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.

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.

And Yet: Ash Wednesday

 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10                                                                        February 18, 2026 

            The challenge in preaching Ash Wednesday is the same challenge that clergy face on Christmas.  It’s the same readings year after year.  This year I thought I had a great new take on Joel and then realized that was exactly what I preached last year. In previous years, I have preached about why we put ashes on our head even though the Gospel reading tells us not to disfigure our faces.  My theory is that it’s actually an admission of our own hypocrisy, which is a good and heathy thing to admit.  We are all hypocrites about something in our lives.  I have preached that amazing line from Joel, “rend your hearts and not your clothing.”  What I have never preached on is 2^nd Corinthians, partly because it doesn’t seem to really belong in Ash Wednesday…at least not as clearly as the others.

            Yet I found myself coming back to the last two verses of this text from 2^nd Corinthians over and over.  “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see-- we are alive; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”  One of the things that I love about Paul (who is the individual who wrote 2^nd Corinthians and much of the New Testament) is his humanity.  We see his insecurities and his defensiveness close up.  If the Bible was written today, this would have been so highly edited and polished, we would not hear any of the phrases that make the great heroes of the Bible accessible and relatable. While the Bible has been translated thousands of times, the word still retains the truth of the people who wrote it.

            Paul was clearly getting some push back from the people of Corinth. His mission was to spread the Gospel far and wide, so he moved from place to place, never staying terribly long.  He was in Corinth a little longer than he was in other places, about a year and half, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a very long time. After he left, other religious leaders stepped in and seemed to have contradicted Paul’s message, probably offering another path, an easier path.  Since Paul didn’t know Jesus personally, people used his lack of first hand knowledge to undermine his message. 

Thus we see him defending himself quite a bit in his letters.  Here he provides us a list of the hardships he has endured as well as his virtues.  It was a common rhetorical technique at the time---listing hardships and virtues. This list almost seems to be doing what the Gospel tells us not to do—practicing one’s piety before others.  Then again, maybe he didn’t have a choice.  For people to believe the message he was sharing, they had to believe the messenger.  Still I find it fascinating that this man who accomplished so much was just a little insecure.

            Let me return to those lines that first got my attention. I get excited when I see the phrase “and yet” in the Bible.  It usually speaks to a tension…often between what we are experiencing now and what will we experience in God’s kingdom.  It speaks to that primal hope---even though things are rough now, it’s going to get better.  In this reading, it speaks to another tension of how others perceive us (or how we think they perceive us) as compared to the way that God perceives us.

            “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known;” I have known a fair amount of people with imposter syndrome.  I assume some degree of it is normal.  Yet it concerns me when I see it in Christians—people of faith fearful of calling themselves a Christian.  It’s sometimes because they don’t believe everything, or because they have a past they are not proud of, or maybe a present they aren’t proud of. 

People have told me, “if you really knew me, you wouldn’t think I belong here.” I always tell them, I don’t need to know all of you to know that you belong here. Because God knows all of you. Church isn’t a finishing school for Christians who are 90% there and just trying to get to 100%.  It’s for anyone who is ready to admit that they have fallen short and they want to be better. It is for anyone who wants to deepen or explore their faith. It’s for people who want to know Jesus. Paul knew what it was to be treated as an imposter.  Jewish people thought he had failed as a rabbi. Many Christians knew he had persecuted Christians and were still not convinced he was a real Christian.  But he knew that in God’s eyes he was true.  It didn’t matter that no one knew him entirely because God knew all of him and still loved him.   

We are “dying, and see-- we are alive”   This is the line that belongs on Ash Wednesday. In just a few minutes, I will put ashes on your forehead and remind you of your mortality…that you are dust and to just you will return.  Yet while we are all dying (at different rates), we are still very much alive, no matter if you are 25 of 85.  You are still alive. That is a precious thing.  It also comes with a certain responsibility. What will you do with this beautiful life you have been given?  How can you serve God and God’s people?

