Following the Good Shepherd

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The whole world watched in great anticipation as we all stared at the chimney over the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The smoke rolls out white, but then quickly turns black. No pope. Twice we lived this anticipation. And then, finally, the smoke stayed white. Roman Catholics around the world rejoiced as the new Pope stepped out on the balcony to bless the crowds around the world.

While Old Catholics do not have a pope, we watched with excitement too. The process of electing a pope is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. And who doesn’t like a good mystery and a surprise ending?

This Sunday we listen to the story of Paul and Barnabas and how they faced persecution for preaching the Gospel to the Jews. We see the moment when they decided to turn toward the Gentiles to preach the message to them. The Gentiles embraced the message almost immediately. And they embraced it with great joy.

Two thousand years after Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, we shepherds of the church continue to follow in his footsteps. We should all strive to follow the Good Shepherd and to put our faith and trust in him. Paul and Barnabas showed us that despite the persecution they endured, they remained steadfast in their faith.

There are times when I am disheartened by the lack of faith of most people who claim to be Christians. They put their faith in money, power, personality cults, and possessions. Sadly, all those things will pass away and rot. They will not be there for you when your life is over. Only faith in Jesus remains.

And so many people claim to have faith but fail to care for one another. They fail to care for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Instead, they seek out riches and power. They are filling to trade the eternal for the fleeting.

As a Shepherd, it is my job to call the sheep back into the fold. It is my job to call those who stray to repentance. And many people see that as judgmental, however, it is our call as shepherds. Jesus called out those who failed to live up to the Gospel. He called out the religious leaders of his day who had sold out their faith for the temporary power given them by Rome. And Jesus routinely called them out for their lack of faith.

Today, I pray you will listen and hear me. Trump will not get you to heaven. Money, power, and possessions will not get you to heaven. Only faith in the divine will get you to heaven.

So, I pray you stop focusing on the things that will pass away and heed the call to set your mind on things that are eternal!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

A new way to be Catholic

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Building an affirming and accepting parish in the Deep South is difficult work. And sometimes it feels like we are like the disciples in this Sunday’s Gospel. The disciples knew they were in Jesus’ presence, but they also wanted to ask to make sure it was Jesus. However, they were afraid.

It is scary to stand on the front lines of the battle being waged in our nation. People are afraid of the changes happening in our world today, and many do not feel safe to speak up. I understand that fear and it is natural. Not everyone is called to stand on the front lines. There needs to be people ready to continue the fight for the moral soul of the nation when those of us on the front lines are gone.  

Our parish has committed to being a safe space for all those who are marginalized, abused, and neglected in our world. It is not easy, but it is our commitment. We have been fighting for the rights of all people for decades and will continue to fight as long as we have breath in our lungs.

We cannot do this work without you!

I know some of you are scared to be seen in a progressive church. Some are leery to be in the church after the abuse and marginalization they have experienced in the past.  This too is understandable.

Here at Saint Francis Parish and Outreach, we are trying to build something different. We are a different way to be Catholic. We are not bound by the dogmatic nature of the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, we are an open, accepting, and affirming parish that seeks to be a safe space for all people.

Like I said, we need you to continue our work. We need you to come be an active part of our parish. We need you to financially support the work we do. Not only that, but we cannot continue to offer the services and safe space we do without you.

Our parish needs to raise $1200 in the next couple of weeks to pay our liability insurance, prepare for the Augusta Pride fest in June, and to continue providing the online services we offer.

Even more than that, we need you to come and support our parish in person. You can become a lector, acolyte, or greeter in our church. As we grow, there will be more and more things to do in the parish. And that is where you can help out!

Consider today becoming a part of a new way to be Catholic!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Pope Francis and Divine Mercy

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As I watched the transition of the earthly remains of Pope Francis from the chapel in the Casa Santa Marta to Saint Perer’s Basilica, I am reminded of the very humble and simple man that he was. He lived the real-life version of Divine Mercy in his daily life. He was not afraid to have hard conversations with people and with the Curia.

He called on us to show love and compassion to all people, including those so marginalized in society such as LGBTQIA+ individuals, women, immigrants, and the poor and homeless. He embraced those who were disabled and those who struggled in their daily lives.

