Author: Rosemary Lovelace

All Saints Sunday – George Yandell

I believe in the invisible. Some years ago in the Memphis paper, a leading nationally televised local preacher responded to a question about the appropriateness of Halloween. The preacher said, “The church appropriated the pagan observance of Samhein [Sow’an] and renamed it “Allhallowmass” and kept its emphasis on the dead. It is not an appropriate observance for Christians because it’s not biblical.”  

That preacher, and many Christians today, turn their backs on the invisible relationships that lie behind how we practice our faith. They want clear, handy explanations given to them. They want it simple, packaged. All hallows/all saints may be hard to understand. It’s all about connectedness. There have been only 69 generations of Christians since the resurrection of Jesus. At any point during those 1993 years the connections could have been severed. The church could have died.  

The word samain in Gaelic means simply “end of summer.” The ancient Celts observed the beginning of winter on this holiday in early November. A very old custom dictated that all folk would put out their hearth fires. Then families kindled a central bonfire and went from hearth to hearth, and from burial chamber to burial chamber, carrying the new fire. Each hearth and family burial chamber had its fire re-kindled from the one flame. The Celts made a communal effort to light the dark against the coming short days and long dark, cold nights. As they processed around their homes, they remembered their ancestors and told the stories of their lives. They kept their dead ancestors alive in the clan through their customs.  

When followers of Jesus came to the British Isles, the Celts learned the stories of Jesus. They immediately recognized that his death and resurrection extended their customs, and they happily converted. They praised the saints who had shown them the power of connecting with Christ and the earth. They recalled their dead friends, and dead enemies as well.   

The Revelation to John was written in the closing decades of the first century CE. By that time Paul and Peter had been executed by the Roman Emperor. Many congregations across the Mediterranean had experienced persecution. The throngs of people of all tribes and languages represent those early followers of Jesus who had lost their lives because of their faith in Him. Their assembly before the throne of the resurrected Jesus was joy-filled. They are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal- “they are before the throne of God and worship God day and night within God’s temple.”  

We live in unity with them as we worship on this All Saints Sunday. The life they experience now is our hope- it has been fulfilled in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We are living in the dawn of the new age of justice and peace, although we haven’t yet cooperated fully enough with God for the new age of peace and justice to prevail. Jesus said it this way: “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, weeping and are hated- rejoice! For your reward is great in God’s kingdom which is coming.”  

The capital S. Saints represent the new age of God’s love and peace on earth. We are living examples of the communion of saints reaching into a new generation of God’s people yearning for God’s peace to prevail. As our vows are renewed when we recite the baptismal covenant, we are linked with those who are being baptized today across the globe- they are the newest members of the Body of Christ.    

The communion of saints is invisible, but for the members of our kinship group gathered here for worship on this holy day. The communion of saints reaches back deep into our history and pre-history. It is all about connecting to power- the power of living in fellowship with one another, with the earth and the universe and our creator.   

The communion of saints honors all who have gone before us and who stand with us now. From the source of all light beyond the heavens, we carry the fire into the world and into the next generation.  Those who worship together with us are the communion of saints concretely for us. They help make the new age move closer.  

I bid you all nourish your curiosity for what lies below, above, within and among us. Let God bind us together in this moment. I bid you seek the invisible power of sainthood that comes from God, however God chooses to offer it. And I bid you seek the power from your spiritual ancestors and help build it your successors, and act in it together.  

All Souls Day – All Faithful Departed – Ted Hackett

Today we are celebrating “All Souls Day”… In the Prayer Book it is called “All the Faithful Departed.” I prefer the old, Medieval term “All Souls” Because I don’t believe that our eternal future all depends on how faithful we are in this life. I know that sounds a little…well…Heretical But for now… let’s leave it at being faithful certainly helps! More about that later…

All Souls’ comes the day after All Saints’ Day… Hallowe’en is All Saints’ Eve… It is the celebration of what early medieval people believed about the dead… They thought the dead who were in an “Intermediate State”… That is those who were not good enough for Heaven but not bad enough for Hell… Came back in ghostly form on All Saints Eve to beg for our prayers… And if we didn’t take pity on them…they would play malicious tricks on us! It started in Ireland in the 19th century and came to this country with Irish immigrants. Which explains my Irish grandmother’s Hallowe’en superstitions!

