Author: churchgoodshepherd823

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Easter VII, May 29, 2022, at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
By The Rev. Stephen Galleher

ARE WE ONE…OR NOT?

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…. The glory
that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.” (John 17:20-26)
“There we shall with you remain,
partners of your endless reign!
see you with unclouded view,
find our heaven of heavens in you.”
(Opening Hymn, #214, v 5)
Today in our liturgical year, we note the conclusion of Jesus’s
earthly ministry. Ascension Day was noted this past Thursday. 50 days
after the supposed bodily Resurrection, Jesus takes his leave and ascends
into heaven. A rather spectacular affair if we choose to see it as actually
having happened. But surely the point is that this man, this man who
walked among us, was one with his God—in complete union with God.
In fact, in the beautiful gospel reading, he proclaims his unity with his
father. Christ sits down at the right hand of God. This is the highest
position of prominence beside a king. But the wonder and glory of

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Ascensciontide is not just the high position of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
of us, because we, too, are included in this party, not just as guests, but
elevated to sit right there at God’s right hand. Jesus says in the gospel
that everything that God has given Christ, Christ has given us. The point
is not that we might just be together, but that we might be one. “I in
them and you in me, that they [meaning we] may become completely
one.”
The Beatles get this right in their cute little nonsense ditty, “I Am
the Walrus.”
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob.
Ok, the Beatles may not be sophisticated theologians but they get
the point. I am you and you are me and we are all, every single one of
us, in this together as brothers and sisters. Together, wherever we go.

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This is so critically important in today’s world, and I wonder if we
do not sense the exhilarating, explosive nature of this reality. For it is
either reality or a fairy tale, and I think we know, intuitively and from
our own life experiences, that it is reality. We are one.
So why don’t we see this lived out? Instead we see division, strife,
conflict and war. And it has been going on as long as human beings have
walked on this planet, and it shows very little sign of slowing down.
The reality of our oneness stands in stark contrast the nonsense of
our not getting along.
What gives? And especially as Christians, we should be saddened,
angry, almost despondent over the slow pace at which we make love.
And I hope we grieve for our country, this country, which is in
moral decline. We allow 18-year-old, disturbed young men to purchase
assault rifles and we watch as they gun down second and third graders
and we do nothing legislatively to stem the violence.
Where is our soul? Do we have no soul?
After all, our planet is on fire. Instead of pitching in and joining
forces around the planet to solve the pressing human problems that face

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every single living being, we fortify our borders, hunker down with our
points of view, feed and fuel the culture wars and just do not see our
neighbors in ourselves. And we do not see the plank in our own eyes we
are so busy pointing to the speck in our neighbors’ eyes.
I am truly saddened, and yes, baffled by this. So much in common.
We have the same needs and loves and we share the same acres and the
same forests and plains; and yet we just don’t seem to give a damn about
that neighbor across the way who has the same needs and loves.
Several people have remarked that Christianity is the answer, that
love is the answer if it were only practiced.
My reply to this is that Christianity is practiced; we do love our
families and friends. But the line is drawn somewhere. Somewhere in
the neighborhood a line is drawn in the sand. But the gospel two weeks
ago said clearly, Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you: that you
love one another.”
“But, we reply, don’t we already know about this? What is new
about it?”

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Jesus said “new” because he was calling his Jewish brothers and
sisters to love outside the circumcised community. Jew and Gentile.
Male and female. Israelite and Roman and Greek.
In today’s world, the call is clear. We are called to love every
citizen of this country and every citizen of every country. When we pray
for peace in Ukraine, we must pray for both the Ukrainian soldiers and
people but also the Russian soldiers and people.
But then we go back to our factionalism. We go back to talking
about the pros and cons of every situation.
But somebody has to make the first move.
Am I not right, that we need a spiritual awakening? Must we not
wake up and make the first move? I do not see this happening at the
national or international levels. We make our cases, call together our
allies and yell across the battlelines. Where will all this lead us and who
is going to make the first move to make peace? Of course, we do not
trust the “other.” And, of course, they do not trust us. So, then: who is
going to make the first move? Here’s an alert: there is no “other.” The
“other” is a creation we make out of fear and distrust.

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1 In Christ there is no east or west,
in him no south or north,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.

2 In Christ shall true hearts ev’rywhere
their high communion find.
His service is the golden cord
close binding humankind.

3 Join hands, then, people of the faith,
whate’er your race may be.
All children of the living God
are surely kin to me.

4 In Christ now meet both east and west,
in him meet south and north.
All Christly souls are joined as one
throughout the whole wide earth.

Amen.

By The Rev. Deacon Virgina Jenkins-Whatley sermon May 15, 2022

An essential part of being a follower of Jesus Christ is a willingness to love. How many times have we heard with our ears and our hearts the words in today’s Gospel passage, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. Such as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other.” In this day and age, so nice to hear but very hard to do.

These are, of course, words of our Lord, given not as a suggestion or an option, as something to embrace if we feel up to it, but as a real mandate, a challenge to put into practice day in and day out until our final breath. Easier said than done, we probably will readily agree.

It is good to remember that the teaching of Christ is not a philosophy or a theory, but a way of life, a way of love, manifested in words and deeds. “Love one another, as I have loved you,” is the basic teaching of Christ, and that is our work, challenging as it may be and even a cause of suffering and death.

The words and deeds of Christ teach a path other than violence, hatred and revenge, and we are called to inculcate the example of our Master in our daily lives. We may ask: how did Christ love? First of all, without counting the cost, even as it led to suffering and death on the cross.