He did not shirk away from extending his hand to those who needed love the most. One of the things that frustrated the Swiss Guard and the conservatives in the church was that he would disappear from the Vatican to go out into Rome to serve the poor and homeless. He washed the feet of transgender individuals on Holy Thursday in an act of compassion and understanding.

He embraced those who were sick without concern for his own wellbeing. He was a modern version of Saint Francis of Assisi, our patron saint. He may have been a Jesuit, but to many of us Franciscans, he was one of us.

This Sunday we will honor his life and legacy at our parish. We will pray for the repose of his soul and pray that God blesses us with a new Bishop of Rome who will follow in Pope Francis’ footsteps. We may not be Roman Catholic, but as Old Catholics, Pope Francis spoke our language. He understood what it meant to be a pastor, shepherd, and still be a normal human being.

I pray you will join us for this celebration and to learn about the Divine Mercy of our Savior as Pope Francis understood it.

Eternal rest grant unto Pope Francis, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Do you follow Jesus or the ruler of a nation?

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As I have watched the things happening in our country, especially the illegal and unconstitutional disappearing of American Citizens, I cannot help but see the parallels to the stories we read this week. Jesus was arrested for speaking up for the poor, homeless, widows, orphans, and those seen as less than the religious and civil leaders of his day.

His message was simple, all people deserve to be loved and are loved by God. This message so threatened the religious establishment of his day that they plotted to have him arrested and killed. And they succeeded. They were willing to lie and to twist the truth to make it happen. And the civil government at the time gave them the “legal” cover to do just that.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tuffs University student, was arrested by ICE agents who hid their faces so as to not be identified for the crime of writing an opinion piece for her school newspaper calling for an end to the genocide in Palestine. That was her only crime: Empathy.

Ozturk was one of dozens of students ICE has detained or deported to extermination camps in El Salvador simply for speaking out against war and genocide and standing up for peace. (See https://time.com/7272060/international-students-targeted-trump-ice-detention-deport-campus-palestinian-activism/)

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is another example of the current regime using lies and false testimony to go after peaceful citizens of our nation. He is a father of a child and a husband who has no gang ties, yet the government used false information to claim that he was. Judges have rules that he was not a gang member and was not to be sent to El Salvador. However, this regime refused to obey the courts, failed to abide by the law and sent him to die in a prison in El Salvador.

Many Christians this week will stand in church and listen hypocritically to the readings about Jesus’ passion. They will fake tears over the betrayal, false testimony, and abuse Jesus suffered. All the while, they support that very same treatment against people they see as less than themselves. They will cheer on the Ruler of our nation when he calls for American citizens to be sent to those same prisons in El Salvador. And many of them will rail about how I should be sent there too for speaking the truth of the Gospel.

This week should be a wakeup call to many Christians in the former United States of America. They should see the hypocrisy of weeping for Jesus’ false imprisonment, fake trial, and ultimate murder by civil and religious leaders for the crime of calling for love and empathy toward their fellow human being.

I am calling on you today to search your heart and soul. Are you living the message of Jesus or are you giving away your birthright to a ruler of a nation? Are you standing up against war, genocide, and abuse or are you cheering it on?

Now is the time to open your hearts rather than harden them. It is time to live the Gospel, not just give it lip service.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Palm Sunday: Forgiveness

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In our final part of the series on Becoming a Resisting Church, we have to ask ourselves what we should do when everything else we do to change hearts and minds fails. We can do everything right and we can still fail to make a difference in the world around us.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us that we are called by the Christ to forgive those who continue to walk a path of hatred and abuse. Dr. King says:

“In other words, forgiveness is not a matter of quantity, but a matter of quality. One cannot forgive four hundred and ninety times without it becoming a part of the habit structure of one’s being. Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude. This was what Jesus taught his disciples.” (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapter 5: Love in Action.)

In our Gospel reading this Sunday we read about the great betrayal and denial by Saint Peter. During all his protesting that he would not deny Jesus, when called to take a stand and to be known as a disciple, he buckled and denied him. He even flew into a rage at the very idea of beings one of Jesus’ disciples.

Yet, Jesus came to him after the resurrection and forgives him and restores him to the ministry he was called to do. This is all part of the process.