But we have moved All Saints day… One of the Church’s four main Holy Days…which comes on November first… To the next Sunday after All Souls to make it easier for folks to get to Church… So we’ll do All Saints’ next Sunday…    That’s convenient…but it disconnects Hallowe’en, All Saints’ and All Souls’ day… They really all go together… Because they all deal with the same thing… What is our destiny after Death?

We are not sure when the observation of All Souls started, but it became official in the 10th century when Benedictine monks made it a special day for prayers for those in Purgatory… Purgatory, of course, was a lot like Hell but it didn’t last forever. It was like a painful prison sentence… You went there and were tortured for a certain period of time till you had paid the price of your sins and then you would go on to Heaven….or at least to Paradise to wait for the end of the world when you would finally go to Heaven. That was in Europe… In the Eastern Church, those who were not in Heaven or in Hell were pointed to repentance by a feeling of intense longing and frustration… Like a kid with his nose pressed against the glass of a candy store… They sort of knew what the full presence of God would be like… But for now… Till they repented They were…Excluded!  

Hell in the Eastern Orthodox tradition by the way… Was final separation from God and the Saints… Not fire and brimstone!    Now I am sure you have all that straight… Even though I am a former Professor I won’t give an exam on it! It is kind of interesting though… Kind of like trivia… But does it mean anything to us?

Well…even today… In our skeptical contemporary world… It has a lot to do with death… The death of those we love… And our own death! And death….is inevitable!

But….there is something in us… A still, small voice inside us… A part of us that refuses to accept that death is The end… A part of us … That when we hear the voice of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans say:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor a angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” We want to shout: Yes!…. Death will not be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Yes!…YES!!! My soul says: “YES!”

Paul’s “US” here… Nothing shall separate “US” from the love of God does not mean Paul and me… “Us” means all of us… Everyone… Death shall not separate any of us from the love of God!

Wait a minute… Does that mean no one is damned? No one goes to Hell? That’s easy to swallow for…say my Uncle Louie…a roguish alcoholic who played sort of mean tricks on people… But how about Hitler?…Stalin?… How about Pol Pot…or Putin?

It’s hard to swallow for people like that… It means forgiveness for monsters… And we don’t want to do that… We don’t want to eat the heavenly banquet sitting next to Hitler! But the point is… Hitler…even Hitler will be changed… He will be spend enough time knowing the prospect of love…but excluding himself from it…

That eventually he will genuinely repent… Genuinely change… When I was a young priest, an older nun who I was visiting and I got into a theological discussion… I asked her if she believed in Hell… She nodded solemnly: “Yes Father…I have to…it’s doctrine”… Then she added slyly: “But I don’t have to believe anyone goes there!”

Here’s the thing Sister knew… God is love…That’s the Gospel of John… And God created us to love… To love God…And each other. And if anyone is sentenced to suffering and hatred for eternity… Then God has been defeated…  

And that is not possible! In the end…God is love…. And all shall be love. But what of now? What of death?

Paul says: “Death has no dominion over us…” Very early on, the Church understood that when we die we “Pass over” into death as the people of Israel passed over the Red Sea into freedom … And in death those beloved dead are waiting for us… Now they are unseen…but sometimes they can be felt…felt as present…  A feeling that is part memory…but more that memory…   We are still connected…  Unseen…they are with us… Because God loves them… And created them… And created us…    To live and  To love.

So in a moment we will toll a bell…and light candles. And read the names of those beloved dead…. Knowing that their souls are in the hand of God, Knowing that they are unseen but here… Knowing that we shall be united….

And then we will celebrate that Holy Meal… Knowing that attending at that table… Surrounding us…filling this church… Redeemed in love as we are being redeemed The whole host … All the company of Heaven… Singing and blessing us…. Blessed be those who come in the name of the Lord!     

As the bell tolls… As we come to the Eucharist… The promise of the heavenly banquet… Let us know the love of God… And the love of all the Saints… And know that in Christ Jesus… Nothing and no one… shall be lost… Alleluia!

Proper 25A – George Yandell

Today’s gospel has Jesus stating the great commandment of the Law: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ In short- Love God totally with your whole self.  He added, ‘A second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ and summed them up, ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ It is striking that Jesus was asked for one command and delivered two. He doesn’t mean that loving neighbor is similar to the first command, but is of equal importance and inseparable from the first. To love God is to love neighbor and vice versa. [The 3 sentences above adapted from The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol.8, p. 426, Abingdon Press, 1994.] Love passionately.  

