The Humanity of the Villains: A Sermon for the Feast of S. Matthew

Proverbs 3:1-6
Psalm 119:33-40
2 Timothy 3:14-17
Matthew 9:9-13

St. Thomas's Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

+In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

One of the themes that is a constant throughout the Gospels is that Jesus chooses to associate himself with unsavoury figures. Not only that, he brings people like them, like Matthew into his inner circle, and makes them integral to his ministry. It is something that is repeated so often that the significance of it is diminished because it is so common. Yes, Jesus interacted with tax collectors and sinners, so what? We hear it and then we move on. Yet when Jesus reaches out to these people and reaches out to embrace the common humanity that they share with each other, we see people being transformed and their humanity being restored. The divine person of Christ who shares our humanity reaches out like a physician to heal the person.

There are plenty of stories of figures who have been transformed by the power of Christ into a new person. We revere people like S. Dismas, the good thief crucified next to Jesus, S. Paul, S. Francis of Assisi, and of course S. Matthew. But consider that these people have a particular honorific attached to them, and when we write their names in a sartorial function, we put an S-T next to their name denoting an almost larger than life status to them because of their saintly status. We cannot possibly be like them, and indeed though we as Christians may celebrate the lives of transformed sinners, we fall into an old habit that seemingly denies the possibility of such an occurrence.

We are enculturated to see people as being defined of varying degrees of impurity and of being marked in some way by who they are and what they do. Though this is certainly a very old thing that we do, it seems that our contemporary society and culture hypercharges this practice. There always has to be the “bad guy”, there always has to be the villain. The villains of our stories and of our lives are always evil, born defective, defined by their evil actions, and will always be considered evil. The criminal is always a criminal, the sinner is always a sinner, and the tax collector is always a tax collector.

And if there is a villain, then there always needs to be a hero! The hero is always good, always right, and even when they do make a mistake, it’s okay because they are good because they were born good and righteous, and they do not carry the epitaph of sinner for they are righteous. When we consider the ways our identities are cultivated by the media, advertising, consumerism, and in the very cultural air we breathe, so long as we have not been marked as a sinner in society, we are the heroes of our own stories. We are perpetually good and correct. In the most perverse way, this model of society makes us the most “Saintly” or “Christ-like” because we are always good just as a saint or Christ are good!

Maybe we need to hear more closely the words Jesus says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Jesus came for the sake of those we have labeled as the villains and those rejected by society because he sees in them the humanity that we forget that they have.

Why is a tax collector such a reviled person in the Gospels? They are one of the few visible faces of the otherwise faceless Roman Empire that were contracted to collect the taxes, fees, duties, and customs from the people of the empire. They are part of the mechanism that ensures that the empire kept running, and a visible image seen by the oppressor of conquered and colonised people. Matthew, and other tax collectors, are then the ever-present reminder to the Jewish peoples living in Judea and Galilee that they are a conquered and colonised people. And the job of the tax collector meant extracting the wealth and value of the labour of the person they collected money from.

If we want to transpose this onto our own lives, then a good analogue might be the manager or supervisor at work who has the job of ensuring the value of your labour is extracted for the sake of a faceless and invisible corporate or government entity. And you cannot do anything about the faceless and invisible entity, but you can be mad at the person who is doing this to you, and so you are vindicated, you are the hero and they are the villain

Consider though that the tax collector makes their livelihood from the money that is collected in taxes. The very nature of their job forces them to inevitably take more from people than what is owed to the state because they too need to survive. In this arrangement, the tax collector can easily be incentivised to take a little more here or there, justifying it because there might be some need in their lives, and little by little, the shaving off the bit at the top to survive becomes defrauding and extorsion, and there is nothing to be done. Everyday people cannot stop paying taxes because the tax collector has the backing of soldiers to ensure taxes get paid, and the empire does not care so long as it gets what it needs to administer itself. Sure, the tax collector could stop collecting taxes, but there are few alternatives for them, and they still need this thing called money to survive. There are always reasons to people’s actions, and those actions do not define who they are!

Now let me be clear, this does excuse the hurtful or destructive actions the people do whether that be the defrauding done by an ancient tax collector, or the harm done to us by another person. Nor does this mean we just turn over and accept the harm done to us. We don’t wave our hands and go “oh well”. Jesus calls on them to stop and repent of their wrong doing and to follow him. But if we truly want to understand why Jesus called Matthew to be his disciple, and why he associated himself with tax collectors and sinners was because he saw within them the thing that people blinded by their own righteousness could not—their humanity. Jesus sees that, and offers a new way of being for the tax collector by following him and abandoning their wrong doing

And that is what makes Jesus’ actions so baffling, even today, because Jesus sees the reality that even those branded with the epitaphs of tax collector and sinner, that the victimiser can also be the victim, and that even the most heinous can be redeemed and restored because that person is a person and if we dare call ourselves Christian, then that means we have to believe that empathy, compassion, and love have the power to transform anyone no matter how callous, distant, or even evil because that was what Jesus did. He lived with them, worked with them, and offered a chance for them to abandon those actions which distanced themselves from others while protecting them from those who could not see past the actions of their past.

