“God created you and he never creates things he doesn’t want” is the message on the reader board outside a church I often drive by. What an important message for us today and every day, especially when we hear so many messages to the contrary!
God loves us, even when we try to hide our flaws. God loves us even when we pretend to be worthy. God loves us, even if we feel we’re unworthy. God loves us, especially when others tell us we are worthless. God knows us intimately – our sitting down, our rising up, and every word on our lips, as the Psalmist observes (Ps 139) – and still God loves us simply because God’s essence is love.
Today, the world stokes our fear and insists that we must choose sides. Choosing a worldly viewpoint serves only to intensify our feelings of separation from one another and from God. Again and again, Jesus and angels assure us not to be afraid. Playing on our fears sends the message – and especially to the weak, the lost, and the vulnerable – that God doesn’t love us; that God doesn’t care; that God has turned God’s back on us.
But God’s way is love, and love is God’s way of saying that none of this is true.
When we claim the truth that we are loved, we free ourselves from the shackles of fear and can open our hearts to receive God’s abundant love. We’re then called to respond to God’s love by walking in love, not fear, hate, or indifference. We’re called to put our love into action by reaching out to others, regardless of whether we believe that they are worthy. We’re called to pass on the never-ending love we receive because there is no end to God’s fountain of love.
And why should we choose love instead of fear? Because God created us and will never stop loving us. Because God created our neighbors and loves each and every one of them. And because God never creates anything that God doesn’t love.
There is holiness in our work—paid and volunteer, work we’re called to and work we resist, work that’s rewarding and work that drains us. We come closer to making our life a prayer when we can discover that holiness. When we can perceive God present in the work itself.
My work colleague, Josh Anderson, composed this prayer and recently graced a staff meeting with his work. For me, it opens a door into a new vision of holiness in the everyday.
A Prayer for the Work Beneath the Work
Before we begin, let us remember that beneath every agenda there is a heart, and beneath every report, the quiet pulse of shared purpose.
We come together carrying many things— tasks to complete, questions unresolved, worries we haven’t yet named aloud. The world beyond these walls feels unsteady, and the ground beneath us sometimes shifts faster than we can find our footing.
Still, here we are. Gathered. Pausing before the work. Listening for what is deeper than the noise.
Let us remember that even in seasons of change, the Spirit does not abandon us. It moves quietly among us, in small mercies and steady hands, in the grace of a kind word, in the courage to keep showing up. Stillness is not a waste of time— it is the way the soul catches up to the body. It is how we remember who we are and why we do this work.
So may what is heavy find a place to rest. May what is uncertain find patience. May what feels fragmented find its wholeness again. May what is hidden in shadow find light.
And may we—in this brief hour together— remember that even in the work of planning and doing, there is holiness. That God is here, in the silence before we begin, in the words we will speak, and in the quiet that follows when our work is done. — Josh Anderson
In 1924, British author AA Milne published a collection of poetry – When We Were Very Young – animal tales for his son Christopher Robin. His friend EH Shepard illustrated them. Number 38, “Teddy Bear,” was about a stuffed animal Milne had bought at Harrod’s as a gift for Christopher Robin after he and his son had visited the London Zoo and been enamored of their bear, Winnie. By 1927, Milne and Shepard had published four volumes of stories about Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the 100 Acre Wood. A century later, we have multiple stage plays and musicals, audio recordings and radio shows, comic strips, a Disney franchise and television series, and even a horror film based on Milne’s beloved Pooh Bear.
Psychologists and sociologists have correlated the characters of Winnie-the-Pooh to “personality types” as we are wont to do with our favorite characters in children’s stories. We believe that stories teach us about ourselves. Winnie-the-Pooh, for example, is a bear who is easy-going and tends to get along with everyone. He has been categorized as an Enneagram 9 – The Peacemaker. His pal Piglet, on the other hand, is quite anxious and cautious but is Pooh’s very best friend. He has been categorized as an Enneagram 6 – The Loyalist/Skeptic. We can go through all the characters thusly. We can even look into their Temperaments and MBTI.
Interestingly, some have even suggested that Christopher Robin might represent a mental health condition such as schizophrenia in which each of the animals is a personality within Christopher Robin himself. I disagree, however. I believe that children are infinite creatures of wonder, created in God’s image. The Winnie-the-Pooh stories provide an excellent insight into Christian Formation and Religious Education.
