We Need Each Other

Jesus...why do you present parables that are so hard?

The one about the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 ought to have been an easy one to preach. Y'know, don't be so self-righteous. It basically says that in the introduction. 

Except....there is more to this story...and it speaks to the moment we're in right now in our culture of the not-very United States.

There are those who have lots of money...and control of our government...tech bros, casino owners, and other billionaires who have joined with those who are simply sadistic people, the types that like to see other people suffer.

And they have coalesced in the Republican Party. There's just no other way to put it. One political party has become rife with greed and avarice. 

The Democrats aren't saintly...but they also aren't sadists.

As the government shutdown drags on and on...Congress is still getting paid. ICE terrror troops are still getting paid. A billionaire named Timothy Mellon (descended from railroad magnate Andrew Mellon) shelled out $130 milllion to pay our U.S. Military. Gotta wonder what he wants in return for that?

What does any of this have to do with the Gospel?

Well...typically we're expected to side with the tax collector in this parable. But how uncomfortable that was for the original hearers....and should be for us, too...when we remember that tax collectors are part of the Empire...and traitors to their own people.

Sure...the tax collector offers "thoughts and prayers" but we don't know that he's changed. Ugh!

The more I think about what's happening currently...the more I am convinced that as white people start to feel the pinch of tariffs...no SNAP benefits...higher healthcare premiums....maybe they'll start to realize that there's something not right with this picture.

Maybe it's time to understand that our enemy isn't that "other"...whatever "other" that is...but it's the greed and the evil behind it all that we should fighting...not our neighbors.

See what you think.

Text: Luke 18: 9-18 

+++

A Pharisee and a Tax Collector walk into a Temple to pray.

That sounds like a good set up for a joke.

And maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind by telling this parable…talking presumably to those who are following him.

People such as you and me.

Leave it to Jesus to give us a lesson in self-righteousness.

We who have done the right things…have fought the good fights of our days…have come together to pray for ourselves…our families…our communities…and our nation during a crisis of politics and posturing this morning.

And now here’s …Luke’s Gospel giving us Jesus…with a parable.

A story that on the surface we might think we understand…thanks to years and years of Sunday School.

The church has tried to make Jesus easier to take.

But if we take time with this story of the pharisee and the tax collector…if we think about it through the mind and understandings of the original hearers of the Gospel…we might realize Jesus is here to give us a sharp elbow to the rib cage.

Not out of meanness or hatred of us.

Out of love…and a desire for us to start seeing each other as God intended from the beginning

As we listened to this parable and the prayer offered by the Pharisee…what did we hear?

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” and then he lists out all the “others” including the tax collector.

He notes all the good things he has done…how he has kept all the right laws of giving…and fasting.

In our minds…we might be hearing this as haughty and sanctimonious.

It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it?

And then there is the prayer offered by the tax collector.

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” as he beats his breast as if this were a perpetual Yom Kippur recitation of the litany of sins.

We then hear that the tax collector goes home “justified”….we might be thinking:

Yes…of course.

Afterall…he wasn’t like that Pharisee…acting all high and mighty.

That tax collector: he was humble before God…just as he should be.

Sunday School has taught us well.

We ARE to be humble before God.

AND we’ve been conditioned to think:

 “Pharisee: bad.” Any person opposite the Pharisee: good.”

Except…if we really dig into this parable…it gets a lot more complicated than that.

Tax collectors were collaborators with the Roman Empire.

They were not the good Jews.

They participated in oppression.

Likewise…the Pharisees were not bad Jews.

In fact…this particular Pharisee…confessing about his tithing and the way he keeps the fasts…he’s doing all the right practices.

These Pharisees…annoy ritual cops…they were the guys who kept the fire of their faith burning in the aftermath of the Roman Empire’s destruction of the Temple.

In terms of their social status…the Pharisee would likely have represented some middle management type.

Meanwhile…the tax collector would have been the one wearing the gold Rolex watch…and the finest robes…bought with the money he gained through illegitimate means at the cost of his fellow Jewish citizens.

So…if we heard this parable and thought…we’d much rather be like that humble tax collector than that haughty Pharisee….consider which side we’re choosing.

Because if you side with the tax collector…you’ve just put yourself in the shoes of an oppressor…a person inflicting hardship on others.

