Bless Their Hearts: A Sermon for 3A Epiphany

 I was relieved to see that the Epistle lesson this week was from the start of the First Letter to the Corinithians. During a week in which I was leading a funeral for a parishioner who was one of our matriarchs, I knew I was not up for a difficult wrestling match with the scriptures. But, fortunately, this pericope is one with each I had great familiarity. And just the week before, when I was prepping for my sermon, I had read the lines before it and had found a great deal of humor in what I was reading. Humor that I thought might work for a congregation located in South Georgia. 

This Sunday was also the one-year anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. And so it was a delight to have my spouse and a good friend present for the service. We also had the family of my late matriarch with us. They provided ample amounts of Italian food for the reception, we had a chocolate cake, and it was overall a very joyous Sunday. 

Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4; Ps. 27: 1, 5-13; 1 Cor. 1:10-18; Matt. 4:12-23

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As some have been quick to note, today is a special day in my life.

It was on this date—just last year—that we were celebrating my ordination to the Sacred Order of Priests.

It was a joyous moment not just for me…and Isabelle and my friends…it was also a great celebration in the life of our parish.

In the ordination service… among the many pledges I made before the bishop… was a vow that I would “persevere in prayer both in public and private.” The expectation of priests… and really all clergy… is that we will commit to a prayer practice every day.

As luck would have it… I was already doing the Morning Daily Prayer Office… more or less regularly… on my own.

But…as I’m sure some of you may have discovered… it’s a heck of lot easier to make a practice of regular prayer if you are doing it with somebody or somebodies. I think it’s an accountability thing.

Fortunately… through the wonders of Facebook… I discovered that one of our sister churches in the diocese—Trinity Statesboro—offers both Morning and Evening Prayer online.

I have faithfully participated with them… every weekday morning at 7am… for about a year and a half.

That’s how I learned that the week… beginning with Wednesday the 18^th and lasting until this coming Wednesday… has been designated as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The World Council of Churches started this ecumenical practice about a 100 years ago with the intent of having all Christians… across denominations… pull closer together and closer to God.

How perfect to have the reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians fall during this time when we’re seeking unity in Christ!

I don’t know how many of you took me up on the suggestion last Sunday to take home the bulletin insert and spend some time with those readings during the week.

But just in case you didn’t… I want to remind you of the way this letter to the Church at Corinth begins.

Because—honestly—when I read it, I hadn’t realized how… Southern… Paul is.

In his opening paragraph… Paul tells the Corinthians that God has strengthened them through grace of Jesus Christ…and then he specifically mentions how they’ve been “enriched” with “speech and knowledge of every kind”… how they are not “lacking in any spiritual gift” as they wait for the “revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It could be easy to shrug off these words….

But they are very intentional.

Paul has a Southern streak going on in him.

Southerners know how to make flattery into a sharp-sword of critique.

And that’s what Paul is doing.

The Church at Corinth was… as we say in these parts… a hot mess.

There were different factions in the church. And each one had their own particular gifts:

There were the very learned ones who took pride in their knowledge.

There were those who could speak in tongues who took pride in their speech.

There were those who felt they’re gift of prophecy made them superior.

It was also a church of the upper crust… some likely earning their wealth through their trades as metal workers and glass artisans.

And in all of these… there was a sense that they had no need of their fellow Corinthian Christians.

And so Paul comes to them with a letter… shaking his head… and mumbling:

Bless your hearts.

After his kind opening of giving thanks for all these wonderful “gifts” they possess… he begins to call them out:

What is all this I’m hearing about “I belong to Paul” “I belong to Apollos” “I belong to Cephas” or “I belong to Christ”?

Was I… Paul… a mere mortal who writes in lengthy compound sentences… the one crucified?!

No, I was not!

Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

No, you were not!

I… Paul… did not baptize you; it isn’t my baptism you received.

If you were baptized in my name… or any name other than the Trinity… it would rob Jesus of that loving, liberating and life-giving power he won through overcoming death on the cross!”

Now… I know Paul isn’t really a Southerner…and probably never drank sweet tea or ate grits in the Middle East.

But I find if we add a little humanity to the reading of Scripture… we can begin to see that these aren’t dead letters on a page of a dusty old book.

Rather these are echoes from our ancestors to let us know that the human tendency to create factions and divisions and separations have been with us forever.

And it’s not OK.

One of the places where it has been particularly hurtful and awful is in the church.

Throughout history… Christians have not always played well with others.

I’m not talking about the crusades which pitted Christians against Muslims… or the Inquisition where Christians tormented Jews in Spain.

Certainly, that was bad. And those hurts and prejudices have lived on between the Abrahamic religions.

But I’m thinking of how we’ve treated each other… Christian to Christian… throughout the centuries.

Just like that Church in Corinth… we’ve had our internal fights as well…with various Reformation movements in the 15-hundreds…all the way up to today.

In our diocese of Georgia… in 1907…Bishop Cleland Nelson ordained Anna Alexander as the first… and only… African-American deaconess in the Episcopal Church.

The following year… Georgia split into two dioceses: Atlanta and parts to the north and west became its own diocese. Everything in Georgia south and east from the Chattahoochee to the Savannah River in Augusta became the new diocese of Georgia.

It made sense…given the large geography of the state.

But in that process… Bishop Nelson went to Atlanta.

There was a man elected bishop of Georgia…Frederick Reese… who didn’t know Deaconess Anna Alexander.

And he moved to exclude African-Americans in the restructured diocese…not allowing them to participate in church governance at convention.

Fortunately… Anna Alexander…was a formidable deaconess.

Despite the discrimination… she made sure there were Episcopal schools and churches to educate black children and sought funding for her mission outside of the diocese. And even while being placed in the “separate and not necessarily equal box” African-American worshippers remained faithful to the Episcopal Church…until a new bishop reunited the two groups after World War II.

The Episcopal Church has weathered the storms of schism in our denomination over issues of human sexuality. Other parts of the Anglican Communion are still wrestling with the idea of all the sacraments for all the baptized.

Meanwhile…we here at St. Barnabas… are providing a home to local United Methodists currently living through that same painful break up over human sexuality.

I wonder sometimes if the Christian Church needs another St. Paul to walk into the churches… shake his head… and mumble:

“Bless your hearts.”

I do have hope for the church.

Despite what might make the headlines… I am hopeful that there are those people who have sat in darkness and are now seeing a great light.

People who understand that we are a better church… a better community… a better world… if we work together.

Our diversity of difference is not a liability.

It’s a gift of God to be honored…explored… and ultimately unites us in the common denominator: Love.  

I go back to that question Jesus posed to the disciples in John’s Gospel:

“What are you looking for?”

May this be a week where we discover Love in corners… places and people where we least expect it.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.