Remember Psalm 139:14 – “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What if each of us is like one of the Pooh characters, and Milne’s stories teach us how to be God’s family and also teach us how to be leaders in the church by seeing the gifts and strengths in those we are sent to form?
Our classrooms are full of Tiggers and Pooh and Eeyores and Roos; they are each fearfully and wonderfully made. Our job is not to make them “normal”; it is to understand and respect them – to fashion them for their vocation.
Let’s get rid of the word “normal.” Historically, we have been taught to set a “standard” and “expectation” – we have “excluded” those who didn’t “fit” – and taught to the “norm” in the one way that worked for the “normal” learner. When we teach thinking of any student, behavior, or lesson as “normal,” we set ourselves up for classroom “problems.”
“Normal” is an obfuscated word, though. From Latin normā – a carpentry term relating to “carpenter’s rule” and “square,” first used in English to mean “perpendicular.” It wasn’t until the 1800s that statisticians transferred the word to mean “most usual” in groups of measurements and soon sociologists adopted it as a construct for “most healthy.” So let’s delete “normal.”
Comedian-educator Hank Green offers this help in deleting “normal” in his video blog vlogbrothers: “What’s really important is that we trust ourselves, and we understand ourselves, and we love and respect ourselves–and we grant that same understanding and respect to the people around us.”
I don’t think Green meant to describe our Baptismal Covenant, but he does: “strive for justice and peace among all people…respect[ing] the dignity of all human beings.”
He goes on: “The world is one of infinite continuums [NOT] of two shiny boxes. When those two shiny boxes break apart into seven billion shiny boxes, it’s actually pretty beautiful.”
As religious educators committed to justice and dignity, we are called to see every learner as a shiny box full of potential – fearfully and wonderfully made – Pooh or Tigger or Eeyore or Roo – their own unique, gifted part of our 100 Acre Wood of Church.
As this year’s Season of Creation draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on my experiences this past summer. First, a June retreat at The Sacred Waters Center for Restoration and Retreat led me to the shores of the Hood Canal, with the still-snowcapped Olympic mountains towering in the distance. I was greeted on my first morning by an eagle perched atop a pine tree, as if welcoming me to her home.
Then in July my husband and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park to join a family reunion outside of Estes Park, CO. Words simply can’t describe the wondrous scene we witnessed above timberline: a majestic moose standing beside a lake; pikas calling to one another; a herd of elk resting in an alpine meadow; pristine streams flowing into lakes, reflecting the brilliant blue sky. We marveled at the mystery and beauty of God’s creation in the midst of our chaotic world.
The late Pope Francis wrote,
To sense each creature singing the hymn of its existence is to live joyfully in God’s love and hope. This contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us, since for the believer, to contemplate creation is to hear a message, to listen to a paradoxical and silent voice. (Laudato Si, 85)
Yet, as we approached the summit of Trail Ridge Road, the highway that runs through the park, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The paradox was stark. Nature was at its best, and humankind was at its worst. In our eagerness to experience God’s creation, we realized that we were actually contributing to its destruction. Embracing the Season of Creation means acknowledging how inextricably bound we are to creation. It’s also a call to action. We can join and support alliances that work to protect God’s creation. We can vote for public servants who share the imperative to protect and restore creation. And we can be mindful of our own actions.
The stream of alarming news over the past week has been unrelenting:
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in front of a crowd gathered at Utah Valley University.
Another school shooting in Colorado placed 900 high school students in lock-down, with two students critically injured and the shooter dead by his own hand.
The Israeli military ordered a full evacuation of Gaza City, home to about one million Palestinians.
Russian drones violated Polish airspace, eliciting a response from NATO forces.
Ukraine continues to resist Russia’s unremitting attacks, now in the fourth year of this most recent invasion, as Ukrainian civilian casualties continue to mount.
The French government collapsed following a no-confidence vote, ousting the prime minister.
Four hundred US federal agents raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia, detaining 475 workers, including hundreds of South Korean nationals.
US National Guard troops remain deployed in Los Angeles and Washington DC, with planned deployments in Memphis and Louisiana. Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, and Oakland, CA may also see similar deployments.
The nation observed the 24th anniversary of 9/11/2001, when terrorists crashed four passenger planes, demolishing our country’s illusion of invincibility.