And…if we have chosen a side…. haven’t we then also become no better than that Pharisee…thanking God that we aren’t the Pharisee?

In truth…both characters fall short of perfection for different reasons.

The Pharisee offers a prayer that doesn’t have much to say about God’s goodness or his dependence on God.

He’s only thankful that he’s not like the people who he doesn’t consider “his kind of people.”

And while the tax collector’s prayer says all the right words and he submits himself to God’s mercy….we have no way of knowing from this parable if that the tax collector did anything to change his behavior.

Yes…he confesses he’s a sinner…but it doesn’t say that he’s going to change…give up making his money by ripping off people like the Pharisee.

And if there’s one thing prayer ought to do…it should lead us to become better versions of ourselves.

As the Letter of James reminds us: a faith that doesn’t produce action or lead us into doing the work of healing our world is dead.

If all he does is mouth the words and not follow through with a change of heart…and perhaps even a change of allegiance to Rome…then all the prayer in the world is just empty phrases going up to the heavens.

Perhaps we should not choose sides here.

Because if we are honest with ourselves…we have probably been both characters at one time or another…maybe even all at once.

In these times…when there is so much happening in our country to drive wedges between us…I think we’d be fooling ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge that we are drawn to look upon those we consider “on the other side” as terrible…horrible…sinners…’oh, thank God I’m not one of them.’

So…maybe we should think a little more critically of the translation we’ve been given.

Our English rendering of the Greek has Jesus saying that the tax collector “rather than” the Pharisee went down to his home justified.

But as New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine notes, the phrasing could just as easily have been translated to read: “This man went down to his home justified alongside the other.”

You see…in truth…both men…in their perfect imperfection…need each other.

The Pharisee could stand to learn from the tax collector how to pray…admit he “ain’t all that” and be humble.

The tax collector could get more with the program of the Pharisee…fasting…tithing…actually taking the Torah more seriously…and reading how you don’t swindle people to enrich yourself.

And ultimately…wouldn’t that be an amazing thing for these two men in a Temple praying to see one another as brothers…rather than as others?

Refusing to allow the tyranny of Empire to make them enemies?

Wouldn’t it be a great improvement in our own culture and society if the children of God…whether they identify that way or not…come to realize that we are all in this life together?

Imagine what that might look like if white Americans could recognize themselves in the face of a Haitian immigrant and if the Haitian immigrant could find kinship with the Korean autoworker?

What if all of us could accept that unless our ancestry traces back to pre-colonial days on this continent…we are all immigrants?

At a time when there are those who want us to be separated from each other…and drawn apart over our differences of language…origin…gender…and identity…it is our task…as followers of Jesus…to take a prayerful stand in favor of unity  over division.

It’s up to us to live out our faith…based on the teachings of Jesus…to love God…and demonstrate that love of God by our actions of helping each other…supporting one another through our time…through our resources…and through our advocacy for those who are in need.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you and me to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven…as it happens…through us.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayerful Persistence

 

No Kings 2.0 in Tallahassee

Things are heating up in the country and dissent is growing among the masses who are getting tired of the tariffs, the government shutdown, the occupation of cities with National Guard troops, and the illegal arrests and deportations of people who came to this country in hopes of finding a better life. 

We've had a raid in the middle of the night on a Chicago apartment building where federal agents swooped in on blackhawk helicopters, rousing families out of their beds, putting zipties on half-naked children...only to release them later because (shocker!) they were American citizens.

And then there has been the assault on the freedom of speech by the government to shakedown network executives...requiring them to pay millions to settle frivilous lawsuits and cancel TV shows and comedians...in order to win approval for corporate mergers. The once stalwart and respected CBS Evening News now has a "bias monitor" who pledges allegiance to this regime. Edward R. Murrow is probably convulsing in his grave.

All these things have been occuring in the lead up to what was the largest mass protest in American history: more than seven million people in large cities to rural counties in the country protesting and demanding an end to this abuse of power and authoritarian rule.

And the lectionary served up a doozy of a Gospel passage: the parable of the unjust judge.

See what you think.

Text: Luke 18:1-8

 +++

There’s a powerful story about the night that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was sitting at his kitchen table.

It was January 27^th…19-56 about midnight.

He had just received an anonymous phone call telling him to get out of town in three days or someone was going to shoot him and kill his family by blowing up their house.