We are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”  Life is really hard and often depressing.  If you are aware of the things going on around you, it would be impossible not be a little sad. We could go around bemoaning the state of the world 100% of the time, or we could find times and ways to rejoice—not because we are ignoring the suffering, but because we still have a loving God and there is always some place where we can find joy. Even on Ash Wednesday, we rejoice because we have a God who loves us unconditionally.

We are “poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”  We have all seen the people who have everything they need and more, but are still desperate to acquire more stuff. They are never content with what they have. We see it in our culture way too much.  We have also seen people who have just what they need and somehow seem to have more than enough to give. Their life is one of abundance. God looks at us and see us as more than enough. You are more than enough.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent.  You could look at Lent and see the penitence and the focus on sin and say, “Oh God, not again. There is too much suffering, I don’t need any more. I don’t need more reasons to feel bad about myself.”  And yet….we could look at this as an opportunity to see the person that God sees…to chip away at the residue that has hardened around your heart and see yourself as a beloved child of God who has these 40 days to draw closer to God, to create a clean heart and be the person who God has created you to be. That is what Lent offers each one of us, a new beginning.

When Paul was Tactful: Sept 7

Year C, Pentecost 13                                                          Philemon 1-21                                                    

           In 1619, about 20 Africans landed on the coast of Virginia, about a mile from my previous church.  While slavery was not yet institutionalized in the colonies, these 20 individuals were enslaved, mostly in Jamestown.  The first recorded baptism of an enslaved person was William Tucker in 1624.  He was baptized by the rector of my previous church and many more baptisms of enslaved people followed. What we don’t know is how those baptisms happened.  Were they required? Did William Tucker’s parents want him to be baptized or was it the decision of the Christian who owned him?  We were still the Church of England in 1624, but the practice continued through the first 80 years of the Episcopal Church, until slavery was abolished. 

            I imagine that many of you can see the disconnect between baptizing a person into the Christian faith while still maintaining that the person can be owned.  Some might assume that the enslavers just weren’t thinking that way, as if it didn’t occur to them that baptizing enslaved people might then lead to different kinds of freedom.  Evidently someone was thinking that way because in 1667, the General Assembly in Virginia felt the need to pass an act that said being baptized doesn’t exempt an enslaved person from bondage. In other words, being baptized didn’t make you free, at least not if you were African.  The words that were used in the baptismal service was that the individual being baptized was “grafted into the body of Christ’s Church”[1] But according to lawmakers at the time, being a Christian didn’t give someone rights in this life— only the next. 

            Of course slavery wasn’t just in the United States.  It was happening during Jesus’ life as well, not quite in the same way.  At the time, slavery didn’t last a lifetime.  People were usually freed by the time they were 30.  In Paul’s letter to Philemon, we heard a little about slavery in the ancient world. Philemon is the 3^rd shortest book in the Bible…which means we have the rare opportunity to discuss an entire book of the Bible in about 10 minutes.

            The other unique thing about this letter is that it’s to a person rather than a community.  Why would a personal letter be included in our sacred text?  If you read the entire run on first sentence, you will see that it’s not just directed to Philemon and a few others, Paul included “the church in your house.”  At this time, it was common to worship in people’s homes.  There were no Christian churches, so new Christians organized around a home and family.  This letter was directed to an individual, but it was meant to be shared with the community, which meant it had wider implications than just a few people.  Paul knew that and evidently those who put together the canon of scripture saw that as well. 

Most scholars believe that Paul was a prisoner when he wrote this letter and that was possibly how he met a man named Onesimus who was an enslaved man who escaped.  During Paul’s time with Onesimus, he was converted to Christianity.  It’s not clear whether Onesimus was in prison with Paul or was simply helping  him while he was in prison.  Prisons at this time were truly horrible places and your needs (food, clothing, etc) had to be provided from someone on the outside.  Since Paul wrote about how useful Onesimus was, it’s possible that he was supporting Paul while he was imprisoned.  This letter is asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus (because he escaped) and possibly free him.

