The Grandeur of God

Sermon on John 6:1-21 (and Ephesians 3:14-21) offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

There is an interesting tension among the various accounts of the event we heard about in our gospel reading this morning. As you probably remember, the feeding of the multitude is one of the handful of events that is recorded by all four evangelists. While most of the differences in the accounts are superficial (e.g., which disciples played important roles, where the bread and fish came from, the relative cost of feeding the crowd), there is one disparity that seems worthy of investigation. In the synoptic gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the evangelists tell us that the impromptu wilderness picnic came to an end after “all ate and were filled.” John, on the other hand, tells us that the disciples collected the leftovers after those in the crowd “were satisfied,” or “when they had enough” in another translation. This is a subtle, but significant distinction, one that is illustrated by a former supervisor of mine, who would describe restaurants with buffets not as “all you can eat,” but “all you care to eat.” This subtle shift meant that the objective of eating out was not to consume everything that wasn’t nailed down, but to eat enough. In the synoptic gospels, it appears that the multitude ate until they could not eat anymore; while the crowd in John’s gospel seems to have exhibited a little more moderation. Frankly, this difference wouldn’t be quite as significant if it weren’t for the fact that fullness is such an important theme in John’s gospel. In the very first chapter, John writes of Jesus: “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” In other words, of all the evangelists, we would expect John to be the one who told us that the crowds “ate and were filled.” Yet, when the crowds by the Sea of Tiberias come face to face with Jesus, the one “in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,” their response is to take only what they need.

This detail can lead us to think of God as a cosmic vending machine: God is there to provide a little bit of comfort when we are desperate, a little encouragement when we are in need of validation, or a little food when we are hungry. Apart from this, God isn’t terribly relevant to our day to day experience. Of course, this is how many people experienced Jesus: they were looking for him to address their immediate individual needs (e.g., “heal my daughter,” “cure my leprosy,” “mediate this dispute”). In the meantime, Jesus seemed to have another agenda entirely. This dynamic is at play in today’s gospel reading. Jesus was offering something that the gathered multitude couldn’t possibly fathom. They ate until they were satisfied, but there was so much more that was available to them. They couldn’t see beyond their individual desires and parochial concerns: they simply couldn’t apprehend the fullness of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.

There are strains of Christianity that claim to apprehend this fullness. While called by many names, this tradition is broadly known as the “prosperity gospel.” The central assumption of the prosperity gospel is that “God will give you your heart’s desires: money in the bank, a healthy body, a thriving family, and boundless happiness.” Kate Bowler is a professor of church history at Duke University who wrote her doctoral dissertation about the prosperity gospel. When she began the project, she thought she was writing about a movement that was foreign to her experience. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that someone who grew up among Mennonites in Manitoba would have put much stock in the grandiose claims of the prosperity gospel. Yet the more Bowler studied the movement, the more she realized the prosperity gospel is not primarily about Bentleys, private jets, and multimillion dollar homes, despite the habits and preferences of its most famous preachers. Rather, Bowler came to recognize that most of the people who subscribed to the prosperity gospel were looking for “an escape from poverty, failing health, and the feeling that their lives were leaky buckets.” The prosperity gospel offers a seductively clear explanation for these problems. According to the straightforward logic of the prosperity gospel, the only reason one could possibly be excluded from the abundant promises of God is that one lacks faith, that one fails to apprehend what God is offering. When the problem is so simply stated, the solution is just as simple: be more faithful. As Bowler points out, “the moral and logical flaws in this theology are all too evident; it explains away misfortune as something that can and ought to be held at bay through faith and prayer.” Yet she also concedes that, despite her theological sophistication, there were ways that she was also in thrall to the prosperity gospel. As Bowler put it: “I felt the lure of the promise that I could curate my life, minimize my losses, and stand on my successes. No matter how many times I rolled my eyes at the creed’s outrageous certainties, I craved them just the same.”

This became most apparent to her when she was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in her thirties. As she pondered her situation (a happily married new mother who had just gotten her dream job), Bowler realized that she had assumed cancer was something that happened to other people, that her life was, in her words, “something [she] could mold, or at least correct with a surge of determination.” If we’re honest, I think we all feel this way to a certain extent. While I doubt that there are few people in this room who would claim to be adherents of the prosperity gospel, I suspect there is something familiar about its logic. When we hear that someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, our first impulse is often to wonder what about their life had led to this calamity: had they failed to take care of themselves in some way? More importantly, are we leading a healthier lifestyle? We seek to explain misfortune, failing to recognize that sometimes, there is no explanation.

Here is where the gospel really speaks. Here is where the fullness that is revealed in Jesus Christ becomes completely and desperately relevant. The message of the gospel is not that things will go our way if we are faithful enough. At its heart, the gospel invites us to recognize that we, who are created and redeemed by God, are part of something much larger than ourselves, that our lives have meaning no matter what calamities befall us, that we are the Lord’s whether we live or die. Moreover, the gospel requires us to adopt a larger perspective on creation and acknowledge the ways we are connected, not only to our fellow human beings, but to the entire cosmic order.

Our faith attempts to express the infinite in finite terms. Conversely, the dominant voices in our culture these days tend to use the most grandiose terms possible for matters that are insignificant, even petty in the grand scheme of things. We must do our level best to counteract these impulses. We must, in the words of our Collect, “pass through things temporal,” and “lose not the things eternal.” If we take our faith seriously, then we must recognize its grandeur, the ways it lifts our hearts above our individual desires and parochial concerns and fills us with all the fullness of God.

I’m not okay; you’re not okay”

Sermon on Mark 6:1-13 offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

In the first episode of Mad Men, AMC’s long-running drama about 1960s advertising executives, the protagonist makes the following observation about the nature of their work: “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? … It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is okay. You are okay.” There’s a profound irony to this statement, especially since the rest of the show is devoted to the various ways that the characters in the series are not okay. Indeed, everyone seems plagued by a deep sense of despair, even as they project to the world that everything is under control. This desire for reassurance did not originate on Madison Avenue. Human beings have always sought confirmation that whatever they are doing is acceptable.

