Our call to God-led evangelism

Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017 (Second Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, as part two of a seven-week preaching series on baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.

Sermon Text(s): Isaiah 49:1-7, Baptismal Covenant Question #3

Last week, we remembered Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River, heard about the implications of baptism for our own lives, and renewed the vows of our Baptismal Covenant. This week, we begin exploring the Baptismal Covenant in more detail. From now through the end of the season after the Epiphany, we’ll consider one question from the Baptismal Covenant each week, digging more deeply into the meaning of it and how we are called to keep that vow in our lives as Christians. We won’t be moving through the vows in the same order that they appear in the prayer book because I structured this series so that the question we’re considering each week connects with the scriptures from the lectionary for that day. So today, because the scriptures relate to the subject of evangelism, we’ll start by looking at the third question in the Baptismal Covenant:

“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”

The first thing we must define with regards to that question is: what exactly is the “Good News of God in Christ?” What are we proclaiming? What is the message we are called to share with others? The passage we heard from Acts last week offers us a good summary. Peter says this to a group of Gentiles gathered in the home of Cornelius, a Roman solider:

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:34-43)

That is the good news we are called to share: that Jesus was raised from the dead, that all the powers of this world and even death itself could not stop the message he came to bring. That message was not so different from what all the prophets throughout the history of Israel had taught: that we should love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves. But the one who brought the message this time was different than those other prophets who had gone before: he was the promised Messiah of Israel, the chosen one foreseen by all the prophets, and in him the prophecies of old were fulfilled. And his message reminded the people of Israel that God’s favor and mercy are available to all people, not just the Jews.

And although Jesus’s followers took that to heart in such a way that the Jesus Movement became primarily a movement of Gentiles rather than Jews, this message of inclusiveness was not new with Jesus. In fact, the Christian concept of our call to be a “light to the nations” actually comes from the Hebrew Bible, from the scriptures of the Jews before the time of Jesus. Today’s reading from Isaiah contains that phrase, a phrase that became one of the theological underpinnings of Christianity’s worldwide missionary outreach: God says to the prophet Isaiah, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

"I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

In a context where the prevailing assumption was that each nation had their own god or gods, who were concerned only with the people of that nation, the idea that the God of Israel would care about the people of other nations was a revolutionary idea. This passage is one of several in Isaiah and in other writings dated to this period that represent a significant theological shift – from a view of salvation as being “all about us” to a view that included “them” as well – the other, the outsider, the stranger. No longer did the word “salvation” mean that our side had won, and to hell with everyone else. Isaiah – and Jesus after him – said that the goodness and mercy and blessings promised by God to Israel are available not only to Israel, but to all people. Israel’s role as a “light to the nations” is to share that goodness and mercy and blessing with everyone.

Unfortunately, the way both Jews and Christians have read and interpreted this passage has often presumed that only Israel – or in Christian thought, only the church, the “New Israel” – has the light. As we sought to be a “light to the nations,” we thought we were bringing “light” to “primitive” or “uncivilized” people who we thought were in darkness without us. I requested our opening hymn (#539 in the 1982 Hymnal; "O Zion haste; thy mission high fulfilling") because it has some of that flavor to it. That last verse:

"make known to every heart his saving grace.
Let none whom he hath ransomed fail to greet him,
through thy neglect, unfit to see his face."

-- the assumption being that without you, O Enlightened Christian, those poor peoples of the rest of the world will perish. Through our actions and our theology we asserted a belief in our superiority over other nations and peoples. We forgot the inclusive flavor that this passage had in its original context, and in many cases, instead of bringing light, we brought more darkness. Instead of inclusion, we brought rejection and condemnation.

So how can we be obedient to our baptismal covenant, to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” without falling into the same mistakes that some of our forefathers and foremothers made? How can we share the good news so that it is actually received as good news, rather than as rejection and judgment?

Well, one way to do so is to follow the example of Peter and Cornelius in last week’s passage from Acts. Both Peter and Cornelius receive visions from God telling them to seek each other out. Peter receives a message from God that sends him to Cornelius, and Cornelius receives a message from God asking him to seek out Peter. The key here is that it is God’s initiative on both sides to bring the two people together. There have been plenty of cases in which Christians have thought, “God is sending me to bring a message to those poor, backward people and tell them how to live and worship correctly!” – but when they arrived, the “poor, backward people” weren’t so interested in hearing their message. Rather than paying attention to this, the missionaries pushed on, convinced they were right, that God was “on their side,” rather than trying to discern whether or not God was indeed behind their missionary impulse by assessing the situation among the people when they arrived. In contrast to that kind of stubborn one-sidedness, in the biblical story, Peter confirms first that God has been moving among the people he’s about to speak to before he launches into his “pitch” about why Jesus is Lord of all. He asks why Cornelius sent for him, and only after he has taken the time to listen to Cornelius’s experience and hear his story does he make that great speech in Acts 10, summarizing the Christian message.

I find it interesting that although Christian theology names Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12), Jesus also says that we are the light of the world! In the Sermon on the Mount, he says to those gathered to hear him teach, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus, the very light of the world himself, did not tell his followers that he was the only light, but taught them to see the light in themselves.

The true lights of this world do not judge the darkness, because they see only light. They see the light in others, and they help others to see that light in themselves. And as they do so, the light becomes much stronger than if it were proceeding from only one person or one group. To me, that is what it means to be a “light to the nations.”

So how can we keep our vow to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” We can live an authentic life of faith modeled on the teachings of Jesus, one in which our actions testify to something greater than ourselves. And when people ask us about it, when God sends them to us through God’s initiative, we can share with them the witness of scripture, passages like Peter’s speech in the book of Acts. And we can tell them our own story. We can tell them about why Jesus’s story and teachings mean so much to us, how the Gospel has touched our lives, and about any experiences we have had with Jesus directly or any moments we had when we knew God was truly with us. And rather than telling people we have the light and they don’t, we can affirm that we see light in them, too. We see it, we name it, we affirm it, and we invite them into a relationship with Jesus. And then, we wait for them to make their own decision -- and leave the rest to God.

Remember, we promise to do these things in our Baptismal Covenant only “with God’s help” – so we must take that to heart. We can’t keep these vows entirely on our own. It isn’t our job to “save” others. “Through your neglect, they will be unfit to see his face?” No. It’s not our job to save. It’s God’s job to save.

So, will we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ to the world?
Yes, we will – with God’s help.

Authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led

Sermon delivered Sunday, May 1, 2016 (6th Sunday of Easter, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29



“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

This line from today’s passage from Acts is a classic in the theology of evangelism and missions. Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia pleading for help has been echoed in the call stories of evangelists throughout the centuries – many missionaries have framed their sense of call to travel abroad with a similar sense that a foreign people is asking them to “come over and help us.”

At its best, casting missionary work within this framework encourages people to be willing to go wherever God calls them and to respond to expressed human need wherever they find it. But at its worst, conceptualizing missionary work in this way has led to a patronizing kind of approach in which the missionaries go of their own initiative to “help” people who have not expressed a need for help, bringing with them an attitude that assumes they have all the answers and solutions to bring to the people they have set out to “help.” Let’s explore that shadow side a bit more before we turn our attention to what I believe is a corrective to that shadow side within this very passage.

Any time we talk about “helping” others, we have to step back and examine the power dynamics at play. It is often much easier to be the “helpers” than to be the “helped.” The “helpers” are the ones with power, money, with enough abundance in their lives that they have something to give. The “helped” are the ones “in need,” the ones who lack something, the ones who are vulnerable and dependent. It is much easier to see ourselves as the competent givers than the vulnerable receivers, and yet in our relationship with God we are ALL vulnerable and dependent. The roles of “helper” and “helped” are never completely separable when God’s Spirit is at work. That’s the tricky part and the key thing to remember anytime we begin to see ourselves primarily as the “helpers.” All encounter that is led by the Spirit is intended for the mutual transformation of both parties, and requires listening and obedience on both sides.

The blueprint for evangelism we have in the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of how the first disciples spread the faith in its earliest days, show story after story of mutual encounter. I’m struck by how often the people to whom the disciples are sent to bring the message receive their own vision from God ahead of time to let them know these people are coming. It’s not like the disciples are the only ones receiving visions telling them what other people need; the people they are sent to have also been spoken to by God and they are ready and waiting for them when they arrive.

