ExtraChristy - Podcast

J. Christy Ramsey
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  • Christianity

Challenging and thoughtful messages of hope and humor recorded live.

Episodes

  1. May 31

    Wondering and Wonder

    Wondering and Wonder Wondering and Wonder a Trinity Sunday sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service May 31, 2026 at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Scripture read on Audio: Matthew 28:16-20   Sermons also available free on iTunes   Stained Glass Symbol of the Trinity at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada. photo by J. Christy Ramsey Hey, it’s Trinity Sunday. Thanks for coming out of your family events and gatherings and celebrations. I’m glad you’re all in your Trinity finest gear. That’s wonderful. Great, great. It’s a really bad Sunday to preach, on Trinity Sunday. There’s nothing. There’s nothing there. I don’t blame Donna for leaving the state. I mean, I’d get far away from the pulpit, too, if I could. Trinity Sunday is about as exciting as looking at your phone and say, “Spam likely.” That guy again. They’re always calling. Or, you know, worse is, “This is your insurance company. We’d like to talk to you about some explanation of your benefits.” Oh. That’s right up there with Trinity Sunday preacher, I’ll tell you. Hey, I bet you didn’t know something. Trinity Sunday is with us every Sunday. I bet you didn’t know this. I bet up here, you know, way before we had these screens – whoo, nifty neat-o, we had screens in church for centuries. We just called it “stained glass.” So I just wanted people saying, oh, I don’t like this new stuff, hey, stained glass has been around for centuries. I don’t know what you’re talking about. So up here – I don’t know if I’m allowed up here, I’m destroying things – I don’t know if you can see it. This is actually a symbol of the Trinity. Everything’s clear now; isn’t it. No, it’s not. But here they’ve got God in the middle. Come up later, if you’re allowed. I don’t know if you’re allowed. But come up later. Árni Dagur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons They’ve got a dais in the middle, God. And then they’ve got Holy Spirit here, Father up there, Son up there, Father over there on the three. And then they’ve got little connection things. Spirit is not the Father, Father is not the Son, Son is not the Spirit. And then they all go to the middle, they’re all “Is God, Is God, Is God.” Okay. We can pack it up. We’re done. Everybody understands the Trinity now. That’s great. Super. Don’t be telling people you’ve got a fidget spinner in stained glass at your church. I mean, well, unless you want to. People think, oh, that’s pretty cool. I think I’m coming, yeah. Not a fidget spinner. All right. Way back in the 5th Century, there was a guy, his name was Augustine of Hippo. I don’t know. I don’t know, you know, if he was a portly man. But they called him Hippo. I think that’s where he lived. Unfortunate if he was portly. That would have been bad. He said this: “Si comprehendis, non est Deus.” And what that is translated from the Latin is, If you think you understand God, what you understand is not God. - Augustine of Hippo Well, that’s helpful, Augustine. He’s saying if you understand something, then you don’t understand it. The parts you understand about God is not something you understand.  The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true whether or not they are well-educated — is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations — in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. - Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer (1995). And we have a quote up here from a more recent philosopher. Good old Neal Stephenson, author of “Snow Crash,” any classic science fiction – no, nothing. Oh. No, you’re just scratching. Okay. The difference between stupid and intelligent people, and this is true whether or not they are well educated, is that intelligent people can handle subtle – Bill, what’s that word? BILL: Subtlety. PASTOR RAMSEY: Subtlety. Thank you, Bill. That’s why I brought him in here, roped him up to give me that word. Thank you. Subtlety. And they are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. Whoo. In fact, they expect them. And they’re apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. Yeah. Intelligent people are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. In fact, they expect them. And they’re suspicious if things are too simple. You’re all intelligent people now; right? Okay. Because you all heard Trinity stuff, oh, the shamrock thing. Who’s heard of the sham – don’t put your hands up. Who’s heard this? Because that’s a heresy. I don’t want you to put your hands up, then let it go, ooh. Not TrinityShamrock, you know, the three in the Trinity, one plant, three things. Sometimes even I said this, and I was wrong, that’s modality, that’s a heresy. This is, like, should be called Heresy Sunday because it’s so easy to slip in heresy when you’re trying to talk about the Trinity. When you’re talking about, you know, oh, it’s like steam and liquid water and ice, you know. No, it’s not. It’s modality. And it’s not even Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you know. As much as Presbyterians love committees, love them, God is not a committee. It’s not like they vote and come together, two out of three goes, you know, none of that. It’s not like, you know, like loving, loved, and beloved, or all these other things that people try to make into some kind of social community rolling around kind of thing inside a God, and that’s Trinity. Just about anything – just like our friend Augustine found out. You know, every time you try to describe a Trinity, you’re probably not describing the Trinity. You’re not describing God. If you think you understand it, you got it wrong. What are we to do? What are we to do? Well, we’re intelligent people. We can handle things that are contradictory or complex or not clear or not simply explained. We can handle that. I mean, you know, they just don’t let anybody in the Episcopal Church; right? There is a little test you’ve got to do before you get in; right? I’m sure there is. They haven’t caught me yet. Ha. It’s like when I go to Trader Joe’s. Does anybody go to Trader Joe’s? I go in there. I am not good-looking enough to be at Trader Joe’s up there in [totsy?] land. They’re going to kick me out because I go, wow, what are these people? Wow. Everybody comes down from Tahoe, and they’re nice? But we can handle it. And we’ve got stories here. We’ve got scriptures here that tell us about complexity. And you can come to these scriptures and be confused. You can come to the Trinity and be confused. And what confused? Well, I don’t understand it, and I should. It’s not good for me. I’m upset. Well, then you’re not intelligent. Here’s a thought. Instead of being confused, be in awe. Instead of being upset you don’t understand something, be in wonder of the glory of God. Because you look at the creation story, and was that a big creation story? You know, I was talking to – that’s a lot of scripture. You know, that’s a big hunk there. And, well, you know, he created the entire universe, you know, give him a chapter. You know, come on. So you look at that, and we’re so familiar with it that we just blow it on by; you know? The first creation story, you know, there’s a – every now and then, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and it was so. You know, that “and” is doing a heck of a lot of work. You look all the way through it, he says something, and it was so. Says something, and God said it was good. Said something, and God said it was good. You know, that “and” is like a billion years of time and space in that “and.” I mean, we’re just skipping over a whole lot of stuff that we would like to understand in that “and.” I’m telling you, all of our scientific endeavor is trying to figure out that “and” bit, between God says it’s going to happen and then he said it was good. We want to know between the “and.” We don’t have to. We don’t have to be confused by complications. And that’s why we had the whole big, you know, some people say, well, you have the Trinity in there because, you know, in the story of Genesis, God is referred to as “we,” in the plural. So that’s the Trinity there. Okay, that’s kind of a reach. I mean, you know, when the King of England or Queen of England says “We are not amused,” they’re not talking that they’re the Trinity, you know, there’s a “royal we” kind of thing. But I like to think they picked that out, the little lectionary elves picked that up because here’s another thing we don’t understand. You’ve got the Trinity. Everybody’s confused. Let’s throw in the creation story, too, just so long as we’re doing a confusion Sunday. But it doesn’t have to be confusion. It could be wonder. Saying, look at all those wonderful things God’s done. You know, God just didn’t do it. I think it’s very important in our times. God said it was good. So when people tell you other people are bad or these people aren’t good enough or these people are below us or beneath us or don’t have the right to be here, or don’t have the right to exist, or should pull themselves up by their own – remember what God said. God said it was good. It was good. People are good. God doesn’t make trash is what they used to say. But not only that, God makes people good. That

  2. Apr 23

    Locked Room

    What if doubt isn’t the opposite of faith — it’s the doorway to it? This week’s sermon takes a fresh look at Doubting Thomas, and asks a harder question: not why Thomas doubted, but where he was when everyone else was hiding. From mass incarceration to immigration fear, from social media echo chambers to the rooms we personally refuse to enter, we’re challenged to stop “doing research” and start doing a real search — one that puts us face to face with people whose scars we’d rather not see. Because if you’re 41 years old and you’re not covered in scars, maybe you haven’t been loving people hard enough. Come find out what it means to go make some more.

