Riding the North Augusta Greeneway

Bicycle riding brings me great enjoyment, and the North Augusta Greenway is a big part of the reason. The North Augusta Greeneway (spelled with the extra e because it’s named after a former city mayor by that name) is a beautiful place to exercise. It’s a railroad bed converted to a walking and biking trail that runs down off the Piedmont of upper South Carolina, through the city of North Augusta, down into the Savannah River valley. My 10.5-mile routine, a few times a week, never gets old. I particularly enjoy the Greeneway in the summer at first light.  It gives me time with the Lord as I ride and time for me to enjoy His beautiful creation.  On my early morning rides, I encounter plenty of deer, particularly down along the Savannah River

One thing I’m intentional about on the Greeneway is greeting the people I pass.  At my age, I’m not riding so fast that I don’t have time to speak, and it’s a good Southern tradition with which I grew up.  Besides, one never knows if you are passing a person who could use a friendly greeting.  

Admittedly, only a retired person with plenty of time to think about such things would do this, but I calculated how many people I’ve greeted over my nineteen years of bicycling on the North Augusta Greeneway.  I figure I have greeted about fifty-five thousand people, plus or minus 4 percent. This is almost twice the current population of North Augusta. [here's the math:  Nineteen years × two, 10.5 rides per week (average) × fifty-two weeks × twenty-eight people per ride (an average, not counting babies in strollers) = 55,328 people]

Not everyone responds to my greeting, which, of course, is OK; after all, most are there just to exercise and perhaps find a bit of quiet in their busy day.  Some, however, beam and flash big smiles, offering a return greeting. By contrast, others simply ignore me altogether.   

Everybody I pass seems to be somewhere on this continuum of friendly smiles and returned greeting, to irritated, ignoring looks.  This is my personal and subjective observation spanning 19 years on the Greeneway, but older black women tend to be on the smiling and friendly end of the spectrum.  Other bicyclicers, particularly younger, serious exercisers, tend to ignore the intrusion.  Women are generally on more friendly end of the scale, except, perhaps, younger women who have probably been taught not to speak to strangers.  Older men are friendlier than young men, although I don't know what the younger men's excuses might be.   

A Pilgrimage through Holy Week

 Holy Week, the final week of Lent, is our journey to the Cross with Jesus.  Holy Week allows us to participate in the unfolding drama of our Redemption and New Life brought to us in Christ.  The journey is marked with special days of devotion and fasting that point us forward to the great Resurrection celebration on Easter Sunday.  Our Holy Week journey begins on Palm Sunday.

 Palm Sunday

Through our liturgy, we join the crowd celebrating Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, waving our palm branches and crying, “Hosanna!”  But quickly the celebratory atmosphere changes as we, along with the crowd, turn against Jesus and reject Him because we realize He is not the Messiah we are wanting or expecting.  The service goes on to prepare us for what lies ahead on Good Friday by our first recitation for the week of The Passion, the “Old, Old Story” of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus read from one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark or Luke).

 Scripture records that Jesus went on from the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday to spend the early days of Holy Week teaching in the Temple.  His teachings fuel the growing enmity between Him and the religious authorities who secretly plot ways to eliminate this itinerant rabbi.

 Maundy Thursday

This is Jesus’ last evening before His arrest and crucifixion.  On this night we gather to celebrate the Passover Meal with Jesus and His disciples in an upper room of a home in Jerusalem.  During this time with His disciples, Jesus commands both them and us to do two things.  First, He commands that we love others as He has loved us (John 13:34).  To love is to serve, and Jesus demonstrates this by washing His disciples’ feet.  We, like Peter, are uncomfortable with our Lord washing our feet, but perhaps we feel even more uncomfortable when He commands us to do the same thing for each other.

Secondly, as Jesus celebrates the Passover Meal with His disciples, He infuses this sacred observance with new meaning by indicating that He Himself will be the Passover Lamb who is to be sacrificed for us all.  The Passover becomes not only what it has always been, a remembrance of the saving acts of God in delivering Israel from the bondage in Egypt, but it becomes a memorial to Jesus and His work on the Cross, which is the culmination and pinnacle of Salvation History.  Through Jesus’ “Real Presence” in the consecrated bread and wine, Jesus promises to be with us always. 

Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin word “mandatum” which means “command.”  At the Maundy Thursday service, we are obedient in following both of our Lord’s commands to serve each other, signified by the washing of each other’s feet, and to participate in the wonderful mystery we know as the Lord’s Supper.

 Good Friday

We are there as Jesus stumbles along the road through Jerusalem to Golgotha carrying His Cross.  Crowds jeering!  Whips cracking!  Calvary looming ahead!  We cannot help but remember the old spiritual hymn, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”

It is the tradition of many Christians on this day to walk “The Way of the Cross” with Jesus, also known as “The Stations of the Cross.”  Early Christians who made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem would walk along the route Jesus took as He bore His Cross to Calvary.  When access to the Holy Land became limited following the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, churches in Europe would place “Stations” along the walls of their parish church commemorating the events of Jesus’ journey to the Cross. This became an alternate way the people could walk The Way of the Cross.

Here at Holy Trinity on Good Friday, we walk to The Way of the Cross with Jesus.    We gather at noon in the church and, using the paintings on the walls of the nave, move from prayer station to prayer station, event to event, until we come to Calvary with Jesus. 

 At our Good Friday Liturgy in the evening, we once again read The Passion Story, as we did on Palm Sunday, except this time from St. John’s Gospel.  After special prayers, known as the Solemn Collects, a wooden cross is brought into the sanctuary of the church.  We will then have the opportunity to symbolically take our sins, burdens and worries to the Cross of Christ. We have in the past done this by writing them on a slip of paper and nailing them to the wooden cross that has been brought into the Sanctuary.

Holy Saturday

1 Peter 3:19 tells us that on Holy Saturday Jesus "went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.” This is known as the “Harrowing of Hell” when the proclamation of the Gospel is made to those who had not and will not otherwise hear the saving message of the Gospel.  But for you who walked with Jesus through the events of this week, watching as He was crucified on Friday, Saturday is a day of prayer and contemplation of what God in Christ has done for us.  Knowing the rest of the story, we wait expectantly for its fruition on Easter morning.

 The Great Vigil of Easter

In the 2000 years since these events of Holy Week, we have learned what it means to wait for the Day of the Resurrection with joyful expectation.  After sundown we gather to participate in what has become known as The Great Vigil of Easter.  In the early centuries of the Church, this was done with prayers, Scripture readings, singing, baptisms, and holding vigil throughout the night until dawn, at which time the first Eucharist of Easter would be celebrated.  The Scriptures read and expounded upon through the night would recall the mighty saving acts of God that culminate in the glorious event of Easter Morning. 

 On this night we also hold vigil, but in a more abbreviated manner.  We begin by commemorating the “Light of Christ” that has come into the world with the lighting of the Paschal Candle.  We read Scripture, say and renew our baptismal covenant with God, and then conclude by celebrating the first Eucharist of Easter. Following the Eucharist, many churches process into the parish hall for an “Agape Feast,” a celebration of the Risen Christ who has secured for us a place at the “Great Banquet Feast of the Lamb.”

 Easter Sunday

 This is the Feast Day of the Lord’s Resurrection, the single greatest celebration of the Christian year and the event to which all of Lent and Holy Week has been pointing.  Easter is a celebration of the wonders of the Paschal Mystery, which is that Jesus has overcome death and opened the gates of Heaven for all who choose to walk through.  

Alleluia! Alleluia!
 

The Reverend Rob Hartley, Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, North Augusta, Lent, 2012

At the Heart of the Gospel- Genesis 15:6

 “[Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it as righteousness.”

What is taking place here?  Abram knew all about unrighteous that comes with living in this sin-filled world; yet, God counted him righteous.  Why?  The answer is that Abram trusted God and believed in His promises.  The Lord consequently laid out a new life and new future for Abram, even giving him a new name, Abraham.  Abraham did not overcome his own unrighteousness, he simply found a new righteousness imputed to him through his faith-relationship with God.  In other words, Abraham did not deal with his own sin, God did. 