            Since Paul can often be rather offensive and unconcerned about the feelings of the person receiving the letter, I find the tone of this letter fascinating.  On the one hand, I want Paul to write Philemon and call him out as a hypocrite because he should obviously see why being a Christian and owning someone is wrong.  But Paul is uncharacteristically careful in how he handles this confrontation. 

He started how he often started letters, he told the receiver how he prayed for them and thanked God for them, in particular, “for your love for all the saints.”  When Paul referred to “saints” he was referring to all Christians.  He was reminding them of the compassion they already exhibited. He then went on to say, “though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love…”   What frustrates some modern readers, is that Paul never explicitly told Philemon to give Onesimus is freedom, nor did he condemn slavery as a whole.  Instead he asked that he should receive him “no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.”

            The point might seem clear to us, but during the time when slavery was still around, slave holders used this text to defend slavery. They said, “Look, Paul wasn’t telling Philemon to free him, he was just asking that he not be punished for running away and that since he was now a Christian, he should be treated just a little better.” I think Paul was arguing for freedom. He later said, “So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.”  Treat this man who was formerly enslaved as you would the apostle Paul…the man who was highly respected in this community.  Paul also later shared that Philemon became a Christian because of Paul, which means Paul would have been held in high esteem by Philemon and his family.

 Notice the familial language that Paul used.  He referred to Onesimus as his child. He said that Philemon should consider him a beloved brother.  You can’t enslave your child or your brother.  Paul didn’t appeal to Philemon’s humanity or sense of justice.  He appealed to his Christian faith, his compassion and understanding of what it is to be a Christian.  When we say that we are siblings in Christ, we mean that. 

Now you might thing I am avoiding the Gospel, but the truth is I really wanted to preach on Philemon. However, they are related. Here is the 30 second explanation of the Gospel.  Jesus was using hyperbole to get people’s attention.  He was not advocating for us to hate our family.  But he was saying that people should prioritize God, even over family.  That doesn’t mean we are taking love from our family, as there is not a limited supply of love. It means we are expanding who we can love.  All Christians are our family.  And if all Christians are our family, then we really need to consider more carefully how we treat one another…which is why Philemon is in the Bible…which is why the men who put together the Bible 1800 years ago thought, this one page letter needed to be remembered for a very long time. 

Now you might be thinking, what about people who aren’t Christians? Are we allowed to treat them poorly? No.  There are plenty of other places in the Bible that talks about how God loved people from all faiths.  But in Philemon, Paul is talking about how we can use our Christian faith to guide us in how we treat the people who are considered less than.  Just imagine for a second if we could just get Christians in the world to actually do that…even if Christians were just treating other Christians well.  That would be some serious progress.

Now the reason Paul’s tone in this letter matters is that it can guide us in how we make certain arguments.  It’s satisfying to label people as hypocrites and bigots.  But it never accomplishes anything.  Paul could have just told Philemon what to do, but he wanted it to sink in.  He wanted Philemon to know why he was freeing Onesimus and expanding his family.  Because then he could be an example for others as well.  The other thing that made a difference in this situation is that Paul already had a relationship with Philemon.  He even said at the end of the letter, please make up a guest room, because I am planning to visit.  Philemon knew that Paul was going to check on Onesimus.  Paul was showing him how committed he was to this situation with his words and actions. 

What makes this letter so incredible is that not only does it teach us how our faith informs how we treat others.  It also helps us talk to others when we are trying to help them see something that might be quite obvious to us.  Just like Paul wrote in his letter, we must appeal to others on the basis of love, not anger or righteous indignation. Love.

---

[1] 1662 Book of Common Prayer

What Freedom Really Means: June 29

Year C, Pentecost 3                                   Galatians 5:1, 13-25                                                                    

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” We all recognize these words.  It comes from the prologue of our Declaration of Independence which we celebrate on July 4^th---which we will formally recognize next Sunday.  Normally when we think of July 4^th, we think of freedom.  That is what we are celebrating, right? Freedom? Interestingly, the word freedom never appears in the Declaration of Independence.  But there is liberty, which is just like freedom.  Its right there—listed as one of our unalienable rights.  
   