  3. 12/28/2025

    God Moves Into the Neighborhood

    God Moves Into the Neighborhood God Moves Into the Neighborhood a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service December 28, 2025 at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   John 1:1-18  Sermons also available free on iTunes   When Bette Lynn and I moved, I don’t want anyone to think that we’re breaking up or anything, people go crazy when I talk like this. When Betty Lynn and I moved over to our house at Hanson Drive, across the street was a forlorn vacant sad house. We were 2600; they were 2601. But what a difference. It was vacant. There were some very stubborn tufts of grass among the dirt in the front yard. There were actual tumbleweeds on the porch. There was an eviction notice in Times New Roman font, so you know it’s official, on the door, telling everyone get out, no one belongs here. And of course it was dark all the time. Dark through the nights, dark at Halloween, dark at Christmas, dark for long, empty, vacant, sad. I saw it every time I left the house and every time I came back. And I saw it through our kitchen window. It was like centered, front and centered. And I confess that it did bother God. And I said, “God, could you do something about that? Could a nice family move in?” It’s so sad to see the house just falling apart, dark, abandoned. It’s not good for the neighborhood, either. And it’s certainly not good for my soul. Well, watch what you pray for. But boy, did they move in. Oh, my gosh. The landscaping. The new roof. The painted garage door. The lights for Halloween? Oh, my gosh, you were so scared to come home. And then Christmas, there were airplanes that go, oh, no, that wasn’t the airport, and they move on. So many lights. And they were so active. I can’t count the number of cars, four, five cars coming out, going in, going around. There was even – every weekend there’s a table saw in the driveway, he’s doing some project. You know, activity everywhere. And every weekend and holiday an RV the size of a Supreme Court Justice Land Cruiser shows up in front of the house, blocking everything. And I said, okay, God, you can dial it back a bit. And they would call me at night about 11:00 o’clock, being good neighbors; you know? And they would say, “Hi, Christy. This is your neighbor across the street. Did you know your garage door was open?” I’d go, “No, I didn’t. Thank you very much.” It got so when it rang I picked it up, I said, “Is my garage door open?” They go, “Yes, you did it again.” Okay. Thank you. Eugene Peterson has a paraphrase with John 1. In the 14th verse, where it says in a reading that God came and dwelled among us, he says: “God moved into the neighborhood.” How different that is. God moved into our neighborhood. Because this, John 1, is the Christmas story in the Gospel of John. It talks about God coming to Earth. Now, in Matthew and Luke, we have shepherds and kings that come to see the Baby Jesus. Say come, come, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that we have been told. Let us go and follow the star and go see it is God. But in John we don’t go to God. God comes to us. And that is the message to take. We don’t go to God. God comes to us. It is the most epic, the most momentous, the most beautiful border crossing you’ve ever seen. The greatest wall hopped over. The wall between Heaven and Earth. Imagine, if you will, like Philippians, where the Philippians too, where the great Christ hymns talked about how God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be taken to seize, to grab, to say that is mine, mine, mine, but instead throughout all the stuff of his heavenly home, all the privileges, all the power, all the glory, threw it all away and came, jumped the border wall, and came to be an immigrant among us. And not just an immigrant king. There are no kings. But a servant, a doulos in Greek, which is slave. An immigrant that gave up everything in their homeland, all their status, their friends, their money, their heritage, their language, and came to live among us to serve us, to get to know us, that came and stayed, even though he was rejected, even though he was thought a stranger, know that Jesus, he hangs out with those lepers. You know, they’re probably vaccined. He hangs out with loose women. They’re probably piggies. But Jesus hangs out with them. He gave them, gave it all up. He gave up his home country to come and to live, to move into our neighborhood, to be with us as a servant. And we treated him horribly. But still he was here to stay. That story of John is that God came, and God stayed. Not to conquer. Not to take over. Not to be at something sightseeing, oh, well, there’s no politics today. We can go to church. As long as there’s nothing important to talk about, we can go see Jesus, and then we can leave. And leave everything behind. No God came to live with us across the street. And that humongous Land Cruiser comes in, and there’s no missing that he’s here. God. With us. Emanuel. That pesky immigrant that tells us to live a different way. That challenges our assumptions. That is there wherever, when we go out of the house or come in the house, when we look out the window, God is there. He moved in. God is with us. Maybe now and then we get out away. We get a little call that said, “Christy?” “Yeah?” “You forgot to open your heart.” “Oh, sorry. I’ll get that done.” “Christy? Christy? You’re closed up. You’re not welcoming. You’re not loving.” “Well, thanks. Thanks for reminding me. I’m so glad you’re in the neighborhood. Who knows where I would be if that place was still vacant, and tumbleweeds were blowing through where care and concern shine out now.” A Presbyterian minister – I always like to drop that – Mr. Rogers says – have you noticed he says “Will you be my neighbor?” He doesn’t say will you be my friend, will you be my brother, will you be my sister, will you be my companion. He says “neighbor.” And a neighbor is not a friend. Friend is someone that you’re on the same journey with. You’ve got something in common. You’re moving toward a certain place, and sometimes, you know, it could be college, it could children, it could be church, whatever. And as long as you’re on that same journey, you’re with a friend, and you go do things together. But that’s a whole ‘nother sermon. We’re almost there. Let’s quit doing that. But neighbor is someone that’s with you. That’s near you. That’s come to be with you, to abide with you. And you may not like them. You may not have anything in common with them. But you’re going to get along with them because they’re your neighbor. At tech camp we have a lot of kids that come, and I tell them that they’re neighbors now this week. They may be friends, and that’s great. They may make a friend. Every now and then that happens. Sometimes they hang out together. That’s fine. But I said, you know, that’s not an expectation. Expectation you’re a neighbor. You’re a neighbor, and you put up with one another. You help one another. You watch out for one another. You certainly don’t hurt one another. And you are all in this together for each other’s success and to have a good tech camp. You’re neighbors. Someone needs something, you lend it to them. Someone needs help, you give it to them. Someone needs encouragement, you give it to them. Because we’re all in this room together. We’re neighbors. Won’t you be my neighbors. What would this radical hospitality, this neighborliness, this acceptance as Joan Osborne said of one of us, she goes, what if God was just one of us? What if God was just a slob like one of us? What if God was just someone on the bus? A neighbor that came to town with strange ways, and different ways. But we’re all in this together. We’re all going to get through this together. We’re all going to help each other. We’re all going to make sure we’re not going to run away. Christianity is not something you go and see. Christianity is not something you put in your back pocket and bring out when there’s nothing important going on. Oh, my gosh, that’s important. That’s politics. Shut up about religion. When did that start? Religion used to be important. Faith used to be important. People used to say things about how we should live as a people, as a country, treating one another. And people, oh, you, now you’re talking politics. No, I’m talking my faith, and don’t you dare put your politics above my faith. Don’t you dare tell me that because of this vote or that election, that I cannot follow my faith. My faith says that God came to the neighborhood. God immigrated here. And God lives among us. And I’m not kicking him out because he’s different. Because he teaches love and care and compassion instead of profit and self-interest. Don’t tell me that’s politics. That’s faith. That’s mine. It was given to me by Jesus Christ at tremendous cost. And I’m not throwing that away. God is one of us. God is here to stay. We’re not kicking God out. We’re not deporting God. God gave up everything to be here. God traveled the furthest of the furthest ways to immigrate to human kind land. And we struggle. But it’s too good if we welcome, we pick up that phone when they call and say, “You’re not really living up to what you’re supposed to be doing, Christy. You’ve really got to do better.” Thank you, neighbor. Thanks for watching out for me. And when other people come and say, those people aren’t your neighbors, thos

