June 25, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Job 38:1,8-11 + 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 + Mark 4:35-41

There are a couple of details that slip by in these Gospel verses unless like me you have sat with this text for hours recently and preached on it for more than thirty years! The first is that the disciples call Jesus “Teacher.” Notice that their faith in him is just beginning, and they have made no connection between Jesus and God.

The second detail is that this interaction between the disciples and Jesus happens on water in a boat.  There is a lot of that in Mark’s Gospel: a lot of time in a boat crossing back and forth from one shore to the next. On one shore are the Jews, on the other shore at the Gentiles. Jesus is going back and forth in Mark; talking to both, bridging the gap, drawing them closer, almost, as it were, introducing them to one another. The third detail comes from the verb Mark uses to describe what Jesus does when awakened: REBUKE This is the verb Mark uses when Jesus confront an evil spirit. He rebukes The final detail I want to simply plant in your thinking is that Jesus accomplishes this wonder by his own power. He does not say: “By the power of God, be still! Hush! Calm down!” 1He simply gives the order by his own command and his own power. We must notice that just as the disciples in the boat must have noticed that to start their wondering about who in the world was in that boat with them.

The miracles in Mark’s gospel fall into two categories: healings and exorcisms. From the very beginning Mark shows almost a fascination with exorcisms. I’m just guessing, but I would think he probably has more exorcism stories than the other three Gospel writers. These conflicts with evil that he describes are always violent struggles, described in frightening detail. The Jesus of Mark’s Gospel is always the vigilant victor in a power struggle with evil.

These ancient peoples who lived along the rim of the Great Sea carried in their culture wild mythical stories of evil depicted as a monster rising from a boiling sea. We suspect that images of Creation have their roots in these stories. And so, in Genesis, God draws from the wild waters of chaos, order, calm, peaceful, dry land on which He establishes paradise. It is the beginning of primitive man’s understanding of and belief in God.

Mark draws upon the memories of those ancient stores and primitive beliefs to reveal the divine Jesus Christ who like or because he is God can defeat and control the awesome and frightening powers of the deep and like the Creator/God, draw from chaos and disorder, the new paradise: The Kingdom of God. This time however, the chaos and disorder is not really the sea and what is out there. It is the chaos and disorder of a split and polarized world of Gentiles and Jews – the two symbolic sides of that Lake, and the chaos and fear of these otherwise brave, competent fishermen.

I am beginning to imagine with some amusement a slightly different version of this event. Imagine with me the storm on the lake, the sleeping Jesus who has been taken on this boat ride to get him out of the crowd which has been chasing him around and wearing him out. His friends are worried that he’s over worked and needs some rest, so out they go for an afternoon on the lake. The storm comes up, but Jesus, so tired sleeps through it to the point that he might be lost if the boat the swamps. The rudely wake him up with their shouting and frightened scream because this storm is greater than they had ever experienced. This Jesus who has early that day shown them that he is afraid of nothing, having just won a contest of will and power over an evil spirit, is awakened from a wonderful and restful nap by this racket from his friends. What if?  Perhaps? at least in my version, he turns to the disciples rather than to the wind and sea and says the same thing: BE QUIET! CALM DOWN! (Under his breath he says: “Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep here?” Sometimes I think it would be easier to calm the wind and the sea than to calm a terrified people, but that is what he is about among us.

It is, in the end, what his mission is about: crossing the lake of our polarized lives,

calling us together, calming us down, rebuking in us the demons of fear, doubt, confusion, violence, distrust, racism, — whatever, and drawing from the stormy depths of our lives the new creation, the new paradise which he liked to call, the Kingdom of God.