We’ve heard several of these stories lately: in Paul’s conversion story we heard a few weeks ago from Acts chapter 9, Paul receives a vision from God telling him to go into the city and wait for someone to come and tell him what to do, and Ananias receives a vision telling him to go look for Paul, the infamous persecutor of the church. When they meet up, they confirm that they each have received visions that brought them together. In Acts 10, we hear the story of how Cornelius, the Roman soldier, receives a vision that he should send for Peter, and right about that same time Peter receives a vision telling him that all foods are clean and the Spirit tells him that some men have come looking for him and that the Spirit has sent them. This leads Peter to share the Gospel with Cornelius, breaking tradition in taking the message to and including Gentiles, not just his fellow Jews.

In today’s story, we don’t have as clear of an example of the Spirit moving on both sides – we’re not told whether the people of Macedonia also received a vision telling them to expect the disciples, but Lydia is receptive and open to their message when they arrive. And far from a patronizing encounter where the disciples do all the “giving” and “helping” to this “poor lost soul,” Lydia does her own share of giving right back – she shows them hospitality by providing lodging for the disciples while they are in her community. The encounter is one of mutual transformation, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, not just from one side to the other.

And perhaps the most important aspect of this evangelism story is that it is Spirit-led; it is God’s initiative that leads to Lydia’s conversion, not Paul’s or any other person’s. Paul and his crew weren’t even planning to go to Macedonia originally; they had planned to continue to travel in the region where they had been. If our first lesson had started just three verses earlier in this chapter, at verse 6 instead of verse 9, we would have heard this introduction to the journey to Macedonia:

“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.” (Acts 16:6-8)

It’s here that our reading for today picks up, with verse 9:

“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.”

It is in Philippi that they encounter Lydia. Now, if you look at the map I’ve included in your bulletins, you’ll see all these cities or regions that were mentioned in the reading have been circled. Look at where Phrygia and Galatia are, in the central part of what is now Turkey. That whole region is called “Asia” on the map, and even though the scripture says they had already been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia,” still they try to go to Bithynia – see where that is on the map? Even further north than Galatia, and still East! It’s like, um, hello, what part of “not in Asia right now, folks!” did you guys not get? But “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go there, and so they go down to Troas – see where that is? Basically as far West as you can go and still be in Asia. They’re trying desperately to hang on to what they already know, to stay in the area that’s familiar to them, to continue to try to do something in Asia despite being told that their ministry is not there right now. So here they are, hanging out in Troas, at the very edge of their familiar territory, and it’s here that Paul receives the message to go to Macedonia – even further West – a whole different land mass! They follow that call and they wind up finding Lydia in Philippi. She was the one God had prepared for them to encounter next, and if they hadn’t been willing to listen to the Spirit’s promptings and follow where God led, they would have never even met her.

In our Gospel passage for today, Jesus promises the disciples that after he is taken from them, they will continue to have a teacher and guide in the Holy Spirit: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he says. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26)

The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of God among us, to continue to guide and direct the church in the ways that God wants us to go. The disciples had the benefit of an actual human person in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to teach and guide them, but now we are left with this illusive and not-so-easy-to-identify Holy Spirit as our guide. Our challenge is to remember that we still have a teacher and guide with us, because it is a lot easier to ignore that guide if it is not a physical person actually speaking to us and showing us the way. It’s a lot easier, in the absence of a physical person as leader, to be guided by our own ideas and desires rather than God’s ideas and desires.

I’ve said quite a bit about that distinction lately, and I want to make clear that I’m not saying that our ideas and desires are inherently opposed to God’s ideas and desires. They can, in fact, be the same thing. But the key is remembering to ask the question, to listen for where the Spirit is leading us and being open to the idea that that might not be the same place we’ve decided we want to go. Like the disciples in our passage from Acts today, we might think we’re going to Bithynia, but God wants us to go to Macedonia! Sometimes when we listen to the Spirit, we find a whole new direction that we hadn’t even thought of before. Other times, we confirm that the direction we’re already going is indeed of God – but again, remembering to listen is the key point.

So the corrective to the shadow side of Christianity’s missionary impulse is to ensure that evangelism is always Spirit-led. When left to our own devices, we know the horrible things we are capable of – coming in to a community and tearing away their time-honored traditions and the ways God has spoken to them throughout the centuries, insisting that they do things our way, right down to the clothes they wear and the language they speak, falsely equating one particular human culture with the Gospel. But when we look at the stories of evangelism in the book of Acts, the account of how the faith first spread, we are reminded that authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led. It is God-initiated rather than human-initiated. And it is never a one-way encounter. It is never one people telling another what to do. It is always a mutual encounter in which both sides have received messages or visions from God and together they attempt to discover the wonderful thing that God is trying to do in their midst and to be faithful to that call.

So as we consider the ways we might reach out to our neighborhood and the community around this church building, let us be in prayer and deep listening about where God is calling us – and how God might already be speaking to the people around us. Being still long enough to listen will help us ensure that our evangelism is Spirit-led rather than human-led.

When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible

Sermon delivered Sunday, April 10, 2016 (3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C), at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

(Acts 9:1-20, John 21:1-19)



On this third Sunday of Easter, we continue to hear stories of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear. The disciples are still reeling from the events of Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem – arrest, crucifixion, death, and now, these miraculous appearances! In our passage from John today we see Jesus appearing to the disciples while they are out doing what is familiar to them – fishing – and reminding them of their call to go beyond the familiar in order to bring in a successful “catch” for the kingdom. And in Acts, although the story is chronologically a bit later than the first post-Resurrection appearances, we have another powerful story of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear – when Jesus appears to Saul, an adamant persecutor of Christians, and Saul does a complete 180 – transforming from violent enemy to passionate leader in the church.

In both stories, the people of God are asked to trust God’s word, God’s direction, God’s movement in their lives, even when that leads them to do things that are unknown, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary. When Jesus appears to the disciples on the beach and offers them some advice on getting better results with their fishing excursion, they have to trust that he knows what he’s talking about, even though they have been casting their nets all night and catching nothing.

“Cast the net to the right side of the boat,” Jesus says. “Oh, gee, thanks,” the disciples might have thought, “You think we haven’t thought of that one? What difference is casting the net on a different side of the boat going to make? If there aren’t any fish on this side, there aren’t going to be any just a few feet away on the other side! There are no fish! We know; we’ve been out here all night!” So they have, but perhaps they’ve only been casting the net on the left side of the boat because it was easier for them to do it that way. If they were right-handed, casting on the left side would make hauling the fish in easier, since they could use their dominant right arm to lift the heavy loads. They were professional fishermen; they’d probably perfected their technique to where it taxed the body the least so they could sustain longer working hours. They’d always done it this way and it had always worked for them in the past. But Jesus comes along after the Resurrection and asks them to do something slightly different, something that wasn’t the way they’d always done it, something that might have felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar. They’d have to use muscles they weren’t used to using. They’d have to call upon strengths they didn’t know they had. They’d have to modify their actions to adapt to the situation at hand.

And when they did – when they trusted Jesus’s advice and tried something different, they were overwhelmed with an enormous haul of fish – 153, to be exact, the same number as the number of nations known to exist at that particular time. A catch of 153 fish was symbolic of a “catch” of all the nations, foreshadowing the evangelism they would do as they spread the Gospel throughout the world.

And what about Ananias, in our passage from Acts today? Can you imagine God asking you to go voluntarily to meet with one of the chief persecutors of the church, someone who had sworn to kill anyone who was a follower of Jesus?

“Um, are you SURE that’s who you want me to go see?” Ananias asks. “I’ve heard lots of stories about this guy, and none of them are good. Do you KNOW how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem? And you want me to go heal HIM?”

But the Lord answers, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

Imagine the kind of trust it had to take for Ananias to follow through on that command! In our Gospel passage, the disciples had to trust just enough to try a slight change in their professional working habits, but still operating in the realm of something they were used to doing and that wasn’t threatening to them in any way. But Ananias is essentially being asked to walk right into the lion’s den! He has to trust God’s word that Saul is “an instrument God has chosen” – although every self-preservation instinct – and all of his friends who cared about him – would have urged him to stay as far away from Saul as possible.