Christ lived and died for others and never ignored the cries of the poor and the needy. Christ cured the sick, gave sight to the blind, raised the dead, and pardoned sinners. In other words, Christ willingly shared in the sufferings and joys of the people around him. Christ’s guiding principle was, “Do not judge and you shall not be judged; do not condemn and you shall not be condemned.”

Christ could understand and hope in others, even when there might be cause for discouragement or despair. Through self-giving love Christ shared our human condition completely even to the extreme of suffering and dying for those he loved.

The love of Christ was and is a constant and generous donation of self. Before giving his life on the cross, Jesus gave his Body and Blood at the Last Supper as a perpetual gift to those able to believe in him and embrace his teaching and example of “no greater love than to give one’s life for one’s friends,” realized perfectly in his existence.

The call to each of us is to imitate Christ day by day. It is not always easy to know just what to do in given circumstances of life, let alone have the courage and strength to put into practice what we sense we are called to do. But we are promised the abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit, alive and active in the Church, in her Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, and in our lives, assisting us in our struggle to do good. Even when we fail sometimes or often, we are not to give up in our efforts.

We cannot truly love if we lack open ears and hearts to the needs of others. We might see the speck in the eye of others and refuse to help them, when in fact we are missing the beam in our own eye. Following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we are called upon to show genuine interest for the welfare of others, even those whom we may find no attraction toward.

Looking more closely at the scripture readings assigned to the fifth Sunday in Eastertide, we first of all see the realism of Saints Paul  in his missionary activity, taking to heart the words of the Lord, “anyone who wishes to come after me must take up his cross.” As Christ had to die and so enter into his glory, so also every follower of Christ.

Suffering, in all its unattractiveness, is part and parcel of the Christian vocation. Tribulation leads to the kingdom and by our suffering we also become partakers in the glory which Christ won for us by the shedding of his blood. This was the experience of Paul and meant to be ours too.

The reading from the Book of Revelation, the second lesson for this Sunday’s Mass, speaks of Christ as Lord of the universe ordaining the course of history toward the final victory of, “a new heaven and a new earth.” This means a new creation which will last for ever, a life of endless fellowship with God, an end to all sorrow and finding unbounded joy in God’s presence. This takes place with the fellowship of believers, in communion with all the angels and saints of God.

In the meantime, we disciples are to carry on Christ’s messianic love. We must show to those entrusted to us by God, that is, everyone with whom we live and meet, a love extended to the sacrifice of our own good and life.

As disciples in the service of Christ, we are called to never give up doing good, for the spread of God’s Kingdom on earth. This is the consequence of the Sacrament of Baptism that we have received as infants or at some other stage in our life, that invisible but indelible belonging to God and God to us. In this we are united with Christ through thick and thin.

The Lord invites us to forget ourselves and thereby find our true self, totally dedicated to God and others without counting the cost or shrinking back in fear. May the Lord enlighten our minds and hearts to be on fire for the things of God, today and always. Love one another, as I have loved you,”

AMEN

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Easter IV, May 8, 2022, at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen Galleher

THE GOOD-EST SHEPHERD

“…him, who calls us each by name.”
(Collect for Easter IV)
“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” (John 10:22-30)
God, the shepherd, or, as John’s gospel declares God, the Good
Shepherd, is about as caring and as close as God can get to us human
beings, affectionately known as “sheep.” Shepherds keep a wary and
devotional eye on their sheep. When one wanders off, the shepherd
doesn’t hesitate to go after it and bring it back to safety. And this
shepherd, according to the prayer, calls us each by name. We are not just
a number in the flock. We have names, particular names. This is just
how close the shepherd is to each member of the flock.
Why do you suppose that is? Of course, we know that farmers
raise sheep for a living. It’s in their economic interest to keep tabs. But
calling sheep by names evokes a sense of affection. This shepherd not
only raises sheep for a living, but he loves his sheep, each one of them.
Jesus loves us, this I know

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Because the Bible tells me so.
But let’s hope it is more than that, more than just you’ve read it in the
Bible, or you think you’re supposed to believe it. Do you believe that
Jesus loves you? Let’s put it more broadly and more squarely. Do you
believe that God loves you?
And if you hesitate to say yes, why do you hesitate? This is a very
important question, for it determines the level of your enjoyment of your
life and the level of what you think about yourself. If you don’t love
yourself as God claims to love you, you’re hung up on all the drama in
your life. Of course, all of us get involved in drama. I call this drama the
fretfulness trap, the things that take our eyes off the prize, the prize of
basking in the knowledge of God’s presence with us personally. And by
being all wrapped up in drama, we wind up thinking about ourselves too
much and really becoming quite indifferent to those people around us
and pretty much the rest of the world. Perhaps one way to begin to live
into the love of God for us is to stop thinking about ourselves so
intensely, dourly, pessimistically, dramatically. In other words, let’s
forget about ourselves to find ourselves.

