Baptism – The first step on our journey

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Baptism is the first step to being a full member of the body of Christ. This great sacrament mirrors the events we see in the Gospel this Sunday. Jesus takes time to visit his cousin John the Baptist and to be baptized in the Jordan River.

In this great scene from scripture, we find Jesus submitting to John, consenting to being baptized so that prophecy can be fulfilled. This act is one that is lost on most Christians. Jesus did not lord his Godhood over anyone, not even his own family.

Rather he submitted to being used by his Father and our Father so that the world could be saved. He was obedient even to death.

Today, so many Christians think that being a Christian is a badge of honor. Or worse, the feel that it makes them better than everyone else. They forget their baptismal vows to turn away from pride, averise, greed, hatred, and reject the ways of the evil one. They dedicate their lives to making others miserable and to lording over them their superiority.

Christian Nationalism is one of the sins that flies in the face of our baptismal vows. We are not here to build a Christian Kingdom. We are here to improve the world by helping those most in need. We are commanded to care for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. We are commanded to help the homeless, the sick, the prisoner, and those without support.

If we truly want to be followers of the Christ, true Christians, we have to set aside our pride and ego, humble ourselves like Jesus did, and care for those most in need.

I pray that you will join us this Sunday as we recommit to our baptismal vows.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Refugees and Asylum

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We celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, the revelation of Christ to the world. It is a great feast in which we remember the 3 wise men from the east and their journey to see the Christ-child. They were wise men and so they knew the risk they took traveling to see a “new king” in a land occupied by a foreign nation. This could go very badly for them.

Yet, they traveled a long distance to visit this child. They defied the king and refused to return to him with information about the location of the Christ-child. Their act of defiance caused both the death of the Holy Innocence but also provided the Christ-child and his family time to get away.

They headed to Egypt. They were refugees seeking asylum from this foreign and hostile government. Without passport or visa, they walked into Egypt to escape the risk to Jesus from the king. I am sure they heard the stories as they wandered through Egypt of the death of the babies in Judea. Mary would have been heartbroken to learn that other children died so that Jesus could live.

And so, we have this story that should be a tale to us today as we deal with refugees and those seeking asylum. We should treat them like we would treat the Child Jesus if he came to our country. This story plays out each day at our airports and our borders. We have the choice to be like the Roman’s and demand that they die rather than given them asylum. Or we could be like the Egyptians and welcome them in with open arms.

Today, these children of God need our help. They need protection, food, clothing, and a chance at a happy and fulfilled life. Are we willing to be real Christians and help them or are we more intent on building a wall and casting them back their country of origin so they can die at the hands of a repressive government? Remember, we will be judged on how we treat those most in need just like the story of the sheep and the goats.

I chose to help those most in need. And I hope you will join me!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Searching for real relationship with God

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We are always searching. Whether we are searching for love, stability, money, family, friends, compassion, or just for more time, we are all searching for something. This week, we reflect upon the search of Mary and Joseph for the Child Jesus.

If you are not a parent, you have no idea the panic, fear, and anxiety that comes to a parent when they turn around and their child is not where they are supposed to be. Being a parent, I can tell you that there is no great panic than that moment. All kinds of horrible things rush into your mind as you frantically search for your child.

Mary and Joseph felt that panic as they search for Jesus. Their search took them all the way back to Jerusalem. And where did they find their child? In the temple discussing the scriptures with the most learned men in all of Israel.

“Did you not know I would be about my Father’s business?”

Jesus seemed a bit flippant to his parents. However, he was stating facts. Mary had to know that Jesus would be found doing something related to his earthly ministry. Even as a child, Jesus knew he was a part of the Godhead.

Yet, in that moment, those thoughts were gone. They were replaced with fear, confusion, and panic. They wanted their son back. And they would travel any distance to get him back.

Many Christians today continue to search for a real and meaningful relationship with Jesus. They call themselves Christians, yet they struggle with actually being a Christian.

We all search for that type of relationship. All too often, we end up finding that relationship in our interactions with one another. We connect with the Divine when we connect with one another. And how we treat one another, is how we are treating God.

Saint John reminds us that we must love one another. This is a commandment from God, not just a suggestion.

This week, join us on our search for living the legacy of Jesus!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Finding joy everywhere!

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Can you feel that? The excitement and anticipation of Christmas is upon us. Even the church takes a moment out of our time of anticipate to REJOICE!

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday which means the Sunday of joy or rejoicing. We take a moment to look with joy at what is coming. The joy of the one who John the Baptist said he was unworthy to unfasten his sandals. And I so feel John the Baptist’s feelings!

John felt so unworthy. I know that feeling. I feel unworthy to accomplish the tasks that our Lord set before me 26 years ago. As I sat at the college Thursday evening getting ready to receive my Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology, I found myself in a moment of profound sadness. I only had my wife and my daughter there to cheer me on.

It brought back all the fights to get to this moment. I was reminded by all the people who said I wasn’t smart enough or an education would be wasted on me. I grew sadder by the moment. Here I was surrounded by students so very happy to hold their degree in their hands and I was sad.

