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Here and now — living into the new heaven and new earth
Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i November 16, 2025 - Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Isaiah 65:17-25; Canticle 9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 I’m in awe of how time moves! Can you believe we are almost ready to enter the seasons of Advent and Christmas? We are coming to the end of this year’s season of Pentecost, including a beautiful and thought-provoking celebration of the Season of Creation. How fitting that we started our readings this morning with Isaiah’s sweeping vision of a renewed creation. The words shimmer with possibility: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says God. The vision speaks of joy, delight, and plenty of food and housing. No weeping or distress — only peace, long life, and harmony in nature. These words are the very pulse of God’s hope for us. This isn’t a promise for some far-off day; it is an invitation to step into what is happening here and now. Creation is still unfolding! The Divine is still moving, still breathing, still transforming what we call reality into something ever more whole. Think about it: creation is still unfolding—through our hands, through our prayers, through every small act of love that ripples outward. What Isaiah saw in prophetic poetry, we live out in our daily choices. When we look around, it can feel like the world is unraveling—wars, storms, divisions, and exhaustion. But Isaiah and Jesus both remind us that what looks like chaos to us can also be the labor of new life. Even if we can't see it, God transforms disorder into divine order. The old structures must crumble so that something truer, more compassionate, and more loving can rise. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus looks at the temple — that magnificent structure of faith and power — and says, “The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another.” The disciples are stunned; they’ve been conditioned by society to place their faith in stones and systems. They can’t imagine what their world would be like without the Temple. It has governed their whole lives, providing the rules, the structure, and order for everything they have known. But Jesus is telling them something deeper: the presence of God is not contained by walls or systems. When the stones of our “temples” fall — whether buildings, institutions, or our own beliefs and certainties — God does not disappear. God lives within and among us. Love always remains, and God’s sacred pulse always continues. The early Christians had language for this sacred pulse. They spoke of two kinds of time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clock time—the steady tick of the hours, our schedules, meetings, and deadlines. Chronos time is the rhythm that keeps us moving in harmony as community. Kairos is sacred time—those spacious moments when Spirit whispers, helping us discern right action at the right time. Those moments seem to stand still, like time outside of time. Perhaps you’ve experienced kairos when “lost” in thought. Or when playing with a small child, or doing something you love. Maybe you’ve felt it as a deep intuition, or a time when Spirit was nudging you to do something new. Chronos and Kairos: we need both! Chronos helps us organize our lives; kairos helps us listen for the pulse of God beneath it all. Faith, at its heart, is the balance between the two — listening deeply enough to discern the rhythm of Divine time within our daily routines. At St. Augustine’s, we practice this balance through our shared work. We create a safe and inclusive spiritual home. Through our Thrift Shop, we offer relief from financial uncertainty and recycle what can be renewed. We feed our neighbors. We gather in unity to enjoy one another's company and make meaningful connections. We come together through art and music. These aren’t just tasks to keep us busy; they are the living edges of Isaiah’s vision--where heaven and earth meet in ordinary acts of love and care. Through our shared work, we listen for the whispers of the Holy Spirit to help us discern how love can flow through our next actions at just the right time. When life feels uncertain, remember the words we've said throughout this season in our Prayers of the People: "In the beginning, God was. Here and now, God is. In the future, God will be." This holy thread runs through every moment! Past, present, and future are woven together in the eternal pulse of love. This is what it means to live into the new heaven and the new earth — not to wait for some perfect world to arrive, but to participate in its becoming. I think this is what Paul meant as he reminded the Thessalonians not to grow weary in doing what is right. The community there was convinced Christ’s return would happen soon — like tomorrow or next week at the latest! Why worry about neighbors, or jobs, or community work? If Christ is returning tomorrow to fix everything, why bother? Paul’s message isn’t about moral policing, and he certainly is not saying we should fail to feed the hungry among us. Paul is talking about being a community of faith. Faith can’t live in isolation; it comes through shared effort and mutual care in community. Faith is not passive; it is about our daily choices to embody love. This is what we do through feeding the hungry, tending our Thrift Shop, and creating safe spiritual spaces to gather. Christ’s second coming isn’t something we wait for; it is something we practice into being. It happens each time we choose compassion over fear, forgiveness over resentment, connection over control. Jesus IS coming — not to us, but through us. In the weeks ahead, as we move toward Advent, we are invited once again into a holy time of inner reflection, to notice Spirit stirring, to see where something new is being born in us and among us. We are invited to see beyond the fears about things falling apart so we can have faith in how things are being transformed. So when you see change, remember: this is what creation looks like. What looks like an ending is the beginning of a new creation. When you feel the ache of loss or uncertainty, remember: love has not left you. And when you glimpse beauty, tenderness, or courage rising in the midst of it all, know that Christ is here — already coming, already creating, already alive in you. We can’t see it in full yet, but we are already helping create the new heaven and the new earth. Through our work together in this community, let’s live as though God’s realm is already among us — because it is. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author.
