The Peace of God which surpasses all understanding

A sermon for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 15, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Paul wrote this letter to the Church at Philippi from prison. The word that is translated here as “Rejoice,” is Chairete. There is a footnote in my Bible which says it could also mean “Farewell.” It is a word that was frequently used for a greeting – it means joy, but also connotes peace, quite similar in usage to the Hebrew word Shalom. As Paul reaches this last section of the letter where he sums up and bids his farewell, he emphasizes this by saying: “Farewell in the Lord, but I mean, really, Rejoice.”  Paul rejoices in this community which he had come to love, and he rejoices in the love of God. He rejoices in the ability to live for others, and he encourages the Philippians to rejoice, not in what they have received for themselves, not in any comfort or material well-being, but in their ability to serve others.

St. Paul gives thanks for the ministries of two women in the congregation, women who had struggled along with him in his work—he encouraged them to continue steadfast and enjoined the congregation to support them in that work. He rejoices in the opportunity to serve, and to see the service that others extend to others in the love of God. His words of thanksgiving and encouragement are all the more potent because he was not serving himself, but the Kingdom of God.

“Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” The Greek word meaning “gentleness” refers to flexibility and reasonableness, the opposite of rigidity or harshness—everyone should know that when they approach you, you will be humble and listen.  In this, Paul is reminding each of us that our interactions with one another require flexibility and reasonableness.

Then he says, “the Lord is near, do not worry about anything.”  Usually when somebody says that, the smart and worldly answer is, “Easy for you to say.”  But that discouraged and cynical response comes up short against the fact that Paul was in chains when he wrote this. When he says, “Do not worry about anything,” he means it, and he’s not whistling in the dark. He’s not talking about ignoring his chains or things that have gone wrong in our lives. What St. Paul is saying is exactly what is not easy to say: the outcomes of our planning, and the vagaries of human existence may not be what we envision, and our comfort may be intruded upon, but God remains present and his mercy is with us—encouraging us in our gentleness of spirit to rejoice rather than to worry.  It is not that our physical wellbeing and our presence in this world does not matter—Paul encourages all of our desires and needs and concerns to be expressed in prayer to God. But note, each of those prayers is to be with thanksgiving. It is the same thanksgiving that Paul gives for the generous and helping spirit of his congregation, of their concern for others and beyond themselves.

As we are bound in the network of prayer into the body of God’s love we discover the peace of God. That peace is not from material security—it is the peace that comes from the prison—the peace of rejoicing in the generosity of God known in the love and generosity of God’s people.

It has been almost nine years since I first met you at Trinity Church. At the end of my first Sunday service, a young boy came up for a blessing. He asked to be blessed for Bosworth Joseph Barrett, his grandfather who was ill and couldn’t make it to church that Sunday. It was only later that I learned that JoJo was the only person who referred to Joe Barrett by the full name on his birth certificate. Since then Joe has regaled me with many stories and I’ve seen the concern and help he’s given to others. Joe and Chang have been faithful in attending on Zoom even while living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And that’s just a typical example of the people of Trinity, bound by mutual respect and care. God is present in this network of care and prayer and will continue, despite all that may happen. People have reached out to me over the past few weeks—and amid their concern and sadness—what comes through above all is the gentleness and mutual concern within this community. People thank me, and I do appreciate that, but the truth of that is that I have been accepted into this community of mutual care, this church, and we thank one another.

In the coming months, we need to reach out to each person of this church, especially to those who have a hard time getting out, so that we are sure that the care of the church continues for them. Not everything is resolved, certainly not set in stone, but God remains, and God’s love remains in all its gentleness and adaptability.

We rejoice in God’s gift of one another, even when being with each other is limited or not possible at all. Being church at a time like this requires much of that gentleness—flexibility, kindness, and peace in the knowledge of God’s love. As constrained as our lives have been and as uncertain, we know that God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is here.

Primarily it is that peace of God, that Shalom of God, which surpasses anything we can understand, figure out or worry about—it is that peace that guards our hearts and gives us opportunity to rejoice.  Let us listen to Paul’s final words of farewell, that is, rejoicing—you can see that in the farewell is the beginning of an ongoing path of abundant life:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

You shall Not make for Yourself an Idol

A sermon for the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 8, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

You shall not bow down to them or worship them…

Today’s lesson from the Old Testament is the beginning of the law as God gave it to Moses—it is the Ten Commandments. They are worth memorizing, and certainly that was one of the virtues of the old-fashioned way of doing things—such texts would be absorbed into people’s minds, their way of doing things, into their hearts. They can be found at Exodus Chapter 20 in your Bible, or at pages 317 and 318 or page 350 in the Book of Common Prayer. It wouldn’t hurt to refresh your memory.

