June 8, 2008 Sermon
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The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5, Year A)
William B. Wright Emmanuel Episcopal Church, San Angelo, Texas
Lesson: Genesis 12:1-9, Psalm: 33:1-12, Lesson: Romans 4:13-18
Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
June 8, 2008
When I went to college I attended a small Methodist college in Birmingham Alabama. Birmingham-Southern College had a strong reputation as a fine academic institution and my Rector had attended there and advised me to go since I believed that I had a call to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.
I found myself among Methodists, many of whom were planning to attend seminary and become Methodist pastors. I joined the campus Ministerial Association and found that the most frequent question I was asked was, "Bill, why are you an Episcopalian?" I had an answer with several parts: "the beauty of the liturgy, the tolerance of the church, the sense of history, etc". I answered the question over and over again from people who would ask me that question.
Finally one day a Presbyterian on campus came up to me and said, "Bill why are you..." My mind began to spin, and I began planning my answer. Then he said, "Why are you a Christian?" The wheels came off. I could not figure out what to say. So I told him why I was an Episcopalian. Fortunately, he took my answer and did not push the issue, but his question was a profoundly troubling one for me. I realized that there was something more basic than being an Episcopalian. Why was I a Christian? What difference did it make in my life and in the way I lived my life?
I remember the story of the child who was saying his bedtime prayers. He said, "Dear God, please take good care of Mommy, Daddy, Baby Brother, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Sara--and please take care of yourself , or we're all sunk. He was one who was able to keep the main thing the main thing in life. He focused on God.
Now the main point of my sermon today is to remind you that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing in life.
We all need focus in life. We need to identify the main thing, so that life will be meaningful and good. Today we celebrate one who did keep his focus, Father Abraham. In today's Epistle, Paul refers to Abraham as "father of all of us" and "father of many nations." He gives father Abraham as the example of faith and the difference that faith can make in our lives. Then he tells of the tremendous impact the faith of Father Abraham has had on the world.
In Christianity we often refer to the Day of Pentecost as "The Birthday of the Church." Actually the Church has its spiritual ancestor in Father Abraham, and Abraham is seen as the father of Judaism, the Muslim faith and Christianity.
The Jewish people have a tradition that God brought his word to all manner of people, but only Father Abraham listened to the message and acted upon it.
Abraham was by the standards of his day a very wealthy man. He believed that God called him to leave his hometown of Haran, where he was very wealthy and very established to go to a land that he did not know. He was seventy-five years old at the time. He left the security of his homeland with the promise that God would lead him to a place where he was to live. This becomes the classic biblical example of a call. It is also the classic biblical example of faith. Abraham believed God and acted upon God's call.
God promised Abraham that he would be given a land, he would be a great nation, that God would bless him, and that he would be a blessing to all the families of the earth. All he had to do was risk everything in faith and trust the faith that God was calling him. This is what he did and his response became the classic biblical example of answering God's call.
When we read the stories about Abraham in the Bible we can be shocked that there was no dramatic change in his ethics or behavior. Abraham continues to do things we might think of as reprehensible and which would later be condemned by the Law as unacceptable behavior.
Yet Abraham had found a very important thing. From that day forth he was to remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. His life centered on God. The rest is history and tradition about how Father Abraham responded to God in faith and lived into his faith.
You may have heard of a people called the Dunkards. They were members of the Church of the Brethren and are people of a strong German Baptist tradition. They were called Dunkards because they insisted on a baptism of total immersion and were totally dunked. The had a tradition of strong, basic faith.
The story is told of one plain-dressed Dunkard who was accosted by an evangelical young man who asked, "Brother, are you saved?" The long-bearded Dunkard did not respond immediately. He simply took out a piece of paper and began writing on it. He then handed it to the young man. "Here," he said, "are the names and addresses of my family, neighbors, and people I do business with. Ask them if they think I am saved. I could tell you anything." (Example from A Quiet and Peaceful Life by John Ruth, Good Book, 1986).
The Dunkard brother was demonstrating that the call to be a Christian is a life-changing experience and one that should be seen in the very life-styles we lead.
When we look to the Gospels we find that Jesus was constantly in trouble with the religious leaders and religious folks of his day. We read in today's Gospel lesson from Matthew that he is under criticism by the Pharisees and before the lesson ends we find him being laughed and by people mourning the death of the girl he would raise from the dead.
It has been said of the Pharisees that they had concrete minds; all mixed up and firmly set. They saw themselves as those who separated themselves by following the Law to the letter and demanding that faithful people do just that. We find Jesus constantly in trouble with the Pharisees because he did not seem to understand the law, or so they thought. He persisted in hanging around with the wrong sort of folks, insisted on forgiving them and seemed often to simply accept their odd and sinful lifestyles as though they were fine. We have an example of this sort of response on his part in today’s Gospel.
We know from experience that if you want to set up a successful organization, you want to recruit the very best to lead it. One would look for decisive leaders who would give a good image in the community and provide strong leadership. Jesus just did not understand this as far as his detractors thought. He seemed to think that God was particularly interested in the outcasts of society and even dared to recruit them for the core leadership of his Church. Today we read the story of the recruitment of Matthew, a tax collector. The story is told by Matthew, the Evangelist and is believed to be his story. The trade of tax collector in Jesus' day was not considered a reputable trade. I will not go into all the details about tax collectors, because you have probably heard a variety of sermon examples on the subject. They simply were the Mafia figures of the day extorting money from their own people for the Roman occupying government. They also were notorious for pocketing money themselves as well. Yet Jesus recruits one of them to be in the core leadership of the his Church. Then he compounded the offenses by eating with Matthew and his friends as if to approve of their lifestyles and identify with them. The Gospel tells us that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. It does not mention the prostitutes in this passage but does in others.
I once had a member of a congregation I served who ran for County Tax Collector. He joked one Sunday that it was difficult to come to church, because in the readings from scripture he always got included with the sinners and prostitutes.
The good religious folks of his day were horrified and called upon Jesus to be careful about the people with whom he associated. After all, "birds of a feather flock together."
Jesus has given his Church a difficult job. We are to keep the main thing as the main thing. We are to listen to Jesus and to live into his understanding of the Summary of the Law to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Notice that he put love of God first. He had a good reason for that. It is only when we know God’s love and really understand that he loves us that we are able to love others as we love ourselves, because we are reflecting his love. All too often we love others only for what we can get out of them. If we know God's love, it makes it possible for us to pass it on and really love our neighbor as ourselves.
We have a call from God to be the people of God. Today we have the examples of the faith of Abraham and the response of Matthew, as well as Jesus' challenge to live into God's love. If we respond to the call of Jesus, we will be changed people. The main thing will be the main thing in our lives.
Next time someone asks you why you are and Episcopalian, why you are a Christian or if you are saved, you might ask them to check with family, friends or business associates, or perhaps to follow you around for a while.
Amen.
Copyright © 2003 Emmanuel Episcopal Church. All rights reserved.
Revised: 06/16/08