It is hard work, and it is the labour we choose to adopt if we call ourselves Christian, but when Jesus says that he will draw the whole world to himself, that means the whole world! Everyone shares in the same humanity that Christ brought onto himself, and therefore are granted the same promises of his divinity. This means there is hope, even for those like us who think of ourselves as righteous and the heroes of our own story.

Amen

Tearing Down Idols with S. Bartholomew: A Sermon for the Feast of S. Bartholomew the Apostle

Deuteronomy 18:15-18
Psalm 91
1 Corinthians 4:9-15
Luke 22:24-30

St. Thomas's Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Lo Spagnoletto

The Church remembers and celebrates the lives of the Jesus’ disciples and apostles, highlighting what they learned from him, and in the broader hagiographies, the lives and ministries they led following the Ascension of Jesus. But it must be said that some apostles are known and remembered better than others. Apostles and disciples like Ss. Peter, James the son of Zebedee, John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas have extensive stories and legends about them in Rome, Spain and Portugal, Ephesus, France and India. But Bartholomew, whom we commemorate today, does not have as many legends or stories about him as other apostles. He only appears in the Synoptic Gospels, and he is not even named in the Gospel reading for the day. What we see are the disciples, which presumable would include Bartholomew, quarreling at the Last Supper about who was the greatest among them, and Jesus educating them on what it means to be the greatest—which is to be one who is like the youngest in a group, and the one who serves that group, namely to follow the example of Jesus by assuming the role of the one with the least status in a group and serving the needs of others.

Perhaps this lesson in some way shaped Bartholomew and the other disciples in their later lives, as in the few stories and legends that tell us of his later life, Bartholomew goes on to serve others by disrupting and bringing an end to what could be called an organised crime ring run by the Demon Astaruth/Astarte who was plaguing the people of a city in “India”.

This legend is in many ways fantastic and unusual. Eusebius and other ancient sources in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian accounts say that Bartholomew went to India, but some of those sources admit that India could be anywhere from eastern Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula, to southern Iran, and to the actual Indian subcontinent. According to medieval legends, the demon Bartholomew drives out from the region is a demon based on the Phoenician goddess Astoreth, who would not have been worshipped as a god by anyone in this ancient zone of “India”. But when we look beyond the geographical anomalies and anachronisms, we see the transformation of a society liberated from a dangerous and exploitative relationship with a demon, where demons are rendered impotent and kings are humbled.

For this, Bartholomew was executed by another king by being crucified, skinned alive, and finally beheaded.

In a far-off city, a demon by the name of Astaruth tormented the people with “troubles, infirmities, damage, violence, and much affliction.” The demon would relent from these evils for a time when offered sacrifices, and people were willing to do so not knowing that the demon was the cause of their harms. What other choice did they have: illness and war will take a toll on people, and they came to believe the demon was actually helping them, and so they worshipped him like a god. It can be inferred from the legend that as time went on, it took more and more sacrifices and wealth from people to get the same help from the demon as they became enthralled to Astaruth. Thus, in this parasitic relationship, only the powerful and elite could gain aid from Astaruth, while those without that could only suffer further from the demon because they could not afford sacrifices to him.

Bartholomew came to reside in the temple of Astaruth, and by doing so, God bound the demon so that Astaruth could no longer harm the people of this city. Bartholomew then proceeded to heal those who had been afflicted by the demon, particularly the poor living near and around the temple. The king of the city learned of the apostle, asked Bartholomew to heal his daughter, and she was healed. The king, having lived under Astaruth’s parasitic relationship, attempts to pay for Bartholomew’s help by giving him gold and finery, only for Bartholomew to vanish into thin air. That night, Bartholomew approached the king in secret to explain to him why he healed the king’s daughter, and why he did not expect payment. Then he proceeded to teach him the Christian faith, who God and Christ are, and who the demon in their midst was.

The next day, Bartholomew exposes the demon before the people of the city in Astaruth’s temple and makes him reveal how he was exploiting and harming the people of the city. Together, the people of the city and the king take down the idol of Astaruth and other idols in the temple, and Bartholomew through the power of Jesus drives the demon out from the city into the wilderness to never be heard from again. The temple is rededicated as a church in a miraculous scene where angels come down from Heaven to give God’s blessing on the church, the people are healed of their infirmities and illnesses caused by the demon, they were baptised, and the king abandoned his thrown and crown to live a life of simplicity like that of the Apostle Bartholomew by serving the poor and those in need throughout the city.

In our Gospel, Jesus warns of the dangers of unjust and exploitative hierarchies and relationships and tells us how to avoid them and undo them. He says that “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.” In relationships of benefactors and clients, and in lord and servant, there is the high potential of exploitation because antagonisms emerge in which the benefactor, in order to satisfy their own needs or desires, must take more from their client than they give. Such is the case in this far off city, antagonisms exist between the demon, the king, and the people. The demon, who created this whole scenario, demands more from the people than he is willing to give. In turn, the king, to help his own daughter, will likely have to demand from the people more than he can give to them so that he can pay off the demon. And as a result, there are people who are in great need, that are tormented by the demon, but are unable to pay the demon for the relief that the demon himself is causing.

Even when Bartholomew cures the king’s daughter, the king goes off to pay Bartholomew for his services because that is what is expected! He never considered the possibility of selfless service to another person. He lived in a society of deeply hierarchical relationships where things like kindness, generosity, service, and loyalty are bought and sold on an open market, not freely given.

