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Harvest Sunday

11/24/2019

John 6:30 So they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?

We all love free samples. On a recent family trip to Florida, we overnighted at one of those new updated boutique-style hotels along the way. The furniture was modern and combined with a whole décor providing one with a futuristic contemporary view. The kids were amazed having overnighted at less updated facilities.

On observation, there were no longer free small bottles of toiletries neatly placed on the countertops in the bathrooms, but now larger bottles were bolted to the wall. Modern, contemporary, chic, but no free samples seemed to be the message.

My friends, we dwell in a world where cost savings and frugal living seem to be the dominant message with the goal of increasing one’s profit margins or conserving what little we may own. This message of course is a counter message to what Jesus seems to be proclaiming to his followers. Those who gathered around him were seeking to be convinced of his authenticity and would only be convinced if they received free samples. They wanted to taste the reward prior to their own commitment to God. This need for proof was like living with someone prior to the marriage.

Jesus, however, declared faith first demands a commitment to the cause. It is the nature of faith to be willing to walk into the dark believing God is there with you rather than asking for the lights to be turned on before entering the room. That I believe remains one of the biggest challenges we face as we seek to proclaim the power and presence of God in a world that is still looking for free samples and asking for the lights to be turned on.

Christianity is not about free samples but about providing a foretaste of what God has in store for those who are willing to trust in him. Thanksgiving and Harvest celebrations therefore are not about free samples but opportunities to partake in that foretaste of which God has in store for us. When we give and share in Thanksgiving for what we have received, we are making a bold faith statement which declares, “all I have came from God, and I am pledging to continue to look to Him to uphold and sustain me”. Thanksgiving and Harvest is about soul food! The gifts we are bringing are representation of what God is doing in the present and will be doing in greater ways in my household in the future.

The book of Deuteronomy begins with a future gift.
Deuteronomy “26:1 & 2 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.” This passage is a bold reminder of both a promise fulfilled and a important lesson for future generations. Many of our children are begging for bread today because possibly their parents were not taught the lessons of giving thanks as a foretaste rather than hunting for free samples.

Our Harvest celebrations is our attempt to pass on sound traditions and family blessings. It is about remembering to place all our hopes and trust in the power and presence of God. St. Paul shares in his letter to the Philippians 4:6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Each Sunday we gather inspiring each other through our faith, prayers and generous support to each other as a foretaste of which God is breaking upon us. Faith is about looking back in Thanksgiving while looking forward in hope. As Christians, we are invited to constantly be proclaiming the powerful love of God which prevails in our lives and pushes us beyond the present. We give thanks while in pain. fear, grief or brokenness because Jesus is with us through it all. When we cry, He cries! When we are perplexed, He guides us! When we fail, He forgives us!!! Jesus is love in its fullness! That is why we give Thanks. Today let this be a harvesting of our souls. We are giving through these food, fruits, and gift offerings filled with thanks for what Jesus is doing within us and among us. Our church is celebrating when others are dying because we have a message to tell the world. In all things we give God thanks!

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Harvest 2020 at St. Elizabeth's

11/23/2019

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Dear Friends,

I am writing to you to ask for your help. St. Elizabeth’s is getting ready to celebrate Harvest with the aim of celebrating God's blessings in our homes, in every kitchen, in every school, in every neighborhood, in every town, every city where we reside and in every place of prayer.

Our Harvest celebration’s aim is to lift up people like you - people of faith and spirit to become Givers of Thanks for all God has done. Harvest is more than just one Thanksgiving Day, but a movement in which we are constantly called to celebrate God's actions in our world; a movement that must energize people and communities to answer the call to celebrate not only our own personal blessings, but to celebrate the blessing called EARTH by joining with others to assist in sustaining a healthy environment and leaving a legacy for our children.

Harvest reminds us we are part of a movement for personal and collective transformations to build a life connected to each other and to the Earth. The fruits, vegetables and flowers which we are hoping to use for our celebrations are simple backdrops for a greater story of God's loving act of creation and our responsibility to assist in sustaining it.
Our Harvest celebrations proclaimed that the earth and all people are sacred.

We need your help to continue this movement - Your financial support, your spiritual support, and your emotional and moral commitment.