We hear the word “freedom” a lot when we talk about our nation.  But it’s astonishing how differently we all interpret that word.  The apostle Paul used that word frequently in his writings.  But he used it in much different ways than most of use it now.  Paul wrote, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” 

The dictionary defines freedom as: “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.”  That was definitely not what Paul was describing. Paul didn’t believe that our freedom meant we could live a life without restraint.  He believed that we are free, but only if we find freedom in Christ.  Living in the Spirit of Christ gives us freedom, but it also requires that we become servants to God and even servants to one another.  In being free, we are bound to serve God.  If you are a little confused right now, that is ok, Paul can often be a little confusing.

One of the fascinating things about the New Testament and Jesus’ message was that everything we once considered true was turned upside down. It wasn’t that things we considered true were suddenly untrue, it was just different. For instance, Jesus said that the first should be last and the last should be first. Jesus was a king, but his crown was made of thorns and his throne was the cross. Death was not a defeat for Jesus, because he was victorious over death.  It was a paradigm shift. Jesus taught, a completely different way of thinking and being. One of those things he taught was the importance of being a servant, no matter how important you may be. He said that the way we treat the least of these is the way we treat God.

For the Jewish people, being slaves was something that was very much a part of their story.  God had led them out of bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land.  That was and is a big part of their narrative. And the Gentiles would have known and understood slavery as well.  That practice was alive and well at the time. Therefore when Paul spoke about slavery--that was not a foreign concept to the people he was talking to. I discussed this a bit last week, how slavery in the ancient world was different than it was in our nation.

Yet, Paul was talking about a different kind of slavery entirely.  It is not forced submission.  One person or group does not forcefully take control of another. For Paul it means that we willingly submit to God, and to one another.  It was and is a completely different way of thinking.  

In talking about freedom, Paul reminded these new Christians of Galatia that freedom was not supposed to be license for self indulgence.  Freedom in Christ doesn’t mean that you can just do whatever you want.  It means that you are free from sin, free from laws that tell you how to be holy.  However there was one law that Paul and Jesus chose to emphasize: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In accepting this freedom in Christ, we also accept responsibility for one another.  It is a communal freedom rather than an individual freedom. Individual freedom is what we normally emphasize when we talk about it in the context of our nation.

I believe that our nation would be living more authentically as a free nation if we were free for one another, rather than in spite of one another---if we felt some obligation to serve the common good rather than serve our own self interests.  You might say, well that is not what American freedom is supposed to be. That’s Christian freedom which is a totally different thing. I would have agreed with you before I wrote this sermon.  While preparing for this sermon, I read the Declaration of Independence, all of it, not just that first part that is always quoted. The last line reads: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

“We mutually pledge to each other…” Huh, sounds a bit like Paul, doesn’t it? Now, I am no scholar of the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to me that the founders of this country, understood what would make our country truly free, and that is pledging ourselves to one another.  We declared independence from Britain, not from one another.  And even if I am wrong about that, I think we can all agree that when we see greatness in our county, it is when we serve one another. 

There is a reason why the military, the police, and the firefighters are often associated with patriotism….it’s because they serve. It’s because they risk their lives to help other people.  One of my most vivid memories from the days after 9-11 was trying to give blood at the local blood bank. The line was around the block.  People wanted to give something, do something.  At the heart of this nation is not just patriotism, but the kind of freedom that Paul described.

            Paul wrote, “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” Right now in our nation, we are biting and devouring one another.  And you know what, Paul was right. It feels as though we are consumed by one another---despite our desperate attempts to distinguish ourselves and separate ourselves, we are consumed.  We are not free.  We think that the might of our nation depends on our ability to protect ourselves and separate ourselves, but our might is determined by our willingness to serve one another, or in the words of the great document we celebrate this week, to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” 

It is indeed a sacred honor to serve God’s children.  But let us never forget that God’s children are all the children of the world.  Love your neighbor as yourself was never meant to be literal. Love every person as yourself.  That was what Jesus meant.  Let us be free for one another, not in spite of one another.