Perhaps we have access to too many bad-news stories. Allowing even 30 minutes of news from around the world is enough to quench hope and feed despair. This week, I sought out dependable hope-bearers I’ve discovered thanks to the world wide web. Perhaps you’ll glean a bit of perspective and courage from three full-length articles that have bolstered my courage and raised my spirits. Each one, excerpted here, offers a helpful focus for action:
“We often say that we will pray for the victims and their families, and pray we must. But our faith demands more from us. We must guard the hatred in our hearts and on our lips; it is hatred and righteous indignation that leads to violence. Jesus said plainly, ‘it is that which is on our lips and in our hearts that defiles us.’”
SHOW UP — From Nadia Bolz-Weber, reprising her reflection on Mary Magdalene in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting in an Aurora, CO movie theatre, killing 12:
“My Bishop Allan Bjornberg once said that the greatest spiritual practice … is just showing up. “And in some ways Mary Magdalene is like, the patron saint of just showing up. “Because showing up means being present to what is real, what is actually happening. She didn’t necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think….but none of that is nearly as important as the fact that she just showed up. She showed up at the cross where her teacher Jesus became a victim of our violence and terror. She looked on as the man who had set her free from her own darkness bore the evil and violence of the whole world upon himself and yet still she showed up.”
“George W. Bush, who was president on that horrific day, spoke in Pennsylvania at a memorial for the passengers of the fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, who on September 11, 2001, stormed the cockpit and brought their airplane down in a field, killing everyone on board but denying the terrorists a fourth American trophy…. “[W]e can take guidance from the passengers on Flight 93, who demonstrated as profoundly as it is possible to do what confronting such a mentality means. While we cannot know for certain what happened on that plane on that fateful day, investigators believe that before the passengers of Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, throwing themselves between the terrorists and our government, and downed the plane, they took a vote.”
Pray. Show up. Courageously claim your identity. And for heaven’s sake, connect with a community of like-minded souls, who can walk alongside you, strengthening your resolve. Such practices help us give life to the baptismal covenant that seals our God-given identity — “child of God, beloved and called.”
As we make our way “through many dangers, toils, and snares,”[1] may we be en-couraged to walk in our rabbi’s footsteps.
Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. – Collect for Labor Day, Book of Common Prayer
As Labor Day approaches, I’ve been reflecting on the meaningfulness of work and how its function is being transformed by technology and Artificial Intelligence. Our work has meaning because it matters to God. From the beginning, humans have sensed that creation is alive with God’s presence, and our role has been to do God’s work in the world.
The Hebrew word “avodah” means “work, worship, and service.” The word used to describe worship – liturgy – means “the work of the people.” And when we place God at the heart of our daily work, the eternal is drawn into the temporal. It becomes sacramental. Labor is sacramental not only for what it produces but for how it shapes our human dignity, builds community, and reflects God’s creative purpose. Honoring workers, therefore, is also honoring the divine image in each person and the sacred character of each person’s daily toil.
Even as technology reshapes jobs and entire economies, our deeper vocation will not change. Work is not simply what we do to earn money. It is who we are as beings made in the image of God: people of faith and gratitude linking heaven and earth. Every job – from the humblest to the most prestigious – carries the same sacred title when offered to God.
Although work may take on new forms, on Labor Day we remember and commemorate the true essence of work: to worship, to give thanks, to serve, and to reflect the presence of Christ in all people and in creation. Work is holy because it is our destiny—not defined by tasks or paychecks, but by our identity as God’s holy people, made to love and to reflect God through the work of our lives.
The Mass is Never Ended–Rediscovering our Mission to Transform the World, Revised 2023, By Gregory F. Augustine Pierce
by Demi Prentiss
Greg Pierce’s book The Mass is Never Ended maintains that the most important moment in the celebration of Holy Eucharist is the dismissal—the sending out of the faithful into the world to be alter Christi, “other Christs,” in service to the world in Christ’s name.
The Sunday celebrations of holy eucharist (“thanksgiving”) are not the completion of our week, a reward for our days of toiling in the vineyard. I like to think of our sharing the body and blood of Christ as fueling us for the journey ahead, propelling us back out into the chaos of daily life. Pierce concludes his book with the exhortation, “Stick close to the Mass. Do not let anyone or anything distract you from what it really is. Allow it to forgive you, to prepare you, and send you forth. Leave the church as if you have been launched like a rocket, embrace your mission to help make this a better world, and develop your own spirituality of work to sustain you.”
