Overturning the Ninevites: Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Once upon a time, long ago, the word of Yahweh came and whispered in a sleeping prophet’s ear. “Get up, Jonah, and go north to your enemy, to their great city Nineveh, and call them to repent, for I see their evil ways.”

The words shook the prophet awake—and he fled from God’s word as far as he could in the other direction. Go to the enemy’s great city? Never! So he went down to the port city of Joppa and booked passage on a boat heading toward the eastern limits of the sea.

Jonah went below-decks, lay down, and went to sleep as the ship set sail for deep waters, because sailing was not a favorite thing for Hebrews to do, since the sea symbolized the home of chaos, tempests, undercurrents, and death. Jonah figured he could just wake up when it was all over, and they were on dry land again.

But God was not about to be thwarted. So no sooner had the ship reached deep water but a mighty storm brewed up at God’s command. And the ship started to lie heavy in the waves that swamped over the side. In desperation, the sailors and even the merchants who were passengers started throwing everything overboard that they could, even cargo they hoped to sell; each praying to any small-g god they could think of that might help: storm gods, sea gods, wind gods. Nothing worked.

So, the captain started counting heads and noticed that that wild-haired holy man was missing. As the ship bucked and rolled under his feet, he went into the hold and found Jonah back in a corner, sleeping like a rock despite the turmoil. The captain shook Jonah awake. “Are you drunk? Get up! Pray to your god, whoever he is, that we can be saved, because this ship is coming apart!” The captain’s words made Jonah uneasy, even somewhat guilty. Jonah had a feeling he knew what was going on.

Once Jonah got on deck, he saw that the others were terrified. Nothing was working, and when nothing works, people often fall back on superstition and magic to try to help. So they decided to draw straws to see who was responsible for this terrible storm. Even before Jonah took his turn he knew what he would see when he chose.

Sure enough, when everyone opened their fists, Jonah’s fingers clutched the short straw, and his ship-mates turned on him with faces contorted by fear: “What did you DO to bring this on all of us?” And he told them he had run away rather than obey God’s command. His words turned their hearts to stone. “What can we do?” the other men cried. And the wind howled louder, and the boat sank even lower, and one of the masts broke off with a loud crack and swept over their heads.

Jonah next words astonished them. “Toss me over the side,” Jonah said, resignedly. Now, some considered for a moment—they knew gods who demanded human sacrifice. But most of them were afraid to curse themselves further by putting his blood on their hands. So they hesitated—and a huge wave nearly knocked the boat over. As soon as it righted itself, they moved with one accord, and with a prayer for forgiveness to the prophet’s God, they plopped Jonah over the side.

The sea instantly stilled, and the remaining sail filled with wind, and the boat darted away. The last sight the sailors saw was an enormous fish, big as a mountain, its mouth swallowing Jonah whole, and then the green flash of a tail as it swooped under the waves. The sailors shivered, touched their amulets, and immediately added Yahweh’s name to their prayer lists.

For three nights and three days, Jonah sat stewing—literally stewing-- in the bouillabaisse of half-digested seafood platters and slime and gastric juices in the belly of that fish. It was dark, cold, smelly, and painful. Jonah was stubborn—three days and nights worth of stubborn—but, eventually, he gave up.

He finally prayed a lament psalm to God, admitting his guilt, as the cold and stench of that fish’s innards pickled his very soul. He threw himself on the mercy of Yahweh, and swore a grudging vow of obedience. And—BAM. Immediately the fish tacked sharply and rose to the surface of the waves, spitting him out onto dry land at God’s silent command.

The coating of slime and fish barf Jonah wore as he rested on the sand did nothing to dim the sound of the voice of God speaking to him again. “Get up, and go north to your enemy, to their great city Nineveh, and call them to repent, for I see their evil ways.” And without a word, Jonah pushed himself up and stalked off, stiff-legged, to Nineveh. A deal’s a deal.

He arrived days later, covered in crusty dried slime—he wouldn’t give Yahweh or Nineveh the satisfaction of a fresh-smelling prophet. And what a contrast he made: the city itself was dazzling, one of the biggest in the world, so big it took three days to walk across, they say. It was the center of the Assyrian Empire, which owned --and oppressed-- just about everything at one time or another. Including Israel. So Jonah decided he would do as he was told—but he wasn’t going to get spiffed up for the occasion.

