Tag Archives: one

Sermon – 1 Corinthians 12.12-31a, EP3, YC, January 24, 2016

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Sermons

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Below is the sermon I had prepared for this past Sunday.  However, since most of my parishioners were still shoveling themselves out of their homes, I never got to preach it.  Here it is in its written form.  

 

A little over a week ago, the primates of the Anglican Communion made a big decision.  The primates suspended the Episcopal Church from full participation in the life and work of the Anglican Communion.  For those of you wondering what exactly the Anglican Communion is, the Anglican Communion consists of 38 autonomous national and regional Churches plus six Extra Provincial Churches and dioceses, of which the Episcopal Church is a member.  All of those bodies are in Communion – in a reciprocal relationship – with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the Communion’s spiritual head.  Each Church makes its own decisions in its own ways, guided by recommendations from specific Anglican entities.  Back in 2003, the Episcopal Church elected the first openly gay bishop, and since that time, the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church have experienced a great deal of tension.  Many churches in the Global South are morally opposed to homosexuality and have suggested that the Episcopal Church voluntarily withdraw from the Communion.  Meanwhile, many Episcopal Churches split from the church, causing lawsuits around the use of church buildings, as well as deep divisions and sadness.

This past summer at General Convention, the Episcopal Church voted to authorize liturgies for same-sex marriages.  That decision is what led to the primates’ decision last week to suspend the Episcopal Church from full participation in the life and work of the Anglican Communion for the next three years.  Though the Episcopal Church will have voice in meetings of pan-Anglican institutions and assemblies, the Episcopal Church will not have a vote on those bodies.  Our own Presiding Bishop has talked about how painful this action is, but confesses that the wideness of God’s love has made it impossible for the Episcopal Church to change course.  No one knows what the future holds.  Many in the Anglican Communion hope the Episcopal Church will change course.  Many in the Episcopal Church believe that our mission is to love all God’s children and to provide a witness of that love despite opposition.  For many of us Episcopalians, we may not feel an everyday impact from this decision, but one way or another, through this recent decision of the primates, the Anglican Communion will experience some sort of change in the way the Communion operates.

For all the drama and complexity of the Anglican Church, we are not the first in the church to experience this kind of conflict.  Thousands of years ago, the church in Corinth was struggling too.  You see, the “Church in Corinth ‘was a very mixed group, with several differing views and practices which put considerable strains on their common life.’”  Into that strain, Paul writes them to “encourage a sense of cooperation and unity amongst a group of people that were struggling with their differences.”[i]  He uses the familiar metaphor of a body to help the Corinthians see how they are to relate to one another:  not as a hierarchical body, with one part superior to the others, but as a body of mutuality, diversity, and interdependence, in which all the parts (or points of view) are needed.[ii]  Paul’s letter is both affirming and challenging.  He wants the Corinthians to know that each of them are valued and significant.  But he also wants of each of them to know that they are not to let their significance get “blown up into self-importance.”[iii]  Their significance comes from being a part of the body.  In other words, Paul wants the Corinthians to know that they are each valuable, they are each needed, and they each need to appreciate the contributions of the others.

One of the things that was most hurtful in the early 2000s, when the Episcopal Church first started openly talking about the issue of sexual orientation was that people started to leave the table.  I remember when I first became an Episcopalian, I loved how no matter what differences we all have, we could still come and feast at the Eucharistic table, side-by-side.  And in most Episcopal churches, that still happens.  But when those who opposed same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian brothers and sisters left the Episcopal Church, we lost a part of our body.  We lost the part of our body that would challenge us, question our theology, and make us aware that although we are one body, we are not of one mind.  I fear that the same thing will happen in the Anglican Communion should the Anglican Communion decide that the Episcopal Church can no longer be fully a part of the body.

The challenges that Paul presents to Corinth and the Anglican Communion presents to the Episcopal Church are just as important to us at St. Margaret’s.  Having been with our parish for over four years, I have seen a fair amount of conflict.  Whether we were discerning whether or not to take on an expensive capital project, to start a new outreach ministry, or to reach out to our neighbors and invite them to church, we have rarely been unanimous in our conversations.  But Paul is not inviting the church to experience unity as uniformity or as some sort of superficial harmony.  In fact, Paul might argue that conflict is good because conflict highlights the ways in which we are of a diverse mind.  Diversity within the body means that we are quite naturally going to have a variety of perspectives – and that variety is a blessing.  Paul argues that “diversity within the church community is not something to be tolerated, or regretted, or manipulated for one’s own advantage, but something to be received as the gift that it is.  Paul’s argument implies that not only diversity, but unity in that diversity, is a reality without which the church cannot live.”[iv]

