March 19, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . The Fifth Station

The cross is laid on Simon of Cyrene

As they led Jesus away, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus..

After his “trial” by the religious authorities and his meeting with Pilate, Jesus suffered a number of physical traumas.  Roman guards spit on him.  He was whipped, leaving deep wounds on his back.  He was punched and slapped in the face.  A crown of thorns was beaten down onto his head.  He was verbally humiliated.  And then, after enduring all this, the Gospel of John records that he was forced to carry the instrument of his own death to the execution site.

The Synoptic Gospels do not record that Jesus carried his own cross, but they do record that the soldiers conscripted Simon to carry the cross for him.

In our own lives there are times we suffer physically.  There are times we suffer spiritually and mentally.  And there are times we suffer all three at the same time.  Sometimes, like in John, it feels like we are carrying these burdens of ours all by ourselves.  But other times, as in the other three gospels, someone is there to help us.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Don’t be afraid to allow someone to walk with you through whatever struggles you are facing.

This journey may be the most difficult thing you have endured; but as we discovered with Jesus, there is life on the other side.

Blessings,

**Stations of the Cross devotions are held every Wednesday in Lent at Noon at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church.  These services are also livestreamed for those who are unable to attend in person.  https://www.stlukesbuffalo.church/services

March 12, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . The First Station

Jesus is Condemned to Death

“As soon as it was morning, the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate.  And they all condemned him and said, ‘He deserves to die’.”

In the First Station, an innocent man is condemned to death through the machinations and alliances of religious and government leaders looking for an expedient way to dispose of a troublemaker.  His trial before the religious authorities was a kangaroo court where the verdict was already predetermined.  The governmental leaders, not wanting to upset the powerful religious leaders, found a legal way to execute the accused.

In our own day we need to be watchful for, and wary of, the joining of religion and government.  A religion that insists on controlling the government, and a government that insists on one religion, are both dangerous combinations.  We have seen the terrible results of these alliances from the time of Jesus on down through our own day.

May we have the courage to speak out against anti-Christ behaviors.  May we be willing to act counter to mob mentalities.  May we be willing to be condemned for putting Christ first.  And may we respond as Jesus did:  with dignity, compassion, and unyielding loyalty to God alone.

Blessings,

**Stations of the Cross devotions are held at Noon (MDT) at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church every Wednesday in Lent.  These services are also livestreamed for those who are unable to attend in person.  https://www.stlukesbuffalo.church/services

March 5, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . The Prayer Boat

At this past Monday’s weekly prayer group, we were talking, of all things, about prayer.  It was said, “Sometimes I think people view prayer only as an emergency lifeline that is used when things get tough.”  They went on to say (and I’m paraphrasing here) that prayer should be the engine that drives everything and not simply the spare tire used when we’re in a crisis.

To which I responded with something like, “Prayer should be the boat we’re in to navigate the waters of life, not the rescue boat that comes to save us when we’re drowning.”

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  At each service (7:00, Noon, and 6:00) I will invite the people to the observance of a holy Lent.  Part of this observance includes “prayer, fasting, and self-denial.”  As I’ve said before, whatever our Lenten disciplines, they should not be disciplines taken on for the simple sake of being miserable over the next 40 days.  Lent is about making a lasting change that leads to a new life as represented in the new life Easter brings. 

Thinking about this past Monday’s prayer group, prayer and our approach to prayer might be a good Lenten discipline.  Asking yourself how and when you pray, and then giving an honest answer, could be a good place to reevaluate your prayer life.  Do you pray on a regular basis?  Is your primary time of prayer on Sunday morning?  Do you primarily pray when there’s a crisis of some kind?  When you pray, do you spend time listening?  This is not an exhaustive list of questions, but you get the idea.

If you primarily view/use prayer as a rescue boat coming to save us in time of trouble, this Lent might be a good time to get into that boat and use it on a daily basis to help navigate the daily currents of life.

Blessings,

February 26, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Bishop Michael Curry

Michael Curry was born on March 13, 1953, in Maywood, IL.  Both sides of his family were descended from slaves and sharecroppers in North Carolina and Alabama.  He has a long line of Baptist ministers in his family, with both his grandfather and great-grandfather serving as Baptist ministers.

He tells the story of a time his family was visiting an Episcopal church in Ohio, and that blacks and whites had normally been separated at church services.  However, during this particular visit, both blacks and whites were allowed to drink from the same common cup at Communion.  That incident drove home the belief that in God’s eyes and in the Episcopal church, all people were equal, and that led Curry’s Baptist family to become Episcopalian.

Curry spent time in Buffalo, NY, (and at his last diocesan visitation as Presiding Bishop, thank the Wyoming delegates for Josh Allen) where he was ordained to the diaconate.  He was ordained as a priest in 1978 and served churches in North Carolina, Ohio, and finally Baltimore before being selected as Bishop of North Carolina in 2000.  He became the first African-American diocesan bishop south of the Mason Dixon Line.  He was active in social justice issues, immigration, and marriage equality.  On June 27, 2015, he was elected as Presiding Bishop on the first ballot, becoming the first African-American to serve in that role.

