King of the Hill

Luke 22:24-30



When we were children in kindergarten and elementary school we spent a lot of time on the playground. We had organized games and less organized games, but we played a lot together. That was a good thing because many of us didn’t have siblings at home who were of an age to play with us as equals, so it was essential for us to learn to play with people our age and size, more or less. One of the organized games that frequently became disorganized was one called “King of the Hill.” I don’t remember a large mound, but the whole idea was to get to the “top” and proclaim that one of us was King of the Hill. It didn’t matter whether you a boy or girl, and we usually didn’t play more than one round of it during recess, but there was a feeling in the one who had won the game that was a sense of self-confidence and pride. The next day someone else might win, but for that day, they were the king of the hill, even if the feeling was just inside them.

Today is the commemoration of St. Bartholomew, one of the disciples that we don’t hear a lot about. He certainly wasn’t prominent like Peter, or as persistent as James and John, the Sons of Thunder, who wanted to know who was going to be on his left and right side when they came into power, and who even had their mother ask Jesus for those positions for her sons. Now, really! To most people, it would be utterly embarrassing, but if it got the job done, then that was what it took.

I have a feeling that because Bartholomew is seldom heard of in the Gospels and not often mentioned outside the Gospels either, that he was probably a very humble man. He didn’t take the spotlight, and he didn’t push his way into situations that would bring him into prominence. Traditions have it that he traveled to India or Armenia to do mission work and was martyred by being flayed alive and then beheaded.  Some scholars consider him to be the apostle Nathaniel, a friend of Philip. There isn’t much more known as to his history, but because he was one of Jesus chosen, he is commemorated and the Eucharistic gospel for this day is the reading about being humble.

Today, humility doesn’t seem to have a lot of push to it. It’s all about status, social position, financial status, and a corner office with glass windows on the top floor of the corporate building. Is what it’s about a waiting room full of client or patients who have come especially to see this particular person who has such a reputation for solving problems and taking care of business. It can be hard to find anyone who thinks that humility is a good thing. Okay, maybe we can count Mother Teresa, Pope Francis, and John Paul II. We have people like Jimmy Carter, Dorothy Day, Fr. Mychal Judge, and many others who did a lot in their quiet way to make the world a better place.

 Humility is about going around doing good and not trying to call attention to oneself; no pictures in the paper, no soundbite on a TV newscast about some heroic act or something similar. Humility merely is seeing something that needs to be done and doing something about it without calling a lot of attention. That’s the kind of humility Jesus practiced and taught his disciples and the crowds to follow.

It seems these days we’ve got lots of people screaming about their being the king, or, in some cases, queen of the hill.  We have people among us who not only try to make that claim to be the chosen or even possibly the King of a significant religious group.

Those today who claim to be the king of the hill seldom show any humility at all. Instead, they proclaim their powerfulness and prestige, much of which seems to be somewhat exaggerated if not significantly so. But what can a body do? Anybody can claim to be the king of the mountain. Not everybody wants to or can claim to be the humble one at the bottom. 

Jesus was humble man, although he was known for his very occasional acts of temper and his occasional displeasure with his disciples when they were slow in catching on to something that he had tried so hard to get across to them. He was kind to people, even people he didn’t know, or people with whom it would not be reasonable for him to interact, like the woman who washed his feet with her hair. Was it really Mary Magdalene? Was it Mary of Bethany? Who knows, but what we do know is that it was an act of humility and an act of love, and Jesus recognized it as such.

Humility is a quiet virtue. It is difficult and not always seen as a popular position, but it is what Jesus consistently taught as the path that we need to follow.

This week I think I need to look at humility in my own life. The Lord knows I never really have attempted to be king of the hill (at least since elementary school). I still need to look at those experiences where I have fallen short of the humility goal and see what I need to do to make it a more integral part of my life and to contribute more to those around me rather than looking for my own self-glorification. Anybody care to join me?