But somehow, Ananias does it. He takes God at God’s word and does what he is being asked to do. And Saul is converted to the faith and becomes one of its strongest leaders.

When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible. Miraculous things are possible. When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, lives are changed.

What is God asking you, the people of St. Cuthbert’s, to do that might be unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary? Fr. John Rawlinson’s sermon last week invited you to consider what the “resurrection” of this congregation might look like. “Resurrection is not the same old, same old,” he said. “Resurrection is not a repeat of what has been. Resurrection is the unknown and new life, but in likely a very different way.” This is the message of our scriptures for today as well. Resurrection means change – subtle change in some cases, radical change in others, but all cases, change.

St. Cuthbert’s is at a crucial moment in its history. In this “liminal space,” as Deacon Pam put it in her sermon the week after the retirement of your previous priest, in this in between time, you are being invited to consider what the future of this community will be. Your task is to listen for where the Holy Spirit is moving in this place – this congregation, this neighborhood, this city – and how God is calling you to respond.

In the short amount of time I have been here, I have seen and felt God’s spirit moving in a number of ways at St. Cuthbert’s. I’ll share a few of my thoughts, which I hope will be the start of a conversation that will engage the whole congregation over the next few weeks and months.

I see the Spirit moving in the passionate and beautiful music we make with one another each week. Quality music can be difficult to come by in small congregations, and St. Cuthbert’s is very fortunate to have the wonderful musicians it has to lead us in our praise of God. 

I see the Spirit in the re-engagement of Lydia Pierce Chong with the congregation. Lydia is a young woman who had been loosely connected to St. Cuthbert’s in the past but now has a fire lit in her to reach out to the neighborhood surrounding the church and find ways we can minister to young parents and families in the area. Deacon Pam told me that after seeing the nursery room in the narthex used on Easter Sunday for the first time in a long time, she felt a nudge from the Spirit for us to do some kind of a blessing for that space, to put the energy out there in the universe that we are setting aside and dedicating that space for the nurture of children whom we have not yet met, but who God intends to bring to us.

I see the Spirit moving in the determination of BJ Gerton and her crew to keep the produce market going, despite the loss of funding from Episcopal Senior Communities, to provide a source of fresh produce in this neighborhood that in many ways is a “food desert,” an urban area where it is difficult to buy affordable or good quality fresh food.

And speaking of produce, I feel a nudge from the Spirit every time I see the farmers standing on the street corner in front of St. Cuthbert’s selling their produce during the week. This parish is blessed in terms of location to be perched on such a busy intersection. These guys wouldn’t choose this spot to sell their produce if it wasn’t a high traffic area with potential to net them good business. We could harness that energy to draw attention to St. Cuthbert’s. I’ve had visions of standing on the corner with them during the week, wearing my collar, holding up signs that say – “Pull over for free prayers” or “God loves you - join us on Sundays” – or whatever other creative ideas you all can come up with! Or, doing something as simple as holding a service outside one Sunday under the big trees in front of the church would make us more visible and show that there is life and energy in this place.

Where do YOU see or feel the Spirit moving at St. Cuthbert’s? What do you feel the Spirit nudging you to do around here? Now is a time for dreaming, for visioning, for considering what might be. No idea is too grandiose or too impractical – let your minds go wild, and share your ideas with Milene Rawlinson, our senior warden, BJ Gerton, our junior warden, or anyone else on the Bishop’s Committee. Diocesan leaders will be coming to St. Cuthbert’s within the next few weeks to begin a conversation about the future of St. Cuthbert’s. If you feel the Spirit moving us toward resurrection, listen. Listen and make it known to the rest of us, because we discern God’s will in community, through hearing and listening to one another. Listen and act on it, because when the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible.

"I have other sheep that are not of this fold:" Sharing Christ through interfaith dialogue

Our lectionary for today presents us with two of the most frequently cited passages on the topic of Christianity’s relationship to other religions. From Acts 4: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) and from John 10: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16). In the volumes that have been written about how Christians should approach people who follow other religious paths, these two passages inevitably come up. The Acts passage is cited by those who believe we should convert all non-Christians to Christianity, and the passage from John is cited by those who believe Jesus might already have a relationship with people of other religions without their explicit conversion to Christianity.

In the academic study of religion, there is an entire discipline called “theologies of religion,” which has to do with how people make theological sense of the fact of religious diversity. What does the existence of other religions say about my religion? What is God’s relationship with people who follow a different religious path than I do? Is it possible for people of other religions to be “saved” without following my religion?

Classically, scholars have grouped the way people answer these questions into three basic categories: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Allow me to briefly define these terms before we return to examining the scripture at hand.

Exclusivist theology holds that there is only one true religion, and that everyone must convert to that religion in order to be “saved.”

Inclusivist theology holds that salvation comes through one particular religion, but acknowledges that people who follow other religions may achieve salvation without converting to that religion. How is this possible? Well, inclusivists generally understand any saving power of God at work in the world to be part of their religious framework, whether or not people acknowledge and name it as such. Thus, an inclusivist Christian would say that salvation always comes through Jesus Christ, but that Jesus may save Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus through their own religious metaphors and understandings.

Pluralist theology holds that there is only one truth, but that all religions are equally valid ways to access that truth. The analogy is often given of one mountain with many paths on it, but all of which ultimately lead to the same spot on the summit. Thus, no matter which path you follow, you will reach the same end.

Returning to our scriptures at hand, the passage from Acts is clearly of the exclusivist perspective: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The passage from John sounds like it might be pluralist: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16) -- as pluralist theologians often cite this passage, but we have to go on to read the rest of the passage in context. The entire verse says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So while Jesus is bringing in these “other sheep,” they are still listening to him and following him, ultimately coming to be part of the “one flock” that is the church, which makes this passage inclusivist, not pluralist. Although much ink has been spilled over who exactly the “other sheep” are in this parable, if they are taken to refer to people of other faiths, we still must acknowledge that in this vision, those people of other faiths ultimately come to follow Jesus.

Given my interest in and passion for interfaith dialogue, you might have guessed that I have devoted quite a bit of time to pondering these passages, and others like them elsewhere in the Bible. In my study, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe it is possible to argue for a pluralist theology with scriptural support. While there might be certain aspects of a pluralist theology that appeal to me, and while there are Christian theologians who hold a pluralist theology of religions, I think that if we are going to remain faithful to the New Testament, the furthest we can go in our theological openness to other faiths is an inclusivist perspective like that expressed in John 10: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16). People of other faiths may be part of Jesus’s “other sheep,” but they will ultimately come to be part of the “one flock” under the “one shepherd” – whether that happens explicitly in this lifetime or not.

Christians often see a tension between evangelism and interfaith dialogue – arguing that the moratorium on proselytizing often required as a “ground rule” of interfaith dialogue conflicts with our call to proclaim the Gospel to others. But I’m not convinced that there has to be a conflict between the two. As a Christian, our goal should always be to share our love of Jesus with others, whether through evangelism or interfaith dialogue. If someone is interested in learning about Christianity and feels drawn to follow Jesus, I am delighted to invite them to learn more about the faith and will encourage them to unite themselves with Christ in baptism. It has been one of the highlights of my ministry to accompany an adult catechumen, Sharmila Patel, on her journey of faith this year and watch her become a Christian through baptism at the bishop’s visit last week. But I also believe we can authentically and powerfully share Christ with people of other religions even if they do not decide to become a Christian and be baptized.

An example of this from my own experience is my relationship with my friend and colleague Valarie Kaur, who is a follower of the Sikh religion and a nationally-known interfaith leader and speaker. You may remember that I have mentioned her in sermons before; she and I have had a long and complex interfaith friendship that has stretched us both to grow spiritually.

In 2007, I was doing an internship with a parish in Nebraska as part of my year of discernment for the priesthood, and Valarie participated in an interfaith Stations of the Cross project I presented as the Lenten series for that year. Based on a similar project organized in the Church of England a few years prior, my interfaith Stations of the Cross project invited people of different religions to take one of the classic Stations of the Cross and reflect on it through the lens of their own faith. So, for instance, a Muslim participant made a connection between Jesus’s death on the cross and the execution of one of the martyrs of his own faith.

