2 Pentecost

June 7, 2026

+ This Thursday, I will celebrating my 22^nd anniversary of ordination to the Priesthood.

It’s been a fascinating 22 years so far.

I have gone places I never thought I would go.

I’ve done things I never thought I’d do.

I was joking yesterday at Joy Coffey’s interment that I never thought in a million years that I would be digging graves as a priest. . .

But that’s part of the journey, right?

In our Gospel reading for today, we also have a similar realization.

In these stories, we find Jesus going where religious people would say one should not go.

In the first story, he goes to a tax collector’s booth.

Then he goes to a dinner table filled with sinners.

Then, he allows himself to be touched by a woman whose illness has made her ritually unclean.

And then, perhaps most shockingly of all, he takes a dead girl by the hand.

All of these would have been prohibitions again the Judaic law of his time and culture.

But, everywhere Jesus goes in this passage, he crosses a boundary.

The tax collector is outside that circle.

The sinners are outside that circle.

The hemorrhaging woman is outside that circle.

The dead girl—by simply being dead—is outside that circle.

And through it all, Jesus just keeps walking straight toward them, breaking down barriers as he goes.

That seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Jesus.

He is forever moving toward those whom everyone else is moving away from.

Matthew the tax collector, made ritually unclean by the pagan coins he handles, is sitting at his tax booth.

We should remember that tax collectors weren’t just disliked.

They were considered collaborators with the Romans.

They were viewed as corrupt, morally compromised, and unclean.

Matthew, a Jew, has definitely made a mess of his life.

But, Jesus doesn’t ask him for any sort of explanation.

He doesn’t demand some kind of evidence of repentance.

What does he say to Matthew?

He simply says, “Follow me.”

And Matthew gets up and follows him.

There is something wonderfully unsettling about that.

I mean, he just gets right up and follows him without seemingly a second thought.

There’s no repentance.

There’s no, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”

There’s no dramatic turning away from his old life style.

There’s no cleansing—no washing away of his uncleanliness.

He just gets up and goes.

And Jesus, for his part,  doesn’t say, “get your crap in order and  then you can follow me.”

He just says, “Follow me.”

Don’t worry about the rest of your crap.

Just leave it behind and follow me.  

We often forget that.

We have sometimes behave as though being Christian is some kind of  reward for “being good” rather than medicine for our wounded souls.

We act as though holiness is an entrance requirement instead of the lifelong work of God’s grace.

But Jesus says something very different than that.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” he says.

The old saying is, “The Church is the hospital for our souls.”

The Church is not a museum.

It is not our job to preserve the sacred vessels of the church building.  

Rather, the Church is a hospital filled with people in various stages of healing.

It is a place where wounded people go to seek healing.

 Then, we hear about this woman who has been bleeding for twelve years.

 Twelve years.

 Just think about that.

 Twelve years of disappointment.

 Twelve years of fear.

 Twelve years of hoping that maybe tomorrow it will stop.

 Twelve years of failed remedies.

 Twelve years of absolute isolation.

 Twelve years of being treated as a problem rather than as a person.

 And what does she do?

 She just reaches out.

 She doesn’t ask permission.

 She doesn’t ask, “may I?’

 She probably hadn’t even planned to do it.

 An opportunity arose and she just did it, hoping probably that Jesus wouldn’t notice.

 Just imagine for a moment all the emotion and hope and uncertainly in that one simple action.

 And, in turn, what does Jesus do?

 He turns.

 He sees her.

 That glance—that look—is truly the miracle before the miracle.

 He actually sees her.

 Sees her for who she really is.

 He doesn’t see her illness.

 Or  her shame.

 He sees her.

 And he tells her, “Take heart.”

 Be strong.

 Hope has been renewed.

 And fulfilled.

 Then we find Jesus at the ruler’s house where this girl has died.

 Everyone there knows what’s going on.

 They know death when they see it.