           

Bending the Arc toward Justice: June 22

Galatians 3:23-29 & Luke 8:26-39          Year C, Pentecost 2                                                                

            This passage from Galatians is the reason that people like me love Paul.  “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  It’s a beautiful idea—that baptism is the great equalizer.  It unites us and makes us one.  There is no doubt in my mind that Paul really believed this. 

That is what makes some of Paul’s other comments a bit harder to handle.  In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he tells slaves to be obedient to their masters.  If he truly believed that all were equal when clothed in Christ, why would there be a master and slave?  Why not support the elimination of slavery as a whole?  In Paul’s 1^st letter to the Corinthians, he told women that they should not speak in church, and should be subordinate[1].  In 1^st Timothy, Paul told women that they should not teach men or have authority over them[2].  These are texts that churches still quote to prevent women in leadership.  If there was no longer male or female, how could one be subordinate to others?

            Let’s start with the issue of slavery.  Slavery in biblical times was different than it was in our country.  It was not based on race.  It was not something you were born into. It was a broad term.  Sometimes that word referred to those who were taken as captives during a war.  Sometimes it referred to a paid servant.  For instance, people who were slaves to those in high positions had more power than some people who were considered free. Typically when the word slave is used in the New Testament (rather than servant), the translator is indicating a lack of freedom.  That doesn’t mean that a person was owned by another person (like how it was in our country during slavery), but their time was not their own and they have limited freedom in what they could do and who they could be.

While slavery wasn’t the same in biblical times, it certainly wasn’t a good thing.  It was an unjust economic system that kept some people down while others prospered. Paul argued at times for justice and good treatment of slaves, but he didn’t argue for a change to the economic system which would eliminate slavery, at least not in the writings we have.  I think it was because he knew he couldn’t accomplish that.  It was too big for even him. 

            Changing the economic system of a place and time requires more than one person and even more than a lifetime. We see it in the Gospel reading today as well.  Jesus went to the country of the Gerasenes.  That area was most likely Gentile territory, not a place that Jesus would have been welcome.  As soon he just got out of his boat, he was confronted by a man who was possessed with so many demons that he referred to himself as legion. 

These spirits had terrorized the man so much that he was forced to live among the tombs.  This wasn’t a nice well maintained cemetery that we are accustomed to seeing.  It was the wilderness, away from people.  When he did come near people, they chained him up so he could be restrained.  But whatever possessed him was stronger than the chains and shackles. He was able to break free from them.  That was how strong the spirits were. Yet even the evil spirits bowed before Jesus and Jesus was able to free him with just a few words.  He sent the evil spirits into a herd of pigs who then ran off a cliff and drowned.  As a result, this man went from being naked, violent and living in the wild, to sitting at the feet of Jesus like the other disciples.

            You would think the people of the town would have been relieved to have this possessed man healed. After all, he was tormenting them as well.  Instead, seeing this dramatic transformation scared them.  It’s unclear why they were scared, but I think it’s partly because this exorcism also affected the economy of the region. Who spread the news of the healing? It was the swineherds, the people who were responsible for the pigs that had been drowned. In drowning those pigs, Jesus had ruined their livelihood. 

Their frustration is understandable, but you would think it would have been tempered by the knowledge that a man had been healed. He had been given his life back.  He was free now. Yet it would seem that didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was the money they lost.  Instead of learning more about Jesus, a man who had the power to heal and provide true freedom and transformation, they forced him to leave the town. After all, who knows what else he could have destroyed? 