We will have those who will refuse to change their ways. They will harden their hearts against the Gospel of Love and will stand opposed to the teachings of the Jesus they claim to serve. It is not our job to judge them, it is our job to love them. And we love them by giving them forgiveness.

I hope you will join me this Sunday as we look deeper at forgiveness.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Fifth Sunday of Lent: Confronting Evil

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In our continuing look at Becoming a Resisting Church, we turn to the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We have spent the last 4 weeks looking at the various issues facing society and the church. Now we turn toward how we address those injustices and abuses.

In our Gospel reading this Sunday, we hear of the story of the woman caught in adultery. The religious nationalists of Jesus’ day brought her before him to catch him breaking the law of Moses. It is interesting to note, it was not Jesus who was breaking the law of Moses, but the religious zealots who did so.

The law of Moses required that both the man and the woman caught in adultery should be tried and stoned. (Leviticus 20:10) However, the religious nationalist, much like the Christian nationalists today, ignored the law and only brought the woman before Jesus.

I have long thought that when Jesus stooped to write in the dirt that he was writing the sins of the people who brought her to him. However, it could be that Jesus wrote the name of the man or even the verse out of the Torah that commanded both the man, and the woman should be stoned. Either way, it shamed them into leaving her with Jesus.

King talks about the kind of evil these religious nationalists were practicing. He states:

“We have seen evil in tragic lust and inordinate selfishness. We have seen it in high places where men are willing to sacrifice truth on the altars of their self-interest. We have seen it in imperialistic nations trampling over other nations with the iron feet of oppression. We have seen it clothed in the garments of calamitous wars which left battlefields painted with blood, filled nations with widows and orphans, and sent men home physically handicapped and psychologically wrecked. We have seen evil in all of its tragic dimensions.” (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Sermon “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore”)

We see this evil every day in our world. The evil of removing immigrants who only come to our country to seek a better, safer life. The abuse of women who are having their healthcare taken from them. The LGBTQIA+ individuals who are being denied life-saving healthcare and having their rights taken way one by one. People of color who are marginalized and abused in the name of the Christian Nationalists racist god.

King calls us to stand up and speak out. We cannot remain silent in the face of overwhelming evil. We cannot allow these acts to be committed in our names. And even when these acts are committed in the church or by people claiming to be Christians, we must speak out and stand up to them.

The only thing evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Fourth Sunday of Lent – Rejecting the sanctimonious spiritualization of the Gospel

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As we continue our look at Becoming a Resisting Church, we are confronted with the story of the blind man Jesus healed. The religious leaders of his day (the Jewish Nationalists) believed that the man was born blind because of his own sin or that of his parents. Think about that for a moment. A child who was born blind somehow committed a sin while still unborn that warranted their God to punish him with blindness.

Or even worse, the parents did something so horrible that God punished them with a blind child. Their God cursed the child to live a life of pain and suffering, not for anything he did, but because he wanted to get back at the parents for their sin.

All too often modern Christian Nationalist and evangelical fundamentalist want to have a vengeful and hateful God. They want a God that condemns innocent people to pain and suffering to prove a point.

In Rev. Detrich Bonhoeffer’s day, the German Nationalists (Nazis) believed in this same God. He called them out for that abusive and incorrect view of God when he stated:

“That is precisely the frightening thing about this story – there is no moralizing here at all, but simply talk of poor and rich and of the promise and the threat given to one and the other. Here these external conditions are obviously not treated as external conditions but are taken unbelievably seriously. Why did Christ heal the sick and suffering if he didn’t consider such external conditions important? Why is the kingdom of God equated with the deaf hear, the blind see? — And where do we get the incredible presumption to spiritualize these things that Christ saw and did very concretely? We must end this audacious, sanctimonious spiritualization of the gospel. Take it as it is, or hate it honestly!” (The Sermon on Lazarus, Detrich Bonhoeffer)

Today, many Christians continue to uphold this sanctimonious spiritualization of the Gospel that Bonhoeffer decried. They want to punish those they see as unworthy of God’s love. However, true Christians continue to call out that kind of hateful message as it is completely contrary to the message of Jesus.

