January 22nd, 2025

People of St. Bede’s,

Following the presidential inauguration this week, there have been a number of new policies that President Trump has created using Executive Orders and personnel appointed to his administration.

This is a period of great uncertainty, particularly for the vulnerable and marginalized in this country as well as our neighbors and those affected by what happens here in the United States. In a few short days, various protections for people of color, immigrants, refugees & asylum seekers, members of the LGBTQ community, and the sick & elderly have been removed or threatened. I dread the pain and suffering that these actions have the potential to cause for those already on the margins of society. 

As Episcopalians, we are not on our own to discern how we will respond as we are part of a larger community around us. Our Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, along with the President of the House of Deputies, Julia Ayala Harris (both pictured right), put out a joint statement yesterday in response to the early actions of the new Administration. That statement can be found using the first button below.

At the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. yesterday, Bishop Mariann Budde, Diocesan of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, preached a sermon at the Service of Prayer for the Nation which has gone viral. In it she implored President Trump and others to show mercy to those who are scared and uncertain of their futures. The sermon is available for viewing on YouTube, and our parish admin Lauren has transcribed the message which can be found using the second and third buttons below.

And if you would like someone to talk to about your feelings or concerns, we are always here for you. I am happy to receive your calls or to find time to get together with you. We are all in this together, as we always are. 

And our calling is always the same, not matter what is happening in world around us: To love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, which we do through promoting love, justice, and peace as we live out the mission of the church. 

Blessings to you, and may God be with us always,

Dan Spors

2/7/2021 – Rev. Dan’s first sermon at St. Bede’s

Friends,

It is an honor and a pleasure to join with you in worship today, the first of many to come for us. I am humbled by the opportunity to stand before you as your priest and as one called to shepherd this community of the faithful in what it means to be a disciple of Christ in our world today. And I’m grateful to those who had a role in my calling me to serve St. Bede’s, for the Search Committee and the Vestry who worked so diligently and faithfully to find a new rector for this parish. I ask that you would pray for me, as well, that God would give me wisdom and be with me in this tremendous calling.

It’s fitting, this being our first service together, that our readings for our worship today point us to one of the most important concepts in all of Christianity–the Gospel. 

It’s a word that I would imagine that if we were to ask around to members of our community, what does the word “Gospel” mean, you would get about as many different answers as there are people that you asked. 

Even within the greater Christian community, it’s challenging to find too many definitions of the word Gospel. Many, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, will focus largely on the written accounts that we find in our Bibles, from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Roman Catholic catechism, in the 158 appearances of the word, uses it in reference to the books that bear their names. Other times, it will quote the Scriptures in instances where it is said that “the gospel has gone out into the whole world,” or that people believed the Gospel. But in one instance in particular, it defines the Gospel this way: 

that God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The key point here being, that Christ came in human flesh so we might be redeemed and become children of God.

The Episcopal Church’s online glossary describes it as “God’s saving act in Jesus Christ, focused on the cross and resurrection.” A little nebulous, but, OK. That’s actually kind of fitting for us–take a theological word and leave its definition very open-ended so as to not exclude anyone who might disagree.

And from my Evangelical days, it could have been summed up, “That Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins.” Here, the Gospel is that we are spared from the wrath of God that is to come. We get to go to heaven when we die.

So we find themes of redemption, adoption, and salvation meant by the word Gospel. 

But the question remains, to what end and to what benefit? Or, more simply, But what does it mean? What does it affect? 

Is the Good News of the Gospel any help for us today, or only after we die? Because each of the traditions I mentioned–Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, and Evangelical–all agree that the Good News of the Gospel is that we are spared from God’s judgment on sin. But is there more to it than that? 

I believe so, very much so. 

Look at the example we get from Jesus himself. After healing Peter’s mother-in-law from her fever, and healing the sick and casting out demons, he tells his disciples that they must go on to other villages and towns and proclaim…”the message.” 

But this isn’t the only biblical account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. It also occurs in Luke’s gospel account as well. And it is preceded by his teaching at the synagogue in Nazareth, in which he opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to where it reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And then he puts the scroll down and declares to those gathered that the Scriptures have been fulfilled in their sight.

From my vantage point, I believe that for the message to be truly good news, it must be seen as good news to those who receive it. They must be able to recognize it as good news. And to this point, I think of the words Archbishop Desmond Tutu shared:

I don’t preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now is that political, or social?” He said: “I feed you.” Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. 

Like Desmond Tutu, I believe that the Gospel message is that God loves you and is concerned for the well-being of all of the parts of your life–body, mind, and spirit. Jesus Christ, after all, in his life and ministry fed the hungry, healed the sick, cast out unclean spirits, preached “Repent for the Kingdom of God is near,” was crucified, and rose to new life. 

The apostles lived this out as well. They too fed the hungry. They healed the sick. They cast out spirits. They called the people to repent. And they talked about Jesus who was crucified and rose to new life once again.

This informs and expands our understanding of what it means to love God and to love our neighbor. We love God because God loved us first, and we shape our lives to continue the work that God did in Christ–to show this love to the world through our work and our words. 

And we’re good at the work part. That’s actually the easy part. People on the peninsula can’t afford housing? We can address that with what we do. People are hungry, or sick, or need a tutor? We can address that too.

The words… that’s the hard part. It involves putting ourselves out there and risking rejection or ridicule. That’s a tough hurdle to overcome, and I give you permission to struggle with that. Because you might be like me–you want to share with others this wonderful gift that we have called faith, and the hope and joy and peace that come with it, but others aren’t always receptive to it. 

(ad lib experience at Moody with street evangelism)

So I can relate to the anxiety that might hold you back. 