God bless.

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café Saturday, August 24, 2019.

Suffer the Children

Matthew 19:13-15


The Eucharistic gospel for today is a familiar passage about the disciples trying to decide who can come close to Jesus and who can’t. This time it is children. When the disciples tried to shoo them away from Jesus, he very firmly told them to let the children come to him because they had faith and trust that adults didn’t and that the kingdom of heaven would be theirs. I wonder how long the disciples pouted and pondered that particular bit of information.

It’s interesting to look at the verse in several different translations. I was brought up on the King James version which read, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Others use “Let” or “Allow” or something similar. The Greek translation uses the word aphete, which is translated as “permit” or “let.” Regardless of which version a person reads, Jesus’s intent seems to be to have the children approach him and be blessed.

Reading this passage today, and thinking about the translation of my youth which uses the words suffer, it made me think about the kids in this world, all the little children that Jesus would welcome and bless. He didn’t specify their state of health, wealth, lawful residence, or religious purity. Instead, I am convinced that had there been those who were hungry, sick, in cages after being seized from their parents, or who die because of lack of care and because people refuse to help them, Jesus would have welcomed them with open arms.

It’s hard these days not to think about the children of the immigrants who were ripped from their parents' arms and still have not been reunited with them. Many of them have not received placement where hopefully they sleep in beds, have clean clothes, basic hygiene, medical care, and a chance to be like children they should be. It’s hard to look at pictures of those children, just like it’s hard to look at images of children suffering anywhere. The eyes of children so often reflect hopelessness the children shouldn’t have enough. Their eyes glaze as they realize people approaching them are not there to help but to move them around, shuffle them to a different place, or even abuse them. I confess that looking at those eyes tears my heart apart. Instead of suffering the little children to come, I see them made to suffer, and I have to ask myself if that’s the Christian way? What would Jesus think?


So how do we change things? How do we help the hundreds of children in our country, no matter where they came from, to allow them to be children again and not prisoners of some undeclared war? Somehow I feel God’s heart is breaking because, despite all the words about helping the poor and needy and treating the alien in your land as one of you, we quite often forget them, ignore them, or both.  There are many times in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament that reiterate again and again the imperative to love your neighbor as yourself. How can we say we love our neighbors as ourselves when we allow children to be held hostage? That s not love.  

We saw what happened in Germany, Austria, Poland, and other countries in Europe during the Nazi era. We saw children being made to leave their parents, some to be made guinea pigs for inhuman so-called medical procedures. We saw children rolling up their sleeves for a camera to show the numbers that had been tattooed on their arms to indicate that they were somehow dispensable and deficient, whether or not they had any physical or mental disorders. It seems we have forgotten those pictures if we ever saw them or paid attention to them at all.

The kids that are held in custody came with their parents to look for a better life. Listening to the stories of some of the parents, all they wanted was to keep their children safe, and hopefully to give them a more secure life than they would have in the countries that they fled. Those children will be marked for life because of their experiences Yet many who have made that safety and better life almost impossible claim to be Christian and followers of Jesus. What would Jesus say about that?

Let the little children come; let them learn to trust us as they would learn to trust Jesus. Let them be sheltered and housed as befitting children of God, not children of unwanted aliens. We have an enormous problem, one we need to address and need to solve now. Let the little children come to us and let us be the blessing that Jesus would like us to be. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and if we want to share in that kingdom of heaven, it’s up to us to make sure that all of God’s children are welcome.

God bless.


Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café Saturday, August 17, 2019;

Moving Mountains

Matthew 17:14-20

As I was reading the Eucharistic gospel for today, I read the part about the man who brought his epileptic son to Jesus because the disciples couldn’t heal him. Jesus sounded a little terse because the disciples didn’t seem to catch on the way they were supposed to. Jesus, however, spoke more gently to the father and healed the boy instantly. That appeared to wrap that part of the story up very neatly with the crowd, the father, and the son having a happy ending.