As Dr. King sat at the table gripping his coffee cup…he thought about his family.

His wife who he loved dearly had just delivered their first child a month earlier…a baby girl who was the joy of his life.

This new baby brought him hope amid all the struggles he was facing as he led a movement for freedom and justice against the Jim Crow laws of the South.

As those images swirled in his brain…King began to pray:

“Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. But I am afraid … I must confess … I’m losing my courage.”

In the face of such ominous threats…we can understand this fear.

We can understand that King…only in his late twenties…and living far away from his parents…was turning to God in a prayer of desperation.

And in that moment…King recalls that he heard that still small inner voice within, saying:

“Martin Luther, stand up for truth. Stand up for justice. Stand up for righteousness. I will be at your side.’”

A bomb did blow up the King’s front porch three days later.

The threats to King’s life never stopped…and as we know…an assassin’s bullet did kill him in Memphis twelve years later.

But that kitchen moment in prayer had so grounded King that he felt a deep connection with the Spirit of God and he remained undaunted.

He held to his commitment to non-violence…wisdom he had gained from his professor…the theologian Howard Thurman.

Praying in that dark hour of his soul helped him overcome the efforts to rob him of his faith and imprison him in fear.

That’s the essential message behind this parable that Jesus is telling us in the Gospel of Luke this morning.

When things feel daunting and when we’re faced with the injustice of the world…do not lose heart.

Persist in prayer…which is our connection to God…because God’s justice will come.

The widow in Jesus’ story was a representation of the powerless facing off against an unjust system.

While we don’t know what the widow’s complaint was in the parable…we know that in the culture of First Century Palestine…widows and children were particularly vulnerable.

It was expected that the community would care for her…but clearly that isn’t happening.

And worse: the judge…the representation of the one who SHOULD be protecting this widow from whatever wrongs were happening to her…was clearly not doing his job…and really didn’t care that he wasn’t doing right by this woman.

And yet…as Jesus notes…he finally relents and grants her justice.

Because even those who don’t know God will eventually get it right.

But it took persistence…and an unwillingness to live with the injustice…that finally won the day for the widow.

And as Jesus notes…if an unjust…no good…blankety-blank judge…can provide the righteous remedy…then certainly the God of mercy…and love…will answer when our prayers knock…maybe even pound…on Heaven’s door.

Maybe the answer won’t come right away…and it could very well be that we don’t get exactly what we ask for.

Because praying to God isn’t like dropping a coin in the slot of a candy machine….put in enough prayers and-voila-there’s your Snickers bar.

But when we send up prayers…it’s an act of faith and trust in that power which is beyond our own selves and our understanding in the fervent hope that something will happen.

We are letting go of our ego-centric desire to control outcomes…in the aspiration that God is merciful…compassionate and just.

Just as the widow in this parable keeps raising her voice…we keep raising our pleas to God.

We do it with our words…and we also do it with our actions.

Again…I think about Dr. Martin Luther King and leading the march at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma.

Joining with King was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

He remarked that…in participating in this action…he felt his “legs were praying.” 

This was a prayer with the whole body…not just with saying words.

Heschel was a big believer in social justice and for him…prayer not only helps us to center in our own bodies but it propels us to engage with the struggles of the world.

It’s that idea of praying with your feet…and entering into the work of justice.

From our Christian perspective…praying with your feet is how we take on the work that Jesus is calling us to do….as we say in our post-communion prayer…”to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart.”  

Because our work in the here and now on earth is to keep encouraging one another so that we live into God’s dreamed reality for this world. 

A dream where all of God’s creatures know how to live with each other…so that life on earth might be more aligned with heaven.

Yesterday…here in Valdosta and in cities around the world…people prayed with their feet as they demonstrated for our nation…in the No Kings rallies.

I joined with thousands at the Florida state capitol to pray a prayer of hope for our country in this moment where we are seeing freedoms eroded and cruelty displayed against those already oppressed in our society.

And yet there are those in power who will insist we are a Christian nation even as we oppress the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.

I attended yesterday’s demonstration in my clerical collar…as I’ve done before.

I did it to stand with the people…those lifting their voices in shouts and song to say, “God bless America.”

God bless America with compassion.

God bless America with mercy.

God bless us with leadership that protects the vulnerable and doesn’t terrorize them.

