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.

The Radical, Humble Love of the Christian Ethic: Sermon for Proper 18 A

For the first 48 years of my life, the beginning of September meant sitting in a classroom. I spent thirteen years in public school. Then four years in college. Then twenty-seven years as a teacher, and two more in there as a sub. And then, even after retirement, I immediately spent three more years in seminary. The first September I wasn’t in a classroom was a disorienting experience indeed. I started a tradition then of reading a favorite book from my childhood during September—since I was usually sneaking favorite books of my own behind the covers of my textbooks anyway during my school days.

I hadn’t made up my mind yet as to which book I would re-read this year, but as I was meditating upon this week’s scripture readings, I was reminded of a scene in To Kill A Mockingbird, and so fate took a hand.

In the scene I am remembering, seven year old Jean Louise Finch, known as Scout, the young narrator, has just had an awful first day of first grade. She had been scolded repeatedly by her teacher, who had just moved to Scout’s hometown after taking her first teaching job. First, Scout got in trouble because she already knew how to read, and write—not just printing but in cursive!—and been told to tell her father not to read with her any more. Then she had further embarrassed the new teacher when trying to explain why a boy in class, Walter Cunningham, didn’t have any lunch and wouldn’t accept a loan for lunch. The Cunninghams were poor farmers in the midst of the Depression—but they would not accept charity or anything they couldn’t pay back. Rather than thank Scout for the information, her teacher puts her in the corner.

And the day got worse from there. By the end of the day—which also included her getting into one fistfight and two paddlings—she had decided she wanted nothing more to do with school. When her father sat down with the newspaper to ask her to read, she reluctantly told him the story of her day, and the prohibition not to read with her father any more, and begged her father, a lawyer named Atticus, not to make her go. Rather than respond directly to her pleas, Atticus, in his placid, down-to-earth way, instead tries to lead Scout from being angry at her teacher and all her other adversaries that day to being compassionate. He tells her what he calls “a simple trick” to being able to get along with a wide variety of people she will encounter in her life:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

It seems like nowadays we could all use a big dose of Atticus Finch’s advice, grounded in humility and concern for others. As my friend Brooke pointed out last week, such a willingness to learn the perspectives of others as being valid even if they don’t jibe with your own would be truly radical. As Brooke pointed out, one of the meanings of radical is “revolutionary.” But another meaning of radical is “from the root,” “foundational,” or “basic, down-to-earth.”

Today we hear in our epistle and in our gospel some radical ideas about love, compassion, and reconciliation. In our time of division these ideas seem revolutionary, but as disciples of Jesus, these guiding principles of a Christian life are meant to be the very necessary foundation to our lives as new creations in Christ.

On its surface, our reading today from Romans begins by talking about indebtedness, and seems to urge us to own no one anything, just like Walter Cunningham’s family in To Kill A Mockingbird. On the surface, the first verse we hear today seemingly talks about standing on your own two feet, and avoiding being indebted to anyone.

Or does it?

Because immediately after the statement about debt, there’s an exception made: love. We are reminded that there is one debt that we can never repay: the debt of love. In the original Greek, I have learned, there is a double negative in the opening clause, which basically says, “Owe no one nothing.” Now as all grammar nerds and mathematicians know, a negative times a negative equals a positive. Thus, we really owe each other everything. Because LOVE is everything.

Love entails obligation- but also support. Love involves risk-- but also reward. Love involves treating each other as if the other person’s happiness means more than our own, and hoping that love is mutual and reciprocal. When it’s not, we get the gospel reading for today. We all know people who claim that they love someone, and then treat that person horribly. We all know classic “takers” who strategically manage their relations with others so that they gain some advantage, and then discard that relationship when their purpose has been met, or when reciprocal expectations kick in. That’s not love, it’s ownership-- a transactionalization of relationship rather than a transformation of relationship that we are being called to here in this section of Romans.

And to be clear: the love we are talking about here is not a mere emotion, but a commitment and action to work for the good of someone else. The word used for this kind of love in the New Testament, and used over 115 times in the New Testament, is agape. It is not a love that keeps a balance sheet, calculating assets and liabilities, debts and payments. It is a love that is wrapped in the very real understanding of our mutual dependence and interrelatedness with others.

And it is a love that is the foundation of the Christian Ethic, or way of living and embodying our allegiance to Jesus. The verses we hear in Romans today actually form a unit with last Sunday’s section from Romans 12. If you recall, last week we heard the first part of Paul exhortations to the Romans about love as the foundational principle of Christian life. We heard:

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.* 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;* do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;* for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ 20No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Bless those who curse you? Feed your enemies? Talk about being radical!

