Beautiful Impartiality. Easter Day Sermon
“Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.” So spoke Sojourner Truth in December 1851, just 5 years before this parish was founded, at a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. She began her brief and eloquent speech with the words, “Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.” There has been a lot of racket in our world, in our Church in our lives. Something is out of kilter that is for sure.
Each year during Holy Week, all the clergy in the Diocese are invited to attend a service of the reaffirmation of our vows. Oil is made holy, and we are all reaffirmed in our priestly and diaconal ministry, by our Bishop, this year, I was chastised for being too loud and disruptive, not by our Bishop mind you. In his sermon to us Bishop Jelinek spoke of the challenges and hardship the Anglican Communion is facing, the “racket” in our church, as we try to figure out how we will move forward together. At one point he stated, and not without considerable emphasis I might add, that it will be the women of the Anglican Communion who keep us together, who move us to reconciliation. He is right, those people we call men in our church, most of whom are Church leaders, are simply in the way, and unwilling to enter into dialogue about our future. This becomes all the more clear when you read statements like the one given by the Anglican Women gathered at the 51st United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. They said, in a loud and united voice: “We, the women of the Anglican Communion, wish to reiterate our previously stated unequivocal commitment to remaining always in “communion” with and for one another. Given the global tensions so evident in our Church today, we do not accept that there is any one issue of difference or contention which can, or indeed would ever cause us to break our unity as represented by our common baptism. Neither would we ever consider severing the deep abiding bonds of affection which characterize our relationships as Anglican women.” Powerful stuff.
Often times today’s Gospel is interpreted in a flippant way, stating that the disciples did not believe the story of Jesus and the empty tomb, because it was women who shared their experience. Luke maintains, clearly, that the women who discovered the empty tomb were just as vital to Jesus’ ministry as the original twelve. Men bringing the same report would also, in Luke’s gospel not have been believed. In this Gospel, the women are not commanded to go tell the disciples as they are in Matthew and Mark, rather they go to the disciples of their own volition, out of their own excitement for the news they have experienced. Luke is stating clear as a bell, that the women are disciples of Christ, Jesus shared with them his teaching, he shared with them his mission and he shared with the women equally in the ministry he accomplished in his life on Earth. This Easter message, Christ is risen, comes as powerfully from the lips of women as it would have come from Peter himself. It is a message of beauty that is not limited to a select few.
Now I don’t want to disparage men too much today, we have a lot to offer as well. The Acts reading is an amazing story about how Peter’s own interpretation of the Gospel expands as he listens to God’s voice and hears the stories of people who are just beginning to come to understanding the Gospel. How often do we hear Christian leaders in pulpits and on TV’s across the country state Peter’s words in today’s reading from Acts: he says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” At the beginning of chapter 10, Peter has arrived at the home of a man named Cornelius, an uncircumcised Gentile; someone with whom he should never imagined having a relationship with. Cornelius summoned Peter because of a vision he had and in his own desire to share with Peter his pious acts and his Godly life. Peter, in his ministry and through his meeting with Cornelius has hyphenated his own life; he has broadened his own life experience and has come to a new understanding of God’s beautiful all encompassing love. Truly God shows no partiality is a powerful statement one that shows Peter no longer believes that belonging in the Body of Christ depends on the nation or tribe or specific customs one observes, rather belonging to God comes from how we respond to the grace given to us at our baptism.
We are struggling with so much in the Anglican Church and especially in our own Episcopal Church. We are struggling with certain issues that people are using to define who is in and who is out. Today’s reading from Acts forces us to the practical conclusion: If God has given the Gentiles the same experience as the first disciples had at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, doesn’t this mean then that they belong as fully to the Kingdom of God? Who are the Gentiles in our lives today, who are those people who have been wounded by an exclusionary Gospel, by a perceived limited grace given by Churches across the country? Who are those among us, those we work with, those we play with, those we volunteer with who have been deeply hurt by a Gospel which was manipulated to one particular distorted interpretation? Peter’s statement is one of beauty, beautiful impartiality I am calling it, it is also what I would call our Anglican via media, the Episcopal way.