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I want to get at this love that the shepherd has for us another way.
I have been asking people quite a lot lately to answer a simple but
perhaps, at first, overwhelming question. And the question I ask is this,
“Why are we here?” “What is the point of your life?”
I want to pause a moment for us to reflect on this.
[Now I want to ask you to speak out and answer in your own
words.]
The almost unanimous answer I have been getting when I ask this
question—“What is the point of our life?”—is, “We are here to love one
another.” C.S. Lewis puts it a bit differently in his book The Great
Divorce. There the question is “Why were we born?” and the answer is
“For infinite happiness.” And Lewis adds, “You can step out into it any
moment.” Isn’t that wild and wonderful? You can step out into it at any
minute! Our perpetual happiness is just that close. I’ll leave it to you to
answer just why we don’t all do just that, step out into it.
And another friend’s answer to why we are here was this. “We are
here to learn lessons.” Ok, I answer, but what are these lessons for?
What’s the point of the lessons in life? Surely, they are placed in our

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lives for us to learn how to love. This is a lifetime’s task, and it may not
always be so easy, right?
I know, I know. We put up all kinds of arguments as to why love is
not the reason for our existence, the whole point of living. “Love” has so
many meanings, we argue. And there are levels of needs. Having food
and shelter and a living wage seem to take priority over loving. Who
thinks of loving when he’s broke and homeless?
All good questions, but the business of loving still permeates and
informs just how we meet this hierarchy of needs. There is a wonderful
love song about the complexity of love. Yes, love is complex and multi-
layered, but as the song is titled, “But beautiful.”
Love is funny, or it’s sad
Or it’s quiet, or it’s mad
It’s a good thing or it’s bad
But beautiful

Beautiful to take a chance
And if you fall you fall
And I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind at all

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Love is tearful, or it’s gay
It’s a problem or it’s play
It’s a heartache either way
But beautiful

And I’m thinking if you were mine
I’d never let you go
And that would be but beautiful I know
,
But beautiful

and I’m thinking if you were mine
I’d never let you go
And that would be but beautiful I know
Isn’t this what the shepherd is about, never letting us go? Just as Christ
loves us, so ought we to love one another. As they greet one another in
the East, the Christ in me greets the Christ in you.
And as for the Good Shepherd, I heard a Good Shepherd story
from a retired clergy friend of mine this past week. It seems that as a
child my friend suffered from quite severe dyslexia, though they didn’t
diagnose it well back then. One night, he was stuck on his geography
homework lesson and started crying as he was unable to read it clearly.

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His father downstairs must have heard him and came up and sat in a
chair beside his desk. He said, “Don’t cry, son. Let me tell you about
myself.”
And the father went ahead to tell him about his own history of
struggling to read. He concluded by saying, “And one day the light will
burst in your face, and you will see how to do it. In my case,” he
continued, “it started as a glow and the light just got brighter and
brighter through the years.”
The king of love my shepherd is. And we must praise this shepherd
who has been present with us in so many people throughout our lives.
Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Easter III, May 1, 2022, at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
By The Rev. Stephen Galleher

RESURRECTION
EVERYWHERE AND WHEN!

“Sing to the Lord, you servants of his…Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning. You have
turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.”
(Psalm 30:4,6,12)
In the midst of persecutions and executions, there is healing. While death surrounded the early church as it

grappled with the news of Jesus’ appearances, there was also a sense of exhilaration and joy that something new
had burst, was bursting into our world. This is the paradox of our existence, isn’t it? That sometimes just at the
very worst time, the penny drops, the sun pierces through the clouds…and, yes, sometimes it happens just as we
close our eyes for the very last time.

Who can fathom this paradox? That out of despair, comes hope; out of hopelessness, comes a faithful
resignation that all is well and all manner of things shall be well.

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This is probably part of the reason that so many of us hang in there. After all, the church doesn’t draw folks
in the way it did in previous generations, even a short while ago. Something fails to attract them. Something
doesn’t speak to the deepest part of them. For, make no mistake, there are dark shadows in each of our lives. There
are longings too deep for words, tears that are shed behind closed doors as folks are unable to open their eyes and

see the glory that shines all about them. The church is here to open our eyes, either for the first time or once
again—to shout that the Lord is risen, and you are risen with God. His divinity is engrafted into you by Baptism.
Remember in the old Milton Berle comedy hour when someone would run out on stage and take a big mitt of
powder and yell, “Makeup!” as he slapped Uncle Milty’s face. “Thanks,” I can hear us say, “We needed that.”

That’s why comedy is so special. It cuts through all the tragic narratives we keep repeating and invites us out to
play, even when the sky is full of clouds and Chicken Little seems in charge of our narrative.
Jesus appears to his disciples right where they are in their lives, on the seashore, at a meal. We don’t have to
work our way up to God, God leans over like a loving father and touches us right smack where we are!

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I was musing the other day with a friend about just how very, very little I know about anything. It boggles
my mind. I was curious, I shared with him, as to whether the future comes to us or do we go towards the future?
What’s moving and where—we to the future or the future to us. My friend replied, amused, “Why should I care?
What difference does it make?”

Perhaps not much difference at all. But perhaps I like mental riddles. We speak of time “flying,” but where
does it fly from and where does it fly to? Does it move at all? We remember the famous line of King Macbeth in
the Shakespeare play, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” I, for
one, wish it would creep a little slower.

And then I wonder do I really know who I am? I love the question, because no matter how much my mind
wants to tell me all about me, especially unkind things about me, I truly don’t really know. Do you know? Or, like
my friend again, “Why should we care?”

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We should care, I suggest, because whatever we say about who we are, most of us paint a rather dim picture
of ourselves. Human nature is the great understater, the great underestimater of our true worth. I say “true worth”
as if I know for sure. But if God is God, then it just must be that we are glorious products of God’s handiwork.
How sad, and how irreverent, that we think less of ourselves than what God thinks of us. God doesn’t disparage or

dismiss God’s creation. On the contrary, he revels in it. Look at the glorification of Jesus. The story of Jesus is not
a sad story; it is a happy story, because it turns the very worst that could happen to a human being and declares it
ok. Spoiler alert: everything is going to be ok. This is our faith, our proclamation and this is our mission: to
proclaim this good news to every single living creature on earth.