God bless us with fair labor…and opportunities for people to make ends meet.

As I walked through the crowd…I saw young children resting on their parents’ laps…and old men…feebly and carefully moving through the crosswalks with their rollators.

I imagined this crowd was not unlike those throngs that surrounded Jesus on his fateful trek toward Jerusalem.

The common…every day…ordinary people…seeking someone to hear their cry for relief.

I don’t know that everyone there with me in Tallahassee believed in the God of love…but I do believe that God is hearing our prayers…both the silent ones of our hearts…and the prayers showed with our feet and legs.

Jesus asks, “Will he find faith on earth” when he comes again.

I think that’s really the big question for each of us to ponder.

When adversity happens…if life becomes more challenging…and if we continue to see state-sponsored cruelty celebrated as strength…will we remain faithful and persistent in prayer like the widow…or harden our hearts like the judge?

I pray that our faith will carry us…in the same way it has buoyed the spirits of many throughout the centuries.

The American writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson provides us with a powerful prayer for these times in the closing verse of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing”:

God of our weary years

God of our silent tears

Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light;

Keep us forever in the path we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met thee;

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;

Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand,

True to our God, true to our native land.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

"Faith Enough"

One of the bonuses of having a seminarian working with us at St. Barnabas is that I do not have to preach every week!

It's not that I don't like preaching; it's that it is a lot of work to think, write, and refine a sermon week after week. And since I am still at the same congregation, I don't have the luxuary that some of my colleagues brag about when they tell me that they recycled a sermon from the same lectionary period three...six...or nine years ago. 

Given the extraordinary times in which we are living with the collapsing of norms and our American democracy...I find it hard to imagine that they can easily preach the same sermon from three years ago. Maybe six, but definitely not three. And besides: there are new things always happening. But I digress. The point is that I didn't have to preach on the 16th Sunday After Pentecost, nor will I be preaching on the 18th Sunday either. Yippee!

But I did have to preach on the 17th Sunday....and that was extremely hard given what had transpired in my life as a priest during the week.

The long drama that is the Diocese of Florida and their once bishop John Howard came to a most unsatisfactory conclusion. There was supposed to be a hearing (aka trial) on the matter of his discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people, especially those of us who are or were trying to become priests. Instead, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe worked out an accord (aka settlement) in which Howard admitted no wrongdoing, but gave up his orders as a priest and bishop in the church. In the letter, which was sent to the diocese of Florida, ++Rowe referred to the hearings on discrimination and another one involving Howard's fiscal improprieties as a "significant distraction" taking away from all the good work the diocese was doing to become "healthy." 

After reading just a few paragraphs of his letter, I almost sent a message to my bishop resigning my position. Closing this matter with absolutely no real apology or allowing for the stories to be told by those of us who suffered under Howard's homophobia has only compounded the sin of silence that has plagued the diocese of Florida for decades. Once again, the Episcopal Church has failed to show up for me or for the others like me.

It is with that background that I needed to find a way to preach a sermon on faith. This is what I preached. 

See what you think. 

+++

I’m sure everyone here at some point…or maybe at many points in your life… have seen the 1939 classic film, “The Wizard of Oz.”

We probably remember that moment toward the end of the film…when the Wizard was going to personally take Dorothy back to Kansas in his hot air balloon.

Then Toto sees a cat and does what a dog does: he leaps out of Dorothy’s arms…she chases him…the balloon takes off…and there goes her one and only hope to get back to Uncle Henry and Auntie Em.

And as she’s moping… and her friends are consoling her…the pink bubble floats in and Glinda the Good Witch comes with her happy news that Dorothy always had the power to go home.

The scarecrow pipes up with “Then why didn’t you tell her before?”

And the ever-cheerful Glinda responds, “Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”

Dorothy’s power to go back to Kansas had been on her feet the whole time in the ruby slippers. But it wouldn’t have been much of a movie if she hadn’t gone through the many trials and tribulations to seek out the Wizard.

She needed to contend with apple-throwing trees…flying monkeys…and of course…the wicked witch of the west.

And she never would have found her three friends who also didn’t know that the things they yearned for were already innate within them.

And we wouldn’t have a tale that has become an iconic feature of our culture…with many spin-offs and parodies…and Halloween costumes…that speaks to this idea of trusting that sometimes the thing we desire is already with us.

