St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church - Elizabeth, NJ
8:00 AM In Person Low Mass/ Liturgy of The Eucharist - 10:00AM Service Via Zoom
  • 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
  • Jobs
  • 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
  • Jobs

Healing thru Redemption

2/6/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mark 1:38   He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

 My favorite Character in Super Smash Mario is Captain Falcon. He has some of the best moves, but sadly his rivals are aware of all his weak spots.  Jerome or even Zara can easily defeat me, and they will always ask why I keep choosing the strong loser.  Adia, who often times will share a wisdom way beyond her age, responds, “Don’t you see Daddy just likes playing with us!” as she resets the game for more defeats for Captain Falcon.

My friends, today we witness Jesus participating in a conflict in which the church and we Christians will often times find ourselves.  Many will hope an encounter with Jesus would be one in which Jesus and by extension, the church becomes the local spiritual, health and financial care hub.  After the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, we witness the whole community bringing all who were ill and mentally disturbed to Jesus for His healing.  This got to the point where even Jesus became mentally, spiritually and physically exhausted.  The human desire for easy answers to life’s complicated questions can often times lead us into places where caregivers and receivers enter very unhealthy relationships; lines easily get blurred, ministry becomes compromised, and the work of God becomes diminished.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a lot about us socially. We discovered much about human relationships as lockdowns became lock-ins.  As relationships became reoriented, power and control shifted; love went deeper; buried resentment surfaced; new love languages were discovered, and expressions of peace found new creative outlets.  We discovered underlying conditions are not only physical health conditions, but human weaknesses that apply to every facet of our lives. This week we are witnessing a growing awareness of the disparities in the rollout of the vaccination in urban communities.  These disparities are the outcome of an elixir of mistrust, misinformation, and lack of accessibility; all part of the underlying conditions of poverty that continue to inflict death and despair.

My people of God, this is the crucible Jesus encountered as he set out to teach a new way of engaging in relationships with God and with one another. “That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.” (Mark 1:32-34)   Jesus entered into a world of human weaknesses on every level and was challenged in every way to provide much needed healing.  Jesus set out to engage people in the midst of their illness and anguish; however, He was well aware this sickness and suffering were symptoms of an underlying condition.  God did not send Jesus to become a physician, mental health care giver or exorcist.  As much as gifts were part of His work, His mission was the redemption of a broken world.  Sin and greed were the underlying conditions which led to the huge disparities in power, wealth and access to health care.  As soon as human beings discovered they could sell medicine, they were willing to see others die rather than give it away for free. Jesus became a threat to that health care system.  Jesus’ mission was greater than the reformation of health care; it was the redemption of the human soul.  Lost souls are anomalies; individuals deviating from their God-given purpose.  Life becomes a cycle of pain and brokenness for oneself and for those with whom one shares relationships.
 
St. Paul set out to be like a father playing Super Smash Mario choosing whatever character is available in order to engage us in the ministry of love.  One should know after the healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law, she immediately became a change agent, now a part of the solution.  “Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” (Mark 1:31)   Her whole life now became one of service to Almighty God; from patient to care-giver is the mission of the church and the call of Christ Jesus. We are invited by Jesus during this pandemic to allow God’s Holy Spirit to change and transform our very inner being in order to participate in this new world.
​
Increasingly, the nation is witnessing a greater awareness of the sin of racism in every sphere of our society.  Many are yet to accept it as the sin from which they benefitted and for which they should definitely hope for redemption.  But there is no redemption without confession and reparation.  As black Christians, we are urged to focus upon compassion and service.  We are uniquely blessed to bring much needed healing, wholeness, and education to our communities.  We are called to allow our faith to move us from patient to caregiver, victim to forgiver, hated to vessels of love, hopelessness to hope sharers.  This is only possible through Jesus Christ!



Read More
0 Comments

Every Changing Times

1/31/2021

0 Comments

 
Mark 1:27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

These are changing times is a love ballad sung by Aretha Franklin & Michael McDonald. It includes the words “Caught in between, it comes back to you and me. Running out of time we gotta find a better understanding.”