What Jesus passes this along to his disciples, and what his disciples embody wherever they went, is that true leadership is one that comes from below, one that actively seeks to serve the needs of others in a spirit of generosity, where one gives fully of themselves to those in need, not because they themselves expect a return or compensation for that service, but because it the right thing to do. It is in this generosity that the kingdom of God is made manifest because in this model of servitude towards others, we are liberated from systems of antagonism, so we can truly embrace others because we no longer need to take from those below us to give to those above us in hopes we get a little back in return. The teachings of Christ allow us to break free from those antagonisms and join with others, where divisions like benefactor and client, lord and servant, no longer exist, and people unite and drive out evil by the power of God. It is in serving others that we ourselves are served, and it is in serving others that we are set free.

For as little as there is written about Bartholomew the Apostle, there is still much we can learn from his life and his ministry, and we too can hopefully work together to tear down the idols that divide us from each other so that we may truly come to love and serve one another in a spirit of compassion and generosity.

Amen.

S. Christopher and the Land of Oz: A Sermon for the Feast of S. Christopher

2 Esdras 2:42-48
Psalm 121
1 Peter 3:14-18,22
Matthew 10:16-22

St. Christopher's Episcopal Church
Kailua, HI

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,” muttered Dorothy Gale as she walked out of her black and white Kansas farm home into the bright, colourful, and wholly different wonderful world of Oz. Dorothy left behind a world of the same, the predictable, and the familiar to enter into a world of magic, wonder, and fantasy. And yet, she spends her entire time in Oz trying to find a way back home to the familiar, the predictable, and the same flat black and white Kansas. In the end, she awakens back in Kansas from a dream, and declares, “if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard.” And that’s it, that’s the end.

Or so it would seem, if you only watched the 1939 MGM film. I grew up reading a number of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and there, the story does not end. Oz is not some dreamy, faraway place in Dorothy’s imagination, but an actual, real place. Oz is eventually ruled by the faerie queen Ozma, tormented by the peculiar rock-like creature called the Nome King, Dorothy, Auntie Em, and Uncle Henry eventually move permanently to Oz, and even the charlatan Wizard of Oz is even welcomed back into Oz and taught real magick from Glinda the Good Witch. Yet, even though Dorothy and the Land of Oz can continue to exist, I have to close the book eventually, turn off the movie, and return to the real world. We may live in a world of colour, and yet, unless we actively seek the fantasy in book, film, television, or video games, we live in a world governed by reason and everyday can become the same, the predictable, and the familiar. We are told to abandon dreams and fantasies as being childish so that we can focus on what we call the “real world.”

Image of S. Thomas (left) and S. Christopher (right) from Westminster Abbey. After the Reformation, these images were white-washed, but have since been restored.

In celebrating the Feast of S. Christopher, we encounter that paradox and tension between reality and fantasy, between Kansas and Oz. In looking into the readings for this Feast, I looked within various sources, as the Episcopal Church doesn’t even have explicit readings for the day. The readings that were chosen for today are general readings for a martyr which are found in the back of the BCP. In the lectionaries and missals of the Roman Catholic Church and the pre-reformation Church of England have prayers that focus on the martyrdom of S. Christopher, but give few details into the story of how he was beheaded by the King of Lycia after the king attempted to persuade him to renounce Christianity. The Feast of S. James the Apostle, which shares the same day, actually overshadows him in nearly every missal, and the readings for the day are listed for him, not Christopher. Any reference to him in England was erased more or less in the Church of England after the English reformation, and Christopher along with a number of saints from the ancient and medieval period were removed from the Festal Calendar because their historicity could not be clearly proven. And this is why some call S. Christopher “Mr. Christopher”.

And yet, what has drawn people to celebrate S. Christopher in the past and even to this day, what he is depicted doing in art and iconography? It is the legend of him carrying the Christ-child across a raging river. For those that don’t know the legend: there once was a man, considered by some to be a giant as he was seven feet tall, who searched to serve the strongest king. He eventually learns of Jesus, and seeks to find him in order to serve him. A hermit informs him that he may be able to find and serve Jesus by carrying people across a dangerous river. So he carried travelers on his back, and delivered them safely from one end of the river to the other. One day, a child came to cross the river, and as Christopher was carrying him, he began to sink into the river, discovering that the child was heavier than the heaviest lead. When he finally reached the other side, he said to the child, “You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were.” The child replied, “You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work.” The child then vanished.

The legend of S. Christopher is one of many fantastic stories, and his story exist along-side many fantastic stories of other saints that are famous, but whose celebration is limited: S. Denis, who after being beheaded in Paris, picked up his head and began to preach on the Trinity; S. Juliana, who was put into a tub of molten lead to punish her for her conversion to Christianity, and found it to be a cool bath; and S. Theodora, a woman who disguised herself as a monk and could drive away the Devil with nothing but the sign of the cross. These legends, and many others, became very popular in the antique and medieval period. Though the readings and prayers focused on what little history there could be, or the ideals of ideas of martyrdom or asceticism, people were drawn to the magic, wonder, and fantasy of saints like Christopher, and they point to a God capable of making the impossible possible. And they give the world colour in a time and place where me might not want to live.

