As I walk and live in this stage of my life, good friends and companions whom I have known and loved on this earthly pilgrimage are no longer here. Jane Nies was one of them and she is now in the fullness of eternity with God.
I was privileged to be the homilist at her funeral which took place at my former parish, All Saints, Winter Park, FL. Jane and her husband Perry, became friends during the 12 years I served as Rector, and beyond.
In my homily, I spoke of the radiance of her life, her lifelong seeking for spiritual, intellectual, and psychological growth in her Christian journey.
I visited Jane’s family after her death, a visit filled with radiance and joy and laughter. Perry shared with me the love that he and Jane had for their summer remote Island home by the sea in Maine. They were surrounded for years and years by all that natural beauty, beholding and contemplating. They grew in their awareness that the natural beauty was not simply external, but was within them as well. In other words, they were aware of their oneness with the seen and the unseen beauty and mystery of God.
They lived at the intersection of two landscapes, where the vital interplay between the material and spiritual, the visible and invisible nourished their souls.
The Gospel lesson and text for my homily:
Luke 12:27-31
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
Jane was a seeker of God and God’s Kingdom, God’s active presence and sufficiency. She had a heart filled with radiance, the radiance of God’s love. My life was enriched by her friendship. May she continue to grow in the glory and radiance of Christ and eternity.
I hope my reflections will bring hope and encouragement to you to behold the radiance in your life and of those you love.
In the gospel reading for the third Sunday of Advent, the imprisoned John the Baptist asks the most heart-breaking question in the bible and asks it for all of us: ‘Are you the one … or must we wait for someone else?
When this inquiry is conveyed to Jesus, the Lord does not respond theoretically, but rather by pointing to things that are happening, namely, God’s grace is making people whole again. “Go tell John what you see and hear.”
When I was serving as a priest in the Diocese of Colorado, I had the gift of learning from my Bishop, Bill Frey. I will never forget how often he would proclaim:
“Hope is the song of the future and faith is the courage to dance to its melody today.”
This is simply what Jesus says to John the Baptist and to us. He is asking us to look and to listen to concrete events. Jesus is effecting something. Something is happening in Jesus. Exactly what Isaiah 35 says will happen when the Messiah come. The Desert is Blooming!
Suddenly things are happening. We can see and hear the effects of Jesus in the world. He is the One who is with us in all of the joys and sorrows of our lives. We are never alone.
This is my homily from the Second Sunday of Advent at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Orlando, Florida at the 8:00 am service. I enjoy the quiet contemplative atmosphere of the first Eucharist of the day as it gives me a reflective approach to offering my engagement with the Gospel reading.
I have returned to Emmanuel for the month of December as they prepare to welcome their new Rector, Fr. Jonathan Turtle in January. It is a gift for me to express the joy of a life long journey as a priest.
May it bring you wisdom, and above all, deep hope in the friendship of God.
It was a gift today to serve as a Supply Priest at Christ The King Parish in Lakeland, Florida. We lived in Lakeland in 1981-1982 when I was serving as Assistant Rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church (sadly no longer a congregation). The Gospel Story of Jesus being welcomed by the two sisters Martha and Mary gives us much to ponder in the times we are living in. (Lk 10: 38-42).
Fr. Ron Rolheiser, Roman Catholic Priest says it well:
”Today, a number of historical circumstances are blindly flowing together and accidentally conspiring to produce a climate within which it is difficult not just to think about God or to pray, but simply to have any interior depth whatsoever… We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion… pathological busyness, distraction, and restlessness are major blocks today within our spiritual lives.”
This is the antidote is given by Jesus: “Do not focus on the many things of distraction, but focus on the one thing necessary – the unum necessarium.
It was Mary, said Jesus, who chose the better part: being present to the presence of God. It was choosing to be in loving union with the Real Presence of Jesus, interpersonal engagement, and to sit at his feet, listening to his word, being still in his presence. Mary took the posture of an apprentice to a teacher. She was becoming a disciple, a follower of The Way. And it will not be taken away from her – it alone is enduring.
Like both Martha and Mary, we are invited to ground our lives, our words and our actions in the grace, love, and presence of Christ. This is the pattern of Jesus: loving union first with his Father, then loving those he came to serve. Listening alway comes first.
I offer this meditation and prayer on the exquisite Hymn: Come Down O Love Divine, sung by Anglicans and Episcopalians around the world on Pentecost Sunday. The lyric was composed by Bianco de Sienna, Italy, in the 14th century. The tune is from Ralph Vaughn Williams. (I play an instrumentation of the melody I created for the prayer.)
It happens to be one of my most treasured hymns that has brought cleansing, illumination, and union with God in my journey and pilgrimage of life. It frames the very heart of a transforming friendship with the Lord.
May you find a touch of the Spirit in my sharing with you.
With you on The Journey,
Rob+
Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing; O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
2 O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming; and let thy glorious light shine ever on my sight, and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
3 And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long, shall far outpass the power of human telling; for none can guess its grace, till Love create a place wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.
I have just returned from a wonderful invitation to lead a Mens Retreat for The Brotherhood of Saint Andrew of The Diocese of Oklahoma. My very good friend Fr. David Bumstead, The Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Tulsa OK, also invited me to Celebrate Eucharist, Preach, and Officiate at Evensong this past Sunday, May 8th.
