Prayer 2059- Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

Almighty God,
we gather around your altars
offering you our thanks and praise,
our souls and our hearts overflowing with gratitude.

Lord Jesus, help us to lay down our lives
of scarcity, of fear, of anxiety,
and take up the abundant life
of compassion and love
that you offer us through your grace.
Help us to proclaim who you are to the world, O Savior,
through our words, our attitudes, and our actions,
healing and reconciling in your name
that the world may know your presence always.

Send your Spirit upon us, O Holy One,
and make us seekers of wisdom and beacons of hope--
bearers of God's goodness to all people.
Shine the light of your countenance upon us, O God,
and bless and strengthen those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2058: Song of Joy in Creation

Arise, O my soul, and worship the Lord,
Creator, Redeemer, Life-Giver,
our rock and sure foundation.

Let me join my voice with the morning stars
whose song resounds even behind the blue curtain of sky
to give you praise, O Creating God,
and marvel in the wonders of your handiwork.
It is You, O Holy One,
who inscibes the melody of life within our hearts,
a cadence of blessing that thrums in our veins,
and calls us to proclaim your glory with every thought
and your lovingkindness with the gift of every breath.

At twilight, when one day tells its tale to another yet to be,
let my account be one of compassion and grace,
of walking in faith in the shared light of hope
in beloved communion and companionship
with Christ and with each other.

Spirit of the Living God,
consecrate us to your service and witness today.
Blessed Jesus, extend the awning of your mercy
to those disquieted in body, mind, or spirit,
and place the kiss of your benediction
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2057: Inspired by Psalm 31

Hurricane Florence. Photo from NPR.

(inspired by Psalm 31)
In You, O God, do we take refuge:
our trust is in You as we cry out in distress.
Even when the darkness surrounds us,
when walls close in upon us,
You are our mighty fortress.
Preserve us within the storms of life,
for though the tempest rages about us,
You are our God.
Mighty winds may blow and howl,
but You,
O God,
are our rock of refuge
and stronghold to keep us safe.
For You take heed of our souls' distress
and will never give us up
to the power of darkness and despair.
We rest in the hands of the Almighty:
we rejoice in your mercy and lovingkindness.
Watch over your children, we pray,
and embrace those who rest within You.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2056: God Is With Us in the Storm (Awaiting Hurricane Florence)

Most Merciful God,
may our prayers rise on the scent of jasmine
as we praise and bless your love in our lives.
The curtain of the night parts
and you spread a new day before us:
Lord, hear our prayer.

In beholding afresh the wonders of creation,
let us see with new eyes and hearts, O Christ.
In taking up the work you have given us,
let us be guided to do your will, O Christ.
In turning from sin and self-centeredness,
let us atone for our wrongs, and reconcile, O Christ.
When tumults rage and threaten to swamp us,
let us remember that you do not bring them, O God:
Your hand holds us fast,
and commands the waves to cease-
may we never forget You are with us within the storm.

Merciful One,
make your face shine upon us this day,
and upon those whom we now name.

Amen.
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Prayer 2055

O God,
we bless you and we praise you,
and give you thanks for your manifold mercies:
You, O generous Creator,
are our portion and our cup.
Lord Jesus,
Bright Morning Star,
guide us and enlighten us this day:
fill our spirits with wonder, joy and lovingkindness
that we may be your healing hands in the world
as we seek out the lost, the hurting, and the lonely.
Give us a thirst for wisdom and integrity
that we may bear witness to your love and faithfulness,
O Spirit of the Loving God.
Beloved Savior,
fill us with the light of hope,
and grant your favor and comfort
to all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2054: On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks

Most Merciful God,
You show us through the glorious Trinity
the way of mutual love that leads to action:
hear our prayers, we pray.

That we remember those
we have lost through violence and terror,
and honor their lives by sowing peace and concord,
we pray You, O God.

That we may ever be steadfast, noble, and true,
willing to lay down our lives for others,
even those we have not met,
we pray You, O God.

