Boast in the Lord

January 29, 2017

The Fourth Sunday After The Epiphany

So here we are, gathered together in church on the Sunday of the Annual Meeting, a Sunday which marks a turning point in the year – not a turning point defined by one of the great feasts of the church, not a turning point defined by a major event in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but a turning point defined by the rhythm of church governance and bureaucracy – a turning point, indeed, which might not have excited Jesus of Nazareth very much but a turning point which is, so our canons and conventions and synods tell us, very necessary indeed.

And it is necessary because it is about memory and history. It might also be necessary so that you all can check that your vestry and your staff and your clergy have been behaving properly. I'll admit that it is not unimportant to make sure we have had good governance and that bills have been paid and money has not been squandered. But – with the risk of upsetting the wardens and the Treasurer – I need to say all that is secondary. What is important is building and checking our memory and our history. For, at the time of an annual meeting, we look back and, when we have looked back, we dare to look forwards, into the future. We look back to make sure we are who we claim to be, and that we have learned the lessons we needed to have learned. It was Dr. King who reminded us that "We are not makers of history – we are made by history," and the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana who, even more pertinently, told us that, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And that is what we are doing today. That's why we have re-timed our acts of worship in an attempt either to annoy every single parishioner, or, hopefully, to bring you all into one place at one time, to allow you to enjoy that feeling of common purpose that ought to be part of belonging to an active faith community. 

Now, as I have hinted already, while I think Jesus would understand what we are doing right now, at this point in our proceedings, and while I think he would enjoy the brunch offering which follows – for the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and I think Jesus enjoyed a party – I have little doubt that Jesus would be frankly bemused by the Annual Meeting. Jesus was not into possessions – he lived as an itinerant preacher, let us not forget – and I am not sure what he would make of pages of photocopied figures pertaining to our ownership of several million dollars, let alone our ownership of this vast pile of stone, and all the "stuff" we have put inside it.

Jesus preached the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God – he did not preach about the in-breaking of the church of God. But, although the church – even St. James Episcopal Cathedral, Chicago – is a fallen, human institution at its best. we have yet to find a finer way of gathering in Jesus' name to worship and praise God. And thus we need at least some of our possessions, and we need to use our history and memory to help us in our discipleship... which, of course, is exactly what is going on in today's wonderful and vital portions of Scripture that we have been given to read and hear.

For a start, it is what Jesus, aided by the nuanced editorial skills of St. Matthew, is doing in that most famous passage from the gospels that we usually call the Beatitudes. Jesus is using history and memory to make it clear to those who would be disciples – which, by the way, is you and me – Jesus is using the history and memory of discipleship to hold up a mirror to those who pay lip service to following him, to test out just how real they are:

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? If so, you will be filled. And if not... show me how you really think you can claim to be a disciple...
Are you a peacemaker? If so, you are a child of God. And if not...
Are you an arrogant, self-opinionated, stuck up son of a whatever....? Or are you poor in spirit? If you are the latter, yours in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Are you full of envy, jealousy, greed and hatred....? Or are you pure in heart? Because that's what it takes to see God.

You see what's happening? And add to that a little basic fact-checking about this passage and when it was created, you'll see all the more clearly...

As those who have just got back from the Holy Land will tell you, the area around the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, close to Capernaum, where Jesus lived for some three years is a pretty small area. And without needing to tie things down to one moment and one place, there is no doubt at all that Jesus and his friends, his followers, his disciples, walked around this beautiful countryside while Jesus talked profound truths about the nature of God and the nature of the human response to God. And let's say that was happening around 30 to 33 CE.

Now, not all of the four gospel writers picked up these particular remarks which come, of course, in what we know as the Sermon on the Mount – chapters five through seven of Matthew - which are laid out with remarkable cogency by the evangelist. Luke, however, has fairly similar sentiments fall from Jesus' lips but, in his case, these remarks are scattered around his manuscript pretty much in a random order.

Matthew, who most scholars think was maybe putting the finishing touches to his gospel in the mid or late '70s (a long time after Jesus was actually walking the walk and talking the talk) gives us the Sermon on the Mount and these finely tuned phrases (which are set out very differently to Luke's sentiments and use of this material). So, Matthew is taking whatever it might have been that Jesus first said, and he is using it to fulfill one of the big themes of his gospel, which is about whether or not you and I, the readers, have what it takes to be a proper, an authentic disciple.