  4. 10/13/2025

    Disobeying Jesus

    Disobeying Jesus Disobeying Jesus a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10:30 AM Worship Service October 12, 2025 at St John’s Presbyterian Church, Reno Nevada Complete Service on YouTube edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   Luke 17-11-19  Sermons also available free on iTunes   Let’s take a look at Luke.  Luke.  This is not the story about gratitude.  But it’s okay.  I understand if some of you, if you want to, pick an off-ramp.  We’ve going on the express route to the Kingdom of God.  Some of you may not be up for the trip.  I’m okay with that.  If you want to take an exit route right here, take an exit, go over, you know hang out at the truck stop for a while, whatever you want to do.  Look at your phone.  No problem.  Just say what the sermon’s about.  Sermon’s about gratitude.  You’re fine.  No worries. For the rest of you, the sermon is not about the one that came back in gratitude.  The sermon’s about the nine, the nine who did what they were told.  The nine who followed the great leader Jesus.  The nine who followed the law.  Yes, the law, Leviticus 14.  Now my favorite Leviticus is 19, if you want to know.  But 14’s okay.  You know.  But if you go, if you get Leviticus out, you know, go over into 19.  Read that, too, because that’s the best. But Leviticus 14 talks about, if you are a leper, how to be clean.  It is very entertaining reading.  It involves two birds, one of which you kill.  It involves shaving your entire body, head to toe, not once, but twice.  It involves standing outside in the cold as sort of enforce home – it’s like a little light torture in the Bible to get clean.  It takes about a week, a little over a week to eight days.  It is the law.  That is what the law says you do.  Nine did it.  Nine complied.  Nine did what they were told to do. Jesus told them, “Go show yourself to the priest.”  And that’s not just, “Hi, Priest.  How you doing?”  It’s that whole thing, Leviticus 14, light torture, standing outside getting shaved, killing a bird, other sacrifices.  Bleah, the whole thing.  Nine of them did it.  Nine of them complied.  Even though they didn’t have to.  What a mind-blowing thing.  You don’t have to follow the law and obey Jesus.  What a mind-blowing thing.  Because I submit to you this time in America is not the time where we need more sermons about gratitude.  Gratitude’s fine.  Gratitude’s a nice thing.  Attitude of gratitude.  I like the rhyme. But what Americans need now is consideration, reflection, and faith that might, just might lead you to disobey.  Now all you that are upset, I told you, you could get off earlier.  We have here a time where it says Jesus is okay with disobeying.  He’s okay with breaking the law.  He’s okay with not following scripture.  And that wasn’t the Old Testament back then, that was The Testament.  That was Bible.  And Jesus is okay with that.  In fact, not only is he okay, He asked where the other nine were.  How come only one disobeyed me?  How come only one broke the law?  Where are the other nine?  Wonder if Jesus is saying that now?  Where is everybody? Faith makes you well.  Not following the law, not even doing what the leader said.  Faith makes you well.  He doesn’t condemn the nine that followed the law and did what they were told.  I mean, come on.  I mean, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.  Come on.  He seems to be okay with being inclusive, with being okay with diversity, among responses.  And he seems to be okay with that half-breed immigrant that shouldn’t be there, not following the law, but still having faith and still doing the right thing. Now, when we as Samaritans, we just think about, oh, Good Samaritan, teddy bears and rainbows and unicorns.  We like the Samaritan.  No, no, no.  That was the cursed.  That was a putdown.  That was telling them they were half-breed unfaithful heretics that should not – good people do not talk to, that you do not even walk through their territory.  Did you see it was in between the places that a good Jew did not go.  He was illegal.  Wasn’t supposed to be there.  And Jesus praises him.  Yow. Christy, did you come this week so that we’d be happy when Pat comes next week?  I told Pat, “Don’t worry, buddy, they’ll be happy to see you.”  He goes, “Thanks, Christy.”  But let’s go back, back into time, to a simpler, lovelier time, back to the time of the ‘80s with Reagan in the White House.  Oh, what a wonderful time.  I want to tell you about not that people, but remember back then, back then the Russians shot down a Korean airliner.  Boom, out of the sky, killing everybody.  Remember, you can look it up, the families brought on the boat, the children crying for the father.  Waves. It was a tense time.  It was a worrisome time.  What are the Russians going to do next?  What are we going to do in response?  There’s a film, a documentary, it’s on YouTube, “The Man Who Saved the World.”  And no, it is not about Jesus.  “The Man Who Saved the World” is about Stanislav Petrov and his visit to the United States 40 years after the ‘80s.  On September 26th, 1983, the computers in Serpukhov-15 bunker outside of Moscow, which housed the command center for the Soviet Early Warning Satellite System, reported U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union.  One, then another, then another, then another, then another.  Five nuclear missiles were detected coming toward the Soviet Union. Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer.  It was the protocol.  It was the law.  It was a duty.  It was a patriotic thing to carry that on up to the command center, to call headquarters and say, “We are being attacked by the United States.  They have launched nuclear missiles.  Our satellites have reported.  We checked the computer.  The computers are right.  They did not have visual confirmation because of the weather conditions.  But the computer is saying yes.  There’s nuclear warheads headed to you.” According to the book, according to what’s called “The War Diary,” he is to call the headquarters.  He is to call the headquarters and tell them what has happened so that they can respond in kind.  There are 11,000 nuclear warheads ready to go, to blow up the United States.  Make Hiroshima and Nagasaki a birthday candle.  This is what Stanislav said 40 years later.  “In the general headquarters all they have left to do is press a button.  I fully understood that I would not be corrected if I reported it.  No one would dare correct me.  They would agree with me, and that would be it.  It’s always easier to agree.” We’re here today because Stanislav did not report the attack.  He broke the law.  He ruined his career.  He lost his family.  But he has no regrets.  It was a fluke.  It was a computer failure.  It was weather, a weird weather thing.  There are satellite orbits.  There’s a whole Wikipedia page about it.  But Stanislav didn’t know that.  He disobeyed.  He had faith that the United States wouldn’t do that.  And he also knew that someone had to stop the chain of events into violence and into destruction and into ruin and into chaos. And he knew that he was the one to stand up and say no.  No, we’re not going to destroy the world.  I’m breaking the law.  I’m ruining my career.  My family is not going to support me.  I’m going to be estranged from all our friends.  But I will not obey.  I will not destroy.  I will not harm innocents.  I will not attack the enemies like I’m told.  It’s always easier to agree.  Thank god Stanislav Petrov decided not to take the easy way, but the hard and faithful way.  His faith has made us well. Amen.