Jesus showed loved and compassion to those most in need. He healed the blind man and called out the Jewish Nationalists for their incorrect and immoral teachings about God. He set them straight when he told them that this man was not being punished by God for sin but was a beacon of God’s light and love in the world.

We need to be that kind of Christian. We need to show the love of God to all people, especially those who are disabled and those that are marginalized in our society.

Saint Thomas Merton made this clear when he stated:

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbor’s worthy.”

I hope you will join us in preaching the true Good News of Jesus to the world around us.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Third Sunday of Lent – Cheap or Costly Grace

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Are we practicing cheap grace or costly grace? You may ask what I mean by that as so many have not heard of this distinction. Rev. Detrick Bonhoeffer is the one who discussed this distinction in his book titled The Cost of Discipleship.

Our readings this Sunday give us a hint. God calls the people of Israel to trust in him and to follow him no matter what. Saint Paul tells the church at Corinth that they need to set aside their old ways to follow the message of Jesus. And Jesus tells the people who followed him that one must take the time to tend to the fig tree to receive fruit.

All these point to the idea of a costly grace. A grace that requires action to be grace. Cheap grace doesn’t require anything of us. Bonhoeffer put it this way:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

On the other hand, costly grace requires us to set aside our biases, hatred, distrust, and lack of compassion to follow the message of love. Again, Bonhoeffer explained it this way:

“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”

This Sunday we will look at how the difference between cheap and costly grace is important to know when Becoming a Resisting Church. And we will learn how to apply that as we resist the call of the world to seek power, money, and authority.

I hope you will join us Sunday!

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

Second Sunday of Lent – Transfiguration

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As we move to the Second Sunday of Lent, we continue our series on Becoming a Resisting Church. This Sunday we focus on the Transfiguration of our Lord.

Transfiguration is part of our move away from the temptation of the world such as power, greed, and authoritarianism. It is a transfiguration into the type of people Jesus calls us to be. And Jesus calls us to be compassionate, caring, and helpful to those most in need.

Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke about this in his writings about Life Together:

“God does not seek the most perfect human being with whom to be united but takes on human nature as it is. Jesus Christ is not the transfiguration of noble humanity but the Yes of God to real human beings, not the dispassionate Yes of a judge but [the] merciful Yes of a compassionate sufferer.”

Jesus seeks to make our world a more loving and compassionate place. He calls us to help the poor, homeless, immigrants, women, people of color, and those in the LGBTQIA community. He calls us to love rather than hate.

In a world that continues to slide toward more and more hateful rhetoric, we are called to show more and more love. We cannot love our neighbors and hate the immigrant, the poor, the women, the people of color, and the LGBTQIA in our midst.

Today is the day to make a change. Today is the day for transfiguration.

Will you be transformed, or will you continue to follow the world?

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer

First Sunday of Lent – Temptation

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This Sunday we begin our Lenten series on How to be a Resisting Church. In it we will look at the lives and works of the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Their inspiration and works have stood the test of time and have helped the church navigate some of the most destructive times in the history of the church.

Our readings this Sunday focus on the command of God to follow him given to Moses and the Israelites and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

Rev. Bonhoeffer said in his book on Temptation:

“It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God….  Therefore the Bible teaches us in times of temptation in the flesh, there is one command:  Flee!  Flee fornication.  Flee idolatry.  Flee youthful lusts.  Flee the lusts of the world.  There is no resistance to Satan in lust other than flight.  Every struggle against lust in one’s own strength is doomed to failure.”

He reminds us that the temptation of the world is to turn our back on the Word of God and to follow our earthly desires. However, God calls us to flee from those temptations and to resist the call of evil.

In our modern world, we are so often enticed by the evil that surrounds us. That evil calls to our baser instincts to hate, divide one another, and to marginalize those we see as less than ourselves. Yet, God calls us to embrace those most in need, to help lift up the downtrodden and to sow love all around us in the world.

Part of being a resisting church is to answer the call of God even when the rest of the world, yes, even the rest of Christianity, works to fulfill those desires of the flesh. It is not easy, but rather it requires us to let go of our earthly desires and to humble ourselves before God. And Lent is the perfect time to start this pattern of service to God and our neighbor.

I hope you will join us this Sunday as we being our look at how to be a resisting church in the world around us.

Pax et Bonum,

Bishop Greer