So into the city he marched. Looking and smelling like a human garbage dump, he thundered out his eight-word sermon in the streets as the people skidded to a stop at the sight (and probably smell) of him and gaped: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!” he thundered, and man, he couldn’t WAIT to see that happen.

There was a pause. Then bedlam broke out. People were wailing. Children were calling for their mamas. Dogs stopped chasing cats and dropped to a halt before them, and the cats didn’t even slash them. They heard the warning, and they BELIEVED. They tore their clothes. They declared a fast. They prayed to God—yes, even to this God of this pipsqueak people they had crushed to dust long ago.

Never has a prophet had such success with such a piece of prophecy and performance art. The king himself heard about it—second-hand, mind you—but even that second-hand prophecy scared the bejabbers out of him, and that king instantly sat down in the ash heap in rags and poured ashes over his head. He even ordered the animals of the kingdom to fast and wear sackcloth as a sign of mourning—and they DID. Chickens... in sackcloth—pigs... fasting. And God was appeased by their repentance, and had mercy, and turned aside from destroying them.

And, in the center of the pandemonium, there stood Jonah. Here he was, the most successful prophet ever—he’d just set a world record for prophecy that would have made Moses and Elijah WEEP tears of jealousy.

Was Jonah happy? NO HE WAS NOT. He looked around, felt the cool breeze of forgiveness and reconciliation blow through those pagan, enemy streets, and-- he SEETHED. He KNEW IT. He knew God, being God, would have mercy on these jerks—and he wanted to see some smiting instead. He wanted to see the place wiped from the map! Whose God was God, anyway? The Ninevites had made his people’s lives miserable for generations. And now they got off, Scot-free? How were the folks back home going to treat him now that he had saved their enemies???

“Oh my GOD, God!!!” he muttered furiously. “Of COURSE you are a God of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive! But this is too much! I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!”

And in a silky, what to Jonah was a frustratingly calm voice, Yahweh replied, “You good and angry, Jonah?” And Jonah actually felt something snap in his head.

Grinding his teeth in impotent rage, Jonah stalked off again on his stiff legs, until he could get outside the city walls. He built himself a shelter, and sat there glaring at the city to see what would happen. Maybe they’d screw up and return to evil—seemed likely, with their track record.

But nope. That repentance seemed real. So just like when he was in that fish’s belly, Jonah stewed, while the sun beat down and he squinted toward Nineveh’s shiny, palatial walls with revulsion. And God caused a beautiful thick vine to grow up and it lent its shade to shield his head, but Jonah was having none of it. "Nice try, God,” he thought, but part of him had to admit that that shade sure was nice.

The next day, God sent a worm, who ate that plant straight across the stem like a buzzsaw. And just as Jonah was coming to grips with that, a red-hot wind blew out of the desert, hotter than an oven, and Jonah keeled right over in a faint. When he came to, he grabbed the sticky hair on both sides of his head and yanked handfuls out in fury like a deranged Elmer Fudd. “And now the vine? REALLY?? I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!” Jonah shrieked at God.

And again came what sounded to Jonah like a silky, frustratingly calm voice from God, leaning in over his shoulder like the butler on Downton Abbey, murmuring, “You good and angry about that vine, Jonah?”

“You bet I am, God!” Jonah snarled. “Angry enough to die.”

“Why are you angry, Jonah?” God asked, as smooth as butter, reasonably, and everyone knows the most infuriating thing when you’re furious is to be met with someone reasonable. “You didn’t do anything for that vine—I put it there out of mercy. It was here for a day and gone in a day. You should be glad it was there at all. But even when it’s gone, what’s it to you?”

“You promised Nineveh would be overturned, God!” shouted Jonah. “And now they’re better than ever!”

Jonah thought he heard a small chuckle. “Why, they ARE overturned, Jonah,” replied God. “They overturned their hearts, and they overturned their evil ways. You did it!”

Jonah stared up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. “Really, God? That’s your loophole?? A play on words? A PUN??? JEEZ! This is why I tried to run away in the first place!” And Jonah was speechless, and a little ashamed, because he was lying. He certainly didn’t know God’s plan at the start, and now he felt like a total fool, and traitor, too, helping the enemies of his own people like that.

