Sermon on the Feast of Saints Agnes and Cecelia of Rome, Martyrs

Society of St. John the Evangelist Chapel, Cambridge, Massachusetts

21 January 2025  

“Jesus called a child, whom he put among them, 3and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 18:2 

Agnes and Cecilia of Rome were martyrs of the early church and were both slain in brutal fashion under the orders of two different Emperor in the third and fourth centuries.  Agnes was as young as 12 years old when she refused to surrender her virginity and be forced into a marriage to her father’s choice of pagan suitors, to whose deities she would be forced to worship. Cecelia, the patron saint of poets and musicians, was an earlier martyr, murdered by her persecutors either by burning at the stake or by beheading depending on the ancient accounts. She was married, though her sexual chastity was preserved when she managed with the help of angels to convince her pagan husband, again, chosen for her, to abstain from marital relations. He himself was converted to Christ and was martyred, along with his brother, after he refused to pay allegiance to the pagan god. While burying them, Cecelia was arrested and soon condemned to death. To refuse to worship the gods of his time was simultaneously a refusal to submit to the sovereignty of the emperor—religion and state being so intertwined and seen as identical 

 There is much to plumb here as we find ourselves in a period of emerging religious, even Christian, nationalism. There are real perils of a too-close entanglement of religious adherence and worldly powers. From the martyrdom of Agnes and Cecelia all the way to the martyrs of Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the hand of a Third Reich that clothed itself in the cloak of a state church close to a century ago, to the current rise of the Taliban and its cruel and brutal treatment of women and those termed infidels in Afghanistan, these are all just a few examples that can be warnings at what’s at stake when an emperor, a dictator, califate, even an democratically elected president may be so seduced to claim God as justification for exercising domination over a people. And it works the other way as well, the Church has also sought secular military power to exercise its less than loving, less than holy will upon unwilling and coerced followers. Bumper stickers in 2025 on Interstate 93 display assault rifles, arranged into the shape of a red, white and blue cross.  

Jesus speaks about the necessity to change to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The observance suggests that we must be like Agnes or Cecelia, in their purity and steadfast faith to inherit God’s embrace and to share in his reign. This feast reminds us that it is the powerless and the vulnerable, the pure and the childlike by whom God shames the powerful and the self-righteous and to redeem the world. 

This may be at first quite puzzling and challenging to our ordinary way of understanding. I keep thinking I’m middle aged, but the number of my years tell me a different story, that I’m not so young anymore, so I search for a concept of childlikeness that is not related to chronological age. I am married with children, so I wonder if it is possible to claim a state of virginity that is not related to physical genital intactness or sexual history. How does one change, as Jesus tells us we must, to become like children? How can I be more like Agnes and Cecelia? 

 In writing about the interior life, Thomas Merton compares how a child and adult see the world the world. Merton wrote, “There’s a difference between a child’s vision of a tree, which is utterly simple, uncolored by prejudice, and “new,” and the lumberman’s vision, entirely conditioned by profit motives and considerations of business. The lumberman is no doubt aware that the tree is beautiful, but this is a purely platonic and transient consideration compared with his habitual awareness that it can be reduced to a certain number of board feet at so much per foot.”  Now, I need to interject that Merton’s comparison is a little unfair, and he had not met those involved in the timber industry that I have known in New Hampshire who are more enlightened about sustainable harvesting and renewal of forests. But we get Merton’s point. There is a difference in seeing the world as an utterly new, pure gift, in wonder and curiosity, versus something that must be manipulated, controlled, or put here for our use for our own good without regard to the unexplainable mystery of life. To become like a child is to see things not merely for personal or national acquisition, but as part of a realm that draws us into a relationship beyond mere getting. 

Jesus says that to inherit the kingdom we are to change and become like a child. To see all those whom God places before us as different from us, and yet at the same time intimately bound to us, is to expect Epiphanies every day, if not every moment. One sees a tree for its tree-ness, these dances of green, white, and black in the marble on this floor for their essence, in its particular marble-ness. And we see people for their unique specialness as children of God, not as things from which to extract what we can or against which to defend for the benefit of our fragile ego.   

Here’s a pre-Lenten confession: Over the decades of my coming to this chapel I have come to see the seating arrangement in this chapel as itself a kind of elementary school to become more childlike. When I’ve seen colleagues or friends, or even unfamiliar faces enter, and I sit across from them, see their faces, instead of the back of their heads as I so often would in a church.  Instead, I see a human being, come into a space dedicated to the presence of God.  Sometimes, I have seen faces that disrupt my inner peace, or for whom I have felt envy, coveting their reputation or position or gifts in the Church or society. Or I have felt annoyance and even inner turmoil because of some unresolved conflict or grudge. I wonder, how do I rate or rank, compared to them in this project called the spiritual life? Merton’s lumberman is never far from us. How readily can we move from a childlike wonder and curiosity that says, “Oh my, look who’s here? What are you showing me now, O God?” to the attitude of Merton’s lumberman, that says, “How many board-feet for the sake of my ego can I get out of that person?” Or, “I hope that person is not going to chop me down and cut me up.”  Agnes and Cecelia teach us a simpler, purer, liberating way to follow Jesus, even to the end. 

We are entering a time of great uncertainty. The holders of powers of this world can be insecure and act with utter brutality. There are martyrs like Agnes and Cecelia, of many faiths, all over the world.  They may be mostly hidden from our awareness as we live in a country and place where their stories may seem far-off. It must be said: We cannot be certain that our Church, in our own nation, will not face similar calls to martyrdom as Agnes, Cecelia, Bonhoeffer, and the countless saints who courageously chose to love in the midst of fear and hatred. To obey Jesus’ call to change and become childlike in our faith will most certainly be ridiculed, outright reviled, even persecuted. Our society appears bent on getting the most board feet out of people and resources rather than practicing wonder and stewardship, to see each other anew, as though for the first time, as though born once more from above. 