That we may honor those who died this day,
and those who loved them,
by being embodiments of charity and generosity,
we pray You, O God.

That we may place no bonds upon each other
but the bonds of love, equality, and peace,
we pray You, O God.

That we may be knit together in a common cause
to nourish all who hunger
in body, mind, or soul,
we pray You, O God.

That we may use our might for mercy and justice,
rather than vengeance and violence,
we pray You, O God.

That we may be faithful and compassionate stewards
of your wondrous creation,
we pray You, O God.

Ground of our Being,
Creator, Comforter,
hear the prayers of your people,
and extend your peace over those we now name.

Amen.

Image: the newly completed Tower of Voices at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA. Photo from the National Park Service.

Prayer 2053: A Song of Praise

In peace,
I rest in contemplation before you, O Creator:
your mercies are new every morning.
The heavens dance to the melody of creation:
as I rise and turn my face to the sun, 
let me sing a song of gratitude
from the foundation of my soul,
for I know that our Redeemer lives.

Let my delight and faith in you, O God,
always be green and flourishing:
plant my heart within your domain,
in the verdant garden of your grace,
and enclose me within the beauty of your dwelling.

Blessed Jesus, my hope is ever in you:
You are my companion and my shield,
my savior and my shepherd.

Lead us into wisdom and compassion,
O Spirit of Healing and Holiness,
that we remember our kinship with all the earth
and walk mindfully in companionship with all creation.
Holy One, anoint us with the oil of gladness,
and grant your peace like a balm
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Illustration: a Dine Tree of Life rug.

Being Open: Sermon for Proper 18B

After all the arguing with the Pharisees for the past many chapters, Jesus is apparently weary, and wants to get away for a break. So he goes into Gentile territory to the north of the borders of Israel, hoping that, at least there, he can be anonymous. Perhaps he was still brooding over the repeated rejections of his message by those who heard it—not just the Pharisees but even his own followers. No doubt he was exhausted from having to explain things over and over and over and receiving at best only puzzled looks in return.

Just like all of us, Jesus needed periods of rest. And by now, the only way he was going to get that was by going away, by going to places outside the boundaries of Israel and Judea. So he went up to Lebanon, to the city of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, an ancient city, originally founded by the Phoenicians, the people who gave us the alphabet. And yet, even there, immediately he is approached by a woman of the area, who falls down before him at his feet, a position of both worship and pleading. It’s also a wise position, strategically, because it is impossible—and incredibly rude-- to ignore someone who has thrown themselves at your feet.

This woman is an outsider on three important levels. First, she is a woman, approaching a strange man whom she does not know. Second, she is a Gentile, of Phoenician and Syrian heritage. Third, the inhabitants of the region of Tyre were typically prosperous, as it was a busy trading hub with a highly lucrative economy as compared to the poorer agricultural area from which Jesus came around Galilee.

So Jesus responds in a way that is not exactly welcoming—maybe it’s the exhaustion talking. Or maybe he is a little resentful of her forcing herself upon him as he is seeking some peace and quiet. So Jesus tries to turn her away, and he even implies that she and her people are dogs, fit only to cringe outside the doors of the children of Israel. And maybe Jesus, fully human and worn out and frustrated, hopes that like a dog she will slink away. But the love this woman has for her daughter, and the fear this woman has for her daughter, has led her this far in powering through all the obstacles of race and gender that should keep her completely powerless. Perhaps she anticipated that this Jewish holy man would reject her, as expected, and had prepared her counterarguments with that probability in mind.

What we see here is that there are several times in the gospels where Jesus himself is astounded and surprised by someone who by rights should have less than zero understanding of him and faith in his message—tax collectors, women accused of impurity, centurions and members of the Roman legions occupying Israel, Samaritans, and now this uppity Syrophoenician woman who won’t take no for an answer.

None of these people are considered insiders. All of them are considered impure or defiled for one reason or another. Yet all of them teach even Jesus about the borderless power of faith. Faith respects no boundaries, but grows where it will.