The radical love we are called to embody starts from humbly seeking understanding—from being willing to acknowledge the pains and perspectives of others honestly and with an open mind, that rarest of creatures these days. Just as Atticus Finch advised us all, the point of our epistle and our gospel is being willing to be humble, to be open to the perspectives of others:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Atticus’s wise advice echoes that of Paul and of Jesus here. Jesus urges us to never give up on trying to reconcile with and love even those who have hurt us. Paul advises us to learn how to love our neighbors, and get inside their perspectives, by first getting inside the perspective of Jesus—a Jesus who ate with tax collectors and Gentiles rather than writing them off as beyond redemption. That’s what Paul means when he talks about “putting on the armor of light.”

Paul and his generation believed that Jesus’s return was imminent. But when one considers that you never get back an hour once it is gone, it is urgent for all of us, if we are going to claim to be disciples of Jesus, to get on with being just that. Discipleship is a radical way of living in the world because it is based transformation rather transactions as way of measuring our relationships. On ceaseless pursuit of reconciliation, rather than revenge. The “armor of light” is, once again, love for each other, love rooted in our baptismal promises to honor the dignity and worth of every person. Not just the familiar. Not just the “good.” Not even just the repentant, as our gospel reminds us.

And here’s the magical thing about climbing inside the perspective of Jesus. Suddenly we can see the pain and the oppression our neighbors, especially those who exist on the margins of society, endure. When we see our neighbors through the eyes of humility, love, compassion, and charity, we determine to stand alongside them in working for true justice.

In gratitude for the love of God that sustains us and draws into a community—the community of faith, the kingdom of God, however you name it, we are called to love our neighbors as much as God loves us today and into eternity. Even when we or they do wrong, as out gospel reminds us. Even when we or they hurt others. So we love the Lord our God with everything we have, and we love our neighbors as if they were a part of our very own body—because they ARE. The illusion of separation and division is a seed sown from the hells that we put ourselves in when we start trying to wriggle out of the commandment to love each other without reservation, no matter how different those we meet may be from us in background, experience, or culture.

We owe it to our God, and to each other, and to ourselves, to love each other- even if we do that just by wearing a mask or washing our hands. Paul points out what Jesus stated when he formulated the great commandment: that all the law and the prophets boil down to one thing: LOVE. Loving God, and loving our neighbors. God IS love. That’s the foundation of our faith. And it’s radical. May we all be so radical—and so be rooted in the life of Christ.



Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online service at St. Marin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 149
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

Being Fearless, Being Light: Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A

This week by a fluke I discovered a wonderful little book, called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy. It’s a simple book, hand illustrated and written in brush strokes, so you might think it is for children—and it is. But it is also for adults, too—and it’s categorized as ethics. I want to share part of it with you.

The book starts off with a boy, who meets a mole. 
“Hello,” the boy says, and the boy and the mole look at each other. 
“I’m so small,” said the mole.
“Yes,” said the boy, picking up the mole. “But you make a huge difference.”
The boy then places the mole on a low-hanging branch on as tree, and climbs up to join the mole. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole. 
“Kind,” replied the boy, and he is shown holding an umbrella over the mile as it rains in the tree. 
“What do you think success is?” asked the boy
 “To love,” said the mole. 

**** 

The mole is then shown looking at a beautiful three-tiered cake. “Well hello,” the mole murmurs to the cake. 

The boy and the mole are then shown walking and talking. 
“Do you have a favourite saying?” asked the boy. 
“Yes,” said the mole. “If at first you don’t succeed, have some cake.” 
“I see. Does it work?" asks the boy. 
“Every time,” the mole replied. 

****

The mole is then shown carrying a cake, setting it down and looking at it. “Just a tiny taste,” the mole says to himself, and in a series of images, we see the cake disappearing and the mole getting rounder. 

The boy and mole are walking and talking together again.
“I got you a delicious cake,” said the mole. 
“Did you?” 
 “Yes.” 
“Where is it?” 
“I ate it,” said the mole. 
“Oh.”
“But I got you another.”
“Did you? Where is that one?”
“The same thing seems to have happened,” the mole observes.

****

The boy and the mole are back sitting on the branch in the tree, facing each other. The boy speaks: “What do you think is the biggest waste of time?”
“Comparing yourself to others,” said the mole. 
“I wonder if there is a school of unlearning."
We see a picture of a mole with glasses and a cane. The mole continues, “Most of the old moles I know wish they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.” 

****

The boy and the mole are shown sitting on a rock, looking out at a field or moor. 
“What is that over there?” asks the boy. 
“It’s the wild,” said the mole. “Don’t fear it.” 
The two friends begin walking in the moor alongside a stream, and the mole remarks, “Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.” (1)

****

“Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.”

What an amazing observation. It’s actually what the gospel is all about, too. And I was thinking about this observation in light of the fact that today is also Scouting Sunday, and so, although I don’t want to put our Scouts on the spot, I was wondering if you would care to share the Scout Oath with us?

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.  