  5. 03/02/2025

    Testify

    Testify Testify a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service February 16, 2025 at St Peter’s Episcopal Church edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   John 8:12-19  Sermons also available free on iTunes My pastor growing up, Dr. Paul Bauer, said “Sermonettes are for Christianettes.”  That was probably his only joke in 20 years, but it was a good one.  Good morning, Episcopalians.  They’ve got me tied to this mic today, so you’re welcome. So today I’ve got scriptures, I love the scriptures you give me there.  Define the relationship of Jesus Christ and God the Father without straying from Episcopalian beliefs or violating your Presbyterian doctrine, and do it in 10 minutes.  Thanks.  We’ll pass on that.  I mean, there have been wars fought over this, and over a single Greek letter.  We’ll pass on that.  What we won’t pass on is the opportunity the scripture gives us to talk about testimony. Testimony.  We need more testimony in this world.  We don’t need more arguing.  We don’t need more fact-checking.  We don’t need more gotcha.  We don’t need any snarky answers to people’s sincerely held beliefs.  What we could use is testimony.  Did you hear it in Jesus’s saying, “You don’t know where I came from or where I’m going?”  If you know where you came from, if you know where you are going, you have a testimony.  You have something to say. And I don’t know if any of you have been preachers, weekly preachers for 40 years.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  When you’re preaching every Sunday, everything that happens is sermon-fodder.  You know, everything goes in the old chipper and comes out, I tell you.  And so I was thinking about testimony and what does it mean to – and where is the good testimony and where things are.  And would you believe it, in my inbox comes testimony from the Episcopalians.  Woo-hah.  And about 20 other denominations, including Presbyterian, about sanctuary. Now, you all know how hard it is to keep quiet in a sanctuary.  You know how hard it is to keep me quiet in the sanctuary before service.  Well, I’ll tell you, you Episcopalians work even harder on sanctuary.  For over a quarter of the century, sanctuary has been kept in churches, synagogues, religious gathering places around the country, saying, hey, arrest people somewhere else than in church, at services, on a Sunday.  But no longer.  No longer.  And that’s what the Episcopalians testified. Listen to this.  Sean Rowe, presiding bishop.  In the Kingdom of God as we understand it, immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone.  Their struggles reveal the heart of God.  We cannot worship freely if some of us live in fear.  Sean Rowe, Episcopal bishop, presiding bishop.  Even Jesus himself identifies as “stranger.”  We must proclaim, particularly in this time, that we are all welcome in the places of worship, that all have – that all are welcome in places of worship.  This seems a basic human right, one that we are called by God to serve. In the first week of the current administration I see he arrested over 4,500 people, including 1,000 people in a Sunday immigration enforcement blitz.  At least one of these – this is from the court case that your church joined with the church I serve, and 21 other churches in testimony.  And at least one of these enforcement actions occurred at a church in Georgia during the worship service.  According to news coverage, an usher standing at the church entrance saw a group of ICE agents outside, locked the door.  The agent said that they were there to arrest Wilson Velasquez, who had traveled to the United States from Honduras with his wife and three children in 2022.  Immediately after crossing the border, they turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, requested asylum.  They were given a court date, released after federal agents put a GPS tracking monitor on Velasquez’s ankle. After settling in suburban life, the family joined the Pentecostal Church, where they worshipped several times a week and helped with the music.  They were listening to the pastor’s sermon when ICE agents arrived to arrest Velasquez.  Although Velasquez had attended all his required check-ins at the Atlanta ICE office and had a court date scheduled to present his asylum case to a judge, ICE agents arrested him, explaining that they were simply looking for people with ankle bracelets.  The pastor, Luis Ortiz, tried to reassure his congregation.  But he said he could see the fear and tears in their faces. And if you’re upset that people are talking in sanctuary, imagine how upset you’d be if someone came in and arrested someone during the sermon.  That should be an announcement every Sunday morning.  But we’re not saying you’re bad, or you’re awful, or you vote for this person, or it’s all your fault or blame.  We’re saying where we have been, where we came from, and where we are going, we know that, so we have a testimony.  And here’s the Episcopal Church’s testimony.  And God bless you all.  This is in the filing of the United States court system.  Because you all know where you’ve been, and you all know where you’re going, and you have a testimony. Plaintiff, the Episcopal Church.  Recognizing the Bible’s repeated calls for God’s people to embrace the foreigner as a way of extending the work that is the heart of God in every time and place, the Episcopal Church, champions and advocates for humane policies toward migrants.  And many dioceses, parish, and Episcopal networks provide resources, support, and care for asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and other migrant communities.  Testimony.  Testimony. If you don’t know where you’ve been and don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have a testimony.  But Christians know where we’ve been.  We read the scriptures every Sunday.  Hopefully more than every Sunday.  We live by them.  And we know where we’re going.  We’re going to the Kingdom of God, and we’re living in the Kingdom of God right here.  We are not living in Empire.  We do not serve the Empire.  We serve the Kingdom of God.  We know where we’ve been.  We know where we’re going.  We know what our passport says.   Our passport says “Kingdom of God.”  Not Empire. And so we have a testimony.  You don’t have to argue with someone because they’re just not listening.  They’re just waiting for their turn to argue with you and go back and forth.  We need to have conversations.  We need to find common ground.  We need to go forward.  Yes, yes, yes, yes.  But that’s not going to come from arguing.  It’s going to come from testimony based on where we come from and where we want to go. Brian, you got that slide up there for me?  Here’s a testimony.  Here’s a sign that doesn’t say “Vote for this” or “I voted that” or “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other one.”  This is what I believe.  In this house we believe love is love.  Testimony.  Black Lives Matter.  And if you’re racist, Black Lives Matter Too, because I have to say that or otherwise you’d think that we do a Breast Cancer Awareness or Fundraiser, we’re saying no other cancer matters. Black Lives Matter Too.  Science is real.  Women’s rights are fundamental.  Women’s rights are human rights.  No person is illegal.  Disability rights are human rights.  Healthcare for all.  Kindness is everything.  That just says what you believe.  That’s a testimony based on where you’ve come from and where you’re going.  It attacks no one.  It should upset no one.  It goes, oh, thanks for sharing what you believe.  Now, I know you a little better.  Some of those things I believe.  Maybe we could figure out how to make that a little more true in the greater world.  It’s testimony. I brought a prop.  My wife made this for me.  And I think I’m going to be wearing it more and more.  This might be a daily driver.  Some people are against rainbows.  But this shows where I believe.  And I think I’m going to be wearing this shirt.  I almost wore it to preach in.  You’re welcome.  This should threaten no one.  This just gives a testimony to what I believe.  It’s perfectly okay if you pee next to me.  Now, if you want to bring a gun in, I might have an issue with that.  But you all can pee next to me.  So if you’re upset, you can say, well, at least he didn’t wear the T-shirt the whole time. So I come to thank you.  Presbyterian Church is in the pleading, too.  Eighty pages, great reading, along with Episcopalians, the spot on the Mennonites.  We can almost – we’ve got a couple atheists in there.  All testifying.  In 1993, America decided that sanctuary was a place not just to keep quiet for a few minutes before worship, but a place where humans that are fearful could come and worship God, and hear the good eternal truth in the gospel without fear of being arrested and hauled off because it’s easy to get them there.  Over a quarter of a century ago.  I don’t remember changing, that we thought as long as you’re quiet you can arrest people in our services. Testimony.  I believe sanctuary is a place where everyone can come and worship without fear of persecution, without fear of that.  And you know, folks, I have some privileged folks in my life.  And when I start talking about that, they go, oh, you’re talking politics.  Oh, you’re just talking – we don’t talk politics. Wilson is now not with his family.  He’s taken away from his children and his wife.  And I would challenge that person to go and explain to their children that their father is not with them anymore, that he’s in prison, it’s just politics