God’s voice got softer. “You yourself said it, my son. I AM God, slow to anger, abounding in mercy—unlike you, that’s for sure. And that’s lucky for you, too, dear Jonah. And I will have mercy on whom I choose—you don’t get to decide, especially since right now YOU seem to be lacking in mercy, compassion, and loving-kindness.”

The voice grew more tender. “I am God. You are my messenger, and you know I love you and have mercy on you. And right now I also have mercy on Nineveh, and its 120,000 people and thousands of animals.”

And there the story ends.

_________________________

Now, there are a quite a few interesting lessons here. When I first told you this story three years ago, this parish was in a state of hurt and bewilderment, torn between sorrow and anger. And I decided to tell you this story again because right now our country is in the same place. The lessons of this story need repeating again, I think.

I think about what it has to say to us about how to move forward in our national life and in any relationship which has experienced a huge rupture—one that has hopefully awakened us to the very real danger the politics of division plays in hurting and wounding very real people. There’s a lot of talk about unity right now—but not so much talk about accountability and repentance. Jonah’s story IS about repentance before God. What enrages Jonah is that Nineveh’s repentance before God leaves unsettled the score between Nineveh and Israel—Nineveh as oppressor, Israel as victim—unsettled. Jonah knows that Israel has suffered at Nineveh’s hands—and he wants vengeance.

That’s where we are stuck, right now too. Asking forgiveness of God, and asking forgiveness and reconciling with those whom you have hurt in our human relationships as part of that same sinfulness and selfishness are two very necessary parts of the same thing.

Jonah helpfully models for us exactly what God is NOT: vindictive, retributive, discriminatory—much of what we have seen on display for far too long in our country. We’ve seen the Ninevites take us over—and it’s time for us to wake from the nightmare and say no. No to hurting others as long as we justify it by our own rights without talking about responsibility. No to violence. No to hatred.

Sometimes our own hard-heartedness and stubbornness puts us in the belly of the whale. Even when Jonah grudgingly did as he was asked, he still tried to impose a theology of vengeance and retribution upon God. Even though he could quote scripture identifying God’s essential characteristics as being gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and eager to forgive, in practice he thought that only applied to his own people. A theology of vengeance and division that has ruled our life as a nation for FAR too long.

But God IS the God of second chances—especially for those that have been misled by the lies of the powerful who take pride in their robbery, to quote our psalm. Instead, Jesus becomes incarnate to show us that we are capable of following the path of God in our everyday lives: through Christ, God invites us to seek justice, reconciliation and healing, and not twist those calls in the name of the power of violence and oppression. The Ninevites are now CALLED to embrace God’s values. They cannot continue sowing violence and oppression as they did before.

And God calls all of us too- to engage in not just asking forgiveness but in evaluating where we have supported policies that have hurt very real people because it was easy or profitable, or because we were told that they deserved to suffer. If the Ninevites repentance is real, they can no longer live by oppression, division, hatred, and war.

The lessons we learn from Jonah carry over into the message we hear from Jesus, who also preaches mercy, grace, and healing in a world devoid of it far too often—much like our own world today. A world in which we have to take responsibility for change that brings hope and compassion to all. A world in which far too many people suffer want, neglect, and poverty as we will be reminded in our prayers of the people in a few moments. We will be called to consider working to heal the economic divisions that cause very real suffering in our country and around the world.

I hear a call in this story a reminder that the work of God’s forgiveness doesn’t let us off the hook. To receive a gift is one thing. To be worthy of the gift is another. In order for us as a nation to really embrace the way to reconciliation, which is deeper and more meaningful than mere unity we have to be willing to assume responsibility for the harm done when our opponents are instead recast by our leaders as our enemies and beneath any need for respect. Such dehumanization violates our call as children of God to honor the dignity and worth of EVERY person.

Made in the image of God, we too are called to be both individuals and communities of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive. We are also called to account and to restore where we have damaged others in our blindness or selfishness. In terms of our current crisis, both economic, pandemic and political, we are reminded that we are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.

We are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.

May we begin this work—today. Honestly. Humbly. Remembering we all owe our lives to God—and to each other, regardless of differences.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online service from St. Martin's  Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, January 24, 2021.

