October 19, 2025 Archdeacon Steve Seely, EDOW

Good morning, St. Anne's. Oh, you're going to have to do better than that. I mean, it's 10:20. You should be awake by now. Good morning, St. Anne's. Excellent. It's a joy to be with you today and bring you greetings from Bishop Mary Ann and all the staff at Church House. We give thanks for the faithful ministry of this parish and the way you live out the gospel here in Damascus.

Bishop Marianne joins me in holding this community and especially your Deacon Janice in our prayers today. For the past three-plus years, Deacon Janice has served among you with a servant's heart, listening deeply, walking alongside you in prayer, and helping this congregation keep its eyes turned outward towards the needs of the wider community. Her ministry has been a living reminder of what the diaconate is meant to be, a bridge between the church gathered and the world God loves. Today we give thanks for her faithful service, for the countless quiet ways she has shared Christ's love among you, and for the seeds of compassion and justice she has planted that will continue to bear fruit here at St. Anne's. And so on behalf of Bishop Mary Ann and the Diocese of Washington, I want to say thank you to Janice and to all of you. You have embodied that partnership between priest, deacon, and laity that makes the gospel visible in this place.

Let us pray. Holy God, open our ears to hear, open our minds to understand, and open our hearts to love. In the name of one God, creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Amen.

Years ago, I actually got to thinking about it, and it's been over 20 years ago. I was the youth director at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Oklahoma City. Every Sunday evening, teenagers would gather, as teenagers do, and there were about 20 or so in our group. And we'd been talking about prayer for a couple of weeks, and after church was finished in the morning on a particular Sunday when we were going to finish up our series on prayer, I opened up the soda machine. And I moved all the cans of soda to different slots so that when you pushed a button, you didn't get what you were expecting. Now, you might think I was doing that to be a practical joker, and there would be some truth to that, but I had a method to my madness.

So that evening all the kids showed up and I had a roll of quarters and I gave them each 50 cents. Cokes were cheaper then. Gave them 50 cents and I said, go get yourself something to drink, my treat. And so off they went to the Coke machine that was in the hallway down from the youth room. And the first kid put two quarters in and hit the button. And they didn't get what they expected. And of course then a conversation started among the kids. And so the next one said well I'll try and put two quarters in thinking maybe it was just a fluke and they didn't get what they wanted either. In fact only one kid got what he wanted because there was only one slot that I didn't change. That was grape soda. Not knowing that there would be one kid who wanted grape soda. So if you pressed Coke, you got Sprite. If you pressed Diet Coke, you got a Dr. Pepper, and so on. And so you can imagine the conversation amongst these teenagers about the messiness of the Coke machine. And I said, well, you're just going to have to live with what you got, because I don't have the key, which was true. It was locked up in the office.

Small technicality. And I said, so you know, and I was known for odd lessons. You know, sometimes prayer feels like tonight's Coke machine. You ask God for one thing, and something completely different shows up. You press the button for peace, and perhaps you get patience instead. Or you ask for clarity, and you get confusion that somehow leads you to trust. The thing is, you still get a drink. You're still sustained. You're still being answered, but perhaps not in the way you were expecting or desired. This Coke machine God we imagine, the one where you put your coins in and press the button and get exactly what you ordered just doesn't exist. Prayer isn't mechanical and God isn't predictable.

That's what Jesus is teaching in today's gospel. Prayer isn't about pressing buttons or getting results. Prayer is about relationship. In this passage from Luke, Jesus tells his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. In a certain city, he says there's a judge who doesn't fear God or respect people. There's a widow, one of the most powerless people in her society, who keeps coming to him saying, grant me justice against my opponent.

For a while, he refuses. But finally, I suspect just to stop her from bothering him, he gives in. It's tempting to hear this story about nagging God until God gives in. But that's not who God is. God is not the unjust judge. God doesn't get worn down by our persistence. This parable isn't about results. It is about relationship.

You see, the widow keeps showing up. That's the heart of it. She keeps showing up. She doesn't have power or privilege. What she has is persistence. She keeps coming because she refuses to give up hope that justice is possible. And that's what prayer really is. Not magic words or divine transactions, but companionship with God. The practice of showing up again and again, even when it feels like nothing is happening. It's like any deep friendship or marriage perhaps or any other kind of close relationship. Some days bring laughter and connection. Other days bring silence or frustration. But the relationship endures because we keep showing up. Prayer is the same way. It's not about shaking the Coke machine. It's about maybe sitting at the kitchen table with each other. Sometimes talking, sometimes listening, and sometimes just being together in the quiet. That's the difference between transaction and relationship.

