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.

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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.

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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.

 

Cool the Hot Wind of Hatred

 

What a terrible week. 

Wednesday there was a shooting at a high school...an assassination of podcaster and far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk...and only blocks from my house...there were two women stabbed in the park by a man who then jumped in the holding pond and drowned. 

The Kirk assassination has dominated the news. And what was disturbing was how fast those on the right went from 0 to 60 in no time, accusing Democrats and transgender people of being responsible for this single shot to the neck that killed Kirk in front of an outdoor audience of three thousand Utah college students. 

Republicans went online and on TV. They called for the death penalty. The president laid the blame on the "radical left." White supremacists rallied in Huntington Beach, CA, breathing threats of retaliation. White men were putting up videos announcing how many guns they had and they were ready to use them against "the libs."  

All of this without a person in custody. No true information about a motive.

But that didn't stop people from phoning in threats to Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the South. Many canceled in person classes and students went online for the rest of the week. 

The person the police finally arrested? A 22 year-old white man from a Republican family in Utah. Reportedly, he was a fan of White Christian Nationalist Nick Fuentes, who hated Charlie Kirk because he wasn't extremist enough. 

Yeah. Not hateful enough. 

Meanwhile...if people expressed any level of "meh" about Kirk's death, they were being fired or reprimanded and hounded online. All while those who purported to be mourning their hero were calling for tolerance and toning down the political rhetoric. 

So, if you weren't upset enough about this death, you could be punished by people who felt that Kirk was killed for his speech which was often anti-trans, anti-black, anti-queer, degrading of women.....

Free speech for me, but not for thee.

I strongly recommend you look up the reading from Jeremiah that I used as the launching pad for this sermon. You might even read Psalm14, it's short. And put on some Bob Dylan and tell me what you think. 

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Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Ps.14

One of the great American theologians… the folk singer Bob Dylan… once asked a series of philosophical questions.

Some of you may remember these:

How many roads a must a man walk down…before he’s called a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail before she rests in the sand?

And how many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?

His concluding response to these conundrums was simply that the answers were “blowin’ in the wind.”

I’m only half-joking calling Dylan a theologian.

His iconic song of the 1960s came to mind as I looked at our dear beleaguered and bothered prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah…tasked with telling his people some really terrible news…also knew that the wind held the truth of what was to become of Jerusalem and Judah.

A hot wind from God…toward God’s people…was coming…not to winnow or cleanse…but to speak judgment.

Scholars don’t know if these words were meant to warn the people of the invasion of the Babylonians…or if this was some sort of retrospective lament for what happen to Jeremiah’s people.

But we do know that Judah and Jerusalem were sacked by an invading army.

The best minds were taken away…and the people were left deeply traumatized…lost and afraid.

They felt that they had been totally abandoned in the wilderness.

The words we heard this morning from Jeremiah are only a portion of a long poetic prophecy of total doom and destruction.

Things had gotten so bad that God was going to do the unthinkable; a total reversal of the creation story in Genesis.

No more birds.

The mountains and the fruitful land? Gone.

All because the people…the leaders…the followers… were stupid children.

Ouch!

Our lectionary diviners then provide Psalm 14 something of a Greek chorus,

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.”

All are corrupt and commit abominable acts;

There is none who does any good.” (14:1)

Again…ouch!

I have to say that this past week…it certainly felt as if these words from our Biblical ancestors could’ve been written for us today.

On Wednesday…the eve of remembering the terrible attack against our country in 2001…when more than three thousand people died in an act of terrorism with airplanes…we had yet another school shooting at a high school in the Denver area.

The 16 year-old shooter reportedly had lots of ammunition that he brought with him to school.

His two classmates were in the hospital in critical condition.

He took his own life.

And then…only a few hours later…Charlie Kirk…a political ideologue…was gunned down on a college campus in Utah.

No matter what anyone might think of Kirk as a person…a man who said many things that were ugly and hateful toward women and minorities…he was a human being.

And it is never OK to shoot anyone.

He’s now another name added to the growing body count…of schoolchildren…politicians…judges…church members…the faithful in synagogues…mosques and temples…mothers…fathers…sons…

daughters….grandchildren…the countless unnamed others across the country…killed by guns.  

More families grieving a senseless loss. 

Again…Bob Dylan asks us:

“How many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”

“How many deaths will it take ‘til he knows that too many people have died?”

There is a hot wind that is blowing across this country.

And it’s been blowing a scorching…hard and fearsome heat for way too long.

There is far too much hatred…misdirected anger…blaming and shaming…with neighbor turning on neighbor in ways that I would dare say we have never seen in our lifetimes.