Valarie was the Sikh participant in the project, and she took the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die.” In it, she reflected on the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man shot and killed in Arizona just four days after 9/11 by a man who thought he was a terrorist because of the turban and beard he wore as part of his Sikh faith. Participants were encouraged to write a meditation generic enough that it could be read as describing either the event from the non-Christian faith or the story of Jesus’s crucifixion. This is what Valarie wrote for the first station, “Jesus is Condemned to Die”:

“They were afraid of the ones they could not understand. They reached for their weapons and marched in the streets. ‘You are the enemy,’ they said to the man with light in his eyes. His face shone with God, but they could not see the divine in him. They could only see strangeness. The man was condemned, but he accepted God’s will and turned to God and said, ‘God, I am ready for you to use me in whatever way you wish.’ There was blood on the ground when he died, and the ones who knew him gathered at his grave and wept. The women and men took comfort and sang in the streets, ‘He died so that others would not,’ and the echo tried to confirm it: ‘He died so that others would not.’”

Everything about this meditation – the condemned man accepting God’s will, those who knew him seeing greater meaning in his death – was a description of the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 21st century Indian-American Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona, but the similarities between this story and the condemnation and death of a 1st century Jewish Palestinian man we Christians call our Lord and Savior were striking, to me and to the congregation who participated in the study – and to Valarie herself. She wrote this reflection on what the experience of participating in the project was like for her:

“As a 26-year old Sikh American who had many childhood encounters where friends and teachers tried to convert me to Christianity, I did not feel that Christian theology spoke to the heart of my own experience - until I wrote this reflection. I discovered that the themes of suffering, sacrifice, and service defined not only the Christian story but the human story - and the way I understand my own life experience.”

The Sunday after that Wednesday night program, Valarie attended church with me for the first time. Although I’d been to Sikh services with her before, she’d always somehow respectfully declined my invitations to attend church, perhaps because she had a negative taste in her mouth for Christianity after her childhood experiences with Christians telling her she was going to hell. But this time she agreed, and she chose to come forward and receive communion during the service. As we pulled out of the parking lot after church, she grabbed my arm and said to me with tears in her eyes, “Tracy, now I understand why you want to be a priest.” She later told me that her experiences at my parish in Nebraska that week were some of the most powerful experiences of spiritual belonging she’d ever felt, something she never expected to find in a community of Christians.

My more evangelical brothers and sisters might say that because Valarie has not become a Christian, I have not effectively “shared Christ” with her. But to me, the experience we had that winter in Nebraska was one of the most powerful and effective ways I have ever “shared Christ” with anyone. An intentionally interfaith encounter more effectively communicated the story of Christ to someone who is not a Christian than any overt attempts to convert her ever did. So as a good Anglican, taking into account reason as well as scripture and tradition in formulating my theology, I have come to identify as an inclusivist in terms of my theology of religions. When I read today’s Gospel passage, I believe deeply that Valarie and others like her are included in those “other sheep” that also belong to Jesus.

Always be ready to make your defense for the hope that is in you...

Sermon delivered Sunday, May 25, 2014 (at the 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. services; bishop's annual visitation at 8:45 and 11:00 meant the bishop was preaching) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN

6th Sunday of Easter, Year A 
(Acts 17:22-31, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21)

“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

This line from our reading from 1 Peter today is one of my favorite scriptures on the topic of evangelism.

Now, I know that the subject of evangelism can make some of us in the Episcopal Church uncomfortable – we tend to associate evangelism with the street corner preacher telling everyone to “repent or perish,” with people who bring a message of “I’m right and you’re wrong.” We tend to think that evangelism is synonymous with that triumphalist message that Ann was talking about in her sermon last week – a message that says Christians have the market cornered on knowledge of God and everyone else is damned.

Many of us who are not cradle Episcopalians chose this church because we liked the fact that it is not about using the Bible as a weapon and shoving our faith down other people’s throats, so whenever the topic of evangelism comes up, we get a little squirmy. Maybe we thought we left that behind with those “other” churches. But evangelism doesn’t have to be synonymous with those negative images. Evangelism simply means sharing the good news – the good news of Jesus’s resurrection and the content of his teachings. Evangelism is about bringing a positive message, a liberating message, a message of love and reconciliation. Evangelism is about sharing with others the reason for the hope that is in us, as 1 Peter says.

Many Episcopalians think about sharing their faith through their actions rather than through words. We certainly don’t want to be the street corner preacher, and we don’t want to push our faith on anyone else, so we figure we’ll just share our faith by example through the good deeds we do in the world. I’ve heard many people within the Episcopal Church – myself included! – reference St. Francis of Assisi’s famous statement on evangelism to describe their approach: “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” While there is deep wisdom in that statement about allowing our lives to be our testimonies, sometimes we hear that statement as an excuse never to use words. Instead of “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words,” we hear it as, “Preach the Gospel at all times; it’s not necessary to use words.” But that’s not what St. Francis was saying. It is necessary to use words sometimes. We lose something when, in our desire to not be like those overbearing street preachers, we go to the opposite extreme of never talking about our faith to others. For one thing, we cede the market to the street corner preachers because theirs are the only voices being heard. Our voices are silenced because we’re so focused on feeding the hungry and working for justice that we forget to talk about why we’re feeing the hungry and working for justice – what the faith is that motivates us to do this work.

If we don’t talk about why we’re living our lives the way we are, we really are not distinguishable from any number of other people who may be doing similar things. People of many other faiths and none can and do feed the hungry and work for justice – so those things do not make us unique as Christians, nor are they the definition of what it means to be Christian. What defines us as Christians is our faith in Jesus, and our commitment to follow him as our Lord. Yes, that commitment is fleshed out by the way we live our lives, but our actions in and of themselves cannot express the specific words of our faith. Our actions, by themselves, cannot literally say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We must use words to do that. In our baptismal covenant, we promise to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” (BCP 305) – notice that it says “by word and example” – not just “by example.”

We are reminded of this call to use words to share the content of our faith especially during this Easter season when we recall how the church spread throughout the Mediterranean world in the first century – all through people speaking to others about their faith, sharing the news of Jesus’s resurrection. The tradition of reading through the book of Acts during Easter season reminds us of the evangelism of the early church and how they spread the faith throughout their entire known world.

In today’s reading from Acts, we have Paul’s famous speech to the Athenians, persuading them of the truth of the Christian message and inviting them to join the church. This speech has long been considered a model evangelism speech, because Paul meets the people where they are, acknowledging the truth in their own tradition, quoting some of their own poets, and working to rationally persuade them of the truth of his faith. While Paul certainly had his share of arrogance and triumphalism, tending to think his way was the only right way – whether he was persecuting the church or advocating for it – in this passage we see Paul at least willing to concede that others might have had some glimpse of the truth before Paul came on the scene, and presenting his argument in a way that is framed as good news – “I come to bring you more full knowledge of something that you yourselves have said you do not fully know.”

But even though Paul’s speech has been held up as a model for evangelism, I still prefer the approach in 1 Peter. “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15-16) The assumption behind this statement is that we are always ready to explain our faith to others, but in general, we wait for them to ask. And, it also assumes that they’re asking because of the way we’re living, because of something about us that is different, because of something they see in us that they wish they had. The impetus behind us sharing our faith comes not from our desire to “fix” others, but from others’ curiosity at how we can live our lives with such hope and faith.

Although Paul was a wonderful wordsmith, even he recognized that all the words in the world are worthless if they are not backed up by actions. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” he says in 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. 13:1). And Jesus says in our Gospel today that if we love him, we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). In another passage, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Words by themselves are not enough, just as actions by themselves are not enough. The way I read this statement from 1 Peter, we have to be truly “walking the walk” in order to earn the privilege of speaking about our faith. To me, this seems like a good recipe for ensuring a healthy balance between evangelism by word and evangelism by example. If we want to speak about our faith to others, our lives have to be saying something loudly enough that someone asks for us to translate.