This deeply human impulse is in the background of the reading we just heard from Mark’s gospel. This passage arguably describes one of the more relatable incidents in the life of Jesus. Returning home after leaving the nest and discovering that the people you left behind aren’t all that impressed with you is a rite of passage. Indeed, Jesus’ observation that “prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown” feels roughly equivalent to that well-worn bromide: “you can’t go home again.” Despite its innate familiarity, there is also something mystifying about this moment in the life of Jesus, especially in the way that Mark records it. The gospels according to Matthew and Luke both include versions of this incident. In Luke’s account, the crowd is initially impressed with Jesus, but turns on him when he suggests that Gentiles might be equal to Jews in the eyes of God. Matthew’s account is closer to the one we heard this morning, though the crowd’s main objection is that they don’t understand how Jesus could presume to speak with authority, since they know his family and where he came from. Mark, on the other hand, offers minimal explanation as to why the people who grew up with Jesus take offense at him. We’re told nothing about the substance or the form of what Jesus said on that sabbath day. Now, it could be that this is an oversight on the part of Mark’s gospel. Mark, after all, is economical with his words. Perhaps we’re meant to extrapolate from the other gospels and assume that Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 and announced that the Scripture had been fulfilled. I wonder, however, if there is a deeper and, frankly, a more unsettling reason Mark tells us so little about what Jesus said that day, one that is illustrated in the way that Jesus sends out the twelve immediately after the incident in Nazareth. When Jesus commissions the disciples, he doesn’t even offer vague instructions about what they should say. Instead, he spends most his time preparing them for the possibility, and in fact the likelihood, that they will be rebuffed: “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you,” he counsels, “as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” In other words, going out in the name of Jesus sets one up for rejection. There doesn’t seem to be any ideological reason for this. Mark tells us nothing about the political content of what Jesus said in that synagogue in Nazareth; the fact that Jesus spoke at all was enough for those closest to him to reject him. Just so we’re clear, the word we translate as “take offense” is about more than being offended. It denotes categorical separation; in fact, it is the same word Jesus uses when says that all will become deserters when he is handed over to be crucified. This unsettling passage is a reminder that the gospel is not always received with enthusiasm.

The reason for this, the reason that Jesus was rejected for simply opening his mouth, is that his message so often failed to conform to people’s expectations. People were looking to Jesus for reassurance, for a sense that their best efforts were good enough, for confirmation that they were okay. This isn’t the first or the last example of Jesus failing to meet these expectations. The gospels provide numerous examples of people trying to get Jesus to confirm that their way of looking at the world is the right one. Think of all the people who probe Jesus with questions in order to get him to betray his political biases. It probably goes without saying that these efforts were fruitless. No one successfully pinned Jesus down during his lifetime, but that hasn’t prevented us from trying to do so ever since. As an example, I’d point to a quotation that circulates on social media every so often. I’ve seen it in several forms, but the gist is something like this: “Jesus was a radical, nonviolent revolutionary who hung around with lepers, hookers, and crooks; was anti-wealth, anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer; but never mentioned abortion or birth control, never called the poor lazy, never asked a leper for a copay; and was a long-haired, brown-skinned, homeless, community-organizing, Middle Eastern Jew.” It’s pretty clear that whoever wrote this is portraying Jesus as an advocate for a particular worldview, one that presumably dovetails nicely with the author’s ideological assumptions. While there is nothing technically incorrect about this statement, it doesn’t offer the whole picture. As a colleague of mine observed, one could just as easily write, “Jesus was a rural born, pro-Israel nationalist who dined with rich people and government bureaucrats; told off-color jokes about foreigners; and said poverty was incurable. He advocated rigorous religious observance and personal responsibility. He never mentioned civil rights, feminism, or equal pay, and never advocated for government intervention in business or social issues.” There is also nothing incorrect about this statement.

What do we make of this discrepancy? Is Jesus a two-faced flip-flopper who will say anything to get ahead? Leaving aside the fact that Jesus’ ministry ended in crucifixion and death (which is about as far away from “getting ahead” as one can get), looking to Jesus for a political platform misses the point of his life and ministry. First of all, the obsession with absolute ideological consistency is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of ideas. More significantly, the animating force behind the life and ministry of Jesus transcends ideology. Jesus was not terribly interested in the politics of his day, because he knew that politics come and go. Jesus was not a martyr for a cause, because he understood that people eventually lose interest in causes. Jesus’ purpose was to reveal that God’s will is to reconcile everyone to God. This simple, yet powerful mission is inherently disruptive, because it challenges our innate tribalism, our sense that it is God’s will for our team to win. The moment we think God is on our side is the moment that God will confound our expectations. Jesus is rejected at Nazareth because he refuses to allow the expectations of those around him to interrupt God’s mission of reconciliation. The mission of Jesus was not to tell us all that we are okay. The mission of Jesus was not to confirm our biases. The mission of Jesus is to transform the world through a knowledge that God’s love for creation transcends our narrow understanding of it.

Religious Energy

Sermon on John 12:20-33 offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

A few years ago, I went to Boston’s Museum of Science on a Friday evening to view an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls. I assumed that I and my party would be among the few people there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the Dead Sea Scrolls aren’t fascinating; it’s just that I would suspect that most people have better things to do with their Friday nights than examine ancient religious manuscripts. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered a long, snaking line to enter the exhibit hall. Hundreds of people had come to the museum to learn about a two thousand year old ascetic religious community and view its sacred texts. While there were plenty of people who taking respectful stock of the Bronze Age knick knacks the museum had acquired to supplement the show, the vast majority of the museumgoers were in the room that contained the scroll fragments. There was a palpable energy that has stayed with me ever since. It was striking that on a Friday night in one of the most secular cities in the country, people were squinting to decipher the name of God on these ancient religious texts.

Paradoxically, the secularization of our culture has done little to dampen religious fervor. In fact, the more secular our culture has become, the more it has become clear that human beings seem to have an innate religious energy, a need to be wholly devoted to something. As faith has become less prominent in people’s lives, they have found other outlets for their religious energy. What once would have been mere interests or even passions have taken on an altogether different quality. Consider the zeal with which we pursue our fitness goals these days. No longer are we content to hit the gym every so often: now we have to keep track of every workout and try to achieve personal bests everytime we lace up our sneakers. Fitness programs like Crossfit have been jestingly compared to cults. Next time you’re driving around, count how many “26.2” stickers you see: I’d wager it’s more than the number of bumper stickers advertising a faith community. This ardor is not limited to our physical health: it extends to our professional accomplishments, political preferences, and a whole host of other matters. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with caring about our health, our careers, or the state of our country. The problem arises when we wholly devote ourselves to these things that are, by their nature, passing away. Our bodies will eventually break down. No matter how indispensable we are at work, we will be replaced someday. And there is no government in the history of human civilization that has not ultimately collapsed. Many of us are locating our religious energy in that which is ephemeral, rather than that which is eternal.

This morning’s gospel reading is one of the stranger passages from John’s gospel, which is saying something. The most jarring aspect of this passage is the apparent incongruity between what is asked of Jesus and how he responds. John tells us that some Greeks approach the disciples and tell them that they wish to see Jesus. This request is pretty much out of the blue. We have no idea who these Greeks are. If we think about John’s intended readers, however, the situation becomes a little clearer. One of John’s primary tasks was to make the story of Jesus, a relatively uneducated rabbi from the frontier of the Roman Empire, compelling and intelligible to a sophisticated audience. In the first century, there was nothing classier or more sophisticated than Greek philosophy. These Greeks who wish to see Jesus, in other words, are stand ins for John’s audience. Moreover, it seems that their purpose is to evaluate Jesus, to get a sense of his philosophy and see how it compares with the other ones. Is he more of a Neoplatonist? A Stoic? A Cynic? Something else entirely? We can safely assume that these Greeks were looking for something that would help them make sense of the world.

