Letting go of the past

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15

Luke 7:36-8:3

Two monks were on a pilgrimage. They came to a wide river, and there on the bank was a beautiful but scantily clad young woman. She too needed to cross the river but there was no bridge and no boat. So one monk picked her up and carried her across. He put her down on the other side and the monks continued their journey. After about half an hour, the other monk couldn’t contain himself, “How could you?” he shouted. “How could you, a monk sworn to chastity, carry a woman like that?” The other replied, “Brother I put her down half an hour ago, but you are still carrying her.”

Forgiveness. Letting go of the past. It’s at the very core of Christian spirituality. Whatever you believe, if you are a follower of Christ, forgiveness, love and compassion are at the very center of your life and practice.

Jesus visits the home of Simon of Pharisee, and to Simon’s disgust a woman comes in who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair and then anoints them. Simon is disgusted because this is not the way things are done. As far as he is concerned, the woman is a sinner – she is unclean – and Jesus is letting her touch him in a very intimate way. Simon is critical and judgmental whereas Jesus is allowing and loving. Simon sees the outer, Jesus sees the inner essence of the woman.

Hearing his criticism, Jesus asks one of his famous questions… two men went to a loan shark who, in an unprecedented move, offered to write off their debt. One man owed $500, the other just $50. Which one was the more grateful? “Well” replies Simon reluctantly, knowing that there’s trap in there somewhere, “the one who owed more, I suppose.” You’re right,” says Jesus. Of course you, as a Pharisee, don’t need much forgiveness so of course you aren’t as loving as this woman who has shown me hospitality with her own body and done everything you didn’t – washed, dried and anointed my feet.

And of course the irony here is that there are no degrees in sin – in Romans we hear “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. In God’s eyes Simon has sinned just as much or as little as the woman. But Simon is stuck in his criticism and his self-righteousness whereas the nameless woman is moved to tears by her gratitude and her love for God in Jesus. She allowed the knowledge of God’s love to touch her and move her and she responded with gratitude and love expressed through her emotions, her body and her gifts.

We are forgiven. We are totally and absolutely forgiven, no ifs, ands or buts…

If we are forgiven, why is it often so hard for us to forgive others? Like the monk who couldn’t let go of his anger at his brother, we continue to carry heavy loads around in our minds and hearts. And those knots of un-forgiveness tie up our energy and slow us down. Imagine for a moment that we get up everyday with 50 units of energy to spend. For one person the weight of un-forgiven past that she is carrying uses perhaps 5 units of energy and so she only has 45 to spend on today, but for another the weight is much greater and eats up 25 units so she only has 25 units available for living today. Forgiveness is not only a spiritual imperative because we follow the one who is forgiveness, but it makes practical sense. How can you live in today if you’re dragging yesterday around like a ball and chain?

In the first reading, we heard about one of David’s big outrageous sins. He fancied Bathsheba and so he had her husband Uriah sent into the front line of battle without back-up. When Uriah was killed, David took Bathsheba for his own wife. The prophet Nathan made him see that he had misused his power to oppress another, and that that had consequences. Unlike the ancients, I don’t think that the baby died because David sinned. God does not punish us. Illness happens, tragedy happens, it’s part of life in this world. But I do know that sin often has real-time consequences.

In fact, I used to wonder why it really mattered that God forgives us since it didn’t make things magically better. If I lose my temper then however much I know that God forgives me, I still have to deal with whoever I lost my temper with. God forgives us again and again but we still get to deal with the consequences of our actions or inactions.

The trick, I think, is in forgiving myself. If God forgives me, then why should I not forgive myself? In fact, it might even be rather arrogant to go on accusing myself when God has already forgiven me.

Once I have accepted God’s forgiveness and forgiven myself, then I am like the monk who put the woman down. I can move on. I can deal with the consequences of my behavior without the added burden of self-accusation.

A couple of days ago I needed an important document in a hurry. I have many large stacks of papers containing things I hope to get around to dealing with, some important like unpaid bills, others less so, like book catalogs I want to peruse just in case I need another book. So there were many untidy places where this document could be. As I searched I berated myself with how annoying it was that I couldn’t keep my papers in better order, that I would be so much more efficient if I just put things away in the right place and on and on… until I heard myself. I realized that my inner conversation was not helping, in fact it was getting in the way of my finding the document.

When I can approach the clutter and mess in my office with the equanimity that comes from accepting God’s forgiveness and forgiving myself, then I can deal with what’s there without the anxiety and recrimination that makes it much harder to get anything done.