In the case of the disciples in our Gospel… it’s about realizing that they already have all the faith they need as they turn to Jesus and beg him to “Increase our faith!”

I’m not sure why the lectionary diviners started our Gospel reading where they did.

By starting at verse five…they’ve dropped us into the middle of this conversation.

So let’s back up a little bit and fill in what happens before that prompted the apostles to say, “Increase our faith!”

Jesus has just given them another tough lesson.

He’s let them know that they’re faithfulness…is going to be tested.

There are going to be moments when they might feel as if it’s just easier to ignore what’s happening around them…focus on their own needs…seek the security of their family…basically fall away from this journey they’re on with him toward a showdown in Jerusalem.

But he cautions them not to give into those feelings and lead others to also break away from this mission they’re on.

“Woe to those types!” he says.

“It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

That’s harsh. And he’s not done.

“If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive.”

Absolutely.

Even to the perfect seven times over and over.

I think it’s pretty easy to imagine then why the disciples were thinking, “Sheesh! Increase our faith!”

Up to this point…the lessons Jesus has shared…the parables about sitting at the wedding banquet…dishonest managers…rich men and Lazarus…have been challenging the disciples to re-examine the ways of the world against the way Jesus says is their reality in God.

Telling them that they will have to make choices that let go of a simple easy life…and demand making an acquaintance of suffering…none of this stuff is easy to hear…and harder to do all the time.

How many of us would relish these kind of demands?

So we might hear behind this ask of the apostles:

“Jesus… teacher…please: give us a word…a prayer…something so we are strong enough to meet the task ahead of us.”

 

Jesus looks at them. Some may think he’s rolling his eyes at this moment…but what if we imagine him looking at them in much the same way Glinda looked at the distraught Dorothy…and with a smile of reassurance…he tells them:

Even if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed…faith that is so small like one of those teeny little seeds…you have all the faith you need to do what you need to do…and more!”

To help them understand this a little more…he uses imagery that in our 21^st century context sounds harsh.

The history of slavery…and that culture of masters and slaves…conjures up an image for people in this country of the oppressive and brutal sins of our past…with Africans stolen from their homeland and brought here to be sold like livestock.

In the times of Jesus……masters and slaves were common place…but they were reflective of the classism and money of the ancient world.

Slaves in the Hellenistic culture could be anything from civil servants and workers in the temples to miners. They did not have rights…but they were not bound by chains either.

In the Jewish culture of Biblical times…people could sell themselves into slavery as a means of paying off their debts.  

Unlike the type of chattel slavery that we had in this country…the slavery in these times was often more like indentured servitude.

So Jesus uses this cultural reference to make his point about faith.

At first…he’s asking the disciples to think of themselves as part of the wealthy class…sitting down at the table for a meal.

Do the wealthy ask their slave…the one who has been out making all the goods that make them rich…working in the fields or the mines to produce more wealth for them…does this class of citizens then say to their underlings, “Come: sit down at the table and share a meal?”

The answer of course is “No.”

Then he makes them switch roles, and consider if, as a person who is a servant…toiling away and giving themselves…their bodies… to build wealth for the monied class, “Are you a less-than just because you did your job as you were supposed to?”

Again the answer is “No.”

“If I did what I was supposed to do…then I’m not worthless.”

It’s just too bad that Luke never has Jesus give us a wrap-up word or two to this brief teaching.

But if we think about it…and connect the dots…we might see that he’s again giving them a hard truth…but also reminding them of their own inner worth.

Nobody is going to give them an easy time…or lavish praise…for their faithfulness.

And yet their faithfulness…their willingness to stick with Jesus…and being ready to forgive those who return to them…hat in hand and with a sincere apology…is all they need.

Their faith will be increased…by doing the little acts of kindness…and showing mercy…compassion…and justice to those they encounter.

We could stand to have more of that right now, couldn’t we?

I caught only a short segment of a program on the radio this week…where the topic was about kindness.

What struck me most was listening to the voices of little children talking about the “kind” things that they had done for a sibling or a friend or even a stranger.

There was the one child who talked about giving people pieces of candy.

Such a simple gesture not only brought out a smile from the recipient but the child who was giving away the candy said that it made them feel “warm inside.”

The researchers on the show said that type of physiological response was exactly how such random acts of kindness not only create more positive feelings in the recipient…but the giver as well.

