Sermons at Grace
Welcome to the sermons page. Here you will find the sermons that have been preached at Grace Church since December 23, 2018, the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C) in 2018. The lectionary readings for each service can be found on the appropriate date on the lectionary page by clicking here, or by clicking on the name of the service the sermon was preached. We send you warm greetings from the Vineyard and Grace Church and hope to see you when you're here. Thank you for your interest and for listening!
10am • 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, November 10, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 20th Sunday after Pentecost, October 27, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 18th Sunday after Pentecost, October 13, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 17th Sunday after Pentecost, October 6, 2019:
The Blessing of the Animals The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 16th Sunday after Pentecost, September 29, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 22, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 15, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 13th Sunday after Pentecost, September 8, 2019:
Lobster Roll thank you |
10am • 12th Sunday after Pentecost, September 1, 2019:
Blessing of the Backpacks The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 25, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 18, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 9th Sunday after Pentecost, August 11, 2019:
The Reverend Dr. Storm Swain Note: the recording stops at 14:10.31. For completeness, a copy of Dr. Swain's sermon is provided below. |
The 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Year C, Proper 14
August 11, 2019
Luke 12 32-40 Grace Church, Vineyard Haven
(c) The Reverend Dr. Storm Swain
The Gospel tells us, right from the outset, ‘Be not afraid,” and then invites us into paradox. As we hear resonances from the Old Testament, there seems lots of good reasons to be afraid.
Instead of the alternative passage from Genesis where Abram is told not to be afraid, here we have a passage of Isaiah on Sodom and Gomorrah that has consistently been misinterpreted to refer to sexual orientation [reference to Ezekiel's interpretation]
If we listen to the news these days, there seems lots of good reasons to be afraid.El Paso, Dayton, in repeated mass shootings with the consistent dehumanization of others we have already killed off in our minds.Almost 700 persons in Mississippi detained, and children not being picked up from school because their parents were behind chain-linked fence possibly to be deported.
If we even listen to this Gospel disconnected from the context there seems enough to be afraid of. For a start it is titled, at least in the bibles we have at the end of our pews, ‘Watchful Slaves.’ In a country built on the near genocide of the indigenous population and on the backs of slaves, when analogy of being watchful for God like a slave for her or his master, is not a spiritual but a fearful image. It can resonate for us with white supremacy rather than hospitality. And then it almost seems like we need to be watchful for God, like waiting for someone to burgle our house.
Yet our Gospel starts out with the goodwill and generosity of God, and we are told not to be afraid. By the time we reach the end of our Gospel passage we seem caught between Hospitality and Security, being on the lookout for the divine but with the kind of vigilance of homeland security.
This kind of fear is being generated in current discussions about immigration, where we are being conditioned to think of immigrants and refugees like people wanting to break into our country, and causing immigrants to fear the knock at the door in the middle of the night or near dawn.
Of course as an immigrant myself, I hear the news and passages like these with a different ear. Yes, I came to the country legally, with a Student Visa, then back with an R1 Religious visa, then a Greencard, and more recently, in May, citizenship, but there was a lot to make even someone like me afraid. Being detained at immigration the first time I entered the country because my papers weren’t correct was not a good introduction to the system, 20 years of being photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned each time I arrived, is enough to make anyone nervous. Nervous enough to be careful what petitions I signed, what projects I went to, affordable housing but not the one where clergy were being arrested for standing up for justice for Armadou Diallo.
Yet, of course people tell me I wasn’t the kind of immigrant people are worried about, and they are right, the systemic racism in this country gives me an unearned privilege, and I had the money to get here, was not fleeing violence, or starvation, in the land of hobbits, and an accent people can find charming rather than fearful. And yet I know what it is like to be in the position of those we call ‘dreamers’ as if they exist asleep, dreaming of this promised land, rather than fearing that tonight they or their parents may be on the other side or a fence or wall.
And I have to confess that, this side of American citizenship, I am a little less afraid, for myself. But I am deathly afraid for others, and I am at times afraid for country’s heart and soul. What will it take to turn this around? Sometimes a reassuring word from scripture sounds like an empty platitude, “Do not be afraid little flock..”
