Sermon for Proper 13, Year B – Ephesians 4:25-5:2 – August 9, 2009
St. Faith’s Episcopal Church, Cutler Bay, Florida
Preacher: The Very Rev. Jennie Lou D. Reid+

O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow/ May richer, fuller be. Amen.

In a precious evening ritual a mother embraces her baby as they rock gently back and forth in the only chair in the nursery. A nightlight offers soft illumination in the darkness. The mother sings always the same three songs, “Hush, Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word,” “You Are My Sunshine,” and a lullaby of dreaming – “Baby’s Boat’s a Silver Moon.” Afterwards there are quiet prayers of thanks for the day’s graces and petitions for God’s blessing on family members, always ending with Mommy, Daddy, and Baby. The two rest in each other in the peaceful comfort love provides. What happens to us when we experience being loved?

The books of Holy Scripture gathered up in the library called the Bible attempt to reveal the many facets of God, who is Love. We recognize God’s love in the beauty and majesty of Creation. We discern God’s love in countless divine efforts to interact with troublesome Creation, instead of seeking to retreat to the peace of heaven. We experience God’s love in the Ten Commandments, with their wise guidance for harmonious living in community. We hear God erupt in righteous anger over human freewill run amok, and we witness God’s change of heart, longing for reconciliation more than revenge. We know God’s love in prophetic words of reproof and promise in both the Old and the New Testaments. We see God’s love in Jesus’ living, teaching, healing, dying, and rising to life again. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son – even his very self. The Bible is a love story not just for a summer diversion but for our on-going transformation.

At its essence the Letter to the Ephesians reminds Christians of God’s deep, life-giving love and describes the behavior natural to the life of us beloved Children of God. Ephesians is considered a late offering, written probably at the end of the first century by a student of Paul. The letter lacks the traditional opening and closing of the authentic Pauline epistles, as well as details acknowledging Paul’s relationship with specific persons in the Christian community in Ephesus. Moreover, the sentences themselves – although divided into a series of sentences by the translators – are actually very long and complex. The letter’s minimal references to God’s Law or Jewish festivals suggest that the intended audience is Gentile Christians, converts from paganism. Except for the nod to the Roman household code in the last third of Chapter 5 and first third of Chapter 6, the ideas easily relate to Christian life in community in any place and century. Not only did the fourth-century bishops vote this letter into the canon of the New Testament, but also the Revised Common Lectionary includes most of its text in a serial reading once every three years – even if buried in the summer!

Today’s segment picks up where we left off last week, repeating two central tenets of Christian living: “Speak the truth” and “We are members of one another.” Last Sunday I focused on the mutuality of our existence as expressed in the African concept of Ubuntu – the theme of our recent General Convention – which describes us as being fully human only through our relationships with others – with other persons and even with the inanimate and animate creatures of the universe. Because we are interconnected in a vast invisible web, all our negative thoughts and words and deeds rebound to affect us because they diminish the quality of our world. While anger is normal, we seek to manage it, instead of letting it dominate our day. We contribute to the well-being of our community through working and sharing. We choose to speak civilly and respectfully, and we avoid criticizing people for the sport of it. Instead we speak in ways that encourage others and celebrate them in the wider community. We pepper the world with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. What a wonderful world this would be – a Kingdom of Heaven on earth – if we could walk each day on this holy path!

What prevents us from choosing this blessed way? Well, some of us stay anxious because we focus on the disastrous possibilities around the corner in order to keep the chaos of life at bay. Some of us have an unconscious need to point out others’ shortcomings in an effort to feel better about ourselves. Some of us become so immersed in our daily lives that we fail to recognize the needs of those around us, even those closest to us. Some of us would rather put people in boxes by category – like disabled or foreign or homeless – than open ourselves to understand and welcome them as individual persons. Our fears and insecurities seem to get the upper hand.

