11/13/16
In the Caribbean islands, in many of the old plantation houses built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was something called the hurricane room. This was a small, thickly walled sanctuary in the middle of the ground floor, sometimes dug into the foundation (it was usually the first part of the house to be built.) This room was for the owner of the house and his family to go to when a hurricane hit, and threatened to destroy the building; they would go there, and stay there until it was safe to come out, and deal with whatever level of damages they found.
Whoever the winner of last week’s presidential election turned out to be, when the result was determined, there was going to be a large number of people in this country retreating to their own personal hurricane rooms. And that has certainly happened; and for some, it’s going to be a while before they come out. Whoever won, those who had supported the candidate who lost were going to feel, in some combination, anger, frustration, disbelief, and resentment, to a degree beyond what we’re used to at such times; and characterized for many by a deep and painful uncertainty about just what kind of country we’re living in, who we are as a people.
It’s important to remember – again – that this would have been true no matter who won, and who lost: the hurricane room was there, and waiting, for supporters of each candidate. I know we have both such here at St. John’s, and I want to speak to us all, as always. There’s always been a paradox at the heart of America: we share our division. It’s been true since the thirteen colonies decided to stop being thirteen colonies and become, instead, the United States. (E pluribus unum: “out of many, one”). The divisions that exist among us now seem especially deep (that’s why the retreat to the hurricane room). But for us here in church, before we’re Americans, we’re Christians. And we have a call. All of us here, divided though we may be, have the same call.
Our bishops here in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Ian Douglas and Laura Ahrens, wrote a wonderful post-election letter (you can find it on the diocesan website, and I recommend that you do), and I’m going to read a little excerpt from it. Our bishops write:
As Christians we believe that alienation, separation, and division
is not the way of God. We believe that God in Jesus, fully human
and fully divine, is able to take seemingly irreconcilable differences
and bring them together in a new creation of unity, wholeness, and
new life. Our vocation…is to participate with God in bringing about
restoration and reconciliation where there is alienation, separation
and division. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us
to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:18)
There are some in our country – perhaps many – who are not ready to do this, who don’t know how to begin; some who don’t want to begin, who feel that the voices of alienation and division – and those voices have been loud in this campaign, from the primaries on – are simply speaking the truth. That’s not us. Our bishops speak the truth: it’s God’s mission, in which God co-missions us, to bring restoration and reconciliation wherever they are needed. And, for those who are feeling anxiety, and uncertainty, about all this, about what to do, about what there might possibly be to do, I want to suggest that there’s something in today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians that points us to a place where we can all begin.
We’re kind of starting at square one here, putting one foot in front of the other, so please bear with me a bit as we refresh ourselves in some basics. But we’re going to end up at the final verse of the passage: “Brothers and sisters, do not weary in doing what is right.”
Paul wrote all of his letters to Christian communities that he had founded in the eastern Mediterranean, like Thessalonica, in northern Greece. We refer to these communities as “churches”. But when we hear the word “church”, in the New Testament, we have to get rid of the idea that it means a building with a spire. The church was, and is, the people, the community of believers: the Greek word for “church” in the New Testament is ekklesia: those who are called out, called forth: it’s the people, not the place.
Paul has not founded these communities in order that their members will do regular, correct performances of a worship service. He has founded them to establish a way of life for those people to follow,: a way established by Jesus Christ: a way that opens us to life in the kingdom of God, here and now; life lived according to the truth. It’s a way that we grow into, continually, we never in this life stop growing into it: it’s not something we achieve, and it’s done.
When Paul writes a letter to one of these communities, it’s because they need guidance, or further instruction, about something concerning this way. Usually he’s heard that something’s gone off track, and he needs to correct it. He writes in his letters about specific circumstances, and specific people. But it’s the way itself that’s always foremost in his mind, that he sees lived out by these people, in these circumstances; that’s what governs everything he says.
