In this sermon, I reflection on the Letter to the Hebrews 11:39-12:2 to ask how our personal lives fit into the larger story of our world, and the preferred future God dreams for us:
Entering God’s Story—In Media Res
Reply
Getting Ready for God-Knows-What
This sermon focuses on Luke 12:40 & Hebrews 11:1 to meditate on the uncertainty of life—and faith. How is God calling us to simply be ready for a future we can’t even imagine?
Baptism: Out with the Old & in with the New
Paul describes membership in the church as a kind of death. What does this mean, especially since Jesus is constantly talking about “life abundant” and “life eternal”? I tackle this question in the sermon below, focusing on Colossians 3:1-11:
But How Do We Pray?
This past Sunday, our Gospel reading was Luke 11:1-13, which includes Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer—the prayer Jesus taught his disciples.
In this sermon, I explore the Lord’s Prayer not only to better understand what Jesus teaches us we ought to pray for, but also to better understand what role prayer can have in our lives—especially the relation between prayer and action.
Please feel free to share and let me know what you think.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the best known among Jesus’s teachings. Yet we often misunderstand the meaning of this parable, and the hard task that Jesus is calling us to.
Click below for the full sermon:
Living the Dream with Pauli Murray
As anyone who has visited this page lately can plainly see, I haven’t been updating this blog in quite a while. My work in full-time ministry has left with me with little extra time—or creative energy—for regular writing here, unfortunately.
So, in lieu of new written pieces, I will begin to post my sermons here more-or-less weekly. Each post will link to the YouTube video of the sermon. I invite you to share any sermon you like, and please feel free to leave comments on my parish’s YouTube channel.
Today, I want to share the sermon I preached on July 3, 2022, celebrating the Feast of Pauli Murray:
Love in the Time of COVID: St. Paul on Masks
To mask or not to mask. In the summer of 2020, that is the question.
In the US, the question is strangely rather political, with many Americans perceiving government requirements to wear a mask as a violation of their freedom: they should be free to go outside without a mask if they so choose. Meanwhile, while no one actually enjoys wearing a mask, the evidence showing their effectiveness in reducing the spread of the coronavirus has convinced many other Americans to wear a mask either for their own safety—or out of a sense of duty to others.
Benjamin Franklin once said that “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” The tug-of-war between freedom and security has defined much of American politics, and it seems to define the contours of the mask debate as well.
But for a Christian, neither freedom nor security is the highest value. We worship neither the self nor the state, and so our answer to whether to mask or not must be based on our most deeply held value: knowing, worshiping, and serving God through, in, and as Jesus Christ.
So: would Jesus wear a mask?
To answer this question, one chapter from Paul’s letters will be very instructive. Paul faced many controversies of his own as he sought to spread faith in Christ throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In Corinth, a city in southern Greece, a fight broke out over something that seems trivial today: can Christians eat meat that’s been used in pagan religious practices?
This is the topic Paul takes up 1 Corinthians 8, a short chapter that neatly summarizes the Christian attitude towards freedom, responsibility, and society in general. Let’s take a brief look at the text and then see what it can teach us about masks in 2020:
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.
Immediately Paul sets the stage: there is a tension between knowledge and love. Of course, if you ask anyone today whether they wear a mask or not, whichever choice they prefer, they will be sure that their choice is right, and they often denigrate those on the other side. Paul knew all about this “knowledge [that] puffs up” but he called his friends to a different way of life. He continues:
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Paul is skeptical of arrogant claims to knowledge, yet Paul does know some things. He knows the gods represented by idols are not real—so, if meat is offered as a sacrifice to such a god, nothing in fact has actually happened. For Paul, then, there is no concern about eating this meat. It is food, like any other food. The religious ceremony it’s been involved with was a deception, but so long as the one who eats it does not participate directly in the ceremony, it does no damage to their relationship with God. Now, Paul concludes the chapter:
It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
Religious knowledge is not the final word, and Paul now returns to his original theme. Even if he know that idols are in fact just wood or stone, that they are not real gods, some of his fellow Christians may not be so sure. Perhaps they only recently converted, or are more superstitious than he is. And if they see him eat this meat sacrificed to idols, perhaps they will be confused and scandalized. What if this tempts them to eat this meat, which they believe really does link them to the god of the idol? This could cause them to either abandon the Christian faith, or perhaps remain in the church while feeling guilty, compromised, and spiritually divided.
For Paul, this possibility finishes the argument: protecting others’ faith, conscience, and peace of mind is more important than having a nice meal. So, Paul will never eat meat sacrificed to idols—even though he himself sees nothing wrong with doing so. In short, Paul’s love for his fellow believer outweighs his desire for freedom.
Paul sums this up nicely himself: “take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” Liberty in life is itself good, but it is not the only or highest good. We must look out for others, especially the weak. Indeed, Paul tells us, we must love others more than our own liberty.