By now you would have received an envelope in the mail. Please do not overlook this letter or discard the envelope but view it as an invitation to share in the joyful responsibility of proclaiming your commitment with your financial support of our Harvest movement and our Annual In-Gathering.

We need your support by joining in our worship celebrations on Sunday November 24th at either of our scheduled celebrations at 8:00 am or 10:00 am. Kindly bring along food donations in cans or boxes to assist in our Thanksgiving Food Drive that assists the hungry and needy in our community. Or, to support this effort monetarily, please go to our website to St. Elizabeth’s website (www.stelizabethschurchnj.org) and go to the Donate Tab to contribute to our Thanksgiving Food Drive or mail a check to St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church PO Box 510, Elizabeth NJ 07207.

We need your moral support by you joining your voices to the Harvest movement in seeking to sharing in the lives of others as together we are called to build a community of love reflecting God's loving presence among us. We need your support in building a more environmentally friendly world to leave as our legacy.

I am embracing this Harvest Movement for 2020 launching in November 2019 by being a role model for my children in how I approach the environment, how I hope to increase my reach into the community, how I give to the Church and how I praise God for all of his blessings. You too can give generously so we can embrace and praise God in so many ways together!

Let us give thanks for what God is doing among us and what we are about to do…..transform our world to reflect God’s beauty and grace.

Rev. Canon Andy J. Moore

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Tweaking

11/18/2019

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St. Luke 21:19
By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Recently, I went to get my annual eye checkup because I am tired of borrowing glasses of parishioners, and my arms cannot extend far enough to hold reading materials at a distance where I can see them. My wife insisted I use one of these modern clinics that are popping up in multiple locations rather than return to my ophthalmologist. Her reason was based upon her experiences with the modern technology used in these facilities. During my eye examination, I was amazed. The Doctor used this computerized equipment and was able to maneuver my vision test down to seeming the most minute level; a simple tweak moved me from blurred vision to full clarity.

Tweaking is about moving from blurred sight to clear vision. Tweaking is about bringing into focus that which may be blurry due to fear, pain or disappointments in life.

I can speak of my own experience of tweaking as I struggled with my cancer diagnosis moving through the stage of being on the other side of the patient bed. All the things with which I would pray and console others, became hollow as I stared into the abyss of uncertainty and fear. Then my friend Canon Lyons came and silently sat with Nats and me and walked with us as he tweaked my sight. Instead of looking inward, I was now looking upward. Tweaking allowed me to see further than the present, dark abyss. This changed caused me to see holding on and letting go differently. I stopped trying to manipulate my way through my cancer on my terms, and I began to develop into a flickering flame which God lights and sustains. The terms of hope, peace, forgiveness and love took on different shades as my sight was tweaked into visions of the daily joys in human relationships and the hope sustain faith.

Yet, it is important to share that the act of tweaking is sometimes so slight, we can often miss it until after the change is complete. Last week we visited friends in Florida, and the kids caught a lizard as part of some unknown science project. In looking at the lizard, I recalled my own boyhood and completing the same science project; only our lizards would sometimes ditch their tales in fear in order to escape my grasp. When struggling with my cancer, I felt I had to ditch a whole lot of stuff in order to escape my overwhelming fear. Ditching stuff is a habit I learned in childhood, and I felt I desperately needed this habit to survive the realities of my health crisis. My friends, there is no ditching or escaping cancer or the fear that grips you so painfully hard, you can’t move. I had to learn had to tweak my approach to my new reality. I had to let go of fear’s hand and reach out to God’s unchanging hand.

It is through this same adjustment, this tweaking, Jesus invited his disciples to perform as they struggled with the pending disaster breaking upon their community. All had seemed lost and overwhelming as Jesus prepared to meet his final demise. Fifty years later, the church, again, faced the onslaught of persecution and many were either dying or giving up their faith. The message therefore was one of endurance. If we tweak, we can endure. Endurance then for us as Christians is about turning pain into passion. It is about tweaking fear into faith. My friends in Christ, if we tweak and endure, our endurance becomes more than an act; it becomes an identity. It is the same as saying marriage is more than an act of endurance, but an identity. Parenting is more than an act of endurance, but an identity. We are what we believe is an old adage. Thus Christianity is both an act of endurance and an identity. All of this is driven by an overwhelming experience of love. God’s love for us and our love for each other.