The problem he addresses in today’s reading is this, as we heard: “..We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” He says – this is wonderfully characteristic of Paul, the iron fist in the velvet glove – “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” So he’s not just saying, Pitch in and do your bit, like you would anywhere, it’s no different here. Paul is saying that work – activity – engagement - is part of the tradition – part of the way – that he handed on to them; and idleness is not.
He goes on to say that he handed it on by example, when he was with them: I worked night and day, and I didn’t eat anybody’s food without paying for it. And this leads ultimately to the verse: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” Because this statement is so explicit, and so emphatic, and because of where it occurs (near the end of his argument here), it sounds like this is his point, what he’s been leading up to all along: that there have been people in the church in Thessalonica who have been mooching food, and that’s got to stop.
But in the last two verses of the passage it suddenly becomes clear that it’s about something much larger: “Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.” The point is not that we must earn our food with our labor. That is just one instance of not being weary in doing what is right. That is the tradition that Paul hands on to us.
What we heard in the gospel last week: love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; do to others as you would have them do to you: in the mouth of Jesus, those are all active verbs. And we all know how easy it is to be weary of them: it’s for somebody else, somebody who’s better than I am, I’ll do it tomorrow. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. It’s mostly in what seems like small things, like not being idle; small things, which actually are not small at all.
It’s by the grace of God that we are having this conversation on what we here at St. John’s have designated to be Stewardship Sunday. In a few minutes we’re going to bring the little envelopes containing our pledges up to the front here and put them in the bowl. We do this every year; they contain our promise for the financial support of this church.
But these envelopes are more than that. They are a symbol of our stewardship; which has to do not just with this building, and the various things that go on here. Brothers and sisters, let us not be weary in doing what is right. Whatever our confusion, our anger, our despair, our anxiety: this is the stewardship to which our faith calls us. Following the way of Jesus Christ, we seek to be stewards of what is right. We seek to be stewards of the truth. We seek to be stewards of the presence of the kingdom of God, every day of our lives. In that pursuit, let us not be weary. Amen.
In the Caribbean islands, in many of the old plantation houses built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was something called the hurricane room. This was a small, thickly walled sanctuary in the middle of the ground floor, sometimes dug into the foundation (it was usually the first part of the house to be built.) This room was for the owner of the house and his family to go to when a hurricane hit, and threatened to destroy the building; they would go there, and stay there until it was safe to come out, and deal with whatever level of damages they found.
Whoever the winner of last week’s presidential election turned out to be, when the result was determined, there was going to be a large number of people in this country retreating to their own personal hurricane rooms. And that has certainly happened; and for some, it’s going to be a while before they come out. Whoever won, those who had supported the candidate who lost were going to feel, in some combination, anger, frustration, disbelief, and resentment, to a degree beyond what we’re used to at such times; and characterized for many by a deep and painful uncertainty about just what kind of country we’re living in, who we are as a people.
It’s important to remember – again – that this would have been true no matter who won, and who lost: the hurricane room was there, and waiting, for supporters of each candidate. I know we have both such here at St. John’s, and I want to speak to us all, as always. There’s always been a paradox at the heart of America: we share our division. It’s been true since the thirteen colonies decided to stop being thirteen colonies and become, instead, the United States. (E pluribus unum: “out of many, one”). The divisions that exist among us now seem especially deep (that’s why the retreat to the hurricane room). But for us here in church, before we’re Americans, we’re Christians. And we have a call. All of us here, divided though we may be, have the same call.