In all of our advancement in technology, philosophy, and theology, through the Reformation, the enlightenment, and modernity, seemingly as we have progressed so much, we have also stripped away the colour in our world and in our church into a flat, black and white space where miracles and wonder are on the backburner. We can look out to the farthest stars, and look into the infinite space between electrons and protons, but what we find is the void. We yearn for meaning, but the  void answer with only silence.

This is not to embrace an anti-science world. Evolution is real, the earth is round and orbits the sun, vaccines are good, and GMOs are safe. Nor am I suggesting an end to a separation of church and state. The developments of technology, philosophy, and theology are good, but we need the story of Christopher, as fantastic and bizarre as it is, to remind us that there is more to this reality than what science, technology, mathematics, and engineering can teach us. We need the fantasy, we need the dreams, and we need the colour to teach us of what the world can be. We need to look beyond the void, and there we find God, and that is where the emptiness of existence ends, and where true existence begins. And this existence, this faith, can help us to have the courage to face the dangers and evil of this world.

S. Christopher from the Westminster Psalter

Over the rainbow and beyond the sky we can find Heaven and the Throne of God; deep within us we find the light and life that God has given to us; and through the stories passed on from generation to generation we can find what the world is and what it could be: stories to comfort us, stories to guide and teach us, and stories to give us courage in the face of a world that tells us to abandon our hope, give into the grey despair of a bleak reality that we cannot change, and forget about our call to love our God and love our neighbours. By embracing the colour, the dreams, and the fantasies, we become like Christopher, we become Christ-bearers, carrying Christ within us, around us, and into the world.

So, even if the story of Christopher isn’t factual, we must believe that it is still true
Amen.

The Challenges of Establishment: A Response to the Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral

I am going to cut to the chase, I do not agree with the reasoning or decision for the Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul in Washington DC, better known as the National Cathedral, to host a prayer service for the inauguration of Donald Trump as President and Mike Pence as Vice President.  There is no good reason to have this service as it does more harm than good, and sends a very destructive message to the communities most at risk because of Trump's presidency.

I concur with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry that we should pray for the president, even by name.  There is a difference however, between praying for a leader and inviting authoritarian people into a sacred temple of the Lord to pray for and celebrate the position they will be inhabiting.  Though the Episcopal Church and the National Cathedral would claim not to endorse Trump or his ideology, by having this event it further normalizes the white nationalism that propelled Trump to the presidency.  The location of the Episcopal Church within the American religious landscape of being a quasi-established church along with the Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul being the so-called National Cathedral and the "national house of prayer" makes this all very disturbing.

Most importantly it sends a message to those who are already victims of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, and those who will be victimized by the Trump administration that the Episcopal Church and the National Cathedral are more concerned with power and status rather than the marginalized and the outcasts of the US.  Of course, this claim could be challenged, however we must remember that in inclusivity and welcome that Jesus offers is extended first and foremost to the poor, the outcast, and the dispossessed, the last that will be made first.  And though inclusivity is not a zero-sum game, we must remember that all discourse and actions are indeed political, there is no such thing as apolitical or politically neutral discourse and actions, and so the messages that we send do indeed matter.  Though the intentions of this service might come from a noble place, it is as with all other things the audience's interpretations and perceptions of these events that give this service its meaning.

As some of you may know, I was not raised in the Episcopal Church.  I came to it after being raised as a Roman Catholic and attending an conservative evangelical university because I believed that the Episcopal Church was a safe haven for those of us in the LGBTQ community.  I still believe this is the case.  The Episcopal Church helped me to discover and reconnect with God and my faith.  I know that I am safe within it.

There is a line of thought that believes that by welcoming Donald Trump and Mike Pence, they are celebrating the inclusivity on the Episcopal Church that is willing to take in all including the powerful and the oppressed.  The Episcopal Church often says all are welcome, and the Dean of the Cathedral, Very Rev. Randy Hollerith says, "all means all."  Along with this there is perhaps a hope that communities like the LGBTQ community to reconcile with people like Trump and Pence.  And though I would have no objection to Donald Trump or Mike Pence entering into any Episcopal church or cathedral on their own, and participating in the usual cycles of prayer and worship of the Episcopal Church, because indeed, all should be welcome in the Episcopal Church.  I do however object to THIS particular service being organized and held specifically for them.  The reconciliation that is being hoped for from this service is an illusory reconciliation because there is no demand for repentance, there is no acknowledgement of the evil that is done, and no attempt to rectify the evil that is done.  It is a pollyanna repentance that seeks civility and niceness over justice, and it is a pattern that the Episcopal Church has fallen into too often in its history; such as with slavery, colonialism, and segregation, and will risk falling into now if the Trump administration builds upon the oppressive actions of its members and follows through to the full extent of its rhetoric.

When the time comes, will people see the Episcopal Church as a refuge against authoritarianism, as an agent of God's justice, and willing to devote its considerable wealth, privilege, and prestige to protecting the poor, the prisoners, non-Christians, women, people of color, migrants, and the LGBTQ community?  By holding this event, you are effectively saying no to these communities.  This is not about loosing an election, but about the safety of those likely to be in harms way.  Yes, all are welcome, but what does that welcome mean when we seem to preoccupied to notice those with whom Jesus identifies: the poor, the prisoners, non-Christians, women, people of color, migrants, and the LGBTQ community?