May God bless us with such pure and faith and vision as Agnes and Cecelia. And may we have the will to change and become like children, knowing ourselves to be held as close to God as these blessed martyrs in their time of trial.  Amen. 

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Sermon at the Ordination of the Rev. AJ Boots to the Sacred Order of Priests

Chapel of the Apostles, School of Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee

15 January 2025

Text: John 10:11-18

Hearing Jesus’ speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd on the occasion of an ordination to the priesthood invites some comparisons. Jesus places himself squarely in the role occupied by other leaders and kings in his tradition. The prophets speak of God as the shepherd who will protect God’s people God from threats both within and outside the nation of Israel. The prophets also warn against bad shepherds who seek only their own good or well-being and not that of God’s people.

The longed-for Messiah, the annointed one for whom Jesus’ people have long prayed and hoped for is a thought of as a Good Shepherd, on the model of David himself. David who from youth was a shepherd, who, eager to convince King Saul to allow him into battle against Goliath, talks about how he defends his vulnerable sheep from the threats of lions and bears, seizing them by the jaws and killing them with his bare hands, even as a youth.

Jesus places himself in that long heritage of shepherds who have guided, protected, defended, sought out, rescued sheep. It’s a powerful metaphor, made powerful because it is rich in that it has many layers of meaning and history. And Jesus adds something new to the field of meaning of the pastoring. He says he is the Good Shepherd, not only for seeking the lost, but this closeness, the knowing of each sheep by name and character. Not only for this, but also for the fact that he loves each one...even unto death. Unlike the hired hand for whom the sheep are just means to make a living, the Good Shepherd has a relationship of care of love, of devotion: “I know my own and my own know me.” That Good Shepherd is good primarily because of that bond of compassion and love. The shepherd’s future, his own identity and well-being, are so interwoven with the sheep’s prospering that he is willing to lay down his life and be slain by a predator at the sheepgate. Indeed, he tells us that his quite literally is the sheepgate. If predators seek the sheep, they will have to defeat this Good Sheperd first, who it seems from Jesus’s slant on this, won’t be able to put up much of a fight and may actually lay down his life for the sake of the flock. Somewhat different attitude than what we heard from David seeking Saul’s permission to go into battle. Instead, Jesus’ strength is of a different sort. He says he’s willing to go further, and to do even the work of defeating death itself by dying.

Strange that in stained glass windows, we don’t see the Good Shepherd being attacked by wolves, foxes, bear. We see images of Jesus carrying one lost sheep or lamb back to safe pasture on his shoulders, or we see images of Jesus walking with a flock and a shepherd’s crook. We don’t see him on the ground as food for lions or bears or wolves. Instead, we see him on a cross, the slain by human sin, human fear and hatred. Human brutality done religion seeks the power of empire, and empire takes advantage of religious hatred.

Last month I confirmed a woman who decided to join this particular branch of God’s church after sensing that there was something missing from the local church where she had been involved for decades. The collusion of Christianity and political power, she said, was beginning to give her a bad feeling. But that’s not how she described it. She said “I didn’t understand it....it felt off for some reason, but I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t put words to my feelings. I’m not good with words. I prayed about it for several years. I hoped that God would help me get why I was feeling the way I was, or show me how to adjust. Then I was in a Bible study. We were studying the Sermon on the Mount. You know, ‘Blessed are the meek. Bless are you who mourn. Blessed are the poor’ You’re blessed when people say nasty things about you and spread lies about you.’ We were talking about all those strange “blesseds” and what it would be like to hear Jesus say those things today. The pastor leading our group said, ‘I wonder if we really need to talk about this Jesus here anymore. I mean, Jesus just doesn’t fit our agenda here anymore. Besides, I don’t think he really said these things. I mean, he comes off as so weak! Jesus is weak but we need a God of strength right now. We can’t be weak anymore. We need to be about strength.’”

So now, a few weeks later, we welcomed a new Episcopalian. Sounds like a win. But to be honest, I hope and pray she doesn’t find a similar troubling theology, just expressed in different politics or a different kind of class identity, just wearing new L.L. Bean instead of grease-stained Carhart.

My family once lived very close to a shepherd in Northern New England. Duncan was a good shepherd, though tending a small flock was part of a whole assortment of jobs that allowed him to make ends meet. Raising sheep for wool was just one thing he did. I’ll never forget the days when he came out to the field near us with a bucket of creosote...that black coal tar that smells awful. He came because a couple of his lambs that after a sudden thunderstorm had run through a barbed wire fence. The rusty steel barbs wounded their flanks, quite severely. He had sheared the tufts of wool around the gashes and washed the wounds, treated them with some special soap. But only a few days later they were getting more and more open, and ugly. Indeed, wormy maggots found their way into the sores and were making matters much worse. The lambs bleated in pain when Duncan, scooped the creosote with his bare hands, and gently applied it directly into the wounds. The infesting worms fell off, and after the initial screams, the lambs felt the relief of the balm.

I wish they taught me how to apply creosote to maggots at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Maybe you do that here at the Sewanee. Or maybe, more likely, you don’t learn that unless you’ve been embedded for a long in a community of people with whom you saunter for food, scurry from storms, scrape across rusty barbs, and even become distracted by shepherds and leaders or trends whose intentions are less than beneficent or charitable.