Thoughts and prayers. And yet, Jesus in the Gospels is almost never empty platitudes, his words are backed up with action, and with invitation. Be alert, act, sell, give, make, and even if necessary, break.
In the Gospel Jesus turns the tables – Arriving unexpected, but finding the table set, Jesus turns things around on us, He comes as slave and serves us. Rather than ratifying the fear patriarchal, oppressive, colonialist fear driven positions of privilege, Jesus identifies with the oppressed, and lifts up the lowly.
The temptation is to think that our alertness creates the generosity of God, and kind of prosperity gospel, but the passage tells us that it is God’s desire to give us the kingdom. We are called to prepare for the coming of Christ, in our homes, in our hearts in our communities, at the end of our lives, grounded in the generous overflowing love of God, that invites us, invites all to the banquet. We are called to the kingdom of God.
Yet we must be careful in thinking that we know what the kingdom looks like – the prosperous banquet where we have all we need and don’t need to feel that someone will take it from us, or perhaps it is the inverse of this, that banquet where we get to serve in love the God who walks in our door in the unexpected faces and places of our lives. Matthew 25, reminds us that Christ is not to be searched for in the structures of power, but of the hungry, naked, sick, and imprisioned.
Chapter 13 of Luke in our Bibles, starts out with the subheading, against hypocrisy. One way of seeing hypocrisy is being two-faced, showing one face to one group of others, and then another to someone else. It is always a risk, if we think of Christianity as Churchanity, rather than a way of life.
But Jesus, it seems wants us from both sides – After Lobster Rolls, where volunteers from the congregation have slaved to make a wonderful, not just meal, but experience for pilgrims. After everyone has left, and the volunteers are exhausted, the lights are turned out, and everyone has left; it’s dark. But then Chris, our sexton, comes in to clean. And he comes into the Church, and turns the lights back on. And we can see the illuminated Jesus window from the Rectory. And somehow, on Friday night, after Chris had finished cleaning, the window was still illuminated by the sanctuary candle, and I could see the illuminated Jesus from our bedroom, and I realized that Jesus is not just looking into the church, but also looking out in the other direction and that he looks at the other side as well.
Jesus wants us to see not with two faces but from both sides: The side where we are invited to the feast already, and be not afraid, and the side of the ones who serves out of the confidence of the love God, who knows God delights in our service, through the act of a play well acted with love, a meal prepared with grace, a kind word for those who care for us and love us, compassion for those who are from far away, and our daily walk to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Year C, Proper 14
August 11, 2019
Luke 12 32-40 Grace Church, Vineyard Haven
(c) The Reverend Dr. Storm Swain
The Gospel tells us, right from the outset, ‘Be not afraid,” and then invites us into paradox. As we hear resonances from the Old Testament, there seems lots of good reasons to be afraid.
Instead of the alternative passage from Genesis where Abram is told not to be afraid, here we have a passage of Isaiah on Sodom and Gomorrah that has consistently been misinterpreted to refer to sexual orientation [reference to Ezekiel's interpretation]
If we listen to the news these days, there seems lots of good reasons to be afraid.El Paso, Dayton, in repeated mass shootings with the consistent dehumanization of others we have already killed off in our minds.Almost 700 persons in Mississippi detained, and children not being picked up from school because their parents were behind chain-linked fence possibly to be deported.
If we even listen to this Gospel disconnected from the context there seems enough to be afraid of. For a start it is titled, at least in the bibles we have at the end of our pews, ‘Watchful Slaves.’ In a country built on the near genocide of the indigenous population and on the backs of slaves, when analogy of being watchful for God like a slave for her or his master, is not a spiritual but a fearful image. It can resonate for us with white supremacy rather than hospitality. And then it almost seems like we need to be watchful for God, like waiting for someone to burgle our house.
Yet our Gospel starts out with the goodwill and generosity of God, and we are told not to be afraid. By the time we reach the end of our Gospel passage we seem caught between Hospitality and Security, being on the lookout for the divine but with the kind of vigilance of homeland security.
This kind of fear is being generated in current discussions about immigration, where we are being conditioned to think of immigrants and refugees like people wanting to break into our country, and causing immigrants to fear the knock at the door in the middle of the night or near dawn.