I noticed something in looking over the text, however. The text of the first four commandments is more than three-quarters of the text of the ten commandments. Why is that? The law is not a set of rules that we can use to protect ourselves by obeying them. The living God is far too free and dangerous for that little fantasy of ours to be true. The law is the statement of the relationship between God and God’s people.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” God’s mercy brings his people out of the house of slavery. God is the God of compassion, justice and life—no other God is acceptable. A God who does not bring life and freedom is no true God.

The next three commandments—about idols, making wrongful use of the name of God, and about the Sabbath continue to define who God is in relation to God’s people. The other six commandments define our relationship to God as well—being accountable to living a responsible life in God’s community. But let’s consider the longest of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…

Exodus 20:4-6

 …and it continues for thirty-six more words. God has defined our relationship according to mercy, compassion, justice, life. Bowing down in worship to things of the world changes that focus to things like power, wealth, personal success. To win any of those things is not intrinsically merciful, compassionate, just or life giving. In ancient Israel, idolatry referred to what anthropologists might call “magic,” which is to say using things of this world to manipulate powers in the world. This was done, largely, for individual advantage, or the advantage of one’s close associates.

In the Old Testament, it wasn’t really that this magic or those powers didn’t exist but rather that bowing to them violated the relationship with God—it could mean worshiping death, or the means of death for others rather than devotion to the God of Life, of Compassion, of Truth. The true God, the ultimate God is the God of life and mercy. The powers of death are not an alternate God, they are powers and things within this world which take advantage of the fears, selfishness and dishonesty of human beings. We moderns tend to think that we have outgrown such things, but they are very much real and very much with us.  That is why the first question in presenting a person for baptism is: Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

Think about this world, all the systems, organizations and ideologies that pressure and manipulate people’s decisions and feelings. The almost magical way that Google or Facebook presents you with ads that are tailored to your own very needs, the ways in which we ourselves conclude derogatory things about members of groups that we aren’t part of—based on—repeated rumors that we might hear on our favorite radio station, or things on our twitter feed, or the feelings and attitudes of parents, friends and relatives. These things have precious little to do with the God of mercy, justice and compassion. The God who freed the slaves and brings his children to safety.  Worshiping forces in this world—be they the internet, or political party, some idea of the power of science (other than the real truth of science which is that it is supposed to be about trying things out and being honest about mistakes and when hypotheses need to be changed) or social pressure—worshiping any of these things and bowing down to them breaches the relationship of faith in the Living God. Often people do not see how they are drifting into the worship of death until it is too late.

A few years ago, a priest that I know became very concerned when a girls’ softball team in a neighboring town advertised a raffle of an assault rifle to raise money to go to a tournament. He offered to pay their expenses instead, but that couldn’t happen since the raffle had been announced already.  So he bought most of the tickets and won the rifle.  He announced that he would have it destroyed and turned into a work of art.  This had some notoriety for a while and he received all sorts of messages.  He shared one of them with me. The person took him to task for destroying the gun. Like me, Fr. Jeremy has had plenty of experience with the rough language that filled the message, but what was striking was what he said, “how dare you destroy that beautiful weapon? How would you feel if someone smashed an image of Jesus Christ?”

I’m sure he would deny it, but in his message this man put a gun on a level with the Word made Flesh, God come amongst us. Note that the man had no claim to the gun, it belonged to Jeremy, a machine made of metal, wood and plastic. But its symbolic function was powerful enough to trigger his outrage—to call the destruction of this machine made from the earth, an act of blasphemy. Holiness, reverence and worship was invested in this machine, whose design was solely to cause death.

There are many such symbols, systems and ideas in this world, which serve a God-given purpose but which become idols, controlling the allegiance of people and turning them to the worship of death.

Idolatry is commitment to powers that are contrary to life, contrary to God—gaming this world by using the power of death to get an advantage.

It is the God of Life who brought the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. It is the God of life that brought Jesus into this world to proclaim his mercy and compassion. If is the God of life that raised Jesus from the dead and who makes life, compassion, justice and peace possible for all his people. Do not join with those who make idols in our time, and do not bow down to them.

Make my joy complete

A sermon for the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 1, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me.

Our lessons this week are about living in God’s mercy. In the midst of a controversy challenging his authority, Jesus tells a parable about a situation that almost everyone has experienced. A father has two teenagers and he tells one of them to do something. The first says, “Nah. Don’t want to,” while the other one says, eagerly, “Sure thing! I’ll get that done right away!” But the one who was so eager to show what a good and cooperative kid he was blew off the task, while the sullen one decided to do the job anyway. Most of us lived one of the three roles in this story at one time or another. I think I’ve been in all three—at least I can tell you that my wife is certain that I often fail to do tasks that I’ve agreed to do.