AJ, as a priest, you are to proclaim God’s blessing, to anoint with both chrism at baptism and unction in healing and death, you are to proclaim that God is near, risen, healing, guiding, correcting, blessing. Blessing. A priest lives in the space of blessing. By that I mean, a priest assures that a good thing, a healing life-giving presence is at work, but those benefits and boons come from blood. Indeed the word blessing shares its root with the word blood. “Blessir” in French means not at all to bless as we mean it in English, but to wound. How else, why else, would we offer the sign of the cross, a sign of malice, torture, and death, when we offer a benediction. Blood and boon are connected. I have come to see the sign of the cross is God, through the priest, saying something like “I see you. I see you where you’re bleeding. I see you that you are enduring or accompanying. And I’m going there, too. I’m going right in there, into those wounds, too.” Making the sign of the cross at the eucharist, after confession, at a death bed has that meaning. Otherwise, it’s just saying, “Good luck with whatever you’re going through. See you next week!”

These are hard things to say, but they occur to one after meditating on the ministry of the Good Shepherd in silence for a long time. We all encounter the ministry of a Duncan, a Good Shepherd when we go for any period of time on retreat. It’s in silence when which the wounds of our lives come back to us, sometimes with a the spiritual equivalent of maggots and lice, once the anesthetizing busy-ness of work and vocation and striving wears off. To enter the life of a convent or a monastery—for a day, a week to is allow space for the pain of life to show itself. To read the ancient witness from the desert it should not be a surprise that shepherding souls into the blessing of silence is hard work. Silence is hard. The spiritual pests come to invade the ego that wants to keep up appearances. What appearance, of strength, of attractiveness, or achievement or accomplishment does a death on the cross really save or redeem. Not much. Your work, AJ, Sister Hannah, and our companions, in opening the Convent to the lost, the wounded, the searching, (which is all of us) is not really that different than my friend Duncan’s work with his bucket of coal tar and his tender and firm touch with healing balm, skillfully applied.

That of course is the heritage of the Sisters of St. Mary, of Constance and her Companions and the Martyrs of Memphis. They were following the call of the Good Shepherd even to the point of embodying the Good Shepherd’s ministry even as they lay down their own lives for those in their care under the ravages of Yellow Fever. Those who saw them in Memphis in 1878 saw the face of the Good Shepherd, ready to lay down his life for his beloved.

There may be a time, and it may be sooner than we can foresee, when deacons, priests, monks and nuns, bishops and any minister of this church will be called to such sacrificial service in the name of the Good Shepherd. The planet is plainly telling us, the gaping gaps in our economy is telling us, the incessant state of wars is telling us, that we are entering a time of trial, indeed the time of trial is upon us. This is a time when the disciplines of a spiritual life, the rigors of prayer and participation the sacraments are called for with eschatological urgency. Many are convinced it’s a time to shout and fight in righteous activism, like David against the Goliaths of our day. There is certainly warrant for this. And, I am one who believes that it is a time to first be still in the space between blood and balm, the space of blessing. We need priests today who are able to endure silence, and to find in silence and prayer the ground for right and creative action. We are here because we need priests like you, AJ. The strength we need from Jesus is the strength he always tells us about: to be willing to be wrong, to turn, to let go, to sacrifice, to appear to be an illogical fool, to even to die so that Resurrection Power may be made newly real.

Priests lead us by their shepherding to The Good Shepherd, who, thank God, is not you or me, except as we can lead God’s wounded people to a presence, which is The Presence, in the Risen Jesus.

AJ we are all eager to see the ways the Holy Spirit will inspire you to bless God’s people, God’s church, for the sake of the world. In the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. AMEN

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The Bishop's Christmas Message, 2024

I am aware that our culture, even that within the Church, doesn’t much engage in talk, sermons, or tracts about the mysterious infusion, comingling, fusing of the divine and human in Jesus Christ. Expositions from the ancient and medieval church that established what the church holds most dear about the mystery of the incarnation—the en-flesh-ment—of God in Jesus don’t have much allure these days. It seems our words and language has shifted. When we read from the ancients that “God became humans so that the human will become divine” I am not sure we pause to consider, to contemplate, to wonder, to marvel, enough to be changed, and to allow our relationships to each other, to our neighbors, even to ourselves, be fused with the wonder God desire for us in this season. There’s a lot to distract us, including, let’s be honest, a lot of church busy-ness. Important, but not astonishing. God comes on Christmas to astonish us out of the usual.

So, I have a Christmas wish for my dearly cherished friends in this corner of God’s kingdom in New Hampshire. Let each of us devote some time this season to wonder at God’s Presence come close. May we set aside an intentional moment to be silent, on a walk in the woods, or by a fireplace or candle, or in a quiet corner of your home, to realize how God, the source of all Being and love, and life, and truth, and forgiveness, and light, is making a home in you, in your body even, and in the soul and of your friends, and even your enemies. Make some time in the silence of our heart, or even at across a table, to be with someone from whom you’ve felt estranged or have missed. Be one of the shepherds, or oxen, or even the Magii, who set aside months of hard and risky travel probably, to approach the manger in the stall in Bethlehem.

What would happen if all humanity saw in each other the truth that there is not one person on this splendid and sorry planet who is not the focus of the infinitely intense love of a parent who, if not earthly, is God? And this is true whether they be Palestinian, Israeli, Sudanese, Syrian, Haitian, American, Russian, Ukrainian, black or white, indigenous or immigrant, young or old. That’s a theological and spiritual message that turns every political message on its head. That’s the message at the very root of every Christmas. If, in world weariness, you’ve given up on wondering that “what would happen if,” then allow this Christmas, and your faithful friends in Christ, to help refresh you with the hope and light of carols, candlelight, prayers and children’s joy.