Of course as an immigrant myself, I hear the news and passages like these with a different ear. Yes, I came to the country legally, with a Student Visa, then back with an R1 Religious visa, then a Greencard, and more recently, in May, citizenship, but there was a lot to make even someone like me afraid. Being detained at immigration the first time I entered the country because my papers weren’t correct was not a good introduction to the system, 20 years of being photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned each time I arrived, is enough to make anyone nervous. Nervous enough to be careful what petitions I signed, what projects I went to, affordable housing but not the one where clergy were being arrested for standing up for justice for Armadou Diallo.
Yet, of course people tell me I wasn’t the kind of immigrant people are worried about, and they are right, the systemic racism in this country gives me an unearned privilege, and I had the money to get here, was not fleeing violence, or starvation, in the land of hobbits, and an accent people can find charming rather than fearful. And yet I know what it is like to be in the position of those we call ‘dreamers’ as if they exist asleep, dreaming of this promised land, rather than fearing that tonight they or their parents may be on the other side or a fence or wall.
And I have to confess that, this side of American citizenship, I am a little less afraid, for myself. But I am deathly afraid for others, and I am at times afraid for country’s heart and soul. What will it take to turn this around? Sometimes a reassuring word from scripture sounds like an empty platitude, “Do not be afraid little flock..”
Thoughts and prayers. And yet, Jesus in the Gospels is almost never empty platitudes, his words are backed up with action, and with invitation. Be alert, act, sell, give, make, and even if necessary, break.
In the Gospel Jesus turns the tables – Arriving unexpected, but finding the table set, Jesus turns things around on us, He comes as slave and serves us. Rather than ratifying the fear patriarchal, oppressive, colonialist fear driven positions of privilege, Jesus identifies with the oppressed, and lifts up the lowly.
The temptation is to think that our alertness creates the generosity of God, and kind of prosperity gospel, but the passage tells us that it is God’s desire to give us the kingdom. We are called to prepare for the coming of Christ, in our homes, in our hearts in our communities, at the end of our lives, grounded in the generous overflowing love of God, that invites us, invites all to the banquet. We are called to the kingdom of God.
Yet we must be careful in thinking that we know what the kingdom looks like – the prosperous banquet where we have all we need and don’t need to feel that someone will take it from us, or perhaps it is the inverse of this, that banquet where we get to serve in love the God who walks in our door in the unexpected faces and places of our lives. Matthew 25, reminds us that Christ is not to be searched for in the structures of power, but of the hungry, naked, sick, and imprisioned.
Chapter 13 of Luke in our Bibles, starts out with the subheading, against hypocrisy. One way of seeing hypocrisy is being two-faced, showing one face to one group of others, and then another to someone else. It is always a risk, if we think of Christianity as Churchanity, rather than a way of life.
But Jesus, it seems wants us from both sides – After Lobster Rolls, where volunteers from the congregation have slaved to make a wonderful, not just meal, but experience for pilgrims. After everyone has left, and the volunteers are exhausted, the lights are turned out, and everyone has left; it’s dark. But then Chris, our sexton, comes in to clean. And he comes into the Church, and turns the lights back on. And we can see the illuminated Jesus window from the Rectory. And somehow, on Friday night, after Chris had finished cleaning, the window was still illuminated by the sanctuary candle, and I could see the illuminated Jesus from our bedroom, and I realized that Jesus is not just looking into the church, but also looking out in the other direction and that he looks at the other side as well.
Jesus wants us to see not with two faces but from both sides: The side where we are invited to the feast already, and be not afraid, and the side of the ones who serves out of the confidence of the love God, who knows God delights in our service, through the act of a play well acted with love, a meal prepared with grace, a kind word for those who care for us and love us, compassion for those who are from far away, and our daily walk to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
10am • 8th Sunday after Pentecost, August 4, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 7th Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 6th Sunday after Pentecost, July 21, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
What a great delight for me to be back here with you at Grace Church. I bring greetings from all your sisters and brothers around the Diocese of Massachusetts who join me in congratulating you on this new partnership between rector and congregation. Many of them are here with us, including friends and colleagues from the Cape and Islands Deanery, of which you are a part; members of the diocesan staff; ecumenical clergy of this town; and many more. All of us are delighted to join you for this celebration and to
represent the wider church which rejoices with you!