I am struck by the similarity of the principles of Scouting and the principles of being a faithful person. Scouts are also called to be dedicated, brave, loyal, and engaged with the community around them. You don’t become a Scout just for yourself, or just to collect merit badges. You also don’t just become a Scout for a season of your life. Scouting and groups like it are a lifelong community of people dedicated to working for the good of the greater community. It’s a life dedicated to sacrifice, in the best sense. Just like in our religious lives, being committed to a cause greater than yourself and selfish concerns makes a Scout brave, as well as reverent.

“Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid."

Our reading from Mr. Mackesy’s book and the principles of Scouting support the point of our readings today. As an observer of human nature and child of the Bible Belt, I learned early on that a lot of times people engaged in religious behavior when they are afraid—I noticed this when I was a little kid. When the tornado flew over our house when I was ten, and landed the next block over, as we huddled under the mattresses—except for my dad, who was keeping company with some guy named Jack Daniels, some guy named Marlboro, and our collie dog out in the garage—we certainly engaged in some prayer. Probably even my dad with that Jack guy and Marlboro guy.

Then as I grew older, I realized that some people were going to church out of fear. My Catholic friend told me about Holy Days of Obligation, and Confession, and dying in a state of mortal sin—and it scared me, and I was just a little towheaded Protestant. The preachers in some of the churches my mother took us to did an awful lot of describing of the Devil, and the fires of Hell, and being tossed into a lake of fire.

And I knew people who didn’t worship God so much as fear Him—and yes they always called God “Him” with a catch of fear in their voice. And it made me sad—the majority of Jesus’s words to us are meant to allay our fears, because a heart filled with fear has no room in it for love. 

Jesus spends a huge amount of his time reminding us of God’s abundance, of God’s generous love and gift of grace, probably because we live most of our lives being told to see everyone around us as competition for scarce resources, and see strangers as potential “takers of our stuff.”

In religious practice, this fear and hardheartedness often leads people to constantly try to find some magic formula that will keep God from smiting us, some calculated exchange where we try to find the least we can give so that we can still maintain the illusion that we are in control of our lives. And so they check off boxes like going to church—without ever moving to BEING the church out in the world. And it all starts out of hard-heartedness—which is almost always rooted in anger and fear.

Our readings today address those kinds of issues too. Our reading from Isaiah deals with how we can offer a sacrifice to God—what Isaiah calls a “fast”-- that would truly be holy and pleasing. At the root of Isaiah’s call to renewal is this question: How important is it to put your heart into what you do? Or is it more important to simply follow the rules and checklists of our “to-do” lists?

Fasts, especially in our world of cheap fast food, certainly are not a common practice—unless you are a religious person. Many of us have at least encountered religious people who fast at some point in the religious year. But the reading here questions empty observance of ritual without allowing true repentance to take root in our hearts. We are coming up on the season of fasting, and so it’s a good time to ask ourselves what purpose fasting serves.

It’s important to note that fasting isn’t just a Christian religious practice. Jews observe a ta’anit, or fast, on Yom Kippur and on Tisha B’Av, a day in July or August that mourns the two terrible destructions of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and then the Romans. Muslims fast as part of the Five Pillars of Islam during the daylight hours in Ramadan, unless they are sick, pregnant, or traveling. Many Buddhists fast from meat and animal products by observing a strict diet of vegetarianism. 

Isaiah admonishes those who are using their fast to try to manipulate God without allowing God to transform them and their actions and values. This passage addresses the problem of empty worship—worship that makes the worshiper appear to be righteous, but instead is just camouflage, ultimately an empty gesture because it does not lead to a conversion of the heart and the soul.

It’s a trap that hangs there in front of all of us in this time, too. It’s easy to claim to be a Christian, or a Scout, or as a member of any other voluntary association, especially if that label gives you access to power and influence. It’s easy to claim that label but also resist or actually refuse being changed by the ideals the group stands for, such as following those commandments Christ gives, like loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies. 

I mean, who here has had a neighbor who was really hard to love? We did—Mrs. Mayes, who would call the cops on us when we flew our kites in front of her house. I kid you not. Who does that?? So loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies--THOSE are real sacrifices, too. But in Isaiah, God points out that the people are not truly engaging in sacrifice but merely participating in that same kind of magical thinking that pretends that by doing X, we can make God do Y.

Dear ones, God is NOT a puppet dancing on our strings. But the good news is, we aren’t supposed to be puppets, either. God doesn’t want empty shows of deprivation. God wants all of us—heart and soul, because God adores us that much. 

There certainly are times when our actions seem outwardly correct, but lack a conviction of the heart. This is also a common theme in scripture. Thus Isaiah reorients the term “fast” here in an unusual way—turning the concept of sacrifice on its head. Basically God is saying this: Don’t fast to me out of fear—offer your best to me and those around you out of love. Be fearless in giving to others. Be fearless in fighting wrong, even if it costs you. Don’t make a show of doing without if, after you end your fast, you continue to engage in activities that ignore the plight of the suffering, or even adds to that suffering.