Then I read about the disciples wondering why they couldn’t do that? Jesus wasted no time telling them it was because they had very little faith. That was part of Jesus’s whole message. Faith was and is a necessary component in making things happen. The disciples simply didn’t seem to get it.

Jesus then went on to talk about faith moving mountains. It’s a familiar story, and a saying we hear fairly frequently. “If you have the faith the size of a mustard seed…” A mustard seed isn’t tiny, but it’s undoubtedly not a coconut. It represents something little, much as Julian of Norwich’s hazelnut represented a whole world in her vision. It didn’t take a lot of faith, but it took a solid faith, and I think that was Jesus’s point.

I sometimes wonder if things don’t happen because we either lack enough faith, have a belief that isn’t solid enough, or maybe something else? Lord knows we’ve asked for people to be healed or even cured, and nothing seems to happen. We simply sigh and say, “Well, it must have been God’s will.” Was it? Really?

When I think of things that are going on right now, the shootings, the stabbings, the deaths of children, the painful and fatal diseases, the traumas of losing children and parents, it makes me wonder how anyone can say that a loving God wills things like this to happen. All those scenarios seem to be huge mountains, and we don’t seem to have enough faith to move it, even if we were able.

Having faith doesn’t mean that I should sit in my comfortable rocking chair and focus my mind on moving Mount St Helens to the desert just outside of Phoenix. What would be the point of that? What would be the point of moving anything? I think it deals with something other than relative size. If I take a mustard seed out of the container in my spice cabinet and hold it up to my eye and look across the horizon to the Mogollon Rim about 200 km away, they seem relative in size even though I know the Rim is immensely more substantial than that mustard seed. I need to move the mustard seed out of my line of sight, my eyes from the mountains and concentrate on what is doable, reasonable, helpful, useful, and that needs doing? Then I start looking at problems through a different set of lenses. 

I may not be able to cure cancer (I know I couldn’t heal my own), so I put my faith in my surgeon and my oncologist. I just left the rest up to God. That was the only thing I could do. I have friends with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and I want so much for them to be cured because they are dear to me. I need them in my life.  I don’t want to lose them but lose them I will, whether it’s through physical death or just the ravages of disease. I wish I had faith enough to cure them. I guess my point to myself is to ask how I can judge the disciples for not having enough faith when I have to confess that I don’t have enough faith either?

I think each of us has to look around and find things that we can help change. Perhaps it is doing something like helping at the food bank, or rocking newborn babies born addicted to drugs to help comfort them and make them feel safe in a world that they don’t understand and that is extremely painful for them. Maybe it’s knitting a shawl for someone who could wrap it around themselves when they need a hug but there no human arms around to give one when they need it, or praying for someone in pain or need. Maybe those don’t require a lot of faith, but it does put it in action. It’s a way of loving my neighbor as myself, attempting to help in a way that I’m able and that will benefit them. Perhaps the mountain I need to move my own weak faith.

I may never be able to reread this passage without thinking about mustard seeds and mountains and comparing them in the light of the amount of faith required. Jesus said if we had that much faith, we could do anything. Maybe I need to stop trying to move Mount St Helens and get rid of an anthill in the front yard, or reach out and hug someone in pain, or give a cup of cold water to someone who is outside in the desert heat and in genuine danger of dying through dehydration. Maybe the difference is removing things (like beams in my own eye) rather than a mountain that has no need (or perhaps desire) to be moved in the first place.

What are your mountains, and how can you move them?

God bless.


Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café  Saturday, August 10, 2019.

Learning About Discrimination the Hard Way

I walked outside the other night, and there was a smell of wood smoke in the air. Suddenly, it took me back 40-some years to my first sight and smell, of the Philippines, where my husband was stationed, and which would be my home for the next three years. We passed through small villages with bamboo huts built on stilts and saw women using short, but thick brooms made of twigs to sweep their yard. When they got the debris piled up, they would light the leaves and bark and burn it. That, to me, was the smell of the Philippines, and I think of it every time I smell that particular odor.

