4 Pentecost, 26-A: All made one in Jesus, the Christ

Lectionary: Jeremiah 20:7-13; Psalm 69: 8-11, (12-17), 18-20; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39 

As many of you know, I grew up Roman Catholic. And not just Roman Catholic, but Irish RC with daily Rosaries at home and Catholic school for my sisters and me.

We called our neighborhood friends who didn’t go to Catholic school, our “public friends.” They used to tease us that we could do anything wrong we wanted, then just go to Confession (which we did every Friday), and get our soul-slate wiped clean. They’d tempt us, for instance, to steal some candy at the five-and-dime because we could just confess it later and be fine.

Even as a kid, I knew it didn’t work that way, but I couldn’t say quite why. St. Paul does a good job of that in his letter to the Romans. Being in the grace of God doesn’t give us leave to continue in sin. In the same way, being Baptized into the body of Christ doesn’t guarantee us a soft and easy road to eternal glory in the by and by. In fact, it’s rather the opposite, as Jesus makes very clear in today’s gospel.

This gospel continues directly from last week’s gospel when Jesus initiated a shift in divine action so that the disciples were now also vessels, vehicles of the action of God in the world.The disciples were being sent out to restore the helpless and harassed to wholeness of life, to wholeness of spirit, and to wholeness of purpose, in Jesus’ name. The disciples were being sent as co-creators of God’s redemption in the world and Jesus tells them it won’t be easy.

There is no soft and easy road to eternal glory in the by and by. It didn’t happen that way for Jesus and it won’t happen that way for those of us who follow Jesus either.

Jesus says, the holders of earthly power and privilege will hate you and fight against you. Even those who are closest to you will become like enemies but stand firm on the foundation of God’s love and fear not, Jesus tells them, for God will always act to redeem.

That is our good news. God is always acting to redeem all things, all people, all the time. The reality of the new age ushered in by Jesus, is this: earth and heaven, the temporal and the eternal, have been made one in Jesus, the Christ. As Jesus explains to his disciples: what happens on earth, happens in heaven. If you acknowledge me or deny me in the earthly realm, that is also what happens in the eternal realm. So, fear nothing and let love guide your every decision, every action.

Jesus reminds us that no one can actually destroy us. They may kill our bodies, but no one can douse that spark of divine life in us. No one. This enables us to be fearless and persist no matter who fights back or how, or for how long.

One would think that sharing the good news of redemption would be work that brings honor and praise, but if human systems are to be transformed, they first must be dismantled, and that rarely happens without a fight. Even in the church.

Last Sunday at the Q & A following PRIDE Evensong, Bp. Gene Robinson affirmed that the in order to move toward equality of all persons, particularly LGBTQIA2S+ people and women, patriarchy must be dismantled. I think what we are witnessing right now, is that the patriarchy is fighting back - hard.

We can look at history and see that the road to cultural transformation has never been soft or easy. Those with power, wealth, and influence wouldn’t - or couldn’t - let go, and those without power or wealth were eventually unwilling to be exploited, disrespected, and oppressed anymore. History shows us that it was usually rebellion, a rising up of the oppressed and their allies, that brought about systemic change.

We are in the midst of a systemic change again, or maybe still... a change that will open the way for freedom and peace for all people. Any earthly or religious system that stands in the way of that will be dismantled because that is how God acts to redeem, reclaim, reconcile.

We aren’t called to travel a soft and easy road into the by and by. We’re called to act right now, following in the footsteps of Jesus, working together as disciples have throughout the ages, bound by the love of God in Christ. We are called to bear the love of God in Christ into the world as it is, that God may transform it into the world it can be: a world of peace, harmony, freedom, inclusivity, full equality, and shared resources that are faithfully stewarded.

How wonderful to have Tony’s Baptism to celebrate today. It focuses us on these values of our faith. It also enables us to remember the promises we made in our Baptism and will renew together today, promises that include turning to Jesus, not to a politician or a political ideology dressed up as religion for understanding, guidance, or security.

We will also renounce sinful desires like the excessive accumulation of wealth or power, and the social, emotional, physical, or economic dominance over someone else, knowing that these things distract us from Jesus’ command to love God with all our hearts, minds, strength, and souls, and one another as ourselves.

We will reaffirm our pledge to actively nurture and strengthen our connections with one another and God through consistent worship and prayer because we know our church community is where we learn, practice, and teach our young ones how to seek and serve Christ in all persons.

Little Tony and his wonderful family are counting on us to keep these promises, and, honestly, it is our joy to do so.

And so, I invite baby Tony, his parents, godparents, and the children of the church to come forward to the font so we can Baptize this precious new life among us.

3 Pentecost, 26-A: Vessels of divine action

Lectionary: Exodus 19:2-8a; Psalm 100; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23) 

I invite you to go to the Emmanuel YouTube channel to see this sermon delivered live at the 9:30 am service.

 

En el nombre de Dios, que nos ama, nos sana, nos valora y se conecta con nosotros... 

In the name of God who loves us, heals us, values us and connects with us. Amen.

Our gospel today invites us to notice an important shift in divine action. In the chapters ahead of this gospel, Jesus is traveling around the region teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, right here – right now! The people were responding with so much joy and devotion that the religious leadership tried to claim Jesus was healing by the power of the evil one – not God.

Despite the religious leadership's best efforts, the people connected to Jesus in droves. Huge crowds were gathering to receive what he was giving: hope, healing, a sense of value, and connection.

Wherever he went, Jesus connected with the people he encountered, allowing himself to share the pain of their suffering – which is what compassion is. He got his hands dirty, touching the ritually unclean and the actually unclean. Then he healed them – sometimes in their body, but always in their hearts and souls, and restoring them to their communities.