Do you want to make a sacrifice that pleases me? God asks. Fight injustice and oppression. Feed the hungry and bring the poor into your home just as eagerly as you would an honored guest—which was a very serious obligation in the Mediterranean culture of that time. Clothe those who are naked. Help your family members rather than try to hide from those who need help. And do it all not out of fear, but out of love. Be fearless in living out of love, and your light will shine out for all to see. 

Through Isaiah’s words, God continues offering practical advice for those who want to LIVE as children of God in word, name, and example: Stop gossiping about others or pointing the finger of blame or shame at others. Satisfy the needs of the afflicted—those who lack safety, who are fleeing from slavery, oppression, warfare, lawlessness, racial or religious oppression, or violence. 

God makes it clear that the observation of religious ritual is empty if it does not bring about changes in one’s daily life, such as in how one treats others, as this reading points out. Ultimately God further clarifies the point of sacrifices: they are meant to give us the blessing of being holy, of being part of something larger than ourselves. Sacrifices are meant to give us the blessing of living without fear. 

And what is the result of following these kinds of sacrifices—the kind that make the person doing these kinds of sacrifices holy, blameless, and even blessed in the sight of God? Isaiah tells us that by being generous and openhearted in our own lives, God will pour out abundance within our hearts, making us joyful and even fearless in all we do in the name of God. Isaiah also promises that by offering our true fast to God, “Our lights will shine out for all to see.” Just as Jesus assures his followers in our gospel today. 

In our gospel, Jesus has just giving the Sermon on the Mount, and we hear the words right after the Beatitudes. Notice that Jesus also pointedly compares his disciples to light, just as the Isaiah reading did. Light helps us to see, and in seeing, gain knowledge and wisdom. Light is directly associated with wisdom in the word “enlightenment”—which is why we talk about “our eyes being opened” whenever we come to a new understanding, or epiphany. 

The point of enlightenment is not selfish—it’s not a “get out of hell free” card, although some people would lead you to believe so. No, truly enlightened discipleship doesn’t mean staying cloistered amongst true believers, who already live in light. Rather, Christian enlightenment calls us to go out where people dwell in darkness, and to work for their enlightenment, which in turn will build our own.

Letting your light be seen can mean not hiding your talents or beliefs, but also being authentic in your actions as well as words, and living with integrity, as Isaiah described in that first reading. 

Jesus constantly asks us to imagine how we would be if we were less afraid. Jesus’s message throughout Matthew is that kingdom of heaven is already upon us—not just somewhere off in the future. Our time to truly live as disciples is NOW, and Jesus seeks our response if we are to truly follow him and obey God’s commandments to love fearlessly and give fearlessly in heart as well as action. 

 Just like in that little book of ethical teachings about the Boy and the Mole, Jesus himself offers us a school of unlearning, as we heard in our story. Jesus challenges us to attend his school of unlearning—to unlearn the belief that we are awash in darkness, and that there is no way out. The belief that it is better to grab all you can than share what you have. The fear that there is never enough. 

Jesus calls us to turn our lives around first by denying the sway that common contempt and cruelty has in the world—and instead calling us to grow up to be kind. And then keep going in being more deeply transformed by Jesus’s radical gospel of love the more we practice true worship of God outside these doors and out in our everyday lives.

Be fearless. Be the light. Living as lights to the world is a call to be fearless in allowing Jesus’s gospel of love to transform us inwardly, and then to let that light shine through our care of each other and even people we’ve never met. It means saying yes to Jesus’s invitation to let go of fear and anxiety, to actually believe his promises of transformation, and then act of that ongoing transformation with the least of those around us.

Be fearless. Be the light.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on February 8, and at the 8:00 and 10:30 Eucharists at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.


Readings:
Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]
Psalm 112:1-9, (10) 
1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]
Matthew 5:13-20


Citations:
1) Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, 2019. You can buy a copy of this amazing, beautiful book here.

Seen, Loved, Freed: Sermon for Proper 16 C, the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

The question of keeping a Sabbath can seem quaint and old-fashioned and even ludicrous to many of us. Our culture prizes busy-ness so much that even our days away from work aren’t often really away from work, thanks to cell phones and email. And even on weekends, our lives are jam-packed with activities—taking the kids to lessons and practice for sports teams, doing laundry and fixing up our homes. Even our leisure activities are all too often a whirl of activity. Sometimes our culture can even make volunteering not so much voluntary but part of our competition with each other. 

But when I was a kid, there were still these things called “Blue laws.” Does anyone remember them? These were state and local laws that actually shut down businesses on Sundays. By the time I was a kid, it was only until noon on Sunday, because after church we Okies had to buy our beer and our snacks so we could watch football after church, but still. And just like in our gospel today, these laws had unintended consequences. 