When Christians use the word love with reference to God, to the deepest of human relationships, and toward the world, ‘love’ comes from the understanding of God’s nature as made known in Jesus. As it is revealed in the crucified and resurrected Jesus, we come to know love as unmotivated and unmanipulated, unconditional and unlimited. This love is not a feeling, but is commitment and action. [ibid. p. 425]  

Loving this way is sacramental- love is to be the outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace-filled response to God loving us, and it’s demonstrated with actions of love to God and neighbor. If there are no outward manifestations of love, the sacrament is void.   

The word ‘sacrament’ comes from the Latin ‘sacramentum’, meaning ‘pledge’. Sacramentum in turn translates a Greek word, ‘musterion’ which meant ‘mystery.’ Our word sacrament holds both the Latin and Greek meanings side by side- mystery and pledge- the mystery of God’s grace combined with our pledge to love God and neighbor transforms us into living sacraments.   

St. Augustine once said, “The spiritual value of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.” By Augustine’s simile and by our own observation, people today might talk about sacramental love, but rarely act it out- the inward and spiritual grace is missing, so loving actions are all too rare.   

Listen to how Paul addresses the fellowship of Jesus in Thessalonica both in last week’s reading and today: “Paul, Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians: We give thanks to God for all of you, constantly remembering your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ… We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the good news of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” They were living out the sacrament of Christ-love, and had inspired the fellowship to do the same. They had lost their old lives and lived resurrection lives.   

“For many of us, the life we need to lose is life lived for self. The life we shall then find is that of the self embedded in community. A community that connects us not only to other people but to the natural world as well. No wonder resurrection is so threatening; it forces us to abandon any illusion we may have that we are in charge of our own lives…..accountable to no one but ourselves. Resurrection requires that we replace that illusion with the reality we all rise and fall together, that we have no choice but to live in, with and for the entire community of creation.” [from The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring by Parker Palmer, 1990, Jossey-Bass Press, p.156]  

Living resurrection lives means we come together to renew our pledge- our pledge to love sacramentally for God and neighbor. We put flesh on that pledge through our giving to God through the fellowship of Jesus. No wonder we call an annual estimate of giving a ‘pledge’ to God. In a few weeks, we’ll all gather for Pledge Consecration Sunday. Each of us will be offered an estimate of giving card for 2024. It is a resurrection action we take individually for the whole community- our pledges make concrete the sacrament of love Jesus summed up- Love God, love neighbor as self in community. We participate in the mystery of Christ-love. It is made concrete, and we are transformed into new life.  

George Yandell

In Jesus’ day the people of Galilee had only recently come under Jerusalem’s rule. Previously they had not owed tithes & other dues to the temple. The peasants in Galilee had borne the brunt of repeated Roman conquests of Palestine, with major massacres in the areas of Nazareth, Magdala & Capernaum around the time of Jesus’ birth. After Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, the Romans had imposed his son  Herod Antipas as ruler. He was the first ruler in history to live in Galilee. He pushed tax collections with rigor. He followed his father’s practice of massive building projects & constructed two new Galilean capital cities in a 20-year period. His construction efforts imposed a crushing economic drain on the peasants in Galilee precisely during the lifetime of Jesus. Radical Pharisees & other teachers spearheaded a refusal to render the Roman tribute, claiming that God was their true & only Lord & Master. These movements, along with the kingdom movement of Jesus, show that the ancient Israelite traditions of popular resistance & independence were very much alive in Judea & Galilee at the time of Jesus. (adapted from Jesus & Empire: The Kingdom of God & the New World Disorder, Richard Horsley, 2003, pp. 85-86.)  

Why don’t you pull out a coin or bill?  What do you see? [LIBERTY- & In God we trust] & [e pluribus unum= out of many, one] & whose images? // The inscriptions & images kind of tell our story as a nation, don’t they?  

When the Pharisees got supporters of Herod’s rule to join with them in trapping Jesus, they displayed the denarius used for buying & selling, & paying taxes- steep taxes. Carrying Roman coinage in the Jerusalem temple was forbidden. Roman money was supposed to be exchanged for Jewish temple money before Jewish worshippers entered the temple. The typical denarius of Tiberius Caesar’s day had his portrait on the front side with the saying “Great High priest” above his head, & the Latin inscription “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son of the Divine Augustus” on the reverse side. The coins of Rome told the story of their rule- the Emperor is God, & High Priest. That was the collision point.  The people with Jesus in the temple saw something much more than a coin. They saw the symbol of their oppression, their poverty, their lack of meaningful work. They saw the collusion between the Jewish authorities & the Roman occupiers. They saw Pharisees handling money poisoned by leaders who deserted the teachings of Judaism & grew rich with their Roman overlords.   