In our gospel today, Jesus is taking the divine action already working through him in the world and shifting it to his disciples. The power to heal remains God’s alone, but now the disciples are also vessels through whom God’s healing power acts in the world. As one of our Bible studiers said, they can’t heal except by the Spirit of Jesus in them.

This a remarkable shift not just because of what is happening, but also because of when it happens. As we heard last week, Jesus has just finished calling his disciples, so this gospel story comes at the beginning of their ministry together.

Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated that our wholeness, our fullness of life, depends on connection – with God and one another. Science supports that. 

In 2023, our then Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, reported that in the US, loneliness, that is, separation from one another and social community, adversely affects both our bodies and our society. 

“[Loneliness], Dr. Murthy said, is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death... [As for] the harmful consequences [to our] society... [he says] we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country.” 

Connection, on the other hand, is healing. I’ll never forget the day in 1987 when Princess Diana visited a
person with HIV/AIDS in the hospital and held his hand. No gloves. No masks. Two years later, she cradled and comforted a baby with HIV. 

Her simple, loving, unguarded touch helped calm the storms of fear and fiction about the transmission of HIV/AIDS and showed the world what it looks like to love and serve everyone with dignity and compassion. Diana’s touch may not have healed their bodies, but it certainly healed their souls, and the souls of all those who suffered from being exiled, judged, and demeaned for what the world called their sin, and the souls of all of us who witnessed it.

The phrase our Scripture translates as “cure the sick” means more broadly: notice those who are weak, who need strength in body or spirit. Jesus’ instruction is to identify the powerless and bring them the power of God’s healing love, which we embody, saying to them, “the power of God, the realm of God has come near to you.”

St. Francis of Assisi once said, “We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.” If I could be so bold as to re-state what Francis said, I’d say: We have been called to be vehicles through whom God heals wounds, unites what has fallen apart, and brings home those who have lost their way.

It’s important to remember that the choice to be reconciled, to receive God’s healing love, always belongs to the person. If they choose not to accept it or to ignore or demean it, walk away, shake the dust from your feet, and leave the rest to God, whose steadfast love will continue to act to redeem beyond our efforts.

A short note on the Old Testament reference Jesus used in this gospel: Sodom and Gomorrah. This is especially important during PRIDE month.

What divided that community from God and one another was a failure of hospitality, of connection. Victorious soldiers raping vanquished men, women, and children was and is a common wartime practice. We also hear about it in prisons, detention centers, schools, and churches. Rape is about power, not sex - the coercive use of power by one person or group to force another into submission. That is the sin Jesus is referring to in this gospel.

I have been a vehicle for God’s healing power many times, affording me the privilege of witnessing God do miraculous physical and spiritual healing in people and in churches. When these healings happen, it isn’t because I did anything other than show up and let God work through me… and that’s the point: God is alive and at work as much today as when Jesus walked the earth, and every time we participate with God our lives and the lives of those we serve are transformed by the shared experience of the powerful love and presence of God drawing near. (Image source: StudioACE)

Being a vessel of divine action is our vocation, our mission. Our Prayer Book tells us that the Church pursues its mission by prayer and worship, by proclaiming the Gospel, and by promoting justice, peace, and love... God’s justice, peace, and love - which are not the same as ours. (p. 855)

Human judgment seeks to separate, isolate, and punish sinners – a category of persons we define differently in each age and culture. God’s justice, revealed to us in Jesus, seeks to rescue, reclaim, and reconnect – which is what salvation means - all whom God created, just as God created them.

All of the categories that divide us were made up by us: gay, straight, non-binary, black, white, brown, alien, native, immigrant... We made them up because we feared what we didn’t understand. We feared that we might not survive or thrive unless we took more for ourselves, even though it meant there would be less for someone else. In order to do that without guilt, we had to dehumanize or demean them, make them less than the dominant “us.”

You can’t kill children unless you categorize them and choose which category you value and which you don’t: Jewish or Palestinian, alien or “illegal.” You can’t destroy clean water sources for people until you categorize those people as undeserving because of their country of origin.

Claiming God’s sanction on the divisive categories we create is a lie we perpetrate. That so many fall into lockstep with them reveals a truth about us as a people, not God.

Jesus sends the disciples out to serve as vessels of God’s loving, healing power, telling them to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” It’s important to note that in ancient Israel, the serpent represented healing and divine power as well as temptation and chaos. This is how it was used in the creation story in Genesis, and as Moses' staff in the Book of Numbers. 

(Image: the caduceus used in the US as a symbol for medicine, healthcare, hospitals, and pharmacies)

Being a vessel for divine power can devolve into a power trip unless we are innocent as well. To be innocent is to be pure in intent (meaning in line with the will of God), to be guileless, and to do no harm. 

When you go, Jesus says, know that those with earthly power will try to stop you, and the status quo will be protected even by those who don’t benefit from it. You will be shocked by who will betray you, even those closest to you, but keep going. If they persecute you in one town, go to the next.

As we look at the last sentence in this gospel, we need to remember that Jesus is saying this at the beginning of their ministry – not the end of it. This is not an apocalyptic prediction. It’s a statement of their new reality as vessels of God in Christ’s healing power. As they go, they will become aware of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus, who is the Son of Man, coming to them and working through them.

As we serve in our various ministries, it is the same Spirit, the Spirit of God in Christ, who acts through us, therefore we, too, must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, so that faithful connections are made, no harm is done, and God is glorified by us. Then the people we serve will receive from us what Jesus was giving in his time: hope, healing, a sense of value, and connection. 

Amen.