Homily: Proper 16A
I hope this doesn’t scandalize you too much
but there are days when I’m embarrassed by the church.
Not this church.
But The Church.
The Church which is forever slow in responding to the needs of the world.
The Church which is often better at gazing inward than reaching out.
The Church which has a frankly awful track record on gender and sexuality.
The Church which, for quite some time, condoned slavery.
The Church which has abused the vulnerable and covered that abuse up.
The Church which has blessed wars and, I hate to say it, even insurrections.
The Church which too often pines for power and prestige.
The Church which has kept so many people in the darkness of the closet.
The Church which has caused so much hurt and scandal in the world.
There are days when I’m simply embarrassed by the Church.
There are days when I’m reluctant to put on my collar,
when I want to tell people that I work in education or human services.
There are days when I’m embarrassed by the Church.
But yesterday was not one of those days.
Yesterday was a day when I was so proud of the Church.
Not only The Church.
But this church.
Many of you were here yesterday or the day before,
but for those of you who weren’t here, it was a big day for All Saints.
We hosted somewhere north of 180 people
for the funeral of our beloved friend, Bob Will.
It was a big day.
And there were many, many moving pieces
not least of which was how to fit so many people in our building
which is beautiful and charming
but also very small.
I was so proud of the Church yesterday
because it showed so much love to people who were hurting,
to people whose hearts were—and are—still so broken
over the loss of their father, grandfather, mentor, and friend.
This little parish church opened its door wide
—literally and metaphorically—
and offered people a chance to grieve and celebrate.
It was a blue ribbon day through and through.
From folks moving tables and chairs all over the place
to mowing the lawn in the dreadful heat
to baking lemon bars and arranging pain au chocolat
to sitting with the family as they fluctuated between tears and laughter.
From very early in the morning until basically dinner time
the good people of this parish were a powerful witness to the love of God
and the fellowship of the Church.
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus asking the disciples two questions:
Who do the people say that I am?
and who do you say that I am?
The perception of the people—at least according to the disciples—
is that Jesus is a prophet like Elijah or Jeremiah
or even more contemporarily like John the Baptist.
The people clearly see the holiness of Jesus.
Immediately before this Jesus has fed several thousand people
and tussled with the Pharisees about it.
The people have seen Jesus’s miracles—the feedings, the healings—
and they’re prepared to say that he’s somehow from God.
And, of course, they’re not wrong.
But they don’t have the whole story.
Which is why Jesus asks his disciples: Who do you say that I am?
And Simon Peter, blessed Peter, Peter who usually bungles things up
comes in hot with the exact right answer:
You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus gives Peter a new mission and mandate:
You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.
This confession of Peter—that Jesus is the messiah and the son of God—
is the foundation of the Church of God.
It’s why we gather here Sunday by Sunday
and many days in between.
It’s why we do what we do.
But the perception of the people
—of those who thought Jesus was a prophet or a wonderworker—
is important too.
Jesus asks two different questions and gets two different answers.
And they’re both right.
We see the disciples here functioning as a sort of prototype of the Church. They are here shown as a gathering of people
whose fellowship is built upon Peter’s confession
that Jesus is the Promised One.
To those outside the group of disciples, Jesus is a wonder worker,
a do-gooder through and through and a prophet sent by Almighty God.
And that’s not wrong!
Jesus does perform many wonders.
He heals people and consorts with the unclean and marginalized.
He feeds thousands of people with table scraps.
He brings back people from the dead.
He teaches repentance, just like all the prophets of old did.
But to those who are inside the group of disciples,
those who have committed themselves to following after Jesus,
those who see and interact with Jesus every day,
to the disciples, Jesus is the Messiah,
the One whom God promised to send,
the One who would finally set them free from oppression.
This pattern—those on the outside seeing our actions (good or bad)
and the those on the inside knowing the full picture—
has sustained itself for two millenia, right up until this very day.
