Sermons!!

It occurs to me that this might be a fun place to put up some sermons... so I'm going to.

This one was from the 9th of July (I'm not going to post more than one at a time -- just gets too long!).

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The readings for this Sunday were: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10, Psalm 123, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, and Mark 6:1-13.

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The first time I was asked to preach at my home parish after going away to seminary was in my final year at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific. It had been two and a half years since I had last been there, and while excited for the opportunity to come back to preach, I was also terrified that people would be thinking – who does this man think he is? Isn't this the acolyte, the son of Guinevere? For the past two and a half years, I had been studying diligently in preparation for ordination. I had by then taken the majority of my courses, I had been a leader in my seminary community, I was even the head sacristan (which means I was in charge of preparations for our 16 weekly worship services in the seminary chapel)… I was just one semester away from being ordained. But I had been none of these things when I left St. Mark's. I very carefully prepared my sermon for that day, knowing I would be getting up in the front of the church on our sacred day to teach the people… today's gospel reading was quite prevalent in my mind. Would they grant me the authority to teach amongst them?

We see in today's readings, three different examples of a community's response to authority… each leader is different, and each is in a different time period, but the common thread is that in each case it is a group of people connected by their faith and reacting together.

In the case of David, we have a military leader, blessed by God with great prowess in battle, great skill in strategy, and great faith. He is charismatic, youthful, and has recently been made King of Judea – set up against Saul who is still King of Israel. After a long battle between Saul's armies and his own, David has gained more and more of the popular support, resulting in today's reading with the people of Israel inviting David to become their King. Saul is dead, as is his son Jonathan (David's beloved friend), Saul's other son Ishbaal has agreed to give Saul's daughter to David in marriage (thereby substantiating David's claim to Saul's throne), Ishbaal's main military advisor has been killed, and just before today's readings, Ishbaal himself was killed by men who tried to claim a reward with David for the assassination only to be condemned by David for the callous slaughter. Unlike Jesus' hometown associates, David's people acclaim him and ask him to be their king. They recognize his gifts, they recognize God's blessing and anointing of David as ruler over all of Israel, and they lift him up from within their midst to be their king.

In Corinthians, we see a conflicted community. We enter the story in the middle of a three-chapter-long rant in which Paul defends his missionary status and gospel message against those whom he disdainfully calls "super-apostles." The community, which had originally accepted Paul's message and leadership has apparently been entertaining other ideas coming from leadership sources other than Paul – in his absence, they seem to be seeking new leadership and falling away from Paul's teachings. In today's readings, Paul has entered into a prototypical schoolyard debate tactic and is mocking his opposition. In "foolishness" he boasts as his opposition boasts, but Paul, of course, does it better. (Sort of like the old argument of whose parents are cooler ending with "oh ya? Well my Daddy's a ninja!"). It is one guess that the "thorn" in Paul's flesh may actually be a specific opponent in his ministry.

In our Gospel reading, we have a third example of a community responding to authority. Jesus stops by his hometown in the whirlwind tour of miracles and parables of Mark's gospel. Maybe he hasn't been home since his baptism in the Jordan, maybe it's been longer than that… whatever the reason, his hometown remembers him simply as the carpenter son of Mary. When he shows up in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching, they question his authority, they question his teachings, they question his wisdom, and they question his ability to perform miracles. Precious few, it seems, even entertain the thought that he may have acquired gifts since leaving home that he could now offer to them, and ask him to heal them (which he does). Even Jesus himself was amazed at their unbelief.

[pause] Thankfully, my fears about preaching at St. Mark's were in vain. Much like Amy's first experience presiding here last week, my sponsoring community was wonderfully attentive and supportive, and (as it must have been for Amy) the overall experience was both exhilarating and amazing.

It seems that part of the puzzle of how a community will react to God's authority as acted out through individuals (or communities for that matter) lies in how radical the agent's message is. In the case of David, the people knew very well what to expect. David had been acting as God's agent since he slew Goliath as a boy, and had continued to act in expected ways from that time until his reign as king began. Paul was more controversial than David… a less expected message of God's kingdom and Good News came from his ministry. It was compelling and amazing, but also confusing. When other authorities with a similar message came, it was easy for them – while new in their faith in Christ – to be led astray from Paul's teachings. It wasn't necessarily even that they were rejecting Paul's teachings, but believed that they were augmenting them in his absence.

