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Living a Paradox
February 11, 2007
Luke 6.17-26
This is the second sermon that I have prepared for today. The first sermon, believe it or not, was about Anna Nicole Smith. But as I was writing it, I felt like I was dancing around a larger point that needed to be made. And then Sandi Chalker came by the office to drop off some stationary and we started chatting about all sorts of stuff and the content of the conversation started to echo after she left and as I was writing about Anna Nicole Smith.
First things first though, I want to rebut something Deacon Ben said last week. I heard that he stated with authority that I was lying on the sands of South Beach last Sunday. Let me be perfectly clear. If there were a sun to be found, I would have been lying on the sands of South Beach, despite the possibility that teenagers might see me and call 911 with reports of a beached whale. But because it rained for 40 days and nights, I was not as comfortable as the good Deacon suggested.
The Super Bowl was great and maybe sometime later, I’ll talk about it. But the Super Bowl is just a game, and frankly, there are more important things going on right now. Tomorrow the primates of the Anglican Communion will be meeting in Tanzania for 7 days to discuss a variety of issues, but certainly included in the agenda will be the state of the Anglican Communion.
At our Diocesan Convention last week, the state of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion was discussed but not as much as one would think. At Convention, we talked about what is going on in our Diocese, about the ministries and work of our people. There was only one resolution, in fact there were only two resolutions during the entire Convention, that addressed recent events in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Most of the discussions about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion take place between priests at smaller gatherings and over dinner and of course on the internet.
To bring you up to speed, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the only body that can speak for the Church, confirmed the election of Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire. Gene Robinson is openly gay and lives with his partner. His confirmation sent shockwaves around the Anglican Communion, because in the larger church, this was unprecedented. Now, the Anglican Communion, is a loose federation of autonomous national churches. By that I mean, the spiritual head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has no real power over any province in the Communion other than influence. The national churches are in communion with one another, united by common heritage and liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer.
After 2003, the Archbishop of Canterbury set up a commission to study how the Anglican Communion could live together with serious differences. The results of the study, the Windsor Report, outlined recommendations on how the Communion could live together in light of events during 2003.
If you have paid attention to religious news, the fallout from 2003 has been pretty significant. In the past year, three very large parishes, two in Virginia and one in Texas, have left the Episcopal Church. Several Dioceses have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to provide leadership other than our Presiding Bishop for them. Many parishes, including several in our Diocese, have joined up with a conservative network, distancing themselves from the actions of 2003 and in the eyes of many, are looking for a split within the Church.
The interesting thing is, and I might add the great thing is, this has had little discernable impact on St Michael’s. I am not aware of anyone who has left St Michael’s or stopped worshipping at St Michael’s over these issues. This is not to say that everyone who is a member or worships here agrees with what has happened. In fact, if we took a poll, I would be willing to bet that the majority of folks here disagree with 2003.
But I’m also willing to bet that there are some who agree with 2003. And that’s why I’m glad to be back here. Because there are places within the church, where two people who disagree cannot be in the same room, much less at the same altar. I think we are beginning to see it happen in our Diocese where we are hungering for blood, where we want to see winners and losers and just like the Super Bowl, we want to have confetti and balloons and t-shirts proclaiming our victory when it comes.
I visit websites and blogs where people are spewing venom at one another. Mean and hateful comments all in the name of the truth and God.
Bishop Louttit made, in my opinion, a profound statement during his address the first night of Convention. He said, “Mistakes of theology or morality will be corrected in the life of the church, though other errors will arise through the sin and partial vision of our human leaders.”
He’s right. The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, will correct what is wrong. She always has. When there were divisions of the divinity of Jesus, the church corrected it. In fact, the undivided Church met 7 times during our first 1000 years to correct what was wrong. And we did it by and large through a spirit of love and Christian hope.
But it’s hard to be patient. It goes against our human nature.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gathered a large group of disciples. Every time he went from town to town and preached and healed and drove out demons, he picked up followers. People saw him and listened to him and wanted to be with him.
And one day, he went up in the mountains to pray and he spent the whole night there. When morning came, he called all of his disciples together and picked out 12. These were to be the apostles, the inner circle.
He took those 12 and together they walked down from the mountain and met what St Luke called “a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” They were there to listen to him and to be healed and delivered from their demons. They were like the masses gathered to hear Barak or Hillary or Rudy or John waiting on them to say the things they wanted to hear.
But when Jesus opened his mouth, he didn’t make any sense. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
The people who came out to see Jesus were waiting to hear him say, “You that are poor, I am here to give you money. You that are hungry, I am here to give you food. You that are crying, I am here to remove your sadness.”
But Jesus didn’t say that. He told the poor that they were rich. He told the hungry that are filled, and he told the crying that through their tears there is laughter.
Jesus was describing the paradox that is the kingdom of God.
Just to make sure I understood the textbook definition of paradox, I looked it up. I knew it had some Greek connection, because doxa is the Greek word for praise. The doxology means “words of praise.” Orthodox means right belief or right praise. So I knew that paradox had something to do with belief or praise.
The Greek word “para” means against or contrary. So paradox means against belief or contrary to belief. A paradox is something that is against what we belief to be true.
Completely against what they believed to be true. But that is our faith. That is our God. God becoming man and dying for humanity is a paradox. The last shall be first and the first shall be last is a paradox. We know the first are first and the last are last. But not in the kingdom of God. “Love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is a paradox. Our instinct is to kill our enemies and make those who persecute us regret their actions.
The person of Jesus completely and forever turned our existence upside down. Jesus turn right left and left right, top bottom and bottom top. Our Christian life is spent living out that paradox.
So I don’t worry about the Church. The Church is larger than I am, thank God, and the Church will correct herself, no matter which side is right or wrong. I pray we all trust in God and do the opposite of what comes naturally. Let’s love each other. Let’s be nice to each other. Let’s be beacons to the world that in Christ, left is right and right is left and top is bottom and bottom is top. Let’s show the world that in Christ, everything is completely and forever changed. Let’s be a paradox.