Excerpts of a Sermon Delivered on the
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 27, 2020
Exodus 17:1-7 & Matthew 21:23-32
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       The Reverend Joseph C. Alsay, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church
 
“Changing Your Mind”
Flip flopping--changing your mind on an issue or principal--can get you in trouble. Particularly if you’re a politician. But it is held up as a virtue in today’s readings. In fact, the problem seems to be when our minds are closed. When we are absolutely certain that we are right.
The religious authorities in today’s gospel are trying to trap Jesus. They begin by questioning his authority. Like shrewd a politician today, Jesus doesn’t directly answer their question but puts forth another question about whether John’s baptism is of human or divine origin.
And then Jesus tells the parable of the two sons. The father asks both sons to go and work in the vineyard. The first says no; then changes his mind and goes. The second agrees to work but doesn’t follow through with his answer. It’s the first son that is held up as an example. Good intention isn’t enough. It’s follow through that makes the difference.
A little flip flopping might not be so bad! Einstein once said: “Everything has changed but our thinking.” Our minds get locked into a certain way of looking at life, at the world, at people, at ourselves, at God. Unfortunately, religion is where many of us are the most close-mined.
Maybe it’s because life is filled with so much change that we want this area of our lives to be constant.
With passage of time we see how incredibly slow the Church has been in responding to new information or insights. Whether insisting that the world is flat. Or on issues of slavery, civil rights, the ordination of women, issues of sexuality.
Like the religious authorities in Jesus’ day the problem is often that our minds are closed because we think we are right.
Much if our thinking is negative. We are judgmental not only toward other but towards ourselves. We are trapped in a cycle of endless worry, fear, bitterness, hatred, envy and the list goes on. The problem is that this kind of thinking keeps us from living in the present moment.
Changing our mind. Sometimes is a very good thing. That’s what the Greek word metanoia means. To change your mind. The religious authorities had closed minds.
It was the least expected and the least respected ones, the tax collectors and the prostitutes, who changed their minds and opened their hearts. And received the surprising grace of God.
St. Augustine was born in Africa in 354. His young adulthood was a stormy period. It included fathering a child out of wedlock. In his twenties, Augustine moved to Milan, Italy, where he became a professor of rhetoric. His personal life, however, continued to be stormy and wayward.
While in Milan, two things happened to him. First, he became increasingly unhappy with his personal life. Suddenly he broke into tears and began to cry out to God: “And you, Lord! How long will you be angry with me? Forever? Why not at this very hour put an end to my evil life?”
Augustine said later: “I was crying like this when suddenly, I heard the voice of a child. It seemed to say, “Take and read! Take and read!” “I stood up. I got a Bible and opened it. “The first words my eyes fell upon were from the letter of Paul to the Romans. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
When Augustine read this, he stopped. There was no need to go on. He says: “My heart was suddenly flooded with a light that erased all my doubts. And my soul was filled with deep peace.”
That episode triggered Augustine’s conversion to Christianity. Shortly afterwards, he enrolled himself in the catechumenate in Milan. He was baptized the following Easter.
The remarkable change of heart that Augustine experienced is the same kind of change of heart that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel.  

There are many reasons why church doors are painted red.  For many churches, the color red symbolizes the “blood of Christ”, which is the “entry” into salvation for those who enter.  Red was painted on the north, south, and east doors of a church making “the sign of the cross” marking the church as a safety zone from spiritual dangers.  For others, the red door recalled the sprinkling of the door lintels of the Israelites with the blood of lambs on the night of Passover.  Beginning in the Middle Ages, red represented a color that denoted a place of sanctuary which offered physical safety from outside evils.  If you were being pursued by someone, you would be safe if you could reach the church door.  Pursuers could proceed no further.  Furthermore, prior to the reformation, the Church did not have to abide by civil law.  Some believe that the red color signifies the tongues of flame of Pentecost implying that the Holy Spirit is within.  The red doors of Episcopal churches once signified that the mortgage had been fully paid.  But many sources simply state that “there is really no definitive reason” for this old tradition.

~Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

The autumn Feast of Trumpets is the fifth of the seven Jewish feasts.  The statement in Leviticus, “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” that God commanded to be used on the Feast of Trumpets, is also engraved on America’s Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  Leviticus requires that, “in the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets” which signaled the field workers to stop harvesting and come into the Temple to worship.  The Feast of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is a day of confession, the highest of the Jewish holy days.  Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the month in the Jewish calendar in which Yom Kippur occurs.  Yom Kippur completes the period known as the High Holy Days that begins with Rosh Hashanah.  Eating and drinking, the wearing of leather shoes, bathing, anointing with perfumes, and marital relations are prohibited on Yom Kippur.  The seven day Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the shelters provided the Israelites while in the wilderness.  Each year on Tabernacles, devout Jews build little shelters, or “booths”, outside their houses, and they worship within them.

~Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

A Children’s Message
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
 
Okay friends, for our Children’s Moment today I have a treat for you. How many of you like candy? "So, there's one for you, one for you, one for you, two for you and one for you. Here are three for you, one for you, one for you, two for you, one for you and three for you."
Did you notice that I gave some people one treat, others received two, and some even got three treats? Now I can imagine that some of you were thinking to yourself, "That isn't fair! Is that fair?  I mean, I gave some of you three treats and others only got one!" Well, maybe it wasn't fair, but they were my treats -- don't I have the right to give them to whomever I please?
Jesus told a story about a landowner who was hiring men to work in his vineyard. He hired some of them early in the morning, some in the middle of the day, and some he hired just before quitting time.
When it was time to pay the workers, he paid them all the same. The workers who were hired early in the morning began to complain, "Hey! That's not fair! You paid the workers who worked only one hour the same as those of us who worked all day."
The owner of the vineyard said, "I am not being unfair to you. I paid you what I agreed to pay you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Are you jealous because I am generous?"
What is the point of the story that Jesus told? The point is that there are some people who trust in Jesus and work in the church and serve him all the days of their life. What is their reward? Their reward is eternal life in heaven.
There are other people who never work in the church. In fact, there are some people who come to church late. They don't serve the Lord until the very end. What is their reward? Their reward is the same as one who has served the Lord all their life -- eternal life in heaven. I’m not saying on this “Ministry Fair Sunday” not to work in the church. We need everyone to be active in the church.
But it matters not, if you’ve been working in the church for many years or never do. The ground around the cross is level. There are no big “I” or little “you.” God’s love, grace and goodness extends to all.
 

~ Fr. Joseph Alsay, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

Lughnasadh (August 1) was the third Cross-Quarter Day.  It celebrated the wedding of the sun god to the earth goddess which was thought to cause crops to ripen.  The Church transformed the day into a day to offer the land’s first fruits.  Loaves baked from new wheat was offered at a Loaf Mass which corrupted the pronunciation of Lughnasadh to Lammas.  Samhain (October 31) was the final Cross-Quarter Day.  It marked the beginning of winter for Celts, and historians believe that it began the Celtic calendar.  Since Samhain celebrated the old year’s death, it was associated with ghosts and graveyards which linked the Eve of All Hallows (our Halloween) to this day.  It also has happier associations, such as apple bobbing, which was       used to foretell fortunes for the upcoming year.  Samhain was a time to celebrate the lives of ancestors, pets, and other loved ones who had died.  It was seen as a festival of darkness six months from Beltane (Candlemas) which was celebrated as a festival of light.  All Hallows or All Saints Day was first celebrated by Pope Gregory III on November 1st to honor all saints, known and unknown.

~ Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

Excerpts of a Sermon Delivered on the
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 13, 2020
Genesis 50:15-21 & Matthew 18:21-35
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Reverend Joseph C. Alsay
 
“Living in God’s Limitless Forgiveness”
 
