One of the rare liturgies in the Episcopal Church is the “burning of the note”, a service that highlights a parish’s or community’s retirement of significant debt. This debt can be from construction expenses, renovation, mechanical improvements, organs, etc. The service is an occasion to allow God to consume that burden and history and to set the parish on a new path forward. In this sermon, Bishop Brian Cole preaches at the burning of the note at Church of the Ascension on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. The parish had a long history of carrying this debt and they marked the occasion with a service and celebration. Below is the audio recording of the sermon along with a transcript (there was not a video for the service).
Transcript
Bishop:
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Amen.
Congregation:
Amen.
Bishop:
I think I had been your bishop for about 26 days for the first time I came to Ascension for a Sunday visitation. It was the first Sunday after Christmas in 2017. You all were having a little bit of upset. And so, I came to be with you and I was greeted at the door by someone who said to me, “You know, the first time this one bishop came to see us, when he got in the pulpit, all he talked to us about was how little money we gave to the diocese.” I’m not stupid, so I realized what the good brother was saying, it was don’t talk about money. And tonight’s kind of a setup, right? I think you saw that flashing thing there in the reading about a cheerful giver, right? I mean, if I made a beeline to that, y’all would stop listening, right? Because tonight, I don’t want to talk about money. Tonight, I want to talk about fire. I want to talk about fire.
One of my favorite liturgies in the entire Diocese of East Tennessee, and don’t tell anybody else I said this, was the Celtic Eucharist at Ascension on the third Sunday of the month, 5:00 PM. I’ve been here several times for that liturgy. A few times, I’ve been invited. It’s good to know if the preacher’s going to show up, right? So I’ve attended those liturgies, but I’ve also sometimes gone just on my own because I’ve needed what that liturgy offers. If you’ve never been to that liturgy at 5:00, it starts in the dark. It starts in the dark, and acolytes in black cassocks and a priest go to the light, and slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly light candles, and a room that was dark becomes a room punctuated with illumining light, illumining fire. It’s one of my favorite services anywhere in the Diocese of East Tennessee. You did not hear me say that.
So often, when we think about fire in the Christian tradition, we think about a fire that illumines, a fire that warms, a fire that is gracious, the Paschal candle that burns at baptisms and at funerals, a fire that guides us, a fire that keeps us safe. That’s not the fire I want to talk about tonight. I want to talk about the consuming fire. In Hebrews and in Deuteronomy, we’re told that one of the images of God is as a consuming fire, so a fire that destroys, that annihilates, that obliterates, a fire that can do some hurt. So what does it mean for God to be a consuming fire? Because if you know your Bible, and I know you know your Bible here at Ascension, if you know your Bible, so much of the Gospels, Jesus talks about God will lose nothing that God has made. So God is in the saving business, right? And in the salvage business, God is in the keeping business. So how could a God also be an image of a consuming fire that destroys and obliterates?
What God destroys and obliterates is sin, and places where we have failed, and places where we have gotten it wrong, and places where we have taken on burdens that have become so burdensome that they’ve impacted and impaired our ability to do what God is calling us to do. So in a few moments, we’re going to take a symbolic note and we’re going to set it on fire, and the fire that’s going to burn is a consuming fire. It’s a fire that’s going to eliminate a burden. It’s going to take away a burden that has burdened you for a long time.
What I know about the story of Ascension is all the great incredible ministry that’s come from this place forever. And what I know about Ascension is I think you all have lived with some kind of debt for your entire existence. So there’s never been a liturgy quite like this at Ascension. A consuming fire. The burden of this debt, which has already been lifted, symbolically we’re going to destroy, we’re going to eliminate, and God’s going to delight in that and God’s going to forget that, which then allows us to remember the rest of the fire that is in this building, because on those evening Eucharists in a room that begins in the dark, which is punctuated by an illumining fire, that’s the fire that’s going to remain here.
The God that’s going to consume this debt and has encouraged you all and been with you all through thick and thin is going to consume this debt and light that fire, and that burden is going to be lifted. And I don’t know what it’s going to be, but something amazing is going to happen in this place because of that. Some kind of spiritual work which is already beginning here is going to continue to take deep root here because a burden has been lifted.
I don’t know if you go to the movies, but I love the movies. There was a film many, many years ago called The Mission. It had Jeremy Irons, Robert De Niro, a little cameo from Daniel Berrigan, one of the best soundtracks of all time. And it’s in Brazil, there are these Jesuits doing work, encountering Indigenous people. And Robert De Niro, surprise, surprise, plays a bad guy. He’s a slave trader and he’s done great harm. He’s a bad guy. He’s a bad dude. And at some point, he’s confronted with his own sin, his own brokenness, and he wants to make amends. And he takes the tools of the trade, his weapons and tools of violence, tools of oppression, and they put those burdens on his back, and he’s going to climb up this hill through mud and rain, and he is weeping and he is in pain and he is burdened.
And at some point, a child from the Indigenous people comes up to him and the child cuts that burden off of him, takes that rope with a knife and cuts it off of him. It’s the very knife that that child could have slit his throat, right? Could have said, “You’re a bad man and you don’t deserve to be here.” That child never planned to do that. That child ran with that knife because someone was burdened and that burden needed to be lifted, and that burden fell and fell and fell and fell, and I think it’s somewhere still falling.
So in a few moments, we’re going to pray, and we’re going to invite the God who is already here to be for us a God of the consuming fire, who’s going to take this burden from you. And when that burden is taken from you, I just want you to be prepared for what’s next, because some kind of spiritual work is going to happen here because of this. Because the God of the consuming fire is also the God of the illumining light, and that’s the God that’s going to also be with you here and lead you into what’s next.
I’m aware that in 2027, you all are going to have a birthday that ends in a zero, so it would be quite appropriate to think about the illumining life that’s going to guide you into 2027 and beyond. My pledge as your bishop is to stay in relationship with you. We’ve been through it, haven’t we? And we’re going to stay in relationship with each other. I’ve said to you countless times, I could not be the bishop without Ascension. So I pledge to keep walking with you and stay in relationship with you. And I am so proud of you, that you’ve kept faith with each other and this place and the ministry that comes from here, and you were willing to talk about a burden. You didn’t hide it, you didn’t deny it, you talked about it, and you’ve been set free from it. And you get to write the next chapter of the story of this place. You get to write a new chapter. You get to be a new people. Amen?
Congregation:
Amen.
Credit:
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