June 21, 2026, at Saint William Parish in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 20: 10-13 + Psalm 69 + Romans 5: 12-15 + Matthew 10: 26-33

There is a breathtaking intimacy expressed in these verses of today’s Gospel. To those of us who are too often timid, if not downright afraid, to respond to the challenges of today’s culture and political climate, Jesus reveals a God of sparrows. This is a God who is to be trusted. A God who has not withdrawn from the world but filled it with his gentle and loving spirit to give us courage and hope. Yet, we are so like Saint Peter, who in Pilate’s courtyard cowardly avoided any association with Jesus Christ when it meant some risk. Then the Spirit awakened in him, and there was no way to silence his voice when it came to speaking of Christ and what he had learned from his Savior.

This culture and political climate may not be as physically dangerous as in other times, but there is a persecution still. It is subtle, often expressed in apathy or a roll of eyes that minimizes our faith and what we have learned from our Savior about how to live together in peace, generously, respectfully, and honorably. Religion becomes a private matter banned from discussion as though we had nothing to say that mattered.

Our values matter, and they need to critique the public sphere and shape public policy not in a patrician political way, but in such a way that our values raise questions about what is right and what is wrong. We do not check our values rooted in the Gospel when we leave this church. The compassion of Jesus Christ for the poor, the sick, those in prison, and the vulnerable matters as much today as it did in his own historical time. These vulnerable ones cannot be demonized.

I know people who place conditions on God’s unconditional and extravagant love. They resist a Gospel of Grace and often embrace a Gospel of punishment and retribution calling it “Justice.” I also know people who simply avoid any mention of Jesus Christ and resist what he taught us about the Father. With no more judgement about them than I would judge Peter in Pilate’s courtyard, I wait and pray that the Spirit will awaken them to experience that God of Sparrows who protects, inspires, and waits for us to bear witness to his presence, his Son, Jesus Christ, and all that he taught us. Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Who wouldn’t want that?

June 18, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 24:3-8 + Hebrews 9:11-15 + Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

As a child, I loved Peanut Butter cookies: those cookies with the grid on the top from the fork mom used to press down the dough. In our house they were kept under lock and key. I could not control myself. If I came home from school and smelled them, I would not rest until I had found them which meant EAT THEM. ALL OF THEM! Mom would say: “If you keep that up, you’re going to turn into a Peanut Butter Cookie”. My mother was wise from life, but not a great theologian. Yet, as I earned a degree in theology, I began to realize how profoundly theological she was. In terms of cause and effect with a few other details added, she had it right. It is what we are doing here with our Communion. Consume the Word of God, Consume the Body of Christ in the context of the assembly’s celebration of the Eucharist, and you will likely become the Body of Christ, holy, precious in God’s sight, and be raised up on the last day.

Deep in the human heart embedded in the human psyche is a fear all of us know. It is the fear of being alone: the fear of abandonment. Sometimes I think this is one of the little clues of our divine origins since God’s own nature seems to abhor the same thing. So then comes creation and those words recorded in Genesis: “It is not good for man to be alone.” It isn’t good for God to be alone either.

The first spoken words in the New Testament are: “Fear Not.” Spoken over and over again by angelic messengers, the divine name at the Incarnation is “Immanuel” (God with us). The name Immanuel says it all. Final words at the Gospel’s conclusion last week: “I will be with you always until the end of the ages” open us to the wonder of the Eucharistic presence. This relationship we spoke of last week is not inaccessible.

Our greatest fear is set aside by this divine promise which we by faith recognize in the presence of Christ’s Body and Blood. While the wonder of the Eucharist ought not be reduced simply to a physical object, it does begin there with bread and wine. Relieved of that awful fear, we are free to become Eucharistic people who are capable, willing, and anxious to share in and fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ.

It’s as though we, paralyzed by fear, have been cured, restored, freed to get up and walk this world with the message and life of the gospel.

It starts however with the experience and the truth of God’s presence in these sacred and holy gifts. So simple, so accessible, so common, we run the constant risk of taking it for granted. Like bread on the table at home, we forget easily how essential it is. And so this feast comes each year to say to us: Look.  Remember…….Take Care………Approach with fear and reverence. Bow your head………..  Be grateful…………..  Bend your knee.