What Jesus was doing in today’s story was pointing out that people classed as sinners by the self-righteous—“tax collectors and prostitutes”—actually did the will of God. In other words, the mercy of God, who forgives and blesses sinners despite their past, makes it possible for those sinners to do God’s will in the present. The mercy of God makes life possible, while getting mired in judgement and condemnation leads only to death.

From prison, Paul wrote to his friends in Philippi, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” It was not about whether any of the Philippians had ever been selfish, but rather:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Philippians 2:1-2

We live in order to be in Christ’s compassion and to do that compassion—that’s what makes joy complete. It is not some accumulation of achievements or prizes that show everyone how successful we are. It is living lives of generosity and compassion in Jesus. This lesson contains one of the most famous and beautiful passages in the Bible:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

There’s one line in here: “He did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited” that we sometimes skip over. The Greek word that’s translated “exploited” can mean a lot of things, but one way to read it is as a “prize,” or something that you win and hold onto. Jesus’ equality with God was not a prize—he wasn’t holding it up, so he could point to it and get everyone’s respect. Jesus’ equality with God was in his embodying God’s compassion and mercy through his actions. He was not the kid who said to God and everybody else, “See, I’m the best and the holiest.” Rather he was the one who brought mercy to sinners, who embodied compassion even in his dying for their sake. Holiness is in doing God’s mercy, not in collecting prizes and recognition.

The dwelling of God is among people

Last Sunday we had a meeting where difficult things were discussed and difficult realities faced. It impressed me, that in all the discussion, respect and concern for others was at the fore. While there was concern about the building and ideas explored for somehow finding a way to continue, the real concern was about the community, the people and the ministry that are Trinity Church. It is not the prize of a grand building or public recognition for worldly success, but compassion for God’s people, in this neighborhood, and for all those who rely on our prayers and fellowship.

We have a number of members for whom it is difficult to get out and about, and making changes and finding new worshiping communities and pastoral care is difficult for them. Over the coming months, together we will work to reach out to them—to be and to find ongoing Christian community with them. As St. Paul says:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Philippians 2:1-2

We ARE the church as we do God’s will and embody God’s mercy.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you;

     let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me.

Let none who look to you be put to shame;

     let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.

Show me your ways, O Lord,

     and teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me,

     for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.

Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love,

     for they are from everlasting.

Psalm 25:1-5

A Manner Worthy of the gospel of Christ

A homily for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 24, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit.

Paul wrote this letter to the church at Philippi from prison. It’s quite possible that he was never released. Certainly, he was realistic about that. None of his hopes was based on getting out of jail. But of all of Paul’s letters, this is the most joyful and encouraging. He knew the love and support of this little congregation in this city in Macedonia, northeast of Greece. And Paul had seen that even in his own arrest and imprisonment, much good had resulted. People, including his guards and their associates in the larger military unit had come to know of the care of God in Christ and Paul’s confidence and hopefulness even while in their custody.

He says, “For me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” Which is to say that he rejoiced in the current time as he was able to be in Christ’s love and share it with others and the prospect of dying, which was the only thing that the Romans held over him as worse than his current situation, was only a step forward in being in the love of God. Living is for the benefit of others: family, friends, the soldiers who weren’t his friends but kept him in chains, for the little church in far-away Philippi.

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to rto remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

Philippians 1:23-24

Paul and that church were in difficult situations. But they had confidence, because they knew the love of God, who has come among us and suffered every bit as much alongside us. The circumstances of this world change, but the love of God is constant.  We are not deceived, because we know the love of God in his people gathered here. I know your generosity of spirit, your courage, and your concern for others, stretching beyond families to neighbors nearby the church and in far-flung places all over the world. I know that people in Africa, Florida, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts join us in prayer, because of the love of God in the congregation gathered here.

Paul says:

Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit.

Philippians 1:27

Whatever the future is for this congregation, we live lives worthy of the Gospel of Christ, lives of compassion and hope, with no regret for the life God has given us together.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;

     there is no end to his greatness.

One generation shall praise your works to another

     and shall declare your power.

I will ponder the glorious splendor of your majesty

     and all your marvelous works.

They shall speak of the might of your wondrous acts,

     and I will tell of your greatness.

They shall publish the remembrance of your great goodness;

    they shall sing of your righteous deeds.

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,

    slow to anger and of great kindness.