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Resurrection as Transformation: Living into the Eternal Pulse of God
Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i November 9, 2025 - Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Haggai 1:15b-2:9, Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17, Luke 20:27-38 The stories we’ve heard this morning start with the prophet Haggai. The people to whom he speaks are a small band who had been driven into exile and slavery by the Babylonians. Their homes were taken, their temple destroyed. Just 60 years later, they are allowed to return. After such trauma, their focus is self-preservation. They work to restore their own homes and livelihoods, while plans to rebuild the temple fall aside. Some of them might have been old enough to remember the splendor of the temple that had been the hub of their spiritual lives. They probably told stories about it, mingled with grief and pain over what was lost. It feels too overwhelming to rebuild. How do you construct a life that has been demolished — destroyed by violence, conflict, and the loss of everything you’ve known? Our human tendency is to cling to what we’ve known. You know the saying: life was better in the good old days. When will things get back to normal when normal is no longer possible? How do we cope when we realize life won’t look like it did? To make sense of where we are now, we try to use formulas that used to work yesterday to calculate the way forward. We try to fit a square peg in a round hole. Let's fast-forward from the story of Haggai to this week’s gospel almost 500 years later, which takes us into a conversation between Jesus and the Sadducees. The Sadducees also cling to the past, but in a different way. They acknowledged only the oldest parts of Hebrew scripture, following only those of the first five books of the Torah. Rising to power after the people in Haggai’s time rebuilt the temple, their political status and wealth came from a religious focus centered on the temple and its rituals — all based on a narrow view of legal instructions they used to oppress the masses and maintain their status as an elite group of high priests, aristocrats, and merchants in collaboration with Roman rulers. Unlike the Pharisees, they did not believe in life after death. So in today’s story, the Sadducees come with a trick question meant to trap Jesus. Their question is built on human logic and legal formulas: “If a woman marries seven brothers, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” According to their laws, a woman would be reassigned to a brother of her dead husband in order to keep wealth in the family. In the fictional case the Sadducees propose, the deceased man has six brothers. The woman is passed from one brother to the next as they die one by one, resulting in a very complex legal situation. The Sadducees don’t really care about Jesus’ response to the legal details. They don’t care about the woman or her status. Their end game is to prove resurrection is absurd. Yet Jesus beats them at their own game. Referring to the very scriptures they cite, Jesus says, “the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Retelling this story about Moses, Jesus lifts the conversation out of their argument and into Divine mystery. Then Jesus gives us a tiny glimpse into that mystery: those in God’s realm “cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God.” In other words, life after death is not about returning to the life we know. Life after death is not about going back to the good old days. It’s not a continuation of earthly systems — marriage, hierarchy, identity. Life after death is a transformation into something beyond our comprehension. Remember the trick question the Sadducees asked? “In the afterlife whose wife will the woman be?” What a silly question! They ask about ownership; Jesus answers with freedom. In God’s realm, ownership and oppression of people do not exist. Women are not bonded in servitude. People are not enslaved or controlled. In divine reality, each soul stands in the full dignity of being a child of God, a creation of God’s divine cosmos. When Jesus declares that God is “not the God of the dead, but of the living,” he’s revealing something about the nature of Divine reality itself. The Creator holds all life — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the saints, and us — in one great continuum of aliveness. In God, there is no “before” or “after,” no “then” or “now.” We have been holding this truth every time we've said our prayers of the people this season, which starts with these words we say together: “In the beginning, God was. Here and now, God is. In the future, God will be.” In truth, there is only the eternal pulse of Divine being that moves through all creation. This means that those we love who have died are not gone; they are alive in God. The veil is thin. The communion of saints is not a distant hope but a present reality — a shimmering thread that connects heaven and earth, past and future, seen and unseen. Yet fear of the unknown often keeps us from embracing our place in God’s creation. We don’t like to talk about death. We push away our unease; we replace questions with false certainties. Last week, we talked about how our blessings and our woes are all part of the human experience. So it is with life and death: two parts of the circle of life. Creation teaches us this. Cycles go on year after year, season after season, showing us that in death there is life. So perhaps the question for us this week is not “what happens when we die?” but “how might we live now in the awareness that life never ends?” What if resurrection isn’t something to wait for, but something already unfolding in and around us? The people of ancient Israel did rebuild the temple. But in the centuries that followed, people may have missed the point of Haggai’s message: What matters is relationship. What matters is relationship with God, with or without a “temple.” No matter where we are — in a beautiful church or in the wilds of nature — in the comforts of a privileged life or in the throes of chaotic change — we are not alone. God is with us, and we have each other. To be children of the resurrection is to participate in the ever-living presence of God — to live in love so expansive that death cannot contain it. In this, we find hope. In this, we find comfort. And in this, we remember that we, too, are part of God’s great circle of the living. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