I learned a lot from living in the Philippines. I had always lived in the United States, in the Southeast, as well as in the West. In the south, we had African-Americans and almost no Hispanics at all. In the West, on the other hand, we had lots of people of both ethnic and racial groups. It didn’t bother me; I figured I could adapt to just about anything.

Then I got to the Philippines. One of the first things I learned was that even though I was in the minority, namely light-haired, light-skinned, with blue eyes, I was considered a person of wealth. I would have children follow me around the local market, and even on the streets of Manila, calling out, “Hey Joe, give me one peso.” The peso was only a few pennies in American currency, but the kids looked at me as if they expected me to ride a carnival float and toss out coins the way carnival cruise toss out beads. It was uncomfortable, and it was tough to say no sometimes. The second thing was that when I walked into us a store or a stall at the market, the price automatically doubled. Jeepney rides to the market that would cost a Filipino the equivalent of 20 centavos cost me the equivalent of two pesos. Not only that, but I was not permitted to share a jeepney with Filipinos and pay the 20 centavo price. The third thing I learned was that even if I could say a few phrases in Filipino, or even in the local dialect, people in the market and the town or the city, would switch to a dialect I didn’t know. It was a form of isolation, and it was frustrating because I was only trying to learn to fit in. They took it another way entirely.

There were many more lessons, but I remember those in particular; I think it is because it was my introduction to being “different.” I also got a taste of how being singled out because I was different felt. It was a kind of racism, although not nearly as damaging to me as the racism that I see about me today towards nonwhite people. It was a big lesson to learn.

We are so used to seeing Jesus portrayed as a light-skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed man with a beard neatly trimmed and clean, dazzling clothing. Since I was young, I’ve been exposed to that kind of Jesus.  I wondered how he got his robes so pure and so white, without having bleach, tied, and blooming and being on the dusty roads so much. I’ve come to I came to realize that how Jesus was perceived was in the eye of the artist, and often those for whom the artist painted. I remember seeing some virtual eyebrows raised when a bust of the first-century man from the area around where Jesus lived, appeared through the magic of forensic sculpture. He had brown skin, brown eyes, short curly blackish-brown hair, and no beard. It wasn’t a Jesus we were accustomed to, but it was more like the Jesus who probably was. I think it still causes some raised eyebrows in some places, right here in our own country. He looks too much like people we are told to block from immigration because they are crooks, killers, thieves, rapists, and every negative thing that dehumanizes them.

I go back to my experience in the Philippines, and while the people were mostly very kind, I still could not forget who I was, a guest in their country, a person whose standard of living was considerably higher than most of theirs, even though ours was not rich by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I have to remind myself of how it felt and wish that others could see it as I have. Perhaps they have but simply didn’t realize it. If they had, maybe then they could understand what white privilege really is and how there is absolutely no place for it in Christianity. Love thy neighbor as thyself doesn’t mean loving just people whose skin tone is the same as ours. It means loving our neighbor, no matter the color of their skin, as we love ourselves.

Wake up America. There are people who need help, who live in abject fear for their lives every day in countries where armed gangs and even national armies create terror and slavery, and who have learned of the words on the Statue of Liberty and taken that as their dream and symbol of freedom. I am ashamed of those who find ways to exclude others who seek only to make new lives in this country. The National Cathedral and its faith leaders have issued a call to America to speak out against discrimination–whether racist, ageist, gender-based, economically-based, or any other division that stops us from seeing us all as human beings and beloved children of God. I think they have made a courageous and honest prophetic call.

God bless us and help us all to see all people as equals and as neighbors, not inferiors or “others” who are beneath us and our privilege.  Otherwise, the kingdom of God will remain a far-off dream for all of us.



Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café Saturday, August 3, 2019.