​Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOU
 
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
 
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
 
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
 
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
 
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
 
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
 
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
 
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
 
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

​St. Luke 1:1 “He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

This week our 8-year-old daughter decided it was time for a summer room make-over.  So, she and her sister planned this girl’s room make-over with a double decker bunk bed as the center piece.  It was to be fully decorated with Poke Mon emblems. Then her twin brother, as boys would often do, sought to derail the plans by reminding her that she is afraid of heights.  As priest of twenty-five years, I was stunned by her immediate response “Listen you, I have prayed about it and now I am ready to face my fears”.  Her Sunday School teachers would be proud.

How often, as adult Christians, have we wavered on the brink of many overwhelming situations and allowed our fears to cripple us into inaction?  One would want to believe the early disciples of Jesus found themselves struggling with the overwhelming fears and tasks of discipleship and often times found themselves floundering.  They would often encounter some of the disciples of John who would be actively involved in following through on the demands of the ministry set by John and wished the courage and energy for themselves.

Christian prayer is greater than soothing comforting sentiments.  Our prayer is tightly linked to discipleship.  Discipleship begins in prayer and prayer leads us deeper into the complexities of discipleship. Jesus calls us into a life of prayer and this leads us to act upon the prayers. When we pray “Our Father”, it means not only are we in a relationship with God, but we are also in relationships with each other. Discipleship then is seeking not only for a closer walk with Christ, but to begin to be able to deepen and develop relationships in this world.  These relationships fulfill the mandate of God’s presence in each other and in the world in which we dwell.  Through Adia’s prayer, life gives her courage to face her fear of heights, and one can only hope that prayer becomes a springboard that will gives her courage for life.

Churches today are deeply in need of Christian disciples who are embolden by their prayers and have the courage which is needed to take the gospel of Jesus into the neighborhoods and homes right here in our communities.

Increasingly, more young people have decided to live on the fringes of the church while claiming to maintain their faith. Is it possible to be a Christian disciple without an active prayer life? Can one have an active prayer life outside the community of faith? That which holds the community together is prayer. This was the underlying call of the disciples. They understood the difficulties they faced in a community bought together from different tribes, differing socio-economic positions and different perspectives. They were called and held together by the presence of Jesus. However, without His physical presence they were fearful it was not enough to live on only His memory to hold them together.

The need for prayer was then a response to the many factors which could have driven them apart.  Prayer is that which held them together in the midst of their many fears and challenges. Prayer bonded them together and motivated them to engage in the work of Christ even in overwhelming presence of evil, doubt and fear. Prayer pushed them beyond themselves into becoming a worldwide force and God fueled energy.

Prayer is about Courage for life!

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR 10:30-37

​​Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan vv. 30 - 37 
How to be neighborly? In the story the Samaritan offered mercy and love in tangible and costly ways. He saw the wounded man on the side of the road. He didn't close his eyes and walk away. He allowed something to happen in his heart. He hadn't become callused, abrasive and hard from the cruel encounters of the evils in life.
He did not run from his feelings. He felt compassion and identified with the man at that moment out of a heart of love. He acknowledged and deeply experienced his feelings of compassion. He was willing to risk his own safety. He came toward the man, taking his own life in his hands because he had no knowledge that the robbers had left the area. Moreover, when he came forward he realized this half-dead man was a Jew and his sworn enemy! There was no love lost between the Jews and the Samaritans. However, he went beyond his pent up racial, political and religious prejudices. He acted on what he knew the right thing to do. He bandaged up the wounds, pouring his own precious wine and oil on him.
The Good Samaritan put the man on his own beast and walked, looking for a place of refuge. He was willing to give up personal comfort and convenience to help an enemy in need. He brought him to an inn, therefore restricting his own plans and personal journey. He took personal care of the injured man and stayed the night in the inn, nursing the enemy back to life, and making sure he was going to live. He gave the innkeeper two-day's wages and asked him to watch over the man, and if it cost more he would personally repay him. As a caregiver, he was willing to cover the expenses of the needy. He planned to return to follow-up on the injured man.
Jesus asked the lawyer which one proved to be neighborly in the story? "The one who showed mercy." Mercy is the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it, and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it. This word is used of God, who is rich in mercy toward the sinner, and who has provided salvation for all men.
 
It is obvious the Samaritan had a personal relationship with God, and because of that relationship, he was able to reach out to his needy enemy with the mercy of God. The lawyer was lacking in this one thing. He had never experienced God's marvelous grace. All he could think of was legalism and merit. He was too busy justifying himself in the eyes of men and God.
Once a person has come to an intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ he is able to reach out to a depraved, lost dying world.
Who is the Good Samaritan in this story? It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself! The Good Samaritan is Jesus our Kinsman Redeemer. He is our Redeemer. "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). The man who was beaten and left for dead is a picture of the ugliness of sin and depravity.
Our Redeemer had to be a near kinsman. He must be a blood relative. Jesus is our near kinsman through the incarnation. Jesus you are my kinsman redeemer. You have the right to redeem me. He became one of us by becoming flesh and dwelling among us. He is our nearest of kin.  He has the power and the means to redeem. He owns the whole universe and therefore He has the purchase price. He is the spotless Son of God, born of a virgin. He is sinless and pure in the sight of God and man.
Moreover, He is willing to redeem us. "I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15ff). "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father" (v. 18). He prayed to the Father, "Not my will, Thy will be done." He went to the cross and died in our place. He was willing to die our death.
As our Redeemer He was willing to marry the widow. It is a permanent everlasting commitment to the Bride. We are the Bride of Christ. He will not divorce, abandon, or leave us. He will never forsake us. He will stay at our side and nurse us back to life! He is concerned for what is best for us.
 