Readings:

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm 62:6-14

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

 Mark 1:14-20

Known, Called, and Transformed: Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Even when I was a kid, I read anything I could get my hands on. Given that my parents were older when they had me, and therefore my grandparents were older when I came along, and also that we didn’t have much money so most of our books were second-hand, that meant I did a lot of reading that usually was more common among older generations of kids. My step-grandmother handed me a battered Hardy Boys book she’d found at a garage sale, probably to get me to stop bugging her during one visit. And it was during reading that book that I learned that one could make one’s own radio from what was called a crystal radio set. This intrigued me. And so, since I was also a big fan of Radio Shack, because they gave you a free 9 volt battery each month, I discovered that they still sold those kits, even in the 1970s.

So I saved up my lawnmowing money and my babysitting money one summer, and for once, rather than buying books with my cash, I bought a crystal radio kit. This was a bare basics model, but when I was done, I had a functional AM radio with a solitary earpiece as well as a speaker, and I had learned a little about circuits and coils and all kinds of stuff. I could listen to the radio at night without my parents being any the wiser. I especially loved listening to Cardinals games, when the reach of KMOX made it all the way to Tulsa at night.

In making that radio, I learned a little bit about how radios worked at their most basic level. Making helped lead to understanding.

Perhaps that’s why our psalm today particularly resonates with me. Our psalm expands upon the idea we’ve heard throughout Epiphany of being known intimately by God who is our Mother, Father, and Creator. Psalm 139 reminds us that God’s knowledge of us is complete, even as we cannot possibly presume to know God in the same way.

Sadly, some of the most beautiful and humbling verses of this psalm are among those omitted today, and I think they make a vital point, so I want to include them here:

6 Where can I go then from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
7 If I climb up to heaven, you were there;
   If I make the grave my bed, you were there also.
8 If I take the wings of the morning
   And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9 Even there your hand will lead me
   And your right hand hold me fast.
10 If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,
   And the lights around the turn to night,”
11 Darkness is not dark to you;
   The night is as bright as the day;
   Darkness and light to you are both alike.

These omitted verses make a valuable point about human nature. It is true that we often FEAR being known that much. Someone who knows us that intimately would know our faults, our pettiness, our dishonesty, our cowardice as well as our moments of courage, compassion, and wisdom. We want to manage our own PR. We want to selectively put on display only our best versions of ourselves—and sometimes don’t want to admit our failings even inwardly. We want to believe that we can bury our flaws and our faults, our sins and trespasses, so deep they can never be found. When we find out how deeply we are known by the One who loves us, our response may be to flee. It’s often that way. We feel the blessing of God’s presence with us, and know that God is “our portion and our cup.” We radiate with that blessing. And yet, the minute we think we have God all figured out, that’s when we get off track. Deep down, we think God is like us. We humans tend to judge others harshly, and we project that attitude on God as well, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the doctrine of grace that makes our approach to God possible at all. Deep down, we think that God can only love the best versions of ourselves, because that is too often how we work in relation to others and their flaws.

Yet the second we think we can hide from God, we are lying to ourselves. God is with us always—not just in good times, and certainly not just in bad times. And God is not only with us, but God KNOWS us. Three times it is stated that God knows us intimately—and the knowledge of that simply boggles the mind of the psalmist. In the last part of the psalm that we read today, we are reminded that God not only knows us, but has made us, each and every one, which implies an even more intimate level of knowing.

We live in a time of great turmoil. And I am grateful for these words of this psalm at this time. I see this psalm being sent to us at this time as a true sign of God’s grace. God KNOWS us—and yet loves and treasures us anyway. Even when part of what makes us who we are includes our anger, our spite, our recklessness, and the very real damage we inflict upon others. Even then, when the thought of that love is overwhelming, and we just “know” in our hearts that we don’t deserve such love, that love nonetheless remains. God is with us throughout our fallible, messy lives. God’s love penetrates whatever veils we try to draw around our present or around our past. We sometimes pray, “God have mercy upon me, a sinner.” Yet, the promise is there within those words: God DOES have mercy on us, sinners as we all are, because we are known and loved with a fierce, unending love that is beyond our imagination.

We are all naked before God, like Adam and Eve in the garden. Yet God is with us, loving us, knowing us in all our victories as well as in our darkest, meanest actions. God is with us, loving us, from our first breath to our last. God’s hand is upon us, pressing upon us and at the same time bearing us up with a love that cannot be denied, not even by sin or by death.

