e-piphanies

Regathering to Begin Soon at St. Martin's

I am overjoyed to announce that Bishop Mayer has both praised and approved our plan for returning to in-person worship. A reservation system will make it possible for us to limit the number of people who are inside during the service. Seating will be assigned. Those inside the building will have their temperature taken, wear masks, sit in family groups at a distance from others, and sanitize their hands upon entering and exiting. There will be safe procedures for receiving Holy Communion. Initially, congregational singing will not be permitted. The 10:30 a.m. Sunday service will continue to be live streamed as will drive-in worship. We will advance this plan in phases over the next several months as we move toward a time when few, if any, COVID protocols will be necessary. If at any time the COVID indicators raise concerns, we will suspend in person worship until conditions improve.

We will begin on May 16 with a special service for the Vestry and Regathering Team and their households. This will allow us to test our reservation system and other arrangements we are putting in place. This service will take place at a different hour and will not be live streamed.

On May 23, the same group of worshipers will attend the 10:30 a.m. service in person. Their additional input will help us make further improvements in our protocols and procedures.

Beginning on May 30, we will increase the number of people who can be inside and the invitation will be open to all on a first come, first served basis. The reservation procedures will be explained leading up to that date. We will continue to live stream the 10:30 a.m. service each Sunday and worshipers may still join us in their vehicles in the parking lot. Those who wish to bring their chairs and sit on the lawn outside the building may do so, with masks and distancing protocols. The live streamed service can also be seen on the television in the parish hall where there overflow seating will be available.

When we are sure it is safe, we will add an 8:00 a.m. Sunday service, which will not be live streamed. This will allow sufficient time to make the nave ready for the 10:30 a.m. service and get the audio and video equipment ready for live streaming. It will also allow more time between services to resume in person Christian formation for all ages.

This announcement comes on a day when Coronavirus infections in the U.S. are at their lowest levels in seven months, thanks to the vaccines. We have been waiting, planning, and hoping for this time for over a year. I am so proud of the people of St. Martin’s who have been so patient and respectful throughout this long time apart. Our plans have been developed collaboratively by the Vestry, the Regathering Team, the Staff, the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Liturgy and Music Commission, and the Christian Formation Commission. The Regathering Team has met almost weekly since March of last year. Their devotion and thoughtful contributions have been amazing. All of those leading our services, hosting zoom events, and quietly working behind the scenes have been faithful and dependable. Chuck Ambrose has worked miracles with our audio and video requirements. I give thanks to God for all of you!

Blessings,

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

An Episcopal bishop who served for many years in the upper Midwest loves to tell stories he learned from the Native Americans of the area, many of whom are Episcopalians. Here is one of them.  

A wise man among the Indians—many Native Americans in the Midwest still prefer to be called Indians—was asked by his grandson about the conflict and discord in the world today. The elder reflected for a moment and then replied, “My child, there are two dogs battling within my heart. One is full of anger, hatred, and rage.  The other is full of love, forgiveness, and peace.”  The old man paused, and he and his grandson sat for a moment in silence.  Finally the boy spoke, “Grandfather, which dog will win the battle in your heart?  The one filled with hatred or the one filled with love?” The old man looked at his grandson and replied, “The one I feed will win.”

Our world is still untamed and full of conflict. We can see it daily on our televisions and read about it in our newspapers.  We do not have to drive far in our cars to feel it on our streets. The world is a dangerous place, whether we live in the Middle East or the American Midwest. Yet, the conflict we experience is not simply on our streets or in our neighborhoods, much less in lands far from us. The conflict is always fought out in the human heart. The Indian wise man was right. Too many of us feed the dogs of anger and hatred.

Jesus knew this fact at least as well as we do, for his world was really no different from our own. Many of the conflicts of his time and his land are with us yet today. The human heart does not change so quickly or easily. The world still has its share of “thieves and bandits” ready to snatch and scatter the flock.  

We like to think that we are in control, that no one can hurt us if we do not let them, and that no problem is so intractable that we cannot solve it. But events of the past few years have made us doubt our conviction. We are not secure even in our own little worlds. We really do not have our act together. We remain vulnerable as much to our own sinfulness and the blandishments of contemporary life as to far-off terrorists and revolutionaries. All of us are starving for love and compassion. Yet the world is torn apart by hatred, anger, and rage. In spite of its thin veneer of order and discipline, the human condition remains as messy and chaotic as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Thieves and bandits lie in wait at every bend, ready to snatch heart and soul.

