St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church - Elizabeth, NJ
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  • Home
  • Welcome
    • History >
      • Historical Sizzle
    • I'm New
    • Let's Get Acquainted
    • Rev. Canon Andy J. Moore
    • Leadership
    • Mission
    • Habits of Grace: Prayer into Action
    • Bishop Curry Who is my Neighbor
    • Bishop Curry
    • Make a Gift
    • Services
    • Sunday Service Aug 30th 2020
    • Zoom Service Aug 23rd, 2020
    • Zoom Service Aug 16th, 2020
    • Zoom Service Aug 9th, 2020
    • Zoom Service Aug 2nd, 2020
    • Gallery >
      • Harvest Sunday
      • Sunday School Father's Day 19
      • Men's Club Community Flea Mkt
      • Community Christmas Party
      • Thankgiving Baskets
      • Celebration for High School Gradates
      • Homecoming 2018 >
        • Homecoming
      • Music in the Garden
      • Mother's Day 2018
      • Mother's Day 2018
      • Sunday School Youth Sunday
      • Maundy Thursday
      • Christmas Mass St. Elizabeth's
      • Christmas Eve Mass
      • Christmas Eve Mass
      • Christmas Eve Mass
      • Community Christmas Party
      • Frist Presbyterian
      • Feast of All Saints
      • Sanctuary Sunday 2017
      • International Food Festival
  • Get Involved
    • Sunday School
    • Sunday School Lift Ev'ry Voice
    • Moments in Black History 2019
    • Black History - MLK
    • Sunday School Black History
    • Sunday School Black History ii
    • Youth Ministry
    • ESL Fall 19 Classes
    • ESL Cerificate of Achievement
    • Computer Literacy
    • Episcopal Church Women
    • Mens Club
    • Outreach
  • Hall Rental
  • Calendar
    • News & Events >
      • Free Testing for COVID-19
      • Robin Pierre DCN
      • Pastoral Letter April 24th
      • Holy Week Schedule
      • Church Services Suspended
      • Reading Lent4 - Mar 22nd
      • Lift Ev'ry Voice & Sing Challenge
      • Absalom Jones Service Sunday 2/16
      • Brad Kleiman in Concert
      • Annual General Meeing
      • Christmas Service
      • Cathedral Day 2019
      • Bern Nix Jazz Festival
      • All Saints Sunday, 3rd, November
      • Sight & Sound 2019
      • Int'l Food Festival July 13th
      • UMHA - Workshop Canceled 6/15
      • Prayer Breakfast Mar 16th
      • MLK Day of Service
      • UMHA - Sunday Dec 16th
      • New Year Eve Service
      • Christmas Celebration Fun Night
      • ECW Trip to Lancaster PA
      • Homecoming 2018
      • Music In the Garden
      • Saxophone Recital
      • Elizabeth Homeless Coalition
      • From Your Door to Heaven's Door
      • Urban Garden
      • Black History Events
  • Contact
  • Realm E-Giving Launch
  • Harvest Baskets Giveaways
  • Rector's Harvest Message
  • 25 Years of Priesthood Gala
    • 25th Years of Priesthood Gala
  • 25 Years of Priesthood Gala
  • Sunday May 5th
  • Lent 2019
  • Living Like Job
  • Operation Warm Heart
  • 9th Annual Food Festival
  • it's Friday....but Sunday Comin!!
  • Bishop Curry
  • Poor People's Campaign
  • Zoom Sunday Service Oct 4th
  • Stewardship Sunday 10/18/2020

Breaking Myths

9/29/2018

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James 5:15 & 16    The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

Today I stand before you deeply conflicted by what the scriptures are challenging me to preach and the deep sensitive nature of the prevailing scenario. The overwhelming question is I believe “How can we be church to a country or a world in crisis? Or, how can fragile imperfect vessels become agents of healing?”   The Wounded healer is a term created by psychologist, Carl Jung, and made popular by Henri J. M. Nouwen  who speaks of the conscious effort of those who desire to heal others, but who must first acknowledge their own shortcomings and lack of abilities. 

