Emmanuel Episcopal Church

09/13/2024

Services for Cheryl Coffman will be held at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Warrenton on Thursday, September 19 at 11 am. A gathering will follow at the Church.

04/30/2024

It is with much sadness that we have been informed of the sudden passing of our dear friend and devoted parishioner Posy Williams. Posy entered into eternal rest yesterday April 29th. Please keep her husband Richard and family in your thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: The Funeral will be held on Saturday May 18 at 11:00 am at Emmanuel church. Visitation will be held at Richard's house on Brehon street from 7 - 9 on Friday May 17th.

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03/26/2024

Holy Week Church Schedule

March 28, Maundy Thurs. Service with Holy Communion is at 7:00PM.

March 29, Good Friday Service is at NOON .

March 31, Easter Day Service is at 11:00 AM

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03/26/2024

“The Road Taken”
A homily preached by the Rev. Canon E. T. Malone, Jr., at Emmanuel Church, Warrenton,
North Carolina, Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024. Also distributed online.
In the name of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Have you ever visited the lion’s den, found the door unlocked to the cage, and decided to go inside and have a stroll around?
We humans have a tendency to do things like that sometimes.
Something possesses us, and we take on risky projects with little chance of success: questionable investments, hasty moves to another town, jobs in a field for which we are poorly prepared, marriages to that person Mother warned us about.
“I know what everyone says about him, but he’s good deep down inside. I think I can change him.”
“I know she’s spoiled, but marriage and children will give her a maturity that she doesn’t have now.”
Famous last words.
Buoyed by a string of successes, Robert E. Lee decided in the summer of 1863 to invade the North. But he knew that lurking out there somewhere was General Grant. Still, if he wanted to achieve his ultimate goal, he had to give it a try. The poet Robert Frost wrote about “The Road Not Taken.” Here, we talk about the road that was taken.
Jesus, our dear Lord who was divine yet fully human, entered Jerusalem with the cheers of the crowd ringing in his ears: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” But he knew he was in for trouble.
He knew that behind the high walls, within the inner chambers, were the men of power, dressed in fine robes. They wanted to kill him because his success threatened their positions.
Still, I think we need to understand that Jesus at first did not desire death. But he was prepared to die if need be, in this dangerous work.
Ultimately, he came to understand that his death could accomplish something that his life, teachings, and healings by themselves could not. Ultimately, he convinced himself that the change he sought could only be brought about by the combination of his teachings and his martyrdom.
In our Episcopal tradition, when a deacon or priest is ordained, he or she has to declare belief that the scriptures contain “all things necessary for salvation.” Think about what that means. It means that the Bible says enough. In terms of ideas, it gives us what we need. It doesn’t need to say anything else.
By the end of his three-year earthly ministry, Jesus had told his disciples all they needed to know. He had explained to them the relationship between God and man, between Father and Son, and told them of the Holy Spirit that moves over the world to inspire us to goodness and greatness.
One could speculate about what the ministry of Jesus would have looked like if it had continued longer, for more years, and he had avoided arrest by the authorities. There would likely have been pressure and momentum for it to evolve from a religious movement into a political one.
We know that there had been several small, unsuccessful revolts against Roman authority in those days by groups such as the Zealots and others. A few decades later the massive uprising took place that resulted in Jewish defeat and the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
In more recent history, we have seen non-violent campaigns for social justice change in nature into more confrontational situations, in which idealism turns to nationalism. We’ve seen this happen in everything from independence movements around the world to the civil rights movement here in America. A protest can turn into a war.
It takes great discipline to allow someone to spit on you and not strike back. People committed to non-violence have had to endure this. And remember the lawyer hero Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird? The white trash daddy spat in his face, but Atticus simply paused momentarily to wipe it off and kept on walking. It was beneath his dignity to react or involve himself, or even acknowledge the presence of this low-life individual. Atticus would not allow himself to get down on that man’s common, depraved level.
When Jesus was taken into custody, the Roman soldiers spat on him and slapped him. He said nothing and did nothing to resist them. His behavior was frustrating and puzzling to Pontius Pilate, who seemed inclined to release him if Jesus had only answered certain questions in the right way. Jesus seemed to be saying, “You cannot kill me. I have decided to allow myself to be killed.”
Pilate came to understand that this extraordinary man was determined to sacrifice himself.
He ordered a sign to be placed on the cross announcing “The King of the Jews.” The meaning of salvation began to dawn on Pilate, like the sun rising over the hills. This man Jesus died to bring about God’s kingdom on earth, today, in the land of the living—not in some far future time. And so it will be, if we will give to one another as he has given to us—if we love one another as he has loved us. Amen.