Other world religions acknowledge that the problem that stands between us and the divine is the problem of sin.  Genesis 3 tells the story of sin and rebellion entering creation.  The result is separation from our Heavenly Father forever (i.e. spiritual death).  What can we do about it?  The answer is nothing; our sinful nature runs too deeply.  We cannot save ourselves. We need a redeemer. 

Speaking of other world religions, they tend to be mankind’s attempt to overcome sin and nullify the consequences of sin.  For instance, Islam attempts to overcome the effects of sin by adherence to the five pillars of their faith, which are the five things one must do in order to assure going to heaven.  In the 2000 years of Christians history, we have also been guilty of this same sort of heresy.  We Christians know this as “works-righteousness.”  Many Christians today are still guilty of this heresy, either knowingly or subliminally. 

But if religion is man’s attempt to do something to be right with God and overcome the consequences of sin, then Biblical Christianity is not a religion at all.  We aren’t overcoming anything.  What needs to be done has already been done, and we didn’t do it.  The work that needed to be done was done 2000 years ago by God Himself, Jesus the Messiah, at His Cross and Resurrection.  All we do, like Abraham, is accept the gift of grace, answer the invitation, trust God, and enter a salvific relationship with Him.  We are saved by God’s grace though our faith-relationship with Christ.  In this sense, Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.

Therefore Genesis 15:6 takes us to the heart of the Gospel- "[Abram] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.  St. Paul clarifies this in Rom 3:23-24, “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”  Abraham was not any better or righteous than you or I.  In fact, the story of Abraham reveals Him to be a bit a scoundrel.  His grandson, Jacob, another OT Patriarch, was a deceiver and trickster who became a man of faith.  God thus claimed him as His own, set him apart, and made him into something new.  Like us, the Patriarchs fall short of the Glory of God, but what they did do was submit to God in faith, belief, and trust.  It was credited it to them as righteousness.  So it is to be with us!

So, salvation comes only through God doing for us that which we cannot do for ourselves.  But this is just the beginning of our journey heavenward.  We now open ourselves to the Holy Spirit who promises to make us what we already are, which is holy and sanctified in the eyes of God.  This is an exciting adventure of growth, transformation and sanctification.  May the Lord be glorified in your pilgrimage as you journey with Jesus to the throne room of God.  Amen!

Fr. Rob Hartley, Lent 2, 2019

Sermon- Funeral Service for Marylin Poston, Saturday, January 29, 2022

1 Corinthians 15:22    “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  

Two things in this verse:

·       First, as sons and daughters of Adam, we are reminded that we all die.  We hardly need reminding of this, do we.  We are destined to live 3 score and 10, as Psalm 90 puts it, only to return to the dust from which we came, as it says in Genesis 3.

·       Secondly, this passage tells us that for all who are “in Christ,” (St Paul’s favorite phrase) we are all made alive.  What does St. Paul mean? He goes on to tell us. He says that “in Christ,” the perishable (that is, we mortal humans), put on the imperishable (immortality).  Paul tells us, for those who are in a saving relationship with Christ, death no longer has its sting; that is, the curse of Genesis 3 (which is the story of humankind’s rebellion against God) is broken and replaced with the eternal blessing of fellowship with God forever.    

This is amazingly good news to a world that is perishing, and it is well hidden from many but revealed to all who are in Christ.  This "Good News" is not only revealed to us who are in a relationship with Christ but also actualized and made possible through our relationship with Christ.

This service this afternoon celebrates this great Truth in the context of the life of our dear Marylin.  Of course, we grieve her loss to us and will miss her.  To all the family, know that those of us gathered here grieve with you, but we also celebrate with you.  God has gathered Mimi to Himself forever.  Using the beautiful words from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah from whom we just read, Christ brings to us “the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.”  God has done this for Marylin; God has done this for us.