Psalm 145:3-8

As the heavens are high above the earth

A sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 17, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

In our lesson today from near the end of Genesis, Joseph’s brothers find themselves in a difficult position. You may remember that it was they who seized Joseph, threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery, and told their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. And now, at the end of this story, Joseph had all the power of the great kingdom of Egypt at his disposal, his brothers were helpless and famished, and Joseph was grieving for his father and theirs. Now that Jacob was dead, they realized they were at Joseph’s mercy. Now they were worried. With reason. They did terrible things. Selfish and envious things. Anger and retribution would be justified.

Joseph’s brothers pleaded their case, making up some things about what their father had done that might or might not have been true. Basically, they were just begging and hoping for some sort of clemency from Joseph.  Joseph’s response, though, was not based on their arguments or their self-abasement. Joseph based his forgiveness of his brothers on God’s love. Joseph loved his brothers and all their wives and children, and extended protection to them because of the ongoing and everlasting love of God.

About three years ago, we came back to worship in person at Trinity for the first time in more than a year after we had to close the church doors because of the pandemic. It was a difficult time.  Yet God’s love provided for us. We prayed together and cared for one another even though we were physically apart, not unlike Joseph’s years of separation from his parents and his family while he was in Egypt and they were in the land of Canaan. It’s important to remember that it is God’s mercy that sustains us.

The LORD is full of compassion and mercy,

     slow to anger and of great kindness.

He will not always accuse us, nor will he keep his anger for ever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

     nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

Psalm 103:8-10

It’s also important to remember that Joseph’s suffering was not due to anything he did, whether good or bad. Many things happen in this world: natural disasters, diseases, and the bad things that people do to one another, that are not punishment from God. God gives life to mortals and loves us at all times—even when people commit sins “in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”      

As human beings, we all do things, at some point, that cause harm to others, whether through malice or just thoughtlessness. But we are also united through God’s mercy for us, particularly when we have suffered. In the Gospel of Matthew, which we have been reading this year, Jesus criticizes those who are self-righteous, and holier-than-thou. Those who think they are always just are like that man in today’s Gospel story, who was forgiven a debt, big enough to buy a large estate, and immediately he grabs a friend who owes him something like a hundred bucks and has him thrown into prison over it. Society is torn apart when people indulge their anger at others, while failing to appreciate the mercy that they receive daily.

Joseph had suffered at the hands of his brothers. They were wrong. And maybe they were truly and deeply repentant and their offer to debase themselves and be Joseph’s slaves was sincere and unaffected. But it doesn’t matter. Joseph chose to forgive them, not because he judged that they were telling the truth, but because he was one with them in God’s mercy. The people of Israel were free and together as one people because Joseph forgave them and joined with them in God’s forgiveness.

God is merciful to us at all times. God cares for all his people, including those who hurt others. For what hope would there be for any of us, then? Which of us is as just or merciful as God? Our psalm says:

He redeems your life from the grave

     and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

He satisfies you with good things,

     and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.

The Lord executes righteousness

     And judgement for all who are oppressed.

Psalm 103:4-6

We should make no mistake. God’s mercy does not get anyone off the hook for injustice or hurting the weak. The man in the parable who begged to be forgiven that debt of ten thousand talents was liable to judgement when he showed neither repentance nor mercy. There are consequences to being bullies and self-satisfied exploiters of others.  But God’s mercy builds a compassionate people: people who know their own sin and limitations and the boundless love and mercy of God. God brings us together in his love. When we come together for Communion, we share in Christ’s own broken body.

God is merciful. All the time. We live in hope and in God’s goodness.

The LORD is full of compassion and mercy,

     slow to anger and of great kindness.

He will not always accuse us,

     nor will he keep his anger for ever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

     nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

     so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west,

     so far has he removed our sins from us.

As a father cares for his children,

     so does the LORD care for those who fear him.

Psalm 103:8-13

When another sins against you

A sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 10, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.

If you take today’s Gospel lesson by itself, in isolation, it looks like an outline of a dispute resolution manual for litigation in the church. It’s often approached that way, but I think that is a big mistake. This lesson is the middle of the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. In this chapter, Jesus’ disciples ask him the question, “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” and he responds by pointing out the humility of a small child. Not only is the child a model for us all, but “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

This chapter is about God’s welcome and God’s mercy. Today’s lesson is sandwiched between the Parable of the Lost Sheep—where the shepherd leaves his flock to go search for the single missing sheep—and the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant—where the servant is pardoned of a great crime and a great debt but then turns around and brutally deals with another servant who owed him a small amount.