I want to close with something a Facebook friend of mine, Gregory Williams, wrote:

"When Emperor Theodosius massacred 6,000 civilians when putting down an uprising in Thessalonica, Ambrose, bishop of Milan, excommunicated him. When Theodosius came to Milan and tried to go to the cathedral for mass, Ambrose physically blocked the door and denied him entry, and admitted him only after months of penance.

"Ambrose, let us remember, was an 'establishment,' 'Constantinian' bishop. In this way he was not unlike the Episcopal clergy at the National Cathedral.

"It is one thing to say that, because the gospel of Christ is for all times and places, that we should pray for Kings and Presidents and, when asked, devote pastoral attention to them through specific ministries, of which the national cathedral is one. It is quite another thing to say that our willingness to worship with powerful people is unconditional, or that there are no circumstances under which we will expel perpetrators of grave evil from our assemblies, both for the sake of our souls and for theirs, when continuing to have fellowship with them would constitute material cooperation with evil."

We must love out enemies, and pray for those who would persecute us.  But we must also realize that though all are welcome wherever they are within our communities and churches, there is a hope and even a demand to be transformed through prayer, repentance, and true reconciliation by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In the seeming absence of that, as Donald Trump has frequently said that he does not need to ask for forgiveness, and Mike Pence has done horrific things as governor of Indiana towards marginalized communities, the Episcopal Church and all churches in the United States must stand with the most vulnerable in our society, not only for their physical, but spiritual safety.  This is not to say that Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or anyone in the Trump administration is beyond redemption, but it is a recognition that the safety of those whom Jesus is to be found is at stake by the rhetoric, actions, and policies of these political leaders.  By celebrating men and women who ascended into power by allying themselves with and empowering white supremacy, patriarchy, and violent homophobia and transphobia, the National Cathedral sends a message that power and privilege matter more than standing with those who bear the face of Jesus, whether they wish to send such a message or not.  For this reason, I do not think the Inaugural Prayer Service should be held at the Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul.

Let Me Tell You A Story: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-16

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-25

St. Christopher's Episcopal Church

Kailua, HI

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a young king named Ahaz.  He was a young man who only came to the throne at the age of twenty.  He was king over a small, but a proud little kingdom called Judah, but was sandwiched between two mighty empires: Assyria and Egypt. 

Assyria was a mighty and terrifying empire.  Though its cities were grand and the largest in the ancient world, and its culture was exquisite, many of its artistic works are among the most spectacular in antiquity; to be on its bad side meant unfortunate things.  Enemies were killed in gruesome ways, women and children taken into slavery, and conquered people were scattered to the corners of their empire.  And though Egypt was certainly powerful enough to rival them, they were far away, and were slowly loosing the ability to challenge Assyria.  Indeed, they would eventually be conquered by Assyria in the future.  For Judah, and other small kingdoms caught between the two, to survive meant having to side with one of these empires. 

Well, our young king was placed into a difficult situation.  Two other smaller kingdoms, Israel and Aram, which is located in modern-day Damascus, attempted to force Judah into a coalition to defend against Assyria, as they believed that they were stronger together.  Their request to have Judah join them was accompanied with an invasion and an assault on Jerusalem, just for good measure.  Ahaz, fearing for his kingdom, sought to find ways to save himself.  He sought ways to make Judah great, as it had once been under David and Solomon.

There was a man in Ahaz’s court named was Isaiah. He was one of the king’s distant relatives as they were both descended from royalty.  Ahaz found him a bit odd, but others called him a prophet.  He rambled off some prophecy about a child who will eat cheese and honey, and that God will save Judah from the invaders.  But what use is this for Judah?  Judah was a tiny land, and it was clearly being besieged on all sides.  Over in Assyria, they had many mighty and powerful gods.  Ashur, the patron deity of Assyria had a whole city built in his honour.  Marduk, a deity second to Ashur in significance, had a spectacular golden statue in Babylon that granted kingship to those who took his hand.  All that the God of Judah had was a small golden box in Jerusalem in a small little temple. 

So Ahaz decided to meet with the King of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser III.  Isaiah said not to, but why not?  Assyria is strong, Assyria is mighty, and Assyria is great, and so it is only logical to try and be with that greatness and hope it comes off onto you.  Tiglath-Pileser was a king of kings, a god to his people.  He could get things done, people feared him, and so better to be his friend.  And so, Ahaz became a vassal to him. 

And it worked, Assyria eventually conquered Aram and Israel.  And Judah was safe.  All it cost Ahaz was some money, and to worship the gods of Assyria.  The money, though a substantial amount of silver, could be afforded.  As for the Assyrian gods, well why not.  If they helped to make Assyria great, maybe they will make Judah great.  People will keep worshipping the ancestral God of Israel and Judah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but worshipping more gods means you have covered all your bases.  Besides, one little Ashera Pole, one graven image in the court never hurt anybody, right?

Time passes, Tiglath-Pilesar would come and go, and Ahaz would come and go.  About a century passes, and with all things made by people, Assyria eventually faded away and a new empire, Babylon, was on the rise.  Well, Judah was a friend of Assyria, and now Assyria is gone, and those who were friends with Assyria do not look so good in the eyes of Babylon, especially since Babylon was once a conquered nation of Assyria.  And now, Judah had no close neighbours except Babylon, as Israel and Aram were destroyed, the cost of vassalage to Assyria reduced the treasury of Judah to the point that the kingdom could not support its people, the cost of Egypt’s friendship for protection against Babylon was higher, and the cost of keeping Babylon from invading even higher.