And that’s the problem illustrated by the reaction of the synagogue leader in our story who protests Jesus’s healing of this poor woman on the Sabbath. He privileges his interpretation of the law over the intent of the law regarding the Sabbath. He privileges a moral system over the moral imperative to compassion. 

That, and the fact that, for the third time in five weeks, we see someone triangulating again. Because I hope you pay attention that the synagogue leader doesn’t approach Jesus to question or complain. Oh no-- instead he complains to the crowd, not Jesus, about what Jesus has done that he thinks is a violation. 

Once again: trying to score cheap points off of someone publicly when you disagree with them rather than talking to them directly is absolutely dirty pool, people. When people engage in triangulating behavior like this, it almost always is about their own threatened sense of power or personal issues, rather than really trying to work with someone else. The synagogue leader sees that the crowd is enthralled by Jesus’s power to heal—and it threatens his position as an authority. So he sets out to prove his competence—and Jesus’s lack of authority. 

The synagogue leader does not see what a miracle this healing is for this woman--all the leader can see is that, in his mind, the timing isn’t right. And Jesus is having none of that. As we see over and over again in the gospels, when you privilege human-made interpretation of rules over real human suffering, you always come down on the wrong side of God’s kingdom. And that’s exactly what Jesus then points out, to the crowd the synagogue leader has attempted to manipulate. 

Jesus makes it clear that the purpose of the Sabbath is not to place another set of burdens on people. No—just the opposite: the purpose of the Sabbath is freedom. Freedom from work. Freedom to worship and center ourselves in God. Freedom to be with those we love. Freedom from anxiety. Note that when he heals the woman, he frames it within the context of freedom, the kind of freedom that doesn’t oppress others, but the kind that immediately enables her to give praise to God and stand upright and joyful before the altar of God. Jesus speaks of freedom because it is praise that is the highest expression of our freedom to worship, then and now. 

In the New Testament, religious authorities are constantly confronting Jesus regarding his violations, in their opinion, of cleanliness and Sabbath regulations. In these stories, the religious leaders are always watching to see what Jesus will do—and also to be able to testify as to his apostasy for violating the Sabbath. Jesus confronts the leaders and questions whether it can even be unlawful ever to heal on the Sabbath. They never seem to actually SEE what Jesus is doing, however, perhaps because they are blind, from a compassionate point of view. 

Here’s the thing: this goes back to the lawyer’s question of Jesus as to what the greatest commandment is. Do you remember Jesus’s answer? I hope so, because at the 8:00 service we have the ultimate cheat sheet, since we say it every Sunday. 

Because the controversy we have before us is based on pitting both halves of the Great Commandment against each other: the synagogue leader promotes rigorously observing the Sabbath as the fulfillment of “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and mind.” Jesus performs miracles of mercy and healing, which certainly is the fulfillment of loving your neighbor as yourself. 

However, Jesus refuses to concede that this should ever be an either/or proposition. It is obvious that Jesus believes that these two acts are complementary, that healing the suffering IS showing faith in and love for God, ESPECIALLY on the Sabbath. 

Indeed, as Jesus himself notes, does not healing actually hallow the holy day? Is not this daughter of Abraham worthy of as much consideration as even one’s livestock? His blunt comparison probably provided a much-needed shock to his critics—and to us today, as well. Think of the people who get outraged at animal cruelty and yet don’t blink at the prospect of children in cages without adequate hygiene, rest, or health care. Is it because they refuse to see them as if they are our own children? I don’t know. 

Our gospel story is a story of incredible generosity. The woman who is bent over is not depicted as approaching Jesus—instead, Jesus sees her and approaches her. 

And let’s just stop right there and really hear that. What an amazing thing—Jesus really sees her, not as disabled, but as a beloved child of God. He sees her, even bent over, which makes her even smaller than the tiny space women were usually begrudged in the public arena then and often still now. That limited female space was even more constricted in a place like a synagogue, where 10 MALES were required to be able to meet, even if there were 400 women present. Yet Jesus sees her as a “daughter of Abraham”—subtly using the feminine form of a common label for Jewish men. He sees her as a beloved child of God deserving of as much consideration as anyone. He sees her—even as those around her have ignored her and her plight, shrugging it off with “Nothing can be done.” 

The attitude of the synagogue leader is clear: She’s already been this way for 18 years, so what’s one more day in order to preserve the Sabbath as HE sees fit to interpret that. 

Jesus turns that on its head: the time already spent bent double is too much; what is the point of waiting one more day when the means for not just healing but freedom stands right in front of her? To make her wait would be an act of injustice—and certainly of needless suffering. 

