A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The Lectionary readings for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost are here.
This past Monday, July 29, the Episcopal Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood. If you didn’t get to watch the Philadelphia Eleven film with us, I hope there are other opportunities for you to see it. (https://www.philadelphiaelevenfilm.com/) It is an incredible story in our history and I am honored and privileged to stand on the shoulders of these amazing women and the men willing to stand up for equality and do the work of God in this world.
For those of you who have ever asked me about my calling to the priesthood, you know that I quote Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus that we read today “The gifts God gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, (now, here’s the important part, so listen carefully) to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Being a priest is about enabling and equipping all of us to do God’s work together.
And, Paul tells us, we are to continue equipping each other until all, ALL, all come to the unity, not exclusivity, of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. The measuring stick of our maturity is Jesus. Our purpose is to become more and more like Jesus as we do what Jesus teaches us to do. Jesus sums up all that he shows us by telling us to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. We show we love God by loving our neighbor and if we love our neighbor as ourselves then we want for our neighbor what we want for ourselves – the life God created us to live, as Kingdom people living in a world where all are equal and no one is hungry or thirsty or without.
In our gospel reading today, the crowds ask Jesus what must they do to perform the works of God and Jesus tells them plainly, “this is the work of God, that you believe in the one God sent.” When we follow Jesus, believing that he is the one God sent to show us how to walk in the Way of Love, we are doing the work of God in this world.
In our prayer for today, we ask God to both cleanse and defend God’s Church and to govern the Church by God’s goodness. Now y’all know we aren’t talking about the building but about the Body of Christ, the one holy, universal, bound together by God’s grace and love through the power of Holy Spirit, church. But do we trust and believe that God will defend us and do we really want God to cleanse us? Because when we ask God to cleanse the church, it isn’t about removing those we consider undesirable, but a prayer to cleanse our own hearts and minds of those things that keep us stuck in emotional and spiritual immaturity. It’s so much easier to pray “God, those people over there need cleansing, you go smite them and we’ll defend you from our pews”. But that is not doing the work of God.
The reason we remind ourselves in this prayer that only in God can we, the church, continue in safety is because it is only by God’s loving work of unity and community that we can be saved from our ego driven behavior. It is in our spiritual and emotional immaturity that we are so easily offended by others’ ideas and ways of moving through this world and convince ourselves that we need to defend God instead of asking God to defend us.
Following Jesus is an invitation to all to join in the Way of Love. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians could easily be written to most any church in the USA Today. God’s work that we are called to participate in in this world is leading a life worthy of God’s love for all so that we are working toward unity not division.
If the truth we claim to speak in love is motivated by excluding others, elevating ourselves above others, or condemning others who aren’t just like us, it isn’t God’s truth. God’s truth in love is motivated by wanting others to join the journey of growth and maturity, but never, ever forcing them; it is an invitation to a better life, the life we are created for: this life of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven in which we are all walking together, using the gifts God gave us for the greater good. God’s love always wants the best for others, all others.
One of my fondest memories of General Convention was at the Revival Night when Bishop Curry was preaching. At one point in his sermon he said his familiar phrase: “if it’s not about love” and a thousand Episcopalians, without missing a beat, excitedly finished the sentence “it’s not about God.” This is our theme. If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.
As we journey together, side-by-side, following Jesus, we grow from praying “God, give me my bread and, oh, yes, while you are at it can you feed the hungry” to “God, we give thanks for the bread you give so that we can do your work in this world of feeding the hungry.”
The bread of life isn’t just about our bellies. We need nutritional sustenance for our bodies, AND we need nutritional sustenance for our souls. When we feed on the negativity and and anger and hatred of the world, we are not nourishing our souls with the bread of life but of food of death. When we feed on the words of scripture, do life together in community and in worship, we nourish our souls with God’s goodness.
Pay close attention to what you are consuming with your eyes and ears. Is it helping you bring about God’s kingdom on earth or teaching you to put up walls to keep others out?
Following Jesus is about making this world better – doing God’s work to change it from the nightmare it often is, to the dream that God intends. Do not let anyone convince you that we need to go backwards or sideways or any direction other than the Way of Love in God’s Kingdom.
There’s a meme that’s been around for a few years, I’m sure many of you have seen it, of a young man and Jesus sitting on a park bench and the young man asks, “Jesus, why do you allow so much injustice and suffering in this world?” And Jesus responds, “why do you?”
50 years ago, a group of people stood up and asked why do we let the ordination rules in the Episcopal Church exclude half the population from discerning a call to the priesthood. They believed that God’s loving truth said that women are equal to men. It wasn’t an easy path but they knew they were following Jesus. It felt divisive at the time because people had to chose to walk in God’s kingdom or stay stuck in their spiritual immaturity. We all stand on the shoulders of those who helped make the path more and more like God’s Kingdom. Together, in love, we are called to build up others and grow to be more and more like Jesus, inviting everyone to join us so that God’s Kingdom is on earth as in heaven, and still loving those who chose not to join in.
This is the work of God, that we believe in him whom God has sent and offer the bread of life to all. Amen.
Mother Nancy's Coffee Thoughts 