4 Advent

December 21, 2025

Isaiah 7.10-16; Romans 1.1-7; Matthew 1.18-25

It’s either an advantage or a disadvantage having a poet for your priest.

 

Because, as a poet, as you all know, I obsess over things.

 

Like words.

 

I will take a word and just examine it from every side.

 

I will weigh it and throw it around and take it apart and put it together again.

 

And sure enough, this morning is one of those morning wherein we encounter a word I’m kind of obsessed with.

 

Because in our readings today, we have a word that sort of permeates everything we hear.

 

And that word is. . . .

 

Emmanuel.

 

Emmanuel is not a word we think about very often, unless we know someone by that name.

 

Certainly, throughout our scriptures readings today, we  hear that one common echo:

 

Emmanuel.

 

It’s beautiful!

 

It just kind of rolls off the tongue.

 

Emmanuel.

 

In our reading from Isaiah today, we find God speaking through the prophet announcing that, through the lineage of David, Immanuel will come to us.

 

Paul in his letter this morning talks of how God worked to bring about this revelation of God’s Son.

 

And in our Gospel reading, the angel calls Joseph, “son of David” and that through this lineage, through Mary his spouse, we have Emmanuel.

 

Sadly, we almost never hear it in our reading outside of Advent and Christmas.

 

But here it is.

 

And in addition to it being a beautiful word—it really is—it’s also a vitally important word.

 

It means, “God with us.”

 

In Hebrew, the “El” is the word or name for God.

 

Emanu means with us.

 

So God is with us.

 

In the Jewish understanding of this it means that God is not only with us—God’s very Presence is with is—but that in being with us and present with us, God is also faithful.

 

Now we see why it’s so important to us.

 

Just think about what that word and name means.  

 

God with us.

 

God is here with us.

 

Right now.

 

In our turmoils.

 

In the difficulties of this life.

 

In the griefs we are enduring.

 

Understanding that and embracing that we realize:

 

Our relationship with God changes.

 

No longer is God that distant presence—out there.

 

That word, Emmanuel allows God to become a real presence. Right here.

 

And we feel—truly feel—that God truly does LOVE us!

 

And accepts us.

 

Fully and completely.

 

For who we are and what we are.

 

This coming week, like almost no other time in the Church Year, we recognize that what happened in the birth of Jesus is the collective experience for us who have experienced that intellectual and spiritual realization that God is truly with us.

 

We realize that we, like Jesus, are anointed.

 

We, like Jesus, are called to be the Presence of God in this world to others.

 

We are called to be Emmanuel as well.

 

I know that seems somewhat overwhelming.

 

It seems strange that Emmanuel is something each of us can embody as well.

 

But that is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

 

We are all called to be like Jesus.

 

And in being like Jesus, we are called, as Children of our loving God, to embody God’s Presence in our lives, and share that Presence with others.   

 

This coming week we are very strongly and uniquely reminded that God is no longer that distant, vague God out there.

 

We celebrate God’s Son coming among us in that manger, born to the Virgin Mary.

 

But if we only objectify that birth, if we only see it as an event that happened then and there, in that time, in some place distant from us and our current world, we have missed the point of what it means to truly follow Jesus.

 

That birth of Jesus then is a reminder that each of our births was sacred and holy in their own right.

 

That God was with us in our own births.

 

That each birth is a kind of Emmanuel moment.

 

Emmanuel shows us that there are no longer barriers.

 

No longer is there is a distance.

 

No longer is there a veil separating us from God.

 

In Emmanuel, we find that meeting place between us as humans and God.

 

God has reached out to us and has touched not with a finger of fire, not with the divine hand of judgment, but with the tender, loving touch of a loving Parent.

 

This is what Incarnation is all about.

 

And Incarnation, it’s important to remember, continues to happen.

 

It happens in each of us.

 

Jesus shows us that reality.

 

God came to us, where we are, and met us.

 

God dwells among us, within each of us.

 

Now.

 

We may not have asked for it happening.

 

We may not even have imagined how it could have happened.

 

But it did.

 

And we are so much better for it.

 

This time of Advent and Christmas reminds that “God is truly with us”

 

Emmanuel is that point in which God and humanity met.

 

This week, as we celebrate that event in a special way, let us never forget that fact God continues to reach out to us where we are.  

 

Let the events of this week remind us in a beautiful way that God truly  breaks through the barriers and, in doing so, destroys those very barriers.

 

Hopefully this realization that each of is Emmanuel as well will transform us and leave us ultimately changed in ways we might not even fully realize or appreciate even at this point.

 

The coming is Emmanuel—God with us—is here.

 

Because of Jesus’ birth, we are Emmanuel to those who need God’s Presence in this world.

 

This week, we see the trees, the lights, the Santas and the reindeer.

 

But the real Christmas—that life-altering event in which God has come along us where we are—is here.

 

It is in each of us.

 

It is in those we encounter in our own lives.  

 

Truly this is Emmanuel.

 

 

Because God is with us, we should rejoice.

 

So rejoice!

 

The star that was promised to us has appeared in the darkest night of our existence.

 

It is a sign.

 

It promises us light, even when all seemed bleak before.

 

There now is a way forward through the darkness.

 

And we will not travel that way forward alone.

 

And that light that reminds of this holy and amazing fact is now shining brightly, right there, before us.

 

And its light is burning away those dark clouds of fear and doubt and despair.

 

I don’t know about you, but that for me seems as good of a reason as any to rejoice.

 

Amen.

 

 

Christmas Letter

 

Christmas, 2025

 My Friends at St. Stephen’s,

 It’s no secret at St. Stephen’s that your priest is kind of a Grinch regarding Christmas. I’m not a big fan of the commercial aspects of the holiday. But I can say that our celebration of Christmas at St. Stephen’s makes up for it for me. I love celebrating Christmas with all of you. I am grateful to serve a congregation in which, as we commemorate the birth of Christ and prepare to celebrate all that that birth means to us, we do so recognizing that we are all fully loved and fully accepted children of God. There is something truly beautiful and joyous in that realization.   

For my part, serving as St. Stephen’s continues to be truly one of the most fulfilling experiences of my priestly life. Our life together of ministry, worship, music and outreach is always an amazing grace in my life. I love serving alongside faithful, committed people who truly do seek after God and strive to serve others.

As we move forward together into this future full of hope and potential growth, I ask for your continued prayers for St. Stephen’s and your continued presence on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights and whenever else we gather together to worship and to do ministry.

Please know that I pray, as always, for each of you individually by name over the course of each week in my daily prayers and at the celebration of the Eucharist. Above all, know that I give thanks to God every day for the opportunity to serve such a wonderful, caring and loving congregation of people who are committed to growth and radical hospitality.

My sincerest blessings to you and to all those you love during this season of joy, hope and love and in the New Year of 2026.    

 

PEACE always,

                                               

                                                       Fr. Jamie

3 Advent

 

(Gaudete Sunday)

December 14, 2025

Isaiah 35.1-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11

 

+ Today, of course, is special Sunday.

 (Every Sunday is a special Sunday)

 Only twice in the Church year do we get to “go rose.”

 Today is Gaudete Sunday.

 This my first Gaudete Sunday at St. Stephen’s in about three years.

 For these last few years, I have been Las Vegas on this Sunday.

 (people still think it’s so funny that this vegan, celibate/asexual, teetotaling, non-gambling priest enjoys Las Vegas so much)

 Last year, in fact, I was attending All Saints Episcopal Church in Palm Springs on this Sunday, and it was there that I got the idea of moving our Pledge Ingathering to Gaudete Sunday after seeing them do it. Thank you, All Saints Palm Springs!

 Today we light our pink candle on the Advent wreath in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 And we wear these rose vestments because it’s an important day.  

 Today, in the midst of the blue season of Advent (or purple of you’re more traditional), we get to rejoice—or rather rejoice a little louder than usual.

 Gaudete means “Rejoice.”

 I think that’s another great reason to move our Pledge Ingathering to this Sunday.