“Maybe I am a dog, sir,” she responds, humbly, refusing to be thrown off by any attempt to provoke her. “But even dogs are grateful to accept whatever scraps and crumbs fall their way.” And in this way, she draws Jesus up short, and leads him to reconsider. He himself has just gotten finished arguing that nothing on the outside of a person can make them unclean. And now, standing before him, is living proof of exactly that message.

What we see here is that Jesus really is fully human, and that’s vitally important for us. We have hope because God became fully human in Jesus, and Jesus, just like us, got tired and hungry, mourned for his friend Lazarus, and got tired and frustrated. That’s the reality and the comfort of the incarnation. Jesus emerges from this encounter, just like his tempting in the wilderness and his baptism, changed. He has been reminded that even he has to be mindful to understand that God’s love for the world shows no partiality and admits not lines of division. No one is outside the bounds of God’s grace. No one. 

The Syrophoenician woman asks that Jesus be open to the idea that all are equal in the eyes of God, no matter who they are or where they come from. And just like with the synagogue official or the centurion’s servant elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus pronounces the woman’s daughter healed, effecting this healing from a distance.

Yet he is still looking for some rest, and for a perhaps a chance to consider the implications of his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. So he moves even further to the north away from his homeland toward Sidon, further up the Mediterranean coast. 

Yet even here, his fame as a holy man and a healer cannot be escaped. “They”—and we don’t know who “they” are, bring him a man who cannot communicate due to an impediment in his hearing. And in the next part of our gospel, we see the effects of that encounter with the unnamed woman of faith. Instead of turning this man away, a man who also is isolated by his inability to communicate, Jesus takes him aside, touches him, and heals him with this important command: “Ephphatha.”

“Be opened.”

The Syrophoenician woman reminded Jesus and reminds all of us, every single day, to be opened to a crucial reality—a reality still coming into being due to our own resistance and fearfulness. A reality that therefore can never be repeated enough to break through our human tendencies to exclude those different from us. That challenging reality is that God’s reconciling, healing love truly has no limits. 

God’s love is a generous, abundant love. God’s call is a generous, abundant call to all. This reminds us that our discipleship too must be open to all. We don’t exist as a community of faith merely for ourselves or for those who are similar to us. We exist as a community of faith to serve as disciples and witnesses to the world outside these doors, both when we are acting as a community and when we are acting as individuals. Even when we think no one is looking.

Being open to the movement of the Spirit of God in our lives is the foundation of salvation and discipleship, but it's also scary. It means being open to God’s will wherever it may lead us, and we like to be in control of where we are going. It means being open to being surprised. It means being open to acknowledging that God’s ways are not our ways of exclusion and setting people up for failure. Instead God's ways are always about regeneration of heart and spirit.

This command to be open to the untamed power of the Spirit moving freely among us reminds me of this story, which I've never shared with you, although I have elsewhere. In April, Pope Francis was visiting with the children of a working-class parish in Rome. The children took turns asking the pope questions. One little boy, probably about 7 or 8, however, lost his nerve when he approached the microphone, and he started to cry.

So the pope urged the little boy to come up to him and whisper his question. Pope Francis embraced him and they spoke to each other in whispers, and then the little boy returned to his seat. The Pope then said the little boy, named Emanuele, had given his permission for the Pope to share what was troubling him.

The little boy’s father had recently died, and had been a non-believer. However, even though a non-believer, he had had his four children baptized, and had been a good man and a beloved father. The boy’s tears for his father, which the Pope characterizes as “brave,” proved that Emanuele’s father had been a good person.

“Is my father in heaven?” the little boy whispered, tormented.

“The one who decides who goes to heaven is God,” the Pope explained. “But what is God’s heart like with a dad like that? What? What do you think?” he asked the crowd of schoolchildren. He paused. “A Father’s heart. God has a dad’s heart. And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children, and gave his children that courage, do you think God would leave him far from himself? Do you think? Speak up, with courage.”

The crowd murmured, “No!”

“Does God abandon his children?” the Pope continued.
“No!” the crowd responded, stronger this time.