The message—that the Word that was present before the creation of all worlds has become flesh and is dwells among us—is the present that we get to unwrap not only on the twelve mornings of Christmas, but every day of our lives.

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A Reflection Following the General Election of Nov. 5, 2024

Dear Friends in Christ,

I am writing to you, the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, my fellow disciples, with a reflection on the results of the 2024 general election.

The original twelve disciples of Jesus were a mixed bag to say the least. Politically they were all over the map. At one end, at least one of them hoped Jesus would foment an armed and religious rebellion against the occupying military force of Rome. On the other far end was Matthew, who had made himself comfortable by collecting taxes from his own oppressed people to fund the empire that was both feared and despised. There was probably a wide middle among the others who just saw in Jesus something they’d never seen before and wanted more of. And the women who followed the Rabbi were not of one mind or of one experience in their own relationship to their families, their society, or even to Jesus.

As I have come to know the disciples of the Church in New Hampshire, I sense we too are a mixed bag politically. Like the original band, we are all over map. We are socially liberal and conservative— though, let’s be honest, if we are purple, we are more “blue” purple than “red” purple. Most of us are careful about how we spend or invest our dollars. Most of us are reticent and respectful to the views of others. Many march and demonstrate in solidarity for the countless who suffer in this world. Most prefer to make their views known on these matters in the privacy of the kitchen or the ballot booth. Most of the New Hampshire Episcopalians I know, or who make themselves known to me, have very nuanced and sophisticated views that would not be fully reflected on either MSNBC or Fox News. They may tune into either, neither, or both. But the Jesus followers I know here are skeptical of extremes and are comfortable with “yes, but” or “on the other hand.”  And, characteristically, here I’ll hedge my bets and add, by and large. There are strong voices on the outer poles of the spectrum, of course, and, believe me, I hear them.

We seek to love because we know love is of God and love is our path to God. As St. Paul saw, without love, all our prophecies, statements, speeches, and pronouncements are but noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. 

Our world is not much different now than it was a week ago. There remain deep divisions within our society about financial, social, and foreign policies. There remain wide disparities in educational and economic opportunities. God speaks loudly to us with the effects of our mistreatment of the planet and each other. Hostility around race, gender, and immigration status continues. As one who allows that God still chastens those whom God loves, I even believe that God speaks to us in our present political failures, on the part of both parties, to bring healing to our persistent injuries. If we are a nation “under God” then may God have mercy on us for how we treat one another, our children, and the planet.

What has been revealed of late is deeply concerning to all of us: the anger, the hatred, the unabashed crudeness and impoliteness. If these elements of our society are given full vent, may our love for each other as a Church, especially for those who trouble or irritate us, imitate the love and kindness of our Savior. May the world know this church as a band of disciples, flawed, imperfect, often ragged, but always guided by a love that seek the face of God in our neighbor and ourselves.

We may not like it—I know I often do not like it at all—but the Twenty-Third Psalm reminds us that it is none other than the Good Shepherd who leads us out of desolate valleys to find our place at a table among those who trouble us, even our enemy. That’s how God brings about the Kingdom. Would that it were as simple as casting a vote behind a screen. But it’s not. 

Our following the Good Shepherd, our Teacher, and our Lord Savior in the time ahead of us will be much harder than that—and infinitely more beautiful and real. I pray we embrace our life together with the faith, hope, and love that God has given us.

 Yes, the work is hard and yes, I know we are all tired. Job number one is to take care of ourselves and each other. Love and reconciliation is the work of God, not the result of our striving and our fist shaking. We do not produce good fruit from the flood of fear/anger/grief that propels us to burn out, but from our wholehearted selves, rooted deeply in the presence of Christ. There is a Buddhist adage: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” A similar adage for us Jesus followers: “Before salvation, make your bed, brush your teeth, smile at your family. After salvation, make your bed, brush your teeth, smile at your family.” And may God hold us.

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Address to the 222nd Diocesan Convention, Oct. 26, 2024

Jesus makes some wonderful and positive statements about us, doesn’t he?  You are the salt of the earth. You sustain and preserve what is needed for life. You add savor, flavor, and wholesomeness to the world around you. You are needed. And you are the light of the world.  Light to see by. Light to energize. Light for life to grow and thrive. As light, you reveal what is hidden, to clear the dim paths when it it’s drear outside or inside. Your presence brightens sin-wearied souls. You are needed.  

And the light we are to inhabit and radiate is not merely for us but for the world. Don’t disguise it or try to stash it somewhere out of sight; do not hide your lightness. You are needed, not merely for the benefit of your local congregation, or of your neighborhood, but for the salvation of the world. Our saltiness, our light bearing, is not merely for our little corner of the planet, but for the whole cosmos, which is the word the Gospel uses to describe the world. Cosmos. The whole cosmos. Salt of the earth.  Light of the world.  That is who you are. Remember that. Cherish that. Deliver that. 

God knows that there is a lot at stake at how we internalize, how we are soaked through with God’s irrepressible life and expansive love and then reflect and radiate that good news to the cosmos. That’s what Jesus urged his disciples: Be salt. Be tenacious in your holding fast to God. Be radiant. Be aglow with the light of Christ. The world depends on us, each of us, in our kindness, in our pursuit of justice, and in our humble pilgrimage with God. Let your light shine, or the whole world will be continually benighted. 