  6. 02/02/2025

    Not My Job

    Not My Job Not My Job a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service January 26, 2025 for ZOOM with Lee Vining Presbyterian Church edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   John 2:1-11  Sermons also available free on iTunes   Should the church be run like a business?  People tell me that, throughout my career in the ministry in 40 years, and they come in, you know, church has to be run like a business.  And they usually don’t know that I have a business administration degree from Grove City College with cum laude.  So they think this is news to me, God bless ‘em. And I was wondering, you know, when I’m in a more festive mood, with is almost always, I admit it is a problem, I ask them, well, if church is run like a business, what’s its product?  I mean, what is it selling?  I mean, that’s basic business that you know your product.  What’s a product?  You know, it gives them pause because, I mean, you all think of that, I ain’t going to put you on the spot because, you know, it’s like being in the front row at a comedy club, you know.  You know you’re going to get picked on if there’s only, like, six of you.  So don’t answer out.  I’m not putting you on the spot. But what would you say is the church’s business?  What’s the product?  What are we making?  Oh, you’re going to – you’re going to – you’re, yeah, are we making Christians.  That’s one of the A-plus answers.  I would go A-plus on Christians, disciples, yeah.  You know, others would say, you know, Laurie, others would say, well, you’re making worship services.  You know, some people say that.  Or, well, you’ve got to maintain the building, you know.  Or some people would say, you know, you’re feeding the hungry, and Matthew 25, and the thirsty, and you’re doing that stuff.  And I don’t know if you’d get agreement from everyone in a room about what the product is for the church, if it was run like a business. And then it gets even more complicated because then you’ve got to say, okay, we’ve got a product, maybe.  You would say, well, who’s our customer?  What’s our target audience?  Who are we working for?  And I’m sure Laurie knows the answer.  It’s always God.  God’s always the correct answer in any children’s message or sermon. Well, some people say God’s the customer.  Okay.  Other people would say, well, the people who pay the bills.  You’ve got to keep them happy.  You’ve got to keep the people happy who’re paying the bills or you don’t have a church.  They’re the customer.  Well, sure, God, but you know, oh, I’ve got to keep the money folks happy.  Some people would say that.  Some people say, well, it’s the church board.  I mean, I don’t know if anybody would say that.  Maybe one or two would say you’ve got to go with the – or maybe a couple would say the pastor has to be happy.  That’s rare, but that could happen.  I’m sure that’s happened.  You know, who are you trying to please?  Who are you working for?  Who’s the customer?  That’s a difficult one. What if they went beyond that and said, okay, well, now, who owns the business?  You know?  Who?  Is it a nonprofit?  That’s problematic in a church, if you don’t have profits.  If you do, well, what’s the business?  What is that customer?  Who owns it?  Who is in charge of it?  I mean, the Presbyterians have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court about who owns the church.  And the Supreme Court, way back, oh, ‘70s, said, well, that PCUSA owns the church, but please make it more clear in your constitution.  So we’ve been – we struggle with that in reality of who owns the business of the business?  That’s important, too. Well, you know, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have these questions and answers, and that we can’t get consensus and move around because even Jesus Christ had trouble, as we saw here, skipping over the dynamic of why you’re calling your mother “women,” that doesn’t sound good to us English-speaking ears that you go “woman.”  But maybe it’s better in the Aramaic, I’m hoping.  But Jesus had some troubles about his jobs and where he was doing and what he was doing it for.  And, you know, a mother, the mother, you know, you don’t want your mother coming up to where you work and saying you’re not good at your job.  I mean, that’s not good.  That’s a bad day right there. And, you know, and I don’t know, you know, can you imagine, I don’t know if we can be Jesus, but you’ve got these world-changing powers.  You want to change the world for good.  You want to help people, you want to get love all around, forgiveness and all that, and your mom wants you to solve the lack of wine at a three-day blowout party for people you don’t know.  You know, Jesus Christ is fully human.  I can see him being a little upset about that one.  And not just, you know, hey, bring a bottle of wine.  I mean, come on, it’s a party, bring the wine, what are you?  You know, we’re talking multiple gallons of water turning to wine.  We’re talking 20 to 30, what is it, six times 20, help me out.  It’s over 100 gallons of wine.  That’s a lot of wine.  Of course, you know, Mary didn’t say, hey, go get 100 gallons. Is that Jesus’ job?  I don’t know.  We struggle with that in the church.  We’re struggling right now about what is the church’s job.  I mean, folks will say let’s get politics out of the church, doo to doo to doo, you know, they want to say that.  And you know what, I’ve noticed over the years, I mean, I’ve been around a little bit, politics just kept getting wider and wider and wider.  You know?  It used to be you could go buy craft supplies and not worry about politics.  Now you’ve got to say, well, that one’s Republican and that one’s Democrat.  Politics are just freaking everywhere.  You know, and people wear them, you know, as part of their clothing, their politics.  It is politics, politics, politics, politics everywhere.  And it affects – and it’s not just politics. Politics affects our lives, affects our health, affects our neighbors, affects ourselves, affects our family.  You know, we say, well, it’s just politics.  Well, no, man, it’s morality.  It’s reality.  It’s how we live.  It’s how we structure society.  It’s how we help one another.  And even now we saw right now that a bishop, you know, we don’t have bishops.  I don’t know.  Sometimes that’s good; sometimes it’s bad.  I don’t know.  But we don’t have bishops.  But that’s like, you know, up there, you know, big hat, in charge of church and stuff.  And the bishop in the church, okay, that’s kind of a big thing, bishop in the church there actually makes it a cathedral when the bishop’s in the church.  So the bishop in the cathedral saying a sermon, you know, the bishop in the cathedral in a sermon, you think that’s religious. But some people say, oh, no, that’s politics.  They can’t say this.  They can’t say that.  They’ve got this to do.  They’ve got this to do.  They’ve got to be in this box.  They can’t be this.  And oh, my gosh, I want to tell you about how the bishop in the cathedral preaching a sermon should be.  I say get the politics out of the church.  I say get the politics out of my life.  My life belongs to Jesus Christ.  Don’t be telling me I can’t follow Jesus Christ because you don’t like the politics.  And don’t be coming into a cathedral and telling the bishop what he can say in their own pulpit.  No. We have trouble with jobs, with what is a job.  I mean, even today we have trouble.  You know, we say we might get upset about oh, my gosh, he should have said into this.  Oh, my gosh, that’s not her job.  Oh, she shouldn’t have made the wine.  I mean, I’m sure that there were some people, well, Jesus, you know, you shouldn’t be making that much wine for drunk people.  I mean, that is a reasonable criticism.  I mean, Laurie can help me out here, but I’m thinking that’s enabling.  I mean, that’s like master-class enabling right there.  These drunk people need more wine.  I mean, the steward flat-out said they were already drunk; you know?  And why do drunk people need more wine, I don’t know.  And people could criticize that, and I don’t even think that would be political. But what is the job of the church?  It’s something we’re going to be struggling with, I’ll tell you.  We’re going to be struggling with that.  And, you know, between ministers, and it’s especially a struggle because, you know, when you get in a ministry you can sort of say, good, the ministry will figure that out; you know.  But when it’s just y’all, you know, you’ve got to figure out what is the church.  Does the church do this?  Does the church do that?  Is that our job?  Should we have services even though none of us lives in Lee Vining and we’ve got a lot of weather?  Should we do that?  I mean, it’d be really nice to have a minister decide that.  But you don’t, so you’ve got to decide that, oh, you know.  So what do you do? Now, let me change gears a little bit.  Palisades Fire.  Have you heard of it?  Palisades Fire.  Now, I don’t know it you know about Palisades.  Kind of a rich people place.  But, you know, they have a severe homeless problem.  They’ve got a lot of folks there that are hungry, don’t have housing, don’t have food.  But the disaster is a disaster.  I can’t imagine losing everything you own.  I can’t imagine that.  There’s been loss of life in the double digits, I think it’s up to 23 or so.  Whole neighborhoods washed