In the movie Shrek, I love the scene as Shrek and Donkey are on the way to the castle, about to cross the rickety, insecure bridge to go save the princess. Donkey is scared out of his mind and as they step out onto the bridge Shrek says to him, “Just don’t look down Donkey.” Shortly thereafter a plank falls off the bridge and Donkey is staring down to the flowing lava far beneath saying, “I’m looking down, Shrek, I’m looking down and it doesn’t look good.” The Episcopal Church has always acted as bridge between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and for some reason, we strayed out onto our own bridge and looked down and got really nervous. “The problem with being a bridge”, Brian McLaren says in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy “is that you get walked on from both ends.” The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion for that matter, has always been good at living in the tension of trouble, we have always been good at conceiving compromise for all parties involved and we have always been good at seeing the deep beauty within one another. Brian McLaren, again in the same book says of us, “In contrast to the Christians who argue the fine points of doctrine but show little taste for the beauty of truth, the Anglican way has been to begin with beauty, to focus on beauty and to stay with it, believing that where beauty is, God is.”
Last night at the Vigil, the first Easter service, we celebrated beauty, we entered the mystery of the risen Christ, and we welcomed the Good News joyfully. The service was powerful, amazing and full of beauty. That is what Brian McLaren is talking about when he talks about how we Anglicans find and stick with beauty, it is our liturgy, and it is how we pray together no matter where we stand. The Rev. Canon Howard Anderson, once told me why he loved the Episcopal Church so much, he said, “bishops, clergy and laity can fight tooth and bone over deep theological, scriptural and traditional issues that the Church faces, once consensus is reached, we as Episcopalians are able to set aside our animosity and worship together, break bread together, both sides have even been known to go out and have a martini together.” Our liturgy strips us bare, it doesn’t make us Episcopalian, it doesn’t make us Anglican, it makes us part of the Body of Christ; it makes us children of God. Our liturgy reminds us who we are and whose we are and that all we are rests in God’s beautiful love.
Paul Allick, chaplain at the UEC and our preacher last night, preached one of the best sermons I have ever heard. He said, “In Holy Baptism, we are ordained to a mission which is predicated by a way of life. In our baptism we are commissioned to show others hope.” He is right; we are each called in mission, through our Baptism, we are each given particular gifts of the spirit that we are called to share with all that are willing to hear. In Baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own forever; we are marked with the seal of resurrection, with the seal of new life. That mark, that new life, calls us to live out our lives filled with beauty, filled with hope, filled with joy for this wonderful day, this wonderful event, this beautiful resurrection. We are called to share the story, our story.
The women stood at the empty tomb, at first surprised and startled that it was empty, it was a moment of beauty that confirmed to them Jesus had risen. It was a moment of beauty, when the two men in dazzling white appeared, which gave them hope. It was that moment of beauty which led them back to the disciples and back to the world forever changed forever filled with the joy of the risen Christ. It was that moment of beauty that reminded them of their call from Christ, to go out to all nations, bringing with them the joy of the Good News of God in Christ. Paul Allick, in his sermon last night asked us, “We all know that on Monday morning we are going back out into the world and we are going to experience life as it really is. If Christ is risen and wickedness and death are vanquished, why is it still happening?” We are called to do and to be mission, our baptism requires no less of us, today we sit in the beauty of this liturgy, today we sit in the beauty of this community gathered, my hope is that this beauty reminds us not of what we have to do as Christians, but what we want to do, may this beauty remind us not of the impossible work of reconciliation yet to be done in the world, but that we are reconciling human beings, people who can heal deep hurts, people who can bring joy to the sorrowful, people who can transform the world.
Each of us is called to do God’s work in the world. Our stake in Christ’s body is no less than anyone else’s. Let us go from here proclaiming the Good News of Christ raised, making a racket like nothing that has ever been heard before. Let us go from here filled with joy and hope, reminded by beauty, that we are loved and that we are called to love all.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.” So spoke Sojourner Truth in December 1851, just 5 years before this parish was founded, at a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. She began her brief and eloquent speech with the words, “Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.” There has been a lot of racket in our world, in our Church in our lives. Something is out of kilter that is for sure.
