Text of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 9 Year B)
July 8, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.
There’s not much evidence that the Apostle Paul had a sense of humor. We have an example of just how serious Paul can be in today’s lection: “To keep me from being too elated,†he writes to those fun-loving folks in Corinth, “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.†I wonder how Paul might react, however, to the following humorous question: When is tennis first mentioned in scripture: “When Joseph served in Pharaoh’s court.†Come on, Paul, you can chuckle just a little.
I think Paul’s sense of humor, or evident lack of one, was a reason he never stayed long in any community. In my 23 years of ordained ministry, I have yet to come across a parish profile that seeks a priest with a dour outlook. Laughter gets us through tough times. While there’s no record of Jesus laughing, I know he wept at the grave of Lazarus. “Laughing so hard you cry†is an expression that makes it clear to me that anyone who can weep has a full range of emotions.
Let’s give Paul another chance. When is a fine Japanese car first mentioned in scripture: “When they were all in one accord.†Okay, Paul, I saw the glimmer of a small upside down frown.
Ministry is very serious business. Ministry, in the power of the Holy Spirit, changes lives. A deep commitment to draw people to Christ, to know Christ and make Christ known, carries on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world. As we share in Christ’s work of reconciliation, change is inevitable and leads to transformation. Paul used these words to the Ephesians to describe this serious business: “The gifts that Christ gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.†Together, we have been about this serious business for the past nine years.
I think we might get a full smile from Paul if we connect the Ephesians passage to the following bit of biblical humor. When is baseball or softball first mentioned in scripture: “In the big-inning.†No smile yet. Hang in there, Paul.
Paul knows a great deal about big-innngs that are really beginnings that lead to transformation. He was a persecutor of the earliest Christians. Paul stood with the crowd that stoned Stephen. In the Acts of the Apostles, the early church remembered Paul’s dramatic conversion experience on the Road to Damascus. Paul was much more reticent in his own writings. Paul told the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.â€
Paul is quite clear that his transformation, his change from persecutor to proclaimer, was ongoing. The big-inning led to many more innings. Paul helps us understand that the game is serious. We participate as we play. We are not on the field alone. Others share their gifts. As we carry the baseball / softball image forward we realize the importance of being a team where some would be pitchers, some hitters, some fielders, some catchers and coaches. A team, when fully committed to Christ as Christ-centered community, is equipped and enabled, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to draw people to Christ.
My time over the years on our church league softball team has helped me better understand that I am not on the field alone. Paul shows a bit of a sense of humor when he writes to the Corinthians about the concept of team in these words, “Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,†that would not make it any less part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,†that would not make it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?â€
Sometimes when I played right field, I felt “left out†of the game. When it became clear that I did not have the speed to run and catch a fly ball, I moved to catcher. When my knees rebelled, I filled in one evening as the pitcher. Over time, that became my primary position. I’m now in the center of the action when the team is on the field. I could easily fall into the trap of thinking I’m the most important person because all eyes are on me as each play begins. I could take the game so seriously that my real purpose for coming to the ballpark would be lost. While I come to compete to the best of my ability, I really come to share in the love for the game that brings players, coaches, fans, and even umpires to the game.
The lessons of a life lived well are deepened and strengthened when love permeates that life. The invitation to a life lived well is what God offers in the reconciling love of Jesus Christ. I think the thorn in Paul’s side was to remind him that a little elation is okay when one is serious about what we call the business of ministry. This is the elation felt when a ball is well-struck by a batter who hasn’t played for years, a double-play is made by aging athletes, or two teams laughing together at the end of game over something that brought them to tears in someones big-inning.
Thank you Paul, for your serious conviction and God-inspired wisdom. We would not be Christ-centered community without you. In the power of the Holy Spirit, you brought gifts and skills that equipped and enabled ministry. When we remember your teaching, we are better able to know Christ and make Christ known as we draw people to Christ. You said it so well in these words to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.â€
When is such love made known to us in Holy Scripture? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all the people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.â€
Transformation comes when light overcomes darkness; when we know Christ and make Christ known. When we share our gifts fully with God and one another. Paul, you seem elated. Your countenance is bright and your smile broad. Are those tears of joy?