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03/12/2024

“The Comfortable Words”

A sermon preached by the Rev. Canon E. T. Malone, Jr., at Emmanuel Church, Warrenton,
North Carolina, IV Lent, Sunday, March 10, 2024. Also distributed online.

In the name of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Good morning everyone. It’s good to see you all again. This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
One of the sections of the traditional language Rite I liturgy that we are using today is customarily called “the Comfortable Words.” It occurs on page 332 of the Book of Common Prayer and follows immediately after the Confession and Absolution.
It is good to know that some of the words of our Scripture are known as “comfortable,” as so much of what Christ has revealed to us is decidedly uncomfortable!
The rubrics—the directions printed in small italic type for the priest—state that “A Minister may then say one or more of the following sentences, first saying: ‘Hear the Word of God to all who truly turn unto him.’” Then follow four verses of scripture designed to offer comfort to the hearer:
“Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you”—from the Gospel of Matthew;
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”—from the Gospel of John;
“This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—from First Timothy; and
“If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world”—from First John.
Each of these is a statement of good news for the individual soul, weary and burdened with sin, and, indeed, for the whole world. They are words that bring us comfort, if we will allow them to do so.
We have someone who will refresh us when we are weary, who gives us life, who saves us, and who is our advocate.
All four tell us the role that Jesus can play in our lives. All four, taken together, constitute his holy job description.
All four of these statements, as they appear in the Prayer Book, are phrased in the language of the King James Bible. In fact, the first of the statements is part of our Gospel reading for today, found in your bulletin inserts, from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It is John 3:16.
Most often, we hear these familiar words taken out of their original context, quoted standing alone. But in their context, there is a companion statement, which in the King James says: “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” That declaration could be a sermon all by itself. It is a wonderful retort and antidote to the poison of those who preach only hellfire and damnation. God’s purpose in sending Jesus to this earth was not to scare us with the threat of eternal fire because of our imperfections. This verse, John 3:17, is one to which I keep returning. Those militant people who call themselves Christian Nationalists would profit from meditating on this verse. It reminds us that the purpose of Jesus was not anger or aggression but love and acceptance.
A few years ago, I was talking with an 88-year-old lady who said someone she encountered at the library in the town where she lived said to her: “All Catholics are going to hell!” The old lady replied: “Is that so? Show me where you found that in the Bible and I’ll believe it.”
She was irate, and her attacker fell silent, having no answer.
Then the old lady declared to me: “Is a loving God going to send all the little babies who die without being baptized to hell? Is God going to send all the folks in Africa who lived and died without ever having a chance to even hear of Jesus to hell?” She answered her own question vehemently: “I don’t think so!” And what about all those vast multitudes who lived before Jesus was born?
I agree with her. We could discuss the deep and complicated theological questions surrounding conversion, atonement, grace, and salvation, but I firmly believe that the bottom line is that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. We do a pretty good job of shooting ourselves in the foot without any help from others.
Our Gospel continues, saying, “Those who believe in him are not condemned.” This, obviously, assumes that those people have heard of Jesus and his teachings and have accepted them.
The ones who are condemned are those who have had the opportunity to hear, and yet still do not believe.
Then our Gospel speaks of a judgment. The light has come into the world, it says, referring to Jesus, but many people didn’t want light. They preferred darkness because they wanted to live evil lives, which operate better outside the light of day. They hate the light, which exposes the evil that they are doing. But those who are true come to the light.
Think about how deeply this basic contrast of dark and light, evil and good, is engrained in human nature. Virtually every work of literature that deals with conflict between two groups or forces tends to equate the “good guys” with light and the “bad guys” with darkness.
European literature carried this concept over into a racial identification, depicting dark-haired, dark-complexioned characters as threatening and sinister. Those who looked different were a type of “the other” and, hence, unknown and their motives unknown. Although not necessarily enemies, they represented a threat, on the face of them, so to speak, until proven otherwise. This whole mindset made Shakespeare’s play Othello, which has as its protagonist and hero an African with dark skin, all the more remarkable for something written in the early 1600s.