Like the flocks they tended, the shepherds of Jesus’ day were often dirty and woolly, enduring sun and rain for days or weeks on end. But unlike their charges, they were vigilant and uncomplaining, watching for danger and trouble, providing pasture and allaying thirst. The shepherd knew his flock as no one else. And the sheep followed him “because they know his voice.”

Jesus speaks of himself as “the gate for the sheep.” Some scholars contend that shepherds of the period would often place their own bodies across the small opening of the sheep enclosure during times of peril, risking their lives for the sake of their flock. Perhaps it is this image of the shepherd as human gate that Jesus has in mind with this metaphor, his own presence stretched out and bridging our insecurities. “Whoever enters by me,” he assures us, “will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

This of course does not mean that we are notorious sinners. It is hard to imagine vicious sheep after all. It even sounds funny. But we are also familiar with the story of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. There is wisdom in Aesop’s ancient fable of course. Appearances can be deceiving. Each of us is capable of sin and hurt. There are always creatures at war beneath our woolen pelts. Which shall we feed?

The bishop likes to conclude his story of the Indian elder with a kind of postscript.  “Which one of the dogs will win?” asked the boy of his grandfather.  “The one I feed will win,” replied the elder. But then he continued, “My child, feeding one dog or the other is only part of the answer. The Great Spirit feeds each of us. It is from the Great Spirit that we first learned to feed others at all.”

This Easter season we are all fed by the Great Spirit of love and forgiveness. We have come to the Paschal banquet ready to keep the feast, eager to partake of the Lord’s abundance and be nourished for the journey ahead.  But the world is still a place of famine and danger. The human heart listens for the voice of the shepherd who brings peace and God’s reconciling love. As we have been fed, we must now feed others in Christ’s name.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

 

Epiphany Through Doubt

The Reverend Ken Kesselus tells the following story:

Once when a certain preacher launched into a children’s sermon, she was confronted by a visiting child, an eight-year-old friend of a regular member. The boy was new to this church, but was a regular attendee at another congregation that did not have children’s sermons. Nevertheless, the visitor tried his best to follow the line of the preacher’s effort to connect with the children. Attempting to hook the children with something familiar before making her point, the priest asked the children to identify what she would describe. “What is fuzzy and has a long tail?” No response. “What has big teeth and climbs in trees?” Still no response. After she asked, “What jumps around a lot and gathers nuts and hides them?” the visiting boy could stand the silence no longer. He blurted out, “Look, lady, I know the answer is supposed to be ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”

Human beings usually want to give the “right” answer, the answer others expect. The eight-year-old boy had more courage than most of us might have had. He acknowledged what he thought others might want him to say, but he found a way to express his doubt.

Each year on the Second Sunday of Easter, we read the gospel account of St. Thomas the Apostle in which he expresses his own doubt about reports of the Resurrection of Jesus (John 20:19-31). He had not been in the company of the other Apostles when Jesus appeared to them that first Easter. When the others told him they had seen the Risen Savior, he couldn’t believe it. He may have wanted to “go along in order to get along” with the others, but he was compelled to express his doubt. He might have said, “I know the answer is supposed to be that I believe you saw Jesus, but it sure sounds like a ghost to me.”

A week later, Thomas had the opportunity to see for himself and confirm in his own experience that the Risen Christ was not a ghost. But for a period of time, he was skeptical. His questioning and doubting must have been as hard for him as it was for the little boy trying to understand the illustration about the squirrel. Because we too struggle with what may seem clear to others and with accepted norms, we can identify with Thomas and the little boy.
    
I am grateful to be a part of a Church where it is safe for people to express their doubts and ask their questions and challenge accepted norms. It is a Church where we don’t have to mindlessly accept what seems to be the accepted answer or point of view. It is a Church where it is okay to be doubtful, confused, and skeptical. It is a Church where we can remain in the company of others as we struggle with matters of doubt and faith. It is a Church where from childhood we are encouraged to ask questions and to wonder as we journey toward faith.

The example of Thomas’ honesty and forthrightness fosters hope in us and empowers us in our seasons of doubt. We need that kind of faith community as we wonder where God fits in with harsh and frightening realities of life and death. We need a faith community where we can be encountered by the Risen Christ who can lead us to the truth, just as he led Thomas. In such a community, we can work through our uncertainties and emerge on the other side with an even stronger faith, just as Thomas did.