As I sat there, slowly the images of people who supported me came to mind. Dr. Butler, Dr. Terlizzi, Dr. C, Dr. Miller, Dr. Swain, Bishop St. George, Bishop Ben, Rev. Marc. The list kept growing and I started to feel that same happiness. The clouds started to part and I felt the sunshine of joy.

John likely dealt with the same “imposter syndrome” that we all suffer from. No amount of education can prepare you to run a church during a pandemic. It cannot help you when you are standing there with a grieving wife who just lost her husband and two children in a car wreck. The only thing that helps in those moments is the Holy Spirit.

So here I am. Proud holder of yet another degree and continuing to fight to build a parish in Augusta Georgia. Have we succeeded? Maybe not in the conventional terms. Yet, hundreds watch our mass online and listen to the message of the Gospel over vast distances. So, I think that is pretty amazing.

I hope you will join us this Sunday to celebrate a church that celebrates you!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Prepare the Way

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We start the season of Advent this Sunday. As part of our commitment to helping our community and to standing up against injustice, we are offering a class on December 3, 10, and 17 on How to be a Resisting Church. This study will focus on the teachings of Rev. Detrick Bonhoffer and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will learn how to resist injustice in a non-violent and peaceful way.

Also, we will focus on preparing the way of the Lord. This series will focus on various ways me can be more Christ-like all year long, but also during this Advent and Christmas season.

We start off this journey with the call to be vigilant. We are called to look at the signs of the times and to not allow them to drag us down, but to help us hope for the future to come. Jesus reminds us that we are not to be discouraged by all the evil in the world, but to take up our cross, to follow him, and to continue to do the work of the Gospel.

It is in this message that we are reminded that we must continue to help the poor, the homeless, as well as the widow and the orphan. Our mission to make a positive change in the world does not stop because others have decided to be evil. No, our mission is more important now more than ever.

So, we renew our commitment to those who need it most. We continue to call for help to maintain our blessing bag ministry. We will continue to bring services to those who cannot attend any other way. And we will continue to work to build up a congregation in the CSRA to offer an affirming and welcoming liturgical church.

We ask you to consider what you can do to live this message more each and every day.

Won’t you help us to the Prepare the Way?

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Resisting cheap grace

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This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. However, I want to talk about the discourse between Pilate and Jesus in the Gospel. In an age where Christian Nationalism is running rampant, I feel it necessary to point out that Jesus stood opposed to Nationalism and to violence. Even as he stood condemned to death, Jesus refused to call on heaven to send angels to rescue him. He refused to call on his disciples to rise in violent rage to save him from this horrific fate.

Rather, he resisted the call to violence. He refused to bow to the leaders and rulers of his day to save his own skin. Jesus decided not to take the easy way out, the way of Cheap Grace, but rather chose to lay down his life for what he believed in.

I was watching an episode of The Unexplained with William Shatner (go Star Trek!) and they highlighted the case of Brian Clark. Mr. Clark was an executive in a brokerage firm on the 84th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He is one of only 4 people who survived from the zone above the crash zone on that day. And he only survived because he resisted the call to go up to the roof instead of down toward the ground. He resisted the urge to take stairwell C and to instead move toward stairwell A on intuition that he should.

Because of his resistance to the popular thought, to the voices in his head, to the emergency workers advice, he not only survived, but he managed to rescue Stanley Praimnath. Stanley would go on to be a minister after 9/11 and Brian would work for New Brunswick Theological Seminary, a huge change for both of their lives.

Just like Jesus, they resisted what they were told to do, what might have been considered prudent and because of this the world and their lives were changed.

Today, we stand at a pivotal moment in our history. We have the choice to follow the popular call to become hateful, abusive, bigoted, and racist to survive, or we can choose to resist and be a beacon of hope, light, love, and acceptance.

Which path will you take? The path of resistance, or the path of least resistance?

Choose wisely!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Resisting Hate

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Our Gospel this Sunday points to a dystopian future of our world. A future where the heavens are destroyed, and the earth is in ruin. Sadly, so many Christians cheer this type of future that they miss the entire message of the Gospel. They believe that Jesus’ words are truth, except when it comes to this Gospel.

You see, Jesus said that these events will occur before the generation he is speaking to passes away. That is about 40 years or so after that speech. This Gospel has been used to predict the coming of the end of the world and the “rapture” to scare people into submission.

During the previous election, many conservatives used this language and these types of dystopian imagery to scare people into voting for them. They not only misinterpret the scriptures, but they do the very thing Jesus cautions against: they combine Caeser and God.

We continue to find ourselves at the edge of a cliff. Many Christians have given their faith, allegiance, and whole selves to political leaders. They have decided that the church must be an arm of the government and do the bidding of the government. However, this is not what Jesus wanted. In fact, Jesus was crucified by a combination of government and religion.