 They know how the story ends.

 Yet Jesus just comes in and takes her hand.

 The same hand everyone else has stopped holding because it’s now unclean.

 It’s the hand of a corpse.

 And what happens?

 Life returns.

 A God who enters into places everyone else has abandoned.

 Did you notice how this Gospel reading is full of hands?

 Matthew rising from his tax booth—he is using the ritually unclean hands with which he handled the pagan coins to rise up.

 The woman touches his garment.

 Jesus takes a dead girl’s hand.

 There’s something so beautiful in that!

 That speaks to us.,

 Because that’s what God does.

 Again and again God reaches across the distance.

  The distance between uncleanliness and cleanliness.

 The distance between health and sickness.

 The distance between life and death.

 The distance between ourselves and God.

 So, what do we get from this reading today?

 Certainly, we hear those words,

 “Take heart.”

 Follow Jesus.

 Those are our words too.

 Take heart.

 And follow Jesus.

 Follow Jesus into those places polite Christians say we shouldn’t go.

 Follow Jesus to places others fear to tread.

 And as we do so, let us use our hands.

 And our feet

 And whole selves.

 Because Jesus is leading us into those places others tell us we shouldn’t go.

 It is precisely those uncomfortable places he goes and expects us to follow.

 He knows.

 After all, the physician goes to the sick.

 The shepherd goes to the lost.

 The Giver of life goes to the dead.

 And in doing so, we realize we have nothing to fear.

 After all, whenever Jesus went to those places, it was then that life began.

 But even more than going there, maybe we should realize that we are already there.

 After all, at times, we are the tax collectors.

 We are the wounded people reaching for the hem of Jesus’ fringes.

 We are the bleeding, broken people just reaching out.

 We are the ones who have heard his voice saying to us, “Follow me.”

 We are the ones hearing that voice saying, “Take heart.”

 We are the ones who hear that voice say to us, “Arise.”

 Arise.

Take heart.

Follow Jesus

 And live.

 In the end, those are truly the things that matter.

 Amen

 

 

Trinity Sunday

 

May 31, 2026

 John 16:12-15

 +When I was a new priest, the common advice to a new priest for preaching on Trinity Sunday was this:

 Let your curate or deacon preach instead.

 I don’t have a curate.

 And Deacon John, though always willing to preach, shouldn’t have to do my dirty work for me.

 But, the reality is that no preacher likes preaching about the Trinity.

 I think because there’s a temptation every Trinity Sunday to somehow explain the Trinity.

 Preachers reach for tired analogies.

 (and I have done every single one of these)

 Water, ice, and steam.

 The shamrock of St. Patrick.

 Three candles, one flame.

 Three notes, one chord.

 Or remember this one?

 Perichorisis—the divine dance.

 Lord!

 As someone who taught systematic theology for ten years, I also used did this quite often.

 I think the anxiety is based on a fear of somehow preaching something heretical.

 Well. . . Father Jamie ain’t a new priest anymore.

 And you know what I think about heresy?

 I just don’t care about heresy.

 And I know few of you do either.

 How many times has someone called me a heretic?

 As some point, you just start embracing it all, while at the same time thanking God they don’t don’t burn people like me at the take for it anymore.

 At least not yet.

 The problem really comes down to believing that the doctrine of the Trinity is some kind of puzzle that needs to be solved.

 It is not a theological math problem.

 And, as one of my favorite memes so succinctly puts it: the Trinity is not two men and a bird.

 The Trinity is not an answer to a question.

 So then, what is the Trinity.

 Well. . .

 I don’t know.

 I’ve never known.

 And I probably will never know.

 And I’ll even be more honest with you:

 I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it or pondering it.

 Because the more I do, the more evasive it all becomes.

 But what I do think what the doctrine of the Trinity actually does attempt to convey is something we all consider and struggle with on occasion:

 The mystery of God.

 For me, the Mystery of God is the more compelling thing about this Sunday.

