† Exorcism, writes David Fagerberg, is “reclaiming something for its original purpose” (a). In scary, suspenseful movies – and in the rite carefully administered in real-life, yes, even in the Episcopal Church – exorcism reclaims the body and soul from Satan’s possession and gives it back to its owner, who is cast in the image of God. But exorcism is even more common and less scary than what is depicted in the eponymous novel and film. Jesus, who is the second Adam, and Jes

† I have been a gatekeeper for as long as I can remember. Growing up on a farm and raising sheep, I learned from my dad when to open and close the gates between pasture-fields to keep our flock where we wanted them. Child-raising was all about gatekeeping. I made parenting decisions on what was best for my family multiple times a day. When I worked as a buyer in a clothing store, I was a gatekeeper. I chose what was in and what was out. The “On Language” column in The New Y

Lord Jesus, stay with us […] be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread (BCP 124). † I am reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian. He was an opponent of the Third Reich and took part in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Dietrich was imprisoned in a concentration camp and executed by hanging on April 9, 1945. Dietrich, like many Ger

It was reported that one reason the president fired the attorney general was because she was insufficiently retributive and vengeful against his political enemies. Someday our nation’s strife will be o’er, the battle done. The powers of death will have done their worst, but they will be gone. And then, as we recover and rebuild, we will have moral choices to make, outside of the system of laws which will, I hope, bring justice to the injured and punishment for those found g

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Fifty-eight years ago yesterday, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was martyred, murdered in Memphis by an assassin’s bullet. Doctor King was a man of passion. His was a passion of love for the Beloved Community, a liberated society made up of all people, God’s beloved children freed from the shackles of racism, militarism, and rapacious capitalism. And Doctor King’s was a passion of suffering in his s

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! It is one of the masterworks of ancient literature, this brief story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. And it strikes many modern listeners as abusive and sadistic. What kind of God would ask such a thing? What kind of father would agree to it? What did Sarah, the boy’s mother do when she found out, if she found out? What was the emotional aftermath between Abraham and Isaac? And why, in God’s

I had confidence to enter this sanctuary. We arrived at All Saints’ nearly five years ago, never having laid eyes on any of you or this place, save for virtual meetings and a tour on Zoom. Bound by pandemic protocols, the search process that brought us together was unusual. From far-off Flint, Michigan, Kate and I arrived at 1350 Waller Street in our rented, ten-foot U-Haul truck. Your senior warden at the time, our beloved Margaret Taylor (of blessed memory) greeted us when

It was hard for him to tell his wife that he loved her. He was a man of his culture and of his generation. She longed to hear him talk about his feelings for her before his advanced stage prostate cancer took him from her. I was their hospice chaplain, and she asked me to help. He admitted to me that such words didn’t come easy, but of course he loved her. Then he told me that, from his hospice bed, he arranged to pay off their mortgage, have some appliances replaced, and t

What are you passionate about? For some of you it could be a spouse or a lover, children or grandchildren, close family or dear friends. Maybe it is a certain artist or author or musician. Or a sports team. Or a hobby. If you are lucky like I am, you are passionate about your profession, your occupation, your work. And God: let’s not forget to be passionate about God. Passion cuts two ways. Passion means love. Passion also means suffering. For which loves on your list hav

Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. † The whole house of Israel was in exile. Held hostage in far-off Babylon. As good as dead. Dry bones in desolate graves. Resurrection was unthinkable. Restoration unimaginable. Their hope was lost. How is your hope these days? You have bones and sinews and flesh. But what about your breath? We live in a bloviating Babylon. Full of hot air yet lifeless. Noxious gas instead of oxygen. Our breath is in e

Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me (3x) Let the Midnight Special shine an ever-lovin’ light on me This blues song from the early twentieth century was covered most famously by Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1969. It is a song about an inmate watching from behind bars, hoping the passing nighttime train – the Midnight Special – will stop for him and spare him from another day of prison’s dark drudgery. In the prologue to his gospel, Saint John writes of Jesus

Is the Lord among us or not? † In the summertime, when I was a boy, playing outside, I would drink from the hose. Inside, mom gave me a small dixie cup like this, and I had to re-use it until its waxy coating became translucent and its bottom nearly fell out. In Flint, during the lead-in-the-water crisis, everyone drank water packaged in plastic: single-use, half-liter bottles and gallon jugs were most common. No point in refilling used bottles with bad water. Nowadays I

Would Nicodemus follow Jesus on social media? Some of Nicodemus’s peers would, if only to troll Jesus and respond to his posts with angry emojis, the way some people today follow public figures, not out of admiration, but to see what madness they are up to and to make cutting comments. I think Nicodemus would follow Jesus, but as a lurker, someone who looks at Jesus’s feed but doesn’t engage with it. He wouldn’t give a thumbs-up for fear of being ridiculed or un-friended by

I’m friends with a bartender in Flint, Michigan. She tells the story when once she delivered a round of drinks to a table and one of the men grabbed her backside. She wheeled around and walloped him. “What?” he shrugged. “I didn’t know you couldn’t do that. You should put up a sign or something!” – Thus beginneth today’s sermon on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Theologically-speaking, Paul is correct. Sin is not reckoned when there is no law. But, as the bar owner late

Simone Weil, the twentieth-century Christ-curious yet devoutly-unbaptized French philosopher, wrote that sin is not making ourselves distant from God, but rather that sin is looking in the wrong direction from where God would have us look. The Litany of Penitence that we will recite in a few minutes, and revisit come Good Friday, reminds us of the many things that keep our eyes from watching God. This litany is an eye chart, an “I” exam in the obverse. Reading where we have g

† “Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light, Take my hand, precious Lord, Lead me on.” Thomas Dorsey – not the big-band leader, but the son of a Black revivalist preacher – Thomas Dorsey composed these verses and this music during the Great Depression, in his great depression, after his wife and infant son died. Dorsey wanted to give up on God and give up on his v

Absalom Jones’s righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees. In Jesus’s time, the scribes and Pharisees were the men who upheld the norms and traditions of Jewish life, law, and worship. In Absalom Jones’s time, the scribes and Pharisees were, if you will, the men who upheld the norms and traditions of white, property-owners’ life, law, and worship. Born in 1746 and raised enslaved, Absalom Jones knew that chattel-slavery – regarding certain human beings as les

What is the state of the Saints? Is there a word or a phrase that comes to your mind about the health and welfare of All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco – the people who form it and the work that we do? Today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus was like us: flesh and blood; himself tested, to help us when we are tested. This is usually what comes to mind: he suffers in our sufferings, he consoles us in our desolations, he is the ato

The human eye has not evolved to see confidently in darkness. Unlike others of God’s creatures, we are not a nocturnal species. Absent the light, our steps are unsteady, the grope of our hands tentative and erratic. In the familiarity of our own home, we worry about a stubbed toe. In stranger settings, we fear greater dangers. There is little wonder, then, that biblical literature uses darkness as a metaphor for things gone wrong, for being listless and lost. And light, in co

When has the wine given out for you? When has your life been nothing but dregs and sediment? The faintest whiff of what was, left behind on a dried-up cork? Was it when the wine of your faith gave out? Or the wine of your career? Or the wine of your health? Or of a relationship? Or of your identity? How about the wine of your hopes, or happiness, or desires? When has the wine given out for you? Many would say that the wine of good government in our nation has given out. D