 We get to rejoice ay our ingathering of pledges, and in doing so we rejoice in all that God continues to do here at St. Stephen’s.

 We also get to “go rose” in Lent in Laetare Sunday.

 I love these Rose Sundays!

 [We are the only Episcopal congregation in North Dakota to wear rose-colored vestments, so I love to trot these out]

 Certainly we were the first.  

 But for now, we are here, on this Sunday. 

 And it’s very appropriate that we are rejoicing on this Sunday.

 But as we also rejoice, we draw closer and closer to Jesus’ birth, and we find ourselves with that strange, wonderful emotion in our hearts—joy.

 Real, living joy.

 After all, we feel real joy when we think about the birth of Jesus, and all that that birth means to us.

 It is a time to rejoice.

 It is a time to be anxious (in a good way) and excited over the fact that, a week from Wednesday, we will be celebrating God’s Son and Messiah coming to us.

 Or, as St. James says in our Epistle reading this morning: “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord,” and then goes on to explain how farmers wait patiently for their precious crops.

 We are like farmers waiting patiently for the seeds of our faith to grow and blossom.

 “Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

 Certainly, so far in the season of Advent, we have been doing just that.

 We have been waiting.

 Still. . . .I gotta say. . .

 On the surface, doesn’t all of this seem kind of…dare I say? Fluffy and precious?

 I mean, here we are on this Sunday, with our pink paraments, lighting a pink candle, talking about something like joy?

 Appearances are important, after all.

 On the surface, it seems we are not really embodying the spirit of what we experience in our Gospel reading for today.

 There we find Jesus discussing St. John the Baptist.

 There is nothing fluffy or frivolous about John the Baptist.

 I don’t think John the Baptist ever wore pink in his entire life!

 He seems to me kind of like a wild man, out there in the desert in his clothes made from animal hides (that man was no vegan!), shouting about the coming of the Kingdom.

 If he was here this morning, at St. Stephen’s, my reaction would be: He is not going to like all these rose vestments.

 He is definitely not going to like Deacon John’s Pepto-Bismal dalmatic!

 So, when Jesus asks the crowds, “What did you go out in the wilderness to look at?”

 Did they go out to see a reed shaken by the wind?

 Or someone dressed in soft robes?

 Did they go out to see something soft and frivolous?

 No, they went out to see a prophet.

 So, are we, this morning, not living up to our ideals as prophets by decking ourselves in these rose vestments?

 Are we proving to our critics that we are just flash and no substance?

 Awww, that’s what I love about Gaudete Sunday.

 Let me tell you, appearances can be deceiving.

 Here, at St. Stephen’s, we find something else on this Gaudete Sunday.

 Yes, it may see all pink and rosy this morning.

 But what we see is exactly what those crowds in our Gospel reading were looking for.

 We, this morning, are a community of prophets.

 We are proclaiming the coming of the Lord.

 We do it in our ministries we do here.

 We are doing it in all that we pledge to God.

 We do in the witness we make in this world.

 We do it in our welcoming and including of all people—no matter who they are—within these walls.

 For us, rose or pink of kind of a defiant color.

 It’s a kind of in-your-face reaction and push-back against fragile, toxic masculinity.  

 And doing so, sometimes means that people will look down on us.

 Sometimes people will look down on us for being welcoming, for being inclusive, for being this strange, unique place we are here.

 Yesterday was a big anniversary for us.

 Did you remember this anniversary?

 You should.

 Yesterday was the 10^th anniversary of our seeking DEPO (Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight).

 At the time in our diocese, the Bishop would not allow same-sex marriage in our diocese, despite the fact that the Episcopal Church as a whole approved it.

 We made a stand then that we did not agree and that we wanted an alternative.

Now, it was a stand we made that made us look defiant.

 But we didn’t do it to be defiant.

 We did it because we felt called to make sure that all people had full access ot all the sacraments of the Church, including marriage.

 And I, for one, am grateful we did so.

 Doing so did not cause our church to be packed with people.