Unfortunately…our political leadership…and those given the trust of our airwaves…and online platforms from which to pontificate… media of all kinds…are not helping us.

In some cases…they are actively working to foment discord…and fanning the inflammatory speech that goes into our ears…and then infects our heads and hearts with disdain and distrust for each other.

The whole tenor of our country is growing more threatening…and dark.

As our former presiding bishop Michael Curry once said, “Our E Pluribus Unum isn’t very Unum.”

Which is why the ending to Psalm 14 is important.

So often…when I am asked about which book is my favorite in the Bible… I find myself first thinking about the four Gospels and their ways of showing us Jesus.

But truly my most favorite book is the Psalms.

The psalmist…who many think was King David and he did write quite few…has a way of capturing our human emotions…and putting things in such poetic words that reflect the joys and struggles of our daily lives.

The psalms give us ways to express our emotions…from lament to laughter…in beautiful and thoughtful ways.

Psalm 14…which the notes on it seem to say that it was not written by David but rather TO him…picks up on the themes of Jeremiah’s rant…but then makes that subtle and hopeful turn toward the end.

“Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers who eat up my people like bread and do not call upon the Lord? See how they tremble with fear, because God is in the company of the righteous.” (14:5-6).

God’s Love has never left us.

Even when we feel God’s absence…we are never alone.

Much like when we’re having day after day of wet and stormy weather…it’s not that the sun…the S-U-N…has disappeared.

It’s just blocked by the clouds for the time being…but it’s still there.

It’s in the sky…keeping time with the moon…waiting for the rain to clear out...and the thunder clouds to move on.

In that same way…God’s Love…the hope that comes from God’s promise to us…is still there.

We heard it in our Gospel this morning that God’s Love will seek and search for us…rejoicing when those who have lost their way are found again.

Right now…in 21^st century America…we seem to be lost.

And what we’ve lost is that sense of our interdependence on each other…our willingness to live together…learn from each other…be in community with one another.

We can… and we will disagree…and annoy one another.

But we don’t have to silence or kill each other.

The gift that we…the Church and all those who look to God in faith and hope…can bring to this world…is the ability to see each other as beloved children of God…no matter our political affiliation…our economic status…our skin color…our gender…our orientation…our native language or country of origin.

For our part…as followers of Jesus…we need to take seriously the charge He gave to us…and commit ourselves to bringing good news to the poor.

How?

Perhaps it’s being more mindful about what we share online…the comments we make…the way we engage with total strangers who…for all we know…are not even real people but a bot halfway around the world programmed to attack our thoughts and opinions…and in flame us against each other.  

We’re to proclaim release to the captives…not just people in physical prison cells…but to those who are caught in any life-killing loop…such as addiction.

We’re to help open the eyes of the blind…help those whom we love and people we know…to see more clearly through our actions that hope…and mercy…and compassion are available for them.

And we’re to let the oppressed go free.

We’re to work toward freeing ourselves and others from our fears that makes them and us seek to have power over people.

We need to quit inventing power struggles with straw men and women because honestly… there is no power struggle that is worth destroying our souls.

We come to this table to be fed.

We receive the body and blood of Christ.

And what we’re bringing into our bodies is more than just bread and wine.

It’s that reminder that you and me and everyone in this room and all who are participating in this ritualistic act around the world…are being brought into a mission that is about countering the powers that want to hurt us…and divide us.

This food and drink is given freely… to help us make this a better world for ourselves as well as for others.

It’s time to make a commitment to cool off this hot wind of hatred…and infuse our world with more love and more hope.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

Costly Discipleship

I don't think this sermon needs a whole lot of introduction. Just look at the news in the United States and you will understand instantly all that you need to know for why I have said what I have said. 

It's time for the church...the whole church...to decide what we are willing to give up (security, popularity, complacency, timidity) and decide to follow the one who stood on the side of the marginalized. 

I simply don't know how to read Luke's Gospel any other way. But maybe I'm wrong.

See what you think.

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 Text: Luke 14:25-33

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

Our Gospel passage today had me thinking about some of the ways we quickly proclaim that we’re on Team Jesus.

We wear necklaces with Christian symbols.

Put on a T-shirt proclaiming the goodness of God.

There’s a billboard that I would see every time I drove into Wakulla County…south of Tallahassee…on Crawfordville Highway.

I’m not sure if it’s still there…since I haven’t driven that way in a long time.

But it was this big blue billboard with white lettering that announced proudly, “Wakulla Loves Jesus.”

That’s nice but what does that really mean?

If we say we love Jesus…how do we actually show that?