“Does God abandon his children when they are good?”
“No!” came the immediate response.

“There, Emanuele, is your answer,” the Pope said, looking at the little boy now in his seat. “God surely was proud of your father because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much.”

The pope makes an important point here. We humans are the ones who try to limit and create barriers—and we are really good at doing that, even in the Church. In doing this, we diminish God and close our ears and our hearts and our eyes to God’s grace. “Be open!” God calls to us!

Be open, even if it goes against everything our society tells us about who is in and who is out. Be open, ESPECIALLY because it goes against everything our society tells us about who is in and who is out.

We are known as Christians by our love—by the fruit we produce to build up the kingdom of God, whose foundation is love, as our epistle from James keeps reminding us. As Pope Francis pointed out, the fruit of the father’s life that we had before us in this short episode showed a life grounded in love, especially in love for his children that lives on in his children. 

The Syrophoenician woman was faithful despite being an outsider and brave because of her love. God has no partiality and includes all regardless of status. And we are called to do the same. God gives generously to us, and we are called to be open to embodying that same generosity as part of our living witness to God in all aspects of our lives.

Be open!

May we hear God’s command, and respond. But, more importantly, may we hear God’s promise of love within that command. May we open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts, and offer everything we have and everything we are to the One who loves US that much.

Amen.


Preached at the 505 on September 8, and at 8:00 and 10:15 am on September 9, 2018, at St. Martin's Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9. 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

Illustrations:
1) Jesus and the Canaanite woman, modern icon.
2) David Croker, Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman.
3) Icon, the Syrophoenician Woman.
4) Ephphatha graphic, from The Sacred Heart Messenger, at https://sacredheartmessenger.com/tag/ephphatha/ .
5) Pope Francis embraces Emanuele.
6) Pope Francis urges Emanuele forward.

Prayer 2052: Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Abiding, Merciful God,
we gather around your altars
to sing out our praise to you
and recall all the blessings received
from your generous heart.

Open our hearts to your call to love, O Holy One,
that we may reflect that love in all we do.
Open our eyes to see your grace in every moment,
in every person we encounter.
Open our mouths to sing out your praise
that we may witness to you with every word
spoken in gentleness and truth.

Trusting in your tender love, Lord Christ,
we commend to you these beloveds,
and ask your blessing upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2051: In the arms of the Good Shepherd

Shepherd of Our Souls,
we gather to You in praise,
one flock, one people,
made to worship You and care for each other
throughout the whole Earth.

Your love, O Lord, is neverending:
You have sought us out even when we stray, Holy One;
You search our hearts and guide us
with a loving, tender hand.

We thank you for the green, abundant pastures You offer us,
for the rich feast of mercy and love
You spread before us always, Beloved Jesus.

May we remember your abiding Spirit
ever within our hearts,
and live and move according to your call, O God.

Secure beneath your loving gaze,
keep us within the lea of your protection and grace, Almighty One,
safe within your loving arms,
and rest your hand especially on those for whom we pray.

Amen.
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Prayer, Day 2050

Most Merciful God,
we rise to greet this day You have made,
hearing the praise song of creation
testify to your glory.

May we echo that praise in every moment,
from our rising to our resting,
and bear witness to your Love.
We thank You for your manifold blessings,
especially your fellowship of saints and companions
who guide us in wisdom.
Set our feet firmly
in the paths of peace and compassion, O Holy One,
and help us to love unreservedly as Jesus taught us.

May your Spirit descend upon us like a cloud,
that our tongues may tell out your wonders, O Earth-maker.
God of Compassion,
bend near to all who seek You,
and envelop all who call upon You with hope.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2049

Lord Christ, you called us to forgive from our hearts,
without reservation:
lead us to reconciliation with
and empathy for each other.
Open our hearts to acknowledge
the wrongs we do each other each day
and grant us the courage
to treat each other with love and compassion.
May we repent of the barriers we erect
within our hearts and minds
against those different from us.
May we forgive each other
for the times we have exploited each other
or denied your goodness
in those we have judged less worthy.

