Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7) (June 22, 2025)
Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7) (June 22, 2025) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
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Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
That's kind of a hard act to follow. Thank you. Thank you very much to our Sunday school. It's so wonderful. So today is a Sunday that we especially celebrate our young people. There's a prayer in our prayer book that I've been thinking about all week. It's a prayer for young persons. You don't have to look it up, but it is in the prayer book in the back, in the eight hundreds, page 829, and it starts this way. That's for young persons. So it starts “God, our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world”. Ain't that the truth? An unsteady and confusing world, and it's all of us, not just the little ones, but all God's children. We're all growing and we are all in this world that is unsteady and confusing and increasingly so. The prayer goes on to conclude, Give them strength to hold their faith in you. Give them strength to hold their faith in you and keep alive their joy in your creation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And when Talk about an unsteady and confusing world, last night while we were gathered in the parish hall, about 60 of us to hear some very talented musicians play some beautiful music, the United States dropped three bombs on Iran. And so we bombed three sites. So we are in a world that has just gotten a little bit more unsteady, right?
And I think the gospel today that our children kind of brought to life for us so beautifully, it could not be more apt. If you want to talk about a world and people possessed, right? A world that is possessed by violence.
Jesus comes in a boat across the sea. He comes to the country of the Geresenes. On that sea is where he had said to the storm, be still, he had calmed the waves. But when he and the disciples get to the shore and step out of the boat, they're right in the middle of another storm. A man who is possessed by evil, a man who has been hurting himself and others, a man whose life is so broken that he can no longer live in a house but has to live among the tombs. A man whose life is already mostly gone, a man whose life looks like death and the violence that possesses this man, the harm he does to himself and others, it shows up when Jesus casts the demons out of him, right?
These pigs that the demons go into, hurdle themselves into the sea because the power of the evil that has possessed this man, it cannot be held by creation. It cannot be born. Jesus says to the man, to the demons inside him, what is your name? And they say to him, Legion. 5,000 soldiers. The violence that has possessed humanity, that has possessed the land, that has possessed the nations of the world. It is overwhelming to us, right? It makes the world unsteady and confusing for those of us who are raising children in it makes the world a frightening and fearful place.
So I want to ask you in light of all this, in light of the world being unsteady and confusing, in light of us, our own humanity being captive to the forces of violence and evil and death and increasingly so captive to destruction. How do you want to be? How do I want to be? I want to be clothed and in my right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Clothed and in my right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus. There is only one place where we can find stillness and peace while the forces of violence are swirling around us, threatening to take us captive. There is one who can set us free, who can heal us, who can put us in our right mind. And that is where I want to be.
One person at a time. Conversion of the whole world to the way of love can only happen one right mind at a time. Now, most of us are already clothed, right? So good, we got that one. But clothed, clothed, clothed in Christ, right? St. Paul says, for shoes on your feet, put on whatever you need to proclaim the gospel of peace, put on the full armor of God, the breastplate of righteousness and goodness. So being clothed is more than clothing and in our right mind, a mind and a heart that are filled with the fruits of the spirit, love and patience, kindness and gentleness, self-control, clothed and in our right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus.
So how are we going to get there? I want to propose, Evan, you read this story from the Book of Kings about Elijah, and I want to propose that there is a pathway that we can see in Elijah's story. How do we get to be clothed and in our right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus? There's three things in this story, okay? Number one, as my father loves to quote for me, especially when I was little quoting the Yankees, coach Yogi Berra, Yogi Berra said, it ain't over till it's over and it ain't over. Number one. Number two, be nourished or else you will not have the strength for the journey. And number three, seek quiet because God can be found in the sound of sheer silence. Okay, Elijah is on the run.
Queen Jezebel says I'm going to make you like these other dead guys tomorrow if I find you so naturally, he goes off and just like us when we are afraid and unsteady, anxious and terrified, Elijah. Sometimes when I've really had it, I've been listening to the news too long, I'm like, I just need to lay down on the floor. And that is exactly what Elijah does. He's like, I'm going to lay down on the floor. And he does. He lays down and he says, God, I'm done. Has anyone felt like that lately? I'm donezo. He says, I'm done. You remember Tony Soprano's mother? I wish the Lord would take me now whenever she didn't like what Tony was doing. So this is Elijah, he's like, I wish the Lord would take me now. And God says, oh my God, honey, you need a nap. So Elijah lay on the floor.
He takes a nap, and when he wakes up, there is food. There is food, a nice hot cake just baked at his head. And an angel of the Lord says to him. The angel says, get up and eat. Get up and eat. Otherwise, the journey will be too much for you. You need to be nourished and you need to be nourished because you got to get up. It ain't over. Elijah wants it to be over. He is done. He says, take me now. The world's a mess. But the angel of the Lord says, get up and nourish yourself, because otherwise the journey will be too much for you.
But if you nourish yourself, you can get up and go where you need to go and do what you're called to do. And where we are nourished is here. Where we are nourished is at this table where Jesus said, this is my body and I give it to you, and this is my blood, and I pour it out for you so that you can keep going so that you can feel strength flowing through you so that you can continue to proclaim the gospel of peace, continue to be a sign for the world that it ain't over.
It is God who said, I am the beginning and the end. And God says, eat, come, take, eat so that the journey is not too much for you. And when Eliza rises and he's nourished, God says, go up on the mountain, and now it's time to listen. And you know what happens, right? He's in a cave and he listens. And first there's a violent wind rushing, rushing around, but the voice of God is not in the wind. And then there is an earthquake. The whole earth is shaken. It is an unsteady and confusing world, and Elijah loses his footing, but God is not in the earthquake.
Then there is a fire. There is great destruction, but God is not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence, peace be still, you are nourished by Christ at his table. You are nourished by the spirit in your silence. We make ourselves available to God and to the spirit of God so that we will know who we are and what we're called to do.
When somebody said to me this week, earlier this week, I'm afraid that World War III is about to begin. Wow. I thought about it and I said, well, maybe then you're in the right place. Is this not a church that nurtured people who led us through that time?
Is this not a place where we can be nourished, where God can show each one of us that there is something we can offer? We can be clothed in Christ, we can be in our right minds filled with the Spirit, and we can place ourselves at the feet of Jesus where peace is to be found amid the shaking of the foundations where nourishment is to be taken.
And the Psalm says, “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?” Well you know why! “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?” We know why. But these are the words. “Put your trust in God.” At the feet of Jesus, nourished for the journey. “Put your trust in God. For I will yet give thanks to God, who is the help of my countenance and my God.” Amen.