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What I Am Giving God This Year ~ My Obedience

Of all the aspects of our relationship with God, perhaps obedience is the biggest issue with us.

Consider Joseph. He was upset about Mary when an angel came to him in a dream and brought him a message. Joseph heard the message and responded in obedience. "He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him" (Mt. 1:24). He was obedient to the message he received.

Consider St. Paul. His apostleship to the Gentiles was for bringing about obedience to the faith. Hearing or obeying, then, is used in the closest relationship to faith, not as two distinct acts, but as one and the same response. "Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). Obedience of the heart leads to a right relationship with God.

So, obedience is something I'd like to give God this Christmas! That involves two things: hearing and responding.

Firstly, I need to listen to the message. It comes through scripture – read and proclaimed. It comes in the Holy Eucharist. It comes through prayer and reflection. It comes in many ways. If I never listen to the message, I am not likely to ever hear and understand enough to do something about it.

Then, I need to respond to the message. My response will affect my participation in the ministries of the Church, relationships with others, stewardship of God-given resources, and my entire approach to life.

Those moments when we become obedient can be life-changing experiences. As a youth, my parents instructed me to call home if I was going to be out later than expected. I had trouble doing that and often discovered tired, worried, unhappy parents when I finally arrived home. I'll never forget the first time I tried calling in as they had instructed me to do! They were glad to hear from me. They actually trusted me but were concerned for my safety. They had good reasons for expecting my obedience. Once I understood that, I never hesitated to call them when I was running late.

When we listen to God and live according to the divine will, we enthrone God as sovereign of our lives. This is true prayer. This is faithfulness. This is discipleship.

I’m giving God my obedience this year.

Blessings,

The Very Rev'd Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

December 16, 2020
Pilgrims on a Journey

We have just completed a series of intentional holy conversations at St. Martin’s. Many thanks to all who participated!

The recent parish survey provided an enormous amount of important data for the Rector Search Committee to consider while they are preparing the parish profile. The holy conversations have now provided confirmation of that data as well as a sense of what is on the hearts of the people of this parish. The notes taken during those conversations fills twenty-one pages. The committee now sets about the task of telling the story of St. Martin’s in hopes it will inspire Priests to enter into discernment with them concerning a call to serve as the next Rector. Please remember them in your prayers as they enter this next phase of the search process.

The series of holy conversations was called Yearning to Know God’s Will. The topics we covered were The Power of Discernment During Transition, Honoring the Past, Embracing the Present, and Reaching for What Lies Ahead. These topics helped us look at the past, the present, and the future in the context of spiritual discernment. We asked "What is God up to at St. Martin's?

At the beginning of each conversation, I gave a presentation about the topic at hand. In one presentation, I spoke of an interview I saw with a young man who had walked 750 miles to attend the recent March on Washington. After describing the encounters he had along the way, he said, “When I started out, I thought my goal was to be here in Washington, D.C. But I now understand that the goal was the journey itself.”

In the transition between Rectors at St. Martin’s and in this protracted time of pandemic, we especially need to be reminded of the importance of the journey. How we use the period between the beginning and the end of a thing is vitally important. Did you know the first Christians called the movement “The Way?” Later on in the history of Christianity, more emphasis was placed on the destination – heaven. Maybe too much. Perhaps this is a good time to draw inspiration from those earliest followers of Jesus and focus more on the journey.

Where is God’s hand at work in the world around me today?
How is God blessing me and others in the present moment?
Where is there a hurt to be healed?
Where is there a need to be filled?
What is the word of hope and encouragement that I can to speak?
How can I be Christ to someone around the next corner?

This verse from The Servant Song expresses it this way:

We are pilgrims on a journey,
We are trav'lers on the road;
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

Eternity is not just the end, it is also the journey!

Blessings,

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

September 3, 2020
The Flesh Became Word

We are in the days leading up to the Day of Pentecost and in a period sometimes known as Ascensiontide. The Ascension (Luke 24:44-53) is probably not the best known of the feast days on the calendar, but it is one that takes on increasing depth and importance the more you think about it and experience it.

The Ascension is not about gravity, or the physical location of heaven, or any of that. It is about God. In fact, even though it comes toward the end of Eastertide, the Ascension is most closely related in meaning to Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and living among us.

What was begun at Christmas is brought full circle and proclaimed again in a different way at the Ascension. In the Incarnation, what it means to be God became fully a part of what it means to be a human being. In Jesus, the human and the divine become united in the person and life of one man. In the Ascension, this human being became a part of who God is.

It was not the spirit of Jesus, or the essence of Jesus, or the divine nature of Jesus, or the invisible part of Jesus, or the idea of Jesus, or anything like that, that ascended to the Father. It was the resurrected body of Jesus: a body that the disciples had touched, a body that ate and drank with them, a real, physical, but gloriously restored body, bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This humanity has become a living, participating part of Divinity.

The Ascension tells us that it is a good and holy thing to be a human. In fact, it is so good and holy a thing that God became human. The fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.

So we are able to approach God with confidence and with joy. Because we are not only dealing with the Creator of the universe and the Sovereign of all time and of eternity; we are also drawing near to the One who lived our life, has shared our fate, who knows us, and cares about us.

I'll see you in Church!