As we gather around your altar today, O God,
remind us of your call to love
and the grace You freely bestow upon us.
May we reflect that mercy back into our communities,
examine our faults
and acknowledge our sins,
and work to heal our divisions.
Teach us to support each other
as we all seek our way
that we may grow and learn in faith.
Gather us in one fellowship,
nourished by Christ,
sharing one bread and one cup
lifting up each other's cares as we pray together.

Amen.
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Prayer, day 2048

Lord Jesus,
you stand at the door and knock:
let us answer in joy and hope!

Let us open wide the doors of our hearts,
to welcome love in and to sweep out all bitterness.
Let us open wide the doors of our minds,
to welcome wisdom in,
and seek the Way of Truth in Christ.
Let us open wide the doors of our souls,
to welcome the Spirit of Compassion
to fill us with light and peace.

Most Merciful God,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life Giver,
place your seal of blessing upon us,
and upon those we remember before You, we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2047: Dedicating the day

Merciful One,
Blessed Trinity,
in harmony You surround us in love:
may the melody of my heart join with yours, O God,
the rhythm of my heart resound with joy
and each beat become a prayer of gratitude.

Send me out where You will, O Holy One:
guide and direct my steps this day
that all I do
I may do in faith and hope,
in witness to your grace and compassion.

May your peace be upon our heads,
as gentle as a mother's touch,
that we be lit from within
by your lovingkindness without end, Lord Christ.
Heal us and seal us as your own,
and pour out the healing balm of your mercy
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2046: For Labor Day

Holy One,
Great Architect of the Universe,
whose hands built the foundations of the world:
we pause from our labors to give you thanks and praise.

Lord, You call us to establish justice:
may we obey your commandment
to love each other as we love ourselves.
Help us, O God, build a society
in which the dignity
and contribution of every worker is honored,
and wealth is used righteously.
O Creator,
who rested upon the seventh day,
may we hallow our rest with thanksgiving.

Let us work not just for a living
but to have life abundantly.
Let our work be part of our worship and witness,
a holy offering for the life of the world.
Help us to honor especially
those who fight for the dignity of workers
and support and honor the labor of others
that makes our lives possible.

Remembering your abundant grace,
let us work alongside those who are in want,
and act in solidarity with the poor.
Help us act with justice
to help those who search for work,
that all may dwell in security,
and that we honor, support, and affirm each other.

Giving thanks for our fellowship in your kingdom,
O Holy One,
we ask your grace to rest upon those we now name.

Amen.

Seeds of Generosity: Sermon for Proper 17B

When we first moved to St. Louis, I was perplexed to see commercials on TV all the time for agricultural products—commercials that talked to farmers about “higher yields” and later “roundup resistant strands” and so on. I mean, this was St. Louis, a relatively large city, and yet I saw more commercials for agricultural products than I ever had visiting the rural areas of Oklahoma where some of my relatives actually WERE farmers. Why were we seeing ads for this kind of stuff in the middle of a relatively big city?

After all, I had grown up in a decent-sized city, but it was one where on Saturday you knew not to get out on the main streets before noon, because all the farm folks would be creeping on the roads as they nervously navigated the “terrible traffic of the big city” in their words—which meant anything more than three cars at a stoplight.

To me, St. Louis was a manufacturing hub—a place that was known for beer—we saw plenty of ads for that too—and aircraft and the Ford and Chrysler plants. I mean, sure, there were farm fields in the outstate areas, but it just seemed weird. Then I learned about Monsanto, and Queeny Park, and St. Louis’s connection to agribusiness. It all made sense, but even for years it still made me wonder how many St. Louisans actually paid attention to those ads at all, given how foreign life on a farm was to most suburbanites.

Maybe those ads caught my attention because I knew farmers, and rural people, even growing up in a smaller city like Tulsa. My kin lived in small towns surrounded by fields of soybeans, and winter and summer wheat, and corn. My grandparents at one time were sharecroppers, and my grandmother bore the scars on her hands from picking cotton in the hot sun with a pair of babies strapped to her back, and I had cousins who sill grew cotton and raised cattle.

