Inclusivity Requires Humility: Sept 27

Year A, Pentecost 18                                               Philippians 2:1-13                                                                                                

                In this reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we see an area where Paul really shines…and that is when he’s talking about how to be a community of faith.  Paul has a variety of advice on how we work for unity within a community. In the reading we have today, he emphasizes that one of the ways we can truly be a healthy community is by sharing in the same Spirit -- doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility. That’s not easy advice, is it?  We have witnessed a serious lack of humility in all kinds of places.  It feels like more so recently, but perhaps I am just more aware now. 

            “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” You know that riddle? Could God create a bolder that even God could not move?  Turns out…the answer is yes.  God emptied Godself when he was born as a human on this earth.  God took on all the human frailty that we share.  God inhabited a body that was capable of sickness and pain.  He needed sleep and rest just like the rest of us.  God didn’t have to make Jesus a real human.  God could have created someone that looked like a human and sounded like a human, but didn’t have any human frailty.

            That was aa big debate in the early church. Was Jesus a normal human or did he just appear that way?  They could not wrap their heads around a God who would accept the limitations of a human body and would even go so far as to die…to be crucified.  Being crucified was a shameful way to die.  The Romans made it into a public spectacle to humiliate the crucified person and all who were connected to that person.  But when Paul talks about the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus (which he does a fair amount), he doesn’t talk about humiliation. He said that Jesus “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death---even death on a cross.” Apparently the Greek word that Paul used to describe Jesus’ humility was very unusual.  They think that his use of it was unique…that perhaps he coined it. Later, after Paul died, that Greek word was transformed into an insult.  It was used to describe someone who was weak.

            I have talked about an illness that I experienced 4 years ago probably too often and I am going to talk about it again as it was a formative experience for me. I had a horrible infection in my leg that required multiple surgeries.  After the first surgery, they wanted me to stay in bed for as much as possible.  Usually after surgeries they get you up right away, but that was not the plan for me.  So after two weeks in the hospital they removed all the wrapping on my leg. It was painful as it pulled off a lot of skin.  I cried a lot.  When I was done crying from the pain, I looked at my leg and burst into tears again because my muscles had totally atrophied. I could no longer pick up my leg on my own. I couldn’t believe that I could lose all my strength in two weeks.  That is how frail the human body is. I have never felt so embarrassed by my own weakness.  No matter how much they explained that I would get my strength back, I couldn’t see past my own weakness.  Obviously, I regained my muscle…eventually.  But I have to remind myself sometimes that wasn’t some innate weakness that was unique to me.  It’s just the human body. It totally baffles me that Jesus took that human body…by choice.

            Jesus took on that weakness so he could truly know us.  I believe the hope was that in worshipping a God who had weaknesses, that would empower us to acknowledge our own frailties and weaknesses and maybe identify with one another a little better.  If that was part of the plan, I don’t think it worked.  We still feel this need to pretend that we are all strong and we each got that strength from a combination of good genes, extra hard work and whatever else you want to fill in.  The problem is that when we have that attitude, we then judge others who don’t display strength in the same way we do.  We criticize them for not having enough grit or resilience.  We love our grit in Philadelphia. Grit is great…but we might overdo it a little. 

We don’t reward humility. We reward strength, excellence and confidence.   If that is what we consistently reward, consistently honor in others, then we can’t ever have a truly inclusive community—one where we celebrate having the same mind, the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Because the way we put valuations on others and ourselves is by constantly comparing ourselves to others.  Right? We see that so much in social media right now…but it’s not just on social media. It’s always been like that.  That is what Paul is saying we can’t do in a Christian community.   We can’t determine our own value by putting others down.

            Paul encouraged the Philippians and us to let the same mind be of us in that is in Christ Jesus…who emptied himself. What would that look like…to empty ourselves? I don’t know, but I think it’s worth considering and praying for. When I pray for others and myself, I pray for strength.  I rarely pray for humility.  There is a part of me that thinks that humility just comes from failures and I don’t want any more of them. I feel like I have had my fill.  But that’s not what humility is.  It’s not a consolation prize we get for failing.  Humility is what comes when we voluntarily give up some of our own power or authority so someone else can rise up.  In emptying ourselves, we are allowing someone else to be filled. That is what Jesus did for us and continues to do.  It’s also what we can do for one another. 

            One of the things I love about baptism is that it’s a gift that Jesus gave to us in the way he lived his life, his death and his resurrection.  It’s a gift. There are other denominations that only baptize people when they have the maturity to state what they believe.  We don’t require that.  We baptize people because they are a child of God.  Nora and Mae are special and beloved and I am sure they will do all kinds of wonderful things with their lives.  But that is not why we baptize them.  We baptize them because Jesus already provided this gift. They are children of God, and please, make sure to remind them of that…when nothing else seems to be going well….when they feel like a failure.  Remind them that they are children of God and that matters more than anything else.