This parable reminds me of a neighbor I had in the first house I bought, Mrs. Harper. The house was an old home in an old neighborhood, what's known today as a craftsman. steps up to the landing, and then more steps up to the front porch and then inside. And Mrs. Harper, who lived across the street, kept mostly to herself until her husband died. After that, she found every possible reason to knock on my door or to wave me down while I was mowing the grass. Or even to yell across the street when I was sitting on the porch, "Are you having trouble with your mail like I am?" Or some other excuse to have a conversation. It was always something with her, always something that nagged at her, but not at me. I'll admit there were days I thought, oh, Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Harper. It's kind of like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Mrs. Harper, please just one quiet evening. She could be relentless.

But one night after she walked back across the street, it hit me. This wasn't about the mail or any other reason she had voiced in recent weeks. It was about relationship. She was lonely. After Mr. Harper died, she was reaching out in the only way she knew how. Her persistence wasn't a nuisance. It was a plea for connection, for companionship, and for someone to notice her presence and her pain. Through Mrs. Harper, I can't help but see something of the widow in today's gospel, and something of us too. When we keep coming to God in prayer, we're not pestering God for results. We're reaching out for relationship. We're saying, don't forget me, Lord. Stay near.

Earlier this week, as I met with my spiritual director, we were both talking about preaching today, and we were sharing with each other that we were still waiting for the Spirit to speak to us. These two behind me are probably nodding their head at that. They've had weeks like that of what are we going to say about this gospel reading or this passage of scripture. I was sharing with Brett sometimes how in conversations I have with people in our parishes or in the lobby of my apartment building, people talk about the relentless and persistent people on the street. I shared with him how years ago somebody said to me, you can't ignore the people on the street. That might be Jesus testing you. Brett associated that with that line from Matthew 25, what you do to the least of these you do to me. And I said to Brett, what if that's not a test? What if instead of looking at that as a test of having that interaction with that person on the street, that unhoused person that's asking for help, what if instead that's an opportunity? Not a test, but an opportunity. An opportunity to actually see the face of Jesus in our fellow human being.

That changes everything, doesn't it? Acts of compassion aren't about earning points with God. They're about deepening our companionship with God. And that ties right back to the widow. She's the one of the least of these. The poor, voiceless, even dismissed. But she's also the one Jesus lifts up as a model of faith. When we meet the modern widows of our time, those who are ignored or pushed aside, we're not performing charity for God's approval. We're meeting Christ himself and participating in God's justice and love.

But we need to be careful. It's easy for peace or prayer or justice to become performative. When leaders speak of peace while normalizing cruelty, the peace becomes hollow. And likewise, when faith becomes about image or reward, it becomes an empty ritual. That's what happens when we turn sacred things into transactions.

Jesus calls us back to something deeper, the kind of peace and prayer that flow from relationship, restoration, and justice. Or to put it plainly, dignity and love. Then comes that probing question. If Jesus were to talk with you about your faith, what would he find? What does faith even look like? Maybe faith isn't about having all the right answers. Instead, maybe it's about whether we keep showing up. Whether we will sit at the kitchen table to have a conversation. Whether we keep praying even when the Coke machine seems jammed. Or when the drink that drops isn't the one we wanted. Whether we keep serving and loving even when the world grows cynical or weary. Faith isn't measured by how often our prayers are answered. It's measured by how faithfully and persistently we stay in relationship. How we let prayer form us into people of compassion and courage.

Friends, I believe that Jesus is inviting us through our faith into a deeper kind of prayer. A prayer that's less about asking and more about abiding. Less about results. More about relationship. Less about vending machines and more about kitchen tables. And that invitation extends beyond prayer because when we live in companionship with God, we can't help but be drawn into companionship with others. The widows, the weary, the unseen, the hurting, even the Mrs. Harpers of the world. That's the call of discipleship. That's the diaconal heart of the gospel. Not a test, but a privilege to serve God and Christ and those who need love the most.

