|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Jeremiah 23:1–6
|
Psalm 23 |
Ephesians 2:11–22 |
Mark
6:30–34, 53–56
|
The Amish are a people whose religious obligations are foremost in their lives. They take seriously their obligation to support and help each other. If an emergency develops and a family lacks proper medicine or their barn burns down, fellow Amish are readily prepared and come to help them. The Amish usually try to avoid inquisitive tourists, but when winter storms strand motorists, the Amish are the first to hitch up their horses and rescue them, bringing them into their homes and providing warm hospitality. Categorically, the Amish refuse any reimbursement for such kindness.
Episcopalians are not expected to dress alike, associate with only members of their own church, or follow a very distinctive set of customs, but as people of faith, we, too, are called to be a body that extends hospitality and care to others. Membership in St. John’s is far different than membership in a club or organization, for it is God who calls us, not a rule book or set of organizational purposes that past or fellow members have devised and simply agreed to.
A Sunday or two ago I was asked what would I do if someone came to our parish and began going up and down the aisles in the middle of the services, announcing that he was Jesus. Of course, I would prefer not to think of such things. However, upon reflection, we all can be reasonably sure that such a person would not be Jesus. Jesus pointed to God’s grace, not to his own status and power. The Biblical record tells us that Jesus did not go up and down the hills and valleys surrounding the Lake of Galilee, announcing himself as the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings to whom all homage belonged, with the disciples supplying appropriate trumpet flourishes. Jesus never compelled subservience as a precondition of his ministry.
Jesus did affirm that in so far as we helped the least of our brethren, we helped in God’s service. Jesus took time to listen, He comforted the troubled, reconciled the separated, calmed the angry, and led people to explore their relationship with God.
Most of the people Jesus healed were not famous or influential. They were people like we would meet today standing in line at K-mart or Tops or at the next pump at the gas station. Those whom Jesus touched, those whose lives were changed or whose horizons were widened, found questions welling up naturally within them. “Who is this Jesus? Who is this that has given me new hope, fresh joy, and transformed my life into something so meaningful? Those who wanted to work out and discover answers to such questions followed him. Then as now, the Holy Spirit works if we give it a chance, not if we force it to go where we would like it to go.
Those who came to Jesus to ask him such questions as “What’s the greatest commandment in the law?” or “Was it right to pay taxes to Caesar and what coins should be used?” were engaging in selfish attempts to control or encapsulate the Good News. Yet that is not how God acts, and not the example of living on this earth that Jesus ever modeled. Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus put it in terms of Jesus breaking down the dividing wall of hostility and creating one body and a new commonwealth without aliens and outsiders.
One legend that grew up around the story of the Exodus tells of the angels of the heavenly court after seeing that the tribes of Israel had escaped the Egyptians and safely crossed over the Red Sea before the waters closed in on pharaoh’s chariots, proposed to celebrate. Then Michael the archangel sternly rebuked them and told them to be silent, for God was in mourning. Instead of celebrating, God was weeping for the soldiers of pharaoh drowned in the sea, and crying with and comforting their widows and orphaned children.
We have met Jesus these past couple of weeks in the stories, as he traveled from village to village. We have heard as he reached out his hands and healed. Jesus gave us examples that God will never be enslaved in a piety that leaves people out or disconnects their welfare from ourselves. Like the Amish, we are called to make connections and understand such connections as our calling, too.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