Have you ever heard this warning: Be careful what you pray for – you might get it. Here’s a prayer many of us pray at least once a week – forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Is that what we really want? We know we want God’s forgiveness. Of that, we are quite sure. However, we are not so sure about the second part, about the way we forgive others. We know that we are not nearly so quick to forgive others as we hope and pray that God forgives us.
I mean, we’ve heard the proverbial phrase attributed to Alexander Pope, “To err is human; to forgive, Divine.”
But, limitless forgiveness is so hard.
We’re talking about forgiveness like the story of Joseph mentioned in our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures. You remember, Joe-Joe-Joe-Joseph and the technicolored dream coat. Joey, the dreamer. Joe-Joe whom his brothers left him for dead, lied to their father about saying he was killed type of forgiveness.
In our Gospel lesson, Peter comes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Seven times is a lot. It is a lot of times to turn and forgive someone who has sinned against you.
But, Jesus says, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” New Testament scholars debate whether the Greek text means “seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven times.” But that is beside the point, because either way, Jesus is holding up an enormous number, a number so big that we can’t begin to calculate it in terms of forgiveness.
Perhaps that’s why Jesus tells Peter the story about the unforgiving servant, a story where the numbers don’t add up, because the numbers can’t be added up, when it comes to what Jesus has done for us. In the story, a servant owes the king ten thousand talents. Now, this is a crazy number.
A single talent was more than 15 years’ worth of daily wages. So, when Jesus says, this servant owed the king ten thousand talents, he’s effectively saying he owed him a bazillion dollars.
The servant, no surprise, couldn’t pay back the debt, so the king orders him and everything he has to be sold off. So, the servant falls on his knees and begs for an extension and promises that if he gets some extra time, he will pay everything back. Since there is no way the slave will ever be able to pay back what he owes, the king just forgives the debt, every last cent, and sets the slave free.
Yet, when the servant, who has just been forgiven a debt of a bazillion dollars, runs into a guy who owes him a hundred denarii – which amounts to a few bucks in comparison to what he owed the king – what does he do? Well, he grabs the guy by the throat and demands that he pay up. And when the king finds out that the servant for whom he had just forgiven an unimaginable amount wouldn’t forgive the pittance that was owed him by another, he had the servant thrown into prison.
In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has taken upon Godself all our burdens and sins and debts and has forgiven them. Completely, irrevocably, utterly forgiven and healed by Jesus. God is the God who forgives. Yes, forgiveness can restore a life, a community, and even become contagious.
In 1995, Raymond Johnson drove by and shot Casson Evans, the three-year old son of Sharletta Evans. It wasn’t until 17 years later that a truly deep and meaningful conversation between a victim and offender was able to take place. She and Raymond rose from opposites sides of the table and approached each other He extended his arms. She asked him to turn his palms facing up. She then clutched his hands and said a prayer. She said, “I prayed that they would cause no more harm, that they’d be hands of comfort, that they would bring help and serve people and that they would no longer be hands of destruction but hands that bring life.”
We forgive, then, because God forgives. The forgiveness that we are to pass on to others is the forgiveness we have in union with Christ. Not because we are moral heroes or because we seek our own wellbeing, but because we are forgiven sinners. Amen.
 

~Fr. Joseph C. Alsay, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

Between the Quarter Days are the cross-quarter days of Candlemas (February 2), May Day (May 1), Lammas (August 1), and All Hallows (November 1).  When Simeon greeted the Holy Family in the temple, he declared Jesus to be the light of the world.  This image is celebrated by the lighting of candles on Candlemas.  Candlemas falls during the Anglo-Saxon month of Solmonao when the power of the sun’s light was celebrated paralleling the celebrating of Christ’s light in the world.  During Solmonao, ploughs were blessed before the first tilling.  Soil from the farm’s four quarters were ceremoniously collected paralleling the priest beating the parish’s bounds on Rogation Sunday.  It was a bad omen if the day was sunny, for that predicted snow and frost to continue until the hiring of laborers six weeks later on Lady Day.  Groundhog Day is a remote survivor of this belief.  May Day was halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice marking the beginning of summer for ancient Celts.  It was celebrated with dancing and singing to greet the sprouting seeds.  The power of light over darkness was celebrated with dancing around the May pole.
~ Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

The second Quarter Day was Midsummer Day (June 24th).  It celebrated the summer solstice midway between planting and harvest.  Anglicans celebrated this day as the birthday of John the Baptist who, by his leaping in Elizabeth’s womb, foretold the birth of Jesus six months later.  Midsummer eve was celebrated with “bonnefyres” (bonfires), feasting, and merrymaking.   Michaelmas (September 29th) is the feast of the Archangel Michael, corresponding to the autumnal equinox marking shorter days and winter’s onset.  It celebrated the harvest’s conclusion and was a time for stocking food to prepare for winter.  Since the farm workers were freed from their toil and had more free time to vote, elections were often scheduled at this time.  Elections were shifted to November in America because our growing season was longer.  Although Yule is thought synonymous with Christmas, it actually occurs on the winter solstice (December 21st).  The word Yule is linked to the word “wheel” marking the turning point of the year when the shortened days began to lengthen.  Farm workers were paid for their year’s labor around this time, giving them reason to celebrate followed by a three month rest before the next growing season.