So maybe the question for us this week is simple. Where is God inviting you to keep showing up? Is it in prayer? Is it in service? Is it in compassion? Don't lose heart. Keep showing up. Because that's where relationship grows. That's where God's justice begins to take root. And that's where faith is found on earth. So the next time you pray, resist the urge to shake the Coke machine. Instead, pull up a chair at the kitchen table, sit down with God, talk, listen, laugh, cry, even argue if you need to. And when you rise from prayer, carry that companionship into the world. Because you just might meet Jesus in the face of someone who has been waiting for you to show up. May we be people who keep showing up. In prayer. In hope. And in love. Amen.

October 12, 2025

Growing up in the St. Louis area, history was always a bit of a strange subject. And I say that because it imbued almost every aspect of our communal identity. So many elements of how we talked about ourselves, how we identified ourselves, what it meant to be a part of that larger identity and community was rooted in the past. We were the gateway to the west, the Arch being chief among those kinds of memorials. We were the place from which Lewis and Clark embarked on their great journey to the interior of the country and continent. Even further back, we were the location on the Illinois side of the river where I grew up, the place of a great Mississippian culture headquartered or located at Cahokia Mounds in the pre-European experience of the indigenous people in North America.

But very little of that ever felt present. It was relegated, quite literally, to history. It was preserved in dioramas and historical markers. So much of what we talked about or we memorialized had to be conceived of in the imagination because it hadn't been stewarded into the present age. It hadn't been preserved in a way that we could encounter it as a living experience. It was simply a part of what once was and is no longer.

Philip Deloria, who is part of a storied Lakota Episcopal family, is a professor of American history. And in the late 90s, he wrote a book called Playing Indian. I've referenced it a couple of times before. And I come back to it this year as well because I think that point is one for us to remember, too, when we reflect on history, when we reflect on stewardship, which I'm going to talk more about in just a minute. But Philip's point is that in the larger U.S. consciousness, the concept of the Native American, of the indigenous experience, by the middle of the 20th century, had been, quote-unquote, relegated to history. It was something of the past. It was the thing that you see in the Bonanza episodes on TV. It was not an ongoing, present, lived experience. And yet, as we all know, there are millions of Native Americans in the United States today who have a continuity with that past history. They have, in their own ways, often outside of the larger narrative of who we are as America, have continued to steward and bring forth the realities of who they have been, who they are in the present moment, and who they will be in a future time.

You may be wondering where all of this connects with our readings today. And I'll connect that in a moment. But I'm bringing all of this up, and I'm framing our conversation and our discernment today of these scripture readings, in the context of us launching our stewardship season this year. Our theme for stewardship is Stewardship Is... It's an invitation into considering what stewardship means for each of you, how you might answer that question of what stewardship means to you.

In our present use of the English language, stewardship essentially has two meanings. One, for folks that are part of religious communities like we are, it often has this point in time invitation or appeal for financial support. Stewardship is what you give of your financial resources to help your existing faith communities continue to exist in the future—keeping the lights on, paying the bills, etc. But stewardship, in another way, but not unrelated, is used in terms of land stewardship, conservation, organizations that try to keep the beauty and the wildness of our landscapes. And both of those have a historical connection to the English concept of stewardship. Going back into the late medieval period, stewardship related to the work of a steward, one who was in charge of the material assets of a household. So you can think about the financial element there, but also often the land on which an estate existed. They were in charge of both. And so these concepts kind of come forward into the present moment in both senses of that historical term.

But what does stewardship mean for us? Well, for me specifically, I think about this question of history. Because so often, when we consider what it is that we are stewarding, we can get trapped in these bifurcations of thinking the past is a discrete reality, the present is a discrete reality, and the future is a discrete reality.

I have been incredibly blessed in the last decade of my life to have very intimate and close friendships and relationships with a number of my Native American colleagues. Interestingly, some of you may or may not know this: In the middle of the 19th century, the Episcopal Church evangelized a number of Native American tribes on their reservation lands such that today the highest concentration percentage-wise of Episcopalians by zip code, if you were to go and look this up, are on Native American reservations—the Oneida, the Navajo, the Lakota. In some places, upwards of 95% of people on some of those reservation zip codes identify as being Episcopalian. And so as I have grown and deepened my relationship within the Episcopal Church, I have been gifted the great witness of that experience. And it's a way of stewarding our tradition that brings the past, present, and future into a cohesive whole in the present reality of who we are and how we experience the world. And it's shaped and changed me in some very important ways.

