Tag: new life

Getting Ready for Lent

Next Wednesday, we will begin our annual observance of the Season of Lent. Lent is a time for engaging our new life in Christ more deeply, risking new levels of trust. The purpose of Lent is not to dwell on suffering, or to spend forty days bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness for the sake of feeling our pain. Lent is about engaging in the ongoing process of renewal, regeneration, and new birth; it is about encouraging us to trust and to risk going forth and being sent out with the promise of new life.

Lent may require us to “think outside the box” of piety and religiosity, just as Abram and Sarai had to break with their past, and Saul and Nicodemus the Pharisees with theirs. The promises of God bear not only upon the future of our individual lives in relationship to God, but also upon the future of our parish, our diocese, and our Church as a whole.

To respond to the promise for new life means we have to be ready to redraw and rename the places on the journey. When the ancient ones told the story of Abram and Sarai, they were also inscribing new place names and creating a new social geography on the territories of their migrations in company with God.

God may be inviting us to rethink how we do Church in light of the socio-geographies of the times we live in. When Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle as we know him, he brought new words, images, and new community structures into being, “calling into existence things which do not exist,” by trustfully following Jesus into new life.

Lent is for listening to that call in our own lives. In the words of James Russell Lowell, “New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.” Lent is for careful thinking about how to step into the as-yet-unmapped future, to deepen our relationship to God, to trust the picture of new life in Christ, and for identifying the breaks with the past that we need to make in order to respond to the promises of God.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

Blessings,

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

February 11, 2021
New Life Requires Risk and Trust

The readings for this Sunday are filled with images of renewal – new birth, new life, new creation. These images imply that God’s promise for new life entails God’s gift of a fresh start, freed from the restrictions of our past lives in order to enter a new relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lent is a time for engaging our new life in Christ more deeply, risking new levels of trust. The purpose of Lent is not to dwell on suffering, or to spend forty days bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness for the sake of feeling our pain. Lent is about engaging in the ongoing process of renewal, regeneration, and new birth; it is about encouraging us to trust and to risk going forth and being sent out with the promise of new life.

Lent may require us to “think outside the box” of piety and religiosity, just as Abram and Sarai had to break with their past, and the Pharisees Saul and Nicodemus with theirs. The promises of God bear not only upon the future of our individual lives in relationship to God, but also upon the future of our parish, our diocese, and our Church as a whole

To respond to the promise for new life means we have to be ready to redraw and rename the places on the journey. When the ancient ones told the story of Abram and Sarai, they were also inscribing new place names and creating a new social geography on the territories of their migrations in company with God.

God may be inviting us to rethink how we do Church in light of the socio-geographies of the times we live in. When Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle as we know him, he brought new words, images, and new community structures into being, “calling into existence things which do not exist,” by trustfully following Jesus into new life.

Lent is for listening to that call in our own lives. In the words of James Russell Lowell, “New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.” Lent is for careful thinking about how to step into the as-yet-unmapped future, to deepen our relationship to God, to trust the picture of new life in Christ, and for identifying the breaks with the past that we need to make in order to respond to the promises of God.

I'll see you in Church!

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

March 5, 2020
Now the Green Blade Rises

Three weeks ago, the Lawn of St. John’s Church was covered with snow. A few days after Easter the snow is gone and the grass is amazingly green. I'm reminded one of my favorite Easter hymns, Now the Green Blade Rises. Take a moment to read these wonderful words of new life, hope, and springtime:

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

We all know those seasons of life when things seem frozen, lifeless, hopeless, or entirely unfair. Easter is God's word of hope that life and love will triumph over all that. In the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we find that news most perfectly expressed.

May the Great Fifty Days of Easter be filled with reminders of that good news. And, beyond that, may we all be Easter People throughout the year, bringing that message of hope to others.

Enjoy this rendition of the hymn by the Choir of Ely Cathedral.

I’ll see you in Church!

April 8, 2016
Easter is more than a day.

During the forty days of Lent each year we spend time getting ready for the celebration of Easter. There is fasting, self-denial, prayer, intensified devotion, scripture study, and other disciplines designed to cleanse our hearts.