​~ Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

Excerpts of a Sermon Delivered on the
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 6, 2020
Romans 13:8-14 & Matthew 18:5-20
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Reverend Joseph C. Alsay
 
“We’ve Got A Problem”
 
 
You can tell where this is going. You can see it on his face. You can hear it in her voice. I think we need to talk. We’ve got a problem. We’re going to have a come to “Jesus Moment” here.
 
You listen carefully, a bit on your guard, and then you realize that you are the problem.
 
Either your boss is not satisfied with your work. Your spouse is upset that you don’t do your share of the work around the house. Your friend feels you have no time for him or her anymore.
 
And there you have it: conflict. A part of life.
How do you feel about disagreements?
 
Do you avoid them?
Do you hate them?
Do you enjoy them?
Do you always win them or lose them?
 
Some of us are better at it than others, but most of us would rather not have to deal with it.
 
Sometimes people have the impression that since we claim to be Christians, we will live in eternal harmony-even here on the earth. People have expectations that all will be harmony and things will just be perfect, peaceful, and harmonious.
 
While most of us prefer agreement, probably few of us have these kinds of expectations. All of us have been schooled in the real world and we know and expect that we will have disagreements.
 
The reality is that we do not experience the world as a place where people come together to agree and get along. Our general experience is the opposite. Even now, in our city, nation and world we are experiencing: resentment, revenge and racism.
 
One of the insights from today's Gospel is that this same problem existed when Jesus was sharing his life and parables of insight. Human nature has not changed very much over the course of history.
 
 
You could say that Matthew 18 has a section that reads like a church discipline manual. In essence, it says that if someone offends you, confront them. “Houston, we have a problem.” If that fails, do an intervention. If that doesn’t work, cut the off and kick them out.
 
I learned that some Christians treat this advice from Matthew as if they were reding someone their Miranda rights. And if you didn’t know, “mirandize” is now officially a word. As in: “did you mirandize him?” So, in some more legalistic Christian circles this all leads to something like: did you “Matthew 18-ize her?” No wonder we church people get a bad rap. Matthew 18 leads to excommunicating people, and well, let’s not go there.
 
Most of the time we think the other person is the problem. In fact, we usually try to change them.
 
When we see others as the problem, we begin to see ourselves as the center of the world and others as objects whose needs are not as important as our own.
 
Could it be that being in community and being in relationship are the things that teach us about ourselves, about being human, and about our common need for reconciliation?
 
One liturgical scholar Aidan Kavanaugh was known to say that “the Christian community is the place where you are close enough to get on each other’s nerves and then need their forgiveness.”
 
One of the greatest challenges for me, and maybe for you, is to get along with people who are a constant nuisance.
 
In Romans Paul writes, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” All commandments can be summed up in this way: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So simple yet so hard.
 
We are bound together in community: in families, towns, churches, nations and even as siblings on planet earth. And heaven knows, together we have all kinds of problems. Yet, we are in this together. We all stand in need of God’s mercy. We are all self-centered. We all think the problem is someone else rather than looking closely at ourselves.
When the inevitable conflict arises, trusting in the forgiveness and mercy of God, will help us begin to see our problems in a different light.
 
We are confident that the spirit is with us. We can be assured that the love and care of Christ will bring about reconciliation. We can experience the Shalom of God and enjoy our lives.
 

~Fr. Joseph Alsay, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

Medieval festivals that divided the Celtic year were called Quarter Days, each occurring on a solstice or an equinox.  In addition, each quarter was halved by four Cross-Quarter Days creating eight annual segments.  With the adoption of the twelve month Roman calendar and the establishment of the Church, the Celtic festivals were renamed for feasts of the Church’s liturgical year.   The renamed Quarter Days were Lady Day (formerly Ostara, March 25th), Midsummer Day (formerly Litha, June 24th), Michaelmas (formerly Mabon, September 29th), and Yule (December 21st).  A mnemonic for remembering when the first three quarter days fell was March has five letters, and Lady Day is March 25th.  June has four letters and September nine, with Midsummer Day and Michaelmas falling on the 24th and 29th, respectively.  The cross-quarter days were Candlemas (formerly Imbolic, February 2), May Day (formerly Beltane, May 1), Lammas (formerly Lughnasadh, August 1), and All Hallows (formerly Samhain, November 1).  Lady Day occurs on the vernal equinox.  It is so named because on this day Christ’s incarnation was announced to Mary.  Until 1752, it was England’s New Year.  It was often the day for hiring farm laborers for the upcoming growing season.

~ Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church