If this is the case, then they were almost certainly disappointed. The juxtaposition between the Greeks’ request and Jesus’ response is almost comic. The disciples approach Jesus and say, “Hey, there are some Greeks who want to see you.” Jesus replies by saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” But arguably it is only through the starkness of the comparison that we begin to see what Jesus is trying to say. As he haltingly wrestles with the reality of his imminent death, Jesus finds deep comfort and confidence in the integrity and faithfulness of God. Because God is God, there is no need to fear. When God’s name is glorified, the fruit is eternal life. Jesus, in other words, does not offer a worldview; he offers a perspective informed by eternity, a sense that there is something about us that will endure. All of the philosophies the Greeks would have had in mind were ephemeral: limited in their scope and unable to shift our perspective on the world. Jesus offers something fundamentally different: not a way to make sense of the world, but a way of looking at the world differently.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a parishioner who hadn’t been at church in a little while. He described weekend trips, family responsibilities, and the challenge of getting children out the door on a Sunday morning; things that often stand in the way of church attendance. But throughout the conversation, he kept saying, “I’m just so glad I came today.” The very same day, I had a conversation with another parishioner who pulled me aside and said, “Where is everybody?” I started to explain that some people were still recovering from the Nor’easter, that some people had the flu, didn’t have power, when she interrupted me: “No. Where is everybody? Everybody needs to hear the message the Church is proclaiming.”

Whether they knew it or not, both of these parishioners understood how important it is to locate our religious energy in that which is eternal. We no longer have the authority to compel or coerce church attendance. This is probably a good thing, but it also means that other activities and responsibilities often take precedence. Gradually, we begin to devote ourselves entirely to ephemeral concerns, and we think of the eternal only on occasion, if at all. I hope I don’t sound like a scold, because that’s not my intention. I suppose the question I would like you to ask yourself is this: where are you locating your religious energy? What if we thought of Church not as another obligation, not as another place where we can try to make sense of the world, but as a place where we go, week by week, to hold eternity in mind? I suspect we would be glad we came. More importantly, I suspect we would look at the world differently.

Possession

Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-12 and Mark 9:2-9 offered to the people of the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Yesterday morning, I brought my three and a half year old to the playground for the first time in a number of months. It wasn’t exactly warm, but she was suffering from acute cabin fever and driving her mother crazy, so off we went. I was surprised to notice that there was nothing she couldn’t do on the playground. The last time we were there, she would start climbing an apparatus and, upon getting stuck halfway up, would call for me to help her. Yesterday, however, she climbed every rope ladder, climbing wall, and ramp without any assistance. When she announced her intention to get on the swings, I assumed she would run over to the toddler swings, but instead she made a beeline for what she calls “the big girl swings.” As she scrambled on the swing and I spotted her, I began to feel incredibly sad. This sadness stemmed from a poignant and deeply human recognition: if I’m lucky, there will come a time when my daughter won’t need me anymore. In fact, the best case scenario is that my little girl will grow up and move away from home. Of course, there’s a part of me that wants to prevent me from happening, but that would just be me trying to possess my daughter, instead of letting her become who she is meant to be.

There is something poignant and deeply human about the reading we heard from 2 Kings this morning. Elijah is moments away from ending his earthly pilgrimage, and his assistant and protege Elisha is trying to make the most of every last second he has with his mentor. Three times Elijah tells his traveling companion that he should stay put, because the LORD has sent the old prophet to some far off location; three times Elisha responds, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” There is clearly intimacy and devotion expressed between Elijah and Elisha, and it’s further highlighted by Elisha’s interactions with the companies of prophets at the holy places. All of the other prophets ask Elisha if he’s heard that his mentor is about to be taken away from him. Elisha responds, “I know! Be quiet!” It’s as if he doesn’t want to be reminded about the loss that he is about to experience. I think we’ve all been there at one point or another. When we have to say goodbye to someone we love, there are times when we are simply not ready to acknowledge the reality of their departure. In many ways, this whole sequence testifies to the friendship and love shared by these who prophets of the Most High.

At the same time, there is a shadow side to Elisha’s devotion. When Elijah asks his young companion what he can do for him before he is taken away, Elisha’s response is revealing: “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with this request. After all, Elisha is a prophet: why shouldn’t he ask to share some of the spirit wielded by one of God’s greatest prophets? He even says please! If we look a little deeper, however, there is something inherently self-serving about Elisha’s request. It’s not that he asked for a share of Elijah’s spirit. It not even that he wanted twice as much as his mentor! It’s the fact that Elisha’s request seems designed to nullify the effects of Elijah’s departure. “Give me a double portion of your spirit, so I can continue to operate as if you were still here.” This is, perhaps, a worthy goal, and an understandable one for someone about to lose a trusted teacher, but it also represents an attempt to domesticate Elijah, to speak and act on his behalf. It’s worth nothing at it’s not clear whether Elisha’s request was granted. A few verses later, some bystanders proclaim that the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha, but we’re not told if it’s a double share. One wonders if Elisha was trying to co-opt Elijah’s authority instead of establishing his own prophetic voice. To put it another way, there was a level at which Elisha saw Elijah as something to possess.

We see a similar dynamic at play in this morning’s gospel reading. The Transfiguration is generally interpreted in one of two ways. The first option is to view it as a meditation on the urgency of discipleship. In this interpretation, the whole point of the story is that we are supposed to get off the mountain and get to work. Why else would Jesus ignore Peter’s question about building houses? With that said, the second option is to read this story as yet another episode of the “Peter completely missing the point” show. In his sincere effort to ingratiate himself to Jesus, Peter says and does the first thing that comes to mind, without thinking about whether it makes any sense. Even Mark tells us that Peter “did not know what to say.” In this sense, this story is a cautionary tale: an opportunity to sympathize with Peter even as we try to avoid his mistakes. Yet, while there is merit to both of these interpretations, neither fully captures the true essence of the Transfiguration. Ultimately, Peter does not err just because he wants to build houses for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. If anything, this impulse reveals that he recognizes the significance of the moment. As someone deeply familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, Peter knows that both Moses and Elijah had their own mountaintop experiences, and that they were up there for a long time. Peter is just being proactive when he suggests building houses for Jesus and these two prophets of Israel. Moreover, as far as Peter was concerned, this was the moment Jesus had been waiting for. He now had the endorsement of Israel’s greatest prophets: Jesus had arrived. Maybe the houses were just the beginning: perhaps Peter was daydreaming about establishing the “Jesus Christ Center for Spirituality” on this mountaintop and inviting people from all over the world to sit and learn at Jesus’ feet.