Amen.

By The Rev. Deacon Virginia Jenkins-Whatley

Prayer: Dear Lord, we humbly welcome you into worship with us. Please guide our study of your word, illuminating its meaning according to your will. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen

My best friend’s father was 87 years old when he passed away in 2017. His only son married a woman that he did not approve of in 1998 and they stopped speaking to each other at that point. A very large financial amount had been withdrawn from the father’s account but nothing was ever done about it. His two daughters had constant contact with the  son and knew what he had been doing but never told the father.

Father had become ill in 2014 and he had to be institutionalized. He would not give any of the children power of attorney so their family attorney had to step in. He had some  wealth and he always threatened to disinherit any of the kids that defied him. As his condition worsened the family was told to prepare for the worse and hope for the best.

His daughters informed their brother and he came to the hospital to see their family. Dad was so thrilled to see his son, they hugged and kissed and apologized to each other. He continued to visit his father daily. His sisters were not pleased but did not say anything as long as dad was happy. The father instructed the attorney to come to the hospital so that he could amend his will. The father asked to see his grandsons that he never met.  The father died within the hour and never met the kids. The son thought that all was forgiven with dad.

The reading of the will was devastating to the son. All of the properties, money, etc went to the two daughters. Father wrote that the two of you tried to keep me strong at the weakest point of my life. The son received a letter stating that you stole from me out of hatred and revenge. I allowed you to keep the life you chose.

This modern day story shows similarities to today’s gospel

The parable of the Prodigal Son only found in Luke’s gospel more accurately should be called the Forgiving Father

In the gospel, this father did not just forgive a younger son, his prodigal son. He also forgave an older son, a dutiful son. A son who was very much like the Pharisees who were listening that day. And we miss the point if we don’t deal with both of these young men.

Luke tells us up front why Jesus is telling his story. His preaching was attracting tax collectors and sinners. In other words, they were upset that Jesus was hanging out with drug dealers and addicts and thieves and alcoholics and prostitutes. They were upset that Jesus was hanging out in the neighborhood around Triune.

In the parable, the younger son asked his father to give him his share of the property that belonged to him. So the father divided his property between them.

This younger son was a piece of work. Asking for your inheritance before your father’s death was an insult. It was saying to your father. “I wish you were dead”.The younger son took all that he had and left. He squandered his property into dissolute living. He spent  everything and a severe famine took place throughout that country and he began to be in need.He worked on a farm feeding the pigs and contemplated eating the pods fed to the pigs because he was so hungry. He began to think of how well the hired hands working for his father were being fed. So he decided to return home and throw himself on his father’s mercy.

While he was far off, his father saw him.Now the story turns the spotlight on the father. The father saw him far off which makes you believe the father never stopped watching for his son’s return. The parable tells us something else too. The father was filled with compassion and ran toward his son. This doesn’t sound odd to our ears. But it was shocking to Jesus’ first century audience.

The father lavished his son with symbols of welcome and respect and restored his place as a son of the household restoring him to his original position. The father gave a big party and stated that this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found

Now the oldest son being informed by the hired hands of the treatment his brother is receiving from the father is furious and refusing to go in the house. The father came out and pleaded with him. In his rage he told the father how he had been working like a slave  for him and never disobeyed him yet the youngest fully disobeyed and disrespected him.

Again the father repeated that his younger son had been lost and now he is found .

Now don’t forget who is listening to this story along with the tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees and scribes are there, people who focus on right and wrong, people who focus on religious law. In this story, Jesus was talking about tax collectors and sinner who like the prodigal son were offered the gift of grace.We like to see the Pharisees and the self righteous get their comeuppance in the scriptures. We root for the underdog, the prostitute that poured perfume on Jesus feet,for the tax collector who prayed in the temple with his head bowed, for Zacchaeus hidden in tree.The gospel is not the gospel if it is not available to the self righteous Pharisee

The problem, as this parable points out, is that it may be easier for the tax collector and the sinner, for the prodigal son, to accept God’s grace than it is for the Pharisees and the scribe and the older son

If you are always right, it is hard to see that you need forgiveness.

There were tax collectors and sinners and grumbling Pharisees and scribes. Jesus told them a story about a God who forgives them all.

Their challenge, our challenge, is to realize that forgiveness is available and forgiveness is necessary to every single one.

Amen

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, February 27, 2022, at 8:00 & 10:00 a.m.
By The Rev. Stephen Galleher

“Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had
been talking with God.” (Exodus 34:29-35)
“All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though
reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from
one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2)
“The appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling
white” (Luke 9:28-36)
This Epiphany season we have been tracing the wonder and
miracle of light, without which none of us would be here this
morning, a light that shone at the beginning of creation (if creation
had a beginning), the light that announced the birth of one who
personified light, a new light that was coming into the world. Light
announces light. And we saw how light plays a role in our everyday
lives when we speak, say, of “seeing the light” or of “having light
shine upon a situation.” First ignorance and darkness; then suddenly
or gradually, brightness and understanding.
And Epiphany has traced the birth and ministry of Jesus from
his Baptism, when God announced that Jesus was the one with whom
God was well pleased. The nearest example that comes to mind was
when Ed McMahon announced night after night, “Here’s Johnny!” to
awaken us to the one who was about to appear. And from this solemn