All these words I offer in the God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Text of the sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 29, 2011
The Cost of the Breath of God Sanctioned Freedom
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
Saint Matthews Episcopal Church
 The Apostle Paul reminds the Athenians of what they might have overlooked: the altar he found among them with the inscription, ‘To an unknown God.’ He uses impeccable logic to claim, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.†Paul goes on to say, “For `In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, for we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.â€
Paul declared that it was easy for the Athenians to hide the true nature of the deity of God in gold, or silver, or stone. He contends that multiple shrines filled with objects of worship distract from knowing the true God who “gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.â€
Just as it was in the time of Paul, the world that we make for ourselves has a way of pulling us into places or activities that distract from what is really important.
Memorial Day Weekend makes it easy to overlook Memorial Day. Just as Christians struggle with bunnies and commercialism that distracts from the price paid for us by Jesus on the cross, we are lured by needed leisure that diminishes the price paid by those who made possible the freedom we so easily accept. Memorial Day is a day we set aside to remember those who gave their lives to insure our opportunity to freely worship the God who “gives to all mortals life and breath.â€
Originally called Decoration Day, it was first enacted to honor Union and Confederate soldiers following the Civil War. It was extended after World War I to remember Americans who have died in all wars. The name Memorial Day was first used in 1882 and was not in common usage until after World War II. Federal law in1967 made Memorial Day the official name. The Veterans of Foreign Wars stated in a 2002 Memorial Day Address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.â€
Tomorrow, May 30th, is the traditional day to celebrate Memorial Day. 18 years ago I served as the chief marshal of the Warren Rhode Island Memorial Day exercises. In the uniform of an army officer with the crosses that marked me as a chaplain, I evoked the Apostle Paul when I said, “A memorial is something that helps us remember something more important than a memorial.†I went on to say, “Look around South Cemetery. There are many memorials that call us to remember persons special in our lives. These memorials help us remember that while these persons are dead they are still very much a part of who we are. Family, friends, and yes, a number of patriots who died protecting the freedom we enjoy as naturally as the air we breathe. And just as the air can become polluted so can our sense of who we are as Americans. We can forget that it takes hard work and much determination to keep our freedom intact. Memorial Day calls us to renew our commitment to the ideals found in such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Pledge of Allegiance and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.â€
I have walked the Gettysburg battlefield and felt God’s tears as brother fought brother. Both sides, no doubt, believed fully the words found in First Peter, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.†Abraham Lincoln made it clear that no one, Confederate or Federal, suffered in vain. It is a good day that the air we breathe resound with his healing words.
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.â€
Every new birth must begin with a breath. Sometimes we take breathing for granted. Paul proclaims the God who gives all life and breath. Lincoln spoke about the cost of a “new birth of freedom.†Surely we have a responsibility to sometimes breath this breath of God sanctioned freedom in a conscious manner.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, you give us life and breath and all things. We give you thanks for the men and women of our armed forces, past and present, and especially for those who have given the last full measure of devotion to preserve our freedom to worship you. May their sacrifice be honored, as just in the cause of peace, and may our nation be ever grateful for their service. Let our leaders be guided by your wisdom. May our strength be manifest in how we share your love as one nation under God. This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
All these words I offer in the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The First Sunday in Lent
February 26, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.
I have to wonder, I have to wonder about what it must have been like to be in that ark. Noah, the eight are there, they’ve gathered all the creatures, and they’re in the ark following God’s commandment, and they’re on the water. I just have wonder. I mean, I’ve been in a rather flat-bottomed big boat, a ferry that took me and my family across from Long Island to Connecticut in rather turbulent weather. And the ship went up and down, and up and down: It was not a pleasant time. So for all the jokes we might have about Noah and his family caring for the animals in there, I’m imagining the reality of floating on that water, water that is most likely not placid but filled with the tempest of a storm. And I would wonder and I would speculate that perhaps by about the, oh the twentieth day or the twenty-fifth day it got a little old. And they may moved from the joy of God contacting them and giving them a blessed opportunity to, well, finding a little bit of hurt, and fear, and anger: maybe even despair.
So they’re there, and then, then of course, forty days, the raven is sent out, then the dove, and the dove comes back, then the dove is sent out seven days later, and the dove returns with a blade of grass or something green. And they know their journey is at the end. So I’m sure some big smiles came on their faces at that time: they were filled with joy. It’s as if joy overcame their despair.