Even if this is an overstatement (which it probably is), the fact is that Peter’s response to the Transfiguration reveals that he saw Jesus a source of holy wisdom: someone who could provide him and others the tools necessary to make it through life. In other words, Peter’s error was that he saw Jesus as something to possess. This perspective is not unique to Peter. In the very next passage in Mark’s gospel, Jesus comes down the mountain and finds that his disciples are unable to cast a demon out of a young boy. After Jesus successfully heals the boy, the disciples ask why they weren’t able to do it. They behave as if they had missed that day in class or were somehow using the wrong words, when in fact they were misunderstanding the entire purpose of Jesus’ mission. Jesus did not come to teach us how to live; he came to reveal who God is. Jesus Christ came to reveal that God has power to raise the dead to life. Jesus Christ came to reveal that God’s love for creation transcends even the depths of human frailty and sin. Taken seriously, such a revelation should fundamentally alter the way we understand the world. In the end, Peter responded to the Transfiguration by attempting to domesticate Jesus, when the proper response would have been to transform the way he experienced the world.

We often think of faith as something to possess: a balm we can apply when we are feeling scared, discouraged, or sad; a tool we can use to justify our sincerely held beliefs or shame those with whom we disagree. In reality, it is our faith that is supposed to possess us. Let me be clear about what I mean, because I feel as though this statement can be misinterpreted. I am not saying that we are live in thrall to religious leaders or that our faith can be summarized with a list of religious requirements. After all, Jesus reserved his sharpest criticisms for the religious establishment. If our faith possesses us, it means that our entire lives are animated by a fundamental trust in the God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It means that we make every decision with the knowledge that God has the power to raise the dead to life. It means that we nurture every relationship with the understanding that God’s love for us transcends even the deepest human frailty. Our faith is not about acquiring information or performing certain tasks; it is about allowing our lives to be transformed by the God revealed by Jesus Christ on the holy mountain, the God whose love possesses us and helps us become who we are meant to be.

The Redemption of Saint Peter

Sermon for the Confession of Saint Peter offered to the people of Christ Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the Reverend Rebecca Kello on the occasion of her ordination to the Sacred Order of Priests.

There is something instructive about the way the Church commemorates Saint Peter. For most of the apostles, the liturgical calendar is pretty straightforward: each apostle is assigned a particular day, and so we celebrate the feast of Saint Matthias or the feast of Saint Thomas or the feast of Saints Simon and Jude. In other words, the Church takes the day to reflect on the entirety of that person’s life and work. On the other hand, Peter, along with his friend and rival Paul, is remembered for a particular moment in his life. Tonight we celebrate not the feast of Saint Peter, but the feast of the Confession of Saint Peter. Next week we will commemorate the Conversion of Saint Paul. There are a variety of reasons for this. In the first place, we know a lot about Peter. He’s all over the New Testament, from the gospels, to the Acts of the Apostles, to the letters of Paul. He even has a couple letters attributed to him. With the other apostles, we tend to know one or two items of significance: Matthias was chosen by lottery, Thomas had that moment of doubt that we hear about every Easter, and Simon and Jude were…well…also there. Given his stature and influence in the early Church, it makes sense for Peter’s commemoration to be a little more focused than those of the other apostles. And if we are going to focus on an event in the life of Peter, then his confession of Jesus as Messiah and Lord is a pretty obvious choice. After all, this is the moment that Jesus’ true identity is revealed to his disciples and to the readers of the gospel. Moreover, it is the moment that Jesus ordains Peter as the means by which the Church will flourish and transform the world. In some ways, it’s no wonder that we take a day to commemorate this particular moment in the life of Peter, the rock upon whom Christ built his Church.

At the same time, there is a shadow side to the fact that the Church specifically commemorates the Confession of Saint Peter. Because by celebrating this moment in the life of the apostle, we can avoid paying attention to those moments in his life that are less worthy of celebration. Highlighting Peter’s confession allows us to forget that immediately following the passage we heard from Matthew’s gospel this evening, Jesus calls Peter “Satan” and accuses him of being preoccupied with human concerns. Our focus on Peter’s moment of faithful confidence permits us to ignore his hypocrisy at Antioch, when he is more interested in maintaining his position of authority than he is in doing the right thing. Perhaps most dramatically, remembering that Peter confessed Jesus as Lord and Messiah spares from remembering that he denied ever knowing Jesus, that he essentially annulled his confession when the going got tough. Don’t get me wrong; I understand this impulse. After all, why would we want to be reminded that this great hero, the rock on whom Christ built his Church, was so deeply human, that he was as susceptible to fear, sin, and faithlessness as the rest of us? In the popular imagination, our faith is supposed to make us better people; Peter complicates that assumption. Why shouldn’t we just overlook Peter’s failures and remember the moments when he got it right? After all, ignoring Peter’s faults allows us nurture the idea that we too can succeed on our own merits, that if we try as hard as we possibly can and ignore our human frailty, then we can earn our place in the world and in God’s kingdom.

As appealing as this notion may be, it is not the gospel. At its heart, the gospel is realistic about the nature of the world and the inevitability of human failure. For this reason, the defining moment of Peter’s life takes place not when he confesses Jesus as Messiah, but when he encounters the risen Christ in the final chapter of John’s gospel. You’ll remember that Peter, along with several other disciples, has returned to his former vocation as fisherman. After a fruitless night, a stranger appears on the beach and tells the former disciples to try fishing from the other side of the boat. As the net fills with fish, Peter realizes that the stranger is the Lord and swims to shore, leaving his comrades to haul in the abundant catch. Despite his initial excitement, Peter becomes quiet when Jesus invites him to have breakfast by a charcoal fire. The last time Peter saw a charcoal fire, he was in the courtyard of the high priest, the place where he denied Jesus three times. Peter had returned to his life as a fisherman to escape his rejection of Jesus, only to have Jesus return, reminding Peter of his faithlessness. And when Jesus finally disrupts the silence, he does so in the most revealing way possible. Fully aware of Peter’s guilt, Jesus turns to him and asks, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Jesus doesn’t call Peter by the nickname he received in tonight’s gospel lesson; Jesus uses the name Peter’s mother gave him. When Peter responds, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you,” Jesus tells Peter to tend his flock. This happens three times, but Peter is too busy waiting for the other shoe to drop; he’s anticipating a torrent of vengeance and righteous indignation from the man he had so recently scorned. Peter wants to get these questions about love out of the way so that he can receive the punishment he so richly deserves. Jesus, however, offers no such punishment. Instead, Jesus offers Peter a love that redeems even his deepest infidelities, even his most shameful failure, even his rejection of God. With this love, Jesus also invites Peter to fundamentally reevaluate the way he understands the world, telling him, “If you love me, take care of my flock.” This is the defining moment in Peter’s life, not because it erases the mistakes he made, or because it prevents him from making mistakes in the future, but because it is the moment he is called to a new vocation. In light of the love revealed at the resurrection, Jesus instructs Peter to shift his vocation from that of a hunter to that of a shepherd, from one whose work depends on violence to one whose work is shaped by love.