November 2, 2025 - All Saints Sunday, Year C As we celebrate All Saints Sunday today, we hear the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Luke. The Beatitudes are a tough bit of scripture to unpack. On the surface, it reads like a simple list of blessings for good people followed by warnings for bad people. Perhaps we've been conditioned to hear it that way. When we hear this passage, our first impulse might be to sort ourselves into categories. We might ask ourselves, “Which one am I? Am I among the poor or the rich? Am I one who weeps or one who laughs? Have I known hunger—or fullness? To which group do I belong: ‘blessed are you’ or ‘woe to you’” ? In our society, we spend a lot of time and energy dividing the winners from the losers. From an early age, we’re trained to compete. We’re taught to judge people based on their status. We label people, and we label ourselves. But perhaps that’s not the point of Jesus' words in this passage. Perhaps we are invited to hear the Beatitudes as a list of human experiences. Think about it: poor and rich, hungry and full, weeping and laughing, despised and accepted. Haven’t we experienced ALL of these? Yes we have, to varying degrees. I don’t hear the Beatitudes as a list of golden traits versus character flaws. We experience both blessings and woes because we are human. What may first appear to be a list dividing the blessed from the cursed is actually a portrait of the whole human condition. We are at once full and hungry, joyful and grieving, honored and rejected. The blessings and the woes belong together. They are not opposites—they are facets of our shared humanity. The Beatitudes are not a checklist for worthiness. They remind us that in every circumstance—joy or sorrow, gain or loss—God is present. The Divine current flows through all of it. This list does not divide us into good people and bad people. It unifies us, helping us to recognize the vast range of human experiences. Even in a single 24-hour period, we experience a lot! So do our family members, neighbors, and every person in the world. This list invites us to hold compassion and love for all. Jesus makes this clear in what he says next: “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” The heart of the passage lives in these simple instructions. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Yet in the heat of a hard conversation or the ache of betrayal, this kind of love can feel like the hardest thing we’ll ever do. Perhaps that’s why we need the saints—to remind us it’s possible. So as we celebrate the saints this weekend, we can ask God to guide us as God guides the saints: those who have gone before us, those living among us, and those yet to come. It's good to remember that "saints" are not perfect people. They are ordinary human beings who choose, again and again, to return to love. They practice kindness when it is difficult. They forgive when it seems impossible. They treat others not as judged by human standards, but as God sees them — through the lens of divine love. I am not sure exactly how saints become saints, but I imagine they probably have one thing in common: practice. Reading about saints, it appears to me that they practice at least these three things:
In those moments when we’re struggling with our thoughts and feelings, when we are confronting difficulties with another person, we can practice bringing everything into our hearts. With our connection to the Divine, we can return to love and that’s when it happens: the idea of “enemy” begins to melt away. Our hard feelings soften into compassion. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he’s not just talking about the people “out there.” Sometimes our so-called enemies are the voices inside our own heads—the grudges we hold, the fears we feed, the stories we tell about ourselves and others. When we observe the chatter that happens in here, we begin to notice how we react to anger, criticism, or pain. We begin to notice when we close our hearts and when we open them. And this is where transformation begins: in meeting judgment with compassion; in meeting hatred with mercy; in meeting fear with love. The saints are not perfect; they simply practice returning to love. As we experience the whole range of what it is to be human — the blessings and the woes and everything in between — we open our hearts to compassion. The realm of God is not a faraway reward for a just few worthy saints. It is what happens when we practice living as though love is the truest thing about us — because it is. Through Christ, Amen. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
August 9, 2025 - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Opening Prayer - O Holy One, you are truth beyond our knowing and love beyond our imagining. Shake us free from what binds us, open us to your Spirit, and set us on the path of freedom in Christ. Amen. For the second week in a row, Jesus calls people hypocrites. Last week, he chastised the crowd for failing to read the signs of the times. “You pay attention to the weather, but you ignore what’s happening in the world around you. I see you hunched under your umbrellas, but you’re heading straight to the edge of a cliff.” Who would do that? This week, Jesus scolds the temple leaders who forbid healing on the Sabbath. “This woman came here to seek sanctuary. Yes, this is the Sabbath. On this day, you give your donkeys what they need to live, but you withhold healing from this woman?” Who would do that? Hypocrites. Before we get too smug, let’s be honest: hypocrisy is a human tendency. We don’t intend to contradict ourselves, but every one of us has had moments of saying one thing and doing another. I tell my kids to give others the benefit of the doubt while quietly assuming the worst. I urge patience while rushing someone else along. We have all experienced this tendency. The synagogue leaders in today’s story are not villains. They are us. They assumed the woman’s condition was permanent. They assumed healing could wait until another day. They assumed the Sabbath rule they had inherited was the way to honor God. Assumptions give us a framework for making sense of the world. And sometimes, assumptions can be useful tools, but only if we hold them lightly--only if we remain open to learn and to grow. But if we hold too tightly to them, we risk closing the door to Spirit’s surprising work. We risk assuming we know best. History gives us examples. People once thought the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, other planets, and stars revolve around the earth. Some assumed all Japanese living in the US were a threat after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Who would think that? Today we would not make these assumptions. Or would we? We all have moments of saying one thing and doing another. We like the idea of peace, justice, and freedom, but to live them requires risk. The risk of letting go of control. The risk of taking a stand that unsettles the comfortable order. The risk of stepping out of line with what “everyone knows” in order to make space for what God is doing. Faith always carries that risk, because real faith opens us to transformation. Jesus, in challenging the temple leaders, shows us how to break free of the assumptions we carry. And some of them we carry without even knowing it. For example, you’ve heard the saying “Stop and smell the roses.” Or how about “No pain, no gain.” These are contradictory sayings: “Stop and smell the roses” versus “No pain, no gain.” They reveal how easily opposing assumptions creep