This is a connection point to especially what we hear in our gospel lesson today. Over and over again throughout the gospel passages, Jesus has this very positive regard for the Samaritans. Which, in a kind of similar dynamic, though not entirely parallel, the Samaritans were a marginalized, minority community within the larger ethos of first-century Israel Palestine. They were seen as a corrupted part of the Jewish tradition, so much corrupted by their intermarriage with the Assyrians that they were even considered at times, like Jesus talks about today, as foreigners. They were no longer legitimate, authentic people of the book.

We've similarly at many points in our history as the United States, alienated and marginalized our indigenous brothers and sisters, seeing them as foreigners in a land that is theirs first. But Jesus, again and again, both in his teaching and in his ministry, shows the authenticity of that faith. He actually has many times at which the Samaritans are the ones expressing the genuine response that Jesus is looking for. And that's the example we have today. That this one Samaritan, out of the group of those suffering from leprosy, is the one to return, to praise God for his healing, to thank Jesus for what he has done. He is the one showing authentic faith in this moment of transformation and healing.

There's a sense, a sense in which Samaritans, and not just this man but the variety of Samaritans who Jesus interacts with throughout the gospels, are the stewards of an authentic faith practice. When Jesus so often and so frequently criticizes the power structure, the faith experience of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees, of those at the very top of Jewish society, he simultaneously finds, over and over again, that the authentic faith that he preaches is being expressed by these on the very edge, these who have been rejected, these who aren't considered legitimate.

And when we come to our own discernments of stewardship, I think there are several elements of this experience that are instructive for us. In one sense, is this important connection to continuity and to a holistic experience of who we are. Again, as I mentioned, we so often want to put into discrete units the history of who we've been, the present reality of who we are, and our kind of optimal view of what the horizon holds and where we may go in the future. But those things aren't discrete realities. They all function together as one present experience in the present moment.

When we think about stewardship, beyond just the financial commitment, we so often can get ourselves in that place of discrete compartmentalization. We want to steward the best of who we've been and look always to the past and to the goodness of the past. We want to steward the present moment, constantly focused on the ever-increasing needs of the society and community around us. Or we want to steward forward a future reality that we are striving for. We want to just take all of our resources and put them into something beyond the horizon. And all three of those are insufficient or incomplete. Because in truth, to steward the whole of who we are is to do all three of those things simultaneously: to bring the best of our past into this present moment, to address and care for the needs of the present moment, but then to look forward to the future too, and to see the places of impact that we can have in a future time.

And very often, when we do that holistically, when we bring all three of those orientations into conversation together, we find the places and people and experiences on the margins to sometimes be the most instructive or elucidating of experiences for us to understand most fully who we are. We can get so focused and captured on the grand narratives, the important waypoints and key marks of who we've been, but miss the more significant, the more frequent experience of the day to day. Of who we are as a people, who we have been in the past, who we continue to be now, who we might become in the future. And by listening to all voices, by bringing into conversation all who have been transformed and experienced new life in this place, we can begin to sense a fullness of who we are and what it is that we are being called to steward.

So this year in particular, as we enter into this season of stewardship, as we hear this great story of healing and transformation, I invite us not just to focus on the money, which, I'm not going to lie, is a critically important part of our stewardship season. It is, quite frankly, what keeps the doors and the lights on. But in that discernment, to also think about what it is that we are keeping the doors open for and why it is that we are keeping the lights on.

Who are we as a community? What is the work that we are on about? Who have we been in the past? Who are we in this present moment? And who are we becoming as we follow ever more significantly the things that God is calling us to do? Because ultimately, beyond just the money and the financials, our discernment of stewardship is who we are as a community and what we are being called to do and be as that community. And that goes well beyond all of the other elements.

And so as we launch this stewardship season today, I invite us to be ever more mindful of the fullness of that stewardship. Of what it means for us to be in conversation with the whole of who we have been historically, to recognize that our history is a lived experience, even in this moment. But it is a lived experience in the context of also looking towards the future. There is all of that brought together in a seamless whole.

And as we hear this story of healing and transformation in the gospel, to recognize that in our own ability to seek that wholeness of perspective, we too will find our own places of transformation and new life. And my prayer for us is in this season of discernment, as we seek that sense of transformation and new life, that we may like this Samaritan, find at the end that what we fundamentally do, what we end up coming back to, is this return for praise and thanksgiving for what has been gifted us and how we might carry that forward into the new world and new reality that Christ is setting us up for.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.