Deep in our hearts, unless one is without a conscience, and there ARE people like that, we know the shortcomings of our own lives, the places where our nerve has failed when we could have chosen to do right but instead went along with the crowd.

That’s why most of us resist the idea that God knows us that deeply and completely, and yet STILL calls us to share as disciples in ministry to the world. Yet each of us who call ourselves Christians also must accept that we have been called to transformation of our lives and to discipleship—to carrying God’s good news out into the world. A world that as we have been seeing for the last many months, is groaning our in pain and distress.

We see Samuel called by God in our first reading, and we see Philip and Nathanael called by God in our gospel. When Philip tells Nathanael that Jesus is the one predicted by Moses and the prophets, but then he includes a contradictory detail—Philip adds that Jesus comes from Nazareth. This information actually works against Jesus, for none of the messianic prophecies claimed that the Messiah would come from Nazareth. No, the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem, as part of the House of David. But Nathanael is willing to go take a look.

Nathanael at first fails to understand who Jesus is, just as the boy Samuel misunderstood who was calling him and speaking to him. Yet Jesus tells Nathanael that he had “seen” Nathanael under a fig tree, and this causes Nathanael to believe that Jesus DOES have the special powers that the Messiah would have. Just as in our psalm, we have Jesus as the Son of God claiming to know a person intimately, even though he and Nathanael had never met.

Once again, we see God through Jesus reaching out to us and seeking us, knowing us even better than we know ourselves. God calls to us, but we can choose to respond or not. And Jesus could have said a lot of things about Nathanael—he could have shamed Nathanael for being a cynic, or for passively sitting under a fig tree. Instead, Jesus calls out the characteristic about Nathanael that Jesus most wants to bless, the quality of honesty and lack of deceit that we ALL need more of, especially after living through a century that has been marked by demagogues repeating dangerous, bloody lies until they become powerful weapons against reason, integrity and truth. Jesus calls Nathanael one who is without deceit, and Nathanael is transformed by this assessment to begin to live into it.

When God calls to us, we are changed. The call we hear is to a new identity with new possibilities, a new understanding of ourselves. That new understanding is predicated upon God’s knowledge of and love for us, asking us to open up our eyes to have an epiphany in our understanding of ourselves as well as of our understanding of God. When Jesus calls to us, we are really being called to see ourselves in a new light, in a new way.

We may feel unworthy of our calling to be disciples of Jesus—and we may use that excuse to confirm our natural inclination to keep our faith quiet rather than to share it. The problem is, that natural inclination then leads us to fail in our duty to be witnesses and workers rather than mere claimers of the privileged status of Christian, especially when that claim is used to claim superiority over others as we see too often today.

This reading always comes around the observance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday on January 15. When we find our courage to urge others to “Come and see” failing, it is good that we are surrounded by, as the saying goes, “so great a cloud of witnesses” as the saints who have gone before us. Dr. King’s legacy was to not just invite but to challenge the white majority in this country to “come and see” a God who called all people of faith to demand justice and equality among all of God’s children by truly “seeing” that the historical system of laws and attitudes were meant to oppress, silence, and disenfranchise people of color. Dr. King invited all of us to come and see and follow a Jesus who made his home among the outcast, the oppressed, and the marginalized. Dr. King’s words from more than half a century ago confront the challenges we are facing in 2021 boldly and presciently:

“One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.”(1)

Coming and seeing is a start, but of itself is not enough. Proclaiming that you believe is not enough. Jesus calls his disciples not just to listen, but then to follow. To take a different path than they had planned. To upend their lives in the name of the outrageous truth about the power of love in a world in which oppression lies and tells us we are always alone and vulnerable.

God has searched us out and knows us—and loves us completely. Knowing us as we truly are, God calls us to a life of action and virtue as God’s children. I have seen you, God says. Now come, and see—and be transformed.

Come and be open to seeing—let us be brave enough to admit we need transformation in our personal and national lives. Come and see, and confess where we have closed our eyes to the damage of dishonesty about ourselves—and take hold of God’s call to see honestly our own faults and blindnesses about the struggles of others—and be transformed. Come and give thanks for God’s grace—for a God not of vengeance and violence, but a God that knows us and loves us as petty as we can be—and step out onto a new path in which we truly live by the creeds we claim, as kindred who live lives worthy of our calling as children of God in truth, in integrity, and in mutual love.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO in time of COVID19.