Jesus offers her freedom from her affliction NOW. And that promise and that healing extends to us, today, right now, as well. Because I am convinced that too many of us have our backs bent double, too, just like that woman in the synagogue. And we can’t tell just by looking who that applies to, but it’s safe to assume that EVERYONE carries some burden we don’t know. Our backs can be bent double by neglect, through the wounds and scars many of us bear from our childhoods, from traumatic experiences we may have encountered throughout our lives, accidental or not. 

We, too, long to hear Jesus pronounce our freedom and help us stand upright. And the loving gaze of Jesus sees each and every one of us just like he truly saw that woman. The good news is that Jesus offers us—all of us!-- that freedom, offering it to us in the name of a love that sees us exactly as we are, that loves us no matter what, but then doesn’t just leave us there. That amazing love that Jesus offers each of us is like that balm in Gilead, that makes the wounded whole. 

But while we’re accepting that love and that freedom that pours over us like a balm, we are also called to ourselves embody the generosity and empathy that Jesus does. That’s the privilege and essence of discipleship. Our healing NEVER stops with us. Our healing empowers us to be agents of healing in the name of Jesus for the sake of the entire world—no exceptions. 

Because, beloveds, there is no doubt that one of the greatest plagues of our modern time is refusing to really see each other- to see each other, to honor the divine spark in each other without questioning who is worthy and who is not. Just like that lawyer a few weeks ago, we want to know what the limits of the people we have to acknowledge as our neighbors are. But what this world needs is radical acceptance and radical empathy. We are called to lend our strong backs to those bent over from bearing pain or hatred. 

Too many of us—and it seems to be growing!-- are far too comfortable with failing to honor each and every person as fellow human beings. Too many of us are far too inured to each other’s pain and suffering—as the continuing crisis on our southern border, and all over the world, demonstrates. We inoculate ourselves against caring in a variety of ways: by telling ourselves that those who are suffering deserve it; or that we’re sorry, but they have to wait for freedom in the midst of their suffering in the name of rules far more capricious than the Sabbath-day work injunction. 

Some even take pleasure in the suffering of others, especially those different from them, and see that suffering as justice, and I am not just talking about the criminal justice system. 

We have criminalized poverty in this country especially in the 170 years since the Industrial Revolution, and we are told over and over that poverty and hunger are the results of character flaws or stupidity rather than a travesty of systemic oppression and institutional structures that siphon wealth away from the poor and middle class, redistributing wealth upward into an ever-tinier circle of people who cannot possibly spend all that they have in a hundred lifetimes. 

Our society has grown too comfortable with the phrase “the working poor” even while pretending that poor people don’t work—because too many refuse to truly see the poor and all the groups who have been “othered” like that woman as full human beings. 

Refusing to see and acknowledge the essential humanity of others was also the basis for the system of racially-based chattel slavery imposed on African captives and their descendants for over two hundred years, and that was first imposed on indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and the Caribbean almost from the landing of Christopher Columbus in 1492. 
Slavery can only exist when we refuse to acknowledge those who are enslaved as human beings. It is indeed important that we contemplate the echoes of that blindness this week, as we remember the 400th anniversary of the selling of the first 20 African captives to English colonists in Virginia—what some African American historians call the beginning of African American history. 

 This history is still permeated with the refusal by too many people in our country to truly see people of color as being just as deserving of freedom and liberty to move around in public spaces like our neighborhoods and schools and shops—a casual freedom just to “be” in a public space that too many of us take for granted for ourselves.

Permit Patty called the police on a family BBQ in a park

When the first assumption made when seeing a person of color or a young person is not that they are a citizen entitled to sit in a coffee shop or park like anyone else but are presumed to be a potential criminal or interloper who is out of their “proper place,” none of us are truly free. 

Perhaps we could see a connection here between this woman, bent double and minimized by those around her, and those who bear burdens that make them invisible or objects of scorn and rejection in society today. Because here’s a truth: there are many ways for one’s back to be bent double. There are entire groups of people who call out to us to be seen and freed of their added burdens. And one of the most prevalent ways we add to this problem today is by blinding ourselves to the systematic burdens of injustice, oppression, contempt, poverty, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia that we see rising up again in our world. 

Jesus insists that healing on the Sabbath honors the original intent of God that the Sabbath be a day dedicated to God and godly things. The argument here is over just what practices make a day holy—and Jesus’s answer is, “Miracles and healing!” 

Too often we set the law and compassion at odds against each other—and that kind of thinking always leads to undermining the very purpose and spirit of the law in the first place. Laws began when people began to live in community, in relationship with each other. Laws should not be invented just to trip people up. They should exist to maximize the happiness and security of everyone. Laws that provide freedom at the expense of someone else being placed in danger are neither just nor do they make society stronger. Laws only exist in community because the purpose of law should be the flourishing and security of everyone. 