dedication by God of the ministry of Jesus at his baptism, we are led
to today’s story of Jesus’s clothes and face turning a dazzling white.
Whether this story happened literally as written, who can be certain?
Similarly, Moses’ face shone because he had been in the presence of
God. Moses’ face was so bright in fact that it startled the
congregation upon his return, and he had to veil it to keep the crowd
from panicking.
It’s about light, and it’s always about the light. The light that
illumines and the light that dazzles. We know that flood lights can be
so intense that we can barely see what it shines upon. Similarly, to
look at an intense light can be painful, no matter how hard we
struggle to see the object more clearly.
So, the transfiguration of Jesus was the explosion, so to speak,
of the true meaning of who this man was. Jesus was a humble
carpenter all right; he walked among us with no great credentials or
pretense. He spoke, it seems quite quietly, in parables and modest
aphorisms. And yet the gospel writers report something more—a
depth in the man, a portal opening through which we see something
we have never quite seen before. We are looking, so to speak, into the
face of God itself.
You know when you look through a peephole in a door to see
who has rung your doorbell. You don’t see much, right? Once the
door is flung open, you see the entire person and what surrounds him

or her. Our point of view has changed. It can be quite startling at first,
but if it is someone we have longed to see, our eyes widen, the smile
erupts on our face, and we welcome our friend with open arms. This
is what the disciples saw, I believe, on that mountain that day. That is
transfiguration.
You know how children, when confronted for the first time with
something new, how their mouth drops open, their eyes pop, and they
stare and then perhaps laugh. This is transfiguration. They are seeing
the world for the first time with delight, and they are changed by it.
So, I ask you this morning to consider those times in your life
when you have been transfigured. Perhaps it is someone who said
something to you, did something for you, who themselves were
transfiguring agents. Notice how I am putting this question. I am
asking how you have been transfigured. For Jesus’s transfiguration
wasn’t so much about what Jesus did or became, but more about how
the disciples understood so dramatically just who Jesus was. In a
sense, the transfiguration was about the disciples. Remember how
they were so moved that they wanted to construct a chapel to
memorialize the event. Jesus rightly understood that transfiguration
wasn’t about bliss and grand cathedrals, but a life lived humbly in
love. This was what transfiguration was: a lesson in love.
So, I ask you to please consider those moments of
transfiguration in your own lives, for such moments can be life-

transforming. Somebody may have said something that changed your
life forever for the better. It may have been a word of encouragement
or consolation. It may have been a challenge—something that you
initially were uncomfortable to hear. And perhaps the strongest
evidence that these events (for I hope there has been more than one)
is not so much what was said or what happened as how the words or
event made you feel. Didn’t you feel better about yourself? That you
mattered, really mattered, and that you were loved.
And the reason we use such a special word for these
events—the word “transfiguration”—is that these are portals through
which we see into God itself. And this change in us, this light that has
fallen on us, turns us into a transfiguring person. Transfiguration is
the receiving of light and our emission of this same light.
Now, you know I’m not just talking abstractly! Haven’t we
known people so full of joy, so full of the grace and fullness of God
what we feel special just being around them? And this something that
they have becomes part of who we are. Light is transmitted like that.
Love is contagious like that. These people don’t have to be
particularly “religious” as we commonly understand that word. They
may be a nurse’s aide we met in the hospital. They may be a clerk
who made a lasting impact on us during a recent transaction. They
may be a grandmother reading to us as a child. Or the laughter shared
at a recent lunch between you and an old friend.

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the
grandeur of God, and it will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
The image I have is the shaking of aluminum foil with light flickering
off it in numerous directions, like the sound of a windchime or the
sudden eruption of a cathedral choir.
I truly believe that the message of the gospel is that we, too,
manifest this grandeur. We can be transfiguring agents as we let our
light flame out like shining from shook foil.
Ray Stevens can tell us,
Everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night or a snow- covered winter’s day
Everybody’s beautiful in their own way
Under God’s heaven, the world’s gonna find a way
Amen.

By The Rev. Deacon Virginia Jenkins-Whatley

Please join me in prayer:
Lord, take my words and speak through them, take our thoughts and think through them,
and in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen
For several weeks now the gospel has been focused on God’s love.

Today we look at learning to love like God.

Each one of us can think about a time in our lives when someone did or said something that hurt us. It hurt so bad that you couldn’t forget it.  We all know what it is like however it hurts even more when it is someone we once loved or respected, a former spouse, good friend, family member, a member of your church .

Resentment begins to build up and you want revenge. It grows to the point where you become enraged or anxiety begins eating away at your souls.

Jesus has some hardcore words on the subject of resentment and how to deal with it. “if someone slaps you on your one cheek, turn to them the other also.” “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”

These are hard, hard words

I will not lie. There are somethings that Jesus has said that take you back and makes you think and pray on what you can accept or not.  God forgive me, I can’t see anyone standing still and letting someone slap you around intentionally and you walk away like nothing happened. You ask yourself is this considered an act of love.

In some neighborhoods they would consider you weak, easy, a coward, a “punk” if you did nothing to stop someone that deliberately hurt you. This can be an attraction or invitation for other enemies to do the same.

When evil meets no opposition, but only patient endurance, it at last meets an opponent which is more than its match. And the Cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate power in the world which proves that suffering love can and does defeat evil.

There is no doubt this teaching is hard, as is much of what Jesus teaches. Its not just some simple recipe for self help, although it does help us. It does affect our thinking, our inclinations, our desire, our will. It might be tempting to read this passage of scripture and say we do this forgiving stuff because if we do, we will have a great reward.

