Proper 23, 12 October 2025 Sermon: "The Ducky Dance" & a Homilette "In-Between"

 Proper 23, 12 October 2025

St George’s Episcopal Fredericksburg, VA

"The Ducky Dance"

Collect

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Psalm 66:1-11

1 Be joyful in God, all you lands; *

sing the glory of his Name;

sing the glory of his praise.

2 Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! *

because of your great strength your enemies cringe before you.

3 All the earth bows down before you, *

sings to you, sings out your Name."

4 Come now and see the works of God, *

how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.

5 He turned the sea into dry land,

so that they went through the water on foot, *

and there we rejoiced in him.

6 In his might he rules for ever;

his eyes keep watch over the nations; *

let no rebel rise up against him.

7 Bless our God, you peoples; *

make the voice of his praise to be heard;

8 Who holds our souls in life, *

and will not allow our feet to slip.

9 For you, O God, have proved us; *

you have tried us just as silver is tried.

10 You brought us into the snare; *

you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

11 You let enemies ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water; *

but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David-- that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. The saying is sure:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he will also deny us;

if we are faithless, he remains faithful--

for he cannot deny himself.

Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Good morning and greetings. Who am I? And why am I here? You may be asking yourself those very questions. Last week I began as your Interim Associate Rector. It has been a wonderful and wild week and a half since I started. My name is Rock Higgins, and I will be with you over the next 10 months or so.

I have been a priest in three parishes around Richmond, and I am glad to be here with you as you discern the position and who God is preparing to come be with you.

We continue in our season of Generosity which we began last Sunday with the lengthy parade of ministries which make an impact in and around Fredericksburg. The list and breadth of ministries was impressive. As Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple reminded us, “The Church exists primarily for the sake of those who are still outside it.” We are here to make a difference in the world, to be leaven to raise the world’s standard, to be light to drive out the darkness, to be salt to bring out the God-flavors woven into creation.

The prophet Jeremiah said as much to the children of Israel. While mostly seen as the weeping prophet, here Jeremiah takes a moment to have us have hope in even in the midst of troubles.

Build houses and live in them; 

plant gardens and eat what they produce. 

Take wives and have sons and daughters; 

take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, 

that they may bear sons and daughters; 

multiply there, and do not decrease. 

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, 

and pray to the Lord on its behalf, 

for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

As they succeed, so do we all.

Friends, we are living in strange and hard days. And the world needs the faith, hope, and love we find in Christ even more than any other time I remember. The times are calling for a literal following of Christ’s commands more and more. 

When someone slaps you, turn the other cheek.

Bless those that curse you.

Do good to those that hate you.

Love your enemies.

I have heard these all my life and never thought things would devolve to the point of having to consciously follow these instructions. Literally, at times.

I was a pastor in another denomination for a long time, but felt God’s calling into the Episcopal Church, thanks be to God! To support my family during this transition, I taught school. A friend was head of school at a private school, a private middle school for boys. He had asked me repeatedly to come teach for him. For many that may seem like a punishment or one of Dante’s Levels of Hell., but I I loved the energy and enthusiasm that drove the place every single day. One of the prices of that energy was the occasional fight which would break out. It was part and parcel of the territory in which we resided. And over and over again, I would talk with one or both parties and call them to a higher place. “Billy,” or whatever the boy’s name was, “Billy, I need you to be the bigger man.” And almost every time, the response was, “I don’t want to!” And I got it. Being big when people are being small is SOOOOOO HARD!

But when the child showed the inner grit to ignore the taunts and provocations, they soon ended. They let them slide off, and got on with their life. I came to call this the ducky dance. If you watch a duck come out of the water, they shake starting with the head, and then working their way down themselves to their tail feathers. Once they have shaken off their tail feathers, their little ducky dance is over and they move on with their life.

All of our readings this morning is about moving on from things which hinder us or hold us back, and they could not be more relative or applicable to the times in which we find ourselves.

Jeremiah told us to seek the welfare of where God has planted us, and the Hebrew word there is shalom, seek the shalom of the city in which we find ourselves. Through cultural osmosis, you probably know that Shalom translates as peace. And especially these days, we seek and pray for peace. But too often, that peace is merely the absence of war. We can hate someone’s guts and have an absence of war. This word connotes things far greater and more blessed than that. It is peace with ourselves and with one another. It is peace with no worries. It is peace beyond understanding and it is shared.  Shalom is going to bed without a worry, your doors unlocked and your windows open. It is the comfort of a child sitting on a grandparent’s lap and taking a snooze. All is okay, and will be okay. That is shalom.

Hear again Jeremiah with that understanding.

…Seek the shalom of the city where I have sent you… 

and pray to the Lord on its behalf, 

for in its shalom you will find your shalom.

That is what we are talking about. And to get to that point, especially in the times in which we find ourselves, we have to do the ducky dance A LOT. We have to be the bigger person, A LOT. We have to go above and beyond, and more than follow the rules.

Paul, in his letter to Timothy from today’s readings, was asking that of him. To go above and beyond the Dos and Don’ts, beyond the the Thou-Shalt-Nots. 