I knew farmers—their incredible work ethic, rarely taking a day off, their deep connection to the land, and especially their abiding sense of community, which only made sense if you thought about the fact that their neighbors weren’t people who you only saw when you pulled out of your driveway on the way to work, but were often people whom you worked alongside for generations.

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye...

I remember once my Uncle Glenn was driving me through the rural roads in southern Oklahoma when he pointed out a farm field—which looked to my untrained eye like any other field, what did I know? Mr. Abernathy, he said, owned this field, and he grew prize-winning corn. His fields were some of the most productive in a several county area. He constantly produced more bushels of corn per acre than anyone around. And yet, Mr. Abernathy was known far and wide that if someone got into trouble, and ran short of seed corn, he would be happy to give his neighbors some of his prize-winning seed corn. And so, Mr. Abernathy’s farm became kind of an epicenter of a network of farms that all grew amazing corn, even though his was always the best.

Eventually, a reporter came down and found Mr. Abernathy and asked him about his amazing seed-corn, which had been developed painstakingly over generations, and also about his giving away of that same prized seed corn to his neighbors—I mean, that was where the story was, because to give away something that was so valuable was a great human-interest story. “You win competitions at fairs and such year after year,” the reporter marveled. “And yet, you GIVE AWAY that same seed corn. Why?”

“Well, son, I’ll tell you,” Mr. Abernathy drawled. “First of all, it’s the right thing to do, and I like to think that my neighbors would do the same thing for me. But,” he leaned in closer, “here’s the other thing. Don’t you know the wind and the bees pick up the pollen from the neighboring fields and bring it into my own as all of our corn ripens each season? If my superior corn gets pollinated with pollen from inferior corn, eventually, my corn won’t be as good. To grow excellent corn, it’s only smart to help my neighbors grow good corn too. To tell the truth, developing a good strain of corn is only half the job. If I want the best corn, I have to help my neighbors grow good corn, too. My generosity is in my own self interest. We may each have separate farms out here, but in truth we really ARE all connected, and our fates are truly all tied together. Giving away my seed corn, though, isn’t just generous—it’s good for me, too.”

I thought of that story as I was reading this line from the epistle to James: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” This has been a week when generosity and hard work has been on my mind for a number of reasons. In the month I have been with you, I have been amazed at your generous welcome and acceptance of me and my family. I have been blessed with the generous sharing of time, talent, and treasure by so many people as we work together as the community of St. Martin’s to witness to the core value of generosity.

Every time I walk into the nave on Saturday or Sunday and see heaping baskets of produce grown solely to donate to people who might not otherwise have access to fresh produce, I see the generous, creative use of the resources of land, water, and labor that this parish has committed to for the sake of people that most of us will never meet. Every time I hear of you all supporting the Peace Meal, and making sure that the people who gather at St. John's Tower Grove get to take part in the table fellowship and community, I am proud of your generosity.

Yesterday, we had a funeral here for a non-parishioner, and yet so many people in this community, especially Wendy and Denise and the altar guild and the ushers and the facilities crew, pulled together to make sure that St. Martin’s could offer generous and abundant hospitality to the grieving family and friends of a gentleman none of us ever met.

And all of you were involved in being able to give that gift of generosity, because if you didn’t provide the funding for this beautiful building, and for the electricity to cool and light it, to maintain what our bishop has admiringly told me was “the best parking lot in the diocese,” which is no small thing, we would not have been able to help that family in their time of grief.

“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change,” James is saying that generosity is one of the main ways faithful people embody the values of God, as we are called to do. The life of faithfulness is not just about belief, but about ACTION. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” James continues. Faith is important—don’t mistake me. But unless faith produces the fruit of transformation of ourselves into people who live by God’s core essential values, it is worthless.

I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons for many of the problems that haunt our modern society isn’t because we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are all separate from each other. I wonder what would happen if the wisdom of Mr. Abernathy wasn’t more widespread. What if we all lived our lives emphasizing the fact that not only are we all interconnected, but that our interconnectedness is a blessing, and that taking care of each other in the end, besides being our calling from God, is in our best interest?