The last king of Judah, Zedekiah, never listened to the prophet of his era, Jeremiah.  He continued to worship gods other than the God of Judah, hoping for their protection, and according to the Bible even offered up human sacrifices to appease them.  In the end, after a desperate political gamble, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon did away with Judah, destroyed the Temple of God, took the people into exile, stole the Ark of the Covenant, and did horrible things to King Zedekiah and his family.  Judah was no more.

Many generations pass, empires rise and fall, and we turn to a distant descendent of Ahaz named Joseph.  Though Joseph is descended from royalty, he is far from it; he is a carpenter.  He lives not in the independent Kingdom of Judah, but in a client state of Rome called Judea, or in Nazareth in Galilee according to the Gospel of Luke, but we do not need to split hairs over the details.  Rome itself had a leader, Octavius, who was taking titles like consul, tribune, First Citizen, pontifex maximus, Imperator, and Augustus Caesar.  And Augustus Caesar promised to make the Roman Republic great again.  But these matters were of little consequence to Joseph.  He had a business to manage, and a marriage to look to.

Joseph however discovers that his bride-to-be is pregnant.  He did not maker her pregnant, and so to him, there must have been some other sordid affair.  According to the Law of Moses, he could publically shame her, and the Book of Deuteronomy allows for him to put her to death.  But no, Joseph decides to be one of the good guys, he decides to let her save some face, and just quietly divorce her, even though she and her child will still be pariahs, it is a practical option, and it is better than nothing, right?

In his dreams, the an angel tells him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  All this was to fulfill the words of Isaiah “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.”  Who knows quite what happened in Joseph’s mind: how aware was he of his decent from Ahaz, how familiar was he with Isaiah’s prophecy, and how does he connect Emmanuel-God is with us, to Jesus-God Saves?  But somewhere in his heart and his mind, he decided to not do what society expected of him, he decided to not do the pragmatic thing, and he decided to accept what God was calling for rather than what would be best for him.  He did what polite society would call scandalous, and took a pregnant woman into his house to co-habitate with him, and together they would raise her child even though he was not expected to, or obligated to do so.  He, unlike Ahaz, trusted in God, and took Mary in when all of society would have rejected her. 

He was no longer a nice guy in the eyes of society; he did what was right though.  Unlike Ahaz, he did not trust in the powers and expectations of the world to make his situation better for him.  He did not choose pragmatism in the face of trial or opposition to avoid making he scene.  He chose love, and that is what we must do always.    

When we face the demands of society to conform to do that which is evil we must choose to follow God.  Sometimes, it is not enough to be a nice person.  Niceness gives us pretence of civility, when in reality it is cowardly.  We must follow Joseph’s example, and sometimes make the hard choices that no one expects from us because they are the right choices.  We must be willing to accept the person in need who is in danger of marginalization from our society; we must accept God’s love for those people.  God loves and blesses the outcasts, and so we must accept the outcasts into our hearts and our lives.  When society tells us to do evil, even if it seems pragmatic, or safe, we must resist and do the right thing.  Sometimes the person in need is someone close to us, sometimes they are a person who is homeless in the park across the way, sometimes they are a Syrian refugee, sometimes they are Muslim, sometimes they are a person of colour, or a member of the LGBTQ community, sometimes it is a woman who society is likely to reject based on their own beliefs about morality.  We must follow Joseph’s example and let the person in, because when we let that person in, we let God, Emmanuel in.  That is a Christmas miracle.

Amen.

Just Be There: Mary, Martha, and Black Lives Matter. A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 18:1-10a
Psalm 15 
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

St. Christopher's Episcopal Church
Kailua, HI

+In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

We have seen a lot of violence lately on the mainland of the US, and abroad.  We pray for the people of Baton Rouge, LA, where three men who work as police officers were killed this morning.  We pray for the people of Turkey following a failed coup on Friday and in the midst of their political instability.  We pray for the people of France as they mourn over the death of 80 people during their Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.  As we pray for the world, we must pray for the violence that continues to grip the US.

In our mourning, let us not forget that it has been two weeks since the killing of two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police officers.  In the days that have followed, there have been protests, discussions, debates, and a whole lot of hand wringing over what to do.  Indeed since the death of Philando Castile on July 6, there have been at least 5 more black men killed by police: Micah Johnson, Alva Braziel, Andre Johnson, Delran Small, and Tyler Gebhard.  In the midst of this, we have also seen the death of five men who work as police officers following a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.  Law enforcement agents killed the accused shooter, the same Micah Johnson I mentioned earlier, using a remote controlled drone, the first such killing on US soil.  In the midst of mourning, there has been many people asking how and why we got to this point, and a great deal of hand wringing on the part of many seeking solutions.  We have heard a lot of calls for unity, for calls to respect our common humanity, calls for us to come together as we mourn.  But many of these calls for unity, even some of the calls from President Obama himself, seem to miss what is at the core of many of these tragedies.  