Before moving back to Massachusetts a few years ago, my wife and I lived for 18years in Chicago and Cleveland. The shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie are beautiful –but they are not the ocean. We missed the salt air. We learned to eat lake perch instead of
cod. And we grew thoroughly unaccustomed to the tide. (Actually the Great Lakes do have a bit of tide, but not so as you’d notice – registering a variation of just 1 to 4 centimeters!). The tide is a ceaseless reminder of the dynamic quality and rhythms of our world
and of our lives. Here on Martha’s Vineyard you know all about tides. The up and down, out and in, swelling and contracting rhythm of the ocean waters are mirrored by the cycles of life in this place: winter/summer; isolation/congestion; population 16,000/population 100,000; a booming summer economy/a winter when many will need help to get through the lean months. Up and down, in and out.
Here at Grace Church, your life contains a similar rhythm. Week by week you come to this place to be nourished and strengthened; then you are sent out to serve. You come in to care for one another; you go out to care for others. You come in to sing and pray, and
study, (and maybe prepare Lobster Rolls!); you go out to show compassion to others, and live your faith, (and maybe serve Lobster Rolls!).
A congregation has other rhythms, too. Longer cycles of triumph and challenge, of joyful times and sad ones. Since your first service was held in 1862, through the ensuing 157 years, you’ve had periods of manifest growth and strong community engagement.
You’ve also times of challenge and sadness. My visits to Grace Church in the past 4-1/2 years have most often been at moments of strain and even acute grief. But now, once again, dear friends, the tide is rising! We affirm that our life in Christ is a never-ending journey of rebirth, renewal, and beginnings-again: that tidal rhythm of renewed commitment to one
another, and to those you serve near and far.
When I visited the parish in 2015, I was presented with a button and a T-shirt that bore the slogan, “got grace?” Perhaps it was one manifestation of what your online history refers to as the “enthusiasm and whimsy” of your priest at the time. From time to time I
wear the button or T-shirt: “got grace?” It tends to attract attention. Some folks who think in biblical or spiritual terms get it right away, and smile. Others, who clearly don’t understand the reference, look quizzically at me. One older woman actually gave me a
confused stare and asked, “Grace Kelly?” I’m not exactly sure what it would mean to “get” Grace Kelly. Or Grace Jones. Or Grace Slick. I guess I wouldn’t mind “getting” Grace Hopper, the brilliant computer scientist and naval officer.
In any case, the rhetorical question, “got grace?”, is in this case an invitation – an invitation to this church, Grace Church. And an invitation to receive the blessing which is inherent in the name you bear: Grace. The grace of God. The free, lavish, unearned love of
God. Got grace? Yes! By definition, as Christians we know ourselves to be recipients of this blessing, heirs to this promise.
But, just for a moment – treat this not as a rhetorical question, but one I’d like you to answer. For instance, you might know that our crucifer today is Grace O’Malley. So, if I say: “Look at this great liturgical crew: got Grace?” You say: “Yes!” This parish has survived more than a century and a half of good times, and hard times. Got grace? (Yes!) Camp Jabberwocky and its ministry with physically and mentally challenged persons has been supported by this congregation for decades. Got grace? (Yes!) Bishop John Burgess, and Esther, and their family, imparted and continue to impart their own special blessing to the life of this congregation. Got grace? (Yes!) A core value of this church is to live out its baptismal covenant to seek Christ in all persons, loving neighbor as
self. Got grace? (Yes!) At moments in its history, this parish has hosted a coffee shop for teens, and a basketball league; has marched in the CROP Walk; and has celebrated Mass on the Grass! Got grace? (Yes!) This church is a site on the Island’s African-American Heritage Trail. Got grace? (Yes!) And now, you have called a fine new priest as your rector – a man of deepest pastoral instinct and experience; a scholar and teacher; a man who with his family already loves this island, and wants to engage with you in its life. You’ve called Stephen Harding. Got grace? You do, indeed.
Your new rector was quoted recently in the MVTimes as saying this: “One of the things that is exciting to me [in this place] is that we can dream who we want to be into being. Yes, we’re an Episcopal church and we’re very proud of our tradition, but we have a freedom to explore and grow and find our place in ministry, in the world around us.”