into our lives. We carry them both, and we act out of both, often without noticing. And that’s how hypocrisy slips in—not from malice, but from unexamined patterns that shape our choices. Jesus wants to help us break the hypocrisy habit. He breaks the bonds of false assumptions with compassion. He truly sees the woman bent over for eighteen years. To him, she is not just a medical case, not just a problem to be solved. To Jesus, the woman is a human being who deserves freedom and dignity. While others argue about Sabbath law, Jesus sets her free. The problem is not the law itself. The Sabbath is a gift of rest. The problem is the human habit of control—of deciding in advance how to work in sync with God’s grace, deciding who is worthy or unworthy of freedom. That is the root of hypocrisy: saying we have faith in God’s way of love, while clinging so tightly to control that we leave no room for love’s grace. Letting go of control is not easy. Our habits of judgment and assumption are patterns we once needed to survive. Think of a student cramming for a test—it works in a pinch, but if the habit never changes, it becomes harmful. Judgment works the same way. It helps us make quick decisions, but when it hardens into a way of life, it bends us over, too. In today’s story, Jesus shows us another way. Letting go of judgment, letting go of rigid control, means leaving space for possibility, space for what we cannot yet imagine. This is what good scientists do. They form a theory based on current knowledge, but they stay open to changing it as new knowledge emerges. Faith is no different. We live with the truth we have, but we keep our hearts open for more. Jesus shows us the way. God’s love sets us free even when human rules say otherwise. In the coming weeks, we can ask ourselves, “Where do we feel bent over, caught in the weight of old habits and assumptions? What rules or judgments keep us from seeing one another and ourselves as beloved children of God?” Some of you know I’ve been working on making a paʻu paʻu for hula. It’s long, hard work to strip and clean the hau bark. For weeks I hunched over a bin, thinking that was the only way. Then I visited a hula sister and saw her cleaning station, set up so she could work standing tall. In that moment I realized I was making it harder than it needed to be, simply because I assumed there was no other way. Who would do that? That experience has stayed with me—not just because my back feels better, but because it reminded me how easily assumptions bend us over. Sometimes we don’t even realize how heavy they are until someone shows us another way. That’s what Jesus does in the synagogue. He sees the woman, bent low under years of weight, and he shows everyone another way: a way of freedom, compassion, and dignity. The paʻu paʻu taught me something about assumptions, but also about humility—being willing to see, to ask, to learn. Jesus invites us into that same humility, that same openness to Spirit’s surprising work. When we loosen our grip on control, when we release our old habits and judgments, we make space for grace. May we learn to lay down the weight of our old assumptions, and find that the work is lighter, the way freer, when we stand tall in Spirit’s flow. May we be a people unbound—co-creating with God in love, lifting one another from what bends us down. And may we see in every face the children of our Creator, freed by grace to walk in dignity and hope. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
August 17, 2025 - Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Let’s turn back to the beginning of our worship booklets to today’s opening prayer. Can we read this together? God of restless fire and urgent river’s flow: unsettle the false peace which hides our divisions; unfold our hearts to sense your presence; unloose your kingdom and make us one in Jesus Christ, the first of many brothers and sisters. Amen. The writer of this prayer has a wonderful, poetic way of addressing God. “God of restless fire and urgent river’s flow,” he says. For me, there is no more powerful experience of God than witnessing the power of creation! It's been dry in North Kohala. When we hear the word “fire,” our first thought might be destruction — houses burned, land scorched, and danger to life. Maui is in our hearts, too, as people there continue the long journey of recovery and healing from the fires two years ago. That's why emotions run high when we hear stories that mention fire. The idea of fire brings up fear, even knowing that in the language of scripture fire is often a sign of God’s presence. Think of Moses before the burning bush, the pillar of fire leading Israel through the wilderness, the tongues of flame resting on the disciples at Pentecost. In this week's gospel story, Jesus says, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” The fire Jesus speaks of is a refining fire — the fire of transformation. This Spirit-fire burns away what is false, stagnant, or harmful so that what is true can shine. Like the flowing water we’ve been talking about these past week, fire awakens what has gone dormant in us. It clears the ground for something new to grow. We know what it means when lava flows from deep within the earth. Yes, it fascinates and frightens us. It is fierce — powerful enough to consume all in its path — yet over the long arc of time, it creates new land and rich soil where life can take root and flourish. The fire of Christ is like that: both unsettling and life-giving. It transforms the terrain of our hearts and communities. In today’s story, Jesus is impatient for that transformation. “When are these people going to get on with it?” He says, “What stress I am under until this transformation is completed!” See? Even Jesus is stressed out! Transformation in sermons often sounds beautiful — fire, new life, Spirit moving — but the actual human feeling of change is often very mixed. So I asked myself this week: what does change actually feel like? In my younger days, I used to think I was ready for any change, any transformation. Now I recognize that change rarely feels smooth. It can be unsettling, like standing on shifting ground. It can feel costly, as we let go of habits or attachments we thought defined us. At times it feels raw and tender, like new skin after a wound. At other times liberating, like a burden finally lifted. Sometimes it feels uncertain, like stepping into fog — and then alive, awake with a new sense of vitality and possibility. The trouble with uncertainty is that we spend so much time imagining that we can predict and control everything about our future. Jesus says, “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” We know how to read the weather. We can see when rain is coming, or when the winds shift. But can we recognize the signs of Spirit moving among us? The “present time” is not just the ticking of a clock. It is the sacred now — the decisive moment when Spirit is stirring and inviting us to respond. If we were to read the signs of our own time, what would we see? We