A sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent; Luke 13:31-35.

There’s a joke you’ve probably heard: a group of Episcopalians get together and decide to study the Bible. They approach their vicar and say, “Vicar! We want to study the Bible! What should we study? Where do we start?” The vicar, astonished and delighted at his apparent brilliance in shepherding this flock, says, “Ah, yes. How about the psalms? Read them for a few weeks, and come and tell me what you have learned, bring me your questions.” So they go off and crack open their Bibles in the very middle, finding the psalms, and they read them. A few weeks later, they come back to the vicar and say, “Vicar! This is a scandal! The Bible has copied the Book of Common Prayer!”

That’s not something that would happen in this congregation, coming as many of us do from traditions that started us off on the milk of Scripture, and grew us up into the prayers of this book (…of Common Prayer). Even if you’ve been Episcopalian your whole life, I’ve always found that this congregation takes Scripture with particular seriousness, for which I’m so grateful — I learn so much sitting around Bible study tables with you.

And so, it won’t have been lost on you that Jesus’ quotation this morning isn’t only a reference to those beloved psalms, number 118 to be precise (though I had to look up which number it was), but also part of the liturgy that we recite every single time we pray together for God to send his Holy Spirit to fill up the bread and wine with his very presence, that when we put it in our bodies, his presence would be strengthened in us, giving us energy, courage, discernment, and kindness to live as vessels of his love in the world. Continue reading →