2nd
Sunday after Pentecost; Yr. C, June 2, 2013
1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39; Galatians 1:1-12; Psalm 96; Luke 7:1-10
Sermon
preached at The Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene
Richard
Hays had this to say about Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “Galatians
proclaims an apocalyptic gospel. Christ
came to defeat the oppressive powers that held us captive and to ‘rescue us
from the present evil age’ (1:4). As
Paul develops the implications of this confession, he discloses to his readers
that the entire world of orderly religious norms that he had once zealously
defended has been ‘crucified’ (6:14); it no longer has any claim upon him. The real world in which we now live is the
“new creation” brought into being by Christ, in which we are given new life and
are guided by the Spirit. As the church
reads Galatians, then, we are constantly challenged to reject the wisdom of
business as usual – including the business of religion – and to see reality as redefined
by the cross. Those who live by this
rule will no longer be manipulated by the popular culture’s images of security
and respectability. We will live,
instead, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, and our life together will be a
sign of the world to come.” [1]
Our life together will be a sign of the world to
come. Paul saw Jesus’ resurrection as a
sign of the new world coming to fruition.
What he had expected to be an end of time event, the general
resurrection of all the faithful, he saw actually racing into the present. Jesus was the first sign that it had already begun. For Paul, the resurrection was the beginning of the end. Everything
Paul knew about “church” … the laws, the rituals, the norms … were being re-formed,
re-written in light of this unanticipated resurrection event. It was all being transformed by the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
Believers were given hope of a new life, and the gift of a new Spirit to
guide them.
New
hope. The gift of a new Spirit. That’s the church we’ve inherited in today’s
world. Isn’t that what’s happening to
the church today? Isn’t it being
re-created and re-imagined? It doesn’t
feel very comfortable at times, and lots of us priest-types can feel a bit anxious
about it all because we’re not sure where we’ll end up. We’re not sure how to help lead us there …
but we’re clearly being molded and prompted into possibility by the Spirit.
Just
look at what’s happening in our two churches.
Here at Two Saints, you’re tearing up pews, putting down new floor and
bringing in new chairs to create a more flexible worship space. At St. Stephen’s we’re putting raised beds on
the side lawn, setting up a garden shed for tools, and inviting neighbors to
garden with us.
At
Two Saints, the William’s Wellness Initiative is taking on a life of it’s own. People are learning about healthy eating and
exercise, and the ways those habits can benefit or create obstacles in our
relationship with God. Two evenings a
week, people are gathering together, not to pray, but to exercise together in
the parish hall!
At
St. Stephen’s, conversations about offering blood pressure screening at Sunday
suppers have helped us realize that many of our guests lack access to the
health care system. The conversation has
challenged us to look at the larger picture of wellness also. Maybe we’re both discovering that if churches
are healing places for souls, we need
to take into account the healing of the whole
body. It’s not enough to just teach
about prayer, and scripture and doctrine, or to come together for worship. Our churches need to be places that feed
people in a variety of ways, our spiritual life can’t be separated from the whole of life.
New
hope. The gift of a new Spirit. Almost six years ago, our two churches
entered into a covenant relationship with one another. The idea of two churches retaining their
unique identities and voluntarily entering into covenant with each other was
something kind of unique in our Episcopal tradition, sharing clergy, sharing
resources, sharing worship, sharing ministry, sharing space. The idea of binding ourselves to one another
for freedom seemed like an oxymoron.
Shouldn’t all that connecting somehow tie us up in a knot? Wouldn’t it make us more dependent and less
free? I don’t think it did. In fact, nothing could be further from the
truth.
Our
relationship with one another has allowed us to experiment with ministries that
might not have happened without the covenant … Saints Community Garden, Freedom
Kids Camp, Turning Points Center, for example.
They’re all experiments in mission that took both of us to become a
reality. A couple of Two Sainter’s help
at Sunday suppers, and a couple of St. Stephen’s folks help at RAIHN. Our two choirs have gotten to know one
another quite well. Our covenant has
been a blessing, but it’s also been work.
Relationships
are hard; not everything runs smoothly. Communication
takes commitment, and intentionality, and sometimes we fail at it. At times it would probably be easier to just go our own way, but I’m not sure that’s
what God has in mind for the church.
That’s part of the false gospel we hear today.
The
issue for his day was circumcision. Some
new missionaries were telling the Galatians that people needed to be
circumcised in order to be Christian. In
order to reap the benefits of the Spirit, they had to first “become like them”. Paul disagreed. We have a few false gospels in our own
day. We’re bombarded with cultural messages
like, take care of yourself, “pull yourself
up by your own bootstraps”, raise your children to be independent. We’re told that if we work hard enough we can
get ahead; so if we don’t get ahead, we must not be working hard enough. We’re taught that in America those born into
poverty don’t have to die there. So if
you’re born poor, and you can’t seem to climb out of that black hole, there
must be something wrong with you. They’re
values that also creep into the church as we discuss which churches to support
with congregational development money, and think about which churches to allow
to close. They’re values that put us
into competition with one another, rather than building communion. These values don’t lead us into compassion
and mercy, two of God’s most notable traits. They’re false gospels, not good news. We can say “no” to this, just as Paul said
“no” to circumcision.
That
“no” comes easier in word and action when we come together in community, when
we resist the false messages together.
Because I think we all know that those bootstraps tend to give out when the
boots get stuck, and in this economy independence leaves us standing alone in
despair. We see and feel the effects of
poverty and recognize how systemic injustices often prevent those with limited
resources from getting equal education and all the opportunities they need to
make life changes that change their situation. Independence sounds good in theory. If everyone is independent we don’t really
have to worry about one another, but the world was created as interdependent. We
need one another in the world and in the church.
Over
these six years, both of our churches have seen changes. We’ve been stretched to grow and to risk in
different ways. We may also have grown
comfortable with some routines that no longer serve us well. There is still much work to be shared, but
Michael reminded me just this past week, that it is time once again for us to
look at our covenant agreement, and to consider whether we wish to continue it,
to look at how we might best frame our lives together, how to use our freedom
for God’s work in the assurance that the Spirit will guide us. Both of our churches are in different places
than we were six years ago, but the good news is still with us, the reality of
resurrection that greets us over and over again in our lives, the Christ we
witness in one another, the grace of God that works in us even in the darkest
of times, and in the life-giving Spirit that guides us on the way. We are
constantly challenged to reject the wisdom of business as usual – including the
business of religion – and to see reality as redefined by the cross. We are still in the business of re-creating
our churches. May the Spirit continually
guide us into new and unexpected places together so that we might embody Christ
more fully in this city. That is our
good news.
Amen.
[1] Hays, Richard B. The
New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume XI,
The Letter to the Galatians: Introduction, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2000, p.
196.
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