Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 16 Nov. 2014, Proper 28
Year A RCL: Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30
You, Beloved, are not in darkness...
So encourage one another & build up each other, as indeed you are doing.1
Vows
require action. English
educator & religious writer Hannah Moore, who
lived 1745-1833,
speaks to this in her poem “Faith and Works Together Grow”2:
“If faith produce no works, I see
That faith is not a living
tree: Thus faith and works together grow;
No separate life they
e'er can know;
They're soul and body, hand and heart
What God
hath joined, let no man part.”3
What
God hath joined, let no man part. That last line sounds like the
marriage ceremony. This poem helps me see with new eyes the
connection of faith & works. Faith & works are like a
marriage. The husband & wife have work to do to live their vows.
Doing so they build up each other & strengthen their
“couple-ness”. All vows require follow-through action that builds
up the people involved.
Reading
our scriptures regularly &
understanding what we read helps us keep our vows to God & each
other & to build up each other – a particularly important gift
to each other at this time of year with its unique demands &
expectations for so many special events, such as our Bazaar &
holiday celebrations. How
can today's scriptures help us through this time?
Jesus'
parable about the 3 slaves given various talents (amounts
of money in proportion to each slaves' skill to manage the money)
reminds
us we have work to do here & now to fulfill our vows to God. Our
lesson from Judges says we have work to do here & now to fulfill
our vows to God. Judges shows us that God is our deliverer.
God
works through humans, using human skills & abilities, to save the
people from their oppressors when the people cry to God for help.
Like the Israelites, we can forget our promise to live in God's love
& to trust God with the results of our work.
Forgetting
leads to trouble. The people in Judges forget after Ehud dies. Ehud
was their champion whom God raised up to save them from a previous
oppressor after they had drifted away from God. They live in right
ways & then sin. So they get oppressed again & we
come to today's situation with the prophetess Deborah commissioning
Barak as army commander4
to work with God to fix this mess.
God
will deliver General Sisera into Barak's hands when God draws him out
to the Wadi Kishon. This wadi is a branch of the Kishon River, “the
most important of the brooks in the Jezreel Valley”.5
The Kishon flows from south-east to north, flowing into the Bay of
Haifa in the Mediterranean sea.6
All
rivers, brooks & creeks flow in some direction. A favorite creek
of mine – and I suspect of some of you – is Honey Creek at our
conference center on the Marshes of Glynn. It is beautiful &
fascinating to watch the marsh grasses change colors. The creek
itself changes as Alice here knows. Alice, will you come share your
experience? [She witnessed a neap tide, during which the creek's flow switched directions.]
Alice
has a gift of keen observation. She has many other skills that she
shares to bless & build up this Body of Christ. You in this Body
of Christ have so many gifts, skills, abilities, talents. We see
results of some of our gifts on the small altar & throughout the
Parish Hall as the Bazaar takes shape.
Think
of the Bazaar in terms of Jesus' parable in today's Gospel7:
There is work to do for God, whose “slaves” we are. God (through
the Episcopal Church Women)
assigns to each of us areas of responsibility for the Bazaar. These
responsibilities are in proportion to our abilities. Some can do more
than others.
We
are blessed not to have any wicked, lazy slaves among us. You – we
– work hard for the Bazaar & we work together to benefit all of
us AND the many who are helped & served by the funds raised. Even
though it is ECW's project, you men are very involved in its success.
As
we go into the final stretch toward the Bazaar, I pray God to give us
the grace to keep our vows, including our Baptismal Covenant to
respect the dignity of every human being; to stay alert to respond as
the tide changes; to anchor ourselves in the love of Jesus, that
self-giving love by which Jesus dies on the cross for each one of us.
Jesus dies for each one of our guests who will come to the Bazaar.
You, Beloved, are not in darkness...So encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
Bibliography
Harper’s Bible
Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Jewish Study
Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
The
New American Bible for Catholics.
South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
A
Woman's Book of Faith: 2,000 Years of Inspirational Writing By and
For Women.
ED: M. Shawn McGarry. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group. 1997.
http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/KishonRiver.html.
Accessed: 16 Nov. 2014.
1
Paraphrase from 1 Thessalonians.
5
Ibid. P. 518.
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