We have a passage of scripture for us in the gospel text, which seems, seems very familiar. Actually a part of it was read to us on the First Sunday after the Epiphany; when Jesus comes forward for the baptism in the Jordan River. And if you recall, as he comes up out of the water, God says, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.†And we hear that today opening up our gospel. And I have to wonder, and I have to kind of imagine, what must it have been like for Jesus to come up out of the water and hear this voice coming down. I have this sense, that just maybe, just maybe, his body, his human body, got all tingly, as if he felt gold glittering down on top of him. And just how would you portray it in a movie? It would be just a glorious a sense of peace and wonder and joy.
And then as the scripture tells us, forty days, he goes out into the desert to be tempted in every way as we are, for Jesus is fully human. And I have to wonder, I can speculate that maybe as he is being tempted, the human part of him is being pulled, perhaps, in a direction away from God: But he has that moment when the father’s, God’s love, so showered upon him, that he could remember that joy.
Now remember, Jesus is fully God and fully man. We’re somewhat fortunate in the way the canons were set-up that we only have four accounts, not five. If the gospel according to Thomas had wound up in there, we would have had a lot of stories of Jesus as a little boy. The only thing we actually have in scripture of Jesus, as a younger one besides his birth, is when he decides to be on the edge of being a teenager. And he decides to stay in the temple when the caravan leaves, and worries his mother and his father. He sounds a little bit mouthy when he says I was supposed to be his Father’s house. But then he became totally obedient. I’m trying to remind you just how hard it must have been to balance fully God and fully man. I can almost imagine, as if I was writing a part of the gospel of Thomas now, so this is made up, Mary talking to Jesus as a little boy, and saying to him, “I don’t care if you’re the Son of God, go clean your room.†I’m sure we can relate to that.
Archbishop Cranmer, in the 1500’s, wrote The Great Litany, which we prayed to begin our Lenten worship on this, the First Sunday in Lent. It’s almost as if Archbishop Cranmer wanted each and every one of us to don a hair shirt, or taking a whip to the back. Because by the time we were done praying it was a pretty long list of the things we do to pull ourselves away from God. We’re entering into 40 days, perhaps, of pondering those things, those temptations.
I’m going to offer you this: in a few minutes we will pray the Eucharistic prayer. We’ll prayer Eucharistic Prayer A today, and I have choice of two prefaces. The first one goes like this: “Through Jesus Christ our Lord; who was tempted in every way as we are, yet did not sin. By his grace we are able to triumph over every evil, and to live no longer for ourselves alone, but for him who died for us and rose again.†The operative word is “grace.†The second one continues to point us to where Lent leads: “You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.†Again, the operative word is “grace.†And then found beneath that is when we enter fully into that grace: we find joy. We find joy in the life that we live. We acknowledge how hard it is for us to be us. It gives us a sense of what Jesus might have been struggling with in his forty days in the desert.
When during a marriage liturgy and we pray these words over the couple: “Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.†And the other prayer that we would pray would be: “Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.â€
Think about these as if it’s in the relationship we have with Christ which is truly the foundation of how these prayers are offered in a wedding service: To guide the couple forward. Give us wisdom, O Lord, and a devotion to you that you may help us order our lives; that your strength, your grace, may be the counselor we need in perplexity, the comfort we need in sorrow, and may we always recognize you as a companion in our joy. May we know that you are with us, so that your relationship with us allows for unity to overcome estrangement; forgiveness, your forgiveness, heal our guilt; and that we always know that in you joy will conquer despair.
You see, when we pray a set of prayers like The Great Litany, or the Litany of Penitence from Ash Wednesday, or a snippet of psalm 51 “Create in a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.†We can put on that hair shirt to such a degree that we forget that God bids God’s faithful people to prepare with joy for the Paschal feast.
I printed a small reflection in your bulletin; you might take home. I’m going to read two or three pieces from it. It’s called this, this may guide you to have this proper balance:
Lent is a time for fasting and feasting.
Fast from judging others: Feast on Christ dwelling in them.
Fast from words that pollute: Feast on speech that purifies.