The story of Thomas affirms that doubt can give way to faith, just as death is overcome by life.  It assures us that the God we worship can handle our doubts and fears. It tells us that honesty is necessary in our relationship with God and God’s own people in times of uncertainty as well as in times of confidence.

The Apostles were blessed because they saw the Risen Christ and believed. The chief requirement for those first Apostles was that they were witnesses to the Resurrection. Their subsequent ministry was to nurture faith among others who had not seen. Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The ongoing work of this Church is to continue the ministry of the Apostles and foster the even greater blessing that comes from walking by faith and not by sight.And for every generation of Christians since the first one, if we are honest about it, we have to admit that faith in Jesus Christ requires at least some struggle with doubt.

That’s really what Easter is all about. We are Easter People, traveling together on a marvelous journey toward those faith-filled moments when we discover the Risen One at work in our lives and in our world – moments so profound that we can only exclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”

Blessings,

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

Easter is more than a day

During the forty days of Lent each year we spend time getting ready for the celebration of Easter. There is fasting, self-denial, prayer, intensified devotion, scripture study, and other disciplines designed to cleanse our hearts.

Then, comes the big celebration. Easter. Like so many Christian holy days, Easter seems to disappear the next day as life returns to "normal." But Easter should be more than that to us! It certainly was to those early disciples. Easter is more than a day!

Easter is a season of celebration. The Risen Christ walked among his disciples for forty days after his resurrection. He taught them, ate with them, prayed with them, and loved them. Before he was taken up into heaven, he promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. The promise was fulfilled on the fiftieth day when they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Jewish feast of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. In Greek, it is called Pentecost. Pentecost is seven weeks, or fifty days, after the observance of Passover and commemorates the spring wheat harvest. This feast has also been associated with the remembrance of the giving of the Law to Moses. As the law was written on tablets of stone, the Spirit would write God's law upon the hearts of believers. When Moses came down from the mountain, he found God's people worshipping an idol and 3,000 of them died. When the Spirit was given, the disciples were obediently waiting in Jerusalem. 3,000 people were saved! The New People of the New Covenant were empowered by the Life-giving Spirit to be Christ's Body in the world, proclaiming to everyone the Easter message that Christ is alive.

Easter is a lifestyle. We are Easter People! As those early disciples in Jerusalem, Emmaus, and Galilee experienced the living presence of the Risen Christ, so we recognize that he stands among us today. To paraphrase Jesus, "believing is seeing." When we hear the Word and share in the Holy Meal, it is easier to experience his presence "enthroned upon the praises of his people." The challenging part comes when we go about our day-to-day lives. As Christ's Body touches the world through you and me when we are apart from one another, do you suppose the Living Presence is felt?

Easter is our only hope. St. Peter writes, "By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." (I Peter 1:3). There is a lot of help out there for people with all kinds of needs. But Christians believe that beyond help, people need hope. So what if you are physically or emotionally well. Life is just not complete without hope. The Easter faith gives the world hope. 

So, don't let Easter fade like the blooms on your Easter Lily! Easter is more than a day; it is a season, a lifestyle, and a faith that fills our lives with hope.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Rev'd Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

March 25 ~ The Annunciation

The Annunciation | Luke 1:26-38

So much of our conversation regarding faith is centered on what each of us is doing about it. We are preoccupied with human liberty, some notion of “the individual,” and overly concerned with the subjective experience of God. We tend to want to play the leading role in the story, which we are writing, and we offer God a supporting role in a cast of thousands. We like to be in control of our universe.

The Annunciation is a reminder to me that what I'm doing about my faith is always in response to what God is first doing in my life, even when I'm not thinking of it in that way. God sent Gabriel to make an announcement to Mary about the role she would play in God's story, not to ask her to "volunteer." Like Mary, we are often perplexed when God enters our lives uninvited and calls us to do what seems humanly impossible.

Reflect with me on that thought today in pursuit of a more God-centered and objective life of faith.

St. Augustine was aware of the divine initiative when he wrote, “Thou didst strike on my heart with Thy word and I loved Thee.” - from Confessions (397-398 A.D.) If you know anything about Augustine's life, you know he started out as a very self-absorbed and strong-willed individual. It would take a major epiphany to get his attention. God's undeserved grace knocked on Augustine's heart and by God's grace he was able to love God in response.