  7. 12/29/2024

    This Little Light of Mine

    This Little Light of Mine This Little Light of Mine a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service December 29, 2024 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   John 1:1-18  Sermons also available free on iTunes    Akron, Ohio, my hometown, has a Main Street that follows the river.  It was a river, and then it was a canal, and then it was road. Then came a flood, and then became a river again because you’ll have that.  Goes through – Main Street goes through the lowest part of town because that’s where the river was.  That’s where commerce was.  That’s where the canal was.  And so Main Street goes right like this all the way through town, and it’s the lowest part of town.  Over here we have Goodyear Heights.  And it’s high.  It goes right up.  It’s like in the middle of the valley.  Goodyear Heights is over here.  That’s where the factories are.  That’s where the rubber was made, the smokestacks, the work crews, all are up here.  And it’s high.  It is high up.  And in the space of about a mile or two, 10 blocks, you can see it.  It goes down to Main Street, and then it goes up to the outside.   The outside is West Hill.  West Hill’s on the other side of Main Street.  Market connects the two.  You could, up at West Hill, you can see, and see the whole town.  West Hill was where all the rich people lived, the factory owners, the management, because, you know, smoke was all over there, and in the valley it didn’t get up to West Hill.  So that’s where West Hill was.   Now, my family, my grandma, grandpa, and my brother, my uncle, good people, they were the factory people.  They lived over here on the East Side, on Goodyear Heights.  And over here is where we moved on up, you know, like that song, “Movin’ On Up” to the West Side.  So we moved over here.  So we were constantly going from the West Hill down the valley on Market.  [Indiscernible] to go visit the family and connect up in church and all that.  And so we did that a lot.  At one time, I don’t know, late ‘60s probably, we were just at the crest of West Hill where we could see the entire traffic of Akron.  We could see Main Street going along the canal.  We could see Market Street.  And Market, busy, busy throughfare.   And I remember one day we were at the crest of the hill, looking down, and we stopped.  We pulled over to the side of the road.  And I looked, and all through Market Street, 10, 20 blocks, down to Main Street and back up, traffic was frozen.  Everything was moved up to the side of the road and stopped.  I thought, well, that’s odd.  But then I looked, and I saw the flashing lights of a fire engine coming down Market Street.  And everybody had stopped and got out of the way and made way for those flashing lights.   Fast-forward 30 years, and some of you here know what that’s like.  You know, you turn around, suddenly it’s 30 years later?  Thirty years later I’m driving those flashing lights on the fire engine, faking it till I make it because no one else would get in the seat, so I did.  I’m driving.  And I’m learning about flashing lights and about fire department.    They tell me, you know, you’re not allowed to go through red lights in a fire truck in Ohio.  It’s against the law.  You know you don’t have the right of way in Ohio with the flashing lights and sirens.  All that is, is a request for the right of way.  All that light and shining big red truck is just saying, please, please let us go by.  It’s just please, it’s just a request.  And we are responsible as firefighters to be driving with due regard as opposed to the rest of the people that have reasonable care.  They just have to be reasonable.  We’ve got to have due regard.   And so they don’t have to get out of the way.  They can just go on with their life.  They can ignore the light.  You know, that light says someone’s in trouble.  Someone needs help now.  Could you move out of the way?  Could you stop just a moment thinking of yourself and of where you’re going and what you need to do?  Can you stop, give way, so somebody else could get the help they need?  It’s just an ask.   And I was new guy there, even though I was older than most of those guys.  Oh, that was not – they were very kind to me, you know.  But, yeah, on the training events, you know, where they did training, they assigned me the role of “guy who died.”  And so they would put me out in a field, and they’d come rescue me so I could just, you know, relax, kind of chillin’.   So, but, you know, I try to measure my questions.  You’ve been in a new job, you don’t ask every question the first day.  I mean, that’s just annoying.  You know, you just try to get what you need to get through the day.  But there was this one thing, right here in the firehouse garage, right back here, you know, seven feet up, or eight, I don’t know, right here.  There was, you know, one of those old metal box light switches like you’ve got in a garage.  It was rusty.  You remember those things?  The conduit came down, it wasn’t pretty.  And it was a switch, and there was this old, yellow, brown, moldy paper curled up over it, and you could just make out it said this, in big block letters:  “DO NOT USE.”  Don’t you want to?  Don’t you want to?   So I asked one of the old guys, I said, “Hey, what is that?  Roger, Roger, what’s with that switch?”  He goes, “Oh, that switch.  That switch turns every traffic light in town red.”  I go, oh.  “But we don’t use that anymore.”  Yeah, yeah, I saw the sign, yeah.  He goes, “Yeah, the right turn on red, nobody stops anymore.”  No one follows the lights.  They just keep moving.  Christ the light of the world came into the world.  And what does light do?  Light shows you there’s other people beside yourself.  Light can show you, reveal that there’s more people than just you here.  And sometimes, yes, sometimes those people need help that you don’t need, but they need. You know, when I think back at that time in Akron, that really impressed me, to see all the traffic in the city stopped because some stranger somewhere was in trouble, and everyone agreed that that traffic mattered.  Not all traffic mattered.  That traffic mattered because they needed help.  And because they were in trouble, and because they were hurting, we could step by and allow them to get the help they need.   I had a hard time with the sermon today because you know I’m going to be political.  You know what the difference between political is for – political is other people.  When it affects me, that’s morality.  That’s important.  When it affects other people, well, that’s politics.  I don’t have to worry about that.  Don’t talk or bother me about it.  I only want to talk about me, me, me.  That’s morality.  That’s right and wrong.  Did you know that fire trucks and fire engines and fire departments used to be politics? Fire insurance the politics in that.   Because you see, back in the day, I know it’s hard to imagine, but see if you can wrap your heads around this concept, that lifesaving care of the fire department was dependent on insurance companies.  I know, who would have thought such a thing?  If you did not have insurance, your house burned down.  You could die.  Your possessions were gone.  If you didn’t have any a fire insurance mark.  Such a thing shouldn’t exist.  If you go to some old fire departments, maybe even here in Carson, you can see what they called fire insurance marks, a metal plaque.  What they were, they were these big metal plates, usually some kind of star shape, was fastened on the front of the house displaying which insurance company the fire department covered for this house.  And if you didn’t pay your money, you didn’t get signed up during open enrollment, had a pre-existing conditions, you can’t pay the fire department at the fire.  They’ll come for the fire, would put out your neighbor’s fire that had insurance, but you just burned down.  You could be out there crying, offering to pay.  No.  No, you didn’t buy the insurance.  You just burned down.  That’s the way it is.  That’s the way it is.  That’s fair.  That’s law.  That’s the rules.  That’s the way it is.  Back then there’s no other way to imagine.   Luckily, we thought that was silly.  We thought that was immoral.  We thought people that were in trouble, people that were going to go bankrupt, people that were facing financial ruin from fire’s destruction, we think, no, that will not be dependent on whether or not they paid their insurance premium.  They’re our neighbors everybody here needs to be safe, regardless, so their house doesn’t burning down from a neighbors fire, or if they’re not safe, at least there’s help on the way.  And we’re not going to check the insurance rolls and get preauthorized approval before we put wet stuff on the red stuff.  No matter who you were, no matter what your morals were, no matter where you were in the country.   When I was on the fire department, if you were in trouble, we came, and we did all we could to save your life and your property.  We came with those lights that showed that there’s other people in the world that need help, that there’s other traffic that mattered.  Those lights that showed that there are some people hurting.    Can you please just get out of the way and let us help them?   I don’t know what’s coming up.  No one knows what’s coming up.  But I’m going to say there