see fires of change burning in our world — movements for justice, voices calling for healing, truth-tellers refusing to be silenced. We see communities finding new ways to care for one another. We also see division and fear. Will we step into this moment with Spirit’s fire kindled in us? Will we allow the flame of Divine love to refine our hearts, burn away complacency, and awaken courage? Maybe during times of change is when we most need the fire of Spirit. Maybe the fire we need in our lives right now is the fire of clarity — to see where Spirit might be calling us. Maybe we need the fire of compassion — to warm hearts that have grown cold. Perhaps we seek the fire of courage — to speak truth to power or to enter a difficult conversation of reconciliation. For weariness, perhaps we need the fire of grace. When feeling unsettled, the fire of intention. When clinging to what once was, the fire of surrender. For uncertainty, the fire of focus. For fear, the fire of freedom. For vulnerability, the fire of vitality. Whatever it is, the Spirit’s flame is ready. The present time — this moment — is sacred. It is a moment of decision, alignment, and courage. This is our moment to let Christ's fire set our hearts ablaze — not to destroy, but to awaken. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
August 10, 2025 - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Opening Prayer - O Holy One, you are the flame that never burns out, the light that guides our steps. Open our hearts to receive your grace, our minds to welcome your truth, and our spirits to move with your flow. Amen. “Be ready. Keep your lamps lit.” Jesus’ words in today’s gospel carry both urgency and promise. Change is coming. Opportunity is coming. The movement of God’s Spirit is always drawing near, and inviting us to join the flow of God’s love. Outside of that flow, we risk losing connection with our Divine compass. We risk losing our way. Out of the flow, we risk standing still, settling into complacency or stale routines. Imagine a pond of water. As you look, you see it is a stagnant pond, with murky water brown and green with slime. A healthy stream moves fresh and clear. And so it is with our spirits! When we flow, life is fresh and alive, and we are ready for whatever comes next. Be ready, Jesus says. How do we get ready? Isaiah and the psalmist warn us that honoring God with empty gestures is not enough. Beautiful rituals without the living heartbeat of justice, worship without the inward turning of our hearts—these are not enough. The outer shell of faith alone does not help us get ready; God longs for the fullness of our being—our choices, our compassion, our trust. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews offers another view of readiness: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The writer reminds us of our ancestors who lived by faith—trusting in God’s promises without knowing exactly when or how those promises would be fulfilled. They moved forward without a timeline, living into a hope they might never see fully realized. We echo this trust in our Eucharistic Prayer when we proclaim the mystery of faith: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Christ will come again. We say this every week. We claim it as truth, and yet we also admit we don’t know when or how that coming will happen. So what are we really preparing for? Yes, there’s the traditional hope of Christ’s second coming. When we say, “Christ will come again,” sometimes the words pass through our lips without much thought. Other times, we pause, wondering what they really mean. People have spent centuries wondering what the second coming might look like. But what if that coming isn’t a distant cosmic event? What if Christ comes again--through us? Jesus says, “I am in you, and you in me.” Every moment we open ourselves to God’s love, every time we act with compassion, every choice we make in alignment with the Spirit’s flow, Christ comes into the world anew. And this is where the inner work matters. It’s what empties us of the clutter, the resentment, the fear—so there’s room for the lamp’s light to shine in us, through us. Our readiness is tested not only in quiet, personal moments, but in the shared life of our communities. We live in a world quick to judge—quick to divide people into “us” and “them.” Fear, irritation, and impatience — these are part of being human. They rise up in all of us from time to time. These feelings are not, in themselves, wrong. They are signals — reminders that something within us is tender, unsettled, in need of God’s healing presence. The danger comes when we let those emotions harden into judgment, resentment, or contempt. When we begin to see another person as less than a child of God, the light of our lamp dims. That’s when we’ve stepped away from the flow of the Spirit and into patterns that can wound, exclude, or even destroy. I cherish the opportunity to learn about traditional Hawaiian culture, which offers a powerful contrast to this way of living. The value of aloha teaches us that love is not just a feeling but an active choice to treat others with kindness, humility, and respect, even in moments of conflict. There is also the practice of ho‘oponopono—restoring right relationships through honest conversation, confession, forgiveness, and prayer. Such practices can clear us so we can flow again, like living water that’s fresh, life-giving, and connected to the vastness of sacred creation. The awe of creation’s power resets our hearts, making us ready to give and receive. These practices remind us that when hurt or disagreement arise, the response is not to push someone away, but to clear the channels between us so that the flow of life and Spirit can move freely again. Keeping our lamp lit means noticing those moments as they arise—before they calcify into something harmful—and allowing the Spirit to soften our hearts again. It means choosing the way of love even when fear or frustration feels louder. For me, this often happens in small, ordinary moments—especially the ones that test my patience. Sometimes I find myself stuck in irritation or frustration. And then, in the middle of that emotion, a little pause opens. A choice presents itself: keep feeding the irritation… or let it go. When I choose release, it feels like something melting away, like a deep breath I didn’t know I was holding. There’s a calm stillness. I believe that’s grace—the Spirit breaking through. And in that moment, God’s love flows freely again! Being ready, keeping the lamp lit, isn’t about watching the horizon for some far-off arrival. It’s about being awake to the God-moments that can come in the blink of an eye. It’s about choosing—again and again—to open the heart, to make space for grace, to move with the current of Divine love. If more people do this, perhaps that’s how the world changes! And so the question is: When the moment comes—whether it’s a challenge that calls for mercy, an opportunity to speak truth, or a quiet chance to release a small irritation—will the lamp be ready? Will the flame be steady? Because Christ’s coming—through us—may be as near as the next breath. E pule kākou, let us pray. Come, Spirit of the Living God, and keep our lamps burning bright. Keep the stream of your love flowing through us. Make us ready for your arrival in the smallest choices and the grandest visions. Help us prepare, not with fear, but with faith—so that your light may shine through us into the world. Amen. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