My encouragement is to look for opportunities, wherever they may present themselves. Maybe it’s sharing something that gives you hope when a friend is struggling. Maybe it’s sharing something that has given you joy lately, or something that has brought you peace in the midst of uncertainty. Because who knows, it may be that it will help the person with whom you share it, and make them curious for more. And they just might find that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live.

So may you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, feel and experience for yourselves the love that God has for your whole person, body, mind, and spirit. May you yourself live out and continue the work of Christ in bringing hope and healing and redemption to our world. And may you find that the Gospel is good news for this life and for the life to come.

Now unto the one, holy, blessed and undivided Trinity, be all dominion, glory and power, Amen.

3/7/2021 – Anniversary of Regular Online Worship due to COVID-19

Open our ears, O Lord,

to hear your word and know your voice.

Speak to our hearts and strengthen our wills,

that we may serve you today/now and always. Amen

Friends,

Here we are, almost exactly 1 year to the date that we were last able to worship in person together before the spread of the COVID-19 virus led to the suspension of our worship and so many other aspects of our lives. In that vein, I hope you are staying healthy and safe, and I encourage you to keep vigilant in protecting your well-being as we continue to work together as a community to protect the most vulnerable among us.

The phrase “Hindsight is 20/20” has been bandied about frequently in the last year to play on the events that happened. Some people have suggested we should reframe it, to say that 2020 revealed many of the underlying and systemic issues our country has put off confronting until they came up to the surface in the last year. So saying “Hindsight is 2020” would mean something along the lines of reassessing how our world operates and learning from it to make the world a better place. And others have said we should never use the phrase again because of the dumpster fire of a year 2020 was. 

Jesus’ disciples had a bit of their own experience of looking back at the past and then realizing more fully what was truly going on. That’s probably the more traditional way of thinking about the phrase “hindsight is 20/20, but I needed a segue to get us there! Now, in John’s account of the Cleansing of the Temple, we are told that there are two things that the disciples later remembered, or issues for which they were able to connect the dots: That Jesus’ actions related to the Psalmist’s words from Psalm 69, “Zeal for your house will consume me,” and that Jesus predicted his death and resurrection after three days. And when looking deeper into these two ideas, we find that they are remarkably interconnected. Let’s explore why that is.

The Temple Cleansing is one of a very few episodes from the life of Christ that appear in all four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke put this event within days of Jesus’ crucifixion, and set it up to be the event that led to his ultimate rejection and crucifixion. John puts it at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and the resurrection of Lazarus becomes the trigger for the authorities to want to put Jesus to death. 

So with John and his placement of the story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we’re set up from early on with the idea that Jesus will not be accepted as the Messiah but will ultimately be rejected.

This ties into the first thing we are told that the disciples remembered in the verse from Psalm 69–”Zeal for your house will consume me.” 

Typically, when New Testament, and particularly Gospel authors, will reference a verse from the Old Testament, they intend to allude to the context and the other parts of Scripture around that one verse. In this case, the Psalm from where this verse is drawn is a lament of the alienation and reproach that the Psalmist is experience because of their fidelity to God. Because they are faithful and keeping covenant with God while others do not, they face the scorn of family and friends, and suffer mistreatment at the hands of those who mock and deride them. Their zeal for the temple of the Lord is an outworking of their faith, and a symbol of the distance felt between them and the others who insult and curse the faithful one. 

And we see the same as Jesus chases out the merchants and turns over the tables of the moneychangers. Jesus is then challenged to give a sign as a way to prove his authority to do this. Sort of like having to show his ID as a prophet, the people demand a sign or a miracle to show that the Lord approves of his action. If he performs a miracle God is with him on this, and if he doesn’t then he is not speaking for God, or so the thinking goes. 

So with remembering the verse from Psalm 69, John is connecting the life experiences of Jesus with the Psalmist. 

One final point on this. This may be why John talks about “the Jews” rejecting Jesus and “the Jews” challenging his authority, whereas the other Gospels will read the chief priests, the elders, the pharisees, and so on. In John, it’s not just the authorities that have rejected Jesus–it’s his own people who have alienated him and reproached him. The other Gospels were likely written earlier than John while there was still some connection between the Jewish faith and the young Christian sect. For those Gospel authors, the leaders were largely denouncing Christians but the people were still curious. By the time of John’s writing, however, the two faiths had been moving in different directions for some time, and John present’s Jesus’ rejection more widely by the Jews as a whole. This explains why John’s Gospel is sometimes seen as being anti-semitic, though his intent was probably more to show the breadth of Jesus’ reproach by his people. 

This leaves us with the second thing the disciples remember about Jesus–that after his crucifixion and resurrection, they recalled that he predicted he would be killed and after three days that he would live again. Perhaps like the rest of his audience the disciples thought he meant the Temple building, that the actual stones would be torn down and rebuilt. But after the resurrection, they remembered his words from this time and realized he was talking about his body and his life. 

From this, and given John’s decision to place the Temple Cleansing at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we find that he has put the emphasis on calling us to believe Jesus’ salvation and message where others have fallen short. Though the Israelites, whom he came to save, have not welcomed him as the Messiah, we now have the opportunity to believe, and in believing to be saved. Though others doubted, we are called to have faith, and for which we don’t require a sign, a miracle, in order to believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ.

This is our Christ, and this is our salvation. That the suffering servant Jesus’ embarked on a ministry that modeled what it was to put one’s faithfulness to God far ahead of other things we may value in life. More than acceptance, more than appreciation, and more than life itself, a life of faithfulness is far superior to all these things. Because, in the end, it’s not always easy to deny ourselves and to take up one’s cross to follow Jesus, but the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live. 

So together with you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, may we live lives of holiness and righteousness before our God. May we be filled with the faith that Jesus is the Anointed one sent by God to bring the forgiveness of our sins, and in believing, may we find eternal life.

Now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be all dominion, glory and power, Amen