As we continue to journey through the season of Epiphany much is being revealed about who we are as a nation and what God is demanding of us as a faith community. As we watched with much elation and relief the inauguration of President Biden and V.P Kamala Harris we juxtaposed it with the riots and insurrection of January 6th, 2021. The insurrectionists having tested their methods at other Capitol buildings around the nation made bold their previous threats to use their power to stop the ‘ever changing times’.

My friends in the Gospel of St Marks reading, we witness the clash between the evil spirit which sought to impede the new thing that was about to revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus presents a clear difference between power and authority. Power is that which one claims for oneself while authority is that which is received from outside in order to perform a greater task. Authority gives power but power does not give authority. Epiphany 2021 revealed that the evil power of white privilege has never been confronted by the authority of the church. Many white Christians claim that evil power as essential to their faith. This week we saw the tectonic plates of the financial world experiencing a major shift as ordinary investors used their authority against Wall Street power. Every major institution needs to pay attention. The Covid-19 pandemic has not only wrought death but created an environment within which every institution must reassess its relationship with power.

Thus, the Synagogue clash between the man with the evil spirit and Jesus is at its heart a tectonic shift of power.  For one to enter into a new relationship with God demands the repudiation or exorcising of the evil that dwells within. Unless the church provides the space for Jesus to exorcise the demon of white privilege then it is doomed to collapse. For too long it sought ways in which it can sustain an unhealthy accommodation until Jesus using his full authority declared no one can serve two masters. It is about the willingness to bow at the feet of Jesus and claim a new identity. Christianity demands a radical transformation not just of one’s viewpoint but the very basis upon which one can claim identity. Too many have sought to progress in the nation and by extension the church based upon white privilege thus stymying the work we are called to perform in our urban communities. Our nation stands at the crossroads between the brink of an abyss or a launching pad to new worlds.

This was the gift offered by Jesus Christ then and now. It all began with one man’s overcoming struggle to be willing to allow Jesus’ authority to reshape his power. This has been the underlying theme for the past weeks in Epiphany. Christian discipleship is a radical submission to the authority of Jesus which then empowers us to become servants of the living God. In other places it’s called conversion. It is that experience which often times our young people complain of missing from our worship experience. The authority of Jesus was displayed in the restoration of the full humanity of the demoniac, now no longer a person with an unclean spirit but now a messenger of the Good News. There is hope for all only when power comes with authority. Last two weeks we witnessed political authority being given to President Biden leaving his predecessor with power. GameStop stock is more valuable than Apple stock!

To the prophetess Aretha we boldly declare and walk faithfully believing “These are changing time” The church like the demoniac “is caught between but it comes back to you and me.” Can it be saved to become an instrument of salvation? It’s all up to us as Christians to fully participate in the conversion experience. Yes, my friends there was much to fear when the demoniac roamed the halls of the synagogue and many cowered in fear of him. Jesus enters the space and reclaims it in the name of God! We are called to be sharing in the same ministry of entering into places of evil and redeem it in the name of God. In the words of the psalmist “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” (Ps.139:8)
Epiphany 2021 is truly becoming a season of revelation of God’s authority and power! Let us now claim it to restore his world.


Read More
0 Comments

Saving a Bigot...

1/16/2021

0 Comments

 
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth. "Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, “Come and see.” John1: 43-46

John begins his creation narrative by casting a sharp contrast between darkness and light. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:5&9)

The church has traditionally used the season of Epiphany to delve deeper into an understanding of Jesus as the light of the world. Possibly, this may be due to the desire to help the world wrestle with the long dark winter nights. Light satisfies our human need for warmth and comfort.  John uses a unique narrative of the incarnation as light to express God’s love and his wonderful act of salvation for all in a metaphysical realm.

Thus, when we set out on January sixth of this year to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we were totally unprepared for what the day’s events will reveal about the depth of darkness that has overshadowed this nation. The Christian ideals of goodness and love collided with the evils of greed, bigotry, and brokenness.