Now, surely, if Paul is willing to give up meat—at a time when famines were not rare and quality food often hard to come by—just to safeguard the gentle consciences of others, then he has certainly given us food for thought about wearing masks today, hasn’t he? Because, if wearing a mask—an action that does me no harm, besides causing some mild discomfort—might actually save someone else’s life, then Paul answers the question of whether to wear a mask or not with unambiguously. My freedom to avoid mild discomfort is not as important as another’s life. Period.
“Freedom” is too often just another way of saying “I do what I want!” But Christian faith is built on just the opposite: we are called to abandon selfishness in service to others. In this way, we draw closer to each other, and to God. We see this throughout the Gospels: Jesus heals and feeds without charging a dime; he teaches for free too, and when the going gets tough, he takes on the violence of the state himself, refusing to run away or to put anyone else in harm’s way.
Jesus never insists on freedom—but he always insists on love. Not the superficial, saccharine love of romance novels, but the spiritual love of sacrifice for the good of others. This divine love asks not what I can get from someone, but rather what they need from me. And this is precisely what Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 8 (and he continues the theme in chapter 9).
Again: “take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” If you don’t want to wear a mask because it’s hot outside, you don’t like the way it looks, or it irritates your skin, just remember that this tiny sacrifice might keep someone else out of the hospital—or the grave. When such a tiny sacrifice of liberty yields such a great harvest of love for another, the Christian’s duty is, I think, perfectly clear.
TL;DR: Jesus wants you to wear a mask!
Wrestling with the Angel
I’ve been writing this blog for over ten years. In that time, it’s had a few different names: “Life’s a Lap” became “Noisy Gong”. Now it’s “Wrestling with the Angel”.
I’m changing the name because I am re-launching the blog after more than a year of radio silence. Each week, I will be posting a long post that engages scripture & theology and applies them to our personal and political lives. I wanted a name that reflected what I want us to do together here: like Jacob all those years ago, I want us to meet God and wrestle with our questions, our doubts, and our hopes all at once.
So, if you’ve been reading this blog off and on for a few years—thanks! I hope you like the articles to come. And if you are brand new to the blog—welcome! Please join the conversation, and subscribe to get notifications when new articles are posted.
Here are the topics for upcoming articles. If you have any ideas for articles, please leave a comment here—I’d love suggestions!
Upcoming Articles:
The Trials & Tribulations of Abra(ha)m
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are known as the “Abrahamic faiths”—but who was this Abraham, and why is he so important? We will journey with Abraham through Genesis, chapters 11 to 25, to learn about one of the most important figures in Scripture
The Akedah: Unbinding Isaac
Chapter 22 of Genesis, the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, is one of the most distressing chapters in Jewish and Christian scripture. What are we to make of the (almost) sacrifice of a child? And how do we square this grotesque story with our faith in a loving God?….
Female Sedition in Scripture
It is taken for granted that the Bible enshrines sexism and patriarchy. Any careful reader of scripture will have to admit that this is too often true. Yet, it’s not always so straightforward. Indeed, throughout Scripture, both the Holy Spirit and women themselves broke through the wall of sexism and showed that God was calling us in a different direction…[Gen. 3, Deborah, Hildah, Mary Magdalene (Apostle to the Apostles), Chloe, Junia…]
The Politics of Jubilee & the Theology of Reconstruction
We often feel like our politics and our faith should be more-or-less separate—and at a time when certain kinds of Christianity are becoming perhaps too political. So what happens when we realize that God has put a lot of politics in our Bible?! We will discuss the Jubilee, a radical program of wealth equality present in the laws of Torah, and how it connects with the history of the period of Reconstruction in the US after the Civil War.
The Trouble with Knowing God
As people of faith, we seek to know God—our creator, sustainer, and redeemer. Yet, as we mature spiritually, we find that knowing God is rather tricky—we cannot know God the same way that we know anything else. In today’s entry, we will talk about the difficulty of knowing God and what our spiritual ancestors can teach us about it nevertheless [apophatic theology].
300 vs. the Bible: Reconsidering Sparta and Persia
We often hear that at Thermopylae, the Greeks defended “western civilization” from the ravages of the autocratic East. But is this simple narrative really accurate? And what if we discover that the Hebrew Bible looks kindly on the Persians and negatively on the Greeks—all while valuing, on its own terms, much of what was supposedly unique to “western civilization”?