The context of today’s gospel is illustrations of God’s compassion and the life of compassion—of Jesus’ expectation of generosity of spirit and energy, and of the ugly consequences of selfishness and a lack of mercy. In case you’re not familiar with the story, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant ends thus: “ ‘Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”

So this passage is about life in the community of mercy and compassion. It’s about including the little ones who might be lost, overlooked or put to the side. When Jesus says, “If another member of the church sins against you…” he’s not giving instructions on how to find the sinners and put them to right; he’s not setting as a goal tossing out all the bad people who make life miserable—what Jesus is talking about here is living together in God’s mercy.

There’s a little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer which I go back to, pretty frequently called Life Together.  It is about life in Christian community. Bonhoeffer writes:

Christian community is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it.  But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 26

God’s grace—in other words, God has given us a gift of a community that’s filled with imperfect people, people definitely in need of God’s mercy, and it is the gift of God that our overly perfect expectations are shattered, leaving the real community in its place. There is no Christian who is not in need of compassion—from God, and from our sisters and our brothers.  Those who think their goal should be to be so perfect or self-sufficient as to not need compassion will find themselves frustrated, disappointed, embarrassed and unhappy. And if there is someone who thinks they have no need of forgiveness or compassion, that is a very serious problem indeed, for them or anyone whose lives are affected by them.

So when Jesus says, “… go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone,” it’s not about identifying who is in the wrong, who is the sinner, who is the bad person. It is not about that at all, it is a matter of honesty among the sinners in God’s community, of communicating clearly about hurts and offenses taken. Sometimes that communication is hard or frightening, and it takes another—someone outside the relationship, someone to help communication or provide support when getting truth told is a daunting prospect.  This passage frankly acknowledges that there might be situations where relationships are so badly damaged and trust so ruptured that reconciliation won’t take place. It is clear that such things happened in the churches we know about from the New Testament and historically in every age. But Jesus is not looking for a community where there will be no disagreements or hurts. Quite the opposite, Jesus creates a community where there will be hurts and breaches of trust, and in his presence they will be healed. We are called to be the mercy of Christ and it takes real work to live that honestly and compassionately.

The lectionary chops the lessons in some odd ways sometimes, and today is one of them. Today’s lesson is followed by the parable of the Unmerciful Servant—one who asserted his rights in a brutal and uncompassionate way—a warning to those who would cleave to the values of this world rather than the mercy of God’s Kingdom. But the ending of todays’ lesson is interrupted.  Here’s how the section ends in the Gospel of Matthew:

Again, Amen I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name. I am among them. Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Matthew 18:19-20

Get behind me, Satan!

A sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples to reflect on who he was and what his significance was. They talked for a while about what other people thought Jesus was, who he resembled and so forth, and then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter was the one who responded: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!” Peter was perceptive and correct. He knew that Jesus, the man who he knew by his teachings and his actions was bringing the healing compassion of God into the world. And this insight was so important that it was the foundation of the church, the assembly of the forgiven. So, Jesus gave Peter his name: Rock—Petros is simply the Greek word meaning rock.

Why is this important to know for our Gospel reading today? Because there’s a dramatic moment in today’s reading when Jesus tells Peter that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, And Peter responds: “God forbid it, Lord!” And then Jesus says: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Jesus just called Peter his rock and now he’s calling him Satan? What, indeed, is going on here?

Today’s reading has to do with the real love and compassion of God. It’s not what we like to think of as truth and compassion – something that doesn’t disturb our comfortable lives, our routines, our safety. That’s what Jesus was going to encounter in Jerusalem – people who were living untruthful and self-serving lives, believing they were entitled to their comfort.  And Jesus knew what the result would be of speaking to them of God’s truth and compassion. Someone once said to me in another context, “if you poke a narcissistic system, all you will get back is rage.” Jesus was realistic, far more realistic than so-called realists who counsel avoiding the truth if it creates difficulties.

Like the rest of us, Peter had grown up surrounded by that kind of realism and so we see him reacting just the way one would expect. He had been Jesus’ friend for a long time and Jesus had just told Peter that he was the foundation of his church that was to come. So, Peter reacted like any friend steeped in the realism of the world would have, he took Jesus to task and said, “God forbid it, Lord!”

            “Get behind me Satan!”

Peter was responding from the position of the demons of this world—those forces that push for untruth and avoidance of responsibility; those forces that easily accept the suffering of others to avoid the discomfort of encountering the truth. It’s easy to think of such things as “smart” or “grown-up” when what they are is cowardly and what they do is build up evil consequences. Given enough time those evil consequences will no longer be associated with the people who created them, they will seem to come out of nowhere.  In other words, demons are created. Those people who caused Jesus’ suffering weren’t especially evil; they were ordinary, worldly leaders, urbanely sophisticated, with good connections. They were regarded as having prudent judgement. And they arranged to have our healer and Lord killed.

