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.