Readings:

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)

Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

John 1:43-51

Sources:

1) The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Love in Action," delivered April 3, 1960, published in Strength to Love, p. 31.

Being United, Being Unified: Speaking to the Soul January 14. 2021

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The church at Corinth involved a group of people who straddled the world between the Greek philosophy and the developing ethos of Christian morality. The question in the reading we will hear this Sunday from 1st Corinthians is addressed to those people who lived 2000 years ago, and yet cuts straight to the heart of one of the greatest challenges that face Christians today: can something be legal, and still be morally wrong? That’s the problem laid before us in the first verse of our reading. Anyone who has considered the issue of adultery will appreciate that the question’s answer must be, “yes.” Just because something does not violate the law does not mean that it is beneficial, to paraphrase verse twelve. The thirteenth verse extends this question further: do we let legal things- for instance alcohol, food, the search for pleasure of various types—dominate our lives?

The struggle to be unified, to be willing to consider others’ needs alongside your own and uphold the virtue of the common good within the Corinthian church is a struggle that rends American society right now, as recent events have shown. Paul reminds the individuals who make up the church at Corinth that they are no longer simply individuals; they are a body, the Body of Christ. Some members of the Corinthian church used a legalistic argument to continue to visit cult prostitutes, arguing something like: if one no longer believes in the gods the prostitutes serve, one is not engaging in idol worship even in visiting a temple prostitute.

Think this doesn’t apply to us? Anyone who has struggled over what to do with a found wallet has dealt with much the same dilemma, or the Christian employers who rationalizes paying his employees as little as possible. It comes down to this: just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should. All children of alcoholics have to decide if they are going to be able to control what happens after they take that first drink, and all people who have found themselves imbibing too much have to evaluate to see if they should continue drinking.

For months, pleas have gone out to wear a mask during the COVID19 pandemic, but some spurn such appeals as limits on their personal freedom rather than seeing them as a simple way to express concern for those around them. Politicians accept gifts from lobbyists and then vote in favor of lobbyist concerns even if they are against constituents’ interests, and when challenged, point to the fact that such behavior is not against the law—even as it violates the spirit of actually being a “representative” for one’s constituents. As we have heard in the last week, calls for “unity” that lack both accountability repentance for previous divisiveness smacks of gaslighting, not of justice or reconciliation. Being one body means actually feeling others’ pain as our own, and prioritizing an outward- oriented concern for the common good, even if it costs us something to alleviate a wrong.

As Christians living in the 21st century, we face every day a hundred interior negotiations between what we say we commit to as disciples of Jesus Christ, and what we commit to as people living in a post-modern capitalist society, based as it is on a heartless calculus of a few “winners” and a large pool of “losers.” Paul is reminding us that being a Christian involves answering to a higher standard. What is allowed is not always for the good, and that certainly applies to matters of law and economics. Sometimes it feels like this needs to be engraved over every legislative chamber, courtroom, and voting booth in the land. The battle between what we are able to do and what we should do arises from the fact that law and morality have never fully overlapped.

Our reading from 1st Corinthians specifically deals with an embodied morality, particularly in matters of sexuality in a specific cultural context. We live in a society that at once worships and vilifies all matters pertaining to the body. Ultimately, however, the point Paul makes is not denigrating the world of the flesh. Instead, he is making the point that it is through the body that we are united with Christ- not just metaphorically. Being united with Christ also unifies us with each other, as members of the body of Christ. Further, Christ did not merely clothe himself in a human body, but he became God incarnate. He did not masquerade as a human body- Christ HAD a human body, and through that experience in that body Christ lived, loved, suffered, and died.

As Christians, we have to be aware that what we do with our bodies and our actions through those bodies matters, not just to ourselves, but to those who are joined with us in the body of Christ. What we do reflects upon all who share our affiliation as Christians. Does what we do increase love, or does it increase division? This is a vital question for us today.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 14, 2021.

This was written as President Donald J. Trump was impeached for the second time in his term in office for incitement of the rebellion of January 6, 2021.

Prayer, day 2908

Loving One, we ask that your kingdom come on Earth,

and peace and equity reign throughout this land and all lands.