2000 years later, we are right back where we started. Our parish, Saint Francis Parish and Outreach, refuses to be an arm of the government. We refuse to marginalize those in our midst that political leaders build their campaigns on the back of. We refuse to dehumanize people of color, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, the poor and homeless, prisoners, women, and those who are elderly and in need of our support.

This Advent, we are offering a class on How to be a Resisting Church. We will look at the lives and messages of the Rev. Dr. Detrick Bonhoffer and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We will learn their message of peaceful resistance to an unjust government. And we will offer this class to anyone who wants to participate.

December 3, 10, and 17 at 6:30 PM ET on Zoom, we will offer everyone a chance to take this class. To receive information on how to participate, you can email the parish at bishopgodsey@oursaintfrancis.org or fill out the form below.

We hope you will join us as we start this next chapter in our parish!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Stewardship for the new year

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 try not to talk about the finances of the church very often. I tire of all the preachers in the world who constantly work to pull every penny from their followers to get a new jet, new car, or a new house. However, the reality is that ministry cost money just like everything else in the world.

There are candles, batteries, hosting services, domain names, phone services, hosts, wine, supplies for the blessing bags, as well as many office supplies that are required to keep a parish moving forward. Unlike most pastors, I do not make a dime doing the work of my ministry. I am not paid or stipend for the work I do.

This weekend we read about another minister who had nothing. Elijah, a prophet in Israel, spent his time walking from city to city preaching the message given him by God without payment. All he asked was for a place to lay his head and some food. And in this particular passage, Elijah comes upon a widow living in an area of extreme drought and out of food herself. He asks her to make a couple of bread cakes out of what she had left for them to eat together.

Knowing that she was making their last meal for her, her son, and Elijah, she obeyed. And for this God blessed her with enough flour and oil to keep eating for a year! Rain finally came and her and the area around her was saved.

Also in the Gospel, we read about the widow who gave her last two pennies to help the ministry. Jesus praised her for her sacrifice saying that she would be blessed for giving of her need rather than giving little from her abundance like all the other people in the temple.

All too often, we refuse to help the ministry of the church thinking that someone else will help. We lament that we do not have the funds or that our money could go to better use. Each Sunday, I remind you all the work we do with the homeless and poor in our area. So many months now, I have taken money out of my own pocket to help keep our ministries here at Saint Francis Parish and Outreach going.

We have one faithful servant of God who does help. And for their contributions we are eternally grateful. However, we need more people to step up and to help contribute to keeping out ministry alive. For the first time in my ministry of 26 years, this Advent, we will be holding a stewardship campaign to help keep our ministry going in the new year.

I am asking you to pray about how you might be a part of our ministry. Your financial support is vital if we are to continue our Masses on social media and our outreach to the poor and homeless. We want to start several small group programs in 2025 and need your help to make that possible.

This is your sign. We cannot go on without you!

I hope you will answer the call.

And I hope to see you in the pews on Sunday!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Are we loving our neighbor?

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This Sunday we hear the lesson from Jesus concerning what the greatest commandment is. This Scribe comes to him wanting to know what the greatest commandment is. And Jesus tells him that the first is to love God will all your heart, soul, mind, strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.

We as Christians have a serious problem with these commandments. Christians today spend so much time attacking one another or attacking those who they view as different from themselves. We spend so much time looking for things to be angry about and people to dislike.

Jesus’ message is more important today than ever before. It is necessary for us to go back to his message and start to love one another. We should be loving to everyone, regardless of their faith, race, gender, sexual orientation, and social status.

When our time comes to stand before God, we will not be judged on how many Bibles we owned, how many people we beat into submission, or how often we sat in the pew of the church. We will instead be judged on how we treated one another, how well be helped those most in need, and whether or not we accepted the Divine in everyone we met.

How will you be judged? Will you be found faithful or wanting?

Maybe it is time to join us for Sunday Mass to start your journey toward faithful living of the Gospel of Jesus!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Are you willfully blind?

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We are all blind like the man Bartimaeus in this Sunday’s Gospel. Whether that blindness is willing or not, we choose at times to ignore the things right before us. Jesus asks what many of us see as a simple and unnecessary question of Bartimaeus. He asks what Bartimaeus wants him to do for him.

Jesus asks him this question because what seemed noticeable, his blindness, might not have been the thing he needed help with. It might have been that Bartimaeus was content with being blind. Jesus wanted to hear from Bartimaeus what he wanted.

God is not usually in the habit of forcing us to do anything. This too is why Jesus asked. We pray for those who are willfully blind in our day and age, but the reality is that they must be willing to see. They must be willing to confront the truth right in front of them.

In our world today, we see a complete lack of empathy, care, concern, love, and kindness. So many of us walk around blind to these vices. It is much easier to just claim it is hyperbole than to accept that these have become the standard for most people.

Today is the day to make a change. Today is the day to open your eyes and choose to look at all the ugliness and sadness in the world. Today is the day to choose to be a light in the darkness, to show love and empathy.

Join us this Sunday to learn how to remove your blinders and to see the path Jesus set before us.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer