Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, September 23, 2018

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, September 23rd, 2018

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, beginning in the fourth chapter, we hear the following:  " . . . .  one Lord, one faith, one baptism . . . . "  Now, in my opinion, it seems so often in the society in which we live that we focus on what makes us different.  We are African-Americans; Hispanic-Americans; Asian-Americans; etc.  I also notice a lot of articles or new-stories focusing on the differences between men and women.  Men do things a certain way and women do things a completely different way.  Men think a certain way.  Women think a certain way.  And even in religion, we are constantly reminded on the differences between the various churches, the various denominations, the various liturgical styles, and so on.  If you look around, it's plain enough to find out about what separates us, what makes us different from one another.  But St. Paul is focusing on what unifies us as Christians:  " . . .  one Lord, one faith, one baptism. . . . . "   In this sense, St. Paul is focusing on what unifies us and not on what makes us different.  This unity is what defines us.  And this unity comes to us through being the children of Our Heavenly Father:  "One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all." (Chapter 4: 6)  Obviously, we are all different in one way or another:  I like certain types of food and you prefer other types of food.  I like to go to bed early and get up early.  Someone else is a "night-owl" and likes to sleep in.  I like certain singers and certain types of music, and so on.  The list goes on and on in regards to what makes us different.  But in focusing on what we each have in common:  " .. . .  one Lord, one faith, one baptism . . . ." focusing on what unifies us helps us to focus on the source of our unity:  Our Heavenly Father.   And when we focus all of our attention on Him, the things that separate us become less important.  They become secondary.  We need this message preached to us like never before, it seems to me.   We are all ONE in CHRIST!  Christ died for all of us.  God is OUR Father.   

Join us on Sunday, September 23rd, 2018 at 9:30 AM at St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church as we celebrate Mass and listen to the Word of God.  Mass is celebrated at the Chapel at Marquette Manor, which is located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest Side of Indianapolis.

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, September 16th, 2018

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, Sunday, September 16th, 2018

I carry a back-pack from home when I go to work.  In it I have various items:  a note-pad; pens; an eraser; my eyeglasses; etc.  As you can probably tell I carry things in there that I might need.  At home I have a drawer in a dresser which seems to be a "catch-all" where I store all kinds of things:  scissors; post-it notes; pocket knives; tape; measuring tape; etc.  Again, I store all kinds of things in that drawer and when I need something I go looking in that drawer.  If I can't find what I looking for anywhere else, the odds are good I'll find it in that drawer.   I am sure that each of us have something or someplace where we store all kinds of things.  Whether it be a drawer in a cabinet or a box in the garage.  

  Just like that bag that I bring to work everyday or the dresser drawer that seems to keep all my odds and ends, we can also find all kinds of "things" stored in our heart.  What do we "keep" in our heart?  Do we find fear?  Do we find anger?  Do we find hatred?  Perhaps we find sorrow.  We can store all kinds of things in our heart, can't we?  In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St Paul talks about what we should store in our heart:   ". .  . . that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;" (Ephesians 3:17)   St. Paul tells us that we should have Christ in our heart.  This is absolutely true but, that being said, this is easier said than done, isn't it?  As human beings we are affected by various emotions: whether they be sorrows, fears, anger, hopelessness, etc.  So the point is not that we are not affected by emotions.  We are human beings and we are certainly affected by emotions.  The point is what do we do with these emotions?  When we get angry, for example, do we act out on that anger?  Do we stay calm on the outside and let the anger rage and "boil" deep under the surface?  Do we allow this anger to turn into hatred?  Do we hold on to this anger and hold a grudge?  As Christians, we are called to give everything over to God.   I think St. Paul's advice is good for all of us:   ". .  . . that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;" (Ephesians 3:17)"   If we do our best to focus on the love which we have for Our Blessed Saviour we won't have time to focus on our fear.  If we dwell on our love of Christ we won't have as much time to dwell on our hatred of those who did wrong to us, will we?  It's similar to taking a glass  and filling it with water.  If the glass is full to the brim, we won't be able to pour any more water into it, can we?  Similar with our hearts, if we fill our hearts with hatred, with jealousy, with fear, with anger, etc. how can there be any room for the love of Christ?  On the other hand, if we follow St. Paul's admonition for us that we let Christ dwell in our heart, we won't have any place for fear or anger or hatred . . . . Fill your heart with Christ.  Fill your heart with things of God.  Fill your heart with the love of God and watch that love spread throughout your heart and beyond.  

St. Margaret Church celebrates Mass each and every Sunday at 9:30 AM.  Mass is celebrated at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located as 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis.