 
Isaiah 53:3-6 reminds us that just as this despised and rejected Samaritan became the "savior" of the robber, so the despised and rejected Jesus became the Savior of all who trust in Him. "He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the shaming for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us have turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him".
The Lord God saves us by grace alone through faith alone in the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone. Jesus is the only righteous man on this earth. He alone fulfilled the law perfectly. He took our sins upon Himself, bearing the curse of death which the law pronounced on us. By trusting in His death and resurrection on our behalf, our sins are forgiven and we receive the free gift of eternal life.
"For while we were helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". That is what our Kinsman did for us. Our Good Samaritan went to the cross and died in our place to give us eternal life.
This eternal life is not the result of our good works, not even being a good neighbor, but the result of God's grace manifested through Jesus Christ. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast”.
What is Jesus saying to this Jewish lawyer and anyone else who thinks he can earn eternal life? The Jewish religious system was completely bankrupt. Law keeping was not the way to eternal life because no one is able to live up to the demands of the law. In order to be saved by law keeping, he must fulfill every requirement of the law all of the time, and with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not half-heartedly. Not as a hobby. Not as a religious fad. Not even as the most sincere religious, moral person the world has ever known.
The law can only condemn; it cannot save. The law is powerless to save you. The lawyer was guilty just as you and I are guilty of breaking the law. You cannot earn or merit eternal life no matter how good you think you are, or how religious you may be. It is an "inheritance." It is a gift. It is not something you earn or do.
The Lord responded by reminding him of his question that eternal life is not given to men and women based on some religious activity. Eternal life is the fruit of establishing a loving relationship with the one and only living God. It is something you "inherit" because you are a member of His family. Once that relationship is established by faith and not by works, the Lord fills our lives with Himself and His love and enables us to not only love Him fully, but to love our neighbors as ourselves.
What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Nothing! Stop thinking you can do something to merit it. You get your inheritance through a relationship with God. You receive it because you are His child, born into His family spiritually by the new birth. It is by faith that it may all be by GRACE! It is God's free gift. It is not by obedience, by merits or works. It is all by grace through faith.
Start believing that God came in the person of His Son Jesus Christ to save us from our sins. If you place your faith in Jesus as the only Savior, He will save you by His grace, and immediately give you the gift of eternal life. The moment you declare your spiritual bankruptcy and believe on Christ you inherit eternal life.
Romans 10:9–10 gives the only requirement for man to be saved. Read it carefully and ponder these words of the apostle Paul. He writes, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life". Put your name in the place of the word "world" and read the verse again. Replace the word "whoever" with your own name and read it a third time. Moreover, "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (v. 18). "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (v. 36).
You can receive God's free gift of eternal life right now by confessing to Him your need and believing on Him as your personal Savior. You may find it helpful to pray this prayer if it comes from your heart. "Lord God I realize that I am unworthy of ever earning or meriting the salvation you freely give. I confess that I am a sinner and I deserve eternal separation from your holy presence. However, I realize that you love me and Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I ask you to be my Savior and give me eternal life. Thank you for this free gift." The apostle Paul told the Roman jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved".
Who is our neighbor? This passage also speaks to those of us who know Christ as our personal Savior. Our neighbor is the very next hurting person we meet, whether friend or enemy. God has enabled us to reach out with His love and mercy to a lost and hurting world. What are we to do to our neighbor in trouble? It becomes a joy to bind the wounds of a hurting and bleeding humanity. The Lord Jesus reaches out and touches His world through our loving hands. We become His eyes, His hands, His feet and His heart as we minister His grace in His name.
Don't try to be a Samaritan unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Don’t try to be a Samaritan unless you are prepared to walk for and stand up against the atrocities in our communities, against the injustices against people of all colour and race, unless you are prepared to say to those in authority in our nation, enough is enough. Moreover, if you have a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior your "inheritance" is secure and your heart is already filled with love, mercy and power. Now you can be a good "Samaritan." Someone has said, "Grace is the mother of compassion." It begins with a changed life from the inside out. When we place our faith in God, then He comes and dwells in us, and His love begins to flow through us to others. That is the only way you can love your neighbor. Christ floods our hearts with His life. It is an exchanged life. He lives His life through us to reach a lost world. Amen.


​

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:  
I have come after them and made repair 
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.   The gaps I
mean.
No ones had seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hills; 
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set up the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls.
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side.  It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good Fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours?
isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a 
wall,
That wants it down".  I could say Elves" to him.
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-Stone savage armed
He moves in darkness as it seems to me.

