anyone to a metaphysical hell for all eternity.
Many people think that being a Christian universalist also means
I don’t believe in things like evil.
That’s not true.
I actually say it emphatically:
Evil DOES exist.
Now I’m not saying I believe in actual supernatural devils or
demons.
But, the fact remains, whether we believe in actual demons or
nor not, whether we believe in Satan as a goat-like horned figure with a forked
tail or not, what we all must believe in is the presence of actual evil in this
world.
Whether that evil is natural or supernatural, or both, the fact
is, there is evil.
Even good rational people know that!
Just look at the news, depending on what news source you follow.
We of course just had a church shooting at an Episcopal church
in Alabama this past week.
At a church named St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, nonetheless.
Let me tell you, I see plenty of evil in that act, and I see
plenty of evil in the way people try to explain it all away, to say that this
is not an issue of guns.
I think that’s all pretty evil.
Evil is real.
And we see it many forms in this world.
And for me, The Exorcist is a great story to reflect how
sometimes evil becomes a force so great in our lives and in the world around us
that we sometimes struggle how to deal with it.
The fact is this: for us, evil is not an option.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus have promised that we
must turn away from evil again and again, in whatever way we encounter it.
Whenever we are confronted with evil, we must resist it, we must
stand up to it.
In our Baptismal service, these questions are asked of the
person being baptized (or their sponsors):
“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel
against God?”
And…
“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the
creatures of God?”
And, as our Baptismal Covenant asks us asks us:
“Do you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and
return to the Lord?”
Evil is something we must stand up against however we encounter it.
Whether we encounter it as a spiritual force, or whether we
encounter it in other forms, such as racism, sexism, war, or homophobia, or transphobia as followers of Jesus, must stand up against
evil and say no to it.
In a sense, what we are being asked to do is what Jesus did in
this morning’s Gospel.
We are being compelled, again and again, to cast out the evil in
our midst, to send it away from us.
This is not easy thing to do.
It is not easy to look long and hard at the evil that exists in
the world, and in our very midst.
But it is very easy to believe that evil wins.
The story of Jesus is clear: good always defeats evil
ultimately.
Again and again.
It might not seem like it sometimes.
Often times, evil wins the battle.
But, be assured, evil never wins the war.
Christ, as we heard in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians today, breaks down the boundaries evil in its various forms sets up.
In Christ, we hear, there are no distinctions.
In Christ, all those things that divide us and allow the seeds
of evil to flower are done away with—those issue of sex, and social status and
nationality and race are essentially erased in Christ.
And we, as followers of Jesus, so prone at times to get nitpicky
and self-righteous and hypocritical and divide ourselves into camps of “us”
versus “them,” are told in no uncertain terms that those boundaries, in Jesus,
cannot exist among us.
Those boundaries, those distinctions, only lead to more evil.
To less love.
But even then, even when evil does seem to win out, even when
there are moments of despair and fear at the future, there’s no real need to
despair.
Even in those moments when evil seems to triumph, we know that
those moments of triumph are always, always short-lived.
Good will always defeat evil ultimately.
Look at history.
Yes, we find the premise of good versus evil in every popular movie and book
we encounter.
This is the essence of conflict that we find in all popular
culture.
Good versus evil—and good always wins.
But, for us, as followers of Jesus, this is not fiction.
That is not a fairy tale or wishful thinking.
It is the basis on which our faith lies.
When confronted with those spiritual forces of wickedness that
rebel against God, we must renounce them and move on.
And what are those spiritual forces of wickedness in our lives?
What are those forces that divide us and cause conflict among
us?
What are the legion of demons we find in our midst?
Those spiritual forces of wickedness are those forces that
destroy that basic tenant of love of God and love of each other.
Those spiritual forces of wickedness drive us apart from each
other and divide us.
They harden our hearts and kill love within us.
When that happens in us, when we are racist, or homophobic, or
sexist, or transphobic, or just simply filled with hatred for others, when we allow that to happen, we cannot be
followers of Jesus anymore.
We cannot call ourselves children of a loving God.
When that happens our faith in God and our love for each other
dies and we are left barren and empty.
We become like the demoniac and the legion of demons that
possess him in today’s Gospel.
Or like the demons that possess poor Regan in The Exorcist.
We become tormented by God and all the forces of goodness.
We wander about in the tombs and the wastelands of our lives.
And we find ourselves living in fear—fear of the unknown, fear
of that dark abyss of hopelessness that lies before us.
But when we turn from evil, we are able to carry out what Jesus
commands of the demoniac.
We are able to return from those moments to our homes and to
proclaim the goodness that God does for us.
That’s what good does.
That’s what God’s goodness does to us and for us.
That is what turning away from evil—in whatever form we
experience evil—does for us.
So, let us do just that.
Let us proclaim all that God has done for us.
Let us choose good and let us resist evil.
Let us love—and love fully and completely, without barriers.
Let us love each other.
Let us love peace and nonviolence.
Let us cast off whatever dark forces there are that kills love
within us.
And let us sit at the feet of Jesus, “clothed in and in our
right mind,” freed of fear and hatred and violence and filled instead with joy
and hope and love.
Let us pray.
Holy God, you are all good; guide us in our following of Jesus, that we may always turn from evil, drive it
from our lives, and live always into the goodness you have called us to strive
for; we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Requiem Mass for Jonathan Gilbert March 29, 1978- April 12, 2022 June 25, 2022 + Well, we gather today not really wanting to b...