But it also requires that we have done the intentional work of thinking about why we have faith, why we have hope – so that when someone asks us, we have an answer ready. Just because our usual modus operandi is to share our faith through our actions rather than through our words doesn’t mean that we therefore have no words to explain why we do what we do. When someone asks us about our faith, we should be ready to explain it to them. And we should be living in such a way that compels people to ask.

So what is the hope that is in you? What would you say if someone asked you how you can believe in God, about why Jesus is so important to you, about how you can live with faith and hope? Are you ready to give an account for the hope that is in you?

If you feel like you’re not sure what you’d say, or worry that you aren’t the most eloquent speaker in the world, remember that many of our biblical leaders felt the same way. Jesus reassures the disciples that the Holy Spirit will be with them, to lead them into all truth and to give them the words to say. So when someone asks, take a deep breath, ask for guidance from the Spirit, and tell them about your faith.

Being a "light to the nations" means helping others to see the light in themselves

Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 (2nd Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. (Isaiah 49:1-7)

The season of Epiphany is all about light. It begins with the light of the star of Bethlehem guiding the magi to the Christ Child, and ends with Jesus glowing in dazzling light on the mountain at the Transfiguration. These two dramatic manifestations of Jesus’s identity bookend a season chock-full of stories about Jesus being made known as Messiah and Son of God.

The light of the season of Epiphany carries with it a message: “Behold, to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior!” “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The light shines as a beacon to point us to Christ. And we, in turn, are called to let the light shine through us so that we may point others toward Christ. In the season of Epiphany, as we remember the ways Christ was made known to the people of his day, we consider the ways we can make him known to the people of our day.

Our collect for today summarizes this central theme of Epiphany: “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.” We are “illumined” as we take in the light of Christ through the Scripture and through the Sacraments, and as it shines in us, others will come to know and worship him as well. The season of Epiphany reminds us of the call to evangelism and mission at the heart of our faith.
Today’s reading from the Hebrew Bible contains one of the most well-known biblical “catch-phrases” on the subject of evangelism and mission: “a light to the nations.” God says to the prophet Isaiah, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

In an historical context where the prevailing assumption was that each nation had their own god or gods, whose role was to protect only the people of their nation, this was a revolutionary idea – that the God of Israel would care about the people of other nations. In fact, most of the biblical writings prior to the time when the Israelites were in exile in Babylon – the period when this passage from Isaiah was probably written – assumed just the opposite: that the God of Israel cared only for Israel, and whatever “salvation” was promised had to do only with the success and prosperity of Israel, not of anyone else. This passage is one of several in Isaiah and in other writings dated to this period that represent a significant theological shift – from a view of salvation as being “all about us” to a view that included “them” as well – the other, the outsider, the foreigner, the stranger. The goodness and mercy and blessings promised by God to Israel are available not only to them, but to all people. The role of Isaiah – and of Israel as a whole – as a “light to the nations” is to bring that goodness and mercy and blessing to all people. It is not enough to receive it for themselves; they must be willing to share it with everyone.

Unfortunately, the way both Jews and Christians have read and interpreted this passage has often presumed that only Israel – or in Christian thought, only the church, as the “New Israel” – has the light to share with others. As Christians sought to be a “light to the nations,” we saw ourselves as a shining example to those other more “primitive” or “uncivilized” people who we considered to be in darkness, and through our actions and our theology we continued to assert our superiority over other nations and peoples. As this passage about being a “light to the nations” became one of the theological underpinnings behind Christianity’s worldwide missionary outreach, we forgot the inclusive flavor that it had in its original context. Instead of saying, “I believe that God loves and cares for you and I am willing to include you in what is most holy and sacred to me,” too often the message expressed by the missionaries was more like, “I believe we have the light and you don’t, and God disapproves of the things you hold most holy and sacred.” In many cases, instead of bringing light, we brought more darkness. Instead of inclusion, we brought rejection and condemnation.

So how can we be obedient to Isaiah’s call to be a light to the nations, to Jesus’s call to make disciples of all nations, without falling into the same mistakes that some of our forefathers and foremothers made? How can we share the good news so that it is actually received as good news, rather than as rejection and judgment?

Well, we can think about the people we know or have known who truly are a “light” – to their community, to the nations, to the world. What are those people like? Are they angry, judgmental people? Are they in the habit of pointing out others’ flaws, or of telling them how much their behavior is unacceptable to God? Probably not. Their light most likely flows from a genuine love and acceptance of those around them. Are they the only ones who have the light? No, they probably cause others to shine too when they are around.

The true lights of this world cannot possibly judge the darkness, because they bring light to wherever they are, and they see the light in others. They don’t claim to be the only ones who have the light, but they help others to see the light in themselves. And in doing so, the light becomes much stronger than if it were proceeding from only one person or one group. To me, that is what it means to be a “light to the nations.”

It is interesting that although Christian theology names Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12), Jesus also says that we are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)! In the Sermon on the Mount, he says to those gathered to hear him teach, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus, the very light of the world himself, did not tell his followers that he was the only light, but taught them to see the light in themselves.

And he taught them that that light shines more brightly as a result of our actions. It is a cliché, but it is certainly true that actions speak louder than words. The trouble with the way some of our forefathers and foremothers approached the missionary task is that their actions did not match up with the words they were sharing. Their words said that God loved and cared for all, but their actions said that some people were worth more than others. They were more concerned with making sure that others had the right beliefs than they were with living out those beliefs themselves.

My favorite saying about evangelism is one attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” We preach the Gospel, the good news of Christ, not primarily by what we say, but by how we live. The truth of this statement has been illustrated powerfully in the past 10 months by the first Pope to take St. Francis as his namesake. What has captured the world’s attention about Pope Francis is not his words, but his actions. In word, he has not said much that departs from traditional Roman Catholic teaching, but what is different about him is the way he lives. While others have affirmed the church’s teachings about caring for the poor, Francis has chosen to give up the comforts of the papal palace, dress simply, and be among the poor as much as possible, inviting several street people to the Eucharist at his birthday celebration in December. While others have said and taught that the faithful should put their trust in God and not in human force, Francis has chosen to leave the bulletproof Popemobile behind and embrace the risk of traveling unprotected and vulnerable among the people. Francis is living proof that the Gospel, authentically lived, is powerful.

So how can we be a “light to the nations?” Perhaps we can take our cue from Pope Francis and from his namesake, seeking to live an authentic life of faith modeled on the teachings of Jesus. The best way to be a light to others is not to assume we are bringing them a light they do not already have, but by to affirm and help them see the light in themselves.

They'll know we are Christians by our love

Sermon delivered Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013 (Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year C) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, TN. (Scripture for the day: Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30)

The passage about love from 1 Corinthians 13 that we heard today is familiar to Christians and non-Christians alike for its eloquent statement of the attributes of genuine love. But although we hear it most often at weddings, the Apostle Paul was not writing specifically about romantic love or marriage when he wrote it.

This passage actually comes directly after Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts and of the oneness of the church as the body of Christ in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, which we heard last week and the week before. At the end of last week’s reading, after describing the various gifts and vocations given to people in the church: apostles, teachers, miracle-workers, healers, the ability to speak in tongues, Paul exhorts the people to “strive for the greater gifts.” “What greater gifts?” you may have wondered. Which of the gifts Paul just listed does he consider to be the greatest? The confusion comes due to an unfortunate choice of the editors of the lectionary to stop the passage there. The second half of that verse goes on to say, “And I will show you a still more excellent way,” and then Paul launches into the reflection on love in our passage for today. The flow of Paul’s message really continues seamlessly from the last verses of chapter 12 into the first verses of chapter 13, so let me read those for you together, so you get a sense of the flow. After Paul has just listed the variety of gifts given by God to the church, and pointed out that not all people have all of these gifts, he goes on to say:

“But strive for the greater gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith [these are all spiritual gifts Paul was just talking about], so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 12:29-13:2).

Can you hear what Paul is trying to say here? The “greater gifts” he was referring to at the end of our reading from chapter 12 last week were not the gifts of working miracles or being an apostle or speaking in tongues. The “greater gifts” are “faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). All the seemingly impressive spiritual gifts in the world are worthless if the person using them does not have love in his or her heart. Paul is echoing a biblical theme we heard recently from John the Baptist during Advent: intentions matter. The spirit in which you do things matters. Our faith is ultimately a matter of the heart. No matter how many gifts we have been given by God, if we do not use them in a loving manner, they are utterly worthless.