  8. 09/15/2024

    Thorns and Crosses

    Crosses and Thorns Crosses and Thorns a sermon homily by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service September 15, 2024 at St. Peters Episcopal Church at Carson City, Nevada edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   Mark 8:27-38  Sermons also available free on iTunes This is a homily, not a sermon.  Father Mike was very emphatic on that fact.  You may not know the difference.  Michael was concerned that I did not, that somehow, three years of seminary, that didn’t come up.  But for the rest of you, let me see how I can explain this.  A sermon would be a segment on “60 Minutes.”  You know?  And a homily would be a Public Service Announcement.  The more you know.  For those of you under 50, thanks for coming.  A sermon would be a YouTube video by MrBeast, and a homily would be a TikTok video.  I worked all night on that.  Okay. Another thing that people get confused is between thorns and crosses.  Now, thorns we find in 1 Corinthians 12, and of course crosses that we bear are here in Mark 8.  People get those confused.  They think a thorn is a cross, and that’s not true. Now, a thorn in the side of Paul is something annoying.  It could be a physical malady, some kind of sickness, some kind of chronic thing.  Or it could be a person, you know who you are, don’t look around.  Could be that, too.  But something that annoys you, that puts you off, that reminds you that you are not in control of everything, and basically you’re not God, and that there’s other things going on than you.  For those that aren’t God people here, it’s not – the world does not revolve around you.  That’s a thorn.  Something annoying, something painful, something that puts you off – you, you, you, you, you – that tries to remind you you’re not all that.  That’s a thorn. A cross, totally different.  Have you ever seen those ads that say whatever, and then it goes “Serious inquiries only”?  That’s what cross says.  Cross is serious inquiries only.  It’s not about suffering.  It’s not about pain.  It’s not about discomfort.  This is not that idea of the cross.  That is not what Christianity, Jesus Christ is about healing, reconciliation.  It’s about making the world better, about redeeming creation on God.  It is not about the pain and the suffering and hard.  That’s a thorn. If you see what I mean, if you go with the cross and the pain, you’re still about you, you, you, my pain, my upset, oh, oh, oh.  That’s not a cross.  And also notice that the cross is something you pick up.  It’s not something that picks up you.  Something that you choose.  It’s a vocation, a choice, something that you want, you’ve decided to do.  There’s going to be troubles, there’s going to be suffering, it’s going to be long term, sure.  But it’s not a thorn.  It’s not something that’s done to you.  It’s something you do for others.  And there’s a test.  If it’s about you and yourself, it’s a thorn.  If it’s about others and creation, the community, and the kingdom of God, then it’s a cross. Elizabeth Johnson said it this way:  Jesus speaks of losing our lives for his sake and for the sake of the gospel.  Taking up a cross means being willing to suffer the consequences of following Jesus faithfully, whatever those consequences might be.  It means putting Jesus’s priorities and purposes ahead of our own comfort or security.  It means being willing to lose our lives by spending them for others using our time, resources, gifts, and energy so that others may experience God’s love made known in Jesus Christ.  Elizabeth Johnson. Hamilton City, California.  Jose has a thorn.  Every time it rained, being fire chief, he got out, out of his bed, and went out to the levee because it was a hundred years old, and every rain threatened to undermine it and flood the town.  And he was out there stacking the sandbags, hoping that this wouldn’t be the time that the levee failed.  That’s a thorn.  That’s a pain.  That’s annoyance.  That’s interruption to your life.  That’s a reminder that you are not in control.  Thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, all the way down. Jose decided to stop the flooding.  He got the Army Corps of Engineers out there.  He got the project done, how to restore the wetlands, how to make a floodplain so that it could flood without destroying the town.  He had all this done.  It only took him 25 years.  Hundreds of tamales to raise money to hire the experts that they needed to get the  environment.  It only took him multiple cross-country trips on the red-eye there and back to save a hotel room night, to lobby it, to go every year to try to get and do the budget.  It only took him 25 years of working so closely with others, he actually married the one that was working on it.  And I don’t know, I think their time together might have been reduced.  25 years. He was asked, other people come and say – because it was finally done.  Finally, after 25 years, it was done.  The floodplain was restored.  The wetlands were there.  The river was tamed again, and the levee was gone from a hundred years ago, and the town was protected.  And from all over people came and said, “Jose, how did you do it?”  And he goes, “Are you sure?  Are you sure you want to know?  Because I tell you, 25 years ago, if someone had told me what it would take to get this done, I don’t know if I would do it.”  That’s cross.  That’s vocation.  That’s giving yourself, your time, your life for others, for the restoration of creation, for building community and healing.  That’s taking up the cross.  Throwing another sandbag on the riverbank is a thorn.  But now, when the rains come, Jose and the rest of town can turn over and go back to sleep.  That’s what happens when you bear a cross. Now, this suffering isn’t suffering for pain or for heartache or anything like that.  It’s suffering of the consequences of restoring creation, of giving yourself and your life for others.  September 11th was about a year or two after Mr. Rogers did his final show of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  He didn’t have a farewell tour, a closing finale or anything.  It’s just another day, and he didn’t want to upset the children.  And he just left it, and lights were turned off, and the set torn down and delivered to the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh. But then came 9/11, and the country was at a loss.  And Mister Rogers came back to TV with a PSA.  Even in the aftermath of 9/11, Mister Rogers maintained his fidelity to his principles that drove him:  Love your neighbor and love yourself.  Here’s the inspiring words of Mister Rogers after September 11th:  “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we are all called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation.  Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and light and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighborhood and to yourself.

  9. 04/21/2024

    Retaining Sin

    Retaining Sin Retaining Sin a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service April 7, 2024 at St Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City, Nevada edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Acts 4:32-35 ⟡ 1 John 1:1-2:2 ⟡ John 20:19-31   Sermons also available free on iTunes Welcome to Mirror Easter. Last week, who was here last week? No one. Okay, a couple people. All right. So last week, the varsity team was up front, and the spectators were in the pew. All right. So this week, the spectators are up front leading the service. You all coming here on the second Sunday of Easter? You’re the varsity team. You show up the second Sunday of Easter where the substitute for the substitute is leading the service. Ah, commitment. Thank you very much. That’s right, Christy has risen. Is that blasphemy? I don’t know. He’s not here. And we’re all surprised, just like, you know, the other guy. Okay. I know every one of you read the scripture before you came to church today. You’re probably waiting for a doubting Thomas sermon. Those are great. I love those. Not having a church for a while, I’m always preaching second Sunday of Easter. In fact, I looked at the prayer book earlier. My marks from last year were still there. Second Sunday of Easter. And if you want to look at that sermon, Cathedrals and Measles, on the website ExtraChristy.com, go look at that great sermon, Doubting Thomas. Woo boy, good. Not today. This is a varsity group here. We’re going to get a varsity sermon. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take that little bitty crazy scripture that’s in the gospel. That you probably just went over, because I don’t want to think about it, but we’re going to think about it. You know the one? The one with your namesake, the Saint Peter one? If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. What in the world does that mean? Is there some kind of ginormous ATM? Can we log in on our web and say, I would like to deposit some sins, and I’d like to withdraw some sins? What in the world are they talking about? Now some people say, well that means that, you know, if you’ve been gluttonous or wrath – oh, let’s read them off, I have my list here. Sermon notes: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth. So some people say that if you have any of those, you can get them forgiven. But why in the world would we want to retain them? Okay, maybe gluttony. Rest. What is this? This is a strange scripture on a strange Sunday. Bizarro Mirror Easter Sunday, where the varsity people are in the pews, and the spectators are upfront. It only makes sense if you know that it is plural. That’s right, it’s not singular sense, not just you and me, itty bitty, 10 Commandments, four spiritual laws, kind of individual, you and me, God, we’re here, checklist, I got whatever I want. It is plural. If you all – I used to translate Greek, you all. I got in trouble in seminary all the time, and I argued with them. But if you all retain the sins, they are retained. And if you all forgive the sins, they’re forgiven. Okay, so it’s a community thing. So we get along and get together like Presbyterians and have a committee and vote whether or not someone sinned? I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right, either. But I want to tell you something, this is John. This is the Gospel of John. We even got a little bit of 1 John over there. And for John, that list of sins, not sin, not at all. Sin is not individual moral failings. It is not characteristics. It is not individual behavior. That is not sin. Sin is when you don’t do what God wants you to do. And that’s your whole life. That’s not just in moments of temptation in front of that cookie drawer. Or special magazine. Or website. I guess I should update. But for John, sin is corporate and communal. J.B. Phillips back in 1953 had a book that was really important when I was growing up called “Your God is Too Small,” and every now and then people rediscover it, and it blows their mind. But I want to tell you that it’s not just your God is too small, your sin is too small. We’re not talking about little bitty sins. This is the varsity group. We can handle it. We’re not talking about individual sins on individual Sundays and individual days. We’re talking about great corporate. And, you know, this makes more sense for 1 John. Did you listen to 1 John? Was anybody else upset? You are all sinners? What kind of scripture is that for church? You are all sinners. And you say, “Well, no, I’m not,” and it comes right back. And if you say you’re not, you’re a liar. Oh, I’m a sinner and a liar? How come we didn’t all get up and leave? Were you listening? I’ll make it more homely. You’re racist. And if you say you’re not racist, you’re a liar. Now we’re getting some of the feeling back. I’m not racist. I don’t say the N-word. I have not fired anyone on the basis of their race or creed or color. I don’t have any slaves. I’m not racist. We’re back to that, are we? Back to the individual understanding of sin. Back to the me and God and nobody else. When it’s plural, when it’s corporate, when it’s John, and when things aren’t right in the world, that is the sin, not what any individual may do. I had a good childhood and upbringing. Middle-class life. We didn’t want for anything. Had a big house. Even got air conditioning when it came in. That was a big deal. My parents both had college educations and good jobs. Their parents were able to work in Akron, Ohio, in the rubber companies and got good pay and good money so that they could send their kids to college so that I could have a better life. Well, what’s that about racism, Christy? My grandpa, Christy Ramsey, had to join the Ku Klux Klan to get a job at Goodyear. Because only the Klan members worked in the rubber company. You see the difference between I’m a racist and racism? I’m a benefit of that. I’m benefiting of racism. That got my family out of the West Virginia hollows and into colleges and nice middle-class home in the Highland Square area of Akron. See the difference? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from racism. John knew that. Now you do.   What are we to do? What are we to do? We’ve got to quit thinking that sin is something we do in private. It’s just between me and God or go in a box and confess it, and we’re good to go. Because sin is communal, sins in society. Let’s talk about my parents again. My parents both went to college. Books cost 10 bucks for their semester. Ten dollars. They went to a state school, a university school. Remember back then when the governments actually paid for higher education, actually supported higher education? It’s flipped now. Now the individuals have to pay and not the corporate. And now because it’s an individual choice they have to compete for students and get those out-of-state tuition bucks in there, so they have to put the rock climbing walls and have the sous chef and the other chefs in the back and raise their tuition so they compete against the market pressures on that because the government says we don’t have the money for higher education. And yet people say, “I paid for my college education. Why don’t those young people pay their loans?” You didn’t pay for it. The state paid for it. The government paid for it. Our taxes paid for it. But that has changed and flipped around. Eighteen year olds, we do not allow them to choose to have an adult beverage because their minds just aren’t ready for it. They can’t handle that kind of responsibility of getting a beer. But we let them sign up for a $100,000 debt that’s going to haunt them the rest of their lives. I’d rather risk a beer on them. You hear the sin? In my tradition, every Sunday we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Gets really quiet. About half the congregation drops off at that point. Come back for the next one. Corporate sin. That’s not God’s will. John would say, there’s sin right there. We got racism, we got sin. But that savior guy we follow. Remember him? Came back from the dead last week. Big news. Remember? You know, you know he was born in a homeless shelter. There was no room for him. There was no inn. There was no place for him. Public camping was outlawed back then. He was born homeless. It wasn’t too much longer he had to be a political refugee, fleeing across borders against a government that wanted to kill him. Have you read that in the paper lately? Have you seen it on the web? Got to update my notes. They’re sin. That is the sin. And we’ve got a choice. Now you can see the choice. Before it made no sense. But now you see, yeah, we have a choice whether we’re going to fund public education or put our kids into generations of debt. We have a choice. We can retrain that. Or we, what, forgive debt? It’s our choice. Okay? You’re forgiven. That’s the way it’s going to be. It’s up to you, Christians. You can have homeless, or you can house people. What kind of society have we constructed just in my lifetime? That we have revised the tax code and the way we reward people for the work. And that it used to be when they grew up, if you were making a million dollars, every dollar you made at that top end was 90 cents to the government, 90% to the government, we had, oh that’s wrong, take it on down. Now we’ve got millionaires that can go to outer space, while we got millions that don’t have space to live for the night. If you forgive the sins of any, or if you retain them, th