C.S. Lewis offers this perspective:

Christianity “does not tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God for, to, and about Man. And the way in which it is done is selective, undemocratic, to the highest degree. After the knowledge of God had been universally lost or obscured, one man from the whole earth (Abraham) is picked out. He is separated (miserably enough, we may suppose) from his natural surroundings, sent into a strange country, and made the ancestor of a nation who are to carry the knowledge of the true God. Within this nation there is further selection: some die in the desert, some remain behind in Babylon. There is further selection still. The process grows narrower and narrower, sharpens at last into one small bright point like the head of a spear. It is a Jewish girl at her prayers. All humanity (so far as concerns its redemption) has narrowed to that” (Chapter 14, Miracles:A Preliminary Study, Harper Collins, 2001).

And, because I love the poetry and music of our faith so much, this 19th Century hymn comes to mind:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;
it was not I that found, O Savior true;
no, I was found of thee.

Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea;
'twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
as thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee;
for thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
always thou lovedst me.

(Author: Jean Ingelow 1820-1897)

Maybe today would be a good day to say with Mary, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

Six Better Questions

We are beginning to see light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. Our Regathering Team, Vestry, Staff, and other groups are having intentional conversations about how we will be ready to regather in person when it is safe. There will be many logistical details and procedures that are quite different from what was “normal” before this started.

I recently came across an interesting article by small church pastor Karl Vaters, in which he addresses a question many are asking: “When the pandemic is over, will the congregation come back?” In his response, he suggests that there are several better questions we should be asking ourselves. You can read the article HERE, but this is my summary of it.

Pastor Vaters offers the following six questions we should be thinking about as we anticipate the time when we can regathers in person for worship, study, service, and fellowship.

“Have we represented Jesus well during the lockdown?”

“Are we representing Jesus well as we come out of the lockdown?”

“What have we learned – and what are we still learning?”

“How can we better serve the people at home?”

“How well are we serving our online church members and visitors?”

“How are people hurting, and what can we do to help them?”

He notes that there will be other issues we can’t yet foresee, but “more than ever, the communities around us are going to need the help of healthy, missional, compassionate, worshiping, and loving churches.”

He concludes by saying, “Whether people come back through our church doors is not the big issue. How we honor Jesus by reaching the hurting people outside our doors is what matters. Ministry needs to happen from the church, not just in the church.”

I invite you to read the article and contemplate these questions in relation to our parish, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church. Our church leadership would be interested in hearing your thoughts. We would love to hear how you have made a contribution or been the recipient of the ministries of our parish during this time. Do these questions lead you to a sense of being called to a role in the ongoing life of the parish? How is God calling you to keep St. Martin’s growing as a healthy, missional, compassionate, worshiping, and loving church?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I am heartened by the numerous examples that have come to mind as I pondered these questions. I have witnessed so many occasions when our people have been in ministry to one another and to others outside of our faith community, in spite of the strange and limiting circumstances of the past year.

Thank you for what you have done and are doing! Thank you for answering the call to represent Christ and his Church.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

UPDATE ON COVID PROTOCOLS AT ST. MARTIN'S

Earlier this week, the Governor of Texas held a press conference in which he announced that Texas will open 100%, including lifting limitations on gatherings and the mask mandate. You may be wondering how this decision will impact us at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

The protocols we follow at St. Martin’s were developed by a team of knowledgeable people assembled by Bishop Scott Mayer and in conversation with clergy across the diocese. Those will continue to be the protocols under which we operate until the Bishop and those upon whose counsel he relies believe it is safe to relax them. Until then, we will continue to operate as we have been.

That said, recent trends suggest that our protocols may move to another phase in a few months. We are encouraged by the increased number of vaccinations and the decreasing number of COVID-positive cases in Tarrant and surrounding counties. In fact, we believe that the practices we have been following have contributed to these positive trends.

Our own regathering team, which has met almost weekly for the past year, our Liturgy and Music Commission, our Christian Formation Commission, and our Vestry have begun having conversations about how we can take the first steps toward return to in-person worship, study, fellowship, and other parish gatherings in the not-too-distant future, perhaps even sometime this summer.