You are in the presence of the Lord your God.

There are on many occasions moments in life when words are totally inadequate.

I have experienced that in preparing this homily. What is there to say? How can we ever express what we believe here? I experience the inadequacy of words when I see people get up and go to the restroom during the Eucharistic prayer; when they stand ten feet from the tabernacle and chat as though they were in a coffee shop. When people stroll in here as casually as at a ball game, and grab communion on the run like the drive through at Sonic. The Body and Blood of Christ is what happens when God as nothing more to say and words are inadequate. The Body and Blood of Christ is what happens when there is nothing more to say, and Presence is all that matters. This gift, this symbol, this message is like that moment when as a child we fell down, skinned our knee, bumped our head, or fell off the bike, and Mom or Dad said nothing, but swept us up, gathered us close in a loving embrace and simply held us close to their heart.

June 11, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 + Romans 8:14-17 + Matthew 28:16-20

This week and next we are led by the church’s readings to ponder the wonder of relationship and presence with themes of the Trinity and the Body and Blood of Christ. The easy way is to simply dismiss the wonder of this relationship by declaring it a “mystery” and thereafter never give it another serious thought. I suspect because of our leanings in that direction the church simply keeps bringing it up year after year following Pentecost. In my own progression of thought and understanding I know this to be so. But little by little, year after year, like water dripping on stone, that easy dismissal is not so easy nor satisfying. In my own progression I went from mystery to dogma, which was satisfying enough at the time, but never got the point. Any student of Church History knows well the progression and development of thought and language, the trials and schisms, violence at times and fracture of the family of faith. This is all very well and good,

but it leaves the truth of this revelation in one’s head which is not very well and good. The Holy Trinity is not an idea to be studied. It is a relationship to be enjoyed. The mission of Jesus Christ was about living, not about thinking. If right thinking leads to right living, then let that progression stand, but the progression must go all the way to that point of conversion.

We have not done too well as a church about this progression. In the eyes of far too many, our church is a church of dogmas and rules. There is no point in disputing what others see, and we are responsible for what we have shown them.

Jesus had a lot of trouble with a Judaism of laws that did not prompt and encourage right living. In years that are gratefully well behind us, a person became a Catholic as soon as they memorized the rules. Their preparation was an intellectual endeavor we called: “Instructions.” Now we are beginning to the heart of the matter, the Trinity. Realizing that it is about living in relationships, the preparation now takes a long time because real relationships do not just happen in a month, so the focus now is moving into a sacramental life, a way of behaving that comes from the heart more than knowing the rules in your head.

Even the words used to reveal this truth are about relationship. Father, Son, Spirit.

It isn’t just about God anymore. If I call God or experience God as “Father” it changes the relationship between you and me and so it’s not just about God. If I know, believe, and accept the Incarnation: Jesus Christ born in the flesh, it changes the relationship and so it is no longer about God off somewhere else all powerful and all knowing. It is also now about suffering, death, weakness, betrayal, healing, touching, embracing, forgiving. If I say I believe in the Holy Spirit, then it’s all about life animated, purposeful, and holy.  If I say I believe in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, it means I have transcended the mystery of the Trinity and begun to live and lead a life that unified, holy, inclusive of others, and inspired by a vision of the Kingdom of God, our future, proposed and revealed by Jesus Christ.

So, if the Trinity is the heart of our faith, our lives will be the textbook from which others may learn and be drawn to God. We will live in “communion” in “covenant” and it will not be a rule that brings us to Mass at least once a week, but a thrilling, life-giving relationship. While dogmas will develop as they always have historically from the lives of faithful people, it will be their lives, their joy, their courage, their service, their kindness, their peacefulness, and their love that draws others to God.

I think that is what Matthew is proposing when he has Jesus disperse the Apostles and says: “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. Know that I am with you always to the end of the age.”