So as we continue to consider, during this season of Epiphany, how we might make Christ manifest in the world, Paul takes us a step further than he did two weeks ago when he first introduced the idea of spiritual gifts. Yes, the unique gifts and talents that we each have can be used to make Christ known to the world, but one sure way that all of us can make Christ known is to love – and to love in a very particular kind of way, with a selfless, giving love that has at its heart a concern for the well-being of others. That kind of love, that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13, is the ultimate spiritual gift by which we make the presence of Christ known to the world.

It’s like the refrain to that song you may know from your days in church camp or youth group: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” That’s essentially what Paul is saying here: it is not the things we do, but how we do them, that testifies to our faith in Christ. They’ll know we are Christians not by what we do, but by how we love.

And how we love flows directly out of our faith, for, as the first letter of John puts it, “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Our model for love is found in a God who was willing to take on our humanity, to suffer with us, a God who “came that we might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

This divine love often stands in contrast to much of human love, which can carry with it selfish desires for security and control. People can and do justify any number of sinful actions based on their love for something or someone. The community who sought to throw Jesus off a cliff in today’s Gospel reading probably did so out of a love for their religious tradition that they thought Jesus was challenging or disrespecting. The intense attachments that we develop to things or people that we love can lead us to lash out against anything that seems to threaten them. But as with the crowd in Nazareth, our intense attachment to those things we love can sometimes blind us to the presence of God among us. When we want to cling tightly, God sometimes asks us to let go. When we want to save ourselves and those we love, God tells us that we must lose our lives in order to save them.

And so what might first have seemed like a fairly easy task – all we have to do to make Christ known to the world is to love – suddenly becomes an even more difficult task than using the spiritual gifts we have been given. Paul’s message in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians both simplifies and intensifies his message about the essentials of life in Christian community. “All you need is love,” yes, but the love that he describes is in essence a picture of divine love – the kind of love that we see in Christ but which we see less frequently in ourselves.

As Christians, we are called to imitate and model this kind of love in our lives. But it is important to keep in mind, as we strive to do this, that although we are members of the body of Christ, we are not Christ himself! As limited, finite human beings, we will not be able to manifest fully and completely the selfless, giving love of Christ that Paul describes. And Paul acknowledges this: in our current state of being, he says, we see “through a glass, darkly,” and know “only in part” – the fullness of God’s glory and love and God’s great design for all humanity will not be known to any of us until the next age. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to try – it just means we should be gentle with ourselves and with our neighbors when we fall short of living up to the ideal picture of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

And the good news is that, as Paul describes it, the ability to love like this is a gift – the “greatest” of spiritual gifts. We do not have to, nor are we likely to be able to, love this unselfishly of our own willpower. It is one of those things which, like the vows we make at our baptism, we can only promise to do “with God’s help.” Such love is a true gift of the Spirit, and, as with all things of the Spirit, it requires intentional prayer to cultivate. May we all open ourselves to the work of the Spirit, so that, with God’s help, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

A call to be in community with "the poor"

Sermon delivered Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Franklin, Tenn.

When I was about 16 years old, I started reading the Bible for the first time. Sure, I’d grown up in church – my parents took my sister and me to the local Lutheran church every Sunday – and I’d heard scripture passages read out loud in the service every week, but until I was 16, I don’t think I’d ever actually opened a Bible. When I “got saved” at a youth rally sponsored by a friend’s Southern Baptist church, I came home with a pamphlet of materials about how to nurture my new life in Christ that instructed me to read and study various scripture passages. So I asked my mother, “Um, do you have, like, a Bible I could borrow?” She gave me a small, pocket-sized paperback copy she’d been given in a Sunday School class years ago, and I began to explore, reading voraciously through the New Testament.

But as I read, I began to get a bit uneasy, because the picture I began to get of Jesus didn’t match up very closely with what I’d seen and experienced in church. I noticed that Jesus had spent his ministry being with people considered to be on the margins of his society, but I didn’t see many Christians around me doing similar things in our society. Sure, I had learned through church that being a Christian had something to do with “being a good person” and “helping the less fortunate,” but donating our used clothes to the area thrift store and taking some canned goods to the food pantry didn’t seem to be the same as what I saw Jesus doing in the stories in the Bible: actually being with people – ministering to their needs, yes, but more significantly, being with them, knowing them, loving them. I had never actually met a single person who had benefitted from any of the items my family or church had donated over the years. “The poor” were not part of our church; they were somewhere “out there,” and certainly not “one of us.”

Our passage from the letter of James this morning (James 2:1-17) is about what happens when “the poor” actually show up in church, when they don’t stay safely “out there,” hidden behind the back doors of distribution centers or in alleys beside shelters. It’s about what happens when “the poor” cease to be an abstract statistic and become real people in our midst. It’s about what happens when a person who is exhausted from spending his days sleeping on park benches in the blazing sun because it is too dangerous to sleep at night shuffles in to church and sits down in the back pew. How do those who claim to believe in and follow “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” respond? Do they clutch their purses a little closer? Wrap their arms protectively around their children? Edge uncomfortably away?

James’s words about the sin of partiality and favoritism in the church ring just as true today as they did in the first and second centuries. There seems to be something innate in human societies that leads them to favor the “haves” over the “have nots.” Despite the fact that Jesus spent his ministry caring for and being with those on the margins of society, and despite the centuries-old Jewish tradition of God’s favor and care for the poor that we heard echoed in our passage from Proverbs this morning, the earliest churches – just like churches today – became stratified and segregated according to socioeconomic status. And even in the churches that were or are socioeconomically diverse, those with the most money often wield the most power and command the most respect. Churches might give lip service to Jesus’s teachings about the impossibility of serving God and money (Matthew 6:24) and the teachings in 1 Timothy about the love of money being the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10), but in practice the person “with gold rings and in fine clothes” is often treated better than the “poor person in dirty clothes,” just as the letter of James describes.

Encountering these scriptures for the first time at age 16 and observing some of these dynamics in the churches around me began to open my heart to a deep sense of call to ministry with those on the margins of society, but it wasn’t until nearly 10 years later, while I was living in the Boston area for graduate school, that I began to act on that sense of call.

Through the Episcopal church I was attending at the time, I heard about an outdoor worship service for homeless people in Cambridge, called simply, “The Outdoor Church.” It was an offshoot of a larger gathering in downtown Boston called “common cathedral” that had been started by an Episcopal priest about 10 years before. The rector at my parish went down once a month to the Outdoor Church to help with the service and to share in fellowship with the community there. I remember being in a Christian formation class on a Monday after one of his Sundays at the Outdoor Church and being captivated by his descriptions of his experiences there the previous day. “It really felt like church,” he said.

Not too long after that, I began volunteering weekly with the Outdoor Church. My priest’s words resonated deeply with my own experience: it did indeed “feel like church,” like what I imagined the church was supposed to be. I felt I had finally found a community whose way of life seemed to mirror what Jesus did in the Gospels: being with those on the margins of society, offering them not just care for their physical needs (which we did in the form of sandwiches and socks and jackets), but a sense of belonging and community.

It was through my encounters with the people in that community that I learned how damaging the unspoken concern with appearances in churches can be. Many churches will never have to deal with the hypothetical issue the letter of James presents because no “poor person in dirty clothes” would feel comfortable even walking through the doors of their church. Many people on the streets think they are not “presentable” enough or “worthy” enough to attend church. They worry about how they look or how they smell, and fear of rejection keeps them far from the doors of any church. Simply saying “our church welcomes all people” is not enough to counteract unspoken cultural norms that dictate that people arrive for church clean and nicely dressed, nor does it outweigh the palpable uncomfortable vibe that homeless people can often sense from people in traditional churches if they show up for a regular Sunday service. Communities like the Outdoor Church – and our own Church in the Yard [C.I.T.Y.] here in Nashville – attempt to respond to this dynamic by taking the church to people where they are, on the streets, instead of waiting for “them” to come to “us.” The United Church of Christ minister I worked with at the Outdoor Church used to say that our mission was to “take the church to people who either cannot or will not reach it on their own.”

