Receive him as your beloved brother!

A sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 4, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?

Today is the only day in our lectionary that we read an entire book of the Bible—Paul’s letter to Philemon. Unlike most of Paul’s letters, this one is addressed to an individual. Philemon was a leader of a church that met in his home, probably in Colossae, in what’s now western Turkey. The main issue addressed in the letter is the status of a slave named Onesimus.

Saint Onesimus

No one who has considered this letter deeply is satisfied with what Paul says here. Slavery in the Roman Empire was every bit as brutal and exploitative as American slavery was. It was pervasive and the Roman economy relied on it. In the Roman Empire, slaves were not slaves based on race; people usually became slaves by being captured in war, or sold because they owed debts. Indeed, one of the main factors driving military conquest in that era was the desire to get more slaves to work in fields and mines and to be sold as personal servants. Those who were prosperous and had a fine standard of living were a tiny minority. Some people lived comfortably but humbly as craftsmen or the like, but most people lived in poverty. Or they were slaves.

It’s not really possible to make a case to justify this system. Oppression was the norm, except for a very small percentage of people.  Slaves were regularly humiliated and beaten. At that time, slavery was pervasive and integral to society—people at that time were no more likely to think of society without slaves, than we would think about a society without banks today.

Jesus and Paul both knew and taught that all people were fundamentally equal before God. Paul said it in Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” But Paul doesn’t say that slavery should be abolished, here or elsewhere. That allowed some Christians to rationalize slavery and other unequal treatment of people for the next 2,000 years. There’s no escaping that this is bad, but it’s something we are forced to grapple with in this reading today.

When Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison. What he had already said about God raising an executed criminal from the dead, of God’s love for even the lowest and most humble of people, and about human freedom from tyranny, were enough to get him thrown in jail. From jail, Paul wrote to Philemon.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about being ready: ready for the Kingdom of God, ready to be Jesus’ disciples. There is no room for distraction—you have to pay attention, just like the person planning to build a tower—you have to be ready for what it costs to be Jesus’ disciple.

That’s what Paul is doing here: he is both doing what is most likely to help his friend and protégé, Onesimus, and he is teaching his friend Philemon what it takes to be Jesus’ disciple.

There’s another thing to understand here. Letters in the ancient world, even letters between individuals, weren’t private in the way we think of private correspondence. Paper was expensive and delivery was costly. When a letter was received it was normal for it to be read aloud and passed around—shared with relatives or members of the community down the road, or, if it was important enough, recopied and circulated among people who would be interested.  You can tell from the structure and mentions of people in Paul’s letters that he expected this to happen. And so did Philemon.

Paul first thanks Philemon for his love and faithfulness and thanks God for those traits. This isn’t just flattery, and it is not simply to impress the others who would be expected read or hear this letter.  What is going on is that Paul is building discipleship by reminding his audience that God’s love is manifested in others, and that, as Jesus’s disciples, we need to remember this, remembering how God’s love is manifested in one another, and through that manifestation, more love is generated, and more possibilities for hope are born.

Then Paul confronts Philemon with the next step in actually being Christ’s disciple: “Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love.” It is Philemon’s responsibility, not just to accept Onesimus back because Paul says so, but as an integral part of being a disciple of Jesus and living his love. You might call this the “business end” of Paul’s request and Paul doesn’t just rely on how Philemon might feel about it. He writes a promissory note in the original: his own signature, promising to pay. All the arguments that Philemon and the rest of us might make up to justify excluding or punishing this Onesimus. or somebody who makes us uncomfortable don’t cut it with Paul. He puts his own self on the line for the sake of Onesimus and for helping Philemon become the disciple Christ wants him to be: “Receive him as your beloved brother! Not as a slave!”

Paul says to Philemon, “I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you…Refresh my heart in Christ.” Refresh my heart—live that life of love that Christ has brought us into.

Being Jesus’ disciple is not always easy. The main way that it’s not easy is remembering what we owe to God—our whole lives, the grace of being accepted by God means that being Jesus’ disciple means extending ourselves. Philemon had lived his life regarding Onesimus and other slaves as inferiors and believing their shortcomings or disobedience made them worthless—but being Jesus’ disciple turned that upside down. In what ways has being Jesus disciples turned our views upside down? How might we be called to change? There will be change. We give thanks for that—that Christ’s love extends beyond ourselves and refreshes the heart of all of God’s people.

As it says in our psalm:

Their delight is in the law of the Lord,

and they meditate on his law day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water,

bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither;

everything they do shall prosper.

Psalm 1:2-3

Don’t neglect to Love Strangers

A sermon for the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 28, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

That sentence is the culmination of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is deep assurance of God’s steadfastness in love for us—that the Jesus we know doesn’t change, he can be relied upon to be there for us, if we are but ready to understand him as he is. But what is going on in our reading for today?

Hebrews is an anonymous discourse, written in the first century.  Of all the writings of the New Testament, its writing is the most literary and polished.  The more polished a piece of writing is, the more difficult it is to convey in translation, because every word is carefully chosen to fit together with the words around it. I realized this when I looked at the Greek to see what word was translated as “mutual love” in the first sentence: “Let mutual love continue.” There is nothing wrong with the translation that we have—it translates the words and sentences accurately.  But on first reading, it can appear that it’s just a list of good things to remember, not particularly connected with one another. But in Greek, these exhortations are tied together by related words that show us the progressive logic of the Christian life of love.

Let me render this in awkward English to illustrate:

“Let brotherly/sisterly love continue, but don’t neglect love of strangers, for hidden in that, some have entertained angels. And remember the prisoners, as though suffering the mistreatment they receive along with them in your own bodies. (And speaking of being in one shared body) keep the marriage bed undefiled. Be not-silver-lovers but be content with what you have.”

Hebrews 13:1-5a translated & paraphrased from the Greek text

This passage weaves together the different kinds of love and not-love that make up the everyday Christian life and experience. It starts with the familiar: the everyday experience of love of the sisters and brothers who we know well and care for. This kind of love isn’t less than other kinds—it’s pretty much the foundation.

But what’s being emphasized is that Christian love doesn’t stop there. Christian love isn’t just for insiders. Even more important is the love of strangers, which is what that word “hospitality” really means—the stranger. Not the ones we know and have social obligations and relations with, but the wanderer on the road, the one we will never see again. By illustration the text alludes to Abraham, who received his greatest blessing—that is to say, the promise of his son and a legacy of a great nation—he received that blessing by stopping and welcoming three strangers on the road on a hot summer’s day.

But it is not just the strangers who we may encounter, but also those who are locked away and out of sight. This could refer to Christians, who like St. Paul found themselves imprisoned because their witness to the Gospel challenged those in power, so that they seized people and locked them up. Or it might recognize that people were seized for arbitrary reasons and held in terrible conditions unless they had the wealth or influence to gain release. That was in the Roman Empire – but it still happens today – for example to people whose immigration papers don’t convince the authorities, even to children in the hospital for cancer treatment. These distant people who we can’t see; we are one with them as well, as if we are one body with them as we are with Christ.

Next, there’s the reference to a shared experience in the body, the text circles back from the most distant and invisible of relationships, to the most intimate and familial— “Let the marriage bed be held in honor by all.” All this love of brothers and sisters and strangers and far-away prisoners does not reduce one’s obligation to those closest or change those obligations. No other kind of love exempts us from the basics of cherishing those in our own household and maintaining the integrity of those relationships. After this exhortation is another word that contains “love,” but in this case it has the prefix that means “not”—literally, a “not-lover of silver,” is what the readers are exhorted to be. The opposite of being one in flesh with another is to focus your love, your life and your future on dead metal, on cash.  Chasing money will not take care of insecurity or of anxiety about it.

This is a simple summary of the Christian life, but Hebrews continues: “God has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’” So, when this text says, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever,” it is this simple Christian life of love that it is referring to, living in generosity, with care for others, near and far, and with responsibility to one another, not looking for shortcuts through greed or self-indulgence.

In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus has occasion to observe some people in a situation that they probably thought was hospitality. But rather than love of stranger, or even brotherly love, the gathering was quite the opposite: everyone was jockeying for power and prestige, looking for the best seats, seats that would indicate their proximity to power and that would command high regard. And the host was a big part of this—the guest list was compiled with an eye to enhancing his prestige in the community and perhaps even his wealth. Lives more akin to silver-lovers than stranger-brother-sister-lovers. And Jesus—who is the same, yesterday, today and forever—gives them advice: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.”

We can do this. We can love one another in mutual care, but also welcome the stranger and those who we do not know. For the Lord is our helper, what can anyone do to us?

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Proper 17

You are set free

A sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, August 21, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

“She stood up straight and began praising God.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is in a congregation, teaching. In that congregation is a woman who has been crippled, bent over and suffering, for eighteen years. Let’s pay particular attention to the text here. When we moderns see a description of a person who is suffering, we usually think of specific physical problems that we hope can be addressed by the wonders of modern medical science. But what the text in the Gospel says is that the woman had a spirit that had crippled her. Injuries or disease are not actually mentioned. In the Gospels, Jesus heals and casts out spirits as often as he teaches—perhaps more often. What are these spirits? They are not the horror movie creatures we think of, or the stuff of superstition. Spirits are not material—but they are very real. They are woven into our life to the point that we don’t even notice them.

God’s love is simple and God does not create malign spirits. Human love likewise should be simple, but human fear, hate, greed and many other manifestations of our lesser selves distort relationships. And it’s not just individuals—it’s the whole of communities and societies. Over time all of the negative things weave together and generate spirits.  Since so many people’s fears and desires are involved, these spirits are beyond the control of any single person; rather, they influence people and groups in ways that the individuals themselves usually don’t understand.

And we can see that in this Gospel story. Jesus calls the woman over, lays his hands on her, and she stands up straight and begins to praise God. God healed her, the spirit that weighed her down was gone. But right away, the manifestation of the destructive spirit shows up again. A leader of the congregation is very upset at Jesus for healing this woman.  His reasons were actually bogus because pronouncing God’s blessing and touching another person are not prohibited on the Sabbath. But the man’s anger was real, and the argument was intense.

What’s happening here?

Psychologists and therapists use systems theory to talk about similar things that they see when they are treating families. Frequently, when a member of a family who has been ill or troubled in some way becomes well, someone else in the family becomes ill or begins to behave in inappropriate ways. The negative spirit that may manifest itself in an individual seeks to maintain itself, and it affects the other people who are involved with the person who has undergone a change.

This woman stands up straight and is healthy. But making this woman well changes things, especially for the leader who attacks Jesus. Maybe it’s the leader’s comfort and control of the situation, perhaps his prestige—all those things are destabilized, all are called into question. That man probably thought he was just enforcing the rules. But it was his fears, and the fearfulness of the entire community—going back at least eighteen years when the woman first was inhabited by the spirit—that were speaking. It was definitely not the love of the God who had blessed Abraham and guided Moses through the wilderness.

How does Jesus respond to the man’s fear and anger? He doesn’t criticize those fears, and accuse those affected by the spirit, or try to diagnose them and tell them what they should do; he healed the woman and helped her to stand upright. He explains the law, in terms of the love of God. Everyone will lead their animals to life-giving water on the Sabbath, Jesus says, just like Jesus led this woman to abundant life. It takes courage to be healed, and it also takes courage for a community to live with healing within it.

Spirits don’t quickly disappear, it takes honesty and acceptance, the courage perhaps to accept changes in one’s own position, to rejoice that others are loved and healed. Jesus came to heal us all—he paid the price for healing our spirits—and he rejoices with us, with that woman who stood up straight, and with every healing of a person, or a relationship, or a community, or a world.

The spirits abroad in our world, especially in our country, are particularly stubborn, complex, and nasty. People fall in love with their demons, their anger and the status that they fear losing. As anything changes in society, things … well, they change for some people—all people really, but some notice it more than others. In America, we have one particularly big demon, the demonic power of racism which has developed and festered for centuries. Lots of people I know were able to mostly ignore it, or at least ignore their own racism, in most of their lives—thinking mostly about how life was good, and they were good, and their families and churches are nice, and that everything and everyone that scares or disturbs them is far away. The last time I talked with someone I went to high school with, he said, “I could never live in New York, with all those people.” And it can actually be nice and smooth and kind of peaceful—if nothing comes up about changing any of it. But a few things have shifted over the past few decades—just a little. And when a President was elected who happened to be Black, it was a little like when Jesus blessed that woman and she stood up straight. That very large demon started bouncing around everywhere—and in the political sphere, those most affected by it, those most fearful of the changes, those who profited the most by racism, stopped caring about things like honesty or facts or doing the right thing. Even serving a search warrant to recover top secret government property has become the occasion of violence and threats against judges, government employees, and even the rest of us. Truth has no meaning for the demon possessed. It has always been so; the healing of communities of stubborn demons takes a long time, it takes courage and it takes the power of God manifested in our Lord.

We cannot know what the way ahead holds, but Jesus will heal our spirits. This is how the Gospel lesson today ends: “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.”

Let us pray, once again the collect for today:

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

Collect for Proper 16 Book of Common Prayer

A Cloud Rising in the West

A sermon for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Today’s Gospel lesson continues directly after the passage we heard last week. Last week, Jesus says, “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Now he is criticizing people who don’t know how to interpret the present time. So which is it? Isn’t this contradictory? On the one hand we can’t know or predict and on the other we are supposed to know how to interpret the present time. Let’s look a little closer.

In both passages, Jesus is telling us to pay attention, to be vigilant. In the first, Jesus is calling out people’s tendency to be smug and complacent—people love to use their piety and assumptions about God to lay out expectations about what God will do, to get way out beyond any evidence and take their ease in being self-satisfied, because, “Hey, nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m good, no reason to be concerned about all this stuff happening to other people, God will take care of it.” Jesus is having none of this – we are called to discipleship, not self-satisfaction. The salvation that he brings is for the healing of the world, not for individuals to just wallow in their own privileged and comfortable role as “the saved.”

So Jesus continues to call for vigilance. Human beings can see things in the world. Long before weather satellites and Doppler radar, people paid attention to what was happening with the weather. It was always important to know when to take cover from an impending storm, or when to get ready to plow a field on a good day with calm and dry weather. Our advanced technology measures things accurately and records lots more information than an individual can see, so we read about the weather or watch the forecast on TV and we know pretty well what weather is coming. But people in earlier times had to be sensitive to what was going on, they needed to pay attention to things like the direction of the wind, the color of the sunset, the smell of the air. So when Jesus mentions a cloud rising in the west, or a south wind blowing, people knew what he was talking about, because that’s what they did. They noticed these things all the time and understood what they meant.

Jesus is using this to point out that we can see what is going on in the world, if we only pay attention, if we are vigilant and attentive.  Yet, how many manage to not see the things that are before their eyes. Our psalm for today says,

How long will you judge unjustly,

     and show favor to the wicked?

Save the weak and the orphan;

     defend the humble and needy;

Rescue the weak and the poor;

     deliver them from the power of the wicked.

They do not know, neither do they understand;

     they go about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

Psalm 82:2-5

In this angry country of ours, there are so many who loudly insist that the power of the police must be wielded more and more to control people they are afraid of, people they don’t like, people who don’t resemble them. Yet we see what happens when one of their own is served a search warrant because there is probable cause that evidence of a crime is at his oceanside resort: hysterical calls to defund the law enforcement agency that executed the warrant. We can see the irony of this, it’s visible to anyone who has eyes, but they are blind to it. Jesus says you can see the rainclouds, you can feel the south wind, or the red sunset: Why can’t you see what is happening in this world?

People are blind to what they don’t want to see. People find rationalizations to explain away the truth when they are more comfortable by not acknowledging it. People deny its what’s happening—they really don’t see it, they really don’t understand its malignance and its danger to our country. That is the real danger.

It takes courage to look at the present time, to see it, to stand up for truth. Standing in Jesus’ love, being his compassion, is not a passive or a convenient thing. Being Christ’s Body isn’t some simple program. Because it involves being Christ’s Body all the time, in all parts of our life, seeing the truth that is before us. In the Gospel, Jesus says,

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.

Luke 12:51-53

It is not about starting fights, or violence—it’s about seeing the truth and living the truth in a world in which so many cleave to darkness, rather than be illuminated by the compassion of Christ and see the truth that is before their eyes.

My mother died three years ago tomorrow. When I was young, I talked with my mom a lot. She was very thoughtful and she saw many things that others ignored, particularly out in that cow country where the prosperous ranchers often distorted politics to their own advantage. It was in those long conversations with mom that I was first able to look beyond myself and think critically, to know God and also to be skeptical of some of the things that happen in the church—to see the reality in front of me and to interpret the present time.

Being faithful to Jesus is not complicated, in fact it’s the opposite: simply see what is there, and don’t be worried or try to figure out complicated ways to not see and explain reality away. Frightened and faithless people do that. But we are God’s people, part of that great cloud of witnesses in every generation, so be awake to what you see.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2

The Conviction of Things not Seen

A sermon for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 7, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

This verse is very well known and it’s often treated as a philosophical definition of faith. But our reading from Hebrews isn’t a philosophical treatise—it speaks of people of faith and how God provided for them amidst great challenges.

A few years ago, in the wake of one of the continuing stream of high profile mass shootings, I was listening on the radio to a reporter interview a woman who had lost a family member in it.She said she was a woman of faith and the reporter asked her: “Does this shake your faith?”   Her response clearly summed up what it means to be a person of faith in such a difficult time. As I remember, she said she couldn’t really say where God was in all this, or what was happening. She didn’t think that God wanted her loved one to die like this. Her faith is that God loves her and those people who were killed. But right now, she doesn’t know what to do or think. What she said was something like that—very real, not tied up into a neat package with a pretty theological bow, but still knowing the essential of faith, that God is love, even when we don’t feel it.

The thing is, our faith in God is our life; and when our life is shaken, our faith IS shaken. I can easily believe that that woman felt very shaky, she might still, even years after her loss. And I wouldn’t blame her a bit if she was afraid and anxious. That is how you feel when your life is shaken.

If we pay attention to scripture, it is at precisely such times that God acts for God’s people, even though they don’t see it, don’t feel it, don’t understand it, don’t believe it. Our Old Testament lesson and our Epistle tell the story of Abraham, who at ninety years old was childless and without an heir. His wife Sarah was about the same age and had always been barren. God sent him out to look at the stars. Remember, this is long before the electric illumination of our big cities made the stars seem so much fewer.

Three years ago, when my mother was nearing the end of her life, we travelled to central Oregon, where my sister’s home is out in the countryside. We went out at night and looked at the moonless night sky. The sky was so vast and dark, filled with all sorts of stars, even shooting stars. The Milky Way was fully visible. A couple of dozen people might be able to divide up the sky and make some kind of count of the stars you see from New York city. But out there in the mountains, the stars are literally uncountable. And that is what God says to Abraham: “Count the stars, if you are able to count them—So shall your descendants be.” God’s promise and the hope of Abraham came before there was any way that it seemed feasible—there was no plan, there was nothing you could see, except, perhaps, the stars.

Hope is not just anything you happen to wish for.  It is certainly not arrogantly thinking that God will give you the specific things you have decided you need to carry out some plan you have come up with. Hope is far more flexible than that. Hope is about living in God’s love.  And sometimes … that life is shaken, sometimes our faith is shaken, and sometimes that means that our hope appears to have been shaken as well. But that’s just it. Our faith is assurance of things hoped for—things NOT SEEN. Like that woman I heard on the radio who could not see what God was doing, we wait in faith for God’s action, for the fulfillment of God’s promise.

But what is God’s promise? Is it comfort? Or wealth? Or well-being?  Despite what you can hear if you turn into just the right TV broadcast, none of those things is promised by God. God’s promise is God’s love: God’s love for us and a life in which we are formed into being God’s love. That promise will be fulfilled—it is being fulfilled here each day—but the things that happen along the way? The things we like to call the results of our plans? Those things are not what God has promised. God has promised to make us his people, what more can we ask than that?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus begins, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The promise is glorious, but our life of faith is in the real world, not some fantasy world of easy prosperity.  Though we do not know what God’s future holds for us, Jesus nevertheless tells us to be prepared: To take action, live lives of generosity, giving to those who are in need, keeping our lamps lit, looking for the signs of where God is leading us, ready to serve God at any turn—even in our most unlikely or off-putting neighbor. We don’t always experience this life of generosity and discipleship as the kingdom, because it’s often hard work and sometimes disappointing, but living as God’s love in expectation of the kingdom is how we see God’s future for us.

Trinity Church has challenges and we may feel shaky at times. I do not know what the future holds, God seldom delivers according to OUR specifications. I do know that we are God’s people right now—when I look at Trinity I see care and compassion, people looking out for the well-being of others and with concern for those outside of our doors and those who come after us.  Do not be afraid, or at least if you are, know that God will keep you safe anyway. In particular do not be afraid of living generously and of shaping our life together in ways that benefit those who aren’t part of the present community within these four walls. We are not here for ourselves, we are here as ambassadors of God’s love.

If he comes in the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Luke 12:38-40