Then, comes the big celebration. Easter. Like so many Christian holy days, Easter seems to disappear the next day as life returns to "normal." But Easter should be more than that to us! It certainly was to those early disciples. Easter is more than a day!

Easter is a season of celebration. The Risen Christ walked among his disciples for forty days after his resurrection. He taught them, ate with them, prayed with them, and loved them. Before he was taken up into heaven, he promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. The promise was fulfilled on the fiftieth day when they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Jewish feast of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. In Greek, it is called Pentecost. Pentecost is seven weeks, or fifty days, after the observance of Passover and commemorates the spring wheat harvest. This feast has also been associated with the remembrance of the giving of the Law to Moses. As the law was written on tablets of stone, the Spirit would write God's law upon the hearts of believers. When Moses came down from the mountain, he found God's people worshipping an idol and 3,000 of them died. When the Spirit was given, the disciples were obediently waiting in Jerusalem. 3,000 people were saved! The New People of the New Covenant were empowered by the Life-giving Spirit to be Christ's Body in the world, proclaiming to everyone the Easter message that Christ is alive.

Easter is a lifestyle. We are Easter People! As those early disciples in Emmaus and Jerusalem and in Galilee experienced the living presence of the Risen Christ, so we recognize that he stands among us today. To paraphrase Jesus, "believing is seeing." When we gather to hear the Word and share in the Holy Meal, it is usually easy to experience his presence "enthroned upon the praises of his people." The challenging part comes when we disperse. When Christ's Body touches the world through you and me when we are apart from one another, do you suppose the Living Presence is felt?

Easter is our only hope. St. Peter writes, "By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…" There is a lot of help out there for people with all kinds of needs. But Christians believe that beyond help, people need hope. So what if you are physically or emotionally well. Life is just not complete without hope. The Easter faith gives the world hope.

So, don't let Easter fade like the blooms on your Easter Lily! Easter is more than a day; it is a season, a lifestyle, and a faith that fills our lives with hope.

I’ll see you in Church!

March 23, 2016
Sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole ~ April 5, 2015

Easter Day

Listen to the Sermon April 5, 2015

Read the Sermon for April 5, 2015

April 5, 2015
Sermon at Christ Church Cranbrook ~ March 23, 2014

The Third Sunday in Lent

Listen to the Sermon for March 23, 2014

Read the Sermon for March 23, 2014

March 23, 2014
Sermon at Christ Church Cranbrook ~ November 4, 2012

All Saints' Sunday B

Listen to the Sermon for November 4, 2012

Read the Sermon for November 4, 2012

November 5, 2012
New life requires risk, trust

Sunday's readings are filled with images of renewal – new birth, new life, new creation. These images imply that God’s promise for new life entails God’s gift of a fresh start, freed from the restrictions of our past lives in order to enter a new relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lent is a time for engaging our new life in Christ more deeply, risking new levels of trust. The purpose of Lent is not to dwell on suffering, or to spend forty days bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness for the sake of feeling our pain. Lent is about engaging in the ongoing process of renewal, regeneration, and new birth; it is about encouraging us to trust and to risk going forth and being sent out with the promise of new life.

Lent may require us to “think outside the box” of piety and religiosity, just as Abram and Sarai had to break with their past, and Saul and Nicodemus the Pharisees with theirs. The promises of God bear not only upon the future of our individual lives in relationship to God, but also upon the future of our parish, our diocese, and our Church as a whole

To respond to the promise for new life means we have to be ready to redraw and rename the places on the journey. When the ancient ones told the story of Abram and Sarai, they were also inscribing new place names and creating a new social geography on the territories of their migrations in company with God.

God may be inviting us to rethink how we do Church in light of the socio-geographies of the times we live in. When Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle as we know him, he brought new words, images, and new community structures into being, “calling into existence things which do not exist,” by trustfully following Jesus into new life.

Lent is for listening to that call in our own lives. In the words of James Russell Lowell, “New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.” Lent is for careful thinking about how to step into the as-yet-unmapped future, to deepen our relationship to God, to trust the picture of new life in Christ, and for identifying the breaks with the past that we need to make in order to respond to the promises of God.

March 17, 2011