It’s those wise words attributed to St. Francis:

“It is in the giving that we receive; it is in the pardoning that we are pardoned.”

I would add that it is in our willingness to keep practicing these ways of Jesus…the motivation to give without expectations…that’s the way we can increase our faith.

And as our faith increases…we will deepen our relationship to God…through strengthening our connection to one another.

This is the type of countercultural work we need to combat the loneliness and the nihilism that is too prevalent in our society now…and is feeding the culture of hatred and fear.

We each have it in us to do these small acts that make a bigger impact…and can shift the energy around us.

This is how we can be the change we want to see…all made possible by our faith in God…no matter how great or small our faith is at the moment.

 In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Anna Alexander: Teacher and Christian Witness

 

I list the First reading and the Gospel assigned, but really I didn't go to the readings as much as the history of Anna Alexander...and me, too, to craft this sermon. I had the benefit of listening to my bishop preach about her on Tuesday evening, which gave me a couple more details to include, and our clergy conference spent quite a bit of time thinking and talking about what it means to be a Christian witness. 

See what you think.

+++

Texts: Deut. 6:4-9, 20-25; Matt 11:25-30

Probably like most of you…I have had a lot of schoolteachers in my life.

Some good. Some not so good.

But the ones I remember the most were those men and women who took the time to see me…and really work with me to help me accomplish the sometimes painful and arduous task of getting me through the school year.

I’m thinking especially of one of my math teachers: Mrs. Cronin.

Donna Cronin taught at the junior high school in my hometown.

I never had a class  with her as a math teacher while I was in seventh or eighth grade.

Instead…my eighth-grade math teacher was…well…we had three during the year.

And as a result…my class never learned much of anything because each teacher started at a different place.

The following year…I was enrolled in a New England prep school.

An unforgiving…highly-competitive…learning environment.

My lack of understanding the concepts of Algebra was simply treated as I was clearly an incompetent product of public schooling…and I would always be at the bottom of my class.

That’s where Donna Cronin entered the picture.

My mom called the principal of our public junior high school…and he arranged for me to come back to my old stomping grounds during my spring break…and receive tutoring from Mrs. Cronin.

Now…I was scared to death.

First of all…I was already feeling like a failure…because I was literally failing my Algebra class.

And then I knew that Mrs. Cronin had a reputation for being tough as nails.

Now she would be dealing with a math dunce like me.

I met with her after school in her classroom.

And before we began…she wanted to know what was happening in my math class at school…what did I know about Algebra?

I basically told her I had no idea.

I didn’t understand anything.

I didn’t get why we were doing math with numbers and letters. It didn’t make any sense.

Then she asked me who had been my math teacher last year in eighth grade.

“Well, we started with Mr. Schumacher…”

She put her head in her hands.

“Oh, no…We were worried what was going to happen to you kids. I’m so sorry. We let you down.”

It was amazing for me…as a struggling 15-year-old struggling in math…to hear a teacher admit that the school had failed me.

And now she was going to do her best to make up for that during the three-week break I had from the prep school to fix this situation so I could at least finish the year.

I went to see her every afternoon.

She would pick out problems and we would work through them.

Then she assigned me to do some more on my own and we would go over those the next time.

She helped build up my confidence enough that I was able to at least finish that school year with the understanding that I would have to repeat Algebra.

But now…I could figure out how to solve for “x.”

Good teachers…those caring and considerate people who help children to learn and grow…are such a vital part of our communities.

That’s what made Anna Ellison Butler Alexander an extraordinary and exemplary saint of the church.

Because Anna had to accomplish the task of educating the children of Pennick and Darien with very little to no help…save for her faith in God…and trust in the rightness of her mission.

She was born to former slaves of Pierce Butler’s Plantation on St. Simon Island…right at the end of the Civil War. Her love for schooling and learning came from her father…James or Aleck as he was called by the Butlers.

Aleck was self-taught. Pierce Butler’s wife…the British actress Fanny Kemble…broke societal rules to teach Aleck how to read the alphabet. He then learned to read and write from the Book of Common Prayer by memorizing the prayers.

He picked up skills as a carpenter. And he used what he had learned to help his neighbors as they established their newly freed lives in Pennick.

