Sermon Preached by Karen M. Meridith

St. James’s Episcopal Church, Cambridge MA

June 5, 2005

In the name of the one God who creates, redeems and sustains us in steadfast love of all our infinite variety. Amen.

Yesterday I attended the ordination to the diaconate of several of my classmates from Episcopal Divinity School. The candidates for ordination, my classmates as well as the others, at first glance seemed a pretty homogenous group of soon to be Episcopal clergy. They were dressed alike in white albs, over which would eventually be placed their new red stoles. They were also alike in that they all wore huge smiles and exhibited the slightly shell-shocked look of those who can hardly believe that a long-anticipated dream has actually come true at last.

But they were also a diverse group encompassing many obvious differences, men and women of different physical characteristics and different national heritages. Because I know some of them, I also know that they have many not so obvious differences as well. They see the world from very different perspectives and have made radically different journeys in accepting God’s call to ordained ministry. Their ministries will take different shapes. I suspect this is true even of those in the group that I don’t know personally, and this suspicion was borne out in some of the bishop’s remarks as well as in the liturgy itself. The lesson from the Hebrew Bible was read in Sinhala and the Epistle in Cantonese; modern and ancient hymns were woven throughout, and drumming found its place alongside traditional cathedral organ music. The differences of the ordinands were not glossed over in an attempt to present a homogenized picture of the church, but were held up and celebrated with joy.

In his sermon, Bishop Shaw spoke of a recent visit to a fourth century baptistery in Spain where those who were to receive the sacrament were required to enter through a very low door, their stooping a symbol of being brought low by the world. After baptism, however, they exited upright into the church, upright and in full knowledge that they were worthy to stand before the altar—as are we, not through our own righteousness, of course, but through the grace of God’s love, a love shown to us in the life and teaching of Jesus the Christ, a love that encompasses all of creation.

All of creation, a creation that is not homogenized, a creation that teems with differences. Nevertheless, Bishop Shaw reminded the ordinands that they will be ministering to many persons who have not only been brought low by the world, but have lived their whole lives with the message that they also are unworthy to be fully included in God’s church, unworthy to stand before the altar. Bishop Shaw challenged the ordinands to challenge the perception that the church must be homogenized, to center their preaching and teaching on the totality of God’s love.

The totality of God’s love. The all-encompassing, sheer incomprehensibility of it. Psalm 33, the psalm appointed for today, tells us that "the steadfast love of the Lord fills the whole earth." Yes, the psalm affirms that God does desire righteousness and justice, but it is the steadfast love of God that fills all of creation.

And it is this very steadfast love that drives God to call Abram—for he is not yet Abraham at this point—to leave his home and travel to an unnamed place. Just like that. And why? Because not only Abram’s family but all the families of the earth will be blessed. So Abram packs up and goes—and doesn’t stop until God appears again and says, "This is it." Can you imagine the family "discussion" that precedes (and probably continues through) this trip? "Good grief, Abram, you’re seventy-five years old. We can’t just go roaming around the world…" But Abram steps out in faith, and Sarai and Lot go with him, whatever they may think.

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes that it is his faith that renders Abraham righteous—not keeping the law, not circumcision, but trusting in God. Paul draws his argument from Genesis 15:6. "And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness." Paul then goes on—as Paul so often does—to discuss the implications of having righteousness reckoned to us as well as to Abraham. We cannot attain righteousness on our own, he tells us. Righteousness, being rendered worthy to stand before God, comes to us only through the grace of God’s steadfast love for the whole of creation.

Now righteousness is a tricky word, one that I think is too often misused in the Church. These days righteousness has become a little too tied up with being right. And I submit to you that if we get sidetracked by trying to determine who’s righteous and who isn’t, then we’ve missed the point altogether, for Abraham is righteous only because he has faith in the steadfast love of God, not because he is right—and certainly not because he is orthodox. There is no law to keep at this point. Moses arrives on the scene much farther down the road.