P.S. You just can't beat Charles Wesley when you need a hymn for an occasion like Ascension Day! Here's the Choir of Tewkesbury Abbey singing his rousing hymn Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise. (By the way, Ascension Day this year also happens to be the 282^nd anniversary of Charles Wesley’s conversion experience in 1738.)

1. Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia!
glorious to his native skies; Alleluia!
Christ, awhile to mortals given, Alleluia!
enters now the highest heaven! Alleluia!

2. There the glorious triumph waits; Alleluia!
lift your heads, eternal gates! Alleluia!
Wide unfold the radiant scene; Alleluia!
take the King of glory in! Alleluia!

3. See! he lifts his hands above; Alleluia!
See! he shows the prints of love: Alleluia!
Hark! his gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
blessings on his Church below. Alleluia!

4. Lord beyond our mortal sight, Alleluia!
raise our hearts to reach thy height, Alleluia!
there thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
find our heaven of heavens in thee. Alleluia!

May 21, 2020
Savior of the Nations, Come

Savior of the nations, come;
Virgin’s Son, here make Thy home!
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.

Not by human flesh and blood;
By the Spirit of our God
Was the Word of God made flesh,
Woman’s offspring, pure and fresh.

Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child
Of the virgin undefiled!
Though by all the world disowned,
Still to be in heaven enthroned.

From the Father forth He came
And returneth to the same,
Captive leading death and hell
High the song of triumph swell!

Thou, the Father’s only Son,
Hast over sin the victory won.
Boundless shall Thy kingdom be;
When shall we its glories see?

Brightly doth Thy manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine.
Let not sin o’ercloud this light;
Ever be our faith thus bright.

Praise to God the Father sing,
Praise to God the Son, our King,
Praise to God the Spirit be
Ever and eternally.

Words: Ambrose of Milan, circa 397 (Veni Redemptor gentium); translated from Latin to German by Martin Luther, 1523; translated from German to English by William M. Reynolds, 1851.

Music: Nun Komm, Enchiridion Oder Handbüchlein, Johann Walther (Wittenberg, Germany: 1524); harmony by Johann S. Bach

December 7, 2017
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September 23, 2017
Savior of the Nations, Come

Savior of the nations, come;
Virgin’s Son, here make Thy home!
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.

Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child
Of the virgin undefiled!
Though by all the world disowned,
Still to be in heaven enthroned.

Brightly doth Thy manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine.
Let not sin o’ercloud this light;
Ever be our faith thus bright.

Praise to God the Father sing,
Praise to God the Son, our King,
Praise to God the Spirit be
Ever and eternally.

________________________________________

Words: Ambrose of Milan, circa 397 (Veni Redemptor gentium); translated from Latin to German by Martin Luther, 1523; translated from German to English by William M. Reynolds, 1851.

Music: Nun Komm, Enchiridion Oder Handbüchlein, Johann Walther (Wittenberg, Germany: 1524)

Recording: David Tolk, Christmas

December 6, 2016
An Advent Story

Advent is a time of preparation. The messages of the Hebrew prophets and of John the Bapitzer tell us that repentance is a necessary element when we are preparing for God’s entrance into our lives. The call to repentance is a call to examine our lives and change directions in ways that open our lives for God to do something new.

At this time of year, many people turn again to the wonderful Victorian era classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. As I read it, A Christmas Carol is really an Advent story. The surly old curmudgeon, Ebenezer Scrooge, lives a miserly existence with his entire being. Then he is visited in a dream by three Christmas ghosts. He sees his past and then his present. But what is most frightening to him, what shakes him to the core, is the vision of his future. Scrooge awakens to find that nothing has changed. Dickens says, “The bedpost was his own. The bed was his own. The room was his own.” Then Dickens adds, in what might be an Advent text, “Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in.”

Scrooge undergoes a radical transformation and becomes an entirely new person. He leaves behind the cold and indifferent miser and becomes generous and compassionate. He seizes the time and becomes what the Bible might call “a new creation.” The world has not changed, but he has!

It is a heart-warming story. But more than that, it is a hopeful story. It provides us with the hope that we too can have a change of heart and mind when we know we should. John the Baptizer tells us that someone is coming, someone so spectacular that it is not enough simply to hang around waiting for him to arrive. It is time to get ready, to prepare the way, so that when he comes he can walk a straight path right to us.

That’s what makes the news good! The call to wake up and change directions is filled with the promise that something new is about to happen right before our eyes and in our lives. The time before us is our own “to make amends in” as we prepare room for God to make us new creatures. May this Advent be such a time for you!

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Reverend Ron Pogue
Interim Dean
Saint John’s Cathedral
Denver, Colorado

November 29, 2016
Consecration Sunday Sermon ~ October 11, 2015

October 13, 2015
With Glad & Generous Hearts

I have compiled a series of meditations on stewardship for St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole into an online booklet. You can make it full screen and turn the pages like a book or you can download it as a pdf. May it inspire you to a deeper appreciation for the spiritual discipline of stewardship.

October 8, 2015
St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole

The Reverend Ronald D. Pogue, Interim Rector
St. John’s Episcopal Church
P.O. Box 1690
170 N. Glenwood St.
Jackson, Wyoming 83001
307.739.0463
ron@stjohnsjackson.org

January 26, 2015