August 3, 2025 - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21 Opening Prayer: God of abundance, through you all things flow. Help us to see and share your love that comes to us without ceasing. Amen. Imagine sitting with Jesus, with the opportunity to ask him anything. What would you ask? This is how we started our conversation last week, remember? A disciple asked Jesus to teach us how to pray. In this week’s story, a person from the crowd makes a very different request. In fact, it's more of a demand. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Oh, that’s bold! Clearly there’s a back story between the two siblings, but Jesus steers clear. “That’s not my job and none of my business.” But he does offer guidance, perhaps for the benefit of everyone else in the crowd. “Take care!” he says. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” This is a simple statement and yet it cuts right to the heart of what we sometimes forget. Life is not measured by what we can store away or display. When we strip away the things we can count and hold, what remains is what really makes us alive. Life consists of relationships and connection — the love we share and the ways we belong to one another. Life is found in experiences and presence — in moments of awe, laughter, learning, in the ache of loss, the joy of holding someone’s hand, and simply being alive in this body in this moment. It is shaped by growth and becoming — the inner journey where we are stretched and transformed by both joy and struggle. Life deepens through service and impact — the small and large ways our lives ripple outward to bless others. And through it all runs Spirit and meaning — the thread of the Divine that weaves through every breath, every heartbeat, every act of love. This thread of Divine mystery reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Material wealth can support life, but it is not life itself. Jesus reminds us that life is what fills the space beyond possessions: love, breath, wonder, connection, and the journey of the soul. We feel this deep down, but sometimes we get distracted. What pulls us away? Sometimes it’s fear — fear of not having enough, fear of the unknown, fear of being vulnerable. We reach for things we can hold because they feel more certain than love or trust. Sometimes it’s cultural noise — the endless message that our worth is measured in what we own, that security can be bought, that success is something we can display. Sometimes it’s comfort and control — the illusion that if we can gather enough around us, we can protect ourselves from change, loss, or longing. And sometimes, it’s simply forgetfulness — forgetting that life is more than possessions because we get swept up in the busyness of getting through the day. Jesus speaks as a loving and gentle parent, redirecting our attention to help us focus on the flow of life and the abundance that comes from God’s creation. When we are distracted by fear or the noise of the world, Jesus loves us through it! We know this story. We hear this in our Eucharistic Prayer: how we fail to see God in ourselves and others, and yet God never stops loving us! We’ll hear it again in our closing hymn. And we heard it in the deep tenderness of Hosea’s words this morning. In that passage, God speaks to us as a loving parent, saying, “It was I who taught [them] to walk, I took them up in my arms… …I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. …And yet, the child has turned away, chasing other loves, other securities. …But I can’t give you up, I can’t hand you over… My heart bursts with love, my compassion grows warm and tender.” Whatever we are seeking, whatever we are hoarding, whatever we are afraid to lose—it pales next to the abundance of Divine love, which flows through us always, love that sustains us, love that is ours to give. We may not think so, but we all have much to share, an abundance to give. Our insights, skills, love, compassion, and time are meant to flow so that all may have what they need to thrive. What would it look like to live like that? To trust that the Creator’s bounty and love really are enough to satisfy the thirsty and fill the hungry? To believe that we don’t need to cling to our storehouses of goods? To release our fears knowing that Divine compassion is already reaching for us? This can be a time of new beginnings, a time to release our past habits. This can be a time to stop measuring life by what we can store away or display, a time to strip away the things we can count and hold and focus on what really makes us alive. My friend Lori Erickson wrote about new beginnings recently, as she and Bob moved to a new home. She learned a lot from the process of packing and unpacking and shared some tips. Here are two of them:
Here’s the good news: Divine love is not a resource we have to hoard. It is an endless well. When we align with Christ consciousness, we move with that flow. We release our grip on stuff, let go of fear, and start living into the abundance that was always meant to move through us. And we remember to share what really makes us vibrant and alive: love, breath, wonder, connection, and the journey of the soul. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Prayer connects us with the Divine within
Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i July 27, 2025 - Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Hosea 1:2-10, Psalm 85, Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19), Luke 11:1-13 Opening Prayer: O Holy One, breath of our breath, flow through us. We are vessels ready to receive your Spirit. Teach us again how to pray—not with perfect words, but with open hearts, listening souls, and living trust. You’ve been traveling with Jesus for a while now, watching the way his presence shifts a room, how his prayers seem to ripple through the air. You have seen blind eyes open, hungry crowds fed, and broken hearts restored. Now you are sitting with him in the quiet, and you can ask him anything. What do you ask? In today’s gospel story, a disciple asks, “Teach us to pray.” Sometimes the simplest questions carry the deepest longing! Notice that the disciple doesn't ask how to perform miracles, how to preach, or how to heal. They ask how to connect. Prayer comes in many forms: meditation, dreams, walks in nature, breath work, wordless moments of quiet. Whatever shape it takes, prayer draws us back to the pulse of the Divine moving in us, between us, and through creation. “Teach us how to pray.” Jesus answers with simple yet profound words that call us back to the