If I may be so bold, I would say that the deaths of these black men are not rare occurrences, but are so common that many of us might treat it as a normal thing.  In fact, since the beginning of this year, there have been at least 114 incidents of a black person being killed by a person who works as a police officer.  Bear in mind that Black Lives Matter has emerged in our national consciousness as a result of the deaths of Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner at the hands of law enforcement agents and vigilante citizens over three years ago.  And perhaps the retaliatory violence against people who work as law enforcement agents has emerged because of the apparent lack of justice that fails to hold the people accountable for the death of people of color accountable for their actions.  Here’s the thing, extremism begets extremism, and violence begets violence.  These things do not form or emerge in a vacuum, but emerge because of the powerful exercising violence against the powerless, and the powerless responding back with violence.  There are longstanding cycles of violence that continue to perpetuate themselves, and these cycles are older than all of us.  We may  not be personally responsible for these cycles of violence, but we choose actively in our day-to-day lives to either further the cycle, or to work to break it.

I believe as Christians, we are called to serve and love God, and to serve and love our neighbors.  But we sometimes become frustrated over how we do this.  And perhaps in our collective frustration, inaction occurs.  And in our inaction, more violence happens.

When I look at our Epistle reading, and hear the words of Saint Paul, we hear the promises of Christ.  Jesus, who is firstborn from the dead reconciles all to God.  He is the Resurrection, and the Life, he is the promise of salvation and redemption, and he brings hope and mercy to a battered and broken world.  I have also sat with the words of this morning’s Psalm, “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle? who may abide upon your holy hill?”  I sit with these, and contemplate over what they mean, and I find myself looking over and again the message of Jesus.  

I do not believe that Jesus’ incarnation was an accident, or incidental to his ministry.  He was born to a poor, working-class Palestinian-Jewish family in a land occupied by the mighty Roman Empire.  Of course, we all know and hear how Jesus served and ate with the poor, the outcast, and dispossessed, but we sometimes hear less about how he also ate with the wealthy, the powerful, and the elite.  He interacted with priests and Pharisees, and even healed the servant of a Roman centurion who served his very occupiers.  We may take this as a sign of Christ’s universal love for the whole of humanity, but to different groups he had a different message.  To the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed, he brought a message of hope and mercy, but to the powerful came calls and commands to change their ways, to repent to look beyond themselves, and see the poor, outcast, and oppressed in their midst as human beings.  To see them as just existing.  Perhaps to put it bluntly, God gives to the powerless hope and mercy, and God gives to the powerful warnings of their sins and evil.  

It is the poor, the outcast, the dispossessed and the oppressed that the Son of God became incarnate to be among.  They are his people.  In the midst of the violence and fear: the violence in the US, the violence on Bastille Day, the violence in Turkey, the ongoing violence in the Middle East, and much, much more; in the actual violence, and in the retaliatory attacks, we who have power, we who have privilege must see the challenges and realities of what is going on and name it.  If we indeed want to call for peace, for unity, for justice, we who are powerful have to be willing to listen to the voices and cries of the oppressed, and acknowledge how we might be contributing either directly, or indirectly to this state, namely, we must follow the words of Jesus, and pull the log out of our own eye that keeps us from acknowledge our own sins before we can have the presumption to ask others to do anything, let alone ask for unity.

Jesus tells us that we see him in the face of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, and the prisoners.  For us today, to see Jesus, we look to those who carry the face of Jesus today to listen to those who are willing to speak, to learn from those willing to teach, and to serve.  For Jesus, Black Lives Matter, Latino Lives Matter, Asian Lives Matter, Muslim and Middle Eastern Lives Matter, Migrant Lives Matter, Indigenous and Native Lives Matter, Native Hawaiian Lives Matter and LGBTZ Lives Matter.  Though Jesus loves all people, we must remember that Jesus identifies with and has a particular love for the marginalized people of the world.  They are his people. 

Though this can all be overwhelming, we should not be paralyzed though into inaction, we as a church and as a society need to find a way to move forward.  We cannot do that, until we know what the problems are.

This leads us to our Gospel.  In our Gospel, we see Mary sitting, and being present before Jesus.  Her sister, Martha, is running around, busting her backside, and trying to be a good host for Jesus.  She isn’t doing anything wrong, far from that, but Jesus praises Mary for just being present with him.  I find that this Gospel story can provide for us a model for how we proceed.  Martha runs around, as we sometimes run around, and we loose sight of what matters, of who is in our midst.  We get preoccupied with the idea of people that we forget that people are around us.  Mary however, is present with Jesus, the only thing that matters, and thus chooses the better part.  We need to follow her example, but how do we do that?


Well, I have one answer that I can give to you.  Dr. T.J. Tallie, a scholar of African History, and a Facebook friend of mine, posted a video on Facebook a few weeks ago briefly explaining his experience of being a black man in America, and some advice for people, particularly white people, on what we can do in the face of tragedies like the shooting of black men by people working as police in the US, and the daily injustices that people of color deal with here in the US.  I would also add that this can also provide a guide to us who are white about what to when the inevitable retributive violence against Muslims, and people from the Middle East and North Africa, occurs in the US and abroad in response to the attacks in Nice, as there are those blaming Muslims for this attack.  I have received permission to refer to this video, and would like to read you the transcript of it.