Join us for Mass as we listen to the Word of God found in the King James Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Join us as we hear God speaking to us in His Word.  Our Lord also offers to each one of us His Most Precious Body and Blood at Communion time.  Receive the Precious Body and Blood to strengthen and nourish you for your daily journey.  And afterward, please join us for our Coffee Hour to have some delicious goodies and good fellowship.

Our Hearts Are Restless . . . .

Let's face it,  if you have not had anything to eat for a while, your mind starts to dwell on your hunger and nothing else.  We focus on everything that we might want to eat:  pizza . . .  Chinese food . . .  spaghetti . . . Mexican  . . .  . fast food . . . fried chicken . . . a sandwich . . . Then we finally decide what exactly we want and we fixate on our food of choice until we get it.  And then finally we eat and we are satisfied.     But what if you just finished eating an hour ago, and your mind still thinks about various foods.  Of course, it might be the fact that we are simply being greedy and causing us to think this way.  But the fact remains that as human beings we get hungry,  . . . we get cravings, . . . we focus on fulfilling our desires or what we are hungry for.  And it is not simply limited to food, quite frankly.  Human beings get fixated on a number of desires that they would like to fill.  Whether it be food, or drink, or drugs, or power, or money . . . . the list goes on and on.  Our Blessed Lord sums it up perfectly when He says:  "Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? "  (St. Matthew 6:25)

As human beings we need to be fed and we also have to be clothed.  But as Christians, we also have to be spiritually fed on a daily basis.    People are hungry for the Word of God.  They want to hear what God is saying to them. They are searching for God and may not even know it.  As St. Augustine pointed out:   "You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."  St. Augustine knew full well the desires of the human heart.  He was restless himself as a young man but he tried to "calm" this restlessness by focusing on fulfilling many desires of his heart and mind.  St. Augustine sought to fulfill his hunger with sex.  He sought to fulfill his hunger with wine.  He even sought to satisfy this restlessness with learning and education.  In essence, St. Augustine found that he went down many avenues to satisfy his restlessness and search for happiness.  And he found that each and every time he was indeed "satisfied" for a while but then his heart became "restless" again.  And St. Augustine discovered a pattern each of these points in his life:  he was satisfied for a time, yes, but then he wanted something else.  It was not until St. Augustine gave his heart to God that he discovered his heart was "restless" no longer.    Our human hearts are indeed restless.  Our human minds are restless.  We human beings are constantly searching for things that make us happy, for things that satisfy us.  And again we find inspiration from St. Augustine when he gives us the answer to satisfying our true hunger as human beings:  "So I set about to find God and found that I could not find Him until I embraced the mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, Who is over all these things, Who was calling me and saying:  'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life . . . ."
As St. Augustine discovered in his own life, the human heart desires many things to be "satisfied."  But above all these "desires" is the desire to be with God and this can only be satisfied by a relationship with Our Blessed Saviour.  "Therefore take no thought, saying What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?   . . . . for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."  (St. Matthew 6:31-33)  As human beings we will desire many things but we need to first seek and desire God.  Until we discover that purpose, we will forever be restless and unsatisfied in life.

Thus, it is understandable that people who are searching for God turn to the clergy in their search for the Almighty.  They want to hear inspiration.  They want to learn more about God.  They want to have these spiritual desires met.  But in all fairness pastors, priests, ministers, bishops, etc. can only do so much in a given week.  What I mean by this statement is that time is limited in what the priest or pastor can talk about in a given week.  If the average church service is, say, an hour  . . . an hour and a half . . . how much of that time is strictly dedicated to preaching by the priest or minister?  Fifteen minutes?  Twenty minutes?  More?  Less?  As my congregation will let you know, I don't time my preaching  . . . . . I just start in and see where God is leading me!  But even with that, I might get twenty minutes or twenty-five minutes of preaching in on a given Sunday morning.  In comparison, that is not very much time out of a given week.  Think about it.  Twenty-four hours in a day.  Seven days in a week.  By my calculation, that is One-Hundred and Sixty-Eight hours in a given week and the preacher gets fifteen, twenty-five, maybe thirty minutes of preaching out of all those hours in a week.  That's not much time in comparison to the rest of the week.  So that's why I say, in essence what the preacher is doing is planting the seed and leaving the rest to God.

One of my favorite Scripture passages is from First Kings.  It is the passage where the Prophet Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel and we read where "(Elijah) went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die: and said, it is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life: for I am not better than my fathers."  (I Kings 19:4)

Then Elijah laid down and went to sleep and the angel of the Lord touched Elijah and "said unto him, Arise and eat."  (Verse 5)  And Elijah had seen where the angel of the Lord had placed there by his head water and food for him to eat.