In the reading from Esther, we encounter a woman struggling to tell her story to men who prefer not to hear her.  It is a story about slavery and of a woman forced to surrender her personhood for the pleasure of men.  It a story, which in the telling, calls for reparation for the oppressed during the time of the political maneuvering of power-hungry men and the governing of a narcissistic leader.  It is even greater than the individuals involved in the story, and is really about inherently unjust power structures (men over women, citizens over foreigners, powerful over the powerless, insiders over outsiders), and the list can be quite extensive. This is a story of these structures being challenged, and the incredible risks that such challenge entails. Esther becomes a foreshadow of one who is to come in the person of Jesus Christ.

In the Gospel, when Jesus challenges persons to take a deep look at the things they valued most,  the challenge is less about physical amputation but a forensic approach to their value system. What are the things we value the most in life?  This seems to be the true question Jesus is asking. Esther and Jesus understood challenging injustice begins with individual courage. 
 
Ester struggled three times before finding the courage to overcome her inner fears.  She first had to break the myth created for her which suggested she was just a beauty queen; a vessel to please men.  When you gain courage, you become the voice of God.  This was Esther’s destiny. 
In these times we are busy creating and buying into our own myths our own brand.  We spend so much time on Instagram and  Facebook creating our myth and not enough time looking into the mirror Jesus gives us.  We continue to be trapped and live out the many myths we create for ourselves or are created for us by others in our lives; the pretty, sweet girl, the smart, athletic young man.  These myths are what we may want to be, strong, courageous, wise or beautiful, and brilliant.   It is always easier to sustain the myth, and to believe in the myth of either self-importance or lack thereof so that we remain one dimensional, unchallenged by our peers, or we remain quiet and inactive. 

St. James, in his letter, challenges the myth in which we are all sinless and pure, and he builds his response by stating healing comes through acknowledgment and confession of one’s shortcomings, one’s truth.  Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” James 5:16.  In other words, to restore the world, the role of the church is to help persons who are seeking to break their myths and recognize our communal need for God in Christ Jesus.  1 John 1 :8&9 shares “ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We are called to be the community that is actively participating in tearing down unjust power structures. We are called to stand on the side of the oppressed and be the voice to the voiceless.  We do that even as we confess our own participation in these unjust structures each Sunday.  Then we rise each day to participate in the rebuilding of God’s world through the economy of Jesus’ love. The love of Jesus transcends all things and all people thus transforming human lives to become agents of healing and wholesomeness. That is the cauldron in which courage is forged. Unless our church becomes a cauldron for forging courage to accept our true call then the salt has lost its savor.

My friends anyone can follow the crowd and be willing to tiptoe around issues, but it takes courage to change the world.  This is the courage which gave Esther the ability to push beyond her deepest fears and to understand her truest calling was beyond that which the world had assigned her.  In other words, Esther had to break her own myth. It is what we call her “come to Jesus moment” It is the courage to believe so deeply in the greatness and power of God that transforms fear to action. Courage here is more than bravery or even bravado, but at its very heart is the ability to believe in something greater than oneself.  For Christians it is called faith. This is the courage that James proclaimed challenges us to see beyond our sinful limitations and allows God’s love to set us free. 

It is the same courage which sustained the early Christians to keep faith during horrible persecution. It is the same courage that sustained Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  when many of his followers lost faith in the movement and were willing to surrender the goals of freedom and equality to Jim Crow oppression.  It is the courage which sustained Nelson Mandela for 27 years on Robben Island where he remained unbroken by the oppressive nature of apartheid. It is the courage that is presently sustaining children and their parents separated at our borders and living in prisons.

It is the same courage which Jesus proclaimed when he challenged the disciples to see life beyond having hands and feet, but to seek for something far greater.  It is that courage which the Holy Spirit inspires within us to go not just beyond our comfort zones but to delve into the arena of self-sacrificial love. This is the love that proclaims God’s redemption to a broken world. This is a love that pushes us to challenge unjust systems and hold ourselves and others accountable to God. Courage says I am willing to do anything to sustain the love of God, for my life belongs to Him and Him alone. To do that in a world where selfies and self-love easily create myths demands courage. Yet, Jesus declares I will be with you through it all even to the very end of the ages.

My friends it takes courage to be a Christian.


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    Rev. Canon, Andy Moore 

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St Elizabeth’s
305 N. Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07207

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