Help us to lay willing hands to the plow of justice
as we seek to turn the soil of suffering into a field of hope.
Help us to plant seeds of compassion with each step,
and make our hearts the fertile ground
to bring the common good to life.
Help us to tend
the tender shoots of faith in You and in each other
to create a verdant field of witness
to the love we bear each other without distinction.
And lift up those who struggle,
comfort those who mourn,
soothe those who are anxious.

Amen.

Being Who We Are Called to Be: Speaking to the Soul, January 7, 2021

Genesis 1:1-5

Mark 1:4-11

Yesterday was a day when we teetered on the brink of deep waters—waters that, if they were to close over our heads, threaten to overwhelm us and all that we hold dear. Since there has already been too much of that kind of loss during these last nine months of pandemic, the events many of us watched unfold yesterday felt almost too intense to be borne. I went from working on exegesis on the readings assigned for this Sunday on the baptism of Jesus, to being glued to my television and twitter for much of the afternoon. I went from contemplating the beauty of the opening words of Genesis to seeing the ugliest impulses generated in our political life play out before my horrified eyes. Unbidden, the opening words of Psalm 130 echoed through my head and heart as I watched the chaos in our national capitol unfold: “Out of the depths have I called to You O Lord: Lord hear my voice!”

As I watched the forces of chaos, conspiracy, and division rampage through the halls of democracy, all I could think of was the depth of the waters into which our nation was treading. Sometimes, though, profound shocks can lead to a shaking off of the willingness to accept the banal, everyday evils that creep and infiltrate into our moral framework.

Deep waters, which in Genesis are the canvas upon which creation springs forth, became a murky symbol of loss of control and danger. From my TV screen, I heard person after person, on both sides of the aisle as the events of the day spiraled more and more out of control, protest that “this is not who we are.”

Such statements are more than just a bit of empty protest. When violence, intimidation and murder are elicited from a mob, we must face the uncomfortable truth that, yes, somewhere within us, this IS who we are. There is a size-able portion of our population that denies kinship with those who differ from them, who see difference as threat. The fact that this is done by people who also claim identity as Christian is a problem that affects all of us who profess to be disciples, because their very public identity becomes a net the watching world casts over all who proclaim the name of Jesus. The ties that bind become a snare that we strain against to escape.

But that admission is the necessary first step to repentance and redemption. We are too prone to lash out at perceived threats. Admitting that tendency can help us shed our old skin and embrace who we are called to be. And that is exactly the rebirth at the center of baptism— giving us the courage to let go of our instinctive defensiveness to embrace the new life we are called to in Christ.

In our gospel reading for Sunday, Jesus leads us by example into the waters of baptism to give us the courage and endurance to lean toward who we are called to be. In Christ, we are called to be one people, united by our common heritage as beloved children of God. The waters of baptism are waters of creation, of new life that is centered in hope, faith, and embracing the miracle of the panoply of life all around us. The waters of creation from which we are born, the waters of baptism which are the gates to eternal life and for which we thirst, call us to resist the anarchy, intimidation, and mob rule swirling violently around us yesterday.

Where can we find solid footing for what today may bring? Perhaps these events can finally drive us to reject demagoguery in favor of remembering the shared sacrifice, integrity, justice and compassion that is the foundation of virtue, generosity, and decency. Perhaps we can begin to instead embrace the transformative power of God to aid us in becoming a beloved community, guided by values of shared burdens, shared dreams, and shared sacrifice for the common good.

Almighty God,
we boldly proclaim your Holy Name
and lift our hearts to You in praise.

Living Savior,
our brother in baptism,
our model for holy living,
we embrace you with all our might:
lead us and guide us as your beloveds.

May we make straight the way of the Lord
by all we can contribute as your witnesses,
and represent the gospel of love and inclusion
in all we say and do today.

Draw us to enter joyfully, O Lord,
into the discipleship to which you lovingly call us
through the waters of baptism and beyond.

Purify our wills to reflect your lovingkindness
and help us turn aside from all evil,
embracing instead the pure truth
that calls us to be advocates for others,
walking in integrity and bold ministry in the world.

Spirit of the Living God,
fall afresh on us and bless our common life and labors today,
and let the peace and comfort of God
rest like a dove upon all those for whom we pray.

Amen.