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Becca, nobody I know loves people quite the way you do. While we often joke that you are the “glue” that holds groups and institutions together, there is profound truth in that jest. People are drawn to you, and perhaps more importantly, you are drawn to people. Despite your introverted nature, you are genuinely interested in others and deeply concerned about their hopes and dreams, and people can see that in you. In this sense, there is an inevitability to what we are doing this evening. You have long understood what was revealed to Peter by the Sea of Tiberias: that love requires something of us. And so, you have been a model pastor for years, long before ordination was even a possibility. In fact, when I face a particularly complex or thorny pastoral situation in my own ministry, my first impulse is almost always to ask myself, “What would Becca do?” It’s an impulse that has rarely steered me wrong.

And yet, this evening hasn’t always been inevitable. The number of obstacles you have had to overcome on this journey would intimidate even the most confident among us: from growing up in a tradition in which being a woman in leadership simply wasn’t an option, to initially being told “no” by a community you love and who loves you, to undergoing not one, but two major surgeries over the course of the last few months. Heck, you even broke your foot the night you were confirmed in the Episcopal Church. You endured it all with unfailing grace and courage, with a supreme and quiet confidence in the irresistibility of God’s call and in the sufficiency of God’s grace.

It might be tempting to view your ordination as an erasure of all these obstacles. We can now commemorate this day as the anniversary of the Ordination of Becca Kello, and ignore or forget all those moments in your spiritual journey that are less worthy of celebration. But this is not the gospel. The gospel we proclaim, the gospel you will embody to everyone you serve as a priest, is ultimately about acknowledging God’s ability, God’s will to redeem our past, our present, and our future. It is about placing our confidence in a love that overcomes even our most shameful failures. It is about allowing our lives and vocations to be shaped by the insistent and persistent grace of God made known in Jesus Christ.

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May you always find God’s call irresistible.

May your human frailty give you both compassion for those you serve and a profound understanding of your need for God’s grace.

May you, like Peter, remember that the love made known to us in Jesus Christ requires something of us, and may your work always be shaped by love.

Above all, may you trust God’s ability, God’s will, and God’s deep desire to redeem your past, your present, and your future.

I am honored to share this vocation with you. God bless you. I love you.

Hypocrisy

Sermon on Matthew 22:15-22 offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

In 1982, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan introduced the world to the Kobayashi Maru scenario, a training exercise designed for cadets at the Starfleet Academy. In the simulation, a disabled civilian ship, the Kobayashi Maru, is stranded near the Klingon neutral zone (Klingons are the bad guys in Star Trek). The cadet has to decide whether to rescue the ship and risk a confrontation with the Klingon Empire or respect the fragile peace between the Klingons and the Federation and let the crew of the Kobayashi Maru perish in deep space. Now, for those of you who are not Star Trek fans, the only really important thing to know is that the Kobayashi Maru is explicitly designed to be a no-win scenario; it’s meant to assess a cadet’s discipline and character when facing an impossible situation. There is, however, one cadet who successfully completed the Kobayashi Maru scenario. If you know anything about Star Trek, you won’t be surprised to discover that it was James T. Kirk, the maverick captain of the starship Enterprise and protagonist of the original series. He reprogrammed the computer so it would be possible to beat the simulation. Though he technically cheated, Kirk defended himself by claiming he didn’t believe in no-win situations.

In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus also refuses to accept a no-win situation. The passage we heard from Matthew’s gospel has a deceptively straightforward quality, but there is great subtlety and depth in this interaction between Jesus and Pharisees. To begin with, the question of whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor was far from a frivolous concern. In fact, this issue cut to the very heart of the religious and political assumptions of first-century Judaism. The religious authorities noted that paying taxes to the emperor violated at least two of the ten commandments: it not only required taxpayers to make use of a graven image, it also forced them to give homage to the emperor, who considered himself a god. Under the Law of Moses, in other words, paying taxes was tantamount to idolatry. Moreover, the Roman Empire was hated by the Jewish populace. Paying taxes was seen by some revolutionary zealots as a tacit endorsement of a brutal occupying power. At the same time, the only thing that prevented the Romans from bringing ruin down upon Jerusalem and the rest of Judea was the fact that the people paid the tribute required of them. The question that is brought to Jesus, in other words, was the Kobayashi Maru of first century Judaism: paying taxes represented a complicated ethical dilemma, one that could stymie even the sharpest intellect.

In response to this Gordian knot of religious and political nuance, Jesus does not offer a carefully worded opinion. Instead, he challenges the very premise of the question. He does this by saying that the Pharisees and their allies are hypocrites. This is not terribly surprising. Jesus calls people hypocrites a lot in Matthew’s gospel. In fact, Matthew uses the word more than any of the other New Testament writers combined. Calling someone a hypocrite is a powerful indictment, in part because it entails minimal risk. Accusing someone of hypocrisy doesn’t require us to share their moral vision or even to have a particular moral vision. All it needs is a vague belief that people ought to act in accordance with their own stated moral principles. We can remove ourselves from the equation and claim that we are blameless, even as we accuse others of failing to live up to the values they champion.

Jesus turns the definition of hypocrisy on its head. For Jesus, hypocrisy is not failing to live up to our own moral standards; true hypocrisy is allowing ourselves to be defined by human standards in the first place. The reason that Jesus does not provide a carefully worded answer to the question of the religious authorities is that he completely rejects the terms of the debate. For him, asking if paying taxes to the emperor violated the Jewish Law ascribed to the emperor authority that properly belonged to God. Indeed, Jesus could have put his position in this way: “Caesar isn’t God; why are you treating him like he is? Why are you giving him power over you that he does not have?” The instruction to give to the emperor the things that are the emperors is actually a way of dismissing the emperor’s power altogether. As far as Jesus is concerned, the emperor has mistakenly chosen to honor his own flawed humanity and earthly power. Jesus challenges us to give to God the things that are God’s: to honor the image of God in ourselves and others. For Jesus, we are hypocrites when we forget who we are; when we fail to remember that, despite our flawed humanity, we bear the image of God, something no human being or earthly power can take away from us.