The horrible killings and insurrection that we witnessed on January sixth was a carnival of bigotry beyond what any of us has witnessed in recent history.   Confederate flags waving in the Capitol building!  A noose attached to a wooden beam erected on the front of the Capitol building! 

Note well, bigotry has always been part of the very fabric of this nation.  Bigotry is tightly interwoven into the white American narrative of democracy and theocracy.

As the great and mighty advocate and fugitive slave Frederick Douglass wrote in 1845, when the nation was only about 70 years old, “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive one as good, pure and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked.”
So, from the very creation of this nation, white theocracy was actively involved in the sin of systemic racism.  It created a theological vacuum by denying the humanity and soul of our people.  But the black Christian rejected the hypocrisy and iniquity of the white church.   The white church continues today to be complicit in systemic racism in the evangelical cry to take back America. There was even a Bible toting insurrectionist!

The black church today continues to be the light and the voice crying out for justice and real-life salvation from the hell of social injustice emanating from every institution in the nation … including the church. This all comes to the forefront as we prepare to celebrate the life work and witness of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Dr. King’s teachings of love and peaceful resistance clashed last week with the dark words of President Trump that incited violence and death in the capitol of democracy … all in the full glaring light of the world on the Feast of The Epiphany 2021!

My friends, in today’s Gospel reading, John introduces to us a Jewish bigot. It is fascinating and revealing to witness the conversion of Nathanael.  His bigoted question, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” is probably often applied also to the people of Elizabeth, NJ, and every other place where large populations of people of color live … anywhere in the world including the very ghettos of Palestine today.

We encounter Nathanael possibly wrestling with his bigotry while mulling under a fig tree when Philip calls him. We witness the conversion of Nathanael in his realization that without Nazarenes there will be no Christianity.  My friends, the work of Phillip was to usher Nathanael to Jesus and away from bigotry.  This was pivotal to the survival of early Christianity. Without Phillip there may not have been an orthodox Jew willing to embark on intentional discipleship. Phillip’s baptism of the African Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40) shows us that without Gentiles, there will be no church. It also reveals the early presence of the African in God’s work of reconciliation of His world.

And guess what, my friends?  Just like without black labor there will be no prosperous USA, without black people there will be no authentic Christianity in America. These truths bring us to a truer understanding of what Epiphany is at its heart – it’s a day and period of reckoning that ushers in a new era of spirituality, reconciliation, and renewal.

 For many years we have sought through many arenas to call the wider society through the church to the work of reconciliation. At the heart of Christianity is the call of reconciliation “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor.5:19) Anything otherwise is sinful.  Yet the church persisted in sustaining the brokenness rather than urging its members to surrender their white privilege and work towards the healing that was needed. 

Now, we find ourselves at another dark point in our history and we are being asked to help dismantle a system that has victimized us and that we had no part in creating. Epiphany of January 6, 2021, revealed that the light has once again broken through the darkness and a deafening call is being made for all to work to defeat the evil of racism. How do we walk forward into the light?

By revealing Nathanael’s bigotry against the Nazarene community, John’s gospel today also makes us witness the manner in which Jesus dismantles this deep-seated human sin. Jesus tells Nathanael, “I saw you before Philip.” In other words I knew you when you were struggling with your bigotry. In other words, Jesus made it clear to Nathanael that he knew him as an individual not by his heritage or whatever he sought to lay claim to for his legitimacy. It seems that Jesus’ approach to conversion was not a bold upfront demand but a guarded engagement.

Similarly, for too long we have invited the church to see the urban community not as a community to look down on and to pity, but as Christian brothers and sisters who are actively participating in the redemption of the world.  Too often, the church has refused to look at us in this way. The black church learnt the fine art of cautious engagement. Any reading of W.E.B Du Bois, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes M.L.K, Fredrick Douglas or Ta-Nehisi Coates one can discover the theme of cautious engagement.