 I wish this Sunday was Mystery of God Sunday.

 I think it would be less dreaded.

 Because that’s really what all of this is about.

 The first Christians experienced God in multiple ways.

 They experienced God in Jesus.

 They encountered God working in the risen Christ and found themselves transformed by this encounter.

 Then, after Jesus' ascension, they experienced the Spirit of God still moving among them—guiding them, comforting them, challenging, them and inspiring them.

 And through it all, they remained convinced that there was only one God.

 But they were experiencing this one God in such a variety of ways.

 In ways that transformed language and basic rational thought.

 So, being humans, they tried to take the Mystery of God and quantify it and definite it and pinpoint it.

 They tried to confine it with language and words and rational thinking.

 But the Mystery of God is so much more than our strange, limited understanding of anything.

 And perhaps that should tell us something important.

 The deepest truths in life are often the ones we cannot completely explain.

 In mystery.

 Can you explain love?

 Not define it.

 Just explain it.

 Can you explain why one piece of music or poetry moves you to tears?

 Can you explain beauty?

 Can you explain why certain memories stay with us for decades while others vanish almost immediately?

 Some realities are larger than our ability to describe them.

 God is one of those realities.

 In today's Gospel Jesus says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

 I find those words comforting.

 The disciples do not get everything at once.

 They are not handed a complete and perfect systematic theology.

 They are not given all the answers.

 Instead, Jesus promises that the Spirit will continue leading them into truth.

 Notice that truth is not presented as a destination but as a journey.

 The Spirit guides.

 The Spirit leads.

 The Spirit accompanies.

 Faith is not about arriving.

 Faith is about following.

 The Trinitarian Mystery of God, as I like to call it, reminds us that God is dynamic rather than static.

 God is relationship.

 God is movement.

 God is communion.

 From all eternity, God is love given and received.

 Long before creation, before stars or galaxies or human beings, God was already love.

 At the heart of reality is relationship.

 At the heart of reality is communion.

 At the heart of reality is love.

 And if human beings are created in the image of God, perhaps this tells us something about ourselves as well.

 We become most fully human not in isolation but in relationship.

 We need each another.

 We belong to each another.

 Our lives are woven together in ways we sometimes fail to see.

 We like to think we are self-made individuals.

 The Trinitarian Mystery of God  tells a different story.

 The Trinitarian Mystery of God tells us that relationship isn’t weakness.

 Dependence isn’t failure.

 Community isn’t optional.

 Love is written into the very structure of reality itself.

 And perhaps this is why Christians have struggled with the Trinitarian Mystery of God for nearly two thousand years.

 Not because it’s easy to understand.

 But because it points toward something true.

 Something we glimpse whenever people care for one another.

 Something we glimpse whenever forgiveness triumphs over resentment.

 Something we glimpse whenever a community gathers around a table and discovers that they belong to one another.

 The Trinitarian Mystery of God reminds us that God's deepest nature is not power.

 Not domination.

 Not control.

 But love.

 Love shared.

 Love given.

 Love received.

 Love flowing endlessly among eternal, amazing Mystery.

 And the astonishing claim of the Gospel is that we are invited into that life.

 Not merely to believe in it.

 Not merely to admire it.

 But to truly participate in it.

 To be drawn into the divine life itself.

 To be drawn into the Mystery.

 That is what happens at this table.

 That is what happens in prayer.

 That is what happens whenever we practice mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

 We are being drawn deeper into the mystery of God.

 Not a mystery to be solved.

 But a mystery to be lived.

 And perhaps that’s enough.

 In a world that demands certainty, the Mystery of God invites wonder.

 In a world obsessed with answers, the Mystery of God teaches humility.

 In a world fractured by division, the Mystery of God reveals true communion.

 And in a world hungry for love, the Mystery of God reminds us that love is, as we all know, the deepest truth of all.

 Amen.