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed…

According to Roman law, a soldier could demand of you to carry their pack one mile. That’s a little bit further than from right here to Mary Washington’s campus. On Roman roads, which were so well made they are still in use 2,000 years later, they were well marked, so one could know the exact distance of one mile. But Jesus wants us to be like him, to go above and beyond, to do the ducky dance and be the bigger person. In the Sermon on the Mount, he taught us this way.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. [Matthew 5:38-41]

As we look at being Generous in our season of Generosity, this is what we are talking about. Having the faith to know we are bigger than the situation in which we find ourselves. Our enemies can actually be Friends Becoming. Our attackers can be Future Partners. We can actually be more than conquerors instead of victims who have no hope.

One of the most counter cultural things we can do right now is teach, preach, and live in Hope when most of the world thinks we are all in a Hopeless situation and are doomed. As Scripture teaches, “If God is for us, who can be against us.” [Romans 8:31] You and God are bigger than anything you will ever face. Especially in days like these!

In closing, I do want to touch on the Gospel. Not to squeeze it in, but that it is an example of going above and beyond. Most of us have been told the story that is our Gospel reading today since our toddler days if we were raised in the Church. It becomes a good morality tale of saying thank you, an early way to show appreciation. Since many churches Stewardship seasons are about now, there is the expected sermon of “Our support of the Church is a way for us to say Thank You.” While that is true, I think we can go beyond the simplicity of that.

What we saw was the Samaritan who came back as something else, something more. Jesus called on the Ten Lepers who had requested help to follow the Commandments to lepers to show themselves to the priest so that they could be declared Clean, healed and whole after a devastating skin disease that stripped you of your community and identity. A leper was basically exiled and as good as dead.

The lepers, probably having heard of Jesus’ reputation, and with nothing left to lose, cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And then he instructs them to go and show themselves to the priests. The text tells us that they did what he said, even though they had not been cleansed yet! They were lepers going to show themselves to the priests, and in the going they were healed. They followed the instructions and reaped the reward. And here lies the surprise, the reason this story gets repeated 2,000 years later is as consistent as those Roman roads.

One of them, one least expected, an outsider, a foreigner, when he sees that he is actually healed, went above and beyond the stated instructions which was to follow the Commandments regarding lepers. 

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

The disciples and most of the first hearers of this story would have heard (and probably used) the name Samaritan as a slur, a title of being less than and worthy of scorn. But in this case, this one did what was instructed, and then went above and beyond. He came back, praising God with a loud voice. He came back and prostrated himself before Jesus and gave thanks.

He did the leprosy Duckie Dance, and shook it off. He gave the cultural separation the same. And Jesus saw it and praised it. And he calls us to do it, too.

As we ponder Generosity, we are pondering being like God. God is Generous. God is Abundant. God is Loving. God goes above and beyond. And I believe, God hopes for us to be that way and helps us get there, too! Amen

Celtic Service Homilette

"In-Between"

If you grew up in the Church, you have been hearing the story of the Healing of the Ten Lepers your entire life. Mostly as a morality story we tell our toddlers to instill in them a sense of politeness  and appreciation, it helps them say their Please and Thank Yous.

I think this story is much more than that. I preached this morning on us being called to go above and beyond the normal expectations and live in a space of abundance and generosity with an attitude of Hope. But this text is rich and we can mine it for much more. In my readings of it, it also struck me of how Jesus and his disciples, as well as this fledgling band of lepers, encountered one another in a liminal space.

Liminal is a fancy way of saying in-between. The technical definitions are:

1. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

2. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.

Jesus and his disciples were in a liminal space because they were passing between the area between Samaria and Galilee. Now Jesus had made a name for himself in Galilee, and was heading to Jerusalem. This is the final trip which ends, in Luke’s account, with the events we remember during Holy Week.

Jesus had no intention of having this encounter that we know of. The Lepers, having heard of him through the word on the street, or pathway, knew he was a healer and asked for that. Had they heard he was coming that way? We do not know. We can’t. We just know they did ask for help and got it.

The Bible is filled with stories where God sneaks in in those in-between spaces and times in our lives.

Moses and the Burning Bush. He was tending his sheep when he noticed something out of place.

Isaiah in the Temple. God’s glory fills the Temple and Isaiah is caught off guard and feels unworthy of such an encounter.

I may be more sensitive to this idea of liminality because that is where I am these days. I am moving into a new space. My wife and I became empty nesters 7 weeks ago, and we are still getting used to that. I am in a liminal space right now, and I have found that God keeps showing up. Maybe because I am more attentive between things. It is humbling, and disorienting, and wonderful.

I am not sure that God approaches us during those threshold moments, maybe God does cause we are paying more attention. Or maybe God is always calling us, and it is in those transitions when so many things are coming at us that we are attentive enough to pick up the call. Either way, there seems to be a recurrence in Scripture and my experience when God catches us in-between.

I would invite you, friends, to think of Worship as just that. An in-between space, when we step into the otherworldly from the mundane. How different would we approach worship if we expected God to show up? Hanging above the door in the eminent psychologist Carl Jung’s office was a sign. It was in Latin, with a simple, but clear message. It worked for the work he did with his patients in his office, as well as being there above the threshold as they went back into their lives.

"VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT."

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

As you stepped into this space tonight, that was true. When you leave this space tonight, may it be even more true. Always be open for those serendipities when God breaks through. Blessings, and thanksgivings, for our in-between times! Amen