That being said, unity of the body – unity in diversity – is not easy.  I am the first to admit that I grew up in an environment that was conflict avoidant.  My initial inner reaction to conflict is to step back in the face of conflict.  But St. Margaret’s has been a wonderful teacher about how to love and respect in the midst of conflict.  This community has taught me that without conflict, we do not get anywhere real or authentic.  With conflict, we respectfully hear the breadth of our differences, and then we move gently through those, comforting those who mourn decisions, and encouraging those who rejoice in those same decisions.  As Paul teaches us, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it”[v]

I do not know how the Anglican Communion will fare in the next three years.  My hope is that the Episcopal Church might continue to witness the power of unity through diversity within the body as opposed to unity for the sake of uniformity.  The path forward will be hard.  We will need to rejoice with those who were long treated as second class citizens and are now able to be married and ordained just like their heterosexual brothers and sisters.  We will need to mourn with those who see that change as a violation of God’s will.  We will need to honor those who have consensus around suspending our church, and comfort those in our church who feel rejected by that decision.  But mostly, we will need to keep reminding the Communion that we are one body, whose parts cannot be cut off without a weakening of the body.

The same is true for our parish and our own families.  If we see the Communion weakened by cutting off parts of the body, we will have learned some hard lessons about when our behaviors are similar in our own church and families.  If we see the Communion strengthened as the Communion honors its unity through diversity, we too will see the value of renewal through honoring diversity.  Being a body is not easy.  The good news is that we do not have to work to become the body of Christ.  “That is not Paul’s notion.  He considers that believers as believers are already the body of Christ, and he exhorts [us] to relate to one another in a manner appropriate to what [we] already are.”[vi]  Amen.

[i] Carol Troupe, “One Body, Many Parts:  A Reading of 1 Corinthians 12:12-27” Black Theology, vol. 6, no. 1, January 2008, 33.

[ii] Lee C. Barrett, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 278, 280.

[iii] 1 Corinthians 12.19.  Language from Eugene Patterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message. 

[iv] Brian Peterson, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a,” January 24, 2016 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2733 on January 21, 2016.

[v] 1 Cor. 12.2

[vi] Leander E. Keck, ed., The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10 (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 2002), 948.

Sermon – Ephesians 4.1-16, 2 Samuel 11.26-12.13a, P13, YB, August 2, 2015

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A short film circulated about a year ago[i] about the role of all religions to protect women.  The film starts out with a young woman, walking along a dirt road with books in her arms.  We presume she is walking to school to further her education.  She walks past two young men who covetously watch her pass by.  The viewer can surmise what is going to happen next.  The two men get up from the wall and start to follow her.  The young woman glances over her shoulder and sees the men following.  She speeds up, but they start running, managing to pass her, and block her way.  She comes up short and starts to back up, calculating how she is going to get away from these two men to safety.

The anxiety and dread of the young woman in that film has reminded me of Bathsheba these past two weeks.  Most of us are familiar with the David and Bathsheba story.  When we started hearing David’s story this summer, we knew this part was coming.  The story starts out in a totally different place.  When we first meet David, he is an unsuspecting, seemingly innocent, wholesome boy.  We watch David bravely take on the giant Goliath with just a bag of stones.  He is the loving friend of Jonathan and Michal, despite the fact that their father Saul tries repeatedly to kill him out of jealousy.  And when David finally becomes king, he joyously dances before God.  David has been towing the “blessed” line for most of the summer.

But these last two weeks, the story changes.  You see, David has gotten complacent and a bit self-important.  When all the other kings are going out to battle, David stays behind, letting others do his fighting.  When the rest of the kingdom is busy working or tending to life, David is lounging around the palace.  That’s where he first spies Bathsheba.  David should not have been there, and he certainly should not have let his eyes linger on a bathing married woman.  And then something awful takes over David.  He sends his men to take Bathsheba, and he sleeps with her.  Though the text never says so, we know the act must be against Bathsheba’s will, given the “enormous power differential between the violator and the violated, the intuitional background in which the crime [is] committed, and the cunning with which it [is] executed.”[ii]  Later, when Bathsheba becomes pregnant, David deepens his shame by trying to trick Bathsheba’s husband to sleep with her so that he will think the baby is his.  When that doesn’t work, David sends him to battle, having him killed in the line of fire.

I know most of us know this story.  Many of us think of this story as David’s little indiscretion.  But for some reason, reading this story this year has enraged me.  I don’t know if I am angered because I have been hearing too many stories lately about the way we treat women.  Or maybe I am angered because I expect more from David – this king who is the ancestor of our Messiah.  Or maybe I am just outraged by one more example of the powerful overpowering the powerless – taking whatever they want, ruining lives along the way.  This story is about more than an indiscretion.  This story is about a violation of the created order – a violation of the body of God.