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he like shaving thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good
neighbours"
​

Galatians 6:8 -10 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So, let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
 
The readings for today seem to carry a central theme of becoming God’s agents of transformation. It seems to be heavily based upon an understanding that our call as Christians and members of the  Body of Christ is much greater than our own personal survival or maybe one can prescribe to the revolutionary idea that our survival and success is based upon our willingness to participate in the work of Christ. We dwell in a time where it seems increasingly fashionable to live for ones own comforts and satisfaction. Today extreme narcissism seems to be unparalleled in the media and strains of it have become quite a large part of our daily lives. The new term being applied is mindlessness or having a lack of awareness which actually is just disconnecting ourselves from all that is impactful and important to those around us.  As resources dwindle the tension between hoarding and communal sharing becomes increasingly intense; very much like Jesus and his disciples in the miracle of the five barley loaves and two fishes.  How do we feed the multitude with so little?  Must we exclude those who need us, or do we choose where we believe we may have the greatest impact? How much faith are we willing to exercise in order to overcome our mindlessness? How much should we really care about the needs and feelings of others?

If the Episcopal Church is to be an agent of transformation in this world, we must be willing to move.  How can we move from being a church stuck in time and frozen within a framework of mindlessness and apathy to that of a movement driven by God’s Holy Spirit? Our Presiding Bishop Curry coins it “The Jesus movement”.

“We must start to subvert a static institutional identity in favor of becoming a dynamic, reputation-risking, radically inclusive, justice-oriented, deeply disruptive force in our community.”

How do we do this? How do we meet the needs of our congregations while still giving to our community? The answer remains the same “For they know we are Christians by our love” Yet, love come with a cost.

The price we pay is holiness, consecration prayer and sacrificial giving which provides us power to participate in a personal and community transformation one life at a time. Jesus can lift us into becoming transforming agents. His mandate was bold yet clear “Go make disciples. The making of disciples is about the willingness to both experience and reveal the effects of God’s transforming love.  “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” the Apostle Paul urges.  Many of our urban churches are facing possible extinction because a spirit of fear and skepticism has invaded our minds. This may seem quite a natural response as the years of broken dreams and the constant cry for love, healing and repairing of the breach  go unheeded.
In a recent article titled “One City, but Two Very Different Stories” in the Star Ledger, many residents of Camden were declaring that unlike the picture of tremendous success being broadcasted by those who have enriched themselves, there has not been much to celebrate for the residents. The reality of the residents was “A city where fresh food is as much a mirage as a good job.” A city in which hopelessness has become so thick that it seemingly can be cut with a knife. The urban Episcopal Church is not immune. It is that city in which St. Augustine has just declared its own death.

Many of our members are investing more time and energy in other places rather than seeing the church as a viable place to explore ministry. For many in our communities the church has become an institutionalized and insular structure which, in many, ways have made us become quite culpable in our own demise.

Many of our members are doing fantastic and extraordinary work outside of our churches.  Many sororities and fraternities are active in our communities helping young people find their way to colleges and jobs.  Many have chosen not to share in our corporate ministry and would greatly invest in community work. This is not to condemn but maybe they find these outside interests more meaningful because they can better see the work of transformation through these institutions, organizations, and through corporate giving. Black churches are now competing with sororities, corporations, and social agencies whose work and ministry they previously were shared.

This leaves the Church struggling to eke out a new identity and a renewed understanding of who we are really called to be. But my friends, this is the Good News! We have been here before! The early followers of Christ were bonded together not by buildings and structures but by a vision of hope and renewal as preached and taught by Jesus Christ. Our call is not to become a reflection of the community, but to become agents of transformation. We are called to be the experts on the topic and ministry of LOVE!  The disciples bought into a vision of God’s love as expressed through human compassionate acts, before it became a reality. The early Christians turned the world upside down! Our ancestors turned their communities upside down by believing even before they fully understood their missions. We have churches built on which were once open fields. This means that it may come a time when we may not have buildings but will still have a God who is inspiring us to do things in a profoundly different way.

The Church needs to raise a new crop of leaders who are first willing to believe in the work of Christ and the higher call to become Kingdom builders rather than being gate keepers. One of the most difficult challenge of God inspired leadership is the struggle of those who are co-leaders to buy into the awesome power of God. From Abraham, Moses, Joshua, through Jesus, Paul and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the challenge was just as great when either facing one’s opponents to that of shoring up the support of those who were close and involved in the movements.  It can easily become a tiresome burden; Abraham and Lot parted ways, Moses broke the first set of 10 commandments Tablets, Jesus cried out for the disciples just to stay awake, Paul and Barnabas disputed over John Mark, MLK fell out with James Bevel. Yet the work must go on!

My friends, for us to overcome these challenges it is important to hold fast that the work of transformation is ongoing.  It is revolutionary, but it is most importantly, Holy Spirt inspired. It is that Holy Spirit which created the world out of nothing, it made a believer out of skin sick Naaman, The Holy spirit made men out of cowards and inspired women to become space ship captains and soccer champs. It is that same Holy Spirit to whom we turn for fresh inspiration and renewed hope.   In the end it is all we have to offer to world. And in the end, it is the most satisfying!

​