And so Matthew throws at his hearers, and he throws at you and me this morning, this vital history and memory of what Christian discipleship should be about. And he tells us that, among other things, it is about poverty of spirit, hungering for righteousness, purity of heart, meekness, and all the rest of it. And it comes to a head, of course, when he says: Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

In other words, says Jesus, will you let your discipleship, your loyalty to me be so demanding that you'll be reviled and persecuted? Are you prepared to let your discipleship matter so much that you'll stand up to kings, or rulers, or the President when they do something offensive to God, like banning refugees from the land, and will you take the consequences?

And let me just digress, as the issue of refugees is one that is manifestly dear to the heart of this cathedral community. I am quite clear that the President has indeed done something offensive to God – something sinful – in this executive order. Given that, since 1975, there have only been eight deaths in the USA linked to acts of terrorism committed by refugees or asylum seekers but that, in the same time scale, there have been 438 such deaths committed by US citizens, this executive order is unnecessary. Given that it is explicitly discriminatory, it is both immoral and it is against what I and many others consider to be against the explicit values of this nation. But all of that pales into insignificance to the fact that the President's order is anti-Christian, and thus is sinful and offensive to God. And if you don't believe me, here's what the Pope had to say yesterday:

"It's hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help. If I say I am Christian but do these things, I'm a hypocrite."

None of which the Pope could say, of course, without the common history and memory of who we are called to be, who we are meant to be, which can and should keep us focused as the Body of Christ from age to age to age. And that means avoiding sin and, indeed, sometimes it means calling out sin. Because it means being Christ-focused and Christ-following – it means being Christ-like, and being ready to be reminded what it means to be Christ-like, in all that we seek to do... and especially on the Sunday of an Annual Meeting.

St. Paul understood this as well, of course – and he knew how easy it was for Christians, even the very first Christians, to lose this focus, this charism of discipleship. If you read what we know as the two letters to the church in Corinth (but are probably a composite of anything up to five letters over quite a period of time), you'll see just how wayward this nascent Christian church becomes almost the very moment Paul takes his eye off them. If the concept of the Annual Meeting had gone as far back in history as First Century Corinth, I think Paul would have been very pleased to see it.

Because being disciples, being Church, being Christ-like – this way of being involves not just the meekness and purity of heart and other charisms we hear in the Beatitudes – at least not in the seven 'regular' beatitudes. Be quite clear that desiring peace, purity and mercy, and yearning for righteousness – well, we might be gathering together on this Sunday morning here in St. James Cathedral to lay claim to such qualities. But they did it yesterday a few blocks from here in Sinai Temple, and the day before that in mosques scattered around this city and this world, so were our Muslim brothers and sisters, despite what the President might think of them and their values. And there are people who walk these streets who do not believe in any definition of God, but who would support these values. So, while the Beatitudes are important, they are not the definition of Christian discipleship – at least, not until they get to that more awkward line about being reviled and persecuted on my account.

And Paul gets that so very clearly, as he starts trying to sort out the church in Corinth he was privileged to found, but which has gone so sharply off the rails. He has to remind them that Christ-like discipleship is not something compatible with other world views. It's not a matter of signs and of wisdom, but of a belief and trust in a God whose ways seem like folly to a world which is otherwise so self-serving and blind. For that is what the Cross is all about, and it is the Cross which is the ultimate measure of Christian vocation, of Christian service, and of Christian discipleship.

And that's why, thank God, there is room for the incompetent, the inept, the foolish, the chaotic and the weak. That's why there is room in this cathedral church, and in the Great Hall where we will be meeting later on this morning – that's why, thank God, there is room for me and for you. Because, like the Corinthians, not many of us were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But ... God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. Because...He is the source of your life...in Christ Jesus.

So that is why, incidentally, I'm not unduly worried about our mission to support refugees, even in the wake of the President's sinful, short-sighted and immoral action on Friday. I'm not unduly worried, at least not in the medium and the long term, because we see in the life of Jesus and in those who have followed him just what God can do with and to the powerful on behalf of those who are low and despised. We can see, and we will see, what becomes of the boasting of the powerful – of any kind of powerful – when that boast is rooted in anything that is not of God, rather than being rooted in the foolish, bizarre, unexpected, but ultimate power that is the Cross, which is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Paul knew that, and he used his remarkable letter-writing skills to lay that history and memory in front of the Corinthian Christians, and now, today, in front of us. Paul wrote his letters to hold us accountable to the history that is the Good News of Christ and of the Body of Christ.

So, when we have eaten that broken bread which is the Body of Christ, so that we have been renewed as the Body of Christ, let us move from church to meeting hall, and as we review the history and memory of our last year of discipleship together in His name, let us make sure that our boasting is in and is of one thing, and one thing only: My brothers and sisters, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Amen.