This is why we began this worship by sprinkling the water (traditionally mixed with salt) of our baptism and we will soon renew our baptismal vows; to renew our identity, to remind us of each that we, each of us and all of us, are continually dying on the cross of Jesus and are continually bursting forth from the tomb. Remember, this is what we do in this diocese: We splash water. We eat together. We tell stories. God surprises. The salt by ancient traditional added as a healing compound in holy water, with which you were just splashed, and the light of Easter morning, emanating from this Paschal Candle.  That’s us, the church of the 21st century, same as it ever was.  

We hear a lot about spirituality these days. We hear of all the people disconnected from church, who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” who’ve found that organized religion doesn’t nourish their spirituality. We dismiss that criticism at our peril. If our proclamation of the gospel does not return us to the salt and light that Jesus sees in his followers, then we might as well close.  So, I want to talk about our spirituality here in the Church of New Hampshire. What does it look like? What does it taste like, sound like, feel like 

Sometimes I worry: Has our saltiness has been diluted? Do we sometimes dim the piercing brightness of the Gospel entrusted to us?  If our light does not shine, the whole world will be consigned to continual bleakness. 

This is not a message of hopelessness. Not in the least. This is, in fact, an amazing time. Indeed, it may be the most important time, in my six decades of being a Christian and of being a member of this straining, flawed and yet utterly sacred and beautiful church. I say that because this is a time where the stakes have never been more real. And to make God real to ourselves and others, is the task of all persons baptized, all persons, not merely bishops, priests and deacons, but principally all who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Salt, Light, Yeast, Living Water, a Living Vine...these are guiding images of how we season, enlighten, raise up, and draw others into a life in God. These are images that guide our prayers and actions to make God real to this real world  

This is the spiritual reality that is deeper than all our divisions, our conflicts, our inequities and injustices. This is the spirituality I long for all our churches to preach, to teach, to practice, embody and radiate. This the sermon each of us has sworn in our baptismal promises to proclaim not just the deacons, the priests, the bishops, but every one of us. “How beautiful will be the day,” said Archbishop Oscar Romero to a land torn apart by hatred and massive political violence in El Salvador in 1977:  

“How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, 
is a priestly work, that just as I celebrate Mass at this altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at his workbench, and each metalworker, each professional, each doctor with the scalpel, the market woman at her stand, is performing a priestly office! How many cabdrivers, I know, listen to this message there in their cabs? You are a priest at the wheel, my friend, if you work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God, bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab.” 
(Oscar Romero, “The Violence of Love,” Nov. 20, 1977)  

How beautiful will be the day when we the baptized in New Hampshire—as our first thought upon waking in the morning and as the last thing that crosses our minds upon our slumber—know ourselves as priests of God’s grace, guiding of all our speech and actions during the day. Whatever our occupation may be, we are Christ’s Body. 

We are living in perilous times, war, violence of both physical and spiritual injury or even death. As your bishop, I have had the astounding privilege of seeing, though we may be uneven and sometimes inattentive to the depth of our spiritual formation or religious education, there is an undeniable longing and desire to feel God’s hope for us, to see God more clearly, follow God more nearly, and serve God and God’s creation more fervently, and to love God and our neighbor more dearly.   

Our churches, our parishes, missions, Gospel-oriented communities are where we bring our longing for God’s promise, where we bring our joys and our struggles, our celebrations and our sorrows, our hopes and our fears. For over the past decade we have been committed to doing all we can, to leveraging all our prayer, our love, the right use of the resources of time, treasure, talent of the amazing staff at Diocesan House, the uniquely gifted and committed clergy we continue to assemble here in New Hampshire, so that the world, from Colebrook to Nashua, from Claremont to Durham and has the light and the salt that will save the world from the division, hatred and fear that threatens it.   

When any of our church’s light is dimmed or is at risk of losing its particular character of love and devotion to our Savior Jesus, or when its peculiar character, its saltiness, is lessened by internal strife, by a lack of Christian discipleship, kindness, or charity, or even if its vitality has gone and it becomes simply a museum of the past, then the effect expands to us all, the whole community. Our churches were established, my friends, in each of the cities, towns, and hamlets of New Hampshire, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the world. As the world almost a century ago began to totter to fascism, sometimes with the church’s misguided blessing the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, William Temple, said that “The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” And the internal spiritual health of a church, how we embrace one another, how we love one another, how we disagree and work out our differences, is how the church can extend that blessing to the world so hungry, benighted, and in need of the healing it can bring as bearers of resurrection hope. That’s a spirituality we too often dilute to blandness, dim to darkness. 

So, there are two things that I wish to lift up for this Convention. The first is the work of the Reparations Task Force and the powerful resolution that is before us this morning, and how, no matter what, we may respond to the scourge of racism and injustice. Over the course of the past year, the Task Force led by James McKim and Betty Lane and assisted by church leaders, lay and ordained, representing each of our convocations, have worked tirelessly to prepare a resolution that accomplishes the task set by last year’s resolution for our diocese to listen, learn, and seek the Holy Spirit to guide us. The Task Force has clarified what reparation means:  the ongoing work to establish, repair, and mend our common humanity among siblings in God. And they have made it clear what Reparations does not mean—nothing but check-writing and box-checking or virtue signaling to those with whom we are not in relationship.  