Fast from discontent: Feast on gratitude.
Fast from self-concern: Feast on compassion.
Fast from worry: Feast on faith.
You bid your faithful cleanse their hearts. Indeed, we are about that work during Lent. And we are also about the work of preparing with joy for the Paschal feast. My hope and prayer as you go through your devout and holy Lent, you hear God’s love in the same strong words that God said over Jesus, “This is my son, you are my children, the beloved, truly, for all you are and for all you do, I am well pleased with you.â€
All these words I offer in the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Transcription of the homily offered
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
at 7:00 am on Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the homily.
In a few moments, you will be invited to come forward to have the sign of the cross placed on your foreheads. And it will be placed on your foreheads using ashes that will come from palms that were used to celebrate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. And then, of course, we know what happened the rest of that week and how all turned on him. And, so, they are a marvelous symbol of the Great Faithfulness of God: The cross that is put on your forehead.
You see, it is this cross that Jesus goes to. And if you think about it, there is another cross that’s already been put on your forehead, put on at baptism, when you are marked as Christ’s own in the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit.
Now, over the course of the day, something may happen to this marvelous sign of God’s faithfulness. Perhaps you’ll put a hat on like I will. It’s cold out. And it will get a little smudged as the day goes on. Now, perhaps, what happens with this smudge, you can begin to think of it as the same type of smudge that’s on your heart: That speaks, perhaps, to our unfaithfulness to God.
 We’re entering into a season when we can reflect on how faithful God is to us, how steadfast God’s love is to us always, and how easy it is for us to let our hearts be smudged, covered with grit and dirt. And today, as part of what we do, we make clear that we recognize how far and how easy it is for to fall away from our faithfulness when we cry out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.†When we pray the Litany of Penitence, and we basically take a very thorough inventory of how easy it is for us to fall away.
 But the important thing to remember is this: The mark that is on your forehead that has become marred or smudged as the day goes on is really, simply, that outward sign of the hidden sign of the cross that was put on you in baptism: The cross that Jesus freely went to. And it also reminds us of the new life that comes after death that we will find in the resurrection on Easter Day. So our journey reminds us of how easy it is for us to fall away, but it should also remind us how tremendously God will never let go. That is the Great Faithfulness of God. I pray you find that faithfulness in your journey of Lent.
 All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Text of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 5, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.
We live in an age of constant media scrutiny. The internet has made it possible for everyone with computer or cellphone access to be a reporter and a commentator. If you check your pocket or your purse you will probably find a recording instrument capable of rendering the most powerful of people ineffective. All you have to do is what I am doing now. No, not preaching, using your recording device, as I am doing now with my iPhone to capture what I hear and see: I now have a visual record of who was in church today. I am even able to use the zoom feature and see clearly the inhabitants of the choir loft as well as pews in the back of the church. As I turn to the altar, I now have proof positive of the wonderful work of our altar guild. I can even takes notes in real time on this device. I can immediately post what I write, including videos and pictures, on Facebook or Twitter or a website of my own choosing. Others can then react and do the same. News collection agencies such as TV stations, newspapers, cable news channels, (oh, the list goes on!), now use such postings as qualified sources when they try to “scoop†each other. Sometimes a lively, funny or touching story goes “viral†and we laugh or cry: such as cats confounded by sheets of paper pulled into a home printer. And often, it seems, manipulation is at the core of spurious allegations: either to tear down or repair a reputation.
In the late 1900’s, bachelor President Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering a child out-of-wedlock. His story went slowly viral, one newspaper and one barber shop at a time. Cleveland and his aides were able to control it: truth about character was trumped by political expediency. Cleveland was twice elected President. The detail of those elections is trivia for another time.
Flip-flopping, another more modern term for political expediency, brings the question of character into every conversation. Finding just the right phrase or image to discredit is at the root of gaining and holding power. For instance, I could be seen as a credible source as I speak on this subject. After all, I earned a Bachelor of Science from the prestigious College of Communication of Boston University. However, as my children have gleefully reminded me through the years when I’m being silly or over-explaining something, Dad’s using his B.S. in communication again. Your laughter indicates that the power of my credentials has been reduced, diminished, or simply dismissed.