 Nope, we don’t get huge crowds of hundreds of people here that some of the bigger Lutheran and Roman Catholic congregations get.

 Nope, we don’t have all the flash and bang of those churches.

 Nope, we don’t have bands playing pop hymns or screens overhead.

 Nope, we’re not here for entertainment value.

 Nor was John the Baptist  in the wilderness.

 People didn’t go out there to be entertained by the Baptist.

 He didn’t customize what he said to suit the crowds.

 But, I will repeat to you what Jesus asked the crowd: “What did you expect?”

 After all, we are not reeds shaken by the wind.

 Being prophets, proclaiming the way of the Lord, is hard.

 It’s hard, yes, being on the forefront, being different, being prophets.

 But it’s not impossible.

 We are safe on this journey, because, I can tell you, we know that our pathway is safe.

 Those images we find in our reading today from Isaiah speak loud and clear to where we have been and where we are going as we follow the path of Jesus.

  “A highway shall be there,” we hear the prophet Isaiah say,

“And it shall be called the Holy Way…

It shall be for God’s people…

No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”

 This path we walk is the right path for us.

 We have remained committed to our path and to our vocation as prophets, even when it all seems overwhelming.

 Over and over again, we have found that our weak hands been strengthened and our feeble knees have been made firm.

 When our hearts have been fearful, you have it heard proclaimed within these walls, again and again,

 “Be strong, do not fear!”

 We know that our God will come with vengeance, with “terrible recompense.”

 Our God, we know as prophets, will come and save us.

 And our pathway will be made straight.

 You don’t believe me?

 Well, look where we are 10 years after seeking DEPO.

 Look where we are as a diocese.

 I love the fact that people I talk to now in the diocese can’t even imagine a time like it was 10 years ago.

 Back then, we could’ve been patient.

 We could’ve bided our time and simply waited it out.

 But that’s not what prophets do.

 Prophets speak up and speak out as the Spirit of God directs them.

 And that’s what we did.

 And it made a difference.

 And now look at the path we’re on.

 This is why we rejoice on this Gaudete Sunday.

 Whenever we have doubted the path on which we talk, whenever we are tempted to stray from the road, our God who is coming to us nudges us forward toward the goal.

 That is why we rejoice on this beautiful rose-colored Sunday!

 So…rejoice today.

 I say it,  Rejoice!

 We are following the right path.

 We are doing the right thing.

 We at Stephen’s are making a difference in people’s lives, and will continue to do so.

 That is why we are out here in the wilderness, (or up here in Northeast Farg0) proclaiming God’s coming among us.

 Let us continue forward.

 Let us set our sights on our goals.

 And let us move forward.

 And let us know, as we journey, that “everlasting joy” will be on our hearts.

 We shall obtain joy and gladness in our lives.

 And we will rejoice—we will REJOICE!—because sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

  

22 Pentecost

 November 9, 2025

Luke 20.27-38

+ As most of you know, I have been on a reading binge for over a year now.

I am averaging about five books a month.

Reading has been my lifeline—or maybe I should say my escape—from some of the realities of our world.

If it’s been my escape though I have to say: it’s been failing me.

The realities are still creeping in and I’m still having to face them and speak out against them and fight the realities of them.  

Still, my reading adventure has been interesting.

And lately I have been finding myself reading some of the theologians who have influenced me over the years.

I re-read my Paul Tillich.

I’ve re-read Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who continues to speak quite effectively to us right here and right now in our current situation)

I have re-read Thomas Merton and Dorothee Solle (who I truly love) and the liberation theologians.

I have re-read the desert mothers and fathers.

And some new thinkers too.

I recently recommended to Stephanie Garcia (who jokes with me about my lack of belief in an eternal hell) a book I read called The Gospel of Inclusion by Bishop Carlton Pearson.

There’s even a Netflix film about this book called, Come Sunday.

It’s about his realization that he cannot believe in Hell any longer and how his church reacted to this realization.

It’s an alright film, but I think more important than anything, it does open up a conversation about why people really, really WANT to believe in hell, even when they are presented with the option that it might not exist—certainly in the way we have popularly believed.