Often, forgiveness does not come easily. Especially when we have made it a lifetime’s habit not to forgive ourselves, or not to forgive our father or whomsoever we blame for the inadequacies and disappointments of our lives. It’s also especially difficult to forgive when someone has injured you in a major way. In those times when an injury or injustice is too recent or too ingrained to be forgiven quickly, we can offer our willingness to forgive. If, whenever the problem comes to mind, we cannot say “I forgive…” we instead say “I am willing to forgive…” then before long that willingness will turn to forgiveness. And with forgiveness will come greater equanimity and grace.

Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

The gentle and humble in heart can see themselves clearly, knowing their persistent faults and shortcomings and, being gentle with themselves, can also be gentle and humble with others.

So let us respond to God’s great gift of unconditional love and forgiveness, by disarming our critical selves, and embracing forgiveness and generous self-giving love.

Inner or Outer?

1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43

Galatians 1:1-12

Luke 7:1-10

I struggled with today’s sermon because there are two different possibilities that called to me.

The first possibility was to consider the “foreigner”. In today’s first reading, Solomon has built a temple for God whose presence, signified by the Ark of the Covenant, has been living in a tent. Now he has built a temple to be the house of God forever, and the reading is part of his prayer of consecration. It’s quite a long prayer in which Solomon asks God to show favor to the people of Israel and forgive them when they sin. We only heard the section in which he asks that God will also hear the prayers of foreigners who turn to him and pray towards the temple.

The second reading is the very beginning of the book of Galatians. We’ll be hearing from this letter several times in the next few weeks. Paul wrote to the people of Galatia about the vexed question of whether foreigners had to become Jewish in order to be Christian. Some people were saying you had to convert to Judaism in order to be part of Christ but Paul was adamant that God’s grace is freely available to everyone through Jesus.

Then in the gospel reading, Jesus is speaking through intermediaries with a Roman centurion – an officer in charge of one hundred men. Jews usually had as little to do with Gentiles as possible… There were Gentiles.  And there were Jews.  The Jews were God's chosen people.  And the Gentiles were not.  Jews ate clean food.  Gentiles ate unclean food.  And God only knew what other detestable things Gentiles did.  Yes, there were good Gentiles, like the centurion.  They believed in God and they tried to follow God.  But they were still Gentiles.  The law said that a clean Jew, who observed the law, could not enter the house of an unclean Gentile who did not observe the law.  The law also said that while an unclean Gentile could enter the outer court yard of the temple, the Gentile could not go inside the temple.  That was the law.  That was the natural order of things.[1]

But Jesus was heading towards a Gentile’s house. And that Gentile stopped him, saying that he did not need to come – he could just say a word and the slave would be healed. Jesus responded that he hadn’t found such strong faith anywhere in Israel.

Gentiles, foreigners, are a big issue in this country but we call them immigrants. When things go wrong it’s easy to blame “immigrants” with their different ways and different languages. It’s easy to say that they’re taking the jobs, that they’re causing the economy to tank, even when the evidence is quite the opposite. Especially here in California we need migrant agricultural workers and migrant workers in our hotels and motels. Where would the hospitality industry be without them?

There is an important immigration bill in Congress right now. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t include gay or lesbian households. But it may be the best that we can do right now to try to improve a system which leaves people trapped miles away from their families for years; which allows workers to be exploited and made to work in circumstances no American would put up with; which makes desperate and hopeful people try to cross the border despite the possibility of injury or death because there is no accessible, legally agreed way for them to come.

Jesus didn’t avoid immigrants. In fact in today’s reading he holds one up as an example of faith. Paul went so far as to say that in Christ there is no longer Gentile and Jew. In Christ all ethnic divisions disappear because we are made one through our baptism.

As Christians we are called to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. That means treating people of every ethnic group with respect. It means trying to help those who are injured by our system. And it means working to change the system so that there may be justice for those on whom we depend for our food and our prosperity. There’s a meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Church next Sunday evening to start organizing a local faith lobby to work towards making sure that an immigration law is passed by this Congress which is fair and equitable.

So that’s one possible sermon. I could also talk about how we all experience ourselves as foreigners from time to time and how as a faith community we can be sensitive to those who are different. I could mention that it’s always easier to talk to people we understand and people who we know well, but that God calls us to step outside our comfort zone and connect with those who are quite different from us. And that includes here, today, during coffee hour.

The other way I could go is to focus in on the centurion’s statement about authority. He said “only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,' and he goes, and to another, `Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,' and the slave does it." The centurion saw Jesus as having the authority to heal his slave, but also being under authority himself – under the authority of God.