Today, we will vote on a resolution that sets a course for us to continue to learn, listen, pray and respond to the many ways the original sin of Adam and Eve infects human society and the creation.  To my mind the original sin set forth in scripture was extraction: extracting a perceived good from that which we are to hold sacred, and that God told us to honor, not exploit or manipulate for our own purposes. The sin of extraction, fueled by a doctrine that says some people and some parts of creation are ours simply for the taking. That sin tells us we can ignore how that taking damages our relationship to God and each other. That sin continues to plague us, disordering our society, and spoiling our planet. That is the nature of sin. And the purpose of  the Church is repentance from sin, and seeking God’s grace to turn our hearts for a new beginning, even, as Scripture tells us, a New Creation. 

The conversations initiated by the Reparation Task Force have opened my eyes to see how interwoven all human and ecological suffering is. We can talk about Creation Care, and yet: generally it is white middle and upper middle-class people who can afford to shift from our dependence on fossil fuels and buy electric or hybrid vehicles, while communities in the inner city or rural areas, with higher concentration of minorities or poverty cannot afford the solar panels or the transitions to heat pumps or to abate lead, arsenic, or other toxins in their homes. Or their schools perform less well than those the towns with higher property values, even though, like in Newport or Claremont, their tax burden is disproportionally punishing.  These are examples of the intertwining of these issues: racism affects environmental stewardship, which affects health care disparities, which affect mental health, which affects education, which affects our political discourse, which as we see daily, affects everything. We remember Dr. King’s words written from the Birmingham jail:  

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All [of us] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.” (Letter From a Birmingham Jail, MLK, Jr.) 

Yes, these are words of a prophet of civil rights. And they are clearly the words of a Christian theologian and pastor shepherding people to Resurrection hope, the hope in a power and presence that is stronger than death. In the Body of Christ, we are entwined with each other and the burdens of the world.  

Earlier this month Diocesan Council created a new commission that will replace the more siloed and narrowly focused commissions and committees that have worked on racial reconciliations, creation care, educational equity, global mission, prison concerns, gun violence, poverty and hunger, natural disaster, and war. On our own we cannot fix any of these issues without the power of God working among us and other partners to work together.  So, in the spirit of the prophet Micah, we are establishing one commission, the Micah 6 Commission, made up of 12 faithful New Hampshire Episcopalians—lay people, deacons, and priests—to work together and see how all of these intractable dilemmas and challenges are interwoven, intertwined and require first prayer. God is with us in these things. We will continue work with partners, like the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail, Granite State Organizing Project, Episcopal Relief and Development, Braver Angels, our schools, our food pantries and thrift shops, others who are already and may even be better equipped to do God’s mission. The Micah 6 Commission will be informed and guided by the plan proposed by the Reparations Task Force. They will see how God surprises more often when we are in the same room, rather than set apart. Ours is a God who is Trinity, a God of relationship. In the God made flesh we are forever entwined with God and each other. That is the deep vision of all true Christian spirituality. 

Finally, these words will not be complete until we acknowledge the power of the Holy Spirit that led to an amazing thing. If we had any doubt that of our salt and light, preserving our character as a feisty, resilient light filled dedicated church that is both salty, radiant, rises like leaven and is interwoven like a vine, our doubt could be set aside by the powerful news shared last week of the success of our From Deep Roots New Life Campaign. Before COVID we began to talk about what it would be like to raise funds, not for bricks and mortar, but for the ministry of our people, and those who are not yet among us. Lesley Pemberton began the work in helping us with a case statement, a plan and a feasibility study. Later, we asked Jamie Hamilton and Rob Stevens to co-chair our Campaign Committee, and we invited, teams of dedicated souls to help us set a goal of $2 million the income to provide venture capital for mission, to start new missions, support new adventures, take some risks for the sake of bringing the good news into a world in need of it. Last week, our Campaign Manager, my real boss in this work, Shelli Gay tallied that we not only reached our goal but surpassed it by a half million dollars. We have raised 2.5 million dollars to support our commitment to serve Jesus Christ by seeking his face in our neighbor and to know God’s presence in the Creation.  

So, we are salt. We are light. And we seek to become even more so by dwelling in the one Body Jesus in this beautiful, broken, straining, overflowing, shining, ragged, imperfect, and utterly holy church. It remains the privilege of my life, the challenge of my life, and the joy of my life to serve alongside you, learning as we go.  How are we salt? How are we light? By doing justice, by loving mercy, and by walking humbly with our God in the path of Jesus Christ.  

And speaking of learning, how about we memorize a Bible verse—like we’ve been to Vacation Bible School. Some of you, indeed many of us, already know this verse by heart. It could easily be a motto to start your day, posted on your bathroom mirror or your car dashboard, or to hold you in times of trial and celebration. I know at least one deacon who has a version of this verse tattooed on his forearm: Here it is:  

And what does the Lord require of you 
but to do justice, 
to love mercy 
and to walk humbly with your God. 

Repeat.

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Blessing as Holy Resistance

This message was emailed to the diocese on Sept. 20, 2024.

On behalf of St. Paul’s Church, Concord, and their Rector, the Rev. Jean Beniste, I want to invite those who may find themselves in the vicinity to attend a Blessing of the Animals on the lawn in front of the church, 21 Centre St., at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5.

The tradition of blessing animals, including pets and domestic animals of all kinds, has grown in recent years to honor the witness of St. Francis, whose feast day falls on Oct. 4. It has been a way of celebrating God as creator, redeemer, and sustainer of the universe and all that dwell therein. Attributed to Saint Francis is the famous prayer beginning, “Lord, make us instruments of peace.”