Initially, we anticipate two Eucharistic services on Sunday morning, the second of which would be live streamed. The distribution of Holy Communion would continue in the same safe manner as we have for some time. We would have to limit the number of worshipers in the Nave and require hand sanitization, face coverings, and assigned seating to facilitate distancing. Drive-in worship in the parking lot would still be an option and we would have the ability to provide additional seating in the Parish Hall where we have large screen televisions on which to view the service. Seating outside on the lawn between the Nave and the parking lot might also be possible if the weather permits. These conversations are allowing us to anticipate logistical and practical challenges that will require management by members of the parish.

What this means is that, while we will abide by whatever laws or protocols are required by public officials, we will continue to exercise controls that we believe are in the best interest of those given into our care at St. Martin’s. When the community trends reach the point when we can begin to regather, we will be ready!

In the meantime, thank you for your patience and understanding. Please continue to join us online for worship and other opportunities. Help with our ongoing outreach ministries. Sign up to work in the Good News Garden or join the Holy Mowers. Pray for the Rector Search and pray for progress in the effort to subdue this virus. Love one another, be mindful of others with whom you come into contact, wear your masks, wash your hands, maintain distance, get the vaccine, and stay in touch. If you need the help of your clergy or our St. Martin’s Helping Hands Team, please let us know.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

It's all about relationships.

Earlier in the week, the Ten Commandments came up in a conversation with a couple of other people. One of them said, “For some, Christianity seems to be a list of rules to obey.” I think he’s right. There are those who view Christianity that way.

But for me, Christianity is first and foremost about relationships – with God, with others, and with my own spiritual being. The “rules” God gives us are intended to help us cherish, protect, and sustain those relationships. Following the “rules” don’t make us worthy of our relationships; they help us abide in them.

For starters, God invites us into relationship not because we are worthy, but because God is worthy. And God always takes the first step, even when we falter. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), after the son wakes up to his own prodigal reality, he rehearses a speech that he hopes will convince his father to accept him back into the household just as a hired hand. When the father sees him coming toward home, he runs out to meet him. And before a word comes out of the son’s mouth, the father embraces him and restores him to his place in the household as a son and not a servant. Our relationship with God is grounded in God’s worthiness and not our own. The rules God gives us are to hold us close in that relationship as God's beloved daughters and sons.

Our relationships with others are healthiest when we place the worth of the other ahead of our own. Jesus demonstrated that in his life, death, and resurrection for us. St. Paul summed it up when he wrote, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The heart of the Paschal Mystery is that Jesus Christ overcame death for our sake. Before we even knew there were any rules to follow, he deemed us worthy to act on our behalf. But it is the Savior’s worth and not our own that makes it possible for us to live in him. He calls us again and again to love others the way he loves us.

And, it is vital to our spiritual well-being that we be mindful of our soul’s progress throughout life and aware of how all other relationships affect our inner being. Because we live in a material world, it is easy to forget that we are, first and foremost, spiritual beings. Things often block progress on the spiritual journey. Some people bring good into our lives. Others have a harmful or hurtful influence. There are spiritual disciplines and rules of life that help us be mindful and to monitor the soul’s well-being.

To couch my point in sacramental terms, the inward and spiritual needs to be expressed in the outward and visible. It is the relationship that drives the behavior. Because I value the relationships, I strive to act in ways that sustain them.

I love my wife and I will never forget that she loved me first. Some important rules have been helpful in strengthening the bonds of our marriage for fifty-two years. But following those rules grows out of the deep love and respect we have for one another. The rules don’t make us love one another. It is our love that gives the rules their purpose.

Our parents taught us not to play in traffic because, before we knew it was dangerous, they loved us enough to give us that and other rules that protect us from physical harm. We teach our children to brush their teeth and other rules because we love them and want them to take care of their health. We follow COVID protocols in an attempt to live out the Great Commandment, loving others as well as ourselves. The Church commends spiritual disciplines because Jesus loved us enough to create the Church for that purpose.

The Godly Play Curriculum for children speaks of the Ten Commandments as “The Ten Best Ways to Live.” I like that. Because God loves us so much, God has provided these and many other ways to live in a sacred relationship with our Creator, with those around us, and with our own true self. The purpose of the rules is always about relationships.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

Getting Ready for Lent

Next Wednesday, we will begin our annual observance of the Season of Lent. Lent is a time for engaging our new life in Christ more deeply, risking new levels of trust. The purpose of Lent is not to dwell on suffering, or to spend forty days bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness for the sake of feeling our pain. Lent is about engaging in the ongoing process of renewal, regeneration, and new birth; it is about encouraging us to trust and to risk going forth and being sent out with the promise of new life.