Wrestling with Biblical Criticism
In the past 200 years, close study of the Bible (historical, literary, redaction, and other forms of text-criticism) have yielded a vast amount of learning for those of us who want to know Scripture well. But of course such work has also generated much controversy. How, exactly, should Christiains engage with and use scholarly criticism of the text? We will focus on the critical response to the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts to raise questions about scholarly criticism and encourage each Christian to be both open-minded—and yet think critically for themselves, too
Faithful Questions
It’s often assumed that Christian faith is about receiving, maintaining, and asserting the right answers. Such an approach has run into a lot of trouble in the last few centuries, though, and many Christians may feel pressure to abandon such a one-dimensional view of faith. The good news is that such a simplistic understanding of faith doesn’t seem to be what Jesus called his disciples to anyway—we will look closely at Jesus’s teaching style to help us find a more open-minded and more faithful approach to being disciples of Jesus.
Of gods and Men
In this article, I will discuss Rene Girard’s The Scapegoat and the ancient idea of euhemerism. Both the modern book and the ancient idea offer tantalizing ideas of how we humans came to many of our religious ideas—and how real faith in God calls us to challenge “religion”.
Worshiping in the Beauty of Holiness
“Holy” is one of those words religious folks use a lot, but what, exactly does it mean? And what is worship about? Does God “need” our attention? Or is worship really about us? In this article, we will tackle the strange idea of holiness and ask what our worship life is really for.
Disciples in the Street: Christian Faith & Political Protest
We are living through not only a pandemic but a huge number of people protesting the killing of George Floyd on May 26. Police forces are responding with extraordinary violence and the president is threatening to essentially invoke martial law. How does faith in Jesus guide our response to this situation?
Prophets as the eyes of the Body of Christ
What is a “prophet”, exactly? And what does it mean to be part of the “Body of Christ”? For most people today, who tend to think of ourselves as individuals and think of our relationship to God as a one-to-one interaction, these terms have lost much of their meaning and power. We will discuss the history of these terms and how reclaiming a communal understanding of identity can liberate us spiritually.
So—those are the topics I hope to tackle in the coming weeks. More topics & ideas will certainly be added. Join me each week as we wrestle with the angel…
Sermons Upon Sermons…
I haven’t written on this blog in a while, but I do have a reason. Back in April of 2018, I began work as an Assistant Rector at St. Mark’s Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Predictably, my free time has dwindled, and so my time on here has as well.
In the past, I had at least posted written versions of any sermons I gave on this blog. I haven’t done that in a while, but that’s because my sermons are now posted on my church’s site. I figured the least I could do was link that page here, so that if any folks who came across my personal blog wanted to check any of those sermons out, you could get to them easily.
So here are the links:
Scott’s Sermons at St. Augustine’s
I will also post a permanent link to that sermons page both up top on the pages bar and in the blogroll on the sidebar.
I do hope to also post some non-sermon content on here from time to time—but with my current schedule, I won’t make any promises!
God Acts Through the Inconsequential; God Arrives Unexpected: A Sermon for June 17, 2018.
I delivered this sermon without a manuscript; what follows below is a version written from notes and memory. I have made some changes for the sake of clarity and precision.
The readings for this sermon were 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 and Mark 4:26-34. They can be found on the lectionary page.
We human beings, I think, tend to focus on the mighty, the powerful, and the triumphant. Those are the histories we like to read, the biographies we like to read: about the powerful, the rich, the mighty. So we tend to assume that those are the people getting things done, that those are the people we should be paying attention to; that if things are going to get better, it will be the powerful who do it.
But it’s a funny thing: if we look at Scripture, God rarely seems to call such people to action. Instead, God often seems to call people we wouldn’t expect: the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the inconsequential.
For example, consider our Hebrew Bible reading for this morning: the prophet Samuel is called to identify the next king of Israel. All he is told is that it will be one of the sons of a man named Jesse. So he goes to Jesse’s house, and Jesse lines up his sons. Samuel knows that when he stands in front of the right son, God will let him know. Samuel immediately makes a bee-line for the eldest son, assuming that he—the tallest, the strongest, the obvious choice—will be the next king.
And Samuel does hear a message from God, but not the one he expects. God corrects Samuel: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
So Samuel keeps walking down the line—but never hears the right message. Then he asks Jesse if all his sons are actually present—and Jesse answers that they left the youngest in the pasture to tend the sheep, assuming he wasn’t important enough for this meeting. Samuel has this young boy called in, and as he approaches, Samuel hears God’s message: this David will be the next king.
The very people we assume are so unimportant, so inconsequential, are the very people God so often calls to do God’s work in this world. But we are so easily distracted by the rich, the powerful, the mighty, the magnificent, the triumphant. We have to turn our gaze, and pay attention to other people, because the truth is that if we are waiting for the rich and the powerful to make the world a better place, we will probably be waiting a very long time…
It’s often said that “God doesn’t call the qualified; rather, God qualifies those who are called.” No matter how small or insignificant or weak someone may seem, we should be ready for God to act through them. This also means that no matter how small or insignificant or weak we think we are, we must always be ready to hear God’s call to action.