On this Labor Day weekend in which we celebrate the contributions that working men and women throughout the generations have made to our beautiful country, we also confront the fact that it is possible in this beautiful country to work one, two, and even three jobs and still not be able to earn a living wage. We confront the fact that every year, one of the main causes of bankruptcy for working and middle class people is medical bills—where they have had to choose life or health or crushing debt. And I think we as a society can do better than that. We celebrate the labor movement by getting a day off from our labor because they believe their slogan: united we are stronger, divided we are weaker.

As we remember in our Eucharistic prayer each Sunday, God created each one of us in God’s own image. The practical effect of that is to remind us that we are called to embody God’s essential characteristics—it’s how we’re made. Qualities like forgiveness, and mercy. Being slow to anger. Being of great kindness. And not the least of those characteristics is generosity. The qualities and actions being extolled in our epistle and in our gospel today, encourage us to cultivate integrity—a sense of ourselves as individuals, yes, but also as member of a community grounded in love, cooperation, and mutual care. All of James’s advice—be quick to listen, but slow to speak, be slow to anger, putting away habits that hurt our relationships with each other in order to build each other up—is, in the end about integrity and generosity. And our model of integrity and generosity is Christ. 

Yesterday, after the funeral here, I went home before the 505, and I watched recorded video of the eulogies given at the funeral of Sen. John McCain at the National Cathedral by both President Obama and President Bush. President Obama marveled at the generosity that Senator McCain had in asking him—a former political rival, a member of the opposite party, to eulogize him. It made me laugh out loud when President Obama mused that perhaps some of the reasons that Sen. McCain asked himself and Bush 43 to speak at his funeral, even given the fact that they had both sparred with him politically, were that Sen. McCain liked being unpredictable, even contrarian—but also demonstrated Sen. McCain’s generous sense of humor.

President Obama drew a great laugh from the Senator’s widow and son as well as the crowd with this observation: “After all, what better way to get the last laugh than by making George and I say nice things about him to a national audience?” 

Sweets for the sweet.

And when the camera panned to President Bush laughing and nodding with Michelle Obama, they laughed again. Yet, this anecdote is also an example, a gentle, good-humored one, of the integrity the author of James is calling us to embody in the use of our words, and in our actions.

And even though one of my priestly mentors once cautioned me to avoid the word “should,” it’s hard to talk about the ethics of faithful living at times without using it. We should be able to disagree and still respect each other, and even perhaps like each other. We should be able to see the good in others even if they are different from us. Even in death, Senator McCain embodied that kind of integrity. And we know that that integrity came from his own deep faith. A faith we too share. A faith that we are called to emulate, again and again, even when—especially when—it’s hard.

As Jesus reminds us, it’s what comes out of us that defiles us or makes us pure. By cultivating habits of generosity and gratitude, it makes it easier for us to embody the values Christ himself embodied, the values God implanted into us as reflections of God—and it also makes life itself more beautiful, more fulfilling, more just and peaceful and satisfying.

The human heart is a marvel, and also can be a weapon. It’s up to us how to use those hearts we have been given. May we use them to build up each other, in generosity and faith, for it is then that we together will produce abundantly more than we ever thought we could.

Amen.


Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, at 8 and 10:15 am, on September 2, 2018.

Readings:
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Images:
1) Cornfield in Oklahoma, from the Oklahoma Farm Report.
2) Ooooooooooooooooooooooo! klahoma where the wind comes sweeping off the Plaaaaaiiiiinnnn....
3) Meme from Knowing-Jesus.com
4) "Our Community" heart logo from the Santa Clarity Valley Signal
5) Early labor movement etching
6) The Obama, Bush, and Clinton families at John McCain's funeral at the National Cathedral, September 1, 2018.
7) George Bush shares candy with his friend Michelle Obama at the McCain funeral as Laura looks on-- so sweet!