Another one of the theologians I have been re-reading is none other than the late great, John Shelby Spong, the former Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey.

One of the first books of his I read in my twenties was a book called Resurrection: Myth or Reality?

 I don’t think I’m giving the end away by saying that Bishop Spong’s answer to that question was: Myth.

Bishop Spong believed that there was no resurrection—rather that whatever resurrection one believed in was purely metaphorical.

Yes, Jesus died on the cross.

Yes, he lives on among those of who believe in him.

But there was no bodily resurrection, according to Spong.

In fact, in this book, Spong asserts his belief that Jesus’ body was probably taken down from the cross and given to the dogs to feed on.

The tomb is empty, Spong said.

But not because of any supernatural events.

The tomb is empty and Jesus is not here because he was never there in the first place.

It’s an interesting read.

And I find that I still don’t agree with Spong on many points, including the fact that I don’t believe Jesus’ body was thrown to dogs after he died.

And Bishop Spong would’ve been all right with that disagreement (which is why I like Bishop Spong).

But the issue of resurrection is still an interesting one, and one we usually don’t give a lot of thought to outside of the Easter season.

Certainly the Sadducees in our Gospel reading today viewed the Resurrection of the body in a different way of understanding the resurrection.  

Now, to give them credit, the Sadducees were smooth and they were smart.

They knew how to present a sly argument without being blatant.

You can hear the condescension and sarcasm in their question.

And they did believe that by bringing up the resurrection, they would show Jesus to be the fool and the charlatan.

For the Sadducees, the resurrection of the body was a fairy tale.

It was something gullible people hoped in.

It was absurd and ridiculous.

And so they present this question to Jesus, which is actually a very good question.

It is a question many of us ask as well, especially any of us who have been affected by divorce or death of a spouse and remarriage.

In the resurrection, whose spouse will we be?

My mother, who had a very messy first marriage before she married my father, would often ponder this.

In fact, she would be blunt and say, “When I see Roger [he first husband] in heaven, I hope he stays far away from me!”

I always gave her credit that she believed Roger would actually be IN heaven, to which she would just roll her eyes and say, “it not up to me.”

Jesus, in response to this, in that way Jesus does, flips their argument back around on them.

Jesus lays out a heaven in which there is no longer a need for things like marriage.

In heaven we will all be like angels.

He then lays out this amazing statement,

God, he says, is not the God of the dead, but a God of the living.

Jesus' God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who, he implies, are not dead at all, but alive.

Present tense.

This particular scripture has been meaningful to me after reading Eric Metaxas biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

For all my issues with Metaxas himself which I’m not going to get into this morning, there is a passage in that book that references this scripture that just blew me away when I read it.

In a paragraph referencing the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious SS monster who essentially orchestrated the final solution on the Jews, we hear this,

“At the end of May [1942], the albino stoat [I love that word “stoat”] had been ambushed by Czech resistance fighters while he was riding in his open-topped Mercedes [in Prague]. Eight days later, the architect of the Final Solution fell into the hands of the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.”

Our God is a living God.

And, according to Jesus, somehow, in some way, we go on.

For him, that is what resurrection is.

Christians—in our typical way—have over the centuries went to extremes to explain and define what resurrection is.

And they have made it one of the defining beliefs we must have to be saved.

Essentially, to be resurrected we must first believe in resurrection.

Hmmm. I don’t hear Jesus telling us that anywhere here…

But, us Christians love to just squeeze the nuances out of everything!

I once had a former parishioner—a cradle Episcopalian—who later joined the Eastern Orthodox Church over his belief that the Episcopal Church had lost its way regarding belief in the Resurrection.

He refused to receive Communion from priests whom he knew did not believe in an orthodox understanding of the Resurrection of Jesus.

In fact, one of the first questions he would ask a new priest when he would meet them is: So what do you believe regarding the Resurrection?

I luckily passed that test, but not without a good deal of spiritual searching and struggling and some verbal nuances of my own.