Recent days have seen an abhorrent escalation of language against those who have come to our country from Haiti and other distressed nations, to seek a better life, and to share in the pursuit of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” enshrined in our nation’s founding documents. The defaming language has led to threats of violence, school closings, and a climate of fear in Springfield, Ohio and elsewhere. It is important to note that unless we are of Indigenous ancestry, all of us have descended from immigrants seeking the same opportunities, including the freedom to practice our religion and to speak from our deepest spiritual convictions. Jesus himself was a refugee from political violence. No doubt, we have work to do in our nation to address a chaotic and unsafe border, and we hope and pray and vote that those who bear the authority of government will be led to decisions that have thus far woefully eluded them. 

This year the Blessing of Animals takes on a new, even prophetic, meaning as those gathered will join a fellow disciple of Christ in Father Jean—born and raised in Haiti—who will lead us in the blessing of dogs, cats, any other kinds of pets or animals, and all of us who are present. Our gathering of blessing, instead of cursing, can be seen as an act of resistance to a culture that is fomenting violence of thought, speech, and action.  Love is countercultural. The Church when it is most authentic will often run counter to the dominant spirit of the age.

If we ever wonder what kind of Church we are, we get to claim that we have Gospel work to be “instruments of God’s peace” by displaying New Testament hospitality, humility, kindness, and love. Though we may be troubled and anxious, what a blessing it is to be a Christian in this time! To be a disciple of Jesus is to seek the company of those with whom Jesus sought to keep company. This is the understanding of discipleship that is shared broadly by Christians, whether they consider themselves progressive, conservative, or in the middle.

When we bless animals, celebrate God’s good creation, welcome the stranger among us and make them friends (and priests!) among us, we become prophets of God’s heavenly realm of justice, love, and life. Blessing, not uttering taunts or making threats, is the kind of holy resistance that Jesus practiced again and again. What a privilege to be called to this holy work, this St. Francis Day, and always.

How you can help

• If you wish to support the Haitian Community in Springfield, Ohio, the local Episcopal church there suggests making donations to the Haitian Community Help and Support Center.

• Also, we have a close relationship with St. Vincent’s Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a marvelous and effective Episcopal ministry that teaches and serves disabled children and adults. Donations may be mailed to: St. Vincent's Center, Haiti, P.O. Box 1433, New London, NH 03257

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Reflection of Bishop Hirschfeld After The Events in Butler, Pennsylvania

This message was emailed to the diocese on July 14, 2024.

Only the most cynical among us will be untroubled by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally. We denounce this violence and pray for the former President, his family, and his supporters. We pray also for the repose of the soul of the bystander who was slain in this attack and any who were injured.

Undoubtedly, our nation can no longer be as confident as we have been that our political processes and institutions are immune from violence and bloodshed. What is being revealed by events like yesterday’s is the fragility of our communities and our neighborhoods—a vulnerability that many nations of the world experience continually.

Sadly, these are age-old realities. We read again from the Gospel for this Sunday—Mark 6:14-29—that the way the world settles its disputes and conflict is habitually by force and savagery, rather than by the means of peace and forbearance. To follow Jesus entails being acutely aware that the way of the world’s power and the Way of Christ’s Kingdom will be in stark contrast to one another.

As I prepare to baptize an infant saint as a new citizen of God’s Realm this morning, I pray that in our part of Christ’s Body, the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, we will continue to commit ourselves to the Way of Jesus. May we remember how in a time of extreme peril our Savior told his threatened and anxious disciples to sheathe their swords rather than look for retribution or vengeance.

Jesus taught his disciples, and us, to love and pray for our enemies, while seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. May the peace of Christ, a peace that Jesus told us the world cannot give, reign in our hearts and in our churches in the days and weeks to come. May we support each other to be the light this world so longs for and so hopes to see in us.

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Bishop Rob's Address to St. Paul’s School Spring Convocation, March 24, 2024

It’s always an honor for me to be invited to this hallowed space of worship, of music, of song, of embarking on your very full days and of return. Thank you to Rector Giles and Reverend Wydner and the whole chapel staff for this invitation. And I welcome everyone back to Concord from your spring vacation. I hope it was a time of refreshment, rest, and renewal for the final few weeks of the school year. Now that you’re back from vacation, I’m going to ask that you join me as I offer some thoughts about vocation. Vocation, a word that finds its root in the Latin word for “calling.” Though you might already be thinking of your next vacation—just over a couple months away, I’ve been wondering about how we find our respective vocations, our callings, in life.

There was a time when the opposite of a prep school like St Paul’s, or the usual alternative track for young people to follow if they were not going to attend more academically rigorous high school, was what used to be called vocational schools. It seemed then that young people were tracked, from an early age, to go into the trades among which were carpentry, mechanics, plumbing, or HVAC. They could become medical or dental technicians, metalworkers, masons. My classmates who were on that vocational track seemed to be assigned their vocations. Sadly, senselessly, those not being trained in such trades, those more at happy with their homework assignments in math, science, languages, or history, were often encouraged to look down on those who would work in the trades.

Thankfully, I have seen a blurring of the classism that those divisions in education seemed to enforce. Some of the most insightful, erudite, wise—not to mention well-compensated-- people I know, make a living by their handiwork. They practice crafts that combine knowledge, skill, intuition, and the ability to relate to people across differences. My life is filled with interactions with those whose joy in their vocations comes from the exercise of such skills.

One such example is the character of George Pocock, the boatbuilder and philosopher without whom there would be no story behind “The Boys In the Boat.” He appears in the movie, but he is more much central in the book. Just as the success of that underdog 1936 Olympic crew would be impossible without Mr. Pocock, so St. Paul’s rowing would be much less accomplished without Mr. Matt Bailey who practices his craft in the shop at the boathouse of Turkey Pond.