Paying close attention to our Gospel text…it seems to show that we love Jesus is to say that we’re willing to follow him.

And following Jesus clearly has a cost.

What are we willing to give up to follow Jesus?

I think that’s an interesting…and a difficult question to consider.

Imagine what it was for the original hearers of this Gospel.

Although we’re hearing this some two thousand plus years later…Luke’s Gospel was written and shared with followers who had already lost a lot.

The Roman Empire had already destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem…the center of their worship and social gathering space…for a second time.

The Jewish attempt at rebellion against this oppressive regime had failed.

In many ways…the Lukan audience was likely feeling  broken and defeated.

The cross…which we now hold as a symbol of Christ’s ultimate victory…was anything but a symbol of triumph.

It was an instrument of torture and death.

So imagine what it must have been like to have Jesus saying to those who were in the crowd following him:

You must hate your family members and carry a cross.

I don’t know about you…but such a demand would probably leave me feeling as if all the blood was draining out of my body.

Again…what is that we are willing to give up to follow Jesus?

To help us figure that out…Jesus gives a couple of examples….images that are a little more concrete…to help us understand the demands of discipleship.

He talks about the person who decides to build a tower.

For our own sake…let’s think of this in a more generic way.

“Tower building” could be a stand-in phrase for “any major construction undertaking”…as if we’re doing a big renovation on our house.

Nobody…or at least I hope nobody here…just decides to take on such a project without first doing some number crunching…and finding the most reputable contractor.

We’d want to understand the costs involved with labor and supplies…what it will take to pull a permit…what is the time frame for finishing the remodel et cetera et cetera…

In other words…there’s more to this than simply saying, “I’m gonna remodel my home…or in this case…build a tower.”

The same thing with the king who wants to go to war against another king.

Anyone with any sense…whether they have a military background or not…can figure out that it’s not a good idea to wage war against a more powerful nation…without first considering the cost…both financial and human.

The point that Jesus seems to be making is that discipleship is a two-step process.

There’s the weighing of consequences…and the consideration that one must be willing to risk giving up some things…maybe even precious things like the security of family or being part of some “in crowd” in our friend group…to become a disciple.

Because discipleship…following Jesus into a mission of love…compassion…and mercy…is not about being liked or being popular.

Taking a position that goes against what society has accepted as “normal” is the risky turn that Jesus is taking in this march toward Jerusalem.

He knew that he was going to meet with tremendous resistance and that the threat to his life was real.

But he also knew the Empire was causing hardship and terror for the people.

The ways of the Empire…with its commitment to power over others… was not in keeping with the dream God had for the world.

A vision such as what the prophets describe…where mountains are lowered and valleys are lifted up (Is.40:4)…and all are treated with equity and “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24).

The commitment of Jesus was to stand against the tyrants and the bullies of the world and build up the people who have felt lost and left behind.

And he was not looking for cheerleaders.

Jesus was seeking those who were ready to let go of those things that got in the way of dedicating themselves to this mission of mercy…compassion…and justice for all.

That mission remains the call to us today.

If we say that we are followers of Jesus…if we profess a belief in God…if we have a sense of the Holy Spirit as a burning flame…or the dove of peace hovering over us in our lives…then it follows that we should be doing all that we can to work toward a world where people are treated with respect and dignity.

We are a far cry from that right now.

At some point…we need to address the sins happening in our name.

The epidemic of gun violence that allows for the killing of school children should have stopped with Columbine.

It should have ended at Sandy Hook.

Why did we have to have Parkland?

And now kids are shot during their mass in Minneapolis?

The building of prison camps…when we interred Japanese citizens during World War II…should have taught us something about not stigmatizing people based on their heritage.

But here we are today…with masked men grabbing Latino and Latina people off the streets…at their workplaces…even showing up at the court hearings to arrest those attempting to comply with the law…and sending them to prisons hundreds of miles from their families with no way to find them.

We even had 450 people taken away from the new Hyundai plant in Chatham County a few days ago.

We know that we are a diverse country…reflecting the beautiful mosaic of God’s human creatures.

And yet…there are state and federal authorities actively attempting to erase the existence of the LGBTQ+ community.

There are those in positions of power who are ignoring our medical scientists and their expertise…an insult to their God-given talents…shunning them for work that has saved the lives of millions of people for decades.

The horrible abuse of girls and women…not just by the likes of a Jeffrey Epstein…but what has happened to young children out of the spotlight for decades which leads to hurt and traumatized adults.

These are all sins against that very basic tenet of our Baptismal covenant: to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.

To address all of this can feel insurmountable and numbing.

But it doesn’t have to be…if we are willing to acknowledge the sins…and then commit to the hard work of repairing the damage that has been done.