I mean, who doesn’t want to hear something like, if you love the one that hurt you, then Jesus will love you all the more, and your reward will be great, you might even get a better seat in heaven. But reading this passage that way erases grace because it infers that the love of God is conditional and transactional but its not.

The great reward has nothing to do with full pockets, big houses or even a fancier room in heaven. It does have everything to do with who we become, for there is much grace and transformation needed for us to live out the radical faith Jesus calls us to. There is no greater reward than to be seeking to love and act the way Jesus acts toward us.

God loved us while we were yet sinners or better God loved us while we were still enemies of God. Be merciful, Jesus says, “just as the Father is merciful.

Love your enemies just like the Father does

Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, if you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way the children of the Most High act for God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. Be compassionate just as your father is compassionate.

For it is loving like Jesus loves that we find true freedom, true peace, true joy and true life.

Jesus know that we will never love our enemies without the amazing grace that transforms us daily and makes us different than we are.

What changes us and allows us to love is God’s grace; a grace that is much, much greater than sin.

When we begin to get just a glimpse of seeing other people the way God sees people we begin the journey of learning to love others the way God loves others. Only when we discover that this is the kind of God we have, will we have any chance of following today’s scripture the way we live our lives.

To God be the glory.

In closing, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. No not just for some but for everyone

May the church say   Amen

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, February 13, 2022, at 8:00 & 10 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher

Friendship and Living in the Light

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream” (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

A fellow clergyman and I were talking about the delivery of sermons, and he felt strongly that each meditation should begin on a positive note. I swallowed hard and shaded my eyes because you who know me know I often start with a mini-rant about something in the scripture reading that annoys me. This is indeed perhaps a bad habit. I say “perhaps,” because I am assuming you, too, may be startled or put off by some of the stronger passages about hell or about God’s severe judgment on the wicked. I just do not sit well with a God who promises to be more severe in his punishment of me than my own father would have ever been.

          We’re talking about love here, and about light. Because it’s always about the light. The light that shines on us all; the love which bathes us in its glory, minute my minute from birth to death. Even on the cloudiest days, like these gloomy days of mid-winter, the sun, we know, is behind the clouds. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty; heaven and earth are full of thy glory!” Not one corner of our lives is removed, outside this permeating light and love.

But then we have the opening lines of the Old Testament reading. I know, Jeremiah is one of the major prophets. He is on fire with the justice and judgments of God. But, answer me this, would you like to sit next to him on a long airplane flight? How about being thrown with him as your dance partner at a formal dinner party? Jeremiah starts the passage we read a few minutes ago with these lines:

          “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals…. They shall be like a shrub in the desert…. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

          Do you see what I mean? This is a man with a very low estimation of human nature. One wonders if he has been hanging with much of any support group. For, according to my lights, I not only have trusted in what he calls “mere mortals,” but I continue to do so…and, what’s more, I want and enjoy doing so. I trust in dozens of people every day. Of course, there are some scoundrels among us, in fact, some plainly evil people. And, of course, all people—family, friends, associates—come and go in my life. Some stay for decades; other for only a season. I can depend on them and I can be disappointed in them. Trust can be broken, sometimes in shocking and consequential ways. I enjoy my dependence on people, but I also know the pitfalls of co-dependence, depending too heavily on people, to the detriment of my own independence and sometimes integrity. I know that people pleasing seldom truly pleases with myself or the person I am pretending to be so kind to.

A friend was recalling in outline that wonderful book by the British author and theologian C.S. Lewis called The Four Loves. In it, Lewis outlines love as eros (romantic love), affection (called storge), philia (friendship), and agape (unconditional love). This friend said that the first three of these loves can lead to our understanding of this last and greatest love, the love of God. Now that’s a fairly straightforward analysis, but I think it misses the point. The point isn’t that love is the crowning love, the love of God, it is that agape (unconditional love) permeates and infuses and is expressed in all of the others as well. The love of God is not something else. It is the love of a mother for her child, the affection of the child for its pet dog, the camaraderie of a group of friends in the local tavern. Love can be divided only through the prism of our lived life circumstances. Some of our worldly loves are warped, twisted, not healthy, but they all come from and are embedded in the one and only love—namely, the love of God.

          And to prove this, or at least to illustrate this from my own life. I was reflecting with a couple of clergy I meet with most weekday mornings on Zoom on the value of our friendship. We were wondering how we learn about and come to experience God’s love if not through our earthly, worldly, day-to-day friendships. I know in my life, and I ask you to reflect on your life, just where have you experienced the love of God? I think of my childhood, my school days, my adult career, my social life, and now, my retirement years and I wonder—just where were those special moments that will never escape memory. Maya Angelou said it well with her famous quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Is there any greater gift than this. One of my favorite lines in from Winnie the Pooh, when Pooh said, “It’s more fun to talk with a friend who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”

I, like you, have known many, many people throughout my life. Some we took little or no notice of. Just like many, many people in our lives have taken little or no notice of us. That’s the way life seems to unfold. If we all felt the same way towards everyone else, think what a weird world we would live in. It just wouldn’t work, would it?

          But in my reflection on those people I have known, indeed, my memories are surely of things we have had in common, experiences shared, and times enjoyed; but the memories are basically the love that has been communicated. And that love has taught me about God. The best lessons about God have come from other people and the love they have shown me. Sure, no friend is perfect. Ideally, I do not expect them to be, as I do not expect them to think anything like that of me. In fact, under the best circumstances, we can laugh at each other’s foibles and joke about our silly humanity.