Divine within. He teaches us to pray as a way to connect, to become one with God. I am reminded of the passage from Paul's letter to the Colossians we heard this morning. He writes, "For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him." Paul urges us to hold fast to Christ consciousness, "from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God." We are called to become one body, to embody the divine. Prayer, as Jesus shows us, brings us closer to God. Sadly, centuries of Christian teaching nearly succeeded in crushing Jesus’ instruction about prayer. Human greed prevailed as churches sought ways to make money by convincing people that God is “up there,” separate from us, and accessible only through prayers delivered by a priest. During the Reformation of the 16th century, voices rose against the corruption of selling access to God. The Anglican Church and the writers of the first Book of Common Prayer insisted on something radical: prayer belongs to the people. As Episcopalians, we believe the Divine meets us in the language of our hearts and the rhythm of our lives. Prayer belongs to the people. There are as many ways to pray as there are people because our relationship with God is personal. Jesus teaches us to have real conversations with God about the things that matter most. The prayer Jesus taught, which we call The Lord's Prayer, is expressed beautifully in the New Zealand Prayer Book: Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Jesus prays as a child to a parent. I often wonder whether the disciples noted this very personal approach to prayer, prompting them to ask Jesus to teach them how to have such intimate conversations with God. Loving God, in whom is heaven The words for heaven or heavens in both Hebrew (shamayim) and Greek (ouranos) can also be translated as sky. It is not something that exists eternally but rather part of creation. The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! Hallowed means holy. Holy is God’s Name, meaning that God is sacred. Life and creation are sacred, the earth and universe are sacred. God is holy as the divine force of ONENESS that surpasses human understanding. The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. The oneness of all creation will be revealed and lived as a reality. “Oneness” is interpreted as “your justice” “your heavenly will” “your commonwealth of peace and freedom” – every instance of these things sustains our hope. With the bread we need for today, feed us. We ask for what will truly feed us and help us live divine oneness. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. To help us live as one, we ask to let go of our mistakes and any blame or shame that we might cling to. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. Evil = anything that binds us to the illusion of division or prevents us from living in oneness. We ask God to strengthen our abilities to stay in the oneness of love when we are tempted to see division. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. God’s oneness gathers us in divine love, showing us the way to live. This is true since before time, through all time, and beyond time. + + + This prayer is a pathway toward surrender, trust, and participation. The words invite us into daily co-creation with the Divine: to receive, to release, and to return again and again to the Source of love. We are not passive recipients in this relationship. Luke’s gospel urges us to ask, seek, knock. This is not a formula for wish fulfillment. It’s a practice of alignment:
What if prayer is not about getting answers, but about staying in the flow of Spirit long enough to connect with the Divine deep inside? Paul’s letter to the Colossians reminds us: “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him…established in the faith.” This season of Pentecost invites us to grow deeper roots. In prayer, we can imagine those roots coming from the soles of our feet into the 'āina, this sacred land. We are connected as one with all creation! Can you feel it? Through this practice, we find the comfort and peace of Spirit. The roots of prayer connect us with Spirit not just for comfort, but also for commitment. Prayer deepens not only our comfort, but also deepens our commitment to our relationship with Spirit. Prayer is not meant as a way to escape life, but to deepen into it. To ask is to remember that we are not alone. To seek is to affirm that the journey matters. To knock is to choose hope. So let us keep asking. Let us keep seeking. Let us keep knocking on the door of our own hearts—until we are opened. Because the Spirit is already flowing. Because Love is already here. Because the Divine is waiting to be met—in us. Amen. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Finding our balance Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i July 20, 2025 - Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42 When company is coming, what do we do? We swing into action—cleaning the house, tidying up, preparing food. We get the guest room ready, we shop for food and make plans to entertain our guests. We want them to feel welcome and comfortable. In today’s gospel story, Jesus is coming for dinner. The story centers on two sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha bustles about, tending to the details of hospitality. Meanwhile, Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens. We often read this text as a tale of opposite choices: one sister chooses work, the other chooses worship. One decides to serve, the other decides to be still. But rather than judging one as better than the other, maybe the lesson is about balance. Jesus isn’t scolding Martha for serving. He’s inviting her to stop just long enough to remember why it matters, encouraging her to let her service be rooted in love, not resentment. Perhaps Martha is thinking, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.” And maybe that’s true. But is it the only truth? I wonder if it’s true that both Martha and Mary were showing off for Jesus – signalling their virtue to impress the esteemed teacher. Perhaps it’s true that the gathering would still be lovely if Martha stopped working and sat next to Mary. Maybe it’s true that Martha could quietly ask others to help her. It is certainly true that Martha could choose to do the work with joy. What if we let joy into our work and made time to pause? What if we stopped framing life as either/or—and embraced it as both/and? What if we stopped virtue signaling, and started soul listening? What if the deepest form of hospitality isn’t just what we do for others, but how open we are to the Divine presence in our midst? Can we find the Divine in every task we do? Spirit reminds us to live in balance: meeting ourselves where we are—with grace—while also staying open to how the Spirit wants to stretch us.
Living in balance isn’t about standing still—it’s about staying centered even as life moves around us. When we resist the flow, constant change can feel like disruption when actually it is Spirit’s gentle hand guiding us to grow.