Deeply encouraged by the vitality and life of this parish, as well as the new friendships made with the members of the Brotherhood, my cup is running over.
Hope this sermon from the Gospel for the day, John 10:22-30, captures the gift of “Confident Companionship” that is ours as we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow him. I begin with a few personal comments, and then the heart of my sermon.
Jesus’s ultimate parable of the return of the Prodigal Son speaks truth at every part of our journey through life. Jesus himself is the “parable of God” who is aways revealing the heart of the Father.
The heart of the Father is compassion and he sees us as we are and can be: made in original goodness, in God’s image. Returning home, we can grow in God’s likeness as well. This is no denial of our choosing the way of sin. However, sin is not our essence or our origin. Rather than low anthropology, we are of infinite value and worth. Our nature is the very image of God. The grace of God received heals, releasing us to grow “into his likeness” as we follow in his way.
In this Parable, we see how God loves us as his beloved children. This is our nature, our ontology, the truth of our being. And when we fall into sin and death, God is running towards us to welcome us home. This is captured so tenderly in Rembrandts magnificent painting of The Return of The Prodigal Son. In the very center, the Father extends his healing compassionate hands, and places them on the kneeling son. That image is God’s relentless love and welcome home.
I will die standing upon the truth of this more Christlike God whom Jesus has continually revealed.
The Picos De Europa in Cantabria, Spain
With you on The Journey,
My sermon today is taken from Philippians 4:4-7. It is a letter from jail to God’s people and it is saturated with joy. What helps me as I contemplate Paul’s advice to “rejoice always” is remembering that he writes his letter from prison, while awaiting trial and anticipating death.
It requires that we hold onto two realities at once: the reality of the world’s brokenness in one hand, and the reality of God’s love in the other.
Joy. It is growing in the attachment love of God for us, shifting our awareness to Christ in prayerful silence and words, and living in the peace and guarding of God.
With God, there is always joy. You always belong. You are always loved. You are deeply accepted by God. God will never leave you.
The guarding of the God of Life, Be on you,
The guarding of the loving Christ be, On you,
The guarding of the Holy Spirit, Be on you,
To aid and uphold you each day, And night of your life.
The guarding of God, The guarding of Christ, The guarding of the Holy Spirit,
I’m after a deep, authentic, and healthy Christian spirituality and life. It is my deepest longing. Spiritual formation and growth are my hearts desire. It has been my true north in parish ministry and my earthly pilgrimage. It still is.
Over the years, pastors have become many other things: visionaries, entrepreneurs, community organizers, social activists, social media experts—not all bad. Leadership today requires these kinds of skills.
Yet there is something more ancient, timeless: cureranimarum, “the Physician of Souls.”
This is the heart and core of my Ordination Vows, to be a spiritual guide, to awaken the souls desire and longing, and to induct others into the spiritual life. This is the central role of the life of a priest.
The Gospel story of the Rich Young Ruler, Mark 10: 17-31, reveals our deepest longing as human beings made in the Image of God. My sermon approached it with three dynamics:
1. DAWNING AWARENESS SOMETHING IS MISSING: THE GIFT OF LONGING
2. THE SACRED GAZE OF GOD: JESUS LOOKED AT HIM AND LOVED HIM.
3. ULTIMATE CONCERN – FOLLOW ME
As C.S.Lewis wrote in his magisterial book, Mere Christianity:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.
This is one of the most challenging of Jesus’s words to his apprentices on his way of crucified love.
It is challenging because Jesus is insisting that his disciples take themselves seriously. Not literally, but really, really seriously. And he’s inviting you to take yourself seriously, too.
To realize that what you say matters
To realize that what you do can have consequences greater even than what you might imagine.
Our lives matter. Our words matter. As followers of the Way, we have unrealized power either to bless and build up, or to become a stumbling block, an impediment to others causing them to lose hope, faith, and trust in the goodness and reality God. It is then that we need to hear Jesus say to us: “It would be better for you…”
Sometimes we need the “shock therapy” of Jesus to awaken us to the Great Inversion of God’s dream for humanity, which he revealed as The Kingdom of God. Our words and actions truly matter.
As I walk and live in this stage of my life, good friends and companions whom I have known and loved on this earthly pilgrimage are no longer here. Jane Nies was one of them and she is now in the fullness of eternity with God. 
In the gospel reading for the third Sunday of Advent, the imprisoned John the Baptist asks the most heart-breaking question in the bible and asks it for all of us: ‘Are you the one … or must we wait for someone else?
It was a gift today to serve as a Supply Priest at Christ The King Parish in Lakeland, Florida. We lived in Lakeland in 1981-1982 when I was serving as Assistant Rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church (sadly no longer a congregation). The Gospel Story of Jesus being welcomed by the two sisters Martha and Mary gives us much to ponder in the times we are living in. (Lk 10: 38-42).
I offer this meditation and prayer on the exquisite Hymn: Come Down O Love Divine, sung by Anglicans and Episcopalians around the world on Pentecost Sunday. The lyric was composed by Bianco de Sienna, Italy, in the 14th century. The tune is from Ralph Vaughn Williams. (I play an instrumentation of the melody I created for the prayer.)