 

Transform, not Conform: September 13

Year A, Pentecost 16                                       Romans 14:1-12                                                   

I have been a vegetarian since I was 16. No one else in my family was and my parents were particularly devastated when I told them.  It took my Dad about 10 years to stop attributing every ailment (emotional or physical) to the lack of meat in my diet.  Moving to Southern Virginia was tricky for a vegetarian.  My first church had an annual fundraiser that was a pig roast.  I hated it with a passion and spent the whole afternoon avoiding the roasted pig.  At one potluck, a well meaning parishioner shared the vegetarian meat balls she made for me. I was touched she did this as I knew it was out of her comfort zone.  I ate a few and then asked what was in them.  They were turkey.  She had assumed that counted as vegetarian.  When I interviewed at the church I was at before here, they had a dinner for me.  Somehow, they had learned I was a vegetarian and the entire meal was vegetarian. I was so touched that they all ate the vegetarian meal with me.  It was an incredible display of hospitality. I later learned they had it catered because none of them knew how to make an entire vegetarian meal.   

Whenever this reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans comes up, I am reminded of my years as a vegetarian in very meat centric places.  While Paul does seem to say that vegetarians are weak, his point is a larger one about hospitality and welcome.  That welcome does come with a slight insult… but when you consider it light of the other times Paul talks about weakness, it’s not as bad as it seems. 

I would think that if you heard this part of Paul’s letter to the Romans and had not read very much of Paul’s writings, you might find Paul’s description of people who are “weak in faith” a little off-putting.  On the one hand Paul encourages us not to pass judgment on one another.  Yet isn’t describing someone as “weak in faith” passing judgment?  It would seem so.

Butt consider how Paul talks about weakness in other letters that he wrote.  When he wrote to the Corinthians he wrote of something he described as a thorn in his flesh.  We don’t know what that was, but it was something he perceived as a deficiency or a weakness in himself.  He begged God to take it from him and God responded: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  Paul then resolved to boast more boldly in his weakness. 

For a good portion of Romans and much of his other writings, Paul is preoccupied with how Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians could learn to be a part of one worshipping body.  It’s unlikely that Paul was planning for the long term viability of the Christian church.  He was just trying to find a way to spread the message of Christ as far and wide as he could. 

There were Jews who had started following Christ.  Paul was one of them…as were all of the apostles.  Many of them were still trying to figure out what this looked like.  Did they need to follow all of the rules they had followed as Jews?  Many thought they did.  Some weren’t sure, so they followed them just in case.  That is probably what Paul was talking about when he spoke of those who just ate vegetables.  They abstained from meat because they knew that a lot of the meat that was sold in the market had been sacrificed in pagan rituals.  That meant it was unclean and their Jewish faith told them that they could not eat the meat.

Some of these Jewish Christians felt that those who had never been Jewish should still take on the Jewish customs as well as the new Christian customs.  Paul was of the mind that was not necessary.    What to eat and when to worship were sticking points between these two groups. The “weak in faith” were the ones who could not let go of the old customs and were perhaps…not fully convinced of this new way of being and worshipping.

But here is what is interesting about what Paul was saying…just because one group had different perceptions of what the practice of faith should look like, didn’t mean that the other group needed to correct them or force their way of doing things on them. Remember, a big part of early Christian worship was sharing a meal together…so what people ate together was directly related to worship. Paul was saying: if having meat at a gathering of the faithful makes those who abstain uncomfortable and could potentially cause a crisis of faith, don’t eat meat around them.  That’s why this reading begins with “welcome.” Being welcoming and hospitable isn’t just about being friendly, it’s about meeting someone exactly where they are, with no expectation that they will change to be more like you. 

          At Christ Church, we say, “whoever you are or wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome here.”  That doesn’t come with any unspoken assumptions.  You are welcome here. Hard stop. We don’t mean, you are welcome and once you get the lay of the land, then you can adapt to our customs and be more like us. I have been at churches like that. They want you to feel welcome, but they also want you to be more like them in time.  They will give you a few months, but eventually, you need to conform to their expectations.      

          Today we are handing out information about a program we are embarking on called, “Invite, Welcome and Connect.”  It’s not about being a friendly church…although that is part of it. It’s about being a community where you can be welcome without having to change. It’s about training our current members on how to meet people where they are.  That might mean that we have to change a little—that can be the hard part.  But change brings growth and new ideas and that is the way a church not just survives, but thrives.

          One of my favorite quotes is, “God loves you just the way you are, but God loves you too much to stay that way.”  Being a Christian means that we seek transformation in our world and ourselves. A faith community should be a place that helps you grow, that supports your relationship with Christ.  But there is a difference between supporting someone in their journey of growth and transformation and demanding that someone conform to a specific type of Christian.  We want people to transform, not conform.  We want the whole community to transform together, to create something beautifully and unique.

          I realize that to some, the idea that we have to change to be truly welcoming and loving seems unfair.  Consider what God did when Jesus was born to a woman and became human.  God changed the way that God related to humans. God came to this earth to meet humans exactly where they are. That is an incredible to display of hospitality.  A chapter later in Romans, Paul continued this theme of welcome when he said, “Welcome one another therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Invite, Welcome, Connect is a church program…but it’s also more than that.  It’s not simply about growing a church.  It’s about learning how to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.

Embody the Light: September 6

 Year B, Pentecost 15                      Matt 18:15-20 & Romans 13:8-14                          

          I became an Episcopalian in the early 2000s, which was a complicated time in the Episcopal Church. I remember telling someone that I was about to convert to the Episcopal Church from the Roman Catholic Church and they asked, “Why in the world would you choose to jump on sinking ship?” I was young and had the fervor of a new convert.  I thought, “what better time to join a church then when everyone else thinks it’s sinking.”  

Entire churches and dioceses were considering leaving the church at the time and many eventually did.  It was at least partially related to the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop.  He was the first openly gay man to be consecrated as a bishop.  The Episcopal Church had ordained people in the LGBTQ community starting as early as the late 1970s, but it was unusual, rarely public, and never a bishop. 

The reason that it’s a bigger deal when it’s a bishop is because a bishop represents the denomination as a whole rather than one church. That meant that bishops in countries from all over the world could all weigh in on this consecration.  They did.  But the place that it became most contentious was in this country.  At the time there were still entire dioceses that refused to ordain women and leaned more conservative.  They were very displeased with this development and it led to a split in the Episcopal Church.  Most went the way of a new church called: Anglican Church of North America.  Twenty years later, this denomination is going strong and while we Episcopalians are in communion with Lutherans, Methodists and Moravians, we are considered broken from the ACNA group.

          Recently, there was a big article in an Anglican/Episcopal publication that featured a picture of female Episcopal bishop from South Carolina with an ACNA bishop from South Carolina.  Apparently they were both on the board of a school and were asked to participate in a service that dedicated a new school chapel. There was a photo of them hugging behind the altar and the response was apoplectic.  Most of the Episcopalians were measured in their response, delighted that they had found common ground.  But the ACNA response was heated. One priest said,

“When you treat wolves as if they are legitimate shepherds, the sheep looking on get confused and then devoured by the wolf you’re busy ‘loving.’” The ACNA bishop has apologized and agreed to accept whatever consequence the leadership of ACNA deems appropriate.

          I was reading articles about this newest church conflict as I studied the Gospel reading for today.  There are some Christians who read this text as a manual for how to handle church conflict…a short manual, but a manual nonetheless. To really get a good understanding of this reading from Matthew, you need to read the whole chapter, because as is so often case, context is critical.  When we read just these 5 verses, we focus on the accusatory part.  It doesn’t sound much like Jesus.  Aren’t we supposed to forgive 7 times 70 times?  Jesus told the disciples to forgive 70 times 7--- just 2 verses after our reading for today! Yet here it seems like he’s telling the community that they can cast out members who refuse to cooperate. 

And the language that Jesus uses…he says you should treat them as you do a Gentile or tax collector.  That’s not good.  The people he was talking to didn’t like Gentiles or tax collectors. They wouldn’t eat with them, and they definitely wouldn’t worship with them.  Yet we see Jesus eat with those outcasts.  We see him defend them and even name one (Matthew) a disciple.  Why would Jesus tell people there is a limit to forgiveness and that Gentiles and tax collectors should be maligned?

          Again, it all comes back to context.  The chapter begins with Jesus telling people that they must welcome little children.  Now, in our day and age, this would seem like a no brainer.  Of course Jesus would love the little children.  We have a song about it.  Back then, children weren’t valued as they are today.  Most people treated them as they would treat an outcast but Jesus always welcomed those on the edge of society.  Then right before our reading for today, Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who has 100 sheep and loses one.  What does the shepherd do?  He goes after the straggler…the one who wandered away. Jesus has and will always care for those who are typically left behind.  He also cares for the sinners, which is all of us.  Jesus would not have wanted someone cast out of the church with no opportunity to return.  Jesus would want people to stay in relationship…not just with their God, but with one another. 

          The last line of today’s Gospel reading is very well known.  We used it a lot during COVID, when churches recorded the services when just a few people could be in the sanctuary.  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.”  We quote that line when we need a reminder that God is in the midst of us…always.  But it’s interesting—that this line would come right after talking about people in a church not listening to one another.  Jesus wants to remind us, sure he’s here for a lovely service like this one.  But God is also present when we are arguing with one another, when we are in conflict, when we are disappointed in the church or the people in the church.  Those are the times when we need God the most, but are also the times when we tend to ignore God the most.

          The split within the Episcopal Church has always pained me.  It’s not the first split.  The Episcopal Church was formed because we had to separate from the Church of England. And there have been more splits between 1789 and 2003…but this is the only split in any of our lifetimes.  I find it astonishing that ACNA would come down so hard on their bishop because he worshipped alongside an Episcopal bishop.  But they really believe that we in the Episcopal Church are a threat to their Christian values.  I imagine they believe they are honoring this passage from Matthew. 

It makes me wonder where Jesus would be in this.  The point that many in ACNA have made is that we (The Episcopal Church) have not repented and it would thus be inauthentic to act like we have any hope of reconciling with one another.  (Obviously, I don’t think we need to repent…but that’s not the point). But then I think of the tax collectors and those other notorious sinners that Jesus dined with.  There are places in the Gospels where Jesus encourages people to “sin no more” but it’s never a requirement for a relationship with him.  Right before Judas betrayed Jesus, they shared a meal together. Jesus washed Judas’ feet and gave him the bread and wine he referred to as the body and blood.  It wasn’t because Judas had asked for forgiveness. It wasn’t because he deserved forgiveness.  Jesus chose to remain in that relationship as long as he possibly could, even knowing what Judas was about to do. 

          What progress can we possibly make in the Christian Church if we demand that we all have to agree with one another before we can worship with one another?  It’s the same in our individual churches.  There will be many times when we are not in agreement, when we are even disappointed with one another.  The strength of our community is dependent on our ability to remain in relationship with one another, continue to share God’s love even when we can’t always agree on what that looks like.  

When Paul writes about putting on the armor of light, it’s not about defending ourselves from an enemy…it’s about embodying the light of Jesus Christ so that others can feel the warmth of that light.  Usually when we think of armor, we think of how it protects people in battle.  However, when Paul uses the analogy, I think it was less about protection and more about embodiment.  Paul wanted us not just to share the light of Christ, he wanted us to wear the light of Christ…to put on Christ.  If we are to actually focus on how we are embodying that light, then we don’t really need to spend as much time on who is right and who is wrong, who is in and who is out.  Because in the end, none of us are right all the time.  Let’s leave that honor to Jesus.

Women's Holy Disobedience: August 23

Year A, Pentecost 13                        Exodus 1:8-2:10                                  

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”  Some of you will remember that Joseph was young boy who was sold by his cruel brothers into slavery. He ended up in Egypt and interpreted the Pharoh’s dreams so accurately and advantageously, the Pharoh ended up giving him a great deal of power and authority.  Joseph later forgave his brothers, and his whole family settled in Egypt.  Joseph’s father was named Israel and the descendants of his family were who this new king was referring to as the Israelite people.  It’s the first time this group of people is recognized as Israelites.

Notice, the new king is not named.  Apparently the author of Exodus didn’t think his name was important.  Many have hypothesized on who this king was, but the author of Exodus didn’t name him.  What we know is that not only did he not know Joseph, he didn’t care about the story of Joseph, which is part of the reason that instead of working with the people known as Israelites, he decided to oppress them. He was threatened by a community he didn’t understand.  We see that far too often.

As a result he decided that instead of working with them, he would simply oppress them more and more until they lost their will to live.  However, that didn’t work.  The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.  Since oppressing the people he feared was not effective, this nameless Pharaoh came up with an even more evil plan.  He asked the midwives of the Hebrew women to kill all the male babies.  The men were more of a threat because they could join Egypt’s enemies and fight.

            It would seem that the Pharaoh should have feared the women more as they were the ones who thwarted his plan. It was the midwives who saved the day--two women named Shiphrah and Puah.  Those might not be names most of you recognize but their names are obviously important. They are named, even when the most powerful man isn’t. 

They defied the Pharaoh. Why? Because they feared God.   We don’t talk a lot about fear of God. It meant something different in this context then how we perceive it now.  It wasn’t necessarily about being afraid of what God might do.  It was about awe, reverence and respect.  We all connect with God in different ways.  When I pray, I think of Jesus, the more human and vulnerable aspect of God. But God is more than that. The God of the Old Testament had some vulnerable moments, but was mostly associated with awe, majesty and power. 

The midwives had a deep reverence for the God who created the heavens and the earth, the creator God. Because they respected this God of creation, they refused to help a corrupt king destroy God’s greatest act of creation—humans.   So when Pharoh called them before him, they simply explained that the Hebrew women just gave birth too quickly. By the time the midwife was called, it was too late.  The baby was already born and whisked away. The hilarious part of this explanation is the Pharoh obviously felt like he couldn’t argue with these women.  I mean…what did he know about childbirth? 

Later, church fathers like Augustine and Gregory the Great debated whether these women were lying.  If they were lying, then they were sinning and they were wrong to do so.   These church fathers went as far as to say that while these women were rewarded by God in this life, they would not be rewarded in the next life. About 1000 years later, Martin Luther (the man who had the courage to take on church corruption) wrote that these midwives were the model for living under the pressure of persecution because they disobeyed unjust orders.  Their lies were justified because they were meant to aid rather than injure.  Martin Luther (the great church reformer) understood more than most the courage it took to defy unjust rulers and why sometimes, it was necessary.

It wasn’t just the midwives that defied the unjust ruler’s orders.  There was also Moses’s mother.  She was rather crafty in how she defied the orders.  After the Pharoh was thwarted by the midwives, he told everyone to throw every Hebrew boy into the river. Moses’ mother carefully placed him in the river in a waterproof basket…in a place where he would likely be found.  

Another woman, the Pharaoh’s own daughter, chose compassion over cruelty when she found the baby boy in the basket.  She knew this was one of the babies who her father demanded be killed.  She defied him and drew him out of the river and raised him as her own.  At some point the Pharoh must have realized that this baby was one that he commanded be killed, but it would appear that even he could not tell his own daughter to kill a baby. It’s so much harder to oppress and kill when we don’t know the people who we are oppressing. 

What is interesting is that we hear no more of the Pharoh’s plan to kill the Hebrew boys.  For all we know, he gave up the plan because of the courage of the midwives, the sacrifice of a mother and the compassion of a daughter.  They all defied power in a different way and it changed history.  This is not to say that the Pharaoh was defeated in that moment.  He wasn’t. He continued to enslave the Hebrew people.  But he didn’t’ succeed in killing a whole generation of Hebrew boys.  Moses lived and went on to defy Pharaoh in a public and dramatic way.  He freed the Hebrew people. That would only be decades later.  As we know, change takes time.  Civil disobedience can be a very effective tool, but it’s not always the most efficient tool.

What we see from this reading is that practice of civil disobedience has Biblical precedence that goes back thousands of years, long before Jesus was killed by the Roman government, long before the Civil Rights movement.  There are political leaders today who eagerly quote Romans 13 which says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed...”  Current political leaders like to use this line to show that loyalty to the government is our Christian duty. 

The thing we have to remember is that Paul was writing to a community in Rome…people living in one of the most powerful empires of all time.  He was mindful of what could happen when a faith community appeared to oppose the government itself and he discouraged that kind of wholesale opposition.  Yet we can see from our reading in Romans today, which is the chapter right before Paul encourages people to be subject to the governing authorities, he tells people, “not to be conformed to this world.”  That is the tricky position we are in as Christians.  We have to exist in this world and be responsible citizens, but we also can’t be conformed to the world. That means that like the midwives and the Pharaoh’s daughter we must try to discern not just what we think is best, but discern the will of a loving and compassionate God.

You might note that in this entire reading from Exodus, the only time that God directly intervenes is to reward the midwives who refused to follow Pharaoh’s orders.  That would appear to be very limited involvement.  Sometimes we are tempted to look around and observe whatever injustice might be currently plaguing our nation or world and wonder, where is God in this? When is God going to step in and fix this mess? In those moments, we would be wise to remember, that God works through us, the people of God.  God will inspire us, support us, maybe even reward us, but it’s up to us to do the work that requires compassion, love and sometimes a degree of disobedience.

Faint Heart: August 9

 Year A, Pentecost 11                            Matthew 14:22-33                                 

          You of little faith.  I have always struggled with that phrase when I see it in the Gospel of Matthew.   Matthew uses some variation of that phrase five times.  The other three Gospels (in total) use it once.  What annoys me about the use of this phrase, is that it’s often in the context of a few verses that I really love.  Then Jesus just ruins the moment by reminding the disciples (and us) of how little faith we have. 

The interesting thing about the use of this phrase is that it’s always used with the apostles. It’s never the Pharisees or the scribes—those who Jesus tends to be a little critical of. It’s the apostles with whom Jesus uses this phrase.  These are the men that Jesus chose to be closest to him and then carry on his message after he Jesus ascended to heaven.  Two of the times, this phrase was directed at Peter…the man he would refer to as the rock on which he would build his church.  Jesus called Peter the rock in chapter 16, only 10 verses after he had referred to the apostles as having little faith for the 5^th time. It just doesn’t make sense to me.  The context is all wrong.

          Here is what I am wondering, what if “a little faith” is enough? What if Jesus isn’t castigating his chosen apostles for not having enough faith, instead he’s saying, “you’ve got a little, and that might just be enough.” There a book called “The Message.” It’s not a translation of the Bible as much as it’s an interpretation that is supposed to help us hear the words a little differently. Sometimes I read this version, because the work was done by a scholar and pastor, using the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but it’s more accessible.  Anyhow, instead of Jesus saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Jesus says, “Faint heart, what got into you?” That makes more sense to me.  Because it was never about Peter’s ability to believe.  It was never about the amount of faith he had.  It was about where the faith was placed—with whom his faith was placed.

          When the apostles saw Jesus walking across that choppy water, they were confused and afraid, which is understandable.  He said, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”  The more literal translation here is, “Take heart, I am…”  The phrase “I am” is the name of God.  In that moment, he was not just saying, “It’s me Jesus.”  He was saying, “I am the one true God.”  The use of the phrase “I am” is especially important in the Gospels, because it connects Jesus to the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.  It’s the way that God identified Godself to Moses in the Book of Exodus.  In saying that, Jesus was revealing who he really was.

Peter knew in that moment that not only did it mean that Jesus could walk on water, but his command alone would give him (a mere mortal) the ability to walk on water.  Peter didn’t suddenly have this crazy belief that he too could walk on water.  He was so convicted of the power of Jesus which meant that Jesus’ command would enable him to walk on water.  That is what gave him the courage to get out of that boat.  It wasn’t faith in his own ability, it was faith in Jesus.

Can you imagine the courage that would have required just to step out of a boat in the middle of a storm? The apostles were already terrified because the boat was being battered by waves in the dark.  Peter left the relative safety of the boat to walk through the very water that was the source of the fear.  It would be like driving on the Schuykill at rush hour at night and then deciding to get out and walk through the traffic.  Peter was able to get out of the boat because he had put his trust in Jesus. 

When he started to sink, it wasn’t that he stopped believing in Jesus.  It’s not that he suddenly became plagued by doubt.  It was just that he wasn’t sure if he could keep going.  You see, if he had stopped believing, he would not have called out of Jesus to save him.  He knew that he wasn’t in control, but neither was the storm.  It was Jesus who was in control and it was Jesus who saved him.  “Faint heart, what got into you?”  Who knows what the answer to that question is.  It could have been the waves.  Maybe he suddenly felt the water and it was cold.  Maybe he thought, ok, I am walking on water, now what?

          Have you ever been there?  You are feeling pretty good, like maybe you have just figured this “how to be a grown up thing” and then something happens.  It could be major, it could be just a feeling, a build up of anxiety or worry. Then you think, now what? Where do I go from here?”  Sometimes those moments pass.  Occasionally those moments turn into much longer periods and can be paralyzing.  In those moments, Jesus asks us: Faint heart, what got into you?

          If you have heard enough of my sermons, I hope you will know that I am not the kind of preacher who tries to make Jesus’ words more palatable.  I am always talking about how hard it is to be a Christian. We have to put effort into our relationship with God, just like we have to put effort into any relationship that matters.  There were times that the apostles let Jesus down. There were times he reprimanded him, but it wasn’t in these moments of fear and panic.  It wasn’t when they were putting their faith in him and taking risks.  Those were the moments that Jesus reached out and said, “Do not be afraid…”  A few weeks ago I talked about how the Apostle Paul talks about weakness.  In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he quotes God as saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Jesus encourages us to acknowledge our weakness because it gives us an opportunity to depend more heavily on God.

          There are so many times in life when we forget that God is in charge, when we think we can just put our head down and power through whatever we are facing.  Sometimes it’s when we feel we are at our strongest when we become faint hearted and we forget the one who saves us every single time.  But the good news is that no matter how far you might sink, no matter how bad the storm gets, all you have to do is call out to Jesus.  “Lord, save me.”  Jesus won’t reprimand you. He will pull you up and then ask you, “Faint heart, what got into you?” Again, that’s not a reprimand, it’s an opportunity to remind that you aren’t in control and maybe this is a time to consider where you are in relation to God. As long as you have that connection to God, it doesn’t matter how meager your faith may be…it’s always enough. God’s grace is always sufficient.

God is in the Struggle: August 2, 2026

 Year A, Pentecost 8                            Genesis 32:22-31                                                  

          I once read (and have no way of proving this) that this story from Genesis is one of the most frequently preached stories in all of Genesis.    That is just one book of the Bible, so perhaps that is not very impressive to you.  But Genesis is full of awesome stories.  You have the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and the coat of many colors (they even made that into a musical)… So what is it about this text that attracts so many preachers and commentators?   I cannot speak for every preacher in the world, but there is something mysterious and wild in the text.  We all love a good mystery and this story has a couple mysterious elements.

          The first mystery is who Jacob is wrestling.  It’s so mysterious that most of us do not even realize that it is a mystery.  Most Bibles provide handy subtitles which make it very clear that this is an angel or God, or both.   What we sometimes forget is that subtitles were not in the original text.  Some translator just added them so we could find things more easily.  The text really just says that it is a man.  Many infer that it was God or an angel because Jacob commented at the end, “For I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.”  Because of that, it seems like a safe assumption that Jacob was wrestling God.  However, some struggle with the idea of Jacob wrestling God because it sounds… ridiculous.  Why would God wrestle someone?  And if God did, I don’t think the other person would last very long.  This is God…all powerful God.  What human could possibly contend with that? 

          That brings us to the next mystery: who won?  Some conclude that Jacob won because the mysterious wrestler asked Jacob to let him go and Jacob was in a position to demand a blessing.  If this is true, then it would be really hard to believe that the wrestler was God.  It’s one thing to think that God might wrestle a human, but to lose to a human…that’s just too much.  However, others contend that the stranger won because Jacob walked away with a limp.  Also, the wrestler named Jacob, and naming someone often implies having power over that person.

          Here’s my theory on both mysteries.  Jacob was wrestling God and there was no winner or loser.  That was not what this match was about.   This match was about a couple of things.  We learn something of the character of God.  Our God is a God willing to get down in the dirt with us, to struggle with us in very real and concrete ways.  God is even willing to let us be a part of that struggle.  Sure God could have pinned Jacob in less than a second, but that would not have taught Jacob very much about himself or his relationship with God.

          Let’s consider the context for a moment.  So far in the story of Jacob, he has been a bit of a twerp.  He cheated his brother and lied to his father.  Instead of facing either of them, he ran away.  When he ran, God provided for him, and Jacob agreed to follow the one true God as long as God continued to provide for Jacob.  It was a provisional acceptance.  Jacob found two wives and did pretty well for himself.  He became quite prosperous.  He decided it was finally time to return home, but realized that he would encounter his brother, who was out for blood when he last saw him.  Right before our story for today, Jacob had sent people ahead of him to try to bribe his brother so that his brother might spare him.  It would be a stretch to say that things had been easy for Jacob, but he seemed to consistently come out ahead without  having to sacrifice much.   His relationship with God was one of give and take.  God gave and he took. 

          The wrestling match changed that.  God was no longer at a distance.  God was there trying to wrestle him to the ground.   There was no easy way out.  Even so, Jacob remained true to his nature and demanded a blessing.  God would not give him the blessing until Jacob provided him with not only his name, but his truth.  The name Jacob literally means heel.  When he came out of the womb, he was grasping the heel of his brother Esau.  When Jacob revealed his name to his opponent, he was telling more than his name, he was telling his past which was rather shameful.  God would not allow Jacob to be defined by his past.  This match meant that the sins of the past would no longer define Jacob because God would not just provide a blessing, God provided a new identity.  The name God gave Jacob was Israel, which means, “You have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”  One commentator summarized that as “scrapper with God.” [1] That sounds a lot better than heel!

          The last sentence of our reading for today is: “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel limping because of his hip.”  The limp was a result of God dislocating his hip during the all night wrestling match.  It was a small price to pay for a new identity and a more profound understanding of God, but it was still a price.

 I think it’s easy to forget that being a Christian is not an easy path.  It is not the path of least resistance.  We all know that life comes full of struggles.  Those struggles can leave us with physical and emotional scars. Some of those scars are related to our religion.  There are people who have been have been hurt by Churches, church leaders, or even well meaning Christians who are misguided.  That’s an important topic, but not what I am talking about here. 

What I am talking about today are the times when our faith/our belief system means that we have to do the hard thing, or make a sacrifice that other people might not be making.  It might mean we stand up to someone who has said things that are disrespectful or cruel, and we pay a price.  It might mean that we sacrifice some comfort that has insulated us from the pain of our world.   Even coming to church on a Sunday morning is a small sacrifice of your time. Sometimes those hard things we do or experience leave us wounded or extraordinarily weary.  We can resent those wounds or fatigue, or we can consider the way that Jacob’s wrestling match with God left him with a limp, but also renewed commitment to his God and his family. 

We worship a transcendent and all powerful God.  But we also worship a God who was born to a young, poor and unmarried woman and was crucified on a cross with criminals.  We worship a God…we are loved by a God who is willing to get down in the dirt and the grime with us and stay with us, until the struggle is over.  While the struggle is never over in this life, God never leaves us alone in the struggle.

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[1] Bruggemann p. 427

Strength in Weakness: July 26

 Year A, Pentecost 9                                         Romans 8:26-39                                                                 

I went to a Presbyterian seminary in my early 20s.  I was Roman Catholic at the time and had never once been asked to pray extemporaneously…that means without any preparation. I had been active in a church and college ministry, but that was not something that Catholics did. Presbyterians are much more accustomed to writing their own prayers and often leading prayer without writing it out in advance.  Every week, the women on the 3^rd floor of my dorm would get together for prayer and conversation.  People were called on for opening and closing prayers.  I told them that I wasn’t comfortable with that and asked that they not call on me.  After a few months they said, “Well, can’t you just lead a Catholic prayer that you know?”  We did the Hail Mary, which also felt weird.  I became good at just avoiding it in general.

When I was studying at the Episcopal Seminary I was rarely called on to lead prayer that wasn’t in the prayer book…which meant I didn’t get any practice coming up with my own prayers. At my first clergy conference, the bishop had this fun habit of inviting the newest clergy to lead the prayer before a meal. He asked me and I politely declined…in front of everyone.  There is nothing more terrifying than leading a prayer in front of a bunch of clergy, especially when you are brand new and the youngest one there.  A few years later, one of my colleagues said, “Telling the bishop you wouldn’t pray was one of the craziest things I had ever seen. I didn’t think you would make it to the next clergy conference.”  But here I am, 20 years later.  And you know what…it still makes me nervous when someone asks me to pray out loud….and I am a priest.

          For that reason and at least a few more, I have always loved these words from Paul. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”  Paul was obviously a gifted writer and speaker. If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t still be reading him today.  Yet it would seem, that even he had his moments when he didn’t feel like he could pray.  Maybe it was the times he was imprisoned...or ship wrecked, or beaten.  Those are all possibilities.  Or perhaps, it was those time when he felt that he had to prove himself over and over again, because he wasn’t one of the original apostles. He often felt the need to defend himself as he was one of the few leaders of this very new church who had never even met Jesus when he was still alive. 

It’s impossible to know when it was hardest for him.  I have had times in my life when it was hard, even impossible to pray.  Sometimes when it felt like it should have been hard, the prayer came with ease.  Even as I wrote this sermon, I couldn’t quite pinpoint why sometimes prayer felt impossible, and other times, it flowed like a mighty river, just gushing forth. I share all this because I know a lot of people who perceive that their struggle to pray makes them less of a Christian.  However, I believe that the struggle is what brings us closer to God.  I think the other thing that can bring us closer to God is our ability to acknowledge our weakness and thus our dependence on God.

          Some version of the word “weak” is used 42 times in the New Testament.  32 of those times are in Paul’s letters.  In the Old Testament, weak is only used with negative associations or when talking about the need to help and protect the weak.  What I have always appreciated about Paul is his willingness to acknowledge his own weakness…not as a failure, not even as something that needs to be fixed, but an opportunity to strengthen one’s relationship with God. 

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul talked about a thorn in his flesh…something he begged God to take away from him.  There are a lot of theories about what this thorn might have been, but we really can’t know for sure.  What we know is that it was a thorn that remained his whole life. It was something that he never overcame, never rid himself of.  While God didn’t remove the thorn, God did respond to the prayer. God said “’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” That led Paul to conclude, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

          I am not proud of my refusal to pray out load at my first clergy conference.  My refusal didn’t come from a place of humility or awareness of my weakness.  It came from a place of fear and anxiety…a need that people not judge me on something that I didn’t have time to prepare.  Ironically, about 15 years after that refusal to pray publicly, a friend of mine and I decided to write a book of prayers about our experiences being gravely ill.  Both of us realized that when we were sick and afraid, we couldn’t pray, which was confusing for us because we were both clergy.  You would think if anyone could have figured it out, we could have. 

But it was almost like our training got in the way.  We had forgotten the words of Paul were not just words to preach about, they were words to experience.   We called the book Irreverent Prayers, not because the prayers were actually irreverent, but because the groaning and sighing that we experienced as prayer just didn’t feel reverent or holy.  It felt desperate.  It also felt real, and I think that’s all God really cares about, that our prayers are real and mean something.

          If you are struggling with prayer, then that means you haven’t given up.  If you feel like you can’t find the right words, then that’s when you get to groan or sigh or cry.  If your prayers contain swear words, just don’t say those prayers out loud in a large group. Don’t try to censor yourself before God.  Don’t feel shame for what you want to say or are afraid to say.

Paul wrote, “God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit…” God has already searched our hearts.  God already knows all of us, and God loves us not despite our weakness, but because of our weakness.  Our weaknesses gives God something to work with.

In the Gospels, it was always the proud and the confident that Jesus argued with and was critical of.  It was never the weak and the vulnerable. Jesus never reprimanded someone for genuine questions. The only questions he didn’t like were the ones that were trying to trap or trick him. If you are feeling weak, or afraid, or hopeless—that’s ok.  It’s hard to feel those things, but it doesn’t mean you are not holy or beloved by God.  You were created for holiness and goodness.  Don’t let fear or weakness be a reason to give up. Instead, let it be a reason to invite God into your life in the most authentic way possible.