Last Sunday, the actress Alyssa Milano posted the following on social media: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.” as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Millions of people took this suggestion. It felt like every woman I knew posted #MeToo. Some shared wrenching stories of abuse, while others left the two words as a concise testament to the ways they had been made to feel worthless. The more #MeToos I read, the more I began to consider the ways I had been complicit in these stories of harassment and assault. To be honest, my initial, visceral reaction was to wonder how many of these were overreactions or misunderstandings. This response, however, represents the same hypocrisy displayed by the religious authorities in their interaction with Jesus: the hypocrisy of ascribing transcendent value to human standards: standards like “everybody does it” or “that’s just so and so being so and so.” Indeed, the whole #MeToo movement exposed our hypocritical failure to honor the image of God in ourselves and others. Our faith calls us to give to God the things that are God’s: to honor those who bear the image of God by acknowledging their pain and refusing to make excuses for those who have taken advantage of them. At the same time, honoring the image of God requires us to hope for the possibility of redemption: to acknowledge that through Jesus Christ, God has wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature. Our faith invites us to recognize that even when our sin or the sin of others prevents us from remembering it, we continue to bear the image of God. The ultimate message of the gospel is this: even when confronted with abusive forces that try to convince us that we are worthless, we must not forget who we are and whose we are.

Senseless

Sermon on Philippians 3:4b-14 offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Like many of you, I woke up on Monday morning to the news that 59 people had been murdered and hundreds injured by a gunman in Las Vegas last Sunday night. Like many of you, I was horrified and grief-stricken; I found myself weeping in my car as I listened to reports about the massacre. As troubled as I was by the news itself, I was just as dismayed by the way people reacted to the tragedy. It wasn’t that anyone said anything particularly offensive or insensitive; it was that the reaction was so predictable. On Monday night, the late night comedy hosts “got real” in their opening monologues. By Tuesday, some politicians were insisting that it was not the time to discuss gun control while others were insisting that it was. On Wednesday, news outlets posted the article they always publish when mass shootings occur. By Thursday, conspiracy theories began to circulate. Even the reaction of the church felt like it was following a grim routine. At Redeemer, we tolled the bells, just as we did after the Pulse nightclub, just as we did after Sandy Hook. It was as if everyone had been assigned a role in some grotesque drama designed to help us make sense of the fact that 59 more people were dead.

In some ways, this isn’t all that surprising. After all, we often turn to familiar narratives to comfort us when we are grieving. We look for ways to distract ourselves from the pain we feel when we realize what human beings are capable of doing to one another. We try to make sense of these tragedies, even though we know in our hearts that they are senseless.

Paul certainly understood this impulse to make sense of the world. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul explains that he once found meaning by positioning himself within the story and traditions of Israel. By his own account, Paul was completely devoted to the Jewish tradition. He asserts that he was “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” It might be tempting to gloss over these verses as just another list in Paul’s letters, but that fails to recognize the value Paul placed on these identity markers. They represented his pedigree: the fact that he came from the right family and did everything that was expected of him. More importantly, these defining characteristics helped Paul know exactly who he was and what God expected him to do. If Paul wanted to understand his place in the world, all he had to do was consider his identity as an Israelite. Paul’s birth allowed him to tap into a heritage and a shared narrative that gave his life meaning. Paul was “confident in the flesh” because his religious identity helped him to make sense of the world.

For this reason, it is nothing short of remarkable that Paul goes on to write, “whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” It’s not as though Paul was looking for a change when he became an apostle. Paul didn’t hit rock bottom before his conversion. He was an influential man who understood his place in the world better than most. And yet, Paul regards this identity as something to be cast aside. In fact, he describes that which he once held most dear a term that, literally translated, means “dung.” Paul is not demeaning his tradition of origin; he is simply demonstrating that his experience of Christ has completely overshadowed what he once prized. Paul’s “confidence in the flesh” is replaced by a confidence that “Christ Jesus has made him his own.” This kind of transformation demanded a great deal of philosophical courage. Paul’s conversion obliged him to abandon a tradition that helped him make sense of the world and embrace a worldview in which things were far less certain. Such a radical shift would have required something earth shattering, a fundamental reordering of the world as Paul knew it.

Ultimately, it was the resurrection of Jesus Christ that caused Paul to reevaluate the way he understood the world. For Paul, the resurrection is not an isolated incident. It is not just some miraculous event that proves how special Jesus was. Rather, the resurrection represents a fundamental shift in the ordering of things. Paul reasons that if the power of death has been nullified for even one individual, it must, by necessity, be nullified for everyone. The normal pattern has been disrupted: death is no longer the end of the story. The implications of this are profound. It means that life, once destined to end, now has a meaning that transcends every narrative we use to explain the world. The resurrection, in other words, invites us to adopt an entirely new perspective on reality. It challenges us to recognize with Paul that the world has been fundamentally transformed by Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection.

In times like these, we often ask our faith to help us make sense of the world. We ask “why?” and expect Scripture or the Church to provide a clear answer and a clear path forward. The Christian faith, however, is not prescriptive. The Bible is much less concerned with how we act than it is with God’s action in the world. Moreover, our faith cannot make sense of that which is fundamentally senseless. In fact, our desire to find a reason for this tragedy prevents us from truly wrestling with the reality of what happened. What the Christian faith does provide in times like these is something much more valuable: an opportunity to reevaluate our perspective. Rather than helping us make sense of the world, our faith challenges us to look at the world differently. It asks us to adopt an attitude shaped by the resurrection. This can be a terrifying prospect, because it requires us to critically examine and sometimes abandon that which we hold most dear: whether it is the narratives that give us comfort when tragedy strikes or our inviolable assumptions about security and personal freedom. Nothing can be off the table when we adopt a perspective shaped by the resurrection, because nothing is unaffected by God’s undoing of death.

The only way we can adopt this perspective is if we share Paul’s confidence that “Christ Jesus has made us his own.” The only way we can honestly face a senseless and uncertain world is if we put our trust in the Providence of God. In our darkest moments, the gospel calls us to remember this fundamental truth of our faith: no matter what happens, we belong to God.

Love and other unnecessary things

Sermon on Matthew 18:15-20 offered to the people of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Abilene, Texas on the occasion of the dedication of their new fellowship space, Gerhart Hall.

There is a revealing photograph of Heavenly Rest that comes from just after the church building was completed. Since it was taken before the pews had been installed, this picture shows the nave filled with neat rows of metal folding chairs. It is my favorite picture of this church; it actually hangs on the wall of our house in Pennsylvania. There are several reasons I like it. For one, it makes me laugh: the contrast between the gothic beauty of Heavenly Rest’s nave and the stark utility of the folding chairs makes for an amusing visual. There is a deeper reason this photograph resonates with me, and that is the fact that it makes the church feel so empty. Part of what makes this church so wonderful is the people who inhabit it. Those rows of empty folding chairs are reminders that, as important as buildings can be, a church is only a church when its people are gathered there.