Each year during Holy Week, all the clergy in the Diocese are invited to attend a service of the reaffirmation of our vows. Oil is made holy, and we are all reaffirmed in our priestly and diaconal ministry, by our Bishop, this year, I was chastised for being too loud and disruptive, not by our Bishop mind you. In his sermon to us Bishop Jelinek spoke of the challenges and hardship the Anglican Communion is facing, the “racket” in our church, as we try to figure out how we will move forward together. At one point he stated, and not without considerable emphasis I might add, that it will be the women of the Anglican Communion who keep us together, who move us to reconciliation. He is right, those people we call men in our church, most of whom are Church leaders, are simply in the way, and unwilling to enter into dialogue about our future. This becomes all the more clear when you read statements like the one given by the Anglican Women gathered at the 51st United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. They said, in a loud and united voice: “We, the women of the Anglican Communion, wish to reiterate our previously stated unequivocal commitment to remaining always in “communion” with and for one another. Given the global tensions so evident in our Church today, we do not accept that there is any one issue of difference or contention which can, or indeed would ever cause us to break our unity as represented by our common baptism. Neither would we ever consider severing the deep abiding bonds of affection which characterize our relationships as Anglican women.” Powerful stuff.
Often times today’s Gospel is interpreted in a flippant way, stating that the disciples did not believe the story of Jesus and the empty tomb, because it was women who shared their experience. Luke maintains, clearly, that the women who discovered the empty tomb were just as vital to Jesus’ ministry as the original twelve. Men bringing the same report would also, in Luke’s gospel not have been believed. In this Gospel, the women are not commanded to go tell the disciples as they are in Matthew and Mark, rather they go to the disciples of their own volition, out of their own excitement for the news they have experienced. Luke is stating clear as a bell, that the women are disciples of Christ, Jesus shared with them his teaching, he shared with them his mission and he shared with the women equally in the ministry he accomplished in his life on Earth. This Easter message, Christ is risen, comes as powerfully from the lips of women as it would have come from Peter himself. It is a message of beauty that is not limited to a select few.
Now I don’t want to disparage men too much today, we have a lot to offer as well. The Acts reading is an amazing story about how Peter’s own interpretation of the Gospel expands as he listens to God’s voice and hears the stories of people who are just beginning to come to understanding the Gospel. How often do we hear Christian leaders in pulpits and on TV’s across the country state Peter’s words in today’s reading from Acts: he says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” At the beginning of chapter 10, Peter has arrived at the home of a man named Cornelius, an uncircumcised Gentile; someone with whom he should never imagined having a relationship with. Cornelius summoned Peter because of a vision he had and in his own desire to share with Peter his pious acts and his Godly life. Peter, in his ministry and through his meeting with Cornelius has hyphenated his own life; he has broadened his own life experience and has come to a new understanding of God’s beautiful all encompassing love. Truly God shows no partiality is a powerful statement one that shows Peter no longer believes that belonging in the Body of Christ depends on the nation or tribe or specific customs one observes, rather belonging to God comes from how we respond to the grace given to us at our baptism.
We are struggling with so much in the Anglican Church and especially in our own Episcopal Church. We are struggling with certain issues that people are using to define who is in and who is out. Today’s reading from Acts forces us to the practical conclusion: If God has given the Gentiles the same experience as the first disciples had at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, doesn’t this mean then that they belong as fully to the Kingdom of God? Who are the Gentiles in our lives today, who are those people who have been wounded by an exclusionary Gospel, by a perceived limited grace given by Churches across the country? Who are those among us, those we work with, those we play with, those we volunteer with who have been deeply hurt by a Gospel which was manipulated to one particular distorted interpretation? Peter’s statement is one of beauty, beautiful impartiality I am calling it, it is also what I would call our Anglican via media, the Episcopal way.