So, we celebrate:  We celebrate Marylin; we celebrate God who gave Marylin life and gave her to us; we celebrate that God has now granted Marylin an eternal place at His great banquet table in Heaven, the marriage feast of the Lamb to His bride, the Church; and finally, we celebrate the great reality that, through Marylin’s relationship with God in Christ, death does not have the last word in Marylin’s life, God does.

Our relationship with God, therefore, is very important, life and death important.  In God’s grand scheme of things, all relationships are important.  At times like this, we should think about our relationships, such as the relationship we had with Marylin and our ongoing relationships with each other.  Most of all, we should think about our relationship with God.   

Some think that Christianity, particularly when viewed from the outside, is about following rules when it is really about relationships.  Breaking God’s rules can be forgiven, and God is quick to do that, but relationships, especially our relationship with God, can either be made or lost forever.  It is true that we Christians seek to follow God’s rules and the boundaries He has placed around our lives, but we do so simply because it is an expression of our relationship with Him.  Relationships not rules are what we find at the heart of Christianity.

From God's perspective, to be in a relationship with Him is the reason He created us.  Christ came to be our way back to a relationship with the Father unfettered by our sin and rebellion.   Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  Through Jesus, Heaven’s gates are opened wide to a forever and perfected love-relationship with God.  On this side of the grave, we struggle to understand what such a forever relationship with God looks like, but Marylin knows what it looks like; she is now liveing it.

If we are paying attention, God’s purposes for our lives should become clear  in times like today, and it involves our relationship with Him and with each other.  The full, unfettered, and forever relationship with God we call Heaven.  The full, unfettered, and forever relationship with one another we call the Communion of Saints in Heaven.  Through Christ, we will someday take our place in Heaven alongside Marylin and all the saints.  “Thanks be to God!”

Science and Religion

As a young man about to go off to college, I felt the tug to do one of two things with my life- become a priest in God's Church or explore the world of science.  Amazingly, God opened doors in my life that allowed me to do both.  I spent 31years enjoying science, math as the language of science, and a career in electrical engineering (the application of science).  

Retiring from that career, I am now a priest who is further exploring God's creation and my relationship with our Creator.  Hopefully, as a priest and pastor, I am helping others do the same.

I never have considered faith and science as mutually exclusive or involving incompatible worldviews.   My Trinitarian Christian Faith has revealed to me the "why" of my existence, and science continues to open ever-widening vistas as to the "how" I have come to be part of this amazing world in which we live.  It has been an incredible ride!

Relationships, Not Rules

God-intended human life involves relationships.  Without relationships, life is an incomplete and faded image of what God intends it to be.  Jesus said that our first and greatest relationship is with the God who created us- He says in Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The next greatest relationships are with one another- “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Therefore, Christianity is first and foremost about relationships.  Some think Christianity, particularly Christianity viewed from the outside, is all about following rules and loosing autonomy to a distant God.  But in God’s great economy of things, breaking God’s rules can be forgiven, which God is very quick to do.  We follow God's rules and acknowledge His boundaries simply because we love God.  God placed these rules and boundaries in our lives simply because He loves us.  Following God's commandments is surely an expression of our relationship with God.

From God's perspective, being in a relationship with Him based on love is our purpose for being and  why God created us.  God came to us in our fallen humanity in the person of Jesus to be the way back to an unfettered love-relationship with Him.  Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  Through Jesus, heaven’s gates are opened wide for us to enjoy a full and forever relationship with our Heavenly Father.

God’s purposes become clear to us when we realize that God did not create any of us just to live "three score and ten years," as Psalm 90 puts it, and then pass into oblivion (or worse), but He created us to be in a love-relationship with Him and, by extension, with one another.  This full, unfettered, and forever relationship with God is called Heaven.  This full, unfettered, and forever relationship with one another is called the Communion of Saints in Heaven.  In Christ and through Christ, someday we will take our place in the full presence of God among the saints in Heaven. Alleluia!

Rob Hartley 01-07-22

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas, year C, 2022- "What is Truth?"