“I wanted to say a little something to my white friends.  White friends, this is a terrible and frustrating and exhausting moment, and you may be feeling at a loss for what to do or what to say, or how to make things possibly better.  I think it is important to know that you can’t fix things.  But I also think it is really important for you to check in with the people of color in your life, especially black, and Latino, and Native American, and Middle Eastern people.  Just check-in and love them.  Don’t weedle them for how they are feeling, don’t show them how you are a good ally, Just be there.  Ask if they need anything.  Get them a coffee, give them a hug.  Just be.  It is so hard to exist every fucking day here, to move through a world that implicitly tells you that you do not matter, that you do not exist.  And yes, we are calling upon you to join us in dismantling all of this white supremacist fuckery.  But we are also calling you in the day to day to keep an eye out for how hard it is to fucking breath everyday.  Go check in on your friends, that’s what you should do right now.”

We alone cannot fix the evils that exist in this world.  If we try to get the political power necessary to do so, we might end up compromising ourselves along the way. We can run around and try all we want, but we will loose sight of the people who are in front of us in this very moment, the people who we call friends, the people who exist around us, and even the people we pretend are invisible.  But even just being with a person is not always easy.  We have to accept that we might not get an answer, and that we might be spurned in this action, and that is okay.  But we cannot get upset; we cannot give up on doing this because this is not about us.  We have to step aside, stop running around, and allow others to just exist.  We have to step aside, stop running around, and allow Jesus to exist.  If we allow Jesus to exist, we can begin to have hope in this world.

Amen.

Thoughts on the Orlando Shooting

I did not hear the news about the Orlando shooting until after Mass this afternoon.  I will admit, I do not pay much attention to news on Sunday mornings until after Mass, mainly for the sake of focusing on the liturgy.  There are days however that I regret looking at the news, and wish I never opened up Facebook on my phone while walking back from church.  Today was one of those days, and I do not know what else to say or do, so I am writing down and sharing these thoughts of mine.  I am so thankful that I was able to spend the day with a good friend of mine, because I was able to hide from my sorrow, pain, and anger for just a little while.  I was able to smile for a bit, and able to be myself.  But eventually I had to confront my feelings on this.

50 are dead in Orlando.  A shooter came into a gay club in Orlando and opened fire with a gun he legally purchased.  He was angry at the sight of two men kissing apparently, so he decided to be a good guy with a gun.

Though there are a lot of people who are mourning for the events that have happened, and say this is a crime against our common humanity, I have to admit, I find no comfort with that.  To know that the largest mass shooting in the history of the US, and the largest act of violence in the US since the 9/11 attacks were directed towards the LGBTQ community, my own community, cuts and hurts in a way that not everyone can understand.  Society hopes to soften the pain by generalising it, and yet I find that only those who are a part of other communities that experience violence en masse in the US are the ones who truly can begin to understand this pain, for though the pain is different among our communities, the hurt is the same, and in that we can find empathy with each other.

The blood of the oppressed cries out for justice from the ground of Orlando, just as it cries out throughout much of the land, and yet we do nothing.  We Americans believe that the right to own tools of murder is more important and more sacred that the lives and bodies of black people, brown people, queer people, and children.  We will never be able to end oppression in the US until we get rid of the very tools of that oppression.  Yet we do nothing.  How many more people have to die for the sake of this golden calf our society worships?

As selfish as this may sound, there are days that I am thankful that I live in Canada.  I am thankful I can walk out the door and believe that I am safe as a gay man here.  I am thankful that I do not have to live in fear for my safety, much less my life here in Toronto. I cannot imagine the fear that my LGBTQ friends in the US are feeling.  Now, because of Orlando, I am afraid to travel home to the US lest I come across someone who decides I do not deserve to live.  It is terrifying that the academic conferences that I attend, or may attend, have to send out emails about ensuring that conference spaces are safe from gun violence.  I know that because I am white and male that I am considered more acceptable in the eyes of American society, so I cannot imagine the fear that black or brown queer people are feeling in the wake of this attack.

To make matters worse, politicians and others in the US are being terrible about this.  People have been posting responses on the Internet praising the shooter, and others have attributed the shooter as being part of God’s justice against the LGBTQ community.  We also see people shifting the blame for this violence onto Islam, even though those same people have spent years demonising the LGBTQ community.  Again, though our pain may be different, we must not allow the forces of hate to divide those of us who are oppressed.

As I write this, I am listening to a Requiem Mass so that I can pray for those who have died.  I do not know how else to express the pain except to listen, to write, and to pray.  I can only hope and pray that someday that the justice of God may come and that the poor, the oppressed, and the destitute are exalted finally.  Until that day comes, I pray for the victims of the Orlando shooting, and all those who live in fear and are distressed, particularly the LGBTQ community in the US and throughout the world.

If you can, go to a rally, go to a vigil, pray, meditate, be silent, be still, mourn, cry, weep, and keep your thoughts, minds, and hearts on the victims of Orlando.


Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon all thy queer children who live with injustice, and terror as their companions. Have mercy upon us and forgive us our sins of deed or neglect against these our neighbours. Give strength to those who work for justice and opportunity for all, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

May light eternal shine, O Lord, upon them the victims of Orlando, for endless ages with thy blessed ones, for thou art gracious. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them, for endless ages with thy blessed ones, for thou art gracious.

Amen.