We encounter the teachers, staff, grounds crew, and maintenance crew, food service crew, many of whom are doing their job, quietly, with nobility and dignity every day. It’s always a joy to see Mr. Roger Farwell, the steward of this magnificent space whenever I come here. He and his colleagues on this campus do essential work, work for which I hope they derive enjoyment and even delight that’s beyond just punching the clock to fulfill the hours of the terms of their employment. I hope we notice and thank them for the pursuit of their respective callings.

I am curious about how you will hear your vocation, your calling. Perhaps you already know it in a burning desire to follow in the steps of someone you admire, someone you feel you’d like to emulate. Perhaps you’ve heard someone you know who is quite happy and content with their work say, “Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” I don’t know if I’ve ever trusted that. I love being a Christian priest and bishop, can’t imagine doing anything else, but it is nonetheless work somedays.

Frederick Buechner, the popular theologian of the 20th century, is often cited as describing vocation in this way:

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest.By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done...The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

What is your deep gladness? And what strikes you as the world’s deep hunger? Where do those things meet or intersect for you?

Perhaps you’re just beginning to ask those questions. So what if you get a hint of what your vocation may be by the experience, not of drudgery or tedium, or monotony, but of the opposite of those things: Ecstasy

Ecstasy is an odd word to apply to thinking of vocation. The culture might suggest ecstasy as a selfish state of extreme exhilaration, of incomparable perhaps even bacchanalian delight. It can suggest a kind of madness, a possession of the spirit, a rapt state. Ecstasy is hardly the theme of serious, purpose driven people who sit in these pews, right? We are all after all, residents of New Hampshire. We are known for being anything but ecstatic. No, we are granitic.

It's worth noting that the word ecstasy comes from the Greek, ek-stasis. Ek “out of, from, beyond and stasis, standing, the state of self, or position. Those experiencing ecstasy find themselves outside of themselves, in a rapt state, a kind of self-forgetting. We seldom notice that state, because we are less aware of ourselves when we are in it. Athletes might describe it as being “in the zone.” Artists or those solving a math or physics problem speak of being in a state of flow. Writers, speak of entering an altered state, a “fictive dream.”

As I suggest, probably the opposite of ecstasy is drudgery or tedium: where we keep looking at the watch or the clock, consigned to a minute by minute sighing awareness of the weight of time and effort. We think, all will be so much better well, once we get that one assignment done, or once that final push on the athletic field is behind us. Maybe today, as you’re back from vacation, you’re already thinking, “Just a few more weeks, and it will be summer. Can I last until then?”

More painfully, we are also aware of being mired in the deep conflicts and stresses of our world. We eagerly long for a day when there will be no more tyrants, despots, poverty, sin, brutality, violence, or death. So how can we imagine an ecstatic vocation in the face of these persistent antagonisms?

For decades now I have been working my way through the often dense poetry of W.H. Auden. He has a cycle of poems entitled ‘Horae Canonicae’ composed in the middle years of the last century. The Canonical Hours are the monastic hours that shape a day of prayer in a monastery. The poem set aside for the sixth hour, or noonday, opens this way:

You need not see what someone is doing

to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:

a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,

a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,

forgetting themselves in a function...

There should be monuments, there should be odes,

to the nameless heroes who [first got so lost in their vocation]

to the first flaker of flints who forgot his dinner,

the first collector of sea-shells to remain celibate.

Where should we be but for them?

Auden is describing ecstasy, self-forgetting, a kind of rapture in the calling, the pursuit, the energy of God’s heavenly realm seeking to draw us our of ourselves and to send us into the world.

As I was preparing these remarks, I thought I would visit the St Paul’s School website to look at the eyes and faces of so many of you caught up in your vocation. Yes you are called here as members of this community. I saw images of many of you forgetting yourselves in a task: playing a saxophone; threading a soccer or lacrosse ball through a crowded defensive field; on stage in an intricate dance; engaged in animated discussion in a classroom; eyes trained on Mr. White’s choral direction. Nowhere did I see anyone looking at their watch, or at their cell phone trying to escape the current moment by doom scrolling or waiting for an incoming text. The eyes I saw there are, I believe, the same as what Auden describes as those in a vocation... the truest kind of ecstatic self-forgetfulness.

It’s easy to state that your deep gladness in those moments are being fulfilled, but do these things meet the world’s deep hunger? Do we actually need that? How will such things actually dig the world out of our warfare, our environmental degradation, the deadliness of our cultural, political, racial, and economic divisions?

Yes, the world needs persons skilled in diplomacy, in engineering, in the healing arts, prophets and poets, chemists, and physicists and farmers to solve our crises in hunger, water, ecological collapse. We need prudent soldiers and judicious attorneys. We need people who love keeping our streets and cities just, safe, and clean. We need people whose commerce will employ, house, feed, and educate people. We need singers and makers of song.

But undergirding all these vocations is a deeper calling. What the world really needs are those who see the beauty of living, who live with a kind of abiding joy in nourishing healthy relationships, who notice how light filters out of trees. Those who, even if doing work that many may seem as utterly tedious or incomprehensible, will see and share the miracle of living, of sharing this precarious existence on this fragile and magnificent planet. What we need are human beings fully ecstatic, and thus fully alive for each other and our world.

To the extent this place prepares and equips your being so fully alive and ecstatic is the extent to which St. Paul’s School will be worthy to be called a vocational school in the deepest sense of the word.

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Bishop Rob’s Easter Message 2024

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