Jesus left them.  He left them to their fear and their obsession with what they had over who they could be.  If Jesus couldn’t make them see the importance of a human soul over a herd of pigs, how was Paul supposed to convince communities that the economic system that enslaved people might be unhealthy and sinful? Paul knew his limitations.  In the end, he was human like we all are.  Do I wish he would have spoken even more boldly and clearly supported women’s leadership? Yes. Do I wish he could have ended slavery then and there? Of course.  I don’t think he could. Sometimes sin is so entrenched, it takes more than one person to defeat it.

In our Gospel reading last week, Jesus told his disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”  I think even Jesus knew that there were some things people were not ready to understand, some things that would take thousands of years for us to understand.  That doesn’t mean that he was ok with the injustices that he witnessed, he just knew there were certain truths they could not handle.  So Jesus left them and us with the Holy Spirit that would continue to inspire people and help us discern God’s wisdom, God’s will for our world.

The man that Jesus healed wanted to follow Jesus. There is a part of me that hates that Jesus would not let him.  After all he had been through, why couldn’t he hang out with Jesus for a little while longer? But Jesus knew that his presence in the town would force that community to see what Jesus was capable of. Maybe that one transformed individual could accomplish more in time that Jesus could in that one day. Jesus’ time was limited.

There are times when I read this text from the Galatians about us all being equal in Christ and wonder, why has this been so hard to understand? How did slavery happen in this country when Christians had access to this text?  How did the abolition of slavery then allow for discrimination and just more forms of enslavement when we had this text? Why did it take almost 2000 years for Christians to allow women to be ordained when we have had this text? 2000 years…that’s quite a learning curve.  Why are so many Christians still unwilling to see the beauty in our LGBTQ+ community? Why are people in the trans community being murdered just for being who they need to be? It’s maddening.  Why don’t we know better when we have this text?

Martin Luther King famously said that “the arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That bend toward justice feels quite flat sometimes.  It’s a slow bend. Yet I do believe that Christians have corrected many of the mistakes of the past. We have opened our hearts and changed course in ways we would never have expected even 100 years ago.  The church and our world has changed because Christians have pushed it to change.  Christians have reminded people of what Paul said in Galatians, what Jesus said on the sermon of the mount.

We are here to continue the ministry that Jesus and Paul began.  Even in the last 20 years, I have seen the Episcopal Church stop arguing about so much that they argued about 20 years ago. We have found new stuff to argue about, but I think that is the way progress happens. It’s a slog. 

I like to think that the man who Jesus left in the country of the Gerasenes eventually got through to people, not everyone, but enough, enough to make a change, enough to bend that arc toward justice.  That’s why we can never give up.  Jesus didn’t suffer, die, rise again and leave us with the Holy Spirit so we could give up 2000 years later. Much like the man who was healed, we continue serving and living in our imperfect community sharing what God has done for us and what God’s love can do for others. Because that arc isn’t going to bend itself.  That’s up to us.

---

[1] 1 Corinthians 14:34

[2] 1 Timothy 2:11-13

Paul's Stewardship Conference: June 30th

 Year B, Pentecost 6                                                                         2 Corinthians 8:7-15                                                                                                                        

            I have attended a lot of stewardship conferences over the years.  Clergy are notoriously bad at talking about money and so they are always providing educational opportunities for us and other leaders in the church. Just in case that word is new to you, normally when we talk about it in the church, we are talking about how we support the needs of the Christian community with our time and our financial gifts.  The word steward is used in the Bible when talking about someone who is caring for property that is not actually theirs.  That is why it’s an appropriate word for church, we are all called to care for this world and this church that is really God’s. We are just the temporary caretakers.

            I have gotten some helpful information at these conferences…but you know whose stewardship talk I would really like to attend?  The Apostle Paul—the author of the 2^nd letter to the Corinthians that we heard from today.  It would not be a warm and fuzzy stewardship training. There would be no snacks, no bathroom breaks, no tedious ice breakers, but I can guarantee that Paul would get his message across in a tenth of the time of your average speaker. 