The Pharisees knew all that. Their movement called Jews back to radical observance of the laws God had given the Hebrew people. They wanted an intensified Judaism that could free the Jews from bondage under yet one more empire that diluted their radical faith in the one true God.   

In traveling with Jesus, his disciples had witnessed throughout Galilee & Judea the rapid Romanizing of the kingdom of Herod Antipas. Herod had built an entirely new city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, called Tiberius in honor of the newly installed emperor. Herod Antipas had also expanded the town of Sepphoris, near Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. Galilee had never seen any towns of this size or so pretentious. The Jewish backwater area of Galilee had small farms. The peasant farmers grew a number of crops with which they supported themselves. In order to support his massive development programs, Herod seized small farms for delinquent taxes & bound them together, displacing families. The large farming co-ops produced a select few crops for export, thus filling Herod’s & Tiberius’ coffers, making the peasants even poorer & hungrier. Before their eyes the disciples witnessed unheard-of change & increasing poverty for all the Jews in the region.  

So what does this mean for us?  Listen again: “The Pharisees went & plotted to entrap him Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, & teach the way of God in accordance with truth, & show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” & they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, & whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, & to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; & they left him & went away.”   

Do you hear the saying differently? I know I do. We don’t hear the emperor’s title said out loud- it was the 1000-pound gorilla in the exchange.  The Pharisees meant to entrap Jesus against the supporters of Herod they’d brought with them.   

They were running a political action to push their cause of tax withholding, because they could worship only the God of Israel. & Jesus turned the whole scene upside down.  His followers didn’t have two coins to rub together, so they might have laughed when Jesus suggested they give their due to Emperor Tiberius. But more than that, he challenged the Pharisees & Herod’s supporters to examine where their true allegiance lay.    

The disciples of Jesus could quote the words he taught. They had seen his miracles first-hand. They knew the sound of his voice, saw the light dance in his eyes. They had seen his face do whatever his face did when he saw human suffering. They knew his touch. If they were at all perceptive, they knew his personality, the way he processed ideas, his sense of himself as a Jew. They knew far more than we will ever be able to know. Yet they didn’t begin to know enough. They had no idea what joining with Jesus would do to them.  

You & I are all too familiar with, & probably tired of, the politics of today: Cater to everyone with power, with suasion, & everyone who is undecided. The politics of Jesus means deciding to be willing servants for the whole culture, nourishing justice in all our relationships. That’s what I grew up hearing- people who undertake public office are servants, not people in league with the power-brokers. They are to serve the public good.  In Godwe trust.  

Former Bishop of Atlanta Bennett Sims says in his book Servanthood: “Jesus never coerces. Instead it is his concise insistence by word & deed that greatness lies in giving — superiority is embodied in serving.”   

Bp. Daniel Corrigan years ago suggested adding one more to the four dismissals at the end of the Eucharist — “Get up, get out, & get lost in the world!” He suggests we serve by listening. Listen to that colleague at work or home or ballpark who’s up to her elbows in misery, trying to figure out how to make ends meet. We serve by caring. Care for the one who gropes not for answers but for working solutions. We serve by persuading. Tell your next-door neighbor that you know about a place where she can get loved until she can discover how to love herself. Let her ‘in’ to the servant community called out to be ‘church.’ We serve by pooling our resources, pledging and giving for the work of God’s kingdom in our time and place. That’s how servanthood can work for us. It’s what Jesus intends. 

St. Francis Propers – George Yandell

Often called the Parable of the Great Supper (Matthew 22:1-14), this gospel passage is difficult- all the invited guests refuse to come at the last minute. The King/host in turn rounds up a bunch of street people who never imagined themselves at the kind of party the host is throwing. As a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, it suggests that the fellowship of Jesus is open to all sorts of folk, and the original guests invited to the wedding banquet who decided at the last minute not to attend (with puny excuses) are held accountable for killing the hosts’ slaves who carried the invitation. Matthew is using the parable as an allegory about the fellowship growing beyond the Galilean peasants who were the original 12 disciples to include all sorts and conditions of folks, many Gentiles as well as Jews. The growing fellowship of Jesus began to get push-back from the Jewish leaders who collaborated with the Roman occupation, and like Jesus, they put many to death in the decades that followed Jesus’ resurrection. It’s a very troubling message.  

Read as an allegory about the history of salvation, God is the king who prepares a feast for God’s son. The king invites his subjects, Israel, to the banquet. They treat the invitations lightly or kill the king’s servants, the prophets. The king destroys their city, Jerusalem, and invites others (foreigners) to the feast. This story is alien to Jesus. It has been completely “Christianized” and looks back to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Those in the allegorical interpretation are those who join the community of Jesus but turn out not to be fit and so are expelled, like the one who got into the feast poorly dressed and without an invitation- he is bound and thrown into the place of utter darkness where he and others weep and grind their teeth. [This paragraph adapted from The Five Gospels, p. 235, Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Polebridge Press, 1993.]  

In the Book of Common prayer in use in the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, there was an exhortation to be read before Holy Communion. It alludes to the parable in these words: “The Holy Sacrament being so divine and comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them that will presume to receive it unworthily; my duty is to exhort you in the mean season to consider the dignity of that Holy Mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receipt thereof; and so search your own consciences that ye may come holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast, in the marriage garment required by God in Holy Scripture, and be received as worthy partakers of that Holy Table.”  [From Preaching the New Lectionary, p. 260, Reginald Fuller, 1971, the Order of St. Bendict.]  

Matthew’s gospel was probably in its final form by 85 CE, 55 years or so after Jesus’ death and resurrection. By that time the followers of Jesus had dispersed across the whole Mediterranean basin, into Europe and even India. If we read the passage from Philippians beside the gospel, we hear Paul’s voice from just 20 years after Jesus’s resurrection.  

Philippians was written from Paul in prison, or as the Greek literally says, ‘in chains.’ He was in military custody in Ephesus, chained to a soldier.  His position was precarious. Everything depended on what his friends could do, what his jailers would allow, how humanity might prevail over cruelty. In his letter to the Philippians he tells them, “It has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ.” Paul is imprisoned by the official provincial representative of the Senate and People of Rome at Ephesus, in Asia. Throughout the letter Paul vacillates between life and death, deliverance and execution, but hope always triumphs over despair. “Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or death. For to me living is Christ and dying is gain.” [These two paragraphs adapted from In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, pp. 272-273, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, Harper San Francisco, 2004.]  

He speaks with love for his companions in spreading the news of Jesus. And the word he speaks to those in Philippi is ‘Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord always. The Lord is near, don’t worry about anything. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Keep on doing the things you have learned and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.’  

Paul is talking about a Spirit-transplant. The Spirit of Jesus has been infused into him and all those in the fellowship. The byword for him is IN CHRIST JESUS. Paul as a mystic means he’s IN JESUS, BODY AND SPIRIT. When the Spirit of Jesus gets into Paul’s body, Paul’s ego will end up dead. It is an organic mystical identity- he has taken on the character of Jesus.   

“In Christ” was the characteristic expression of his faith. The Spirit had transplanted the character of God’s heart into Paul. It is simple, appalling and scary—that’s why there’s fear and trembling in Paul- Paul as a mystic had his life replaced by the life of Christ. [These two paragraphs from Dom Crossan’s lecture, 6/15/05, Portland OR] He wished, prayed and worked that everyone would be IN CHRIST.  

If you consider all we do in our worship, fellowship, learning and serving the wider community, this is the goal of our faith journey- to be In Christ. For some of us this mystical experience comes in a flash, and we change course immediately, like Paul did. For others of us, being In Christ is a journey, a series of life experiences that open us to the life-giving Spirit of Jesus. That’s why we come week in and week out to worship, to receive the body and blood of Christ, to live in fellowship with our companions. It’s the mystical presence Jesus had promised when he said after his resurrection, “I am with you always.” Period. Amen. 

St. Francis Propers – George Yandell

Although not unique, Koko the gorilla was one of the few non-humans known to keep pets. She had been taught American Sign Language. Researchers at the Gorilla Foundation said that Koko asked for a cat for Christmas in 1983. Ron Cohn, a biologist with the foundation, explained to the Los Angeles Times that when she was given a lifelike stuffed animal, she was less than satisfied. She did not play with it and continued to sign “sad”. So on her birthday in July 1984, she was able to choose a kitten from a litter. Koko selected a gray male Manx from a litter of abandoned kittens and named him “All Ball”. Dr. Penny Patterson, who had custody of Koko and organized the Gorilla Foundation, wrote that Koko cared for the kitten as if it were a baby gorilla. Researchers said that she tried to nurse All Ball and was very gentle and loving. They believed the kitten, and her skills gained through playing with dolls, would be a tool to help Koko learn how to nurture an offspring.  