The author of the Letter to the Ephesians identifies the one experience that can empower us to choose the Kingdom path. Power comes from our remembrance that we are beloved Children of God. God loves us without limits, not because we deserve it, but because God chooses to love us. King David’s son Absalom leads a revolt against his father to overthrow David and become King himself instead. When David’s troops prepare to march out to defend him, he instructs them not to hurt Absalom. But the army cannot protect their king and let his enemy go free. When the soldiers find Absalom stuck in a tree, they kill him. When David learns the fate of his son, he weeps bitterly, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Does Absalom deserve such devotion from his father? Certainly not! But love does not weigh worthiness. A good parent’s love runs deep, even in the face of an offspring’s human foibles. In this very spirit of loving compassion, God in the person of Jesus does die instead of us, to set us free from the power of death – death of body and death of spirit. This deep love would move us to transform the world with loving-kindness if we were not stuck with the belief that a person’s worthiness determines the future. In our human frailty we imagine that if others are less worthy, perhaps God will not pay attention to our little offenses, and that idea nudges us to judge others, which in turn makes the world a little meaner.

I experienced the consequences of the judging community when I attended the Integrity Eucharist on the third evening of our Church’s General Convention in Anaheim, California, last month. I ran into another priest from our Diocese at the reception before the service, and we sat together for worship. Barbara Harris, first woman elected Bishop in the Episcopal Church, gave a fiery sermon condemning the restraints barring homosexual persons from full participation in the life of the Church, challenging the Church to find a path for blessing committed adult relationships, and calling on the Church to take a stand against hate crimes. Gene Robinson, the Celebrant for the Eucharist and partnered gay man who serves as Bishop of New Hampshire, spoke of his journey and the ministry of Integrity, a national advocacy organization for homosexual Episcopalians. He noted that he had been in Anaheim – in the very city where we were now gathered – in 1985 when Edmund Browning was elected Presiding Bishop. Gene Robinson recalled the new Presiding Bishop’s saying, “There will be no outcasts in the church.” Armed with this hope, Gene Robinson came to grips with his homosexual orientation and in 1986 openly told others that he was a gay man. He remembered the small beginnings of an Integrity Eucharist at the General Convention and noted how participation had grown over the course of eight conventions, especially when all gay and lesbian clergy gathered together around the altar to bless the congregation at the end of the service.

After the service my priest friend and I had a light supper together in the hotel dining room. The Integrity Eucharist had left me feeling sad. I had perceived a deep hunger on the part of the gay and lesbian participants to be accepted, welcomed and even loved by the rest of the Church. I shared my feelings with my companion, who had had the same experience. Deep in our hearts we wanted to mend the divisions in our Church family. The next day the House of Deputies considered a resolution to allow all baptized Christians to pursue God’s call to ministry in any order. The longing to accept and welcome all our brothers and sisters in Christ to full participation in the life of the Church was more important to the voters than was the fear that the Anglican Communion might remove us from its association. Sharing the perspectives of the prevailing side, the Diocese of Southeast Florida was unanimous in its support of the resolution.

What happens to us when we experience being loved? We feel hopeful about the future, trust in the goodness of the world, and want to share ourselves for the good of others. Recognizing ourselves to be God’s beloved, we are attempting as a Church to walk in love as Christ loved, just as individual Christians strive to do. We remember Jesus touching lepers, conversing with scandalous women, and eating with other outcasts. We recognize Jesus speaking the truth in love, cherishing the person limited by human weakness – like a rich young man clinging to his fortune, a Pharisee clinging to his traditions of purity, or a disciple clinging to the notion that children should not bother the Teacher – and seeking to transform the misguided person with insight and wisdom. We do not know all the twists and turns the path of love will take us, but beloved ones step out to follow one brick at a time. As we ask in every dilemma, “What would Jesus do?” – we enhance the possibility that we will choose to respond to others with kindness, compassion, and mercy, and in God’s good time we will find ourselves in the midst of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Thanks be to God! Amen.