I wonder whether we are willing to be under the authority of Jesus, whatever that means and whatever it takes.  The Methodist Covenant prayer says:

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will,
Rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Some people have declared this prayer just too pessimistic, but I think it’s a helpful corrective in this time when we tend to think that if we follow God and maintain our spiritual practices that everything will work out happily. Now we know that everything will work out because we are held in the hand of God, but it may not work out in the way we hope and expect. Crises happen. Life threatening illness happens. Horrific violence happens. Disappointment and disillusion happen. Asking for God’s blessing and walking in her paths does not necessarily lead to worldly success or even comfort.

Rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

Now that really is putting yourself under God’s authority, letting go of the need to be seen as successful, letting go of expectations that God’s blessing will mean a happy upbeat life, just trusting that ultimately your greatest fulfillment will be in following Christ even when it doesn’t feel good.

So those are the two sermons I could have preached. One focused on our call to follow Christ in the world, working to bring God’s reign on earth; and the other focused on our inner journey, our spiritual formation.

I couldn’t choose, because both are equally important. And both are equally easy to slough off. It’s easier to stay home than to go to a meeting or rally. It’s easier to watch television than to write to our representatives or the local paper. It’s easy to think that Congress is so stalemated that there’s nothing useful we can do. It’s also easier to go to church on Sunday and say grace before meals than it is to deeply dedicate oneself, to put oneself under the authority of God, to surrender fully to Spirit.

And I think that both are equally important messages for us to hear. There is no either/or – the Christian life is one which holds both inner work and discipline in balance with outer work and service.

Here at St. Benedict’s we are much better at talking about social justice than working for it. We do many things to help people in need, but we have a really hard time focusing on actual change which would make our society fairer and better for all beings. I also know that I am better at thinking about spirituality than at practicing a deep consistent inner discipline, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

Yet it is that deep commitment, that turning ourselves and our lives over to the authority of Christ that fuels our ability to demonstrate the reign of God in our world.

In the silence before we affirm our faith, let us each take a moment to commit or recommit ourselves to the authority of Christ and to our active involvement in bringing God’s reign on earth.

---

[1] Thanks to Doug Hodges, http://www.fredburgucc.com/PastorPage/OForAWorld.htm

People of Hope

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

When I did high school biology we started by studying a single celled creature called an amoeba and gradually worked our way up the life forms through worms and caterpillars until we finally reached… rabbits. As I am always better at starting things than completing them, I remember far more about amoeba than about rabbits.

The largest amoeba are 0.000039 inches across. They don’t have brains so I don’t know whether they can think or speculate about the world. If they did, I suspect these single cell creatures would have a very hard time imagining a multi-cell organism as complex as a worm, let alone a rabbit or even a human being. We all have a difficult time imagining what it would be like to be something other than we are. I cannot truly imagine being a rabbit, let alone a worm or, heaven forbid, an amoeba without eyes, ears, arms, legs, heart or brain – without any of the things that I find vital to my life.

So it’s not surprising that we also have a hard time imagining a more complex organism than us. But today is Trinity Sunday, and so we get to try imagining the Trinity which must be a more complex Being than we are. Three in One and One in Three.

We are monotheists. We trust in one God who is also three.  It doesn’t seem to make sense, and nowhere is it explained in the Bible. The early Church was not at all sure how to understand this new concept of God that Jesus brought, with his talk of his Father and the new gift of the Spirit, and it was really not until the end of the second century that the idea of the Trinity – the tri-une God was firmly in place.

Does it matter?

Yes and No. God is God and God is far more than our brains can imagine. That’s not going to change, however we talk about him or her. But how we think about God has some important ramifications for how we think and act.

If we imagine that God is like a triangle with the Father at the top and the Son and the Spirit as the lower two corners, then we are seeing the Godhead as a hierarchically fixed structure. That will make us tend to believe that the cosmos also has a hierarchically fixed structure. It’s a way of thinking that some Christians use to support patriarchal structures where women are subordinate to men.

If we think that the Trinity is like a sphere of ever-moving energy, with the three Persons constantly in motion, spinning around one another, and that the energy which keeps them moving translates in our consciousness into praise, love, mutual surrender, joy and creativity, then we develop a much more egalitarian way of thinking about the world, including human functioning.

From that incredible creativity came the cosmos. It has been said that the created world is the pillow talk of the Trinity. And God –all three of her – longs for the whole of creation to be reconciled to Godself and to become part of that dancing sphere of light, love, praise and glory. That is our higher calling.

But it is not an individual calling – we cannot be fully reconciled to God until the whole of creation is redeemed. Which leads me to wonder, what if… what if we are not individuals as we seem to be, but are in fact, cells in a much larger more complex being? What if the whole of creation is actually one complex being and we are its cells?