Embedded within this story is a call to action to us—to examine our own minimization of others. To examine our failure to truly see each other—especially those who are far outside our familiar circles. And even more, to examine our silence in the face of others being minimized and bent double by the weight of that erasure. To examine our excuse for inaction in claiming that we are powerless to challenge and fight against the denigration of others based on who they are or where they come from. 

Jesus insists that one of the highest forms of honoring God is by honoring the image of God that resides in EVERYONE, no matter what. And once we are willing to truly see that, we realize that the most sacred use of our freedom is to work for the freedom of others. From being bound double by fear and suspicion, freedom lies in letting love heal us and bind us to each other.

The love of Jesus sets us free from all that keeps us bent over in pain—may we lend our strong backs to those bent over from pain or hatred. We have been seen, loved, and freed by the grace of Jesus our Savior. Let us now go forth and do likewise. 

 Amen.

Readings
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

Preached at the 505 on August 24 and at the 8:00 and 10:15 services on August 15, 2019, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

The Art of Living Generously: Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Epiphany C

I am struck by the amazing coincidence of this reading appearing in our lectionary as our United Methodist kindred are meeting this weekend in St. Louis to determine if they will be able to remain united as a denomination while struggling with the questions of whether they will fully embrace their LGBTQ members. Yet there is certainly food for thought for all of us in this rich feast our evangelist and the crafters of the lectionary place before us.

This week’s gospel reading is a continuation of the Sermon on the Plain. Susan Hylen describes this section of the gospel as “Jesus prescribes an ethic of generosity for Christians living in a hostile world.”(1) How do we live a life shaped by God and not by instinctive reaction and lashing out that dominates so much of the interactions we see played out all around us?

It is good here to note that Luke’s version of the beatitudes is always grounded in mercy and generosity. Matthew’s version urges the hearers to be perfect, as God is perfect. And that can be daunting indeed, for one thing I think we all know is that we are NOT God, and perfection is pretty impossible as a standard. Everyone stumbles. What a relief is it to note, then, that Luke’s standard presented here is more attainable: Remember that God is kind and merciful, and so you also are called to strive to be kind and merciful.

And the world is indeed hostile to the gospel and to the Christian ethic. Don’t believe me? Listen to this summary and ask yourself when the last time was that you saw leaders, advocating these admonitions as policy:

Love your enemies,

do good to those who hate you,

bless those who curse you,

pray for those who abuse you.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Give, and it will be given back to you.

Of those seven simple admonitions, five from our first paragraph alone, probably the most familiar is the one known popularly as the “Golden Rule.” And to be clear, that rule did not originate in Christianity—in fact, I don’t think anyone knows where it first appeared—but it is certain that a similar dictum has been promoted in Judaism in the book of Leviticus, but also Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, the Sikh faith, Taosim, Homer, Philo, Confucius, and even the Code of Hammurabi. It’s even been quoted in a song by the 80s band Men at Work about an ornery kid named Johnny.

Yet there are dangers in blind application of these rules if we strip them of their cultural context. The admonition about “turning the other check” is one. Some people have construed this as an urging to continue to remain in abusive situations. I do not believe this was ever what Jesus intended. Rather, Jesus is referring here to a ritualized behavior meant to reinforce domination, not an act of random anger violence. People who would beat you on the cheek would do so by using the back of the hand, and it was done to strike one’s inferiors: especially slaves by their masters, or the oppressed Judean population by Roman soldiers. It was not just a strike, it was an attempt to put one in one’s “place.” 

Turning the other check made that backhanded slap impossible. It also exposed the violence of the one doing the striking in an act of bravery and protest. But there is more going on here. Jesus is telling us that our actions should not be based on reaction to others, but directed from our own will to obey God, our Christian ethical outlook.

In the time I spent teaching, I had students confide in me about troubled home situations, including living with alcoholic parents or other abusive situations. One of the things I always reminded my kids, coming from my own experience as a child in situations like that, especially, was that they may not be able to control others, but they DID have the ability to choose how they would respond, especially when behaviors that hurt them emerged as patterns over time.

That response might not be immediate: sometimes it simply started with determining to not follow in the footsteps and behaviors of the person hurting them—which is, if you look, exactly what Jesus is advocating, too. When we are confronted by those behaving badly, hurtfully, we cannot control that behavior. However, we do have enormous power to choose how we would prefer to respond. And that is a far cry from being powerless.

This is what Jesus is telling us in these prescriptions for living a God-shaped life which he himself exemplified for us. Jesus calls us always to remember the grace which undergirds our own lives--- the unearned love and mercy of God toward us no matter how much we screw up.