The Outdoor Church really “felt like church,” I think, because it was a gathering where people were accepted just as they were, where there were no acts of favoritism or preference shown to those who had money over those who did not. It was a community where there were no pressures or expectations to look or act a certain way, but where all people were seen and treated as beloved children of God.

And in that community of faith and belonging, people’s bodily needs were met as well. After Eucharist, we served a meal – just like they do at Church in the Yard. We did not simply say to our brothers and sisters who lack daily food, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,” but we shared a meal with them and helped them find snow boots or jackets when they needed them.

The faith in that community was not the “faith by itself” with no works that James criticizes, but a lively and robust faith manifested in the actions of the members of the community toward one another. The selfless giving and works of faith flowed not just from the people making the sandwiches and donating the jackets, but from our homeless parishioners as well. Our street friends would often make small monetary donations to the Outdoor Church, or give back to us in other ways. I remember a small Latino man in Harvard Square with whom we shared sandwiches every week as he sold his handiwork as a street vendor. Although he spoke almost no English, one of our volunteers was fluent in Spanish and was able to translate for us. His situation was dismal: he had somehow managed to come to the U.S. without the proper paperwork, traveling with friends or relatives and not understanding the legal situation he was getting himself into. He had expected to be able to return to his family in Latin America, but now realized he was unable to leave or to get a job due to his undocumented status, so for the time being he was hand-making beaded items and selling them on the street. Those items were the only source of income he had, but one week he presented to each of us ministers a small, hand-made dreamcatcher, decorated with feathers and beads. “Because you help me,” he said to us in English. I have kept it by my bedside ever since.

Churches whose focus is on the so-called “social gospel” – feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and other “acts of mercy” – often are criticized by so-called “evangelical” Christians for neglecting to “share the Gospel” with those whose physical needs they meet. “Social Gospel” Christians like this passage from James that argues that “faith without works is dead,” while evangelicals prefer Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith… it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

This tension between faith and works and what role “sharing our faith” should play in our outreach work is a constant point of contention between Christians on different ends of this spectrum. A fellow student in one of my religion classes at Furman University once said during a class discussion of the life and work of Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa that “if you feed the poor but don’t tell them about Jesus, it’s like a slap in the face.” I remember thinking that I believed the exact opposite – that the “slap in the face” would be to tell people about Jesus but not provide for their basic needs. But reflecting on this tension now, I don’t think that either extreme is the authentic Christian way. Neither the street corner preacher handing out tracts or the food pantry handing out canned goods is fully living out the Christian call to be in community with the poor. Both approaches require little interaction between the “ministers” and the people they say they are trying to reach. The problem comes largely when we think of “the poor” as an abstract group that we need to do something to rather than fellow human beings and fellow people of faith we need to be in relationship with. We think we need to “give to the poor,” never considering that they have much to give to us. We think we need to “share the Gospel” with others, never considering that the people with whom we aim to share our faith might already know quite a bit about God and be able to teach us something about faith.

The kind of church the letter of James is calling us to be is one where we engage in the mutuality of community, not the inequality of donor and receiver. We are to come together across classes as one body in Christ, and to share with each other whatever we have to share – be it money or faith or skills or knowledge – because everyone has something to contribute to the body of Christ. It is out of that foundation – of recognizing our equality in the eyes of God and the unique contribution of each person to the church and the world – that we move toward providing for one another’s needs in the way that James describes. When we know one another, we won’t be able to not care about the plight of our neighbor, because we will be to each other not abstract statistics or problems to be solved, but brothers and sisters in Christ.

Superfluous miracles and community-building

Today I preached in my Advanced Homiletics class. The assignment was to preach on a miracle text, and I chose the Gospel passage for Proper 13, Year A -- Matthew's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Matthew 14:13-21).

This was a text I'd preached on before, at my sending parish, and I took that sermon and edited and re-shaped it for a slightly different and more focused approach. (You can compare the original sermon here.)  It was an interesting exercise to re-visit a sermon text (even though that wasn't part of the assignment) and attempt to tighten it up for what I hope was a more effective presentation. We've been reading David Buttrick's Homiletic in class, with his emphasis on "moves" rather than "points" in a sermon. I realized that the original sermon had too many "moves" -- it tried to do too much with its dual focus of the community-building of the miracle and the Eucharistic foreshadowing. (This is a common mistake I made in my earliest sermons, I'm realizing.) I also realized that I'd put way too many personal details in that Eucharist section (in the original sermon) about how I got to the quotation that I used. Ultimately I decided to cut the entire Eucharist section and just more fully develop the concept of the "deeper miracle" in the feeding of the five thousand being about creating community.

Our professor says the goal is to get to where we go through this kind of editing process on our sermons before we ever deliver them the first time... and I hope this exercise has helped me to think more clearly about what the "end goal" is for a sermon as I'm writing it the first time. I've also noticed (from watching the video) that the manuscript is a real hindrance to eye contact, even when I've practiced the sermon aloud multiple times before delivery. I think for my next sermon for this class, I'll try preaching without notes and see how that goes!!

Here's a video and the text of the sermon from today:




It sounded like a reasonable request:

"This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."

I mean, wouldn't you have said the same thing? You're standing there looking at a crowd of over five thousand people, realizing that they're going to be getting hungry pretty soon... and all you have is five loaves of bread and two fish... so you figure it's time to wrap up this healing ministry and let them go on their way.

After all, Jesus has already been somewhat “put out” by these people. When the crowds heard that Jesus had withdrawn to a deserted place by himself, “they followed him on foot from the towns.” Although Jesus often invites people to follow him, in this case, he is followed without invitation! Despite his desire for stillness and contemplation, he graciously responds to the crowds and heals their sick. So the disciples must have figured, “Ok, the show's over. We've tended to these people's needs, it's late, Jesus wants to pray already, so let's send these people on back to town.”

An entirely reasonable request, right? But Jesus wasn't done yet. “They need not go away,” he says. Jesus resists the natural human impulse to leave people to tend to their own needs. “You give them something to eat,” he says. In other words, “we will take care of them here.” And then he proceeds to take the disciples' small ration of food and somehow make it more than enough to feed the entire crowd.

So why did Jesus do it? The scripture doesn't say that the crowds were starving or unable to afford their own food - in fact, the disciples’ comments seem to assume that the people are perfectly capable of going back into town and providing for their own needs. Unlike the stories of Jesus healing people who have been suffering for years from physical maladies that no one else has been able to heal, this miracle is, in practical terms, a bit superfluous. Jesus doesn’t have to provide food for the entire crowd. So why does he do it?

Some may say that Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes merely as a show of his divine power, that the reason Jesus performs miracles is to prove that he is God. Other religious leaders may have been inspiring teachers, but they didn’t break the “laws of physics” by magically multiplying food, this argument goes. Only God himself could do that, so Jesus must have been God.

The only problem is that this argument would not have made much sense to the first-century people who wrote this story and preserved it for subsequent generations. Miracles were common among religious leaders and holy men in Jesus’s day, and things we would consider to be “supernatural occurrences” showed up in stories from many different traditions. The early Christian community who preserved this story would not have seen it as evidence of Jesus’s uniqueness.

They also did not tell and re-tell this story to communities of faithful Christians simply because it showed Jesus performing a magic trick. In discerning which of the many stories circulating about Jesus's life would be included in what became our sacred scriptures, the early church always rejected stories about Jesus performing miracles for miracles’ sake – and there were plenty of them out there. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for instance, includes stories of Jesus as a child, zapping his friends with lightning when they disagree with him, or making birds out of clay and then bringing them to life, just for fun. But the church rejected these depictions of Jesus as a reckless superhero.

In the stories they did include in our scriptures, Jesus's miracles are always more than just showy displays of power. In fact, Jesus often tells the disciples not to tell anyone about the miracles he performs, especially in the Gospel of Mark. The Jesus of the New Testament is not an exhibitionist, performing miracles and squealing, "Woooo, look what I can do!!!" Jesus's miracles always have a deeper significance, a meaning and implication for how we are to live our lives in faith.

So what is the significance of the story of the feeding of the five thousand, the only miracle story that appears in all four Gospels in the New Testament? What is the meaning of this “unnecessary” miracle, if not just to show Jesus's power?

Jesus's feeding of the five thousand says something deeply profound about the way we are to approach others in our Christian ministry. We are called not just to respond to immediate needs, but to go the extra mile in creating a space for community. In a culture where your place in society determined who you could eat with, Jesus resists what would have been the natural inclination of the people to go about their separate ways, eating only with those who were considered socially appropriate, and instead creates a space for community between unlikely parties, right there on the hillside. Before the disciples knew what was happening, strangers were breaking bread with strangers, probably sharing stories about how grateful they were that their friend or relative had finally been healed of such-and-such a disease, and beginning to form a community together over a shared meal.

The deeper miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is in Jesus's rejection of the patterns of disconnection in society that say, “let them go off and buy food for themselves” and insisting instead, “They need not go away. We will take care of them here.”

Who are the people our church serves that we might invite into community with us instead of assuming they will go away and take care of themselves after we meet their immediate needs? Who is Jesus calling us to feed, both physically and spiritually?

Imagine something with me, if you will. You’re standing in the food pantry downstairs, sorting and labeling piles of donations. Canned goods on this shelf, cereal on that one. You and the other volunteers brush past one another as you hurry around, getting things ready for the morning’s guests to arrive. At 9 a.m. you open the door to a long line of people, some pushy, some with that end-of-the-month desperation in their eyes. As you begin to hand out bags of groceries, you look each person in the eye. You ask them about how they’re doing and listen to a small part of their story. Instead of just nodding sympathetically, you let them know that there is a community of faith here who will support them in their journey. You promise to pray for them, and invite them to join us for worship on Sunday mornings.

A few weeks later, one of the people from the food pantry shows up on Sunday morning. She attends the 10:30 service and finds you afterwards to let you know how much your invitation meant to her. “The other food pantries in town see me as a number,” she says, “and they assume once I’ve gotten what I need, I’ll go away and deal with the rest of my life myself. But you saw me as a person and you cared about my struggles. So I thought, ok, I’ll see what your church is all about.”

Like Jesus’s feeding of the five thousand, your invitation to this woman to come to church wasn’t necessary. It didn’t meet a physical need that she had. It was, in all practical terms, a bit superfluous. But like that first century Galilean miracle, it saw past practicality and meeting immediate needs to address a deeper need – a need for belonging and spiritual nurture. Your invitation went the extra mile to create a space for community, a community that says unreservedly to all, “You need not go away. We will take care of you here.”

Church of the Holy Trinity/Church in the Yard, Nashville

On Friday, March 4, our urban ministry class visited two locations in Nashville, Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Luke's Community House.

The Church of the Holy Trinity is an Episcopal parish located right outside downtown Nashville, in a more industrial area and just down the street from one of the city's largest homeless shelters. It is an historic church, first established in 1849. In 1907, it was designated as "the" black Episcopal church in Nashville. Now, the church has an average Sunday attendance of about 60 people, most of them retired older African-American people from the area -- many of them former professors at the historically-black universities in the area (Fisk and Tennessee State).

But the story that drew our urban ministry class to visit Church of the Holy Trinity isn't directly connected to what the Rev. Bill Dennler, priest at Holy Trinity, refers to as the "inside congregation." It's the larger and fast-growing "outdoor congregation."

On Sundays at 2 p.m., Church of the Holy Trinity offers an outdoor Eucharist in the church yard, aptly called "Church in the Yard," followed by a community meal. The model is similar to The Outdoor Church I was a part of in Cambridge, Mass., which was a branch of Ecclesia Ministries in Boston, but Trinity's outdoor church is not officially affiliated with Ecclesia.

Trinity's outdoor church was born of a local initiative to feed the homeless started by a local chef at an upscale restaurant in Nashville. He was disturbed by the amount of waste thrown away at the restaurant each night, and wondered why those living on the streets shouldn't be able to have just as fine of a meal as the customers in his high-ticket restaurant. So, he started taking leftovers from dinner each night and creating magnificent concoctions -- soups and stews of all sorts -- and serving them in a back parking lot in downtown Nashville to homeless people.

This went on for a while, but as these things usually do, it drew attention -- and not positive attention -- from the neighbors and the city officials. Soon the officials were telling the chef he couldn't continue to serve these meals in public without a permit. And surely his motley crew of folks didn't meet with federal cleanliness guidelines!

So the priest at Church of the Holy Trinity, Bill Dennler's predecessor, volunteered to help out. "Come hold the meal on our church grounds," he told the chef. "They can't kick you off private property."

So Holy Trinity became the refuge of this renegade chef and his feeding program, and the congregation of Holy Trinity became unwitting hosts to around one hundred homeless and poor people each week. Eventually, the priest decided to start offering a service in addition to the meal, and eventually the church took over providing the meal as well as the worship service. Now, volunteers from churches around the city take turns providing the meals each week, so Holy Trinity is only responsible for one meal per month. Many volunteers from suburban churches welcome the opportunity to come and serve the "urban poor" that they do not see in their own neighborhoods.

The unfortunate part of the story is that the congregation at Holy Trinity was never really consulted in the beginning phases of this partnership, so that they still do not see Church in the Yard as part of "their" ministry as the community of Holy Trinity. From what Fr. Bill Dennler described, the relationship seems to be more of a "tenant-landlord" relationship rather than a sense of ownership over the ministry as a Holy Trinity ministry. Fr. Bill hopes to change that, and says that some people from the "inside congregation" at Holy Trinity have indeed begun to become involved with the outdoor service and meal.

Fr. Bill (second from left) with Vanderbilt nursing students who offer foot care and clean socks to the congregants of Church in the Yard. Photo from Vanderbilt Reporter.

The outdoor church and the outreach to the homeless is an issue near and dear to Fr. Bill's heart: he himself has been homeless, served time in prison, and is a recovering alcoholic, and is open about his past with his congregation. He has a kind of clout with the homeless population because he's "been there, done that," so to speak -- he can relate to the struggles many of them are going through with addition and other destructive behaviors.

The Church in the Yard is growing at much faster rates than the "indoor congregation." While the Sunday morning congregation either remains stable at 60 or is declining, the Sunday afternoon congregation continues to grow exponentially. When we met with Fr. Bill on March 4, he told us that they were currently seeing 100 people for the service, and another 100 people who show up just for the meal afterwards. Church in the Yard is beginning to define Holy Trinity's existence and put it "on the map," so to speak, both for the homeless people in the area and for other churches who want to help with this ministry.

Interestingly enough, Fr. Bill reported that a large number of "young people" from non-denominational churches come to volunteer and unexpectedly, seem to enjoy the Episcopal liturgy. These people are real "prayer warriors," Fr. Bill reported, spending a lot of time in one-on-one intercessory prayer with the homeless people who attend the service.

Our class returned to Holy Trinity on Sunday, March 27, to experience the worship service first-hand. I missed that session, since I am currently doing my field education on Sundays at a church near Sewanee. (I am the only student in the class who is a second-year student in the middle of field education work; the rest are all seniors who are finished with field education and one junior (first-year) student who has not yet started her field education.) However, I had already been to Church in the Yard several times, during my first year at Sewanee.

After meeting Susanna at the "Come and See" weekend at Sewanee when I came to look at the school, and realizing how much she "got it" in terms of outreach to the poor and homeless, I had been in touch with her to see if she knew of any groups in Chattanooga or Nashville that were similar to the outdoor church I'd been a part of in Cambridge. She referred me to Church in the Yard, and my husband and I had attended services there several times. I even thought about doing my field education there as a summer immersion experience, but wound up deciding to try something different -- small-town, small-church ministry -- for my field education instead.

Nevertheless, it was exciting to me to see this kind of ministry happening so close to my new home. Like with Church of the Common Ground in Atlanta, I haven't gotten up to the Church in the Yard as often as I would have liked to during my time here, but visiting a few times, and being back through the visit with our class, has affirmed my sense of calling to this kind of ministry. There's something about seeing a priest celebrate Eucharist outdoors in the midst of a crowd of homeless people that just seems to me to be a living icon of what church is really about.