But those—whatever their skin color may be—who intend to do the right thing, do it out in the open, in the clear light of day, so that all the world can see that they have nothing to hide.
These days we hear a lot of talk about transparency and “sunshine laws” regarding open meetings in government. Here in America we have the Freedom of Information Act adopted by our Congress, through which ordinary citizens can request information about the activities of government agencies. I read recently that so many requests are received that the government is overwhelmed in trying to respond to them.
If you listen to our Gospel today, you can see that this kind of impulse toward “full disclosure” has a biblical imperative. St. John writes: “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” When decisions that affect many people are reached in the classic “smoke-filled room,” behind closed doors, it smacks of the darkness rather than of the light.
Thomas Jefferson believed that when people are given the information that they need, when they are enlightened, they will make the right decisions. It is not an accident that in countries where authoritarian governments and dictators still try to hold control, journalists lead a dangerous life and many are killed. To the extent that they expose the wrong-doing of the government, they are branded as “enemies of the state.”
The trend among some politicians in our nation to try to turn the public against the press is a threat to our democracy. Wrong-doers become uncomfortable when the light of truth is shined in upon them. Politicians complain about “the media,” but, of course, both the political right and left have news outlets. Honest media report both the good and bad, the successes and failures of public figures. Such work is valuable, and it is consistent with the teachings of Christ, that our lives should be lived in the light.
The forces of the dark hate the agents of the light, whether these agents be crusading politicians, religious leaders, writers, or reformers in various areas of human activity.
In our Old Testament lesson for today, poisonous snakes were biting and killing the Israelites in the desert. Moses prayed to God, who told him to make an image of a snake and place it on a pole, up high so that all could see it; Moses made a bronze serpent, and when it was held aloft, anyone who had a snakebite and could see the bronze serpent was healed.
Jesus refers to this story at the beginning of our Gospel today. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him will live. The pole on which the healing serpent was fixed becomes a precursor of the cross. And the staff with an entwined serpent is the symbol of the healing medical profession, the caduceus, which we have seen all our lives without really thinking about what we are seeing. I suppose that a great many people have seen that symbol, on hospitals, doctors’ offices, military medics’ insignias, and on the sides of emergency vehicles, and wondered to themselves, “What in the world does a snake on a stick have to do with healing?”
A long, long time ago, I drew the illustrations for an article about the history of the medical symbol. It was published in the November 1967 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and was written by Dr. John Bunn, who was my archaeology professor in college. Dr. Bunn points out in the article that the caduceus symbol is much older than Christianity or even Judaism, going back thousands of years into Greek, Roman, and ancient Middle Eastern cultures.
Jesus, when he referenced the bronze snake held up by Moses, was making an allusion to a symbol that was very familiar to his hearers. But in so doing, he was taking this already familiar image and transforming it into a brand new symbol, himself upon the cross. The cross became the new symbol of everything associated with the Jesus story—his loving sacrifice, his awful death, his rising again, and the church that grew up to worship him. It is a simple little sign that speaks volumes.
When we see it on the altar, on top of a church, stamped on the cover of the Bible or Prayer Book, or on a chain around someone’s neck, it has the power to trigger in our minds all those things associated with it. Sadly, for some people it is only a piece of jewelry whose meaning they obviously do not understand or which they misappropriate. I have seen it worn by some people whose conduct was so egregious that I wondered why it did not burn their skin.
The true cross is forever connected to the power of the light, and to the triumph of life over death and the creation of new life.
It is our reminder that whenever good has been torn down, it will be raised back up—that whenever evil is temporarily victorious, that victory will not last. I love the words of that old hymn, “In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.” In the cross we have our hope, if we can only learn to see it.
Christ has been lifted up upon that Holy Cross, and we must fix our eyes upon him and come to the light. Amen.