 As urban communities we are well aware of the lack of social power that we marginalized people of color experience in every sphere of our lives.  From a very early age, we have been taught to be extremely cautious and guarded in engaging with the wider society and to avoid confrontation. Our experiences have taught us that we are often wrongly perceived as threatening and engagement with the other can sometimes cost us our lives.  Thus, we see recognize Jesus’s cautious engagement with Nathanael is totally different from his call to Peter, John, and James with whom he was certainly more comfortable.

 Jesus had to save Nathanael from his bigotry. He had to retool him to use his passion not to protect a collapsing heritage but to help build a new world built for the glory of God. And this is the work we, too, are being given to do: save the church from the sin of racism and bigotry for the glory of God.  This may place us in the darkness of uncertainty much like a fig tree.  But Christianity demands a level of powerlessness to engage with the world.  As St. Paul declares, “God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. (6:14)”. Our power will be God-given.

Power of God to confront the evils of the world seems to be more open in his demands. Its like training a wild animal we do so with cautious engagement! No different than the dynamics of Samuel as the only one to confront Eli on the evils of his heritage. (1 Sam.3:18) Jesus needed Phillip!
​
Let us like Phillip call the nation forward to the light of Christ which brings judgement along with hope and new pathways forward. We are called to be like Samuel and Phillip calling Eli and Nathanael out of the comforts of their bigotry to begin the difficult work of discipleship. WE do this remembering the words of Jesus Christ “be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” Cautious engagement !

Read More
0 Comments

Watch Night Sermon

12/31/2020

0 Comments

 
“When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child”, Luke 2:17

So, here we are again standing on the cusp of another year; truly, no one regrets saying farewell to 2020.  The year was one overshadowed by the pandemic titled, COVID-19; it was not only an unprecedented illness but, in many forms, demonic.  It bought pain, fear, grief, and untold loss in lives and livelihoods; it drove us away from families, friends, and human relationships; it droves us away from workplaces, schools, movies, parks and even from our church buildings.  Many lives were lost, and when combined with the inability to grieve in traditional ways, we were left empty, lonely, and angry. 
​
2020 also revealed the combination of politics driven by the twin evils of greed and racism which were so palpable, they became a shroud of deep-seated bitterness.  The thin veneer of normalcy was ripped away by the vulgarity of the public execution of George Floyd along the horrible attempts to cover up the murders of Breonna Taylor and other unarmed and poor black people.  These atrocities have led to an ongoing revolution the likes of which we have not witnessed since the sixties.

My friends, all of these cruelties combined with so many ongoing crises can be the evidence of the work of an alternative power which seeks in every way to negate the presence and power of goodness, hope and joy. Yet, this evermoving force of time brings us again to a new year.  Many began 2020 lacking the sobriety that new beginnings and fresh starts often demand.  Many of us will prefer to remain stuck in the chasm of yesterdays and times far long gone.  Many of us will not trust the future based upon things all that was exposed in the fires of COVID-19, institutionalized racism and institutions which are no longer viable enough to support us in our new future. Yet, there are those who will grasp the world of ZOOM, MasterClass, Google Class and all the other leaps of progress which have been developed during the year of 2020.
​
My friends, as the shepherds discovered Jesus buried beneath swaddling clothes in a cold animal trough, they unearthed something truly amazing. Their amazing discovery remains an ongoing, unfolding mystery. The discovery was that the powerful presence of God cannot be denied, smothered, or limited by all the combined forces which may seek its elimination.  For over 2020 years the Good News of Jesus Christ has lived on through plagues, wars, slavery, communism, capitalism, and despotic leaders.  As we also stand in the same theological space as the shepherds, we are called to proclaim the same message, Tell the world that God is with us.  Our churches will be called to do something in new and exciting ways. We will need to configure ourselves differently. We may need to continue to congregate in new ways and maybe in different spaces, and yet, the message remains the same, Go tell the world that Jesus Christ is born!

Read More
0 Comments

The Lights of Advent

12/12/2020

0 Comments

 


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    Rev. Canon, Andy Moore 

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    December 2017

    Categories

    All
    Sermon

    RSS Feed

    Picture

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

Weekend Service Times
Sunday: 8:00am, 10:00am
Full Schedule

Picture