Lent may require us to “think outside the box” of piety and religiosity, just as Abram and Sarai had to break with their past, and Saul and Nicodemus the Pharisees with theirs. The promises of God bear not only upon the future of our individual lives in relationship to God, but also upon the future of our parish, our diocese, and our Church as a whole.

To respond to the promise for new life means we have to be ready to redraw and rename the places on the journey. When the ancient ones told the story of Abram and Sarai, they were also inscribing new place names and creating a new social geography on the territories of their migrations in company with God.

God may be inviting us to rethink how we do Church in light of the socio-geographies of the times we live in. When Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle as we know him, he brought new words, images, and new community structures into being, “calling into existence things which do not exist,” by trustfully following Jesus into new life.

Lent is for listening to that call in our own lives. In the words of James Russell Lowell, “New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.” Lent is for careful thinking about how to step into the as-yet-unmapped future, to deepen our relationship to God, to trust the picture of new life in Christ, and for identifying the breaks with the past that we need to make in order to respond to the promises of God.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

What Moves You?

Mark uses miracle stories in his gospel to illustrate a point the way Matthew and Luke use parables for that purpose in theirs. Jesus’ cleansing of a leper as recorded in Mark 1:40-45 is an example.

A man who was afflicted with leprosy confronted Jesus. The leper broke the code of ceremonial cleanliness just by speaking to Jesus. It was a very bold thing to do. Here is one who is considered unclean and wretched by his people because he has contracted a hideous disease. Leprosy represented sin to the people of Jesus’ day and, like sin, it was considered contagious, more to be cleansed than healed. 

A leper was banished from the community and had to dwell alone or with other lepers outside the community. This man had to go about with torn clothes, bared head, and a covering upon his upper lip. As he went, he was required to give warning of his polluted presence with the cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” The leper had not only to bear the physical pain of his disease, he had to bear the mental anguish and heartbreak of being completely banished from human society and totally shunned. So, it is incredible that he would approach Jesus at all, let alone dare to speak to him.

Even more remarkable than that is the fact that Jesus responded to him as he did. He could have run away. He could have had the leper killed. He could have reacted with horror. But he didn’t. Instead, we are told in the story that his response was one of compassion and understanding. Jesus was “moved with pity.” He broke the code and defiled himself when he reached out and touched the leper. In so doing, his power over evil was demonstrated by a miraculous cure. He broke the law and, at the same time, he fulfilled it.

Then he sent the man to the priest and in so doing placed before the religious establishment a difficult problem. Only the priest could certify the cure. To reject it would be to break the code. To accept it would be to acknowledge Jesus’ power and authority. To make matters even worse, this cleansed leper couldn’t keep all of this to himself, even though Jesus had asked him to. Is it any surprise?

In this miracle story, we see that it was Jesus’ nature to be moved by the sight of human need. But sympathy isn’t worth a dime unless it leads to action. Jesus was first moved to pity, then to action. He continues to be moved to compassion and he still reaches out and touches those in need of help. People who have experienced this compassionate power find themselves moved. They become enthusiastic about life and they glorify God in whatever they do.

I’ve always enjoyed the movie Bad News Bears. In it, there is a character named Lupus. Lupus is a little boy who had a runny nose all the time and was smaller than the others. He had learned to stay in the background because that’s where everyone else told him he belonged. One day, some boys on another team put ketchup in his hat and slapped it back on his head. One of his teammates took both of them on in defense of Lupus. He lost the fight, but afterwards, Lupus said to him, “You’re the first person who ever took up for me.” A short time later, the coach sent Lupus in to play during the championship game and he actually caught a fly ball. Nothing could ever stop Lupus again because someone finally believed in him. That gave him the courage to get out of the background and take his God-given place as a full-fledged member of the team.

Like the story of the cleansing of the leper, the story of Lupus is a miracle story. It tells us what can happen on an infinitely greater plane when Jesus Christ touches a human life. His touch tells us that he believes in us and when we know that touch, we’ll never be the same. We’ll have a new perspective on life, a new confidence in ourselves, and a new ability to reach out to others, especially those who have been pushed into the background, marginalized, and condemned.

Today is a good day to keep my eyes open to watch for a miracle. Today is a good day to experience a miracle for myself. Today is a good day to help a miracle happen for someone else. God, let me live today in miraculous expectation!

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas