It's Time to be Brighter: February 8

Isaiah 58:1-12 & Matthew 5:13-20               Year A, Epiphany 5              

     In the Episcopal Church, we don’t refer to people as saints, unless we are talking about all Christians. However, we do recognize certain people who have inspired others as a result of their faith and actions.  We have a calendar of those people.  On Feb 13^th, we celebrate Absalom Jones.  Absalom was enslaved to a wealthy Anglican in Delaware.  He expressed an interest in reading and was soon moved to the house where we created opportunities to educate himself. 

A few years later, the man who enslaved him sold his mother and 5 siblings, and took Absalom with him to Philadelphia where he joined St. Peter’s, our sister church at the time.  Absalom worked days but received an education in Quaker schools in the evening.  He then got permission from his enslaver to marry and was married by Jacob Duche who was the rector of Christ Church at the beginning of the revolution.  He purchased her freedom and after a lot of hard work, was eventually allowed to buy his own freedom. It took him decades because his enslaver didn’t want to free him.

Absalom started attending St. Georges Methodist Church where he and Richard Allen were lay preachers and grew the church dramatically. Around that same time, (1787) they formed the Free African Society which held religious services as well as doing work for the community. They even helped raise the money to add a balcony at St. Georges.  But as soon as that balcony was built, the white congregants said that African American congregants had to sit up in that balcony that they had paid for.  So they walked out.  In 1792, they built the First African Church—which would become the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. Absalom Jones and his church decided to go with the brand new Episcopal denomination while Richard Allen went on to form Mother Bethel, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1802, Bishop White (who is buried right there) ordained Absalom Jones as the first African American Episcopal priest. 

Absalom Jones believed God acted on behalf of the poor and oppressed and that Christians were meant to do so as well.  During the height of the yellow fever in 1793, while others fled the city, Absalom stayed and cared for people and even dug their graves.  He truly shined with the light of Christ for people in this city in the 18^th and 19^th century, and remains as a light in our church today. 

            It was disheartening to see those panels at George Washington’s House being torn down just a few weeks ago.  In addition to telling the story of those enslaved by George and Martha Washington, it also told a small part of the story of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and the churches they created.  It’s one of the reasons I spent a little extra time telling the story of Absalom Jones, because when those stories are silenced by others, it’s up to us to tell those stories. It is up to us to shine the light.

            Three of our four readings use the image of light in the darkness.  It’s a familiar and powerful image in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Christian Scriptures and many other religions.  The reading from Isaiah is similar to our reading from Micah last week. The people are once again trying to please God with rituals and sacrifices of animals.  They were frustrated as they felt that they were ignored by God.  They were doing many of the same things that had pleased God in the past. They were depriving themselves of food and comfort.  They were rolling around in ash and wearing sack cloth.  These were not easy things to do.  In their own way, they were trying.

But the problem was, what they were doing was self serving.  While they were doing these sacrificial acts, they were also oppressing their workers and serving their own interests as opposed to those of others.  God said, “Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice…to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke?”  He went on to tell them to share their food with those who were hungry, care for the unhoused and those without clothing.  I talked about this last week---how justice for God means taking care for the vulnerable.

            Unlike Micah, Isaiah displays more hope, probably because it was a much longer book.  While Micah has 7 chapters, Isaiah has 66 chapters.  There is more space for growth in Isaiah. He said, if you can do all these things (help the oppressed go free, care for the vulnerable), “then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like noonday…you shall be called the repairers of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”  Your light shall shine in the darkness.             

            That goes well with the text from our Gospel reading.  Our Gospel reading is a continuation of what we had last week.  We see more of this theme of light.  But while Isaiah speaks of the future (your light shall shine), Jesus speaks in the present tense. “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”  Jesus brought light to this world with his life, his death and his resurrection.  While that light has dimmed at times, it has never gone out.  When Jesus ascended to heaven, he left that light with his followers.  We are inheritors of that light. 

Maybe this is your first time in church in a long time, or have only been coming a few months.   Maybe you have been coming your whole life, but you just don’t think you have the light.  God has given all of you the light.  You are all the light of the world.  Say it to yourself, “I am the light of the world.” It sounds a bit arrogant. It’s not.  You are not the source of the light, but you are a vessel of the light.  And without people carrying the light and shining the light for others, then people forget about the light. They forget about the truth.  They start thinking that darkness is the norm.  It’s not.

            One of the reasons I became a priest was because I realized that I loved to talk to people about God. I love hearing the stories of the Bible and hearing people’s faith stories.  Stories matter.  That is why it breaks my heart that those panels were taken down.  I am not going to talk about the politics of the decision…instead I want to focus on what we can do now.  It’s so easy to resign ourselves to powerlessness.  We are not without power. 

The first line of our reading from Isaiah is, “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet.” I saw on Instagram that residents of Old City are taking turns standing at the president’s house and reading the words from the panels.  People are hanging up construction paper and writing in chalk over those blank spaces where those panels once were. They aren’t vandalizing anything, but they are finding ways to bring the stories of those 9 enslaved people back to life. 

            I was at one of the vigils a few weeks back and there was a woman holding a sign that said something like, “Jesus said to love your neighbor.”  I heard her tell someone else she was from an Episcopal Church and while she had been to many protests, this was the first time she had felt comfortable holding an overtly Christian sign.   That made me both happy and a little sad. For several decades, it’s been a certain kind of Christian that has been loud while the rest of us have just stayed in the background and talked amongst ourselves about how Christians aren’t speaking up enough. 

Well it’s time for us shy and reserved Episcopalians to get a little louder.  Actually, I don’t want us to be louder. We don’t need any more loud people. I want us to be brighter---not just so people can see our light, but so we they can see God’s light, how it shines on everyone…not just certain people someone decided deserves it.  You are the light of the world.  Don’t cover it up. Don’t let anyone cover it up.  Because it’s not our light. It’s God’s and everyone needs to see it.