03/12/2024

“Cleansing the Temple”

A sermon preached by the Rev. Canon E. T. Malone, Jr., at Emmanuel Church, Warrenton,
North Carolina, III Lent, Sunday, March 3, 2024.

In the name of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Good morning everybody. Greetings on this the third Sunday in the Holy season of Lent.
One of the primary things that we are encouraged to do during Lent is to study the Bible and other spiritual books. If you are honest with yourself and acknowledge that perhaps you havenʼt been reading the Bible very much, or have not been reading it at all—now is the time to make up for this neglect of your duty as a Christian. (Isnʼt it easy for most of us to say that we are Christians but hard to find time or inclination to do those things that a real Christian ought to be doing.)
I will be the first to confess that I don’t read the Bible as much as I should. Whenever I’m around a bunch of Baptist pastors, who know it all by heart, I try to look wise and keep my mouth shut, seeking to console myself with the notion that we Episcopalians know the gist of the story even if we’re a little shaky on the particulars.
Todayʼs scripture readings, taken as a whole, concentrate on the concept of what we actually do, compared to what we say. Of course, when this topic is brought up, itʼs easy to fall back on the old cliché “If youʼre going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.” But that is too easy. Itʼs too simple just to trot that out, say it, and think that, well, now, the topic has been covered and letʼs get on to something else.
Of course itʼs true, but itʼs downright simpleminded just to say that and leave it at that. We want everything to be obvious and clear-cut. Whenever the conversation turns to morality, to trying to get people to behave in a better manner, you can bet that it wonʼt be long before someone throws out that phrase and thinks that thatʼs all that needs to be said.
“Well, weʼre all Christians,” someone will say. “Just act like it, and everything will be just fine.” My response to that is, “Okay. How do we do it? Just flip a switch? Just reach in the closet and put on our Walk the Walk Shoes? And dollars to doughnuts we don’t all agree on how a Christian is supposed to act.”
Our Bible readings for today approach this subject in an original manner, and from four different directions. Before we look at them, letʼs remind ourselves of one basic thing: walking the walk is not that easy.
Having said that—and I didnʼt hear anyone disagree—letʼs examine the Old Testament lesson from Exodus. Here God gives his people a code of conduct, a set of commandments that they are to follow if they would be his people. Basically, this tells us what “the Walk” is. If we are doing all of these things, then we are walking the walk. I cannot think of any action which, if considered in all of its ramifications, does not fit under one of these commandments. Treason, abuse, laziness, pollution, prejudice—they all fall under these categories because in various ways they involve stealing something, lying, and failing to honor God and what he has created. Failing to honor the Sabbath Day doesnʼt just mean digging ditches or mowing grass on Sunday, or being slack and staying home from church—it involves the whole greater problem of failing to honor God by not being seriously involved in his holy temple, his house, by making no serious effort to lead a holy life or to respect and support Godʼs church.
But it is not so easy to walk the walk even with these very specific commandments. Consider this one: “honor thy father and thy mother.” Sometimes it is hard to honor someone if you think he or she is doing wrong, is badly mistaken, has misjudged a situation, or is acting out of hatred, envy, prejudice, or blind stubbornness. Sometimes it is hard to love someone who simply will not listen to reason, or who whines and complains and manipulates those around himself or herself, or who is filled with self-pity and doesnʼt appreciate the blessings in his or her life. If you or I are confronted with situations such as these, honoring our fathers and mothers is not the easiest act in town. Yet God commands us to honor our fathers and mothers.
Psalm 19 talks about how perfect is the law of the Lord. It revives our souls, says the Psalmist, and it gives wisdom to the innocent, the naïve and inexperienced. Godʼs laws are just, that is, they are fair. They are clear, they are true, and—an interesting way to put it—the writer says “The fear of the Lord is clean.” Remember that when the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord, or of “fearing” God, it is not talking about being afraid of God. It is referring, rather, to holding God and Godʼs laws in great reverence and respect. To “fear” God is to look up to God with great respect and, therefore, to seek to honor him. (By the way, I refer to God as “he” or “him” not because I believe that God, an invisible spirit, has any gender but because that is the usage of traditional biblical texts. I suppose if we were being strictly logical, we would refer to God as “It.” That seems a bit off-putting, however. In Exodus, chapter 3, verse 14, after God has commanded Moses to bring the Children of Israel out of Egypt, Moses asks, when they ask what is the name of the god who sent me, what shall I tell them is your name? God replies that Moses should say that “I AM hath sent me unto you.” This is also the meaning of the word Yahweh, sometimes used as a name for God. It means “The god who is always with us.” We would not be far wrong to use the Star Wars concept of “The Force.”)
Okay, God has a law. And in response to that law, God makes judgments. The Psalm writer says that the judgments God makes are true. When we see how God judges what we do, then we are enlightened. We see that we will be rewarded if we keep his law. So far, so good.
But then the writer pauses, thinks, and adds a comment: “Who can tell how often he offends?” Sometimes Iʼm messing up, and I donʼt even realize what I am doing. The off-hand comment that I thought was mildly humorous may open an old, secret wound that I had no idea the other person had. I do not purposely say offensive things, but sometimes my brain is not fully engaged, or in a rapid-fire exchange, a word falls out of my mouth that is hurtful.
And letʼs not forget our secret faults, the writer adds. There are many ways in which we fail God, often simply in our heads and hearts, that no one ever knows about except you, me, and God. Cleanse me from those secret faults.