In the movie Shrek, I love the scene as Shrek and Donkey are on the way to the castle, about to cross the rickety, insecure bridge to go save the princess. Donkey is scared out of his mind and as they step out onto the bridge Shrek says to him, “Just don’t look down Donkey.” Shortly thereafter a plank falls off the bridge and Donkey is staring down to the flowing lava far beneath saying, “I’m looking down, Shrek, I’m looking down and it doesn’t look good.” The Episcopal Church has always acted as bridge between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and for some reason, we strayed out onto our own bridge and looked down and got really nervous. “The problem with being a bridge”, Brian McLaren says in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy “is that you get walked on from both ends.” The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion for that matter, has always been good at living in the tension of trouble, we have always been good at conceiving compromise for all parties involved and we have always been good at seeing the deep beauty within one another. Brian McLaren, again in the same book says of us, “In contrast to the Christians who argue the fine points of doctrine but show little taste for the beauty of truth, the Anglican way has been to begin with beauty, to focus on beauty and to stay with it, believing that where beauty is, God is.”
Last night at the Vigil, the first Easter service, we celebrated beauty, we entered the mystery of the risen Christ, and we welcomed the Good News joyfully. The service was powerful, amazing and full of beauty. That is what Brian McLaren is talking about when he talks about how we Anglicans find and stick with beauty, it is our liturgy, and it is how we pray together no matter where we stand. The Rev. Canon Howard Anderson, once told me why he loved the Episcopal Church so much, he said, “bishops, clergy and laity can fight tooth and bone over deep theological, scriptural and traditional issues that the Church faces, once consensus is reached, we as Episcopalians are able to set aside our animosity and worship together, break bread together, both sides have even been known to go out and have a martini together.” Our liturgy strips us bare, it doesn’t make us Episcopalian, it doesn’t make us Anglican, it makes us part of the Body of Christ; it makes us children of God. Our liturgy reminds us who we are and whose we are and that all we are rests in God’s beautiful love.
Paul Allick, chaplain at the UEC and our preacher last night, preached one of the best sermons I have ever heard. He said, “In Holy Baptism, we are ordained to a mission which is predicated by a way of life. In our baptism we are commissioned to show others hope.” He is right; we are each called in mission, through our Baptism, we are each given particular gifts of the spirit that we are called to share with all that are willing to hear. In Baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own forever; we are marked with the seal of resurrection, with the seal of new life. That mark, that new life, calls us to live out our lives filled with beauty, filled with hope, filled with joy for this wonderful day, this wonderful event, this beautiful resurrection. We are called to share the story, our story.
The women stood at the empty tomb, at first surprised and startled that it was empty, it was a moment of beauty that confirmed to them Jesus had risen. It was a moment of beauty, when the two men in dazzling white appeared, which gave them hope. It was that moment of beauty which led them back to the disciples and back to the world forever changed forever filled with the joy of the risen Christ. It was that moment of beauty that reminded them of their call from Christ, to go out to all nations, bringing with them the joy of the Good News of God in Christ. Paul Allick, in his sermon last night asked us, “We all know that on Monday morning we are going back out into the world and we are going to experience life as it really is. If Christ is risen and wickedness and death are vanquished, why is it still happening?” We are called to do and to be mission, our baptism requires no less of us, today we sit in the beauty of this liturgy, today we sit in the beauty of this community gathered, my hope is that this beauty reminds us not of what we have to do as Christians, but what we want to do, may this beauty remind us not of the impossible work of reconciliation yet to be done in the world, but that we are reconciling human beings, people who can heal deep hurts, people who can bring joy to the sorrowful, people who can transform the world.
Each of us is called to do God’s work in the world. Our stake in Christ’s body is no less than anyone else’s. Let us go from here proclaiming the Good News of Christ raised, making a racket like nothing that has ever been heard before. Let us go from here filled with joy and hope, reminded by beauty, that we are loved and that we are called to love all.
Comments
I especially like the quote from the Anglican women involved in the UN Commission.
And points from the kids for the Shrek reference - they noticed it even while listening through the speaker upstairs. Hey, you do a pretty good Donkey imitation too. (Take that with the humor intended.)
see you this weekend.
This is quite beautiful and brim full of hope and beauty. Great thanks for the post.