Our gospel reading for this Sunday is the story of a blind man named Bartimaeus who sat near the city gate of Jericho when Jesus and a large crowd of followers were leaving the city. Eager to be seen and healed, Bartimaeus persistently cries out to get Jesus’ attention, despite being hushed and dismissed by the people surrounding him.

This Sunday we will hear the story of Jesus’ encounter with a wealthy young man who asks him “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Most of us know this story…and how it ends.  “Sell all your belongings,” Jesus says, “and follow me.” 

As we approach the Feast of St. Francis and our Annual Blessing of the Animals on Sunday afternoon, I am reminded how important this ritual has become to our congregation and to our neighbors. Last year, we couldn’t gather in the churchyard due to COVID constraints, so we took a chance and offered our blessings “on the go” at the corner of 24th and Broad.

In our gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus is in an unusually fiery mood. It seems he has grown frustrated with his disciples for their continued self-centered concern over status, and to wake them up, he uses exaggeration and hyperbole, so as to say, stop worrying about who is in, who is out, what “others” are doing in my name, and where you stand on the ladder. Keep your eye on the ball, and focus on how you can serve others and what you can change - yourself! He concludes by saying, “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it?

Over this past week, I’ve been basking in the glow of Last Sunday’s wonderful Homecoming Celebration, with gratitude for all of you who planned, prepared, donned costumes, led tours and games, as well as those of you who simply showed up and offered us the gift of your presence. I believe we did a really good job being together safely, too, by wearing masks to protect one another while indoors, and holding our picnic outdoors so that we could converse and share our meals mask-free.

And yet, all the while I’m keenly aware that the COVID case numbers in Richmond continue rising and are now at levels as high as they were last winter, so we must remain even more diligent in exercising precautions to stay safe and healthy as we move on into the fall.

This coming Sunday we will celebrate our annual homecoming, a tradition that we and many other churches have maintained for decades. As members return from summer travels, or family vacations, or a slower pace of life, we make a point to mark our transition from one season to another and celebrate the opportunity to meet up once again with the routines and rituals that undergird our community life.

This week I write to you from my childhood home in California for a time of retreat and celebration of my niece’s wedding. I am grateful for this time away, as hard as it is to get away, because I know we all need to retreat from time to time – to step back, survey the field and listen for God’s whisper.

This week marks the fifth Sunday we will hear from Jesus’ “Bread of Life” discourse in the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John. As you can imagine, all this talk about bread has not only made me crave my favorite kind (I’ve made more trips to Sub Rosa Bakery this month than I have all year), but it also has had me thinking about the role that bread has played in the lives of humans for thousands of years.

As many of you know, the focus of our Gospel readings is on The Bread of Life, and how it feeds, sustains and guides us in our life’s journey.  This week, we are provided a classic story from the Hebrew Bible about the prophet Elijah, and how he is given bread for his own journey.

Those of you who were in church last Sunday heard Dorothy preach a wonderful sermon on Jesus’ abundant feeding of the 5,000 as told in the Gospel of John. In our passage for this Sunday, our gospel writer continues the “Bread of Life” discourse with another image of Jesus’ abundant provision. Rather than turn a couple more fish and loaves into one more feast for the masses, he talks about his own being as bread: bread of God, bread of heaven, bread of life.

Last week, I preached about our real need for rest and nourishment, not only physical nourishment but the kind of sustenance we receive in gathering around the table together. In lingering over a meal, we learn something about love we can’t learn anywhere else.

It is hard to believe that has been 12 weeks since we began worshiping together inside the church after a year-long hiatus. This past Sunday was, for me, the first time I simply forgot (at least for a moment) that we had ever been apart. The church felt full again, and the spirit of worship felt like St. John’s.

This past week has been a tough one for listening to the news. My heart breaks as I think of those who lost their lives in the in the steel and smashed concrete that was once known as Champlain Towers in Southside Florida; the hundreds who have died in the extraordinary heat waves that have scorched the Pacific Northwest; and most recently, the inhabitants of Haiti who live in fear and uncertainty after the assassination of their President, Jovenel Moise.

As we approach the celebration of Independence Day this coming Sunday, with news of outdoor gatherings, picnics, fireworks displays and parades, I cannot help but remember what we were anticipating at this same time last year, in the wake of a pandemic that shook us to the core and shut us down, socially, politically, and economically. The words “independence” and “liberty” sounded somewhat discordant then, during a time we were so clearly aware of our interdependence, so keenly tuned into limits of our liberty.

As I reflect upon the events of my first weeks back at St. John’s after my surgery leave – with a wedding, and ordination, and our Juneteenth celebration on three successive Saturdays – I have been filled with gratitude for all that was planned, but also by what was unplanned. I’m thinking of the people who showed up to fill roles we hadn’t contemplated in advance, the tiny glitches that led to a roomful of laughter, the interruptions that may have created short delays, but offered opportunities to shift gears, re-center, re-connect, and experience joy.

Our Gospel reading for this Sunday is a very familiar one to most of us: “The Calming of the Storm.” In it, Jesus and his disciples get caught in a storm on the sea of Galilee while Jesus sleeps. Finally, the fearful disciples wake him, and he performs a miracle that calms the seas. ‘Oh, ye of little faith,” he tells them.

In our reading for this Sunday, Jesus teaches a simple way to help grow the realm of God. Simple, yet surprisingly difficult to live.

As I move through this first week back at St. John’s after my medical leave, I am reminded at least once an hour why I have missed all of you so much: the laughter I share with our staff as we review the achievements, fumbles, and surprises of the previous week; the enthusiasm and passion of the members involved in planning the Juneteenth service for St. John’s and St. Peter’s; the jittery excitement of the young couple to be married at St. John’s this Saturday; the emails and phone calls with news and stories and ideas to consider.

Grace and peace to each one of you.  I have held you in my heart during my recovery from back surgery with gratitude for the love, support, cards, emails, meals, visits, and prayers that I have received from so many of you, and for the awesome work of our vestry, our lay leadership, our clergy and staff, and our Interim Supply priest, Jenny Montgomery.  As this spring has unfolded in all its radiant glory, I have embraced the gifts of healing and hope, not only in my own life, but in the life of our congregation, as we emerge from a year of pandemic and begin to regather in person for worship, fellowship, learning, and outreach to our community.

I almost forgot today is Ascension Day. As Episcopalians, the Ascension is right up there with Christmas, All Saints, Easter, the Epiphany, and Pentecost. And yet falling on a Thursday like it does, Ascension Day rarely gets the attention it should and many of us may need reminding of what it signifies.