Finally, keep us from presumptuous sins. What are those? Those are the sins we commit when we presume that we are hot stuff, when we think weʼve got everything under control and are doing a great job. When you start humming to yourself, “Oh what a good boy am I!” “Oh what a good girl am I!”—thatʼs when you have almost certainly lost sight of reality. Itʼs a wise proverb that says: “Donʼt ever assume anything.”
Thirdly, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (which is an alternate reading for today) really gets down to the point of how hard it is to live a moral life. The law of God is perfect, he says, but we are only sinful human beings. He makes a classic statement: “I do not understand my own actions.” How often have you said to yourself, “Why, oh why, in the world did I do that?” Paul makes a very good point. If I want to do good, but I end up not doing the good thing that I intended, it is the sin within me that brings about that result. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” When I want to do good, he says, evil lies close at hand. With my mind I serve God, but with my flesh I serve the Devil.
The truth to be learned here is that, by ourselves, by our own will power, we are not able to obey Godʼs laws—because we are weak and sinful creatures. Godʼs law is perfect. We are not perfect. We can have an idea of what perfection might look like, but never be able to achieve it. The good news is that God came not to award perfection but to award effort in that direction. If we were perfect, then we would have no need of salvation.
Finally, what can we make of the Gospel story from St. John, in relation to all that we have just been considering? In this story, Jesus seems like someone crazy, like a man possessed. It was the tradition of the Jews to offer animal sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, and because it was a crossroads of the ancient world, people came there from many counties, with many different kinds of money. They needed the services of money-changers to obtain local currency in order to be able to buy the animals needed for the sacrifices. These practices had been going on for centuries. It wasnʼt as if this were something new that Jesus had never known about before. So, why was he so upset, all of a sudden? He really lost it, didnʼt he? Made himself a whip, chased all the animals and merchants out, turned over their tables, poured out the money on the ground, even warned the pigeon-sellers to take their birds and leave.
His disciples, trying to figure it out, remembered an old Bible verse that said “Zeal for thy house will consume me.” No kidding. Well, thatʼs the best his publicity agents could think of on short notice. The temple staff, the Jews, asked, “On what authority are you doing this? What the heck is going on?”
And, of course, the comments Jesus made during this little riot made no sense to anyone. Well, not exactly. He told the pigeon-traders, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Fatherʼs house a house of trade.” Some scholars have argued that Jesus objected not to the trade itself but to the location of the trade. If the money-changing and animal-selling had been going on outside of the temple walls or enclosure, there would have been no problem. But the scripture tells us he found the business going on inside the temple, likely in some outlying porches or passageways or courtyards that were convenient to the main entrances used by most worshipers.
Perhaps Jesus was so infuriated, perhaps this was the last straw for him, because this whole situation summed up and represented all of the hypocrisy in the church that he had been preaching against. For the Jewish leaders, the church, its worship, its laws and customs, had become merely a big business, with the high priests, scribes, and Pharisees as its administrators, management, and CEOs. What he saw going on in the temple was a symbol for all that was wrong, far beyond just a few coins and pigeons. They had lost sight of Godʼs real wishes. Every large, institutionalized church these days, including our own Episcopal Church, is in danger of repeating these same mistakes. They are like big corporations, full of programs and slogans, obsessed with protecting their own franchise and “market share.”
The temple, of course, also represents our bodies, which are Godʼs holy temple. As Jesus cleansed the physical temple, being used for the wrong purposes, so too can he cleanse the temples of our bodies. Yet it is a job that you and I should be working hard to accomplish by ourselves. Jesus made his point, with his violent action in the temple, for only one day. There is no record that he came back with his whip the next day, or the day after, to chase anyone else out. But the point was well made. We can be certain that the story of what he did spread rapidly, and that it was not soon forgotten. Everyone in town would have been asking, “Why did he do this? What did it mean?”
Sometimes we get a jolt in our lives, something that, so to speak, upsets the apple cart. It can be a warning to us—and a chance for taking a new direction. A criticism that some scholars have of St. Paul is that he separates the body and the mind a little bit too readily, saying the mind is holy and the body evil. Jesus himself did not speak that way. For Jesus there was a unity between the mind, or spirit, and the body. Our thoughts, our souls and spirits, are as much a part of the holy temple of our bodies as are our arms and legs. All of it together, visible and invisible, makes up the unity of that temple.
Let us resolve, as we move through Lent, to cleanse our thoughts and, by healthier living, eating, and exercise, to cleanse our physical bodies as well. Just as the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed eventually, even so will the temples of ourselves return one day to the dust from which they came. But one glorious day he will raise them up in a form we cannot hope to comprehend, cleansed from sin and returned to the purposes intended by God.
When Jesus said that his followers should work to bring about the Kingdom of God, I believe that he was talking about things that we can do here on earth, in our own lifetimes—not in some far, future supernatural grand finale. To the extent that we can re-purpose the Temples of our Bodies to achieve that goal of walking hand-in-hand with all God’s children, then I think they are being returned to the purposes intended by God. Amen.