  10. 11/26/2023

    Surprise Judge

    Surprise Judge Surprise Judge a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio and text from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service November 26, 2023 at St Peter’s Episcopal Church edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.   John 8:12-19  Sermons also available free on iTunes Surprise. This is a surprise scripture. Most everybody in the scripture was surprised except the king. They were all going, “What? What’s going on here?” Remember that, that’s a surprise. Today is Christ the King Sunday, difficult place for us. One, we’re not fond of kings in the United States. Two, we’re not fond of having politics in the church, and you can’t get much more political than talking about a king. You get in trouble with that. We don’t like King Jesus. We’d rather just move right on to Advent, you know, maybe a Thanksgiving Sunday, even stewardship, Christy. But not king. And when we do, we’d like to make it our own personal Jesus king. You know, I have a king. King is Jesus. That’s not how kings work. Kings have a whole nation. That’s the whole point of being king. It’s no fun being king of one person. It’s not a thing. But we like it that way. We like to have a personal Jesus, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My lord, my savior, personal, all about me, me, me, I, I, I. We like to make Jesus about ourselves. And Christ the King is when we get the surprise. It’s not about me, me, me and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Now, I did not come this year to the Thanksgiving dinner at the Episcopal church, and I’m pretty confident it didn’t go the way we’re going to look in the video. But here’s a way that people like to make their Jesus their own personal Jesus. It’s from “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby.” We all like to make Jesus in our own image, and you can choose your own Jesus if you’re an American. But surprise. It’s not what the scripture’s about. Surprise. Now, some of you think, and I’m trying not to look at anybody, again, some of you think the surprise is that the right get to go to heaven, and the left go to hell. Well, that’s not the way we planned it out. We always thought the left were the heavenly people, and the right, you know, we’re not too sure about them. You know. But calm down. Just remember, Jesus was looking at the people. So the people on the left were on the right, and the people – so, yeah. Take a little comfort in that. But that’s not the surprise I was talking about. Not a surprise. Everyone there is surprised that Jesus led them out and said, called them out and said, you know, you helped me when I needed help. And they all said, “What?” Or that you didn’t help me when I did. And they said, “What? How is that possible?” You know, when Jesus tells a story, and it’s just more a story than a prophecy, I think; could be, I think. And you look for the weird part, the part that you stumble over, the part that surprises you. Because that’s what God’s doing. Why is everybody surprised? Because it’s not your own personal Jesus. What’s the first part of the scripture? He called the nations together. And all the way through it, you can’t see it in the scripture, it’s in the plural. You nation. You group of people. You did not provide for the sick and the sad, the sick and the imprisoned. You did not provide for the hungry and the thirsty. You did not provide for the naked and the impoverished. As a nation, as a people. No wonder everyone’s surprised. Because they thought their own personal Jesus, their own King Jesus and them were on good terms. I go to church. I do my things. I try to help out. I went to fish. I went, dropped off a turkey at a Salvation Army Turkey Drop. I haven’t really impoverished anybody this week. You know, I’m good. Me and Jesus, me and my own king, we’re good, one on one. Not looking around at everybody else. Surprise. He’s not just your king. He’s the king of everybody. He’s the king of nations. We’re on the hook for it all. I was told the first time that universal healthcare was brought up in our nation in the presidential elections – anybody know? ATTENDEE: The ‘20s? 1916. I could be wrong, 1912. FDR. You know him, a crazy guy, taking care of people. Haven’t got it done. We got it done for people over 65. Why is it moral for people over 65 to get government universal healthcare over here, but the people under 65, oh, no, no, no, no, can’t have that. That’d be politics. That’d be ruining the whole nation. Well, what happened with the 65? You know, what if we just took out “65 and older” and went all the way down? Got rid of the health insurance company. Oh, no, Christy, not the health insurance companies. I love mine, said no one ever. Oh, Christy, that’s politics. You’re talking politics. You’re talking politics. Well, yes. If your politics are that sick people should suffer and die without healthcare, well, I guess I’m talking politics. If one of the planks on your platform for your political party is that sick people shouldn’t get care unless they can pay for it, and they should just suffer depending on how much money they have, well, if that’s your politics, yeah, I’m talking politics. But I’m telling you you’re talking religion. I’m not stepping into your arena. You’re in my house. I’ve got us a king that says the sick are taken care of, end of story, period. So when you tell me the sick are not taken care of, they don’t have insurance – oh, it’s a preexisting condition. Every condition is preexisting unless you develop it in the waiting room. My king says the sick are taken care of. My king says the hungry are fed. And not just me and mine. The king of y’all. I’ve got news for you. Surprise. The king is of y’all. It’s a plural. It’s not just me, well, if you want to, you and the church can go and do this and help out the people. Well, yeah. But that doesn’t let everybody off the hook. The nations get gathered together, not the church people. They don’t have the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and divide them up. Unh-unh. The nations. Everyone. You’re supposed to do all this. And that’s why everyone is surprised. They say, what? You really meant that thing about love one another? You really meant that thing about everyone’s our neighbor? That was a real thing? I thought it was just, you know, me and my actual neighbor next door to me on my street, who I’m pretty sure is named Kit. No. It’s the whole nation. It’s everybody. It’s a community. So I’m not telling you to be political. I’m telling you to be religious. When someone says, oh, that’s politics, your politics don’t trump my religion, man. I’ve got it right here in the scripture. The nations are judged by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not judged by the nation-state. Oh, no, Jesus, you can’t go there. That’s a no-go zone for you. No. No. Be so much nicer to have our own personal Jesus, talk about king and allegiance, maybe even throw in a little controversy about flags in the sanctuary, you know, your traditional Christ the King Sunday. But no. Surprise. Surprise. It’s about all of us, not just one of us. Amen.

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Challenging and thoughtful messages of hope and humor recorded live.

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  • Creator
    J. Christy Ramsey
  • Years Active
    2008 - 2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
  • Show Website
    ExtraChristy - Podcast