August 23, 2020, Scripture Readings and Sermon
Message from Rev. George Porter
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Rev. Dr. Richard M. Simpson, Sermon
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Scripture ReadingsRomans 11:1-8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Psalm 138 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; * before the gods I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your Name, * because of your love and faithfulness; For you have glorified your Name * and your word above all things. When I called, you answered me; * you increased my strength within me. All the kings of the earth will praise you, O Lord, * when they have heard the words of your mouth. They will sing of the ways of the Lord, * that great is the glory of the Lord. Though the Lord be high, he cares for the lowly; * he perceives the haughty from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe; * you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me. The Lord will make good his purpose for me; * O Lord, your love endures for ever; do not abandon the works of your hands. Matthew 16:13-20 When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. |
Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Richard M SimpsonRomans
The Rev. Dr. Richard M. Simpson Sometimes our old friend, St. Paul, can be so very difficult to understand. There are, I think two reasons for this. First, like most of us, Paul could have used a good editor. Every lay reader who draws the epistle for the day lives in fear of getting one of those famous Pauline sentences that run on and on and you aren’t sure where to breathe or, by the end, what the point was or even if the sentence had a subject and a verb. And second, we are only getting half of a conversation. Letters are not quite like overhearing half of a phone conversation, but it’s a bit like that. Today, though, in the reading from Romans, Paul is having one of his good days. He’s spot on. I sometimes wonder if he doesn’t do better in Romans because he is introducing himself to them, and is therefore not only on his best behavior, but he isn’t distracted by saying things like “hey, tell Chloe I say hey.” Whatever the reasons, today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome, from the twelfth chapter, requires very little hermeneutical skill. But let’s just hear it again, one more time: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect. Do not be conformed, but be transformed…so that you may discern the will of God. Now there are a lot of good things in our world. The natural world, of course, where many of us find God. And good people who share the work of justice whether they share our particular faith or not. And Hamilton. And the stage in general. And Bruce Springsteen. And rock and roll in general. You can make your own list. The world is not bad, and Paul isn’t saying it is. And we should not say that it is, either. But the Greek here helps. Conform shares the same root as our word “schema.” It’s like cutting cookies. People are not cookies, not matter how sweet they may be. The work of the Church is formation, because Christians are not born, they are formed over time. Transformation, in Greek, is an Easter word. It’s about metamorphosis. It’s about caterpillar into butterfly stuff. It’s about a new creation. It’s about the move from the Friday we dare to call good to the empty tomb on Sunday morning. When we are conformed to the schemas of this world, we allow our ideologies to limit prayer and truncate faith and growth and the new life that Christ calls us to. It’s fairly easy for conservatives to see how progressives do this, and it’s just as easy for progressives to see how conservatives do this. But we all do it. Even the moderates who sometimes claim they are finding a middle way do this. We are all in danger of limiting our peripheral vision and shutting down on listening to other perspectives. We create Bubbles and Fox News and MSNBC and Facebook are more than happy to oblige us until we begin to live in echo chambers. We conform to the way the world is. Or at least we conform to the world as we believe it is. Who needs to pray? Who needs to discern? Who needs to have a conversation? We have the answers. I think the big conform thing here is that we limit what is possible to what we already think we know. And therefore we limit God. And in the Church, this is not only annoying, it’s destructive of authentic community. It tries to box in the Holy Spirit. But She’s a creative bird… The transformation that God offers by way of the Holy Spirit is to open our hearts and our minds to our neighbor and to see that love of God and love of neighbor are two sides to the very same coin. It is to trust (even at vestry meetings) that the Holy Spirit is still leading us into all truth. Still guiding us and challenging and goading us us to listen more than we speak. To be open to a Word of the Lord… Discerning the will of God takes work, but it can’t happen apart from community. In fact, I would go so far as to say that authentic discernment makes community possible. And the linchpin in Paul’s thought comes as he makes his transition, but I’ll do that briefly and save that for another sermon, in another season. Before he gets to all that familiar stuff, his favorite song about one body and many members, he says we need to learn to be humble. Or to put it another way, we need to entertain the possibility that we might be wrong. This allows us to engage with each other knowing that it might be my day to be transformed and not conformed – not that fool across the table or two pews away (or sitting in the bottom middle square on Zoom.) Paul says “don’t think too highly of yourself” and I am sure that like all good preachers he’s first preaching the sermon he needs to hear because Paul was a little prone in that direction himself. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong in giving advice he sometimes found hard to follow. He knows that hubris is a killer of authentic community. He knows that he and those Christians in Rome and we, Christians across this diocese from 495 to the New York border, follow the guy who on the last night of his life took a towel and a basin and washed his disciples’ feet. All of them. Including the betrayer and the denier. When we allow God to transform us, rather than being conformed to the ways of the world where there are always winners and losers, we find ways to become a part of something bigger than us, part of a community with many members, and yet still One. And this is where Paul sings his old song, something he’s learned the hard way in the practice of ministry in places like Corinth and Thessalonica and Philippi. Namely, that no one can do it all. That Christian community does not need superstar clergy or lone-ranger wardens or little red hen altar guild directors. Christian community just requires faithful, humble servants willing to use and share the gifts they have. Almost every Zoom gathering I’ve been a part of across this diocese during the past five and a half months has included some form of the question: what are you learning in this time of pandemic? In clergy gatherings, in warden gatherings, in mutual ministry reviews, in meetings with vestries and search committees, in conversations with deans there have been good answers, too many to name on this day. But here is the thread of what everyone says: we are being reminded that God is still God. We knew that God didn’t live in our buildings, but we knew it in our heads month after month as we spent so much time focused on the building. We are learning in new ways to put our trust in the living God by building up the Body of Christ. Strangely, I think we have never known in my twenty-two years in this diocese more clearly than we do right now that we are one in Christ and that we need each other. That is a gift that comes from facing challenging times, I suppose. But a diocese is not fifty or so independent franchises. A diocese – our diocese – is a part of a larger movement: part of the Jesus Movement that is out to change this world from the nightmare it is, for so many, to the dream that God has for us. Even now. Do not be conformed to the idea that we are all separate. Be transformed to know and to see, that we really are one Body with many members. That we need each other to do the work God has given us to do. And always, with God’s help. Amen. |