          Strange, how some of the strongest memories I have of the wisdom I have received come from what might be thought of as unexpected places. I was conducting a confirmation class years ago when I asked the class what it was they liked most about their friends. And one of the pimple-faced young seventh graders said, “A friend is someone who makes you feel good about yourself.”

          Simple, right? Beautiful, right? And tell me how this trait of a good friend differs in any way from what we learn about the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus took the time to just be with everyone he encountered. And he even seemed to spend more time with the least fortunate, those who were the least admired, the outcasts even. Because he knew that they felt very poorly of themselves. His presence boosted them, ennobled them, blessed them…just where they were. The sinner, the leper, the prostitute. No reproach, no condemnation, just presence and love. The friendship of God knows no boundaries, lives with no exceptions.

          So I ask each of us to reflect on those friends, sometimes close friends, sometime perhaps only passing acquaintances, who have left you feeling better about things—about yourself, your world, your everything. And I ask you how you could possibly separate that feeling from the love of God that surrounds us, the light which shines on us every moment of our short but dazzling lives?

What I Can Do for You by Kelly Murphy Moreton

I cannot give you possessions. I can promise you passion. I cannot guarantee you security. I can make you smile. I cannot open doors of opportunity for you. I can expand your imagination. I cannot dissolve your concerns. I can strengthen your spirit. I cannot change the world in which we live, But I can encompass you in love.

Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, February 6, 2022, at 8:00 & 10 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher

Abundant Life & Being Good Enough

“[God,] give us…abundant life.” (Collect Epiphany V)

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)

“For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” (I Corinthians 15:9)

“But when Simon Peter saw [such a large number of fish], he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8)

Today’s themes are about the disheartening fact that we human beings are ingrates and have trouble appreciating a good thing because of our oneriness and ingratitude. Yes, that’s right. All of the lessons are about slapping down a beautiful thing when it is staring us in the face. Just how long do we stay on the sunny side of the street?

Our collect asks God to give us abundant life. Abundant life: what a great phrase for the unlimited, illimitable spectacles called our lives. Consider just the smallest favors you have been given and then consider that your lives have been enriched, surrounded, overflowing with bounty, even in the midst of the trials and challenges you have faced.

          In the call of Isaiah, we have a full-blown opera set with the fledgling prophet seeing God sitting on a throne with a long, flowing robe filling the temple. Angels hovered over God, each with six wings, covering their faces and feet. They flew with the remaining two. And they were singing one of the most spectacular outbursts of joy in all written literature:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.”

          Cecil B. DeMille could not have choreographed such a scene. It is almost beyond our imagination. In fact, only our imagination can describe the scene as the writer of Isaiah does. Remember that I suggested that we substitute the word “beauty” for the word “glory”? The whole world is full of the grace and beauty of God.

          But this young whippersnapper Isaiah. He just feels sorry for himself in the face of such a vision and says, “Woe is me! I am lost and I am a man of unclean lips.”

          Paul is more sophisticated. He admits to his earlier terrible persecution of Chistians. But he has come to see his earlier defiance as a vehicle for his conversion to the graceof God. “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”

          And then there is poor Peter, who is a bridge to us modern people. The guys in the boats were complaining to Jesus, who had gotten into one of them, that they had gotten no fish. But Jesus told them to put the nets down into the water. Shortly thereafter they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break, and the boats were beginning to sink for all the fish! Peter, instead of rejoicing at the gift of the catch, falls at Jesus’s feet and says, “Leave me, Jesus, for I am a sinful man.” Sure. Here is the theme of our meditation! Ingratitude and not feeling good enough.

          Before we scold Peter, perhaps we too fall victim to self-pity and never feeling quite adequate for the glory that surrounds us, the light that continually falls on us.

          It is truly amazing. Someone chided me recently for not accepting a compliment graciously. This could very well be a posture of false modesty and of feeling really not worthy of receiving the compliment offered. Could be. For sure enough, there are a thousand and one ways we underestimate our own glory, we strip the gold from the people that we truly are.

          Have you ever heard that wild song by the talented musician named Beck? It is called “I’m a loser, baby. Why don’t you kill me?”

          We seem to sit—or, better, wallow—in our imperfections and concentrate on what we think we don’t have.

• I’m not good-looking enough.
• I’m not healthy enough.
• I don’t have enough money.
• I don’t have many friends.
• I want more hair.

I had been living in New Jersey a few years when I received a letter in the mail informing me that the storage facility in which I had two units full of old letters, slides, diplomas, camping equipment, etc., had burned to the ground and that everything was lost. It’s amazing how brief my grief was, for, after all, what could be done? It was gone and that was that.

And I have just moved and gotten the lesson again that I own more than I need. A friend said the other day, “Being happy with what you have is the only way to do it.” Being happy with what we have is, indeed, the only way to do it!

But, no, I am a child and I give myself messages that do not focus on the glory of what is around me. As St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “The farther away light is from one’s touch, the more one naturally speaks of the need for something else.” But the irony of this, of course, is that light is never absent from one’s touch. All we need do is reach out and touch it!

          We are very clever strategists. We create powerpoints in our heads with conclusive evidence that we are not good enough.

 “God doesn’t care about me.” And let’s be honest, isn’t there a side of us that kind of enjoys these negative emotions? A lot more happens in our heads that happens outside our own homes.

          So we don’t think that God cares for you? I heard of a patient in a therapist’s office who was bewailing his sad lot in life. “What a failure I am,” he lamented.

          The therapist replied, “But I love you and God loves you.”

          “But I just can’t forgive myself for the things I have done.”