It’s our refusal to face what is wrong with honesty…integrity…and truth that only further compounds the sins.

This is the cost of discipleship.

To be willing to offend those who would want to maintain silence…and just go along with what is happening.

It requires us to break from attachments…our need to be accepted…to let go of our prejudices and hatreds that keep us separated from each other…and to join our lives more deeply to God…accepting the consequences that come with that.

Those consequences will mean some losses…but they also will mean gaining solidarity with those committed to making this a world where all can enjoy the life-giving and liberating love of God.

And that soil of God’s love is more fertile…and more sustaining than the acrid bitter soil of fear and hatred.

Our society needs the church…you and me…to live into the discipleship that Jesus has called us to…come what it may…cost what it will.  

A discipleship that stands with those who are speaking up and even joining the chorus of voices insisting that we must get back to a way of Love...respecting each other and recognizing that our differences are not the definition of our whole being.

It’s time to follow Jesus…and make our own march toward Jerusalem.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Give Me that "True" Religion

Photo from Sojourners (sojo.net)

For those unfamiliar with the Episcopal Church, we often begin our services with a hymn, a short prayer (called the Collect for Purity), another short song of praise or "the Gloria" and then the priest offers a prayer out of the Book of Common Prayer that is called "The Collect of the Day." 

The "Collect" (and we pronounce it CALL-ect, not co-LECT) is a prayer that is supposed to set the scene or at least summarize the themes of the Scripture readings we're going to read that morning. These collects are assigned as the "proper prayer" for whatever Sunday we're in this long season of After Pentecost. I have my favorites, and there are those which are just kind of "meh" in my opinion.

But the one for this past Sunday...to be read at the Sunday closest to August 31st (which happened to be Sunday's date)...seemed to call for me to do some teaching. Especially in this time where white Christian Nationalism is on the rise in the country.

See what you think.

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Texts: Collect for Proper 17; Luke 14:1, 7-14

I don’t often find myself guided by the words that are in our collect of the day when I write a sermon.

But there is a phrase that comes up in this one that always grabs my attention.

I should’ve known it was coming because it’s always the one we read right around Labor Day.

At the beginning of our worship… we prayed:

“Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion;”

The first part…”Graft in our hearts the love of your Name” is a play on words found in the First chapter of the Letter of James.

But it’s that second part—“increase in us true religion”—those words always make me pause.

So…I went looking for some explanation…and pulled out my very worn out copy of Marion Hatchett’s “Commentary on the American Prayer Book” which has the extended history behind everything the committee studied and looked at as they created the Book of Common Prayer we now use.

Thomas Cranmer…the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of King Henry VIII and author of our first two Books of Common Prayer in the middle of the 16^th Century…wrote this collect.

According to Hatchett…this idea of “true religion” was likely Archbishop Cranmer’s reflection on the state of the times in the English Church back in the middle of the 1500s.

Those were bleak and dangerous times of struggles between the Roman Catholic Church with its adherence to the Pope and its beliefs about what happens at the Eucharistic table when the bread and wine are blessed… and Henry VIII’s desire to be the head of his own Protestant Church of England…taking over Catholic Church property as he divorced and killed his wives.

When Henry died…and his sickly son Edward took the throne at 10 years old…Cranmer and others solidified England as a Protestant country.

But when Edward died only about seven years later…and his half-sister Mary became Queen…she not only turned England back to the Roman Catholic Church…she went on the warpath against Protestants…including Cranmer.

There’s a reason she was called “Bloody Mary.”

Cranmer was forced to recant his protestant reformation-minded theology…but then…while in prison…he stiffened his spine and refused to deny his beliefs.

Queen Mary ordered him burned at the stake…and he famously insisted on putting his writing hand first into the fire as a further sign that he was sorry for ever having signed off on recanting Protestantism.

So…for Cranmer…”true religion” was about “church as state politics”….and “who was the more theologically correct Christian” in the struggle for national power.

We have come a long way from burning each other at the stake in Christianity. 

But we still have our own version of churches splitting…and personal prejudices masquerading as church doctrine…and pursing earthly…nationalistic goals…

 All in the name of “true religion.”

None of it seeming to pay attention to the actual teachings of Jesus…our Lord and Savior who shunned such power.

For Jesus…what makes any religion really “true” is whether we are treating creation…from the earth and the sea and the animals all the way up to our fellow human beings…as the beloved of God that we all are.

That’s what we’re hearing in this morning’s Gospel.

Now…once again…the reading we’ve heard is not complete.

The diviners of the lectionary have left out a portion of the scene.