            All of chapter 8 and 9 of Corinthians is about giving.  Now normally, when you read an appeal letter that is asking you to donate to a cause, the emphasis is on the cause itself.  There are emotional and inspiring stories about the people who are being helped.  However if you simply read chapters 8 & 9, you would not even know who this money that Paul is collecting is going to.  From other letters of Paul, we know that the money is going to the Christians in Jerusalem. But Paul doesn’t mention that community at all in these chapters.

There was some tension between the Jerusalem Christians and the new Christians in places like Corinth.  The Jerusalem Christians were mostly Jewish converts.  The new Christians in Corinth and other places where Paul was evangelizing were Gentile Christians. These two groups were often at odds because of their distinct backgrounds.  For instance, many of the Jewish Christians felt that the Gentiles should have to follow Jewish law to become Christians.  Many of the Gentile Christians were new to a monotheistic faith, which didn’t give them a lot of common ground…except of course, for their belief in Jesus. 

            Maybe that is why Paul didn’t spend a lot of time about who the money was going to.  But I think the bigger reason that Paul didn’t talk about where the collection was going was that Paul believed that there was one primary reason to give and it had nothing to do with who was receiving the collected money. The reason is found in our reading for today. Paul wrote, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor, so that by his poverty, you might become rich.” He was appealing to the Corinthians not because of what kind of people they were, or even what the need was…but who they knew.  They knew Jesus Christ. 

The word “generous act” can also be translated to grace.  That Greek word for grace appears 10 times in chapter 8 and is translated to grace only a few times.   In our reading today, it’s translated to “generous undertaking” and “generous act.” I am sure the translator had his reasons, but I wonder if we lost something in not using the word grace over and over and over again.  Because that is what this whole reading is about.  Grace is the free, unearned gift that God gives us.  Grace is the gift that we do nothing to deserve. Grace is without limit.  It’s a gift that can only be fully received when it is shared. That is what grace is.

            Paul was telling the Corinthians that the reason they should give is because they have already received far more than they need.  “Jesus became poor, so that by his poverty, we might become rich.”  We often hear about Jesus being born to a poor family and we emphasize the barn where he was born as it points to his humble beginnings.  Yet when Paul talks about Jesus becoming poor….it was the act of leaving the riches of heaven, the power and comfort that must come with divinity.  Jesus left those riches to become human and experience the pain and anguish that all humans experience as well as the rejection and humiliation that came with death on the cross.  It’s so hard to wrap our minds around this, because we can’t fathom being divine in paradise.

            Imagine a time when you have been the happiest, most comfortable, least anxious, completely content that you have ever been.  Try to call that to mind. Then multiply that 100 times over. That is what Jesus gave up, to be here on this earth with us.  Jesus gave up everything so we could experience some of that joy and contentment that comes with knowing that we are beloved.  We are loved by an all powerful being who sacrificed a tremendous amount so we would have the opportunity to know that love.  When Paul told the Corinthians that the grace of God allowed them to become rich, he wasn’t talking about worldly riches.  He was talking about the richness of God’s grace, that gift that has no limit—no beginning nor end.

            Once you have experienced that kind of wealth, the abundance of God’s grace and love, then  of course you give it to others in need, of course you share what you have.  Because what do you do when something is overflowing, you provide a release valve, you release that abundance because you can’t possibly hold it all.  Paul was reminding the Corinthians of their abundance.  He told them to give not according to what they didn’t have, but what they have.  It seems so obvious, but how often do we start from a place of considering what we are missing, rather than what we have?

When Paul finally mentioned the need of the community he was collecting for, he said: “it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need…”  Paul wasn’t asking Corinthians to give more than they had or even give to a point that would hurt them.  He simply asked them to consider their abundance according to the needs of others.  That is what Paul asks of us today.  That is what stewardship is…it’s how we care for what God has given us---always considering our own abundance and the needs of others.  But first and foremost, it’s knowing Jesus and what Jesus gave us when he came down to this earth.  That is what is always comes back to.  If we can remember that tremendous gift (that grace) then we will always have enough.