Jesus didn’t so much take this personally; he wasn’t worried about himself. Jesus was concerned about bringing the love of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God to all people, including those he had to face in Jerusalem. After setting Peter straight about what is wisdom and what is demonic, Jesus began to teach all his disciples. I think we can read that to include us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The love that Jesus lived is not limited or unique to him. The depth of truth and compassion that took him to Jerusalem also guides his followers, and the consequence of following Jesus may well be painful, it may indeed involve loss. Certainly, in Christian history, it has even involved the literal loss of life. To be sure, when I talk about deep truthfulness, I am not talking about delivering facts in a way calculated to hurt our competitors or enemies, or even “inadvertently” saying things out of resentment or anger that might be true, but are not compassionate. Living in the compassion of Christ involves the courage to be truthful, even to ourselves about our own lack of compassion. (Sometimes that’s known as confession.)

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Abundance of life involves the boldness to live for others and being serious enough to continue that when it is not easy—putting the priority on one’s own life is the surest way to end up wandering in dissatisfaction and misery—we see it daily: the voracious need for affirmation and adulation among the most selfish and entitled who already have the most. Surely, they are losing their lives.

It is a challenge living, as we do, in a context of great wealth, where we and our children hear over and over again from people around us, that the basis of value is in having things and money. Those things are not life, that money is not value. Value is in human caring, caring that extends beyond ourselves, that rejoices in abundant happiness of others. Jesus says it right here: “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” Take up your cross, and follow him. Do not be afraid. You will be surprised at the abundance of joy, when you give away your fear, and your anxiety about what you might keep.

Let us pray again in the words of our collect for today:

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, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect for Proper 17, Book of Common Prayer

Your spiritual worship

A sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 27, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Usually when people think about Christian teaching, they talk about Christ’s sacrifice for us, not about us presenting ourselves as a sacrifice. God came to us, and he sacrificed his life that we might have eternal life. That’s true enough, in outline. But what was really going on? How did that sacrifice happen?

Our Gospel lesson today is where Jesus asks Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus had been healing many people and he had fed another crowd of four thousand people with seven loaves and a few small fish. He continued to have disputes with the Pharisees and Sadducees who had asked him for a sign. Peter admired all that and spoke from those feelings of admiration. So, Jesus blesses Peter after he acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah. Because that’s what the Gospel is based on: God’s acting through God’s Son Jesus. The church and its mission depends on that.

But Peter wasn’t ready for the implications of what he said that Jesus was quite aware of, and that we read in next week’s Gospel: “He would undergo great suffering and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter had not considered the sacrifice that was included in being the Messiah, the fact that the evil in this world would not tolerate the purity of Jesus’ healing compassion especially for the poor and the marginalized. That was the sacrifice that Jesus made on behalf of the world—he wasn’t naïve, he knew what would happen. Peter, being like most of us, didn’t understand that and, therefore, he reveled in his pronouncement.

Whenever I hear what political movements and opinion polls have to say, I see that people are a lot like Peter. They’re happy to mouth all the do-good slogans, and talk about principles. But if those things come at a cost, the real sacrifices that must be made to achieve justice, peace, honest dealings by the government and others in power, then they quickly lose their motivation.

Christ presented himself as a sacrifice for the whole world. Really. He knew what the cost of insisting on love and justice was. He faced what people usually don’t. And most Christians like to think that Jesus’ sacrifice gets us off the hook. That makes no sense. If we are one with Christ, we are signing up to take part in the costs of his love, not just the benefits. That is why St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “I appeal to you sisters and brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Unlike his other letters, Paul wrote this to a congregation that he had never met. So this appeal is not to specific individuals in the context of a specific problem, he’s writing to the whole church—he’s writing to us. And what does he mean, when he says, “present your bodies?” It is quite clear. In the next sentence he says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Just as Jesus refused the dishonesty and cruelty that are the hallmarks of the “ways of the world,” we are called to refuse that kind of worldliness, that self-serving dishonesty of life—even though that exposes us to risk, even to the “sacrifice of our bodies.”

There are many people who think they are smart and who think they have figured out how to make good use of power and influence. They somehow think that behaving otherwise is naïve. I won’t go to the trouble to compile a list—believe me there are specific examples that come to mind, even within the church—I am not just generalizing when I say this.  Conforming to the world is the kind of advice that people give and get all the time. And it leads us on the way to despair.