Our bishops here in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Ian Douglas and Laura Ahrens, wrote a wonderful post-election letter (you can find it on the diocesan website, and I recommend that you do), and I’m going to read a little excerpt from it. Our bishops write:
As Christians we believe that alienation, separation, and division
is not the way of God. We believe that God in Jesus, fully human
and fully divine, is able to take seemingly irreconcilable differences
and bring them together in a new creation of unity, wholeness, and
new life. Our vocation…is to participate with God in bringing about
restoration and reconciliation where there is alienation, separation
and division. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us
to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:18)
There are some in our country – perhaps many – who are not ready to do this, who don’t know how to begin; some who don’t want to begin, who feel that the voices of alienation and division – and those voices have been loud in this campaign, from the primaries on – are simply speaking the truth. That’s not us. Our bishops speak the truth: it’s God’s mission, in which God co-missions us, to bring restoration and reconciliation wherever they are needed. And, for those who are feeling anxiety, and uncertainty, about all this, about what to do, about what there might possibly be to do, I want to suggest that there’s something in today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians that points us to a place where we can all begin.
We’re kind of starting at square one here, putting one foot in front of the other, so please bear with me a bit as we refresh ourselves in some basics. But we’re going to end up at the final verse of the passage: “Brothers and sisters, do not weary in doing what is right.”
Paul wrote all of his letters to Christian communities that he had founded in the eastern Mediterranean, like Thessalonica, in northern Greece. We refer to these communities as “churches”. But when we hear the word “church”, in the New Testament, we have to get rid of the idea that it means a building with a spire. The church was, and is, the people, the community of believers: the Greek word for “church” in the New Testament is ekklesia: those who are called out, called forth: it’s the people, not the place.
Paul has not founded these communities in order that their members will do regular, correct performances of a worship service. He has founded them to establish a way of life for those people to follow,: a way established by Jesus Christ: a way that opens us to life in the kingdom of God, here and now; life lived according to the truth. It’s a way that we grow into, continually, we never in this life stop growing into it: it’s not something we achieve, and it’s done.
When Paul writes a letter to one of these communities, it’s because they need guidance, or further instruction, about something concerning this way. Usually he’s heard that something’s gone off track, and he needs to correct it. He writes in his letters about specific circumstances, and specific people. But it’s the way itself that’s always foremost in his mind, that he sees lived out by these people, in these circumstances; that’s what governs everything he says.
The problem he addresses in today’s reading is this, as we heard: “..We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” He says – this is wonderfully characteristic of Paul, the iron fist in the velvet glove – “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” So he’s not just saying, Pitch in and do your bit, like you would anywhere, it’s no different here. Paul is saying that work – activity – engagement - is part of the tradition – part of the way – that he handed on to them; and idleness is not.
He goes on to say that he handed it on by example, when he was with them: I worked night and day, and I didn’t eat anybody’s food without paying for it. And this leads ultimately to the verse: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” Because this statement is so explicit, and so emphatic, and because of where it occurs (near the end of his argument here), it sounds like this is his point, what he’s been leading up to all along: that there have been people in the church in Thessalonica who have been mooching food, and that’s got to stop.
But in the last two verses of the passage it suddenly becomes clear that it’s about something much larger: “Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.” The point is not that we must earn our food with our labor. That is just one instance of not being weary in doing what is right. That is the tradition that Paul hands on to us.
What we heard in the gospel last week: love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; do to others as you would have them do to you: in the mouth of Jesus, those are all active verbs. And we all know how easy it is to be weary of them: it’s for somebody else, somebody who’s better than I am, I’ll do it tomorrow. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. It’s mostly in what seems like small things, like not being idle; small things, which actually are not small at all.
It’s by the grace of God that we are having this conversation on what we here at St. John’s have designated to be Stewardship Sunday. In a few minutes we’re going to bring the little envelopes containing our pledges up to the front here and put them in the bowl. We do this every year; they contain our promise for the financial support of this church.
But these envelopes are more than that. They are a symbol of our stewardship; which has to do not just with this building, and the various things that go on here. Brothers and sisters, let us not be weary in doing what is right. Whatever our confusion, our anger, our despair, our anxiety: this is the stewardship to which our faith calls us. Following the way of Jesus Christ, we seek to be stewards of what is right. We seek to be stewards of the truth. We seek to be stewards of the presence of the kingdom of God, every day of our lives. In that pursuit, let us not be weary. Amen.