          Just then the therapist stood up, pounded the desk and yelled, “Who do you think you are? Smarter and more knowledgeable than God?”

          There is a time for therapists to pound on their desk, and this therapist struck the right note and should pound whenever you or I catch ourselves feeling sorry for ourselves.

          But we can continue to dwell in the land of darkness if we want to. And we can continue to feel cut off from the sunlight of the spirit. I can tell you I love you till I’m blue in the face, but that just isn’t a message strong enough to pull us out of funks.

          God does not demand, or even expect, perfection. The life of Jesus should show us definitively that God blesses imperfection. In fact, a poet proclaims, “Light baptizes life wherever it falls.” And that light falls right here on you and on me! It’s always about the light.

          So I’m going to take us all to theological seminary this morning and give you a degree in thirty seconds. This will save you a lot of money, and you can get your degree and become a fully accredited priest in under a minute—at least, if you want to!  Just don’t tell our bishop!

          So, welcome class. The first question you must master is this:

1. Where is God?

Yes, the answer is EVERYWHERE.

And the second and final question is:

• Why? Why is God everywhere?

Answer: Because he likes us!

So, I now award you your divinity degree.

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. Heaven and earth are full of your glory!”

Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, January 30, 2022, at 8:00 & 10 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher

The Greatest of These

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
(Jeremiah 1:4)

“I have been sustained by you ever since I was born; from my mother’s womb you have been my strength.” (Psalm 71:6)

“Love never dies.” (I Corinthians 1:13)

          The readings appointed to be read in our churches are on a three-year cycle, so here we are this morning with one of the supreme passages in all of the New Testament, in fact, in all of world literature—a hymn, a theological statement on the subject of love, one that resonates down the ages and touches us closely in our everyday lives. It is often read at weddings, but it should be posted on our refrigerators and, indeed, embedded in our hearts—not just read in church once every three years!

          For love is a tough subject, isn’t it? You know, love plays a role in all of the major world religions—from the sutras of Hinduism, to the summary of the law in Judaism to the love lyrics of the Islamic poet Rumi. Rumi typically writes, “All the universe is born of love—but where did this love come from? Love your soul in God’s love, I swear there is no other way.” But nowhere is love as central as it is in Christianity.

          God says to Jeremiah as he calls him to be his prophet, that he knew him as he was being formed in the womb. He was rendered holy even before he was born. And the same is so with us, according to the psalmist: ““I have been sustained by you ever since I was born; from my mother’s womb you have been my strength.” If love stretches even to the placenta of our births, surely this confirms and strengthens the message that God is love, loves us, from the first and until the last.

          But I said, as you remember, that love is a tough subject. Why? Because not only can it be a challenge to believe that God is love, but the commandment to love as God loves seems far beyond our feeble means.

          To call God love can be quite shocking, since many of us have inherited an idea of God as a judge or potentate or stern Father or indifferent unmoved mover or cause of Fate. It is a radical paradigm shift to transform these forbidding and abstract images into a God of gentleness, compassion, understanding and intimate love.

          Even more challenging is the belief that we are worthy of such unconditional love. Because we think that what we really, really know about ourselves discounts us, rules us out of the party of love-making that God invites us to. I was thinking of the terrible culture wars that seem to be infecting (yes, infecting, like Coronavirus itself) our public life. We read about people creating havoc on airplanes from refusing to wear masks, of plots to overthrow our presidential election, of corruption so pervasive that our heads spin. And of talk of war, of this juvenile obsession with territorial aggression. Can you believe that we are actually making possible the destruction of the earth over squabbling over Ukraine? I wonder what Andrei thinks of such insanity? Bad enough that we have this tin-pot dictator Vladimir Putin, who can’t resist bearing his bare chest to photographers, pining for a return to the boundaries of the Soviet Union; perhaps as bad, if not worse, that the United States wants to threaten this aggression with deadly weapons that will make all parties lose and lose fatally. When is the world, and that includes us, going to stand up and demand an end to war? It can be done. We just have to do it.

          I consider myself a millimeter from being a full-blown pacifist. But I know that there is aggression and animal nature within me. The mob that stormed this Capitol last January were ravenous traitors, all right; but I, too, could be lured into joining a lynch mob. Under certain circumstances, my rage could be aroused to the point where I, too, could do something heinous and illegal and deadly.

          Everyone wants to be loved and loves to be loved; but few of us are willing to do the loving. Being loved results in returning it. It is not only a natural consequence of being loved, it is our obligation, our happy obligation to love others as we have been loved.

          One way to turn around our pinched attitudes, our reluctance to love under the numerous circumstances when we withhold it, is to consider all those times and places, and all those people who have loved us. I think we will be amazed, in fact, to consider just how much love has come our way. We are children of grace, every single one of us. And this love is not just confined to us human beings.

          I recently read the story of a wounded dog, a Doberman named Khan, who after just four days into a new and adopted family with a 17-month-old baby saved that baby’s life by suddenly picking it up by its diaper and tossing it across the yard. At first the bystanders thought the dog was attacking the baby—until they realized the dog took sick very suddenly. Rushing it to the veterinarian they learned he had been bitten by one of the most venomous snakes in the world—the Mulga snake of Australia—and Khan was near death for days as the vets struggled to save its life. Instead of killing the baby, the dog had saved its life, had intervened when he saw the snake approaching the tiny child, and put its own life on the line. As it turned out, the dog lived. And the child too. Love among the animals. This too is love; this too is God present.

          I close with a reading of our Epistle, this time the Message Bible translation:

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.