In December of that same year, All Ball escaped from Koko’s cage and was hit and killed by a car. Later, Patterson said that when she signed to Koko that All Ball had gone, Koko signed “Bad, sad, bad” and “Frown, cry, frown, sad”. Patterson also reported later hearing Koko making a sound similar to human weeping.  

In 1985, Koko was allowed to pick out two new kittens from a litter to be her companions. The animals she chose, which she later named “Lipstick” and “Smokey”. They were also Manxes like All Ball. [The above from Wikipedia.]  

Fred Rogers wanted to meet Koko the gorilla, who had often watched “Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood.” When they met, the huge gorilla gave the diminutive Rogers a big hug, then took off Mister Rogers’s shoes.

It is only too easy to think of a neighborhood more as a place than as a relationship, more realty than reality. In our better moments, we might even call it an outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual reality. Then maybe we’d be on to something. We err when we so often make the church a remote shrine above it all for our protection.  

Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood is as good a metaphor for the church as I can imagine. If it’s not, we should pray to become a neighborhood where we can discover not only our own humanity and begin to fulfill it, but where we can discover the unity of all beings. Maybe we could dare to become more human precisely as our fear is dispelled, and to do so by the grace God gives us to love, not walk away from, our neighbors, whether human or not.  

And of course, this is how Francis of Assisi lived Church: all beings included in the fellowship of God, with Jesus at its center.

It is the Church’s work to lead people into reconciliation and truth. Fred Rogers was a pastor and prophet, perhaps one of the finest. Wouldn’t it be a gift to the world if we become a Mister Rogers neighborhood where fear is no more?  

Perhaps Koko and Mr. Rogers give us a clue. Why not before each Holy Family gathering we all just give one another a big hug, take off our neighbor’s shoes, and dance?  [The above adapted from a sermon by Lane Denson in 2003.]  

St. Francis would have been delighted to meet Koko. His simple faith understood that God was present in all creatures, in all of creation. He left very few writings but his ‘Canticle of the Sun’ emphasizes his joyful spirit and profound faith:  

“Most High, omnipotent, good Lord,  

To thee be ceaseless praise outpoured,  

And blessing without measure.  

Let creatures all give praise to thee  

And serve in great humility.”  

I want to offer you a prayer from Joan Chittister that Susan found.  

A Prayer for Animals (by Joan Chittister)   Great God, you have gifted us with a presence in our lives to save us from ourselves. You have given us animals whose lives speak to us of devotion and heart of patient endurance of the power of faithful presence and of love without reason.  

Give us, great and gentle God, the caring appreciation of those creatures who model for us your companionship and protection as well as your personal care. We have seen in them, loving God, the stability of commitment and the greatness of trust that we owe you.  

For the joy they have brought us and the faith in humanity they have shown us, we thank you, our God.  

In them we sense the goodness of the cosmos, the graciousness of your creation, and insight into the sacredness of our own animal nature. For that we are forever grateful.  

Tempted to take the creatures of the world for granted, inclined to treat them more as property than present signs of your life and love, give us the grace, O God, to forever care for them as you have cared for us.  

We see in them living signs of the network of nature of which we are only a part. May you, great God who made them, reward them with good caretakers with bright sun and days of play with a comfortable old age with the love they deserve for having so faithfully loved us.  

Give us vision to squander our love on others as they have squandered theirs on us. For all of them, great God, we give you thanks and see the glory of you glowing in them, as well. Amen.

Proper 21A – George Yandell

I want to talk about a woman who led an entire Roman colony to faith in Jesus. And how the congregation in her house witnessed to their faith and led to creating numerous other congregations across the northern Mediterranean.  

After Paul first arrived in Philippi, he and Silas went down to the river on the Sabbath day, supposing there was a place of prayer there. They found a group of women gathered by the river, probably near the synagogue, and they spoke to them. Acts says, “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from [a nearby village] and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” Lydia became the first European convert to the Way of Jesus, @ 49 CE (Acts 16:13-40).

Lydia was a businesswoman who sold purple cloth, a luxury item.  Her business would have put her in contact with the wealthy. (Women’s Bible Commentary, Newsom/Ringe, 1998, p. 400) Acts describes her as a “god-worshipper.” This means she was a Gentile/ Greek speaker attracted to Jewish synagogue worship. She sympathized with the Jews. “God-worshippers” were the major targets of Paul’s missionary work. He regularly sought them out when coming to a new city. God worshippers had decent knowledge of Hebrew scripture, and often were patrons of the local synagogue.  The use of Lydia’s personal name suggests she enjoyed high social status among free persons and merchants. Maybe she was widowed or divorced with some wealth. She was the head of her own household. Her whole household was baptized by Paul and Silas, meaning both slaves and immediate family members. Lydia’s home served as the first meeting place for the church in Philippi. 

Philippi sat right on the major east-west Roman road, completed some 130 years before Jesus was born. It was also near by a major port linking Byzantium to Italy. Thus Philippi had become a major stopping point on the way to and from Rome. This was the road Paul traveled on his first missionary journey into Greece. The congregation he started there was the first Christian fellowship in Greece.  

Paul loved the Jesus fellowship at Philippi. They were mostly people living in poverty, with some members of means, like Lydia. When Paul wrote this letter to them, followers of Jesus in their province had undergone persecution. In spite of their despair over losing members of their fellowship, they had continued to be generous in giving. They supported other congregations where Paul was active, all across the northern Mediterranean basin.   

Evidently the congregation had been suffering adversity and disunity from threats from outside its membership. Paul calls them back to unity and humility based on the story of Christ. The passage we heard just now is one of the most sublime in all of the NT. Scholars think Paul was quoting to them a Christ hymn they knew well. They might even have jumped in and started singing it with Epaphroditus as he read Paul’s letter to them. Let me re-read it, 2:6-11:  

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

This is the earliest Christian hymn we know: The first half tells the story of Jesus’ incarnation, his refusal to exploit his divine status or power. It tells about his becoming not merely human, but a slave, his life as one of the humiliated, and his obedience to God, leading to his death on the cross. The second half asserts his being exalted, his receiving the name above all names, and his universal lordship. In these short five verses the hymn tells the whole story of God’s saving the world through Christ, that the Philippians now live in the new creation of God. The words also told them how to live in union with the mind of Christ.  The unity of the congregation is rooted in the story of Jesus and maintained in practices that show forth Christ’s way.   (The above adapted from The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3, p. 736, and vol. 4, pp. 501, 505.)  

We can take a lesson from Lydia. As we live out the Way of Jesus, we are to be tuned to the mind of Christ. The story of Jesus, maintained with practices that show forth Christ’s glory, are the method for ministry today as they were 1974 years ago in Phillipi. We are to offer ourselves, our homes, as servants. We’re to practice self-emptying love, and sing joyfully about the transformation Jesus has worked in our midst.  

Like Lydia, we are God’s reconciling co-workers; we are God’s co-conspirators in reconciling the world to Christ; we seek to demonstrate what it looks like to be spiritually and socially reconciled individuals and communities in the Spirit of the risen Christ.  

This ministry of reconciliation gives us a vibrant new identity, according to Paul. We are not merely religious insiders huddled in stained glass ghettoes, nor are we religious outsiders living without reference to the living God. But instead we are God’s peace ambassadors, insiders who intentionally move outside to plead with others to be reconciled to God.  

So we plead with them to rethink everything and follow the way of Jesus. We plead with them based on the good news that in Christ, God is offering amnesty for all offenders, whatever they’ve done, whoever they’ve been. We plead with people to stop being part of the problem, and to join God in Christ as agents of the solution, so God’s will can indeed be done on earth as it is in heaven. (The 3 paragraphs above from Brian McLaren’s sermon at the Episcopal Convention, 2009)

Pentecost 17 – Ted Hackett

Today’s Gospel…usually called “The Laborers in the Vineyard”

…is one of Jesus’ best-known parables,

… But also one of his most baffling… It is a story Jesus told… And it seems…frankly….unfair….

The story goes that it’s harvest time…and this guy who owns a vineyard needs day-workers to pick grapes… He goes to the market early in the morning and hires some guys. They agree on a denarius…a fair wage for that time…and off they go to pick grapes.

It was hot…there were a lot of grapes and the work went more slowly than usual… So the owner went out again…at noon and again at 3:00 and found men at the market and hired them. He told them he’d pay them what they were worth… At five o’clock….there were still grapes on the vines…so the owner went out to the market again and found some guys hanging around and told them to go pick grapes. He’d pay them whatever was fair.

Twilight closed in, the grapes were in a wagon and the guys lined up for their pay… The ones who came at five…got a denarius… And so did others… But when the ones who started work at dawn….and worked in the Palestinian heat all day came up… They …quite naturally… expected more… After all…it was only fair! They had worked for 12 hours In the sweltering sun… And the lazy louts who only put in a couple of hours got as much as they did!

Wouldn’t it be fairer to give the late-comers less than a denarius and maybe the all-day guys a little bonus? After all…fair is fair… Furthermore…business being business… Come the next harvest time…this land-owner is not likely to find field hands till late afternoon! This is not only really unfair…it’s stupid business-practice! And if Jesus’ parables are supposed to be about God… They are not supposed to reward unfair stuff, are they?

Grim old John Calvin took note of this problem… And his answer was that this story was about the power and majesty of God. God predestined everyone for heaven or hell.. And that proved God’s power. God didn’t have to be fair…

But we are not 17th century Presbyterians… We do not have an easy answer for this apparent contradiction in God’s behavior… But there it is…in this and other parables Jesus told… Think for instance of the Prodigal Son… The kid who squandered his father’s fortune apparently is rewarded by getting a share of his hard-working brother’s inheritance… The crooked tax-collector gets rewarded and the really righteous Pharisee is left to work out his own salvation… The parable of the lost sheep….in which the shepherd leaves his flock untended and goes to find the lost one….which means the rest of the sheep…being stupid, sheep…will all wander off! Then in another place, Jesus tells the story of a steward who was embezzling his boss’s money. The boss finds out and fires him. The embezzler then goes and makes illegal deals with those who owe money…and pockets the money. Jesus…compliments this con-man for being shrewd!

How do we make sense out of this?… Jesus telling stories about stupidity…about unfair behavior…about dishonesty…. being wonderful! How do we make sense of Jesus approving of unfair behavior?

How do we make sense of Jesus seeming to condone…even praise…selfish, self-destructive behavior?       If we taught our kids that kind of stuff… People would think of we were simply bad parents!  I mean… Jesus seems to be saying that the way to salvation… Is through either stupidity or… dishonesty!

What kind of Christian teaching is that? It may turn out not to be what it seems… Though it also may wind up seeming really, really strange! First of all, I will let you in on a secret in plain sight… When we are interpreting the New Testament words of Jesus, we should always take account of the context in which Jesus is talking… And that context is first-century Palestine Occupied by the Romans … The Jews were conquered and… humiliated. They were looking for a Messiah

A figure sent from God to liberate them… A messiah to establish the Kingdom of God… To make good on God’s promises to Israel.

There were different ideas of how this Kingdom would come… By violent uprising against the Romans…Led by a Messiah… Or by God sending armies of Angels…led by a messiah… Or by Jewish prayers being mysteriously answered and the Romans just going home. But the question that was in the back of every Jewish mind was: “How will it be with the Kingdom of God when it   comes?”… “What will the Kingdom be like?” And that is the question we should always hear whenever Jesus speaks: “How will it be with the Kingdom of God?” And that is the question that hangs around in the background every time we read the Bible…

The Kingdom is where an unforgivable traitor is forgiven…no questions asked. The Kingdom is where no sinner can be lost… The kingdom is where rebellious sinners are welcomed home, forgiven and restored to the family, no questions asked! The Kingdom is where lazy sinners find they are loved…and rewarded…no questions asked! That…THAT…says Jesus… Is what the Kingdom of God is like.

It is no wonder the Jewish establishment was offended! It is no wonder good Jews who worked hard to keep the Law were outraged! In fact…I find it disconcerting and upsetting. It contradicts the whole way I see the world! But…the more I think about it…the more I kind of like it… In fact…the more I think about it… The more I let it sink in… The more I kind of grin… The more I find…I love it… The lost sheep in me…is not lost… The lazy, corner-cutter in me…is declared O.K. The rebellious kid in me who doesn’t give a darn about family or anyone else… Is welcomed home and restored to full communion in the family! When I let myself…I know… Those sinners in Jesus’ stories…are really us… And Jesus is telling us… We are loved. We are restored… And we are free … Free even to know we are loved… Sinners that we all are!   God predestined everyone for heaven or hell.