In his book, Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois wrote about Alexander Crummell, a priest and missionary of the Episcopal Church. One episode in that account tells about the seminary where I was library director for a number of years:

Alexander Crummell

A voice and vision called him to be a priest, a seer to lead the uncalled out of the house of bondage. He saw the headless host turn toward him like the whirling of mad waters, he stretched forth his hands eagerly, and then, even as he stretched them, suddenly there swept  across the  vision the Temptation of Despair:

They were not wicked men, the problem of life is not the problem of the wicked, they were calm, good men, Bishops of the Apostolic Church of God, and strove toward righteousness. They said slowly, “It is all very natural—it is even commendable; but the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church cannot admit a Negro.” And when that thin, half-grotesque figure still haunted their doors, they put their hands kindly, half sorrowfully, on his shoulders, and said, “Now, of course, we know how you feel about it; but you see it is impossible, that is—well—it is premature. Sometime, we trust sincerely trust all such distinctions will fade away; but now the world is as it is.”

W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 12

The bishops involved have names. I could cite them. They were worldly and successful. But the reason I quote something from over 150 years ago, is that worldly leaders giving and taking this kind of worldly advice, are so common that there is no point in singling out individual cases from today. It is so tempting to take the shortcuts offered by the world, to allow others to have just a little suffering, especially, you know, if the group in power deems them as somehow lesser. And this is what brings St. Paul to his next sentence:

“I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think… For as in one body we have many members, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in serving, the teacher in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

Romans 12:3-8

When we present ourselves as a sacrifice, we give up the worldly pre-occupation with success or achieving distinction above others. It’s not necessary to be everything or to be the best. We are all called to be ourselves, giving what we really have to offer and respecting one another. It’s risky, and it doesn’t make sense to those who want to achieve power and domination. Jesus never made sense to them either, but he is the Messiah, the Son of the one and only living God.

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. Amen.

Collect for Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer

Nothing can separate us from the Love of God

A sermon for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, July 30, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is a well-known passage, but what is St. Paul talking about? He is talking about the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. It’s easy to have vague and misleading ideas about the Holy Spirit, so let’s look at what the Bible has to say about it. The Gospel of John calls the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. What that Greek word means is “one called to the side of someone.”  So, as a priest, I might be called to the side of a person in the hospital or to someone who is grieving. A lawyer might be called to stand alongside of someone with legal problems; or a friend to stand along with a friend in need.  In the church, where Jesus is no longer physically present, God’s Holy Spirit stands alongside us, enabling us to love one another, incorporating our lives into God’s compassion.

Paul says, “The spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought…” It’s common to think that good prayer is somehow an output of a well-informed or disciplined mind, or that somehow if we just pray with enough fervor in the right way we can get God to do the things that are important to us.

Actually, prayer does not work like that at all. In prayer we stand, or sit, or kneel in God’s presence; our desires, our feelings, our needs are there. Our care for other people and perhaps even our words are there.  But it is the spirit of God’s love, the Holy Spirit, that joins us to God in prayer. We are joined, upheld and helped in our weakness, even when we are unaware, even when we may feel that our prayers are going nowhere—indeed, God’s presence is not based on what we feel or perceive at all—often, it is at times of dryness, desolation or even despair that we are being transformed into the compassion of God—into Christ. It is in God’s design that God’s children are formed together for the sake of the good of this world—in Jesus’ resurrection he is the firstborn of a large family.

But this good—the growth of God’s love—is not happening in a world where everything works out easily, where people can do whatever they want and it’s just fine. Paul lived in a world where truly advocating the mercy of God and the good of God’s most vulnerable could trigger the anger and even violence of a world that valued the self-interest of those who wanted to keep power and privilege. So do we. Being formed in the love of God does not protect us from the consequences of this world—of loss, or ostracism, or anger, or attacks by those filled with self-pity.  Paul was arrested more than once, for telling about Jesus. Standing courageously for the values of Christ’s compassion in this world takes a similar risk of real loss, at least if you actually mean it. The Christian life in the Spirit is not happy talk, or silver linings, or magical wishes coming true. It is living by choosing what is valuable, true and permanent over the illusory and the selfish. It is in this context that Paul says,

If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies, who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

Romans 8:31-34

The reality of Jesus’ life and death make it clear that the truth of Christian life takes place in a world where there is suffering and death, indeed in a world where there is cruelty and injustice near at hand. The Resurrection of Christ isn’t something that takes away the reality or the permanence of death; the Resurrection is new life, in which the love of God’s Holy Spirit overcomes the fear, anger, cruelty and despair that bind people into the compromised existence of a selfish world. Paul continues:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Romans 8:35-37

The thing that has distinguished the Christians whose wisdom has most influenced me over the years is that they share in a complete lack of self-pity. Some are great theologians and others regular parishioners. At another church where I was serving, I visited a woman in the memory unit of a nursing home. She was a lifelong devout Episcopalian and a tough businesswoman. The church remembered that thirty years ago, she told them that that congregation would never realize its building fund goals unless it dedicated ten percent to outreach to the community. By then she had no memory, except what her friends remembered for her. But her character was intact, with no trace of self-pity.  I would visit her, and ask her to pray for the parish and people in the parish, and she would sometimes say something insightful and loving about one of them. The last time I saw her, I asked her to pray with me for the vestry deliberations. At the end, she said, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

You would uproot the Wheat

A sermon for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 23, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

“In gathering the weeds, you would uproot the wheat along with them.”

Cheat Grass

So the scene is the same as last week’s gospel. Jesus is still out on the boat, talking to the same people he was talking to on the beach about seeds. As the story continues, the field is planted, and inexplicably, there is an abundance of weeds growing among the grain. The word for “weed” refers to something similar to what we called “cheat grass” where I grew up. It resembles grain, except it’s inedible for people and gives little sustenance to livestock. But you can’t easily see the difference between it and grain until it starts to blossom and grow its seed. By then it has developed a root system that is much more extensive and stronger than wheat.

The servants see the problem—weeds! Invasive weeds, taking up the soil and nutrients and water! Bad thing, we must do something! Just like everybody else, they see a problem, get anxious about it, and jump to a solution. The farmer, however, looks with the eye of experience. The weeds are going to reduce his yield, there is no doubt. But if these weeds are pulled up now, the grain will be removed at a greater rate than the weeds, and the yield will go down to zero. During this cycle, the number of weeds is the number of weeds, leaving them won’t result in more, so leave them. We will get the wheat that ripens—we will deal with the weeds when there is wheat to harvest. The fruit of the wheat field will nourish people, provide bread, be sold to supply for the needs of the farmer’s household. A superabundance of weeds is only one of the ordinary calamities that typically face farmers; that make a situation that promises easy abundance into difficulty and privation. The farmer waits and judges the ripeness of the wheat. At the right time the weeds are pulled out and separated from the nourishing crop. There is a big bonfire, getting rid of the nuisance and the waste. Then the remaining wheat is gathered—and there is food for all.

So why is this, as Jesus said, like the Kingdom of Heaven?  Note first of all that this is a real-world situation—we expect a beautiful, uniform field of wheat, growing perfectly, moving from green in the springtime, to golden at harvest—but what we get is disrupted by weeds and other occurrences, that are just not ideal. I’ve been reading a little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Life Together.  It is about life in Christian community. Bonhoeffer writes:

Christian community is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it.  But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 26

God’s grace—in other words, it is the gift of God that our community is filled with imperfect people, people definitely in need of God’s mercy and it is the gift of God that our overly perfect expectations are shattered, leaving the real community in its place. And the Kingdom of God happens in the real world, a world with difficulties and disappointments.  Indeed, some of those things that happen are evil, or are the result of evil.  So, we don’t just say that whatever happens is fine, or certainly not that it is the will of God. We stand up to evil for the sake of the good of others. But we don’t go around weeding out imperfections, as if every annoyance or imperfection was evil.

Those servants were very anxious about those weeds. That’s understandable—the weeds were going to reduce the yield and make them look like they weren’t doing their job properly. But acting on that anxiety could have been utter disaster, resulting in a long winter with little or no food available. In living with imperfection and disappointment the community grows and shares in God’s love. And when evil—that is to say those forces that hurt and destroy the children of God through selfishness, fear or hatred—when evil afflicts such a community, the love of that community gives it the courage and resilience to respond and repel the evil and to be a source of life for God’s children.         

This story is not about punishment or destruction. It is about the challenge of life in the real world. Life in Christ is life in hope—a community that shares life and finds life in the mercy that God has for each of us, for all of God’s children.

St. Paul is addressing this in this morning’s epistle:

When we cry, “Abba! Father!” It is that Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact we suffer with him that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:15-17

That reference, to “Abba” may in fact be the earliest reference we have to the Lord’s Prayer—the prayer Jesus gave his disciples—we are disciples in being God’s children: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Paul did not address idyllic and perfect Christian communities, he wrote to churches who experienced conflict or suffering. And he continues:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

We are God’s people, gathered here. Our hope is in the divine reality of a community gathered in diversity and imperfection, discovering God’s mercy together.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of you Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Proper 11