But, the fact this morning is this: what do we believe about the resurrection?

Certainly we profess our collective faith in the Resurrection every Sunday in the Creed.

But have we really thought about it?

Well, of course,  one of the best places to look when we are our examining our faith is, of course, our trust Catechism, found in the back of the Book of Common Prayer.

So, let’s take a looksee at what the Prayer Book says about the resurrection.

If you will take your trusty old prayer books and turn to page 862.

There we find that question,

“What do we mean by the resurrection of the body?”   The answer is: We mean that God will raise us from death in the fullness of our being, that we may live with Christ in the communion of the saints.

I love that definition of resurrection.

God will raise us up in the fullness of our being.

Wow!

That is beautiful!

And that is something I can agree with and believe wholeheartedly in.

Now, what that means specifically is not easy.

And, you know?

I don’t want it to be.

I don’t want to examine that answer too closely.

I just want to kind of bask in the glow of the beauty of those words

God will raise us up to the fullness of our being.

Isn’t that our goal after all?

To live into the fullness of our being?

Isn’t that what trans people, and lesbian and gay and asexual and bisexual and straight people have been striving to do all along?

Live into the fullness of their being?

Isn’t that what all of us as living, breathing, searching, questioning, doubting human beings are striving for?

To live into the fullness of our being?

We don’t need to squeeze the meaning out of those words, as we are apt to do.

Because if we do, we will lose the purity and beauty of that statement.

 When we start becoming too specific, we start losing something of the beauty of our faith.

We lose the purity and the poetry of our faith.

When we start trying to examine too closely how the resurrection will happen and when it will happen and how a pile of bones or cremated remains or a body destroyed in the sea can be resurrected into another body, bit by bit, we find ourselves derailed.

What we do know, however is that what the resurrection promises is being raising up in the fullness of our being by our living God.  

The whole basis of what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel, in this discourse on marriage, is that the resurrection is not, as the great Anglican theologian Reginald Fuller, said, “a prolongation of our present life, but a new mode of existence.”

It’s not an extension of this world.

It’s something…different.

We will still be us, it seems from what Jesus is saying, but we will be living into that fullness of our being—with a different understanding of what it means to be alive.

Issues like marriage and divorce and remarriage will no longer be an issue.

Now some of us might despair at that fact.

We want to know that when we awake into the fullness of our being, into that resurrected life, we will have our families there, our spouses and our loved ones.

I have no doubt that our loved ones will be there, but it seems that it will be different than here.

We will have a truly fulfilled and complete relationship with all of our loved ones, and also with those who we may not have loved.

What this leads us to is, at the same time, a glimpse of the freedom that we will gain at the resurrection.

Just as some things such as marriage will no longer be an issue, all those other issues we are dealing with now in our lives and in the church will also no longer be with us.

The issues that divide us as a country, as a church, as a community, will all be done away with at the resurrection.

And these bodies too will be done away with as well.

These bodies that will fail us and betray us—these bodies that will die on us and be buried or be burned will no longer be a part of who we are anymore.

We will, at the resurrection, be made whole and complete and perfect by our living God, the God of our forebearers.

The reason we know this is because the God we serve—the God we have gathered together to worship this morning, is not a God of the dying bodies we have with us now.

The God we serve and worship is a God of the living.

When Jesus identifies God as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, he is saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive and that their God is the God of the living.

So, Resurrection is important to us.

It is VITAL to us.

It is important to us because when we long for and strive to live into the fullness of our being, we are living the resurrected life.

Resurrection is essential to our faith, because in it we have met and faced death.

Death no longer has control over us.

It longer has any power in our lives.

The power and strength of death has been defeated in the resurrection.

In the resurrection, we have the almost audacious ability to say, at the grave, that power-packed word of life: Alleluia.

Praise God!

Praise the living God of the Living!

For our God is not a God of the dead, but of the living.

So, let us live into the fullness of our being.

Let us live into the resurrected life that is our inheritance and our legacy.

And only in life—in this precious, beautiful and wonderful life, given to us by our God—can we fully and truly serve our living God.