Anna was the youngest of eleven children…and she took to studying like a fish to water. She initially started a school at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Darien with her two sisters.

It was a 40-mile trip from Pennick to Darien…and she would make the journey on foot and by boat down the Altamaha River.

It was when she attended a service one Sunday at St. Athanasius in Brunswick and met a lay reader named Charles Shaw that a dream was born: Anna would establish The Church of the Good Shepherd in Pennick…and from this place she would build her own school…teaching the children of her community using the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible…much like her father had learned.

Anna felt that the children were better served getting a Christ-centered education.

Her efforts caught the attention of Bishop C.K. Nelson of the diocese of Georgia…and in 1907…Anna Alexander became the first African American set aside as a deaconess in the Episcopal Church.

But while Bishop Nelson looked upon her and saw what he called, “A devout, Godly, and respected colored woman,” things were soon to get complicated for Anna.

Because in that same year…the diocese of Georgia split.

There was now an Episcopal Diocese of Georgia and one for Atlanta.

Bishop Nelson went to Atlanta…and a new bishop…Bishop Frederick Reese…became the fourth bishop of Georgia.

Under Bishop Reese…the diocese denied the black Episcopal Churches any representation at the diocesan conventions…and refused to set aside funds to support black schools.

This was the era of Jim Crow laws…lynchings…and general terror for blacks in South Georgia.

And it was into this world that Anna Alexander was living…ministering…and teaching.

But her focus was not on the hate that surrounded her every single day. She kept her eyes on Love. And she ministered to all the people of Pennick…both black and white.

In many ways…her devotion to teaching and treating everyone she met as a beloved child of God did as much to unify Pennick as anything could.

Her ministry faced the challenges not only of the racism of her day…but of the Great Depression as well.

In addition to the school…Good Shepherd became a source of private and government aid to the community. She kept meticulous records of what was distributed.

And with what could be thought of as almost a loaves and fishes ability…she managed to keep many a person in body and soul at that time. She helped a motherless boy…an elderly woman. Her example became infectious in the community…with white neighbors delivering rations to a black farmer unable to make the trip to Good Shepherd himself.

With her life…and her labor…Anna Alexander became the type of Christian witness needed for her time…as well as ours.

To live in love…and to put that love and empathy into practice.

This is what it means to be a Christian witness. Through our actions…when we help one another and build each other up…we show the love of God…and we touch and transform lives in our community.

Anna Alexander’s efforts…her devotion to the children of Pennick for more than 50 years…helped spur them on to attend college and have lives that would have been less full if it hadn’t been for this teacher. Thanks be to God for what her life shows us about living into God’s witness in the world.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.  

 

God and Wealth

 

I admit that I had already written this sermon for our clergy conference in the spring. But I did make a few minor changes, but I stuck with this reading in part because it is a really hard one to grapple with and also I felt that my congregation and I needed to take a break from hearing their former journalist priest talk about the headlines, especially my angst and anger at the assault on the First Amendment. 

Instead, I talked about wealth. See what you think.

+++

Text: Luke 16: 1-13

If this morning’s Gospel left you a bit confused…you are in excellent company.

This is one of the tougher of the Lukan parables.

We looked at this one in our Lenten study this past spring… that class I called “Playing with the Parables.”

To be kind and fair to everyone in the group…we started out with the most beloved of Sunday School stories…staging and discussing the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.

Those are well-known…and everyone could get into the spirit of the class…acting out the different roles so we could then dig into them a little deeper.

Then I gave them this particular parable of the dishonest manager.

And—whew—when we’d played the scene once…it was almost as if I could see the question marks…and a few exclamation points and tildas and such…hanging over everyone’s heads.

 This story is strange and one that is tough for us to wrap our heads around.

Even biblical scholars find this parable difficult to decipher.

I mean…the two main characters are not great people.

The rich man decides to fire the manager based on a rumor that the guy is squandering the rich man’s property.

And the manager…realizing his boss hadn’t even bothered to check the books… decides to strike back by slashing what people owe the rich man in the hopes that by lowering the bills…the people will love him…and he’ll have a place to sleep tonight.

The class really wrestled with this one.

They noted that we don’t know the tone of voice of the rich man.

Was he impressed or annoyed with the how clever the manager had acted?

The people who played the parts of having their bills reduced were happy…but they also said they weren’t entirely free either.