Endurance is an act of faith that proves God holds us in His hands forever.

1 Cor. 13:8 Love endures forever. It is through and by endurance of our love that will save our souls.

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All Saints

11/4/2019

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See I am making all things new Revelation 21 :5
Today we at St Elizabeth’s are observing the Feast of All Saints. It is a time put aside by the church to celebrate the lives of those known and unknown who have served God faithfully in their lifetime. One of my goals in highlighting this celebration on a Sunday is possibly because the readings chosen are often associated with funerals. We do not hear what is preached at our own farewell service so maybe it is good to hear what should and could be said about each of us when our time arrives.

No one left behind is a phase that seems to have originated in the combat fields that inspired patriotism and sacrifice. It some how has seeped over into the wider community with numerous applications. It seems to permeate throughout one’s military career as often attested by wife Natalie in her work and Ministry at the V.A. It is used as a recruiting tool and a lifetime promise.

My friends All Saints reminds us that for Christians there is a similar phrase. “Whether we live or die we are the Lord’s possessions”. My friends at our baptism we made an agreement with God. Today we will be baptizing Brianna Ann Edwards and she will be sealed with Holy oil with the words” You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever!” Just as you may not have heard those words at your baptism you may not hear the comforting words at your death, but they will be said by those who have surrounded you in faith.

All Saints then is about you and me as well as those who would have heard those words when you could not and those to come who will hear words when you can longer do so. The work of the church is more than a keeper of old windows and liturgies as many may think but it is the crucible within which heaven and earth yesterday today and tomorrow share moments of grace and power. This is of vital importance because as the scriptures prophesied many things will and are passing away. Even as church leaders worry that young people are not coming so our churches are closing its important to note that they also killed Toys R Us, Barneys even Sesame Street is struggling. My friends we dwell in a time when our men folks are choosing to play video games over date nights and yoga is replacing prayer groups. So, no church service on a Sunday, no weddings on a Saturday and no baptisms at all.

All Saints celebrations stand as a stark reminder of persons unwillingness to participate in the challenges of dwelling in community. Increasingly we witness people withdraw to their various corners using all kinds of excuses, but a careful listening ear would detect something much deeper. At its heart it really is about losing the capacity to hope. It’s about losing the human capacity to transcend the present in order to walk boldly and faithfully into the future. Behold I make all things new is greater than what one maybe experiencing in the very present moment but what maybe occurring deep below the surface.

My friends in Christ when we share in community, we are called to enter the lives of others sharing and experiencing the most critical of moments in their lives. We share in their joys and successes; we build connections and learn the art of human touch both physical and emotional. We are allowed into moments of brokenness, illness pain grief and loss. All things that says we are humans not the Artificial Intelligence that is slowly creeping into our daily lives. My friends if we continue this way there eventually may have a generation that does not know what a hug is, a handshake or even the bounce much less a high five. Many who have chosen to be absent prefer to avoid the messy nature of community living and choose the pseudo-antiseptic life of social media that allows them to be involved vicariously. Our folks who left church to get partners on dating apps have now turned to egg freezing as they get busier yet more lonely.

My friends at this All Saints celebration my words to you are not mine but the Lord’s {Deuteronomy 31:6} “Be not dismayed, for I am with you. I will not fail you or forsake you, wherever you go. Be strong and of good courage.” You are part of fascinating collage of God’s creation that made the choice to continue to believe that there is something more interesting than navel gazing. If we take the risk and look deeper, further and longer we may discover our true purpose of life. We will be able to understand that we are vital building blocks of the new thing that god is building in His world, We can discover that we are standing boldly on the shoulders of those who built before and we are strengthening our shoulders to carry those who will come after. Yet the joys are mystically present and transcendent. There is deep joy in knowing I apart of something bigger and greater than myself which will live on after I am gone. The house I now treasure will find a new owner. The car I drive will become second hand, the clothes I war will be worn by others not God owns my very soul. Thanks be to God there is a part of me which is both communal yet individual. The mystery of our faith is what we celebrate. Blessings to all both now and forever.

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Harvest Sunday

Harvest 2020 at St. Elizabeth's

Tweaking

All Saints

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