“Enemies”
The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 7
23 June 2019
Trinity+St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
San Francisco, California
I Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 42/43
Galatians 3:23-29
St. Luke 8:16-39
INI
It has been a while since I have stood in this place and expounded on the Scriptures to you – and you’ve grown and merged in the meanwhile, so to some of you I am a stranger. First of all, it is an honor to be here, especially since on this day I celebrate the 48thanniversary of my ordination. It was here, amongst you, however, that I made life-changing decisions about moving from the Lutheran Church to the Episcopal Church. I have so many to thank, but in this regard hold David Forbes, Evan Ardley, Bishop Otis Charles, and James Tramel for their encouragement to me. It is a transition that I welcomed and am grateful for.
Secondly, one of the things that helps a preacher preach is that intimate knowledge that he or she has of those who will be listening to his wrestling with the word. Too much time has passed for me to know what your issues are, how you are thinking now, and what future visions you might have. So I will leap into the readings seeing what I find. It will be your judgment as to whether or not my gleanings are helpful to your journey. I think that it is time for a prayer to the Holy Spirit that she guide both preacher and congregation in this endeavor.
The title for this sermon is “Enemies”. Let me say at the outset that I have chosen this title because that is what we have all become at this period of time in our country. As I reencounter old classmates from boarding school, college, and seminary, I discover that we are set against each other on so many issues. Some of that is the work of elements in our society who profit from our quarrels. Some of it is the economics of our time, and a great deal of it is an attitude of blame toward others that seems to infect all of us. The readings have a sense of enemy as well – Ahab and Jezebel against Elijah, Jesus against the demons, the possessed man against the demons, and the people who find Jesus’ healing of the man fearsome and difficult. So then the question becomes, “Who are our, yours, mine, enemies?
I could not escape this particular take on these readings because as I read them, I realized that I have often taken the stance of the righteous man against the others. It’s not a healthy position. I can remember in the early struggles in the Church regarding women, and then regarding LGBTQ people, that I saw myself on the right side. And I was. Unfortunately, that realization is accompanied by a characterization of all others as being wrong. The difficulty with that is that conversation, words, communication all stop in the face of such an attitude.
Prior to the first reading Elijah sets up a contest between the Ba’alim – the gods of Canaan and Phoenicia (the gods of Jezebel) and YHWH. When YHWH wins the contest, Elijah then goes on to slaughter the priests of the Ba’alim. So much for ecumenism. We might give Elijah an out for serving the “true God”, however the conversation between the religions of the Levant and Yahwism, and Persia and Yahwism would go on, each influencing the other. The growth was in the conversation.
Luke relates the story of the man possessed by demons for a variety of reasons. He wants us to see Jesus operating in the territory of the enemy. The Gerasenes are not Jews and do not honor the traditions of the Jews. Witness the herd of pigs that are present in the story – First clue that this is not a Jewish story. Luke wants us to see Jesus’ appeal even in a foreign situation, with a foreign people. And what does Jesus come to do with them – healing.
We might be put off a bit when Jesus refuses the man’s request to follow him. Jesus sends him back to his own community not because he is not welcome in the Jesus Community, but because that community including him is welcomed into the larger community that wants to follow Jesus.
Luke would be alarmed at how we treat the stranger and the foreigner. He would be railing at the atrocities at our southern border. We need to have our minds challenged about who our fellow travelers are. Here, in this story, it is the foreigner, the mentally ill, the dispossessed. Yesterday I had lunch with cousins, newly met. We are second cousins, related through my Großmama Hiller’s family. As we got to know one another we shared what we do in life. Kokyo said to me, “You come from a long line of Lutheran clergy, don’t you?” That is indeed true, and I related how my husband Arthur always talks about this as the “family racket.” My sister Bonnie corrected the situation. “It’s the family business!” She replied. There was a silence and then Kokyo said, “I’m a Buddhist priest.” Another silence and then all of us muttered, “The family business.”
The questions that Christians and other religious people need to ask is, “What are our connections?” The question that Americans of all political stripes need to ask is “What are our connections?” The question that Christians of the various denominations need to ask is “What are our connections?” What is our common vision of God?
In the first reading Elijah, running away from the wrath of his enemies Ahab and Jezebel, goes up to the mountain, Sinai. Surely God would be there. And he waits. There is a great wind, but no God. There is an earthquake, but no God. There was a fire (are you recognizing Pentecost in this) but no God. Finally, there was the sound of sheer silence.
We complain in our time that God is silent. God seems to be silent in the face of evil and difficult times. Perhaps we are being called to profoundly listen to the silence, for I believe in the silence there is an answer that comes to us as we listen deeply and boldly. Perhaps we need to have the words of Paul break into our meditative silence and remind us that there is no longer Jew, or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female. What might we add to that list of potential enemies? He says that we are, all of us, heirs according to the promise – the promise given Abraham.
Let me tell you a story. When I was in Seminary there was a fight between the right and left in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. The majority of the faculty at the seminary was against a few conservatives who were making life quite difficult for all of us. One day at the community mass, I was sitting next to my Hebrew professor, and in this liturgy, prior to the passing of the peace the celebrant would quote Jesus. “If when you are offering your gift, you suddenly remember that you have a grievance with your brother, leave your gift where it is, make peace with your brother, and then offer your gift.” We all passed the peace, and my professor, after offering the peace, left the chapel. Later I sought him out. “Why did you leave?” I asked. He said, “I had to go make peace with another professor. I could not receive the Eucharist until I did.” It is a lesson that I have never forgotten. I bequeath it to you as well.
SDG
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