14 February 2024

Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.
~ Joel 2:12-14

Beloved:

A solemn and repeated claim woven in the scriptures is that we have all wandered away from God. Yet the relenting nature of God reclaims and calls us to return to love and mercy. The season of Lent, and especially this day, Ash Wednesday, that invites us to embody the need to return to God holds two ideas in tension — turning and returning. That is, God’s persistent turning to bless us and our continual need to return home to God’s steadfast love.

Lent is about our returning; a repentance to practice the virtues of love and turn from hate. It is about God’s turning; God’s promise to forgive our wanderings from love and our restraint and oppression of others. Lent is an opportunity to let go of what keeps us from returning to God and hold on to what heals and restores us to God and each other. The work of Love is to restore and make whole.

Lent is also about giving to God that which we cannot walk away from, ourselves. The invitation from the Prophet Joel to ‘rend our hearts and not our garments and return to the Lord our God’ is an encouragement to look within as we return to God. The Scriptures suggest that the detachment from materialism may not be enough to make us return. We seem to be possessed by our possessions whether those are physical or internal. When we are too invested in what we own or have accomplished, our hearts and minds may find it difficult to stay focused on God. When we take an inward stock of ourselves, we can freely give our hearts — our very selves — back to God. God will then do God’s work of blessing and forgiving, healing and restoring. We will find ourselves back at home with God.

This Lent, may all that we are and are becoming be blessed and restored in God.

With Ash Wednesday blessings, I am,

+John Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas

Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024

07 February 2024

Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. – Isaiah 40:31

Beloved,

Everyone waits. Waiting is part of our everyday experience; whether we wait for something or someone – whether we wait with joy or dread. In the modern world, much of our stress has to do with an inability to be patient and wait. We desire to hurry through life. Still, today, we will all wait. We will wait to help or be helped; we will wait in line; we will wait to remember or be remembered.

Waiting may be our first and primary response to God. It seems as if we are wired this way. Waiting is the experience between the present moment and the approaching future. It is right between the now and the not yet; always inviting us to a purposeful life. Faithful waiting anticipates and hopefully trusts in what is to come; welcoming the present moment without strain or regret of what is promised. It is our surrender to God’s purpose for us in this world and helps us discover who and what we are becoming.

Like worship, the agenda is God’s, not ours. Our lives can seem like a series of waiting moments leading us to a future we hope for, are invited to, or is forced upon us. When approaching events are not aligned with our personal desires and are likely to make us unhappy, waiting can be hard. Yet, even this hard waiting leads us to an awakening to self and God’s purpose for us. It can revive and renew, strengthen, and restore us for our life’s work.

The Prophet Isaiah’s understanding of waiting on God is profound. After deep questioning, he says “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

This week we are invited to wait. Wait on God, wait with others, wait with ourselves. Wait. Just wait.

With every blessing, I am,

+John Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas

The Presentation of our Lord, February 2, 2024

31 January 2024

Our help is in the Name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. ~ Psalm 124:8

Beloved,

Last Sunday I experienced a holy and priestly moment that I will not soon forget. A three-year-old child walked confidently to the altar, stepped up on a stool, and began preparing the altar for communion. A deacon later joined her and assisted with pouring the wine into the chalice. I could not help but think about the words of Jesus: “... let the little children come, without stopping them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.” (Matthew 19:14)

We all have a desire to belong; to a place or to someone. This is more than an entreaty toward inclusion. The feeling of ‘belonging-ness’ is knowing that we are accepted, connected, and loved just as we are; without expectations or qualifiers. That is, we genuinely fit into the places and the people in our lives.

Thankfully, many have instituted excellent policies and practices of inclusion that provide equal access to opportunities and resources for those who are marginalized and excluded in our society. This sense of inclusion, however, does not necessarily lead to a sense of ‘belonging-ness;’ or knowing that we are at home with others and at home in the places in which we find ourselves.

On my first visit to Arkansas, I said to my host, “I feel like I belong here.” I felt my longing being met for a place and people whose expression of life reminds me of God’s love — a place of communion. Like the little girl at St. Michael’s Church who beckoned us to prepare ourselves for belonging in the transforming presence of God in Eucharist, I am finding my own ‘belonging-ness’ in this place and among you all. In truth, we belong to one another because we all belong to God. Our help is in God, and we are God’s very own.

With every blessing and joy, I am,

+John Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas

Marcella of Rome, January 30, 2024

24 January 2024

May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us. ~ Psalm 67:1

Beloved,

The current rainy and frigid weather reminds me of our dependency on God and our need for one another. We are eager to escape the chilly cold; the careful yet hasty steps we take to keep from falling on ice are both deliberate and measured. We try to be swift and safe all at the same time. We wear protective garments and shoes, lean on supportive fixtures, and employ the help of others to make the necessary progress without fumbling or falling. This is Festina Lente, a Latin phrase that bids us to “make haste slowly.”

In these early days of our life and ministry together, I invite us to “make haste slowly.” We should make haste to love and move slowly with each other in order to cultivate and deepen those connections that will help us discover and accomplish the work that God is calling us to.

We should make haste slowly to build the necessary bonds that will provide the care and support we need from each other when the pain and stress of life challenge our faith and the relationships we cherish.

We should make haste to hold the hand of God; asking to be delivered from our own blindness to the hurt and needs of others and move slowly with them until their wounds find healing and their needs are met.

We should make haste to bless and be blessed by the face of God in each other. The light of God within and around each of us will slowly brighten the day and gently awaken us to the purpose of love. Let us “Make haste slowly” to be that beloved community demonstrated by Jesus.

With Epiphany blessings, I am,

+John Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas

Eve of the Conversion of St Paul, January 24, 2024

17 January 2024

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. ~ I Samuel 3:10

Beloved,

When we are first called to our life’s purpose, the voice of God, though familiar, is not always extraordinary or well-defined. It is often as ordinary as the call of our families and friends. As such, its beckoning cry is easily ignored, overlooked, or even silenced. Extraordinary moments and circumstances tend to grab our attention quickly and for an instant. It is, however, the ordinary in these extraordinary situations, and our connections to them, that invites us to return again and again to the possibility that God is really speaking to us. When we experience a glimpse of this clarity, we find the courage, and are encouraged, to stay and listen. This call, this voice, is the first seed bearing witness to God’s presence within us.

In a few weeks (Feb. 16 and 17) we will gather again as the people of God, the Episcopal Church in Arkansas, at our annual Diocesan Convention. The theme for this year’s convention is “Seeds of Hope.” We will come remembering the wisdom of our ancient past that reminds us, like the child Samuel, to say, “Speak, Lord for your servant is listening.”

Listening to God, or anyone for that matter, is difficult. Even as a spiritual practice, listening is challenging, especially when our minds are already convinced about a particular experience or reality. This is the very moment when we should make a concerted effort to ask God to speak to us.

As your bishop, I am trying to listen to what God is saying and revealing through each of you. Better yet, I am trying to pay attention. So, I am inviting you to share with me and be open to all that God is revealing to us. It is my expectation that God’s revelation and our listening will be the “Seeds of Hope” that will bear witness to the work and presence of God among us. For this, I ask you to come and share, come and see, come and be open.

With Epiphany joy, I am,

+John Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas

Antony of Egypt, 2024 January 17