Our congregations are not the destination as we walk The Way of Christ. Instead, they serve as “base camps” for our explorations of the world we encounter in our daily lives. If we need rest or healing or encouragement, the church offers resources to equip us, in order to send us out to explore further. Our calling is to the adventure of hiking the mountains, not exploring the amenities of the base camp.
Sacraments—outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, as the Catechism reminds us—are more God’s gift than the church’s invention. The church over centuries has codified them as reliable signposts of God at work. “See that! Pay attention! God is up to something!” The spiritual practices that the church encourages help train our eyes and hearts to recognize God’s presence working in the world. Gathering as the Body of Christ, offering praise, confessing our sins, offering peace to all, and celebrating eucharist prepare us to join Christ beyond the church walls, out in the world. With God’s help, may we seek to catch sight of and celebrate God at work practically everywhere.
Icon of The Transfiguration written by Theophanes the Greek
by Brandon Beck
Wednesday, August 6, 2025 we celebrated the Transfiguration of Jesus. According to the Gospel of Luke, “about eight days after” Jesus foretells his death,
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but as they awoke they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” not realizing what he was saying. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. – Luke 9:28-36 (NRSVUE)
In the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, in addition to the August 6 Feast of the Transfiguration, the Transfiguration of Jesus comes to us during the Lectionary Cycle as well. This year, Sunday, March 2, was Transfiguration Sunday. At Church of Reconciliation in San Antonio, TX, we celebrated Recovery Sunday with Transfiguration Sunday. I had the privilege to bring the message that day. I share an excerpt from my Transfiguration/Recovery Sunday message with you on “Living God’s Mission” today:
Welcome to Recovery Sunday—Transfiguration Sunday—at the Episcopal Church of Reconciliation. My name is Brandon, and I’m speaking here today to support my own recovery journey.
I do Recovery one moment at a time, one day at a time, with the help of God, as I understand God. However you identify, whomever you love, and wherever you are on your own journey, I hope you find that you’re welcome here.
Recovery happens in AA, as well as in all other denominations of anonymous programs formed in the 12-step tradition. Recovery also happens in Celebrate Recovery, Positive Recovery, SMART Recovery, Refuge Recovery, and other recovery programs I’m still learning about. Whichever program you rely on—thank you. Thank you for your willingness to keep showing up and for showing up today.Thank you for your experience and your transfiguration.
You were one way and now you are completely different.
God has forgiven you; your face is unveiled; you have climbed the mountain and seen the glowing and transfigured face of Jesus; now everyone can see your face glowing because you were one way and now you are completely different.
Do you remember your first recovery meeting? It quite possibly was on a property much like this one…maybe even right here at Reconciliation, in fact. For those of us in recovery, our relationship with ourselves, with our loved ones, and with God felt broken; fortunately we found groups within which we learned to Reconcile with ourselves, others, and God.
If you haven’t ever been to a recovery meeting, I invite you to give one a try. Here at Church of Reconciliation at least six different recovery groups host approximately 30 recovery meetings each week; we gratefully welcome more groups and meetings all the time.
Because we all share here, through direct experience or in loving support, in the transfiguring power of recovery, we live into our name–we are Reconcilers. We all were one way and now we are completely different. For each of us, something transfiguring moved us to change. I feel that expressed in the readings we heard earlier.
Those readings for today include: a story about Moses from the book Exodus; Psalm 99; a brief statement from the 2nd letter of Paul to the Corinthians; and the story that gives today its “churchy” name―Transfiguration Sunday―an excerpt of the Gospel of Luke Chapter 9.
One of the reasons I love the Episcopal Church is its use of this Common Lectionary. In addition to connecting us with our interdenominational siblings, the lectionary helps us see how scriptures from all different parts of the Bible might connect together to tell a bigger story.
Today’s readings connect in the telling of transfigurations—stories of visible life changes. If so many stories of dramatic change are part of our spiritual heritage, then my dramatic change must be important too. I wonder if you have noticed how important your story is?
“I was one way, and now I am completely different.” I’m borrowing that quote to tie everything together today. It comes from The Chosen, a planned seven-season drama of the life of Jesus based on the text of the Gospels but with added characters, dialogue, historical context, and artistic imagination. The creator, Dallas Jenkins, does some outstanding work with The Chosen, giving us characters that defy traditional, oppressive stereotypes in order to remind everyone that they are part of the story.