I love that image of dreaming a new reality into being. In that quote – framed with the pronoun “we” and not “I” – and in the care with which Stephen made every aspect of today’s service to be fully mutual – it is clear that what we celebrate today is a not so much a new ‘administration’, but a new partnership in ministry. An earlier draft of today’s bulletin featured on the cover a heading which read: “The Institution of the Reverend Stephen Harding as the 18th Rector of Grace Episcopal Church.” Formally and canonically, it is that. But that is not what Stephen wanted as the headline. For he takes seriously the mutual, communal theology noted in today’s scriptures.
In the first lesson, Moses knew he could not lead the people on his own. He gathered no fewer than 70 elders to share responsibility. In our second lesson, Paul sketches out his familiar image for the church – one body composed of many parts, members of one another, complementing each other with differing gifts, so much stronger together than separately. And in the Gospel, even Jesus says his disciples are not servants, but friends – empowered and sent together to bear fruit. So, our service is framed as “A
Celebration of New Ministry at Grace Church.” Or perhaps, even more accurately, The Celebration of a New Partnership in a Longstanding Ministry.
Stephen is a devoted priest. No doubt he will work hard to carry out his pastoral ministry, as well as his responsibilities to preach and teach and organize and lead. But Stephen is not an ecclesiastical caterer. He is not called to be a professional Christian on
your behalf. Rather, you and he are called to be the church together: to care for one another together; to maintain this lovely church together; to teach your children together; to worship God together; and to serve the needs of a hurting world around you – together. Always, only, together - side by side as pastor and people.
The world, my friends, needs you. A world that cannot decide how to muster the courage to care adequately for our planet before it’s too late … needs you! A nation that can’t seem to remember what it means to welcome the stranger, as we ourselves were once
welcomed, … needs you! A society still divided by the bitter legacy of racism’s sin … needs you! An island where abundant resources can mask the plight of those whose shelter is insecure and who surf from couch to couch to campground … needs you! Our whole beautiful, lovely, broken world needs you, needs God’s grace, of which you are the agents.
Stephen has penned a beautiful prayer, found on the home page of your parish website. I cannot think of a better prayer for you today:
May our church be a place where our focus is on God and our neighbor;
where multiplicity of identities is sought;
where we remember that we are all equally in
relationship with God, who is greater than we are.
Where we gather together to be nourished and fed by our common God.
May we remember that we are in relationship with each other and that we are inter-reliant on each other.
That each of us is important and needed for our church and our Island to thrive.
May our Church be a place where we can see Christ in each other; remember who we are;
work together for the common good; and to share what we have been given with our wider community.
“Got grace?” Oh, you’ve got grace, all right. With a century and a half of God’s blessings behind you; and the mutual companionship of one another alongside of you; and the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit before you; you’ve got grace!
I am so grateful to be here with you to commend you in your selection of your new rector, and to welcome Stephen and Storm and Theo!
Stephen and people of Grace Church: Enjoy one another and cherish your differences. Share the work of ministry as pastor and people together. Fling wide your
doors, not only to let others in, but to go charging out! Like the tidal waters of your island,
come in and go out, for the love of God!
10am • 5th Sunday after Pentecost, July 17, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 4th Sunday after Pentecost, July 7, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 30, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, June 23, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Trinity Sunday, June 16, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Pentecost, June 9, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 19, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Third Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Second Sunday of Easter, April 28, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Easter Day, April 21, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
12noon • Good Friday, April 19, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
6pm • Maundy Thursday, April 18, 2019:
The Reverend Dr. Storm Swain |
10am • Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 7, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 31, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Third Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Second Sunday in Lent, March 17, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • First Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2019:
The Rev'd Dr. Storm Swain |
10am • Last Sunday of Epiphany, March 3, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 7 Epiphany, February 24, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 6 Epiphany, February 17, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 5 Epiphany, February 10, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 4 Epiphany, February 3, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 3 Epiphany, January 27, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10 am • 2 Epiphany, January 20, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • 1 Epiphany, January 13, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
10am • Epiphany, January 6, 2019:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
9:30pm • Christmas Eve, December 24, 2018:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
5pm • Christmas Eve, December 24, 2018:
The Reverend Stephen Harding |
The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23, 2018:
The Rev'd Stephen Harding |