We are creatures of habit. We live out old patterns because they are comfortable; we tend to resist change even when it’s for our highest good. Depending on the day, perhaps we might say something like: “There’s no need for me to change. I’m doing just fine. I follow the path of success and I don’t question it.” In a different moment, we might say: “Why bother trying to change? I’ll never measure up. I’ve gone off course too many times. The world has nothing for me, and I have nothing to give.” These are two extremes — one rooted in the comfort of status quo and the distraction of daily duties. The other may come from a sense of despair. Both extremes come from a place of fear, which can cut off the possibility of spiritual growth. Between the extremes lies a deeper truth: we are called to embrace spiritual growth in balance with what's possible in each moment. We are loved exactly as we are and we are invited to grow into something more. Balancing our inner Martha and inner Mary, we can change from moment to moment, flowing between the work of our hands and the stillness of our hearts. May we welcome the sacred rhythm of doing and being—of working hard with love and joy to prepare Divine space and then sitting fully in it. Growth in Spirit doesn’t always feel easy or safe. But it always leads us deeper into love. And that is the truest path we can follow! Amen. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. Becoming prophets of inner truth
Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i July 13, 2025 - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C Amos 7:7-17, Psalm 82, Colossians 1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37 Opening Prayer: Spirit of Truth: you call us to see what we would rather ignore. You stir us to speak when we would rather keep silent. You invite us into deeper love for ourselves, for others, and for truth itself. Help us listen with courage. Help us change with grace. There are times when the call to follow Christ feels less like a gentle invitation and more like a jolt — a plumb line dropped in the middle of our hearts, a mirror raised to our inner lives. This week, we meet two such moments. In Amos, a prophet is sent to deliver words that the people in power would rather not hear. In Luke, Jesus tells a story that confronts not only the lawyer who asks, “Who is my neighbor?” but also challenges each of us to see any gaps between what we say we believe and how we actually live. These scriptures are not comfort food. These stories are spiritual medicine — perhaps medicine that does not go down easily. But these stories are not meant to shame us— they wake us up. These stories crack us open and help us ask ourselves tough questions so we can heal, grow, deepen our faith, and move toward our calling on this spiritual journey we call life. This is what Amos does: he answers God’s call to be a prophet. Amos is not a career prophet. He is a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. A “dresser of sycamore trees” refers to the job of tending to the fruit of that tree. These are not the sycamore trees we know. Those that Amos tended are a type of fig native to Israel. They bear fruit that grows directly off the trunk. To ripen properly, each fruit must be punctured and harvested three days later, while more figs grow beneath. Just as Amos tended his trees with careful, sometimes painful precision, so does the prophetic word pierce what is unripe in human hearts. The call to prophesy is not about power or prestige—it’s about cultivating growth, even when it stings. Yet when God urges him to see the injustices around him and speak out, he can’t look away, and he cannot remain silent. Amos sees a nation that worships success and “winning” while impeding justice. He sees leaders more concerned with preserving their privilege and power than protecting the vulnerable. When Amos told the truth, they told him to stop. “Go away,” Amaziah says. “You’re not welcome here with your warnings.” William Willimon notes that Amaziah represents a long line of court preachers—those who cozy up to power by saying what leaders want to hear. It’s a comfortable arrangement, soothing the consciences of the powerful—until the Spirit disrupts it. God calls Amos, a farmer, to speak an unsettling truth, and suddenly the old system must face what it has long ignored. Perhaps that’s the spiritual job description of a prophet—to disrupt the systems, internal and external, that keep us stuck. To poke holes in what looks complete but is still unripe. Remember last week's discussion about sharing our peace and love even if we are not welcomed? Amos doesn’t speak because he is welcomed to do so—he speaks because it’s necessary. His words are the puncture that allows the fruit of the people to ripen. This disruption isn’t punishment—it’s preparation for sweetness to come. The same Spirit that called Amos also calls us. Not all of us are public prophets. But every one of us is called to be a prophet to ourselves. Most of the time, the hardest power to confront isn’t out there—it’s in here. It’s our own fear. Our resistance to change. Our quiet complicity. Our tendency to avoid discomfort by telling ourselves it’s not our job, someone else will do it, or things will get better if we ignore our inner wounds or external problems. But as my mentor often says: “Do the work.” This inner work—the call to honesty, to holy disruption, to truth—is mirrored in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan. In this parable, the priest and Levite pass by the wounded man. They may have feared getting involved. They may have told themselves they didn’t have the right tools, or that someone else would come along. They knew the law—“Love your neighbor as yourself.” But they didn’t act on it. And the one who did—the Samaritan—was the one most likely to be discounted or despised. Jesus tells this story not to shame us, but to reveal something important: love is not an idea. Love is action. Love is interruption. Love is inconvenient. Love is risk. Love is what we do when fear urges safety and sameness. Love is what we do even when we’d rather leave our inner lives untouched, unexamined, unripe. Today’s stories prompt us to ask:
We are each called to be our own prophets, but we cannot do this alone. To find our way, we need the loving help of family, friends, and community. Sometimes we need a compassionate listener; sometimes we need the sycamore tree dresser - the one who loves us enough to poke a hole that allows us to grow, mature, and ripen into our best selves. We need God’s loving guidance and judgment. God’s judgment isn’t condemnation—it’s loving discernment. It is a divine invitation to see where growth is possible. But it is up to us to look, to be open to seeing the Spirit’s truth about where we are on our journey. In another tumultuous time in this country, on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted the Book of Amos in his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” He wasn’t just invoking scripture. He was describing a spiritual force, always flowing beneath the surface, ready to rise. It flows through us. Not just through institutions. Not just through history books. Through human hearts. Through prophetic love. The same waters that fed the prophets flow in us. Let them move us. Let them cleanse us. Let them soothe the painful puncture of Spirit’s truth. Let these waters carry us beyond our comfort zone and into the kind of love that changes the world. If you would like to use any text in this or any sermon posted on this web site, please ensure proper attribution to the author. |
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St. Augustine's Episcopal Church (The Big Island)
54-3801 Akoni Pule Hwy., Kapa'au, HI 96755 Mailing: P. O. Box 220 Kapa'au, HI 96755 Phone: (808) 889-5390 | E-Mail: [email protected] © 2016 St. Augustine's Episcopal Church (Big Island). All Rights Reserved. |
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