Our gospel reading this morning understands that the church can only be the church when God’s people are present. It also understands that when people get together, there is going to be conflict. As such, the gospel offers some practical instructions about managing conflict in the Christian community. Before we assume that we know how nasty conflict in the church can be, remember that Matthew was writing to a group of people who, until very recently, wouldn’t even be in the same room together. His was a diverse community of Jews and Gentiles, those who had grown up following the Law of Moses and those who had never heard of Moses, those who kept kosher and those who ate what they wanted. With such a diversity of backgrounds, conflict was, to some extent, inevitable. As a leader of the church community, Matthew seems to assume that those who disrupt the social order ought to be removed from the community. The evangelist recalls Jesus’ instructions for dealing with conflict in the church and as we heard this morning, he spells out the procedure pretty explicitly: if another member of the church sins against you, take him aside and talk to him about it. If that doesn’t work, bring two or three other people to see if they can get through to him. If he still refuses to repent, bring him before the whole community, and if the person fails to respond even to the whole church, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” In other words, Jesus seems to say that those who persistently and unrepentantly sin against other members of the community ought to be removed from the body of the faithful. This cannot be a rash decision. It’s not like someone can just get rid of someone they don’t get along with. The whole process assumes that the actions of the one being excommunicated have become destructive of the very fabric of the community. Not only that, the offender is given three distinct opportunities to make things right. Matthew describes a rigorous due process, one designed to be as fair and equitable as possible. In Matthew’s community, excommunication is a last resort. Nevertheless, it is sometimes necessary to make the hard decision: to exclude those who disrupt the social order in order to maintain unity within the church.

While this verdict seems harsh, there’s a level at which I think we can understand the need for a process like this. We have all been in situations where we have seen a single person cause problems for an entire community. There’s the person at work who refuses to pull his weight, the friend who selfishly takes advantage of her relationships, the family member whose self-destructive behavior has yielded only frustration and shame for those closest to him. These people will often continue in these behaviors no matter how much we cajole or threaten or beg. Matthew was dealing with his own version of these issues. In these seemingly intractable situations, Jesus himself appears to indicate that we ought to remove these people from the community so that those of us who remain can move on with our lives and live in harmony. But notice how Jesus frames the sentence of excommunication: if you aren’t able to get this guy to repent, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” This feels like a fairly definitive condemnation. After all, labeling someone a Gentile or tax collector means that person is naturally excluded from the fellowship of those who worship the God of Israel. But remember that Matthew’s community includes Gentiles. Remember that Jesus himself calls a tax collector named Matthew to be his disciple. Remember that at the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus exhorts the disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, literally “all of the Gentiles.” Gentiles and tax collectors, in other words, are those whom we are called to embrace, those with whom we are called to reconcile, those to whom we are called to proclaim the abundant and redemptive love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ. For Matthew’s community and indeed for the whole Church, the door is never closed; there are always seats available for even the most notorious sinners, even those who persistently reject the community, even the Gentiles and tax collectors. Matthew reminds us that the church exists for those outside its walls.

When Willis Gerhart stepped off the train in Abilene in 1920, he had an unusual dream. He believed that what this West Texas town really needed was a gothic cathedral. For someone as eminently practical as Parson Gerhart, this was unexpected. This, after all, was the same man who couldn’t pass a beggar without giving him money, who gave away his coat more times than anyone could count, and who wrote his sermons in the cold during the Depression because he gave the stove in his office to a family with 12 children. Surely, he could have imagined raising money to combat poverty or alleviate homelessness, instead of building a church, of all things. Parson Gerhart understood something that most of us fail to recognize throughout our lives. Most of us evaluate the world in terms of what is necessary or useful: will this event be worth my time? will this class prepare me for a career? Parson Gerhart, however, understood the things that truly matter in this world are not strictly necessary.

If you think about it, it is not necessary to reach out the Gentiles and tax collectors in our lives. In fact, it would be easy and expedient to exclude those who have repeatedly failed to meet our expectations. As Christians, we are called to be guided not by necessity, but by love. In fact, classical Christian theology suggests that it was not necessary for God to create the universe, that creation is not intrinsically useful to God. The scholastic theologians argued instead that God created the universe out of love. There is something astonishing about this claim. Love has no intrinsic utility. It is not goal oriented. It cannot be quantified. It serves no useful purpose. But for this reason, because it is not strictly necessary, love is more powerful than any of those forces the world considers indispensable. Love is the only thing the world truly needs.

This is something the people of the Church of the Heavenly Rest have understood since the beginning. This beautiful church building, the bell tower, the parish house, Gerhart Hall; none of these are strictly necessary. There is nothing that would have prevented this parish from worshiping in the Quonset Hut for the last 70 years. But this parish recognizes the architectural marvels of which you are the stewards are not merely buildings: they are expressions of God’s love for the whole world. These structures point us away from our selfish preoccupations and toward the eternal. As one parishioner is fond of observing, you can’t help but look up when you enter this space. Moreover, these buildings remind us that this church was not built for the sake of those who built it, but for those outside its walls. They encourage us to consider those who are missing from our fellowship, those who ache to know the grace and love of God, and those who have rejected it. These buildings help us recognize that the world is bigger than anyone of us, and that the only way we can truly celebrate what we have been given is when all of us are at the table.

This is a momentous weekend at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. It is the culmination of many years of vision, dedication, and hard work. The sheer number of you who were directly involved in building Gerhart Hall is a testament to the amazing quality of the people at this parish. Many of you are justifiably proud of what you have accomplished. You are the next in a long line of faithful people who have served and built this parish. But even as we celebrate, we must not forget our call to reach out beyond these walls, to recognize that these buildings were built not for the sake of those who built them, but for the people of this community. Gerhart Hall is more than a building; it is an icon of who you are and who you hope to be. It is a sign of God’s reconciling love, a love that, in the end, is the only thing the world really needs.

Heritage

Sermon on Romans 12:9-21 and Matthew 16:21-28 offered to the people of the Church of the Redeemer, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. You can listen to a recording of this sermon here.

The Federal gunline at Malvern Hill, the battle where my ancestor was killed.

Milton Hyman Boullemet served as a private in the 3rd Alabama Volunteer Regiment and was killed at the Battle of Malvern Hill during the Civil War. He also happened to be an ancestor of mine (my great, great, great, great uncle to be precise). When I was a child, one of my relatives compiled the letters he wrote home to his parents during the war and distributed the collection to members of the family. As a student of history, I was pleased to have this volume on my shelf, but I never took the time to read it until a few weeks ago. For the most part, Milton’s letters are fairly standard wartime correspondence: he reports on the weather, complains about “muddy coffee and stale bread,” and asks after his family. At the same time, there are elements of these letters that are downright shocking. For instance, Milton uses racial epithets casually, as if he doesn’t realize what he is saying, which may very well be the case. Moreover, I was dismayed to read that when it came to the Confederacy, Milton was a true believer. Though he was from the merchant class and had little personal investment in the institution of slavery, he regarded the South’s war effort as holy cause. One could rationalize that he believed he was defending his home or that he simply got caught up in the spirit of the times, but the fact remains that an ancestor of mine fought and died to preserve the right to own other people.