And, in Episode 2 of Season 1 of The Chosen one of these characters who has been given new life speaks the line: “I was one way, and now I am completely different.” Mary Magdalene, played by Elizabeth Tabish, experiences a profound change at the end of the first episode, then, in episode 2, she explains it by saying, “I was one way, and now I am completely different.”
This is loving, life-giving, liberating, transfiguring, recovery Truth.
What changes Mary Magdalene’s character? She learns something from Jesus that I think those of us in Recovery learn during our journeys: We hurt ourselves and others because we don’t feel like we deserve love, but, it turns out, every single one of us is worthy of love, respect, and dignity.
In The Chosen, Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, looks at this woman when she is at rock bottom, and he sees the saint inside the sinner and calls her by name.
“Mary,” he says. When Mary hears Jesus say her name, everything changes for her. She becomes willing to turn her life and will over to God. She tells people, “I was one way, and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between was him.”….
(To hear the rest of the message, please visit the Reconciliation YouTube page. The March 2 message begins around minute 29; however, I recommend viewing the service in its entirety for the entire Transfiguration/Recovery experience.)
Overwhelming hunger abounds. We read daily reports of the abject hunger imposed upon the starving children in Gaza; famine in Africa; hungry children even in the United States. Hunger abounds, and the lives – and, surely, long-term development – of infants and children are at stake.
At the same time, food sources abound. How much food intended for delivery overseas rotted in warehouses when USAID funding was cut off? Expiration dates are almost here for close to 200,000 boxes of nutritional supplement that have been paid for but not shipped by the U.S. government. According to the Washington Post[1], the food and supplements at Mana Nutrition alone could help as many as 60 million people. In the meantime, limited hands are available to harvest this summer’s produce on our nation’s farms and orchards as ICE agents target migrant workers. The amount of food wasted in our country is egregious, and in response, Congress has cut funding for food assistance for needy families.
The lack of concern for the plight of others is at odds with the basic teachings of Jesus. Instead of sending people away hungry, Jesus had compassion. Jesus says to his disciples, “You give them something to eat,” instructing them to feed the multitudes by gathering the seemingly meager rations of food at hand – only to have leftovers!
For Jesus, abundance means sharing. Likewise, the Apostle Paul urged the Corinthians to contribute to the needs of the community of believers in Jerusalem from their own abundance (2 Cor 9).
Although our country is one of the world’s wealthiest, we have lost compassion for those living in poverty and famine, both abroad and at home. Leaders profess Christian values but often neglect to demonstrate the essential Kingdom values of love and mercy.
In today’s world, Jesus calls us to speak up and express compassion and empathy toward those in need. Supporting and caring for the vulnerable and innocent is a collective responsibility, and by working together, we can make a difference. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus today.
As I listen to the news these days, I’m distraught by the direction that our country seems to be heading. Our economy is impacted by our over-consumption; and our reliance on cheap – even child – labor deprives people of the dignity of a living wage. We’re destroying our planet with our over-reliance on fossil fuels, our wasteful attitude toward water, and the destruction of our forests and wetlands. We support systems of domination, as the rich get richer on the backs of those less fortunate. We’re mortgaging our children and grandchildren’s future.
And the budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress on July 3 only exacerbates matters. When I read about its provisions to strip people of their health insurance, cut food assistance for the poor, and curtail clean-energy development, I ask myself: How do we, as people of faith, respond to the injustices around us?
In the midst of my personal anguish, words of the late Rev. Canon Fletcher Lowe – one of the founders and convener of Partners for Baptismal Living (Episcopalians on Baptismal Mission) – come to mind. Fletcher often reminded us that the intersection of Church Street and State Street is where we bring our faith to bear on public policy, striving to promote the common good and to protect those pushed to the margins and those unfairly treated.
Fletcher’s words are a call to action, because, whether we want to be or not, we’re embedded in relationships with one another. And today’s political environment fails to recognize how deeply interconnected we are.
Earlier this month, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe echoed that sentiment when he wrote in Religion News, “God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all.”
At baptism we promise to follow Jesus and Jesus alone – with God’s help. We are called to serve as instruments of God’s healing, and that begins by striving to seek and serve Christ in all persons and by respecting the dignity of every human being. Today.
Living God's Mission 