The very foundation of God’s relationship with us is not punishment, but mercy. And if we let the wonder of that sink into our very marrow, that realization changes us. It helps us let go of our own calculus of inflicting suffering in response to suffering which is so much of the basis of human notions of “justice.” It helps us smooth out the balled fists of our hearts and open them to seize the promise of a faithful God who overlooks our own faithlessness, of the loving God that calls us back from anger, fear, and everyday cruelties and sets us on living out a life based on compassion empathy and love.

An open hand and an open heart are complementary. Sociologists believe that the handshake began back in the mists of human experience as a way to offer your fighting hand to another to prove that neither one of you had weapons at the ready. And so here we are in our gospel today, with Jesus asking us to break the causal chain of violence and suffering in favor of releasing ourselves from the enduring wound inflicted in ourselves by vengeance and refusal to forgive.

And listen, I KNOW it’s hard to forgive. I am a member of Clan Graham, and our family motto is “Ne Oublie,” which means “Never forget.” I am descended from people who came howling down across Scotland wielding axes and claymores until the soil ran red. Listen! You can still hear their howls of fury echoing….. But Jesus’s message is based not on what we want (severed heads on pikes!) but on what we need (being able to put down our halberds and live in amity with each other so that we all can flourish and recognize each other’s dignity and worth).

Yet holding a grudge is one of the surest ways to weigh us down, and it becomes OUR burden, not the burden of the one who has hurt us. One of my favorite sayings about forgiveness is this: Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself as much as to the person who has harmed you, because it frees you from the chains of resentment and anger. 

Another great saying is this: Refusing to forgive someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.



Psychologists state that it’s easier to forgive someone when three conditions are met:
1. A good apology;
2. A good outcome (as in receiving restitution);
3. An end to the behavior that caused the hurt (what those of us in the religion business call “repentance.”)

Yet sometimes, we are not going to get those conditions met. And we can’t wait around continuing to suffer in the meantime. Life is for living. And sometimes that means letting go of our resentment even when people aren’t sorry, just so that our clenched fists and hearts can be open to be filled with good things that come along.

In Bishop Jake Owensby’s book, A Resurrection-Shaped Life, which we will be studying for our Lenten book study, he meditates on Jesus’s command for us to “turn the other cheek.”

We habitually depend upon the threat of violence to prevent others from hurting us. When someone injures us or insults us, our animal impulse is to strike back, to hurt our attacker worse. We seek to bruise and to intimidate our opponents into fearful submission. In other words, we seek to minimize our own suffering, even if it comes at the expense of someone else’s misery. Jesus is very clear. This way of walking the planet will leave the world wounded and disfigured. Instead, Jesus teaches us to take up our cross and follow him. Only love—in all its vulnerability to the suffering of others and all its risk of injury to ourselves—will heal and transfigure the world. So, when Jesus says, “Do not resist an evildoer,” he is not advocating passive submission to cruelty and abuse, oppression and deprivation (Matthew 5:39). Instead, Jesus wants us to resist evil without becoming evil ourselves…. instead of trying to crush evil, overwhelm evil with good. Feed the hungry. Help addicts get sober. Teach job skills. Share your support network with those who are falling through the cracks. Befriend the bullied. Do none of this in condescension, but in solidarity. 

Don’t withhold yourself for fear of injury to body or soul. Do the good that’s right in front of you. Every day. Our own small acts of compassion and decency might not seem like much in this big, dangerous, aching world. But together, the billions of hands and feet shaped by the resurrection are a mighty force. Resurrection happens through us. We must be patiently relentless.(2) 

The power of our gospel reading today is in its promise of abundance at the very end: if we live a generous life toward others, we ourselves will find an abundance beyond measure, so much that it spills out of our cupped hands and into our laps. We are called to practice the art of living generously, a gift to ourselves as well as a gift to others.

Jesus’s teaching here is filled with active verbs that instruct us in what we are called to do to live as disciples of Jesus. We hear repeated positive commands:
Love.
Do good.
Bless.
Give.
Lend.
Forgive. 

We also hear prohibitions: Do not judge. Do not condemn.
But even these are couched in our own self-interest:
Don’t judge—so that you won’t be judged.
Don’t condemn—so that you won’t be condemned.

The message we receive today in Luke’s gospel starts from a place of gentleness and compassion—that amazingly generous gift known as grace which is better than riches or vengeance. Jesus doesn’t give us the easy news, here, but it IS the “good news” of transformation and reconciliation that leads to justice based on true healing. 

Jesus calls us to remember the grace we receive, to embody grace for ourselves, and then live out that grace in our interactions with others. To make God visible in this world, embody God’s values first and foremost: love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace. May it be so among us. Always.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on February 23, and at the 8:00 and 10:15 services on February 24, 2019, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Luke 6:27-38

References:
(1) Susan E. Hylen, theological perspective on Luke 6:27-38, in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1: Advent Through Transfiguration, pp. 
(2) Jake Owensby, A Resurrection Shaped Life: Dying and Rising on Planet Earth, pp. 22-24.