During his time as Presiding Bishop, he launched “The Way of Love” program and was often quoted as saying, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”  This stance was the basis for his support of marriage equality, saying, “Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.”

Bishop Curry is a dynamic preacher, teacher, and leader who understood “All means All, y’all,” and has never been afraid to stand up for Gospel justice.  May we today have that same devotion to love, equity, and inclusion as our former Presiding Bishop.

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And give us the strength and courage to work for justice, freedom, and peace in the face of opposition, while respecting the dignity of every human being.  Amen.

February 19, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in either 1817 or 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland.  Having an unspecified birthdate, he chose February 14 as his birthday because his mother called him her “Little Valentine.”

At the age of six he was separated from his family, eventually being sent to serve a white family in Baltimore.  The Mistress of the house began teaching him to read, but then, influenced by her husband, stopped the lessons and hid all reading materials.  Frederick realized that knowledge was the pathway to freedom and taught himself to read and write in secret.  He was eventually given to another owner who had a reputation for cruelty, and he whipped Frederick often.  On September 3, 1838, he escaped to freedom dressed as a sailor and carrying the identification and protection papers of a free black sailor, arriving in Philadelphia with a final destination of New York City the next day.

He was religiously active and spoke out often against the church’s complicity in slavery and their hypocrisy.  Douglass accused slaveholders of wickedness, a lack of morality, and a failure to follow the Golden Rule.  He made distinctions between the “Christianity of Christ” and the “Christianity of America,” considering religious slaveholders and clergy who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all.

In What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery due to political expediency or not wanting to offend anyone, and he charged that ministers committed a blasphemy when they taught it as sanctioned by religion.  He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God."

Frederick Douglass became a great orator and writer, and he reminds us that the Church cannot sit idly by in silence when any of God’s children are mistreated, abused, and/or neglected.

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And give us the strength and courage to work for justice, freedom, and peace in the face of opposition, while respecting the dignity of every human being.  Amen.

February 12, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the son and grandson of Baptist preachers, and became the pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, AL, in 1954.  He became the face of the equality movement following the arrest of Rosa Parks when he led the Montgomery bus boycott.

Like Saint Paul, King faced a variety of obstacles and persecutions:  his home was dynamited, he was stabbed, harassed by death threats, and jailed over 30 times.  And on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN.

While in jail in Birmingham for participating in a non-violent equality march, he wrote a response to the public concerns of eight white clergymen.  In that letter he made the following statements:

            Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

            Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

            You deplore the demonstrations . . . but do not express concern for the conditions that                                    brought the demonstrations into being.

            Privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

            Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the                                           oppressed.

            We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal.”

            It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

            Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love?

            Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the

                        cause of justice?

The whole letter can be found here, and I would encourage you to read it in its entirety, as we are facing the same issues of division, hatred, oppression, and injustices today that Martin Luther King, Jr., faced then.

We must answer today the questions he asked of the white pastors of Birmingham in 1963: 

Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love?  Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

His Feast Day on the Church Calendar is April 4 (alternate day, January 15).

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And give us the strength to work for justice, freedom, and peace, while respecting the dignity of every human being.  Amen.

February 5, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Absalom Jones

Absalom Jones was born a house slave in 1746 in Delaware.  As a child he taught himself to read using the New Testament and other books.  When he was sixteen he was sold to a store owner in Philadelphia where he attended a night school for Blacks operated by the Quakers.  He married another slave when he was twenty and purchased her freedom with his earnings.  He was eventually able to purchase his own freedom in 1784.

He attended St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church where he served as a lay minister for its Black membership.  He was an active evangelist and helped to increase Black membership at the church.  This increase, however, scared the parish vestry, and they moved to segregate their Black members into the upstairs gallery.  When the ushers tried to remove them, they all walked out, never to return.

In 1787, Black Christians organized the first-ever Free African Society, with Absalom Jones and his friend Richard Allen elected as overseers.  The Society connected with similar groups in other cities, collected dues to benefit those in need, and built St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, which was dedicated on July 17, 1794.

Parishioners of St. Thomas applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania with the following conditions: 1) they be received as an organized body; 2) they have control over local affairs; and, 3) that Absalom Jones be licensed as a lay reader and ordained, if qualified, to the ministry.  The church was admitted to the diocese in October of 1794, and Bishop William White, the second bishop in the Episcopal Church, ordained Absalom Jones to the diaconate in 1795 and as a priest on September 21, 1802.

During his time there, he denounced slavery and preached that God was always on the side of the oppressed and distressed.  The church gained 500 members in its first year.

His Feast Day on the Church Calendar is February 13.

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And gives us the strength to work for justice, freedom, and peace, while respecting the dignity of every human being.