They still were in debt to the rich man…and now they owed something to the manager.

And we also talked about to whom Jesus was sharing this parable.

We’re told that he’s speaking to his disciples.

But…if we were to look to the end of Luke Chapter 15… only moments ago…he was addressing a crowd which included tax collectors…the guys who weren’t the best Jews and were notorious for tacking on extra charges so they could pocket some money for themselves. 

Also in the crowd were some Pharisees.

They’ve been eavesdropping on his teaching and mumbling about the company Jesus keeps.

So when Jesus starts painting this verbal picture of a rich man given to snap judgments…and his dishonest manager figuring out how to save his own skin….he’s speaking to the whole cross-section of the community: the very poor…the very rich…and the very despised.

All of them cogs in the wheel of a system that is about the haves and the have nots with their attention fixed on money.

Who has it.

Who doesn’t.

Who owes what to whom.

How much is owed.

Jesus uses this dishonest manager working inside an inherently oppressive system to make a point about how the “children of the world” operate shrewdly.

Notice that he doesn’t say the manager acted justly.

He says the manager is shrewd….cunning.

He knows how to work this system so that he can land on his feet.

Because the manager only shaves off some of the cost of the oil and wheat…he still retains an advantage over the very poor.

He now appears to be something like a Robin Hood hero to them.

After his hasty refiguring of the accounts…he’s hoping they will see him as a “good guy” and make sure he doesn’t end up homeless.

In his own small way…this dishonest manager’s self-interested move injects a little more fairness into an unjust and oppressive system.

But only a little.

Because the debts haven’t been excused.

That’s how this economic system works… for the world.

That isn’t the way of God’s economy.

In God’s economy…debts are forgiven.

Period.

In God’s dream for the world…nobody would owe the rich man anything.

In fact…there wouldn’t be such an unequal balance of power and privilege…and the dishonest steward would have toppled the whole system and not have to worry about couch-surfing.

 

That’s how the world would begin to resemble heaven. And all eyes would be on God.

We’re all caught up in systems in our society that challenge the church…those of us who follow Jesus and see ourselves as children of light…to wrestle with systems that have us participating in oppression.

For example…we’ve inherited the legacy of the idea of private property.

But really the land doesn’t belong to us.

First…it belonged to God.

Then there were the people who were here long before many of our ancestors got on boats to cross the ocean to get here.

The Seminoles, the Creek, the Timucua and the Hitchitee Tribes all lived in this area which was once called Troupville.

Governments take land…give it to others…and still others after that…

We pave over legacies or turn them into parks.

Some profit.

Others are left in search of affordable housing.

Some win. Others lose.

Now we may not be able to completely dismantle these systems that are so entrenched.

But we can question them…and we can find ways to challenge them…and consider a question I posed a couple of weeks ago:

What are the things that we are willing to give up to follow God?

Can we conceive of a world where we are willing to let go of “things”…such as anxiety over money…to help build a stronger community for all of us?

There are a few things that we are doing to disrupt and shrink the chasm between rich and poor.

We’ve made a start here with our basket out in the narthex…taking up a collection of food that we can distribute to those who come to our door in need.

And some of what we take in goes to LAMP as they care for those without food and shelter who come to them.

Our congregation converted beer money into donations to my discretionary fund….and because you did that…I was able to help someone with a medical need this past week.

We can even look at our patron saint Anna Alexander…who we will be celebrating this Wednesday.

This deaconess of the church navigated many obstacles to open a school in Pennick.  

And through her faith and determination…she helped educate generations of children…opening the doors for them to better lives…despite the way the world wanted to limit those who were the poor…both blacks and whites.

And she did it without the financial help and backing of the Episcopal diocese…even though she was using our Prayer Book as her textbook… and running the school on the grounds of the Church of the Good Shepherd…the church she planted in Pennick.

If we are serving the God of life and liberation…then we need to keep chipping away at the barriers that hold people back…and not give into our own temptations to put money above making a way forward for a better world.

We can and we must be willing to put our best efforts out there to be agents of change that helps others…even if what we do feels like just a drop in the ocean.

Because each one of our drops makes a difference…and sometimes helps us to transform lives without us even knowing it.

Jesus so aptly puts it…that if we are children of the light…we cannot serve both God and wealth.

Choose God. Let the rest follow.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.