I wonder how it would change our behavior if we saw ourselves like that?

From that perspective I notice that neither the New Testament nor the Gospel reading today are talking about individuals. The passage from Romans says that we have peace with God through Jesus through whom we have been given grace; that we hope to share the glory of God and that God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Likewise in the Gospel reading Jesus is telling a group of the disciples that the Spirit will come to them and that even she will not be acting alone. Clearly there are no lone rangers in the reign of God!

So we are being called into reconciliation with God, and with us we bring the whole of creation. There is some fascinating research which suggests that we humans directly influence each other’s behavior. In a phenomenon known as “social contagion” researchers have shown that we can transfer emotional states directly from one person to another. In fact, a number of behaviors including obesity, smoking habits and school performance have also been shown to be catching. We are so interconnected that we directly influence one another – we are responsible therefore, not just for ourselves, but for all those in our social network, to live in a way that brings praise and glory to God.

God the Trinity is a community in constant connection, filled with love, praise, joy and mutual surrender, constantly creating beauty; creation is also a community in constant connection, but our communication is not always filled with love, praise, joy and mutual surrender, and the things we create are not always beautiful.

So we are called to make a difference. We are called to make sure that we are behaving like the Trinity, that the conversations we have in our heads and the conversations we have in our homes and work places and on the internet are characterized by love, praise, joy, mutual surrender and the creation of beauty. As Paul says in Philippians, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

How do we do that when we see a world filled with atrocities, hatred, fire, flood and melting icepacks? I don’t think that the answer is simply to turn off the television and turn our backs on the reality of the struggle that creation is experiencing.  But there is a place for limiting our exposure to the violence and mayhem constantly being reported on CNN and other news channels. We need to balance our mental diet with a focus on things that are beautiful, on the people who are helping, on the ways that we too can help.

We are the people of hope. We are the ones who can bring hope to the world. Through our own spiritual practice and through the grace of God, as we change the places of anger and bitterness within ourselves and within our families and community through a practice of radical forgiveness and reconciliation, so that hope will spread. It’s not just bad things that are socially contagious.

As Helen Keller said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." It is our belief, our trust and our hope that God’s love “which has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” is so great that resurrection will happen and that we - and we means all of this great organism of creation of which we are part – that we will come to share in the glory of God. And ultimately we, will become part of the Triune Godhead, that great shining sphere of ever-spinning, ever-dancing light and energy.

Discerning the Spirit

Acts 2:1-21

John 14:8-17, (25-27)

As some of you know, for several years I lived in the Findhorn Foundation, a spiritual community in north-east Scotland. The community of Findhorn was formed around the spiritual guidance received by one of its founders, Eileen Caddy. Each morning the community gathered to hear the guidance that Eileen had been given for them that day. Sometimes it was very practical, often it was inspiring and uplifting. Everyone in the community met before breakfast to start each day with meditation and Eileen’s guidance. Until the day came when the guidance was that there would be no more guidance.

Eileen had heard that the time had come for the community to stop being dependent upon her spiritual inspiration and to start getting its own. Which of course created quite a problem – how does a diverse group of people including some very strong-willed individuals, work together without a central leader laying out the vision and setting the pace?

This was a problem for the early church too. The disciples were used to following Jesus and listening to his teaching. Now it was time for them to become teachers. Now it was time for them to learn how to be faith community without a single leader. And so in the gospel reading Jesus reassures them,

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

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.”

Instead of an external leader, they were to have an intangible, inner Spirit or Advocate – one who would speak for them and who would teach them all things. The focus of their lives was to go from outer to inner; from a physically present Master to an inner listening. When they had had disagreements with one another they had had someone to turn to to adjudicate – now when they had disagreements they were going to have to solve them by a process of listening, discussion and discernment.

It was not as though they suddenly all started to agree because the Spirit was abiding with them. Sometimes it seems as though the Spirit tells different people different things.

Early in the Old Testament there is a myth of the coming of multiple languages. The people are cooperating to build a tower which will reach into the heavens. This is called the tower of Babel. God is threatened by this apparent encroachment upon his territory and so he prevents the completion of the tower by giving the people different languages so they cannot communicate and cooperate easily.

Theologians sometimes see that story as a bookend with today’s reading about the day of Pentecost when suddenly the disciples are speaking many different languages and being understood by people from all over the known world. This new outpouring of the Spirit enables people very different from one another to understand the Gospel. This is a demonstration of the reign of God which is one of cooperation between humans and between God and humanity. But while the tower of Babel myth shows one human language being shattered into many, Pentecost does not extinguish difference. Pentecost doe snto make everyone suddenly and miraculously speak the same language. The Holy Spirit doesn’t bring red and blue together and make everyone think in purple!!

Our unity as Christians comes not through sameness but through a focus on the same goal – brigning the reign of God on earth, and through listening to the same Spirit.  That kind of cooperation is quite different from having an external Teacher who brings us inspiration and guidance that we can all follow. It it is often easier to have an external authority -  throughout history we see examples of charismatic leaders who have gathered large followings for good or ill – but that isn’t our calling.

The Holy Spirit does not operate in the same way with each person or with the Church in each age. We have not experienced her as a roaring wind and tongues of fire. We may experience him in a sense of knowing, in a moment of quiet ecstacy, in an event filled with synchronicity, in the word of a friend. Each one of us will have different ways of hearing, different ways of discerning. Some of us have a strong feeling of the Spirit’s presence; others just trust that God is with them and that God is speaking. There is no one right way.

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, and the Church was born in diversity. “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs”-- in their own languages they heard them speaking about God's deeds of power. And in their own languages, people from all those places would come to know God through the power of the Holy Spirit. What draws us together with Christians from around the world, with Christians from across the street is that we are all looking to the same place – we all have our eyes on Christ and our ears open to hear the quiet voice of the Spirit.

After Eileen’s guidance stopped being shared with the Findhorn community it developed structures for discerning together. It found ways to make decisions in community rather than waiting to hear the guidance. It found ways to share inspiration, hope and new understandings of Spirit. As each person developed his or her own spiritual understandings through meditation and spiritual reading, so these became part of the communal search for Spirit.

It is the same for us. The Spirit is moving on our midst. Our task is to be attentive to her subtle promptings. Our task is to choose to cooperate. To allow ourselves to be swept up in worship, to allow ourselves to see what God is doing and to be willing to get involved. The Holy Spirit abides with us and the Holy Spirit is patient, waiting for us to choose to know his power in our lives.

The disciples gathered in that house in Jerusalem were expectant. They had been promised. And they had been promised by Jesus, who was a man of his word. So they were ready when the Holy Spirit came. Let us too become expectant. Let us expect to see God answering prayer, God transforming lives, God bringing comfort to the bereaved and freedom to the captive. We increase our level of expectancy every time we report a God-sighting. Every time someone tells me they think maybe the Spirit was at work in their heart or mind, it increases my own sense that God is at work here. Every time someone shares their sense of God it increases my own faith. This is what is important, not what we know or what we have studied, not our belief system or whether we can recite the Nicene Creed without crossing our fingers.

What matters is that together, however different we may be, that we discern ourselves as the Body of Christ and that we discern the presence and movement of God’s Spirit. And then we can welcome the stranger among us as one who may bring us new insights, new words of God’s amazing love and power.

The Spirit is here. The Spirit is with us. May God open our eyes to see her at work and open our lips to share our experience of her presence.

Who then shall we hate?

Acts 11:1-18Revelation 21:1-6

John 13:31-35

What wonderful readings we have today – the vision of a New Jerusalem – a new way of living - where Jesus’ words, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another” are fully lived out. And the reading from Acts which shows us what a challenge loving one another was for the early church, just as it continues to be a challenge for us today.

Humans are not very good at loving one another. In fact, some theorists have suggested that the main function of civilization is to stop us murdering each other out of envy and rage. So Jesus’ new commandment was truly revolutionary, and it’s still revolutionary two thousand years later.

When Gentiles began to be welcomed into the new community of Jesus it created problems – the religious Jews had always kept themselves carefully separate from non-Jews, but now some of them were crossing the boundary. They were breaking the traditional purity laws.

We still have purity codes today, but ours are much less conscious, in fact we usually think of them as just common sense, or the way things are. In times of social upheaval purity codes get challenged, usually accompanied by controversial debates and political battles. Interracial marriage is an example in recent memory. For a white person and a black person to marry was to offend against the purity code of the time. Similarly, gay relationships offend against the purity codes of many people today. In the last thirty years we have seen this gradually changing until today a majority of Americans support marriage for gay couples.

It has always been part of the role of religion in society to protect purity codes and to uphold social arrangements around marriage and family organizations, so it’s not surprising that the Church has struggled with these questions, just as the early church struggled with the full inclusion of Gentiles. In the reading from Acts we heard that Peter was criticized for his acceptance of Gentiles, and so he had to explain to them step by step that first God had told him to defy the purity laws, and then secondly he found that God was already blessing these people.

Our experience as Episcopalians has been similar. We have found that God has been blessing us through the ministry of gay, lesbian and transgender people – and we have gradually realized that God blesses all of us - people of different ethnicities, people of different abilities, people of different skin tones, people of different sexual orientation, of different gender identity – even, dare I say it – people of different religions.

Which leaves us in a very difficult position.

Who is there left to hate?

If there is no-one left to hate, what will politicians and media pundits do? Love and good news never sold papers. If there is no one for us to hate, no one we are willing to blame and scapegoat, then politicians will have to find an entirely new strategy for getting us to support their agendas. No longer will we be willing to demonize foreign leaders, no longer will we be willing to mobilize to try to prevent one party or another from gaining power. No longer will we be willing to put up with partisan gridlock or with policies which give more power to the already powerful and more money to the already rich. Our whole financial and political system would have to change.

Can we imagine a world without hate? It might begin to look just a little like the New Jerusalem, the city where God makes all things new…

But let us not get too carried away. Hatred is very subtle. It isn’t always in your face. In fact, very often, especially for those of us who have grown up knowing that Jesus told us to love one another, it can be very hard to get a handle on. It comes out in little ways, in jokes made at someone else’s expense; in holding grudges and nursing grievances. It turns anger at injustice into a desire for revenge on the perpetrators. It turns grief into a demand for retribution. It infiltrates our minds in such a way that it seems quite reasonable. Hatred, fueled by fear, leads quite nice people to sanction violence and even torture – provided it happens at a distance.

Hatred allows us to justify striking back when we are hurt. Which is exactly what Jesus did NOT do. When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane he didn’t strike back. When he was in front of Pilate he didn’t cooperate but he didn’t resist violently. In fact, Jesus was the model of non-violent resistance. And he went one step further… he didn’t just avoid violence, Jesus forgave those who betrayed him, those who persecuted him, those who killed him.

Jesus and hate simply do not belong in the same sentence.

As disciples of Jesus, we get to obey his commandment to love, and that means we have to forgive and to do that we have to give up our habit of hatred.

It’s not going to be easy, because our society is riddled through and through with hatred, anger and violence. It’s in our newscasts, our TV programs, our facebook posts…It’s inside our minds.

But taking up love and giving up hatred is what it really means to be an inclusive church.

Inclusive sounds warm and wonderful but that’s only part of the picture. If we are to be truly inclusive, if we are to build the reign of God on earth, if we are to follow Jesus then we have to find a way to change, and to change radically. Which means hard, careful work. It means examining the way we do things to make sure that we are not leaving groups of people out in the cold, that we are not disempowering someone else in order to empower ourselves. It means welcoming people who really are different from us.

It’s not going to be comfortable. If you think being an inclusive church is going to be church just like it’s always been but with more people, then you need to think again. Because those people whom God blesses just like she blesses you, may want to sit in your seat; they may want to change the hymns; they may even, heaven forbid, decide to change the prayer book.

The early church wasn’t at all sure that they wanted to include Gentiles and the debate went on for quite a while -  just like the Episcopal church today still isn’t quite sure that it wants to include women, latinos, gays, lesbians, African-Americans, Cubans, transpeople, deaf people… I could go on and on.

But if we take Jesus’ words seriously, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we get serious about being Jesus’ disciples; if we get serious about replacing hate with loving and forgiving, then we will be doing more than creating an inclusive church, we will be building the new Jerusalem.

“And the home of God will be among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God herself will be with them; she will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

Come out - again

John 10:22-30

The leaders of the Jewish people were trying to push Jesus into a damning admission which would give them the opportunity to accuse him of a major crime. They wanted him to declare that he was the Messiah so that they could shout treason and get rid of him. Not only was Jesus was a threat to their authority among the Jews, but his ideas might make trouble for them with the Roman authorities. They didn’t want the boat rocked.

Yet in typical fashion, Jesus does not give them the answer they want. He says instead “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me.” It’s a familiar idea in Jesus’ teaching – don’t just listen to what people say but look at what they do, at how they live their lives – are they becoming more holy, more just, more compassionate or not? Jesus’ flock are the ones who are listening - those who are taking his teaching and his example and are using them to make the reign of God a reality in their lives and in the lives of the community around them.

Each one of us is called to be part of the flock. Each one of us is called to testify to the power of Jesus’ love in our lives by the way that we live. And we are being watched. Just as Jesus was watched, so we his followers are watched.

I think that’s especially true for those of us who are lesbian, gay transgender or bisexual, or those who are under thirty-five. It used to be that it was really hard to come out in the church – now for many of us it’s harder to come out to our friends and acquaintances outside the church. We are all being watched – and more often than not, the church is being found wanting.

People say they don’t want to be part of institutional religion because of the hypocrisy – and there is plenty of that. I understand that Edward Peters, a Catholic leader, recently said that Catholics who support same-gender marriage should not try to receive communion and if they do so, it should be denied them. This is just one more example of the kind of behavior that is getting a lot of media attention and is driving people away from our churches. We know that’s not what Episcopalians think, but most folk don’t make distinctions between one church and another but lump us all together in their minds.

Which means that we have to be even more aware of doing works which “testify to the Father.” The things we do are probably not going to be things that land us on the front page of the Washington Post, they’re more likely to be quiet actions of love and kindness, which grow out of a deep spiritual connection with our Abba. They’re more likely to be things which don’t stand out but which contribute to the deep well-being of our world.

And in the strange world of our God they’ll prove to be more important than the bold statements that make the headlines. God did not choose to incarnate in Rome, at the center of the Empire. God did not choose to incarnate in a wealthy, prominent family. No, God chose to incarnate in a small nation which has always been at the center of international trouble, to a small unconventional family in a small town huddled in a barn. God did not choose a flashy well-understood act to redeem the world, but instead allowed Godself to get killed in an ignominious way which no-one really understands, even to this day. And when Jesus was resurrected it wasn’t in front of crowds of people, it wasn’t in the Sanhedrin or Pilate’s palace, rather he appeared to his disciples in ones and twos and small groups.

So never let us imagine that small things don’t make a difference. In God’s kingdom it’s the small things that have the greatest impact. Sometimes we can see that they do, but more often their results are hidden.

Fifteen years ago the idea that gay or lesbian couples could ever be legally married was almost laughable. But today it’s becoming almost commonplace. We have just seen France legalize gay marriage; there’s a bill in the British Parliament as we speak; Rhode Island is on its way to becoming the 10^th state to legalize gay marriage and the Supreme Court is considering the question. Moreover, the majority of Americans now think it’s ok. How far we have come in just a short time. There are many things that fed into that astonishingly rapid change, but the most important is the quiet witness of gay and lesbian people coming out to their friends, and coming out in their workplaces, and coming out in their churches.

We still need to come out today. But this time we’re not coming out as gay but coming out as Christian. Just as we had to battle public prejudice when we came out as gay, today we have to battle public prejudice as we admit that we too are Christian. And just as we had to tell people that we’re gay so we need to tell people that we follow the God who loves all people equally, even the homophobes – it’s not enough to hope that they’ll pick up the hints, that they’ll follow the clues and draw the right conclusions – we have to take our courage in our hands and testify to the Father.

What has made the difference for gays, lesbians and transgender people is that as we have come out the fantasy of the evil homosexual who is out to take your children and your marriage away has had to abate. It’s not gone altogether but it is less and less possible to maintain as more and more people know gay or lesbian people and know that they like and respect them.

It’s time now for all of us who hear Jesus and follow him to do the same thing for the image of the Christian as judgmental and limiting. It’s time for us to be seen to live lives that are joyful and generously open-hearted. It’s time for us to make sure that in everything we do we are glorifying God. It’s time for us to testify to the Father by our lives but no less by our words.

Each one of us influences a small group of people a lot and a lot of people a little, just like Jesus influenced the disciples a lot and the Jewish people a little. It’s time to use the influence that we have. It’s time to show that we belong to Jesus’ flock by testifying to the Father in our conversations as well as our lives.

It’s time for us, gay straight or neither to dare to come out as Christian!

Sheep with Megaphones

John 10:22-30

A sermon preached at the Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd, Philadelphia

What a delight it is to be here with you today on Good Shepherd Sunday! My thanks to your rector Jon for giving me the privilege of sharing with you this morning.

I love the image of the good shepherd. It is deeply comforting to think that God cares for you and for me as intimately as a Middle Eastern shepherd cared for his sheep. Jesus says that those of us who are enrolled in his reign - those of us who are like his sheep -  hear his voice and follow him. That’s a sweet image.

But there are downsides to being a sheep. As well as ticks and fleas and burrs and the smell of raw lanoline, there are… the other sheep. Biblical sheep always live in flocks – you’ll remember Jesus talked about the good shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep in the flock to fend for themselves while he searched for and brought back the one who was missing. You don’t get much alone time if you’re a sheep.

I grew up in the flock. My particular fold was a small Anglo-Catholic parish in the Church of England. Then I went away to college and at college I found out things about myself that made me think there was no place for me among the faithful. I found that I was gay, and though for many years I prayed and studied and prayed some more, God did not choose to make me heterosexual. So I stayed away. I stayed away for over a decade.  I continued to hear God’s voice - the good shepherd did not let me go. But I was sure that I would never be welcome in the flock again – that somehow, however discreet I was, that I would smell different and they would sniff me out. Sometimes I went to church, sitting at the back, close to the exit. But I always left quickly, afraid to get involved.

I am glad to say that, in most parts of this country, things are very different now. We have realized that for decades good and godly Episcopalians have been lesbian, gay and transgender and that that has not stopped the good shepherd calling them and using them in powerful ministry. The courage of those who have stepped forward and said “Yes I’m gay” or “My loved one is gay and that’s Ok with me and with God” has led to tremendous change in this Episcopal Church of ours. I am not afraid to tell you that God has called me to be in committed relationship with another woman for over twenty years. I am not afraid that I will be cast out of the flock.

But I am one of the lucky ones.

There are still many, many gay, lesbian and tranz people who don’t really believe that there’s a place for them in the flock. They may hear the good shepherd calling them but they’re not about to come out of hiding because they don’t think the other sheep will like them, let alone love them. It’s easy for us to say “I wonder why we don’t see more gay people, more poor people, more immigrant people, more disabled people, when we’d welcome them just like we welcome each other”. It’s easy for us to say that, safe within the fold. But they can’t hear us. We’re not making enough noise. We’re not making it clear that God loves everyone, no exceptions and so do we!

In fact, there are sheep in other folds who have megaphones which broadcast the idea that God loves everyone as long as they look and act like straight white people. They have done such a good job getting their message across that ours isn’t getting heard.

One of the problems is the noise that goes on in the heads of many gay, lesbian and tranz people. I know that Jon has told you that today is the launch of a short tour during which I am visiting churches and groups in the north-east to talk about the work of Integrity, the gay and lesbian ministry in the Episcopal Church and to introduce my new book, “The Thorn in the Flesh.” One of the reasons that I undertook the research and wrote the book is that I needed to quieten the voices in my own head. Even after ten years in the Episcopal Church, even after being ordained as a priest, there were still times when the idea that God didn’t really like me that way I am became a deafening sound. At those times, I thought that maybe those people who say that being gay and living in a loving relationship is against God’s will were right.

By taking a close look at what has happened since Louie Crew first started a newsletter called Integrity Forum for gay Episcopalians in 1974; by carefully charting the to and fro of argument and persuasion, the political ploys, the declarations of crisis and predictions of disaster, I have concluded that our church has not been engaged in a forty year theological debate about God’s reign but in trying to protect itself from the change which is happening in the whole of our society as patriarchy gradually gives way to a more egalitarian and inclusive world – what Dr. King called “the beloved community.”

As I look around this church this morning I see people who are beloved of God. People who have been called to love and to serve in this fold. I see sheep who hear the good shepherd’s voice calling them loud and clear, and I rejoice.

But Jesus told many parables, and he made it quite clear that those who are called and who are safe in the fold have a responsibility to get out into the streets and share God’s amazing and unconditional love with those who can’t believe it’s for them. I don’t know what this looks like for you. I don’t know whom God is calling you to love for him. Perhaps there’s a house for developmentally delayed adults in your neighborhood who need people to love them for the unique humans that they are.  Maybe you are being called to provide hospitality for students at the university who are a long way from home. I do know that there are thousands of gay and lesbian people living in this city who have no idea that they are welcome here. I do hope that this summer you will reach out to them during Gay Pride and let them know that the Good Shepherd is calling them too. I also hope that you will seek out ways to actively meet and serve those who are gay, lesbian and transgender and whose ability to hear has been damaged.

“Build it and they will come” is only partially true. Our welcome to all of God’s people cannot be a passive waiting with open arms but must be an active seeking out end engaging with those whom God is calling but who have no idea that there really is a place and a welcome for them. Just this week I had an email from a person wondering whether she or he would be welcome in my parish. Why? Because in private he likes to dress as a woman. For many years he has heard the sheep with megaphones announcing that dressing like a woman is an abomination unto the Lord. He is afraid it is true, and yet he longs, she longs, to be part of the beloved community and to share God’s love with God’s people.

It is the tremendous privilege and challenge of those of us who have found a safe place within the fold to get up and go out with the shepherd as he seeks those who are lost, as he looks for those who are hiding, for those whose ears are filled with the dull roar of rejection, and then to love them and to witness to God’s amazing love for us.

For it is as each one of us allows the warmth of that love to penetrate even to the parts of ourselves that have been most damaged by rejection, by loss and by fear, that Jesus’ resurrection life bursts forth and we can truly say, “Alleluia, the Lord is Risen.”