Jesus, on the other hand, was truly a radical. His life and ministry from the time of his baptism to the time of his death (and even more so beyond his resurrection) were diametrically opposed to the systems of domination and oppression that characterized the patriarchal hierarchy of Judaism, Rome, and most of the world in his day and age. Jesus' message of radical love (loving your neighbor – i.e. the warring clans at your borders as well as your clans-people – as yourself), radical inclusion (even including Samaritan women of questionable reputation), radical re-conception of family structures (family as defined by those who love and respect us and believe as we believe rather than who we're born into), and radical conception of God as dwelling within us and being a God of grace and healing and love was all too much for his hometown. Others who never knew his humble beginnings might be able to hear God's word in the message of the Word made flesh, but his hometown associates know all too well how and where he grew up, who his family is and what his assigned trade was before he started his ministry. To them he was far too ordinary and far too familiar to carry God's sacred word – especially with a message as radical as Jesus preached!

Amy and I, similar to David's experience, were already raised up by our communities to go through the ordination process. Our homecoming after serving in other communities was a fulfillment of our communities' hopes for us rather than a contradiction. Our receptions, accordingly, were joyful and receptive.

Looking at the opposite extreme, there has been a lot of talk in the Anglican Communion over the past few years about the nature of authority. Bishop Gene Robinson's consecration would probably be closer to the radical end of the spectrum in terms of homecomings. In the wake of The Episcopal Church in the United States' confirmation of Bishop Robinson, our authority was called into question both Biblically and Hierarchically, and we have continued to be shunned and scolded for what have been called our theological "innovations."

In setting out to give the theological reckoning that the Anglican Communion requested, we responded as a Church with a document called "To Set Our Hope on Christ." For those unfamiliar with the document, it provided a 135 page explanation of our theology and discernment around the question of recognizing the gifts of people in committed same-gender relationships.

Within the document, Peter's mission to the gentiles from Acts is cited as an example of a time when the Christian Church questioned the availability of God's grace to a group that it considered completely ineligible. Through Peter's witness to the outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on this group of Gentiles, which he baptized without consent of those in Jerusalem, he brought the church to a new understanding of God's grace and definition of who can be included in the kingdom of God. Making the leap to the present conflict, the document voiced its hope that the witness of our own Episcopal Church to the fruits of the spirit present in the life and ministries of people in same-sex relationships might again enable Christian truth to be perceived afresh for the whole community. We move forward in our Anglican identity today under the leadership of the world's first female Anglican primate, unsure of our future together, but knowing that just as even Christ was found too radical and even offensive to his home community, so too are we called to be true to God's truth as revealed to us – even in the face of rejection by our hometown associates. Although Jesus was amazed at his hometown's unbelief, I can't help but think that he had some suspicion about how his message would be received there. After all, he grew up there. He knew this community's limitations, prejudices, and collective idiosyncrasies, just as they knew his history and family. He doubtless grew up going to the same synagogue where he stood up to teach on that Sabbath. Yet in spite of all of this, the Good News for us lies in the fact that knowing their hearts and minds, Christ brings them the Good News anyway. He stands up in front of his family and childhood community and tells them about the kingdom of God. With reckless abandon for his reputation, he stands firm for what he knows is God's truth. Some of them even listen to him and come to him later for healing.

The Good News in Christ Jesus is that the reign of God is within our very grasp. When we, following Christ's example, love enough to let go of our prejudices, fears, and preconceptions about grace to share the amazing truth of God's radical love with those around us, we are living out God's reign – "Rejoice for the kingdom is near" isn't a metaphysical mystery so much as a tangible reality that we have been placed in charge of as Christ's body in the world.

For our own community's part, we continue to struggle for what we believe in as a Church, and whether or not the wider church is ready for our revelations of God's truth in the radical inclusiveness of God's kingdom and love, may we all strive to continue to follow Christ's example of steadfastness to God's radical truth and love, and by so doing, become instruments of God's reign.

In the words of the Psalmist, "Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt." Amen.