I think Jesus is making a similar point in our Gospel reading for this morning. He says that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed—now, if there are any botanists in the house today, yes, it’s true that it’s not absolutely the smallest seed in the world, but it is quite tiny. If I scattered some on the floor right now, I don’t think any of you would be able to see it. And yet, as the gardeners here will attest, once it’s planted and it starts to grow, it flourishes and spreads rapidly, and can quickly take over a garden. (And Jesus goes on to say that it provides a home for the wandering and lost—a point we’ll come back to shortly.)
So the Kingdom of God starts out small—imperceptible—and yet the potential for it to erupt into our lives and utterly transform us is there, if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus seems to be telling us that God always comes from an unexpected place. We may think we have God locked down and understood, but God is always ready to surprise us.
And this is so important for us to remember in this world where, again, we are so often distracted by the grand and the flashy, the rich and the powerful.
Today we are baptizing three young people: still small and vulnerable, still learning, seemingly inconsequential. But if we are paying attention to what the Spirit is saying through Scripture this morning, we should know better. It is in these small people that God is getting ready to act. If we are waiting for God, don’t first look at the folks with collars on, or the vestry members, or even our musicians—look to these children, so small and yet in whom the potential of God’s infinite love is stirring.
Now, baptism is one of the most important celebrations we ever hold in a church. But it’s important to be clear about what we are and are not doing in baptism. Baptism is not a magic trick. Baptism does not confer God’s love. Rather, baptism recognizes that God already loves the one being baptized—and everyone else.
But baptism does confer something: responsibility. The responsibility to receive God’s love, and then go live that love in the world. And that’s not always an easy job! When the parents and godparents of the baptizands stand around the font, they will be asked a series of questions, to make some public vows. And not them only—we will all be asked to reaffirm our baptismal vows. I encourage you to really listen, really pay attention to these promises we are responsible for.
Consider this one, for example: “Do you renounce all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God and all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?” This is not an idle question, because there are people who seem to have compromised with wickedness, who seem to have allowed their sinful desires to exploit and oppress to lead them astray.
Some very public figures—I won’t name names, but if you know how to use a search engine, you can figure it out rather quickly—have been defending the current administration’s practice of separating migrant and refugee children from their parents for weeks, months, maybe longer. And they have tried to use Christianity as an excuse. Specifically, they have cited Scripture—Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 13, verse 1, which reads as follows: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.” Citing this, these public leaders have argued that Christians must obey the law all the time, without question: so if the law says to strip children from their parents, so be it!
It must be said clearly and unequivocally that this interpretation of Christian faith has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is theological and historical nonsense. It is ethically bankrupt.
There are a number of reasons why, so let’s review them all briefly. First and foremost, we must recognize that the question of whether to obey the law and authorities is not the first question we should ask, is not the most important question to ask. To begin with this question of obedience is to put the cart miles in front of the horse. No, first we must ask some questions about the law and authorities themselves. Are the laws just? Are they legitimate? I think we can all agree that we should obey just and legitimate laws and the authorities enforcing them—even if they are inconvenient for us, even if they harm us. But that’s just it—if they are just and legitimate. This question must be resolved before we can know whether to obey a law or not.
To see why this question must be asked before we can talk about obeying or disobeying, consider some history:
- Imagine you are a German Christian in the 1940’s. Which laws would you have obeyed? And which laws would you have felt God called you to disobey?…
- Or, imagine you are an American Christian in the 1850’s. Which laws would you have obeyed? And which laws would you have felt called to disobey?…
And let’s remember that for the first 280 years of the Church’s history—nearly three centuries!—it was effectively illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. Paul, just in writing this letter to the church at Rome, was committing a crime!
Indeed, this very same Paul was imprisoned for spreading the Gospel! He wrote many of his letters from jail, and tradition tells us he was executed by the government for engaging in what that government considered treason and sedition.
But you don’t have to be a theologian or a historian to see the ridiculousness of arguing that Christians must support the separation of children from their families. You could just open your Bible to the passage so many have been citing to defend this policy, and just keep reading. After a few more sentences, you’d come to verse 10: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Clearly, Paul’s whole point is that the law’s only purpose is to serve love. Indeed, Jesus, like many other Jewish rabbis of the time, summarized the whole of Jewish law by saying, “love God and love your neighbor.” These children, these families, are our neighbors. Trying to use Scripture to justify abusing them is outrageous nonsense.
As we baptize these young people today, we will celebrate that each one of them is made in the image of God. And in celebrating God’s presence in these inconsequential people, we might be surprised to find God moving in us in unexpected ways: we will simultaneously be celebrating that all of us in this church are made in the image of God—and, in fact, that every human being, whether American or not, Christian or not, is made in the image of God, and all are our neighbors. So, the only law we have to obey is the law of love. And that’s all I have to say about it.
Wrestling with the Angel 