Unfortunately, when orthodoxy comes into the room, you can be pretty well sure that charity will fly right out of the window. Just look at the arguments about which of us are the "real Anglicans," mostly centered on very specific definitions of orthodoxy, on who does or does not follow the rules as some interpret them. What’s happened? Differences, which used to be a kind of hallmark of Anglicanism, now are anathema. All of us have become much too intent on being right. Some of us even believe we can’t eat at the same table unless we’ve arrived in lockstep. This is not only not Anglican, it’s not the example Jesus set for us.

Over and over, we see Jesus encountering, welcoming, healing all kinds of people. Today’s Gospel lesson is no exception. A lot happens in this one passage. Just look at the variety Jesus encounters here: Matthew, various other tax collectors and sinners, his own disciples, some Pharisees, a leader of the synagogue, a hemorrhaging woman, funeral musicians and mourners, and a young girl. In this one short reading, there are stories of faith—Matthew who accepts Jesus’ call, the synagogue leader who believes Jesus can raise his dead child, the hemorrhaging woman whose faith brings healing—and there are stories of compassion, of kindness toward outcasts, of an open table, and the willingness to offer dignity to those without status. Jesus shows them all, as he shows us, the steadfast love of God.

Of course, this probably doesn’t surprise us. In the Gospel accounts Jesus is always ministering to the marginalized. But did you notice how he treats the Pharisees in this passage? They haven’t come to him for help; they question Jesus’ orthodoxy. They think they know the rules, and they know he isn’t following them. Jesus disagrees with their understanding of what God wants, but he doesn’t ignore them. He doesn’t vilify them. He’s not sarcastic. Instead, he shows them the same steadfast love he shows to all the others. He treats these Pharisees with dignity, engages with them, takes their question seriously, and encourages them to re-examine their assumptions. Then he very simply makes it very clear that being righteous doesn’t really have anything to do with being right. Jesus refers them to Hosea 6:6. "Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice." At this point you probably won’t be surprised to learn that in Hosea in the NRSV this is rendered not as "mercy" but "steadfast love."

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,

the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

This is, of course, the same steadfast love of God that fills the earth in Psalm 33, the same steadfast love on which Abram pins his faith. Jesus is saying that if we truly know God, then we will know that this is what God is about. Jesus not only shows us what God’s steadfast love looks like, he calls us to be in relationship with one another in the same way that God is in relationship with the whole of creation. We are called to be God’s agents in the world —to stand in steadfast love with the whole of creation, not just the parts we approve of, not just with those who are like us.

Hosea is, of course, not the only prophet Jesus could have pointed the Pharisees (and us) toward. We certainly can’t say that God hasn’t tried to get the message through, over and over and over again. Are we listening? Remember Micah 6:8? Listen carefully:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

Jane Holmes Dixon, former Bishop Suffragan of Washington, once observed that the problem with Episcopalians is that we don’t listen to what Micah says. We love justice and do kindness. Think about it. And I would add that it’s more than a little problematic for us to walk humbly with God when we are busy drawing up battle lines to lob Bible bombs at one another, when we are convinced that being right is righteous. We can only walk humbly with God when we remember that we have come on this journey only through the grace of God’s steadfast love.

Abraham sets for us an example of righteousness through his faith in God’s steadfast love, and Paul teaches us to recognize that righteousness comes through faith in God’s steadfast love, but it is Jesus who shows us what that steadfast love actually looks like. It is Jesus who shows us that, regardless of our differences—maybe even because of our differences—we are worthy to stand before God. We who so often enter this place bowed down and made low by the messages of unworthiness we receive from a world that seems to value homogeneity above everything are called to stand upright and rejoice in being part of what makes God’s creation so rich in variety.

I want you to remember, when it comes time to prepare for communion, that through the grace of God’s steadfast love we all are worthy to stand before the table.

The steadfast love of God fills the whole of creation. Thanks be to God.