The Christmas season, as you know, is 12 days long, beginning with the celebration of The Feast of the Incarnation on December 25 and ending with The Feast of Epiphany of January 6, but not all Christians celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation on December 25.  Churches such as the Eastern Orthodox, churches in Russia, Greece, and the Middle East, celebrate Christmas on January 6

This amazingly allowed Nancy and me to celebrate Christmas twice one year.  We attended Christmas Eve midnight mass here at home and then flew to Egypt on a study tour of Coptic Christianity with a group from my seminary.  We again attended a Christmas Eve midnight mass with our Coptic brothers and sisters in Cairo 12 days later. 

Sadly, the very next year this Coptic Christmas Eve service was attacked by Islamic radicals, and many people were killed and injured. This act of hatred and violence could not be further from the great Truth that was being celebrated that night in Cairo.  They were celebrating what St. John writes about in the prologue to his Gospel, “…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth.” That night, Truth and the lies of this world came face-to-face.  Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).  Jesus came into the world embodying Truth, the truth about us, about God, and about this crazy world in which we live.

 Years ago, a noted Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Peck, wrote a book titled People of the Lie.  Dr. Peck makes the all-too-real connection between untruth and human evil.  Living the lies of this world, simply stated, is the source of evil; after all, Satan, who roams this world, is the Prince of Lies.

 So, knowing Truth is important.  St. Paul in our Epistle reading today writes about Jesus coming to us bringing wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of God’s will, he writes.  Paul celebrates that Jesus not only brings salvation, He also brings truth, truth about what this life is really all about.

To us fallen and sinful humans, Truth is an elusive commodity.  Our culture even denies that there is such a thing as transcendent Truth.  We thus leave it to the individual to construct his or her own truth.  Of course, we followers of Christ find all this modernist talk about there being no transcendent truth quite absurd.  We know that ultimate Truth about life and about God is not a product of the human mind; rather, it has its source in the mind of God, which is why we Christians strive to continually grow in our knowledge of God. 

Barney Lamar whom many of you know from the men’s Saturday morning fellowship, sent me a link to an article on this topic written by Anthony Deblasi (Dec 19, 2021).   Deblasi points out that, if what we think or believe is not the truth, then it is not knowledge; in fact, it is the opposite knowledge, it is a lie.  This is important because it is true knowledge that guides us to a fulfilled life.  Jesus told us that He came that we might have life to the fullest.

Simeon and Anna in our Gospel today give us a picture of what it looks like to live into what is true. Truth had been revealed to Simeon and Anna through God’s Word, the Law and the Prophets, and they were now seeing its consummation in the presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple.  Simeon exclaims, “Lord, now you have set your servant free to go in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” We hear in these words the Christmas and Epiphany theme of light as a metaphor of truth and knowledge breaking into this world just as St. John writes about in His Prologue, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.”

So, “What is Truth?”  I’m sure you recognize this as Pilot’s insightful question to Jesus at Jesus’ trial.  Jesus had told Pilot that He came to bear witness to the truth.  As Christ’s followers, therefore, are not we also to bear witness to the truth?  That is a rhetorical question… of course we are?

 In closing, let me mention a few truths to which we are to bear witness:

 ·       We are to bear witness that we are creatures made in His image of our loving Creator, that God created us out of love, to be the objects of His love, with the ability to love Him in return. 

 ·       We are to bear witness to God’s invitation to be in union with Him, something made possible through Christ who rescues us from our fallen human nature and invites us to new life in Him. 

 ·       We are to bear witness that, by the sanctifying power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives, new life begins now, today, right here among the lies and deceits of this present world, by letting light break into the dark world through us. 

 ·       We are to bear witness that the chief purpose of man is to live a life that glorifies and honors God.  This requires repentance, submission and obedience to God’s good and perfect will for our lives.  

 ·       Finally, since the big, in-your-face untruth of our time is about human sexuality, we are to bear witness that God did indeed has placed boundaries around human sexuality for the healthy ordering of our lives and our society.  Against this great truth, our culture is in open rebellion. 

 You and I know the answer to Pilot's question, “What is truth.” We know the answer because we know Jesus. 

The Rev. Rob Hartley, Christmas II, 2022