If we’re lucky—and, truth be told, faithful—then the folk outside our doors
see us—and other Christians—as virtuous people
people who go above and beyond to help others,
who care for the marginalized,
who advocate for justice and mercy and equality.
If we’re unlucky, then people see the church as an embarrassment at best
and an abomination at worst.
We can’t deny the many evils committed by the Church throughout history
but neither can we deny the objective good done in the Church’s name.
Education, medicine, philosophy, social services, civil rights,
all areas where the Church has made unquestionably good contributions.
While those outside of the gathering of the disciples
see Jesus primarily for his miracles and wisdom,
the disciples know Jesus to be more.
They know the miracles all too well
but they know much more than that.
They know the love of God made known in the person of Jesus.
They know that it is God’s desire for union with God’s people.
They know that God yearns and pines to be reconciled with us.
They know that Jesus has come to bring about that reconciliation
though they don’t yet know how.
Days like yesterday—
days where the whole of the community is welcomed through those doors,
where people are received with warmth and love,
where people are given space to grieve and mourn and celebrate—
days like yesterday are possible because the Church
—because you all, because all of us together—
gather here in the name of Christ week in and week out,
because we know God’s mercy and grace to be somehow real in our lives,
because we hallow our days with prayer,
because we experience the forgiveness of our sins
both in the waters of baptism
and in the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation,
Martin Luther once said that:
“Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the Church.
How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him
unless [they] knew where his believers are?”
This is our work as Christians, as members of Christ’s Church
to point people to Christ.
Not to bludgeon them over the head with Christ
or to scare them with threats of hellfire.
But to point toward the love of God in the person of Jesus,
toward the love of God made known in tangible ways by Jesus
and by those of us who follow after Jesus.
William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during the final years of WWII,
said that “The Church is the only cooperative society in the world
that exists for the benefit of its non-members.”
We come here week after week—Sunday after Sunday—
because the people outside of these doors need us.
They need us to be there for them when they’re grieving.
They need us to provide them with food and shelter.
They need us to advocate on their behalf in the halls of power.
They need us to open closet doors and help them come out.
They need us to tell them that God’s creation must be protected.
They need us to tell them that their worth is not their work.
They need us to tell them that justice is God’s desire.
We come here to confess that Jesus is Lord
because the world needs Jesus,
because the world needs Jesus’s love,
perhaps now more than ever.
The good news of the Gospel is that all people are free,
free from the spiritual bondage of sin, yes,
but also free from the material bondage of poverty, racism, sexism,
and all those other ‘isms’ which keep people apart.
The good news of the Gospel is that all people are free
and our work as the Church is to ensure that that freedom is guaranteed.
To help people set aside their spiritual burdens and their physical ones.
To extend grace, mercy, and love to every person
and to break all of the chains—spiritual or physical—
which keep God’s people in bondage.
This is a daunting task, my friends,
but I truly know no better people to undertake this work than you all
and those like you.
People of warmth and welcome,
people who know that they are flawed and imperfect,
people who are really smart yet know that they have more to learn,
people who care deeply and broadly,
people who are grounded in their history and still open to new things,
people who devote countless hours volunteering in the community,
people who share their resources generously,
people who sweep floors and arrange beautiful flowers
and bake cookies and lug around stacks of heavy chairs
people who throw open the doors of this place to friend and stranger alike
People for whom the distinction between friend & stranger is meaningless.
If we want people to see and know Jesus for who he is,
we first have to show them who we are first.
Their neighbors and their friends who have been forever changed
by following after a goofy carpenter from Nazareth,
a mesmerizing sort of guy who both preached and brought about wholeness and healing and restoration
to everybody he encountered.
If we want people to see and know Jesus for who he is,
we have to show them with our lives
by what we say and do every day of our lives.
By God’s own grace, may it be so. Amen.
This homily was preached at All Saints Church, Northfield on 27 August, 2023.