So let’s fill in some blanks.

First thing to know is that before Jesus shows up to a sabbath meal at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees…a group of Pharisees went to Jesus to warn him that he faced serious danger from Herod if he went into Jerusalem.

I think it’s important to mention that because too often…we tend to see the Pharisees as “the bad guys.”

And like so many groups of people…they weren’t all bad.

Jesus encounters the Pharisees so much because they were the predominant Jewish group at the time that the Gospels were written.

In this case… there was this group that worried about Jesus and what was going to happen to him if he took on the Roman power structure.

Jesus isn’t deterred by this news.

He says some sassy things about Herod being a fox…and then laments over Jerusalem…which was the center of Jewish worship that had been so corrupted by Rome.

As he’s entering the house of the leader…he sees a man who has terribly swollen legs…dropsy or edema.

There all these Pharisees and lawyers at the house…so Jesus asks if it’s lawful to cure on the sabbath?

They don’t say anything…but Jesus does.

He heals the man and sends him on his way.

And then he looks around at the group and wants to know if one of their children or an ox fell into a well on the sabbath…would they not rescue them?

Still…they all look at him without answering.

We might imagine Jesus shaking his head at their silence as he goes inside for the sabbath meal.

Once inside…he sees that the guests of the Pharisee leader are taking all the choice seats.

Still fresh in his head that he just saw this same group standing by silently as they saw a man suffering on the sabbath…Jesus decides to do a little schooling.

And that’s where we come back to our Gospel reading…with this parable about where to sit at a wedding banquet.

The custom in ancient Palestine for a wedding was that men reclined on couches…with the couch in the center being the place of honor.

The place of honor was reserved for those with wealth and status.

If someone of a lesser station took a seat too close to the center and someone with more privilege were to show up…the lesser man would have to move…and it would be an embarrassing faux pas.

So he’s looking at this room of those who have presumed a place of honor…and warns them not to be so sure of their station.

As one commentator notes…this isn’t so much about Jesus giving First Century Miss Manners advice to his audience.

Rather he’s telling them something about the kingdom of God.

That one should not presume a more lofty place in God’s kingdom.

And then he talks about the host…and who should be invited to this meal.

Should it just be those who might be able to turn around and invite the host to equally wonderful spread?

Nope.

Blessed are those who are the forgotten…the easily ignored…like that man with dropsy who Jesus just healed and nobody knew what to say or how to appropriately respond.

Again…this is about the kingdom of God.

We can’t presume that because we have a particular status in society that we are automatically the favored ones of God.

That’s why the whole “prosperity Gospel” business…that God somehow rewards people with lots of money… is a bunch of bunk.

We see throughout Jesus’ ministry…and even here in this Gospel…that God isn’t interested in our economic systems.

God is always and forever looking to expand and widen the circle of inclusion….and is always about siding with those who have nothing to give but themselves…their brokenhearted…worn-out…overworked…and yes…even joyful… selves.  

And God’s commandment to us is to put our efforts into the building up of people…to look for those whom others are rejecting and invite them to the literal…and even the metaphorical…table of God to experience what means to be loved beyond all measure.  

Getting to know the stories of others…meeting and greeting people who aren’t our “kinfolk”…is an important part of that building up process.

The more we know another’s story…their history…and the more we openly swap our stories with one another…the stronger the foundation of community.

Both out in the world and inside the church.

I’ve mentioned before about how in an Education for Ministry seminar…one of the first exercises is sharing our spiritual autobiographies.

I can tell you that so often I would listen to someone else’s story… a person completely different from me in all kinds of ways…and yet as I listened to them talk about their experiences with God…I could hear things that made me think, “Oh, yeah: I get that!” or even a “Wow! You, too?”

Sometimes…one of the most religiously…and maybe even politically…conservative men in one of my groups would come up to me afterward and take me aside to express gratitude about things that I had shared about myself and my journey.

Like me…they could hear in something that I had said a word or a phrase that broke past all the artificial human barriers that keep us divided from one another to understand a simple truth: we’re all children of God…created by God out of Love…for the purposes of Love…with mission to share that Love with others.

Which brings me back to “true religion.”

“True religion” isn’t about holding the right belief for political power.

It isn’t about controlling the earthly levers of government…or even about asserting some kind of Christian supremacy.

“True religion” is about hope.

Hope which is found in the God who is Love.

Hope for a world where we care enough about each other…have enough empathy for those who are the have-nots…that we seek mercy…compassion…and justice for all.

The rest of our collect for this morning asks for God to “nourish us with goodness…and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.”

May we carry that prayer in our hearts as we meet the many challenges of our world.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.