And then Elijah laid down again,  . . . "And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat: because the journey is too great for thee."  (Verse 7)


This is certainly one of my all-time Scripture passages.  I think it is profound for a number of reasons:

First,  God does indeed feed us.  He feeds us through the Word of God.  We Christians must be hungry for the Word of God.  In our society, there are so many different types of food to choose from as we pointed out earlier:  pizza . . . Chinese food  . .  . Mexican food . . . fast-food . . . chicken . . . seafood . . . . etc.  Likewise, many people choose to get "fed" from different interests or desires:  power, riches, money, fame, drugs, alcohol, etc.  People make choices where they eat and how they spend their time.  We, as Christians, have to make a choice as well:  we have to want to be fed by the Word of God.  And then make a point of studying the Word of God on a daily basis.  Get in the habit of reading the Bible every day.

Secondly, God also feeds us through His Church.  God does not need our help but He desires us to help Him.  And as a result, He founded the Church here on earth.  And the Church distributes the Sacraments to the world.  And the Chief Sacrament is the Mass.  Come to Mass and receive the Precious Body and Blood of Our Blessed Saviour.  Our Lord loves us so much that He gives of Himself so that we can be nourished.  "Arise and eat: because the journey is too great for thee!"  Our Lord wants us to receive of the Sacraments of the Church as a physical and spiritual reminder that He is alive and well in the world.  The Sacraments help nourish and sustain us in the long journey we call "life."

God gives us nourishment but we have to go find it.  God gives us food but we have to make the effort to get it.  God provides spiritual food and drink for our journey but we have to make the effort to obtain it.  Get a relationship with God.  Make Him the Lord and Master of your life.  Get in the habit of reading the Bible on a daily basis.  And take advantage of the Sacraments.  The same Lord Who said:  "This is My Body, This is My Blood" is the same Lord Who is awaiting for us to come and worship Him, to come and listen to Him, to come and receive Him when we come to church.

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, Sunday, September 2nd, 2018

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, Sunday, September 2nd, 2018

Call me "Old-Fashioned," . . .  Call me "Old School," . .  ..  but it drives me absolutely crazy when I encounter someone who does not have common courtesy enough to say:  "Please" . . . "Thank you" . . . . "Excuse me" . . . .  Now don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of people out there that still show courtesy but sometimes it seems that common courtesy is becoming a "sign of the past."  I suppose I can blame my parents for my "obsession" of being respectful.  I mean they are the ones who taught me the importance of showing common courtesy and having respect for people.    But just walk through a shopping mall or a store and see for yourself.  How many people will say "Excuse me" when they pass by in the aisle.  Or find out who will say "Thank you" when you hold a door for someone.  As I stated, my parents instilled in me early on the importance and value of being polite.  They taught me that it does not take money to have manners.  You can be a garbage collector or a CEO of a big corporation and still have good manners.   You can be young or old and still be polite.  You can be Black, Brown, Yellow, White or Polka-Dot and still be courteous to folks.  I hate to beat a dead horse but I just think it is a rather sad commentary on our society when having good manners seems to be a dying art.

If we look back to the Seventeenth Chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear the story of Our Blessed Saviour healing the ten lepers.   The premise of this passage is that ten lepers were healed but only one showed thanks.  "And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger." (St. Luke 17:17-18)  Even Our Lord was appalled by the other nine lepers lack of good manners.  He made a point that only one out of the ten lepers took the time to give thanks to God for being healed.  We hear:  "And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan." (St. Luke 17:15-16)   How many times have we too failed to thank Our Heavenly Father for the many blessings He gives to us?  Do we go for a day without thanking God for the gifts He gives to us?  How about something as simple as thanking God before we eat?  I always make a point to say grace before I eat a meal.  I guess I can also blame that habit on my parents.   It is a good habit to get in to thank God for blessing us.  The ten lepers came running when they wanted to be healed.  They implored Our Lord when they desired a miracle.  And yet only one out of the ten made a point to thank God for giving him the miracle he asked for.  Let us not be like the nine ungrateful lepers.  Let us always make a point to thank God for all the blessings He bestows upon us.  Let us make a point to go to God in thanksgiving when we are grateful.  Sometimes we only go to God when we want something.  Let's go to God not only when we want something from Him.  Let's go to Him to thank Him . . . to praise Him . . .  to glorify Him.  God gave us the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive.  He offered us the gift of Salvation which was delivered upon the Cross by His Son.  Let us always be grateful and show our gratefulness for this gift.

St. Margaret Church meets each and every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM.  We worship at the beautiful Chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis.  We use the King James Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Come join us as we listen to God speak to us through His Word.  At Communion time, we receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ to nourish us and give us strength for our journey called life.