Today, as Paul is teaching the Ephesians, he holds them to a higher standard.  Paul says, “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”  Paul says we are one body.  This calling that we are to live worthily is not the vocation we have.[iii]  The calling Paul is talking about is the calling we have as Christians to be one body in Christ – of being a loving, caring, humble body in the Lord.  Nothing David does today reflects the dignity of every human being or the one body in the Lord.  In fact, David does not even seem to see the humanity in Bathsheba or her husband, Uriah.

I think why I am so angry at David is because I am angry with myself.  As much as I want to chastise and critique David, I know that my judgment of him comes out of deep sense of my own brokenness.  David makes me acutely aware of my own failings to see the dignity of every person, to honor the ways in which we are all a part of the body of Christ.  I have become aware of my own complicity with sin as the campaign “Black Lives Matter,” has arisen over the past few years.  As more and more cases of the oppression black men and women have arisen in our country, and as more and more stories have been told about the separate reality these men and women experience from white men and women, I have been feeling more and more convicted.  If we are all one body, when black lives are denigrated, all of our lives are denigrated.  When parts of our body are shamed, abused, or live in the shadow of fear, the rest of our body is not whole.  When I participate in that abuse, whether consciously or unconsciously, I am a part of that sinful denigration of our collective body.

The same was true for Bathsheba.  When Bathsheba is taken by David, the whole body of God is denigrated.  When David sins, everyone loses favor.  And the only way to correct for sin is repentance.  The initiator of repentance today is not David, but Nathan.  Now Nathan is a smart prophet.[iv]  He does not storm into the palace, wagging his finger at David.  No, he tells a story.  Nathan tells a story of a poor man and his beloved sheep.  Of course, David is drawn in by the story.  As a former shepherd himself, he knows the beloved relationships that can happen with animals for which you care.  And so when David hears of a rich man taking that sole, beloved animal, David is outraged, and proclaims that justice must prevail.  Without hesitation, Nathan now is able to quietly, but pointedly say to David, “You are the man!”  You see, Nathan remembers his calling.  He remembers the way that God taught us to live as a community of faith – that when one of our members sins, we are all denigrated by that sin.  What David would hide, and cover, Nathan exposes and corrects.

In that short film of the two men pursuing the young woman, a turn happens.  As the woman starts to slowly back up, another man is passing by.  He sees what is happening and he quickly runs over to stand between the young woman and the two men.  The two men threaten him, but he stands firm.  A Sikh man in a turban also sees what is happening and joins the protesting man, grabbing his hand and joining him in front of the woman.  A Muslim man comes along and joins hands with the men too.  Then a Christian man joins the other men.  Slowly, eight men join hands together, forming a circle of protection around the woman.  The two pursuing men back away and retreat.  A smile crosses the young woman’s face, and she lifts her head a little higher.

What this short film captures is the power of the body acting as the body.  When Nathan pronounces judgment on David, Nathan is participating in holding up the health of the whole body.  The story at this point could have gone a different way.  Nathan could have been tossed aside, and David could have kept up his deception.  But David’s last words are simple and profound.  “I have sinned against the Lord.”  Truthfully, David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah.  But what David understands even more profoundly is that when David sins against members of the body, David sins indirectly against the Lord.[v]  We hear his fuller confession in the words of the Psalm we read today.[vi]  But what David’s words teach us is that healing and wholeness are possible.  David does not just say “I am sorry,” but David repents – or as the Hebrew word connotes, David changes his way, and returns to the Lord.  David moves back toward health and wholeness.

The redemption in David’s story for me comes not through David, but through Nathan.  Like those men in that video, Nathan stands up for those without power.  When that action happens, the body is able to move toward wholeness.  When Paul tells us to remember our calling today, Paul is talking about all the parts of us.  For those times when we are Davids, those times when we are pushed to be Nathans, and for those times when we are the Bathshebas and Uriahs, Paul’s words are simple.  “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called….  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”  There is one body.  I beg you:  lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.  Amen.

[i] “Every Religion Protects Women, Protecting Women Is Religion,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51_GQqVfSk, July 21, 2014, as found on July 30, 2015.

[ii] Eleazar S. Fernandez, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 9.

[iii] N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone:  The Prison Letters (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 43.

[iv] Lloyd H. Steffan, “On Honesty and Self-Deception:  ‘You Are the Man’,” Christian Century, vol. 104, no. 14, April 29, 1987, 405.

[v] Carol J. Dempsey, OP, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 10.

[vi] Kathleen A. Robertson Farmer, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 6.