Imagine what we could do with the argument of the Apostle Paul if we simply sent a video around the internet of him saying, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.â€[i] Can you just hear the news: Against an unflattering picture of Paul, the newscaster gravely reports: “Dateline Corinth. The huge ego of the reputed apostle Paul of Tarsus was evident again today when he used the word “win†over and over again in a recent speech.†Cut to a full screen snippet of Paul saying only what I just read. Cut back to a tight shot of the newscaster slowly moving his head as if in disbelief. Paul is damned for being expedient and tossed aside as not relevant.
In an age when expediency trumps truth it becomes all the more important to seek the truth where it wills to be found. The Prophet Isaiah, speaking as prophets do for God, said as much in what those who pray Morning Prayer have integrated as “The Second Song of Isaiah.†I can hear the assembled voices in seminary intoning, “Seek the Lord while he wills to be found; draw upon him when he draws near.â€[ii] If you recall Jesus saying in the Gospel according to John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,†you can easily substitute the word “truth†for “Lord.†Now God’s challenge to the expediency of human desire is very clear: “Seek the Truth while he wills to be found: draw upon him when he draws near.†When this construct enters the conversation, the Apostle Paul’s foundation to his argument about winning now makes sense: “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.â€[iii] The sneer I placed on the newscaster’s face is undone by the genuine premise Paul uses to support winning at all costs for Christ. To the unbeliever this premise seems as ludicrous as the resurrection from the dead of Jesus. Paul is not being expedient. Paul is not flip-flopping to appease a certain group or interest. Paul knows who he is and why he does what he does: “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.[iv] I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.â€[v]
Paul is constant in his conviction just as God is constant in God’s love and faithfulness to us. Paul has been entrusted with a commission. And so, too, have we. We are entrusted with the Great Commission. We hear this at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew as, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.â€[vi] I prefer the manner in which Jesus is first remembered giving this command at the end of the Gospel according to Mark, “Go into all the world and proclaim the goodness to the whole creation.â€[vii] “Proclaim the goodness by being true to “the way, the truth, and the life†that has found you, and is in you. “And remember,†as Jesus said at the close the Gospel according to Matthew, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.â€[viii] Paul is able to speak directly to Jews, to those under the law, to those outside the law, as well as to the weak, by becoming as they are: not because Paul seeks expediency or just flip-flops to pander, but because Paul knows he speaks with the constant love and grace of “the way, the truth, and the life.â€
Jesus knew what he was saying when he said, “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.â€[ix] Such is the faithfulness of God to those who seek the Lord where he wills to be found. Such is the faithfulness of God when we proclaim the goodness of God to a fearful world that distorts and manipulates. Such is the power that supports those who find Jesus in the least and the lost as do we who serve in his name. We remember him entrusting us, just as he did when he commissioned Paul, to find him when he said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.â€[x]
The great faithfulness of God that nurtures constant conviction through grace and truth, was, and is proclaimed to us today through the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.[xi]
My friends, expediency will always be with us. The desire to win destructively at all costs will always be with us. The struggle to combat the fear that builds distrust will always be with us. This is why we boldly say in response to the questions of The Baptismal Covenant, “I will, with God’s Help.â€[xii] We can stand up to the constant scrutiny of our age when we serve as Christ served. Our dedication to serving the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, those in prison and all in need, recorded or not on our pocket devices, is how we let the world know that true power is bound up in the love we share in Jesus Christ. This is what it means to proclaim the gospel free of charge.
God’s voice continues to call us as powerfully today as that voice did when Saul discovered his true self to be Paul. Once a persecutor of the church, once at one with the power structure of the world, Paul knew and lived the Great Faithfulness of God. We are blessed that he shared his conviction and trust in the way, the truth and the life with these words, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.â€[xiii]
All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
[i] I Corinthians 9:20-22a
[ii] Isaiah 55:6
[iii] 1 Corinthians 9:16-18
[iv] 1 Corinthians 9:19
[v] 1 Corinthians 9:23
[vi] Matthew 28:19
[vii] Mark 16:15
[viii] Matthew 28:20b
[ix] Matthew 10:19-20
[x] Matthew 25:35-36
[xi] Isaiah 40:28-31
[xii] Book of Common Prayer Pages 304-305
[xiii] Romans 8:38-39