Our lectionary this morning appears to provide two distinct, even competing visions of the Christian life. In the passage from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus articulates the profound cost of discipleship: “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This is dramatic, sacrificial language; the implication is that a truly meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ requires us to abandon everything we hold dear and give up our lives for the sake of the gospel. There’s a nobility in this vision of the Christian life. In fact, it is consistent with some of humanity’s oldest stories: we have always admired those who leave everything behind and devote themselves to a glorious cause. Certainly, this is one of the reasons my Uncle Milton volunteered to fight for the Confederacy. Now, this story has a shadow side: single-minded devotion to anything can lead to division, where we reject those who either aren’t committed to our cause or aren’t committed enough. But it’s easy to rationalize that this is just part of the sacrifice that we are called to make as Christians. In the end, the most important thing is how we have committed to taking up our cross and following Jesus.

The passage we heard from Romans seems to describe the Christian life in ways that are diametrically opposed to this sweeping, sacrificial vision. Instead of a call to martyrdom, Paul offers a series of straightforward and, frankly bland exhortations: “serve the Lord,” “persevere in prayer,” “contribute to the needs of the saints,” and so on. Paul seems less interested in the cost of discipleship than he is in the cost of maintaining the church. It appears that this passage bolsters the familiar narrative that Paul essentially co-opted the message of Jesus for his own purposes. Even if we don’t take it that far, this passage from Romans feels conventional, while the section from Matthew’s gospel feels revolutionary. Paul’s advice seems more focused on behaving correctly than on being who God has called us to be.

This is only a reasonable interpretation if we ignore Paul’s final exhortation: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This concluding remark places the entire passage within a larger context. Paul is not offering practical instructions about life in the church; he is articulating how to overcome the evil powers of this world. It’s noteworthy that Paul argues the way to overcome evil is by nurturing community: rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep, and outdoing one another in showing honor. Paul does not mention taking sides, digging in our heels, or shouting down the opposition. Paradoxically, he implies that overcoming evil is about transcending our divisions and striving to remain in relationship no matter what. In many ways, this vision of the Christian life is just as radical as the one outlined in Matthew’s gospel. While not a call to die for a glorious cause, Paul’s vision is more comprehensive: we are called to live out the gospel every day of our lives. Instead of a momentary, passionate decision, this vision invites a patient commitment to transformation. Moreover, it requires us to trust not in what we can do to advance our cause, but in the grace of God. This is precisely the same point that Jesus makes when he describes what it means to take up one’s cross. When Jesus says, “those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” he is suggesting that our lives find their meaning, not in anything we accomplish, not in our sacrifice, but in what God has done through Jesus Christ.

In 1862, the year my Uncle Milton was killed in battle, the Episcopal Church held its General Convention in New York City. Though the Civil War was raging, the Convention kept to its usual business as much as possible. In its account of the proceedings, the New York Times reported “it was resolved…that all vacant seats of Dioceses not represented should be assigned to the delegates present.” While this seems like an insignificant piece of parliamentary minutia, it actually speaks volumes. Those “dioceses not present” were the ones in states actively rebelling against the union over the issue of slavery. Remarkably, General Convention made the decision that these rebels would simply be marked absent; it was assumed they would return. Indeed, two bishops from dioceses in the Confederacy were warmly welcomed when they arrived at General Convention in 1865. This is a distinct contrast with many other denominations, which split into northern and southern branches during the Civil War era. We can certainly criticize General Convention for not taking a more righteous stand against the injustice of slavery. And yet, we must also acknowledge that this was an earnest attempt by these representatives “to overcome evil with good,” to stay in relationship no matter what.

More than anything else, this kind of response requires the humility to recognize that sin is never somebody else’s problem. This brings me back to my Uncle Milton. As much as I would like to disavow him completely, he is part of my heritage. I had an ancestor who fought for the right to own people. This is part of who I am, and it is important I acknowledge that it is shameful, as much as I would like to deny it. And yet, if the gospel teaches us anything, it is that we are defined not by what we or our ancestors have done, but by what God has done for us, for all of us. For this reason, the Christian response to hate and bigotry cannot be to destroy those who would advocate such things; it must be to preach repentance even as we acknowledge our own sinfulness, all while putting our trust in the boundless grace of God. This is the “true religion” our Collect refers to: the ability to trust the power of God’s grace to transcend our divisions and transform our lives.

Delight

The Super Bowl was played a few days ago. While the play on the field was certainly thrilling to watch (though perhaps not for Atlanta Falcons fans), the most memorable moment for me occurred prior to kickoff. Just before the National Anthem, Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Jasmine Cephas Jones (the Schuyler Sisters from the original Broadway cast of Hamilton) sang “America the Beautiful.” To put it mildly, their performance was spectacular. Like latter day Andrews sisters, their close harmonies reflected their obvious chemistry, and their creative arrangement breathed new life into Katharine Lee Bates’ powerful poem. Much has been made of the fact that Soo, Goldsberry, and Jones made the lyrics more gender inclusive. Though this was laudable and worthy of notice, I was even more compelled by a reaction from the sidelines. Right after Goldsberry and Jones sang “sisterhood,” the camera cut to Dan Quinn, the head coach of the Falcons. He was grinning broadly, clearly delighted by what he was hearing. When he noticed that he was on the Jumbotron, he quickly composed himself and assumed a “tough football coach” scowl. For a fleeting moment, however, Dan Quinn could not contain his delight.

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Delight is a word that has fallen out of fashion over the years. In part, this is because it became a mere synonym for “happiness.” Delight, however, is about much more than mere pleasure. The psalms suggest that those who are righteous “delight in the law of the Lord.” Though one does not generally think of a law as something to take delight in, it is important to remember what the law represents to the psalmist. The Law was the symbol of God’s claim on Israel, the reminder of God’s persistent faithfulness. Taking delight in the Law involves recalling the fullness of our relationship with God, recognizing that God’s love endures all circumstances. Those who truly appreciate the nature of this relationship cannot contain their delight.

There is a discipline to delight. Delight requires conscious recollection, a willingness to look past our current frustrations and see the potential for good wherever we go. We live in serious times. Some might argue that delight is a luxury we cannot afford. But delight is not incompatible with seriousness. In fact, the only way we can be serious about the tasks before us is if we take delight in them. In this time of outrage, frustration, and anxiety, I pray that we will take time to be delighted, remembering that we are defined not by our present circumstances, but by the love of God.