21 Pentecost/Year C
Alternative lectionary: BE Campaign: Intersection of Religion & Politics – week 5 October 30, 2022
Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 126; Ephesians 2:13-22; Matthew 5:43-48
Today is the last Sunday of a 5-week series of alternative readings that we’ve been using as part of a national movement called the BE Campaign… It has been based on the teaching of the prophet Micah, who, in a time not unlike our own in 700 BCE, asked the question: “What does the Lord require of us, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God?” For the month of October, we joined other Churches nationwide, in using this alternative lectionary to help us pause, focus, and reflect more intentionally on what it means to BE Just, to BE Kind, to BE Humble, in a time of so much division, uncertainty and anxiety in our world…
Last Sunday…we took a look at what it means to BE just, to BE kind, to BE humble, in the context of what it means to LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR…
All of them… The ones who don’t look like you, think like you, love like you, speak like you, pray like you, vote like you…the ones you agree with and the ones you don’t agree with...the ones you call friends, and the ones you call enemies…
We acknowledged that it’s surely a challenge to love some of our neighbors...to go beyond just understanding that we are called to love our neighbors to actually striving to take the next step forward to follow Jesus, to Love our neighbors, in a way of love that is built upon a foundation of justice, kindness and humbleness, a way of love that can transform the lives of every one of us…
The final theme for this sermon series is called The Intersection of Religion and Politics…and what comes to mind for me this week is the word “Disrupt”…
And I think of Jesus as being the greatest disrupter of all time…standing firmly in the intersection of all our conflicting ideas and thoughts and sorrows and hopes…always trying to help us see that there is another way to live with one another in this world beyond the hatred and fear of one another, beyond our misunderstandings of one another, beyond what floods our news feeds and mailings in this season of our mid-term elections. I think of Jesus as the great disrupter of helplessness, anger, grief, sorrow…a great disrupter of squashing our doubts that anything could ever change…that there will always be divisions, that there will always be neighbors we don’t like and don’t understand, that we will always live in a divided world that is always about us vs them.
Jesus stands firmly, compassionately and patiently among us very time we find ourselves at the crossroads and intersections of what we know and perceive now, and what we can only hope is possible… He stands among us to disrupt our old thoughts, our old ways, to encourage us to step out in faith and take the road that Jesus is showing us, to believe and dare to invite HOPE to disrupt our daily lives…showing us that indeed, a new way of life is possible, when we strive to walk in a way of love with God and one another…towards a new future and a new creation for all of God’s people…
IN today’s gospel reading, Jesus seeks to disrupt an old way of thinking:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven….
So that all of us, with Jesus as the cornerstone, as the foundation of what it means to BE just, to BE Kind, to BE humble, can strive to walk in a way of love that contains the HOPE of all that disrupts what divides us and separates us from God and one another, the HOPE that transforms the lives of every one of us, and the HOPE that can inspire in us and equip us to work alongside of each other to build one new, common humanity, so that we will no longer be strangers and alien, and enemies to one another, but will all be members of the household of God…of a diverse, loving, family of God….
So, as we come to the end of this month and sermon series, I would like to commend a new spiritual practice for you to use in the month of November that will not only be a help to us now when we would rather be grumbling about the political climate…but it will help us get in the habit of disrupting our daily grumblings and doubts with Gratitude…It’s a 30 day United Thank Offering Gratitude Challenge with daily reflections and opportunities to disrupt our old patterns of thinking, to make way for the new…for all the new ways we will be called to a time of spiritual renewal and growth as the Body of Christ here at St Peter’s and in the wider community, in the days and months ahead…
To help us turn now with our hearts and minds towards this one day at a time challenge…let me close with this short children’s story by Cynthia Rylant (and illustrations by Nikki McClure) – All in a Day….
A day is a perfect piece of time to live a life, to plant a seed, to watch the sun go by.
A day starts early, work to do, beneath a brand-new sky.
A day bring hope and kindness, too…a day is all its own.
You can make a wish, and start again, you can find your way back home.
Every bird and every tree and every living thing loves the promise in a day, loves what it can bring.
There is faith in morning time, there is belief at noon. Evening will come whispering and shine a bright round moon.
A day can change just everything, given half a chance.
Rain could show up at your door and teach you how to dance.
The past is sailing off to sea, the future’s fast asleep.
A day is all you have to be, it’s all you get to keep.
Underneath that great big sky the earth is all a-spin.
This day will soon be over and it won’t come back again.
So, live it well, make it count, fill it up with you.
The day’s all yours, it’s waiting now…
See what you can do.
You’ve been given the gift of a new day.
I hope this day, and every day, and when you find yourselves at the crossroads and intersections of life, that you will welcome Jesus to disrupt your old thinking, and to inspire you to approach your day with a heart full of gratitude, and with a vision of hope, love, joy, and the peace of God, made known to us in Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.
(psalm 126: 4)
Closing prayer/hymn: Give thanks with a Grateful Heart (Renew # 266)
Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks because he’s given us Jesus Christ, his Son.
And now, let the weak say I am strong, let the poor say I am rich, because of what the Lord has done for us…
Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks because he’s given us Jesus Christ, his Son.
Rev Julie Platson, St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church, Sitka, AK