Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 2 Advent, 4 Dec. 2016
Year
A RCL: Isaiah
11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
You
viper's brood!
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?!
I
can't preach like John the Baptist, the fiery outdoor prophet. I
preach in our climate-controlled building!
Even
wearing this woolly-looking jacket, the white*1
alb underneath looks very different from what our Gospel says John
wears: camel's hair clothing, a leather belt around his waist.
What
would he look like today?
Can
you see him with long, unruly hair? Around his waist he wears a
burlap bag tied with twine. As he strides down this center aisle to
sit down front, you read the slogan scrawled on the back of his denim
jacket:
Jesus Saves!”
If
this distinctive person comes in here & sits on your row will you
bear fruit worthy of repentance, which we seek at Eucharist so we can
live new lives? Will you welcome this strange
stranger?
Will
you, Beloved Little Child of God, welcome this lion to eat with us at
this Holy Table? Will
you put out your hand at the peace to shake his – like a child
putting its hand over the adder's den, as Isaiah describes of the
peaceable kingdom?
Will
you, as Paul encourages us
to do in our lesson from Romans,
welcome one another just as Christ has welcomed you? If you do, then
we can with one voice glorify God. This one voice is a harmony of
many voices.
Paul
reminds the Romans & us of this fact: With God's help we can live
in harmony with one another. Harmony has many parts, many sounds. It
is much richer than a monotone: all sounding exactly alike.
Our many
voices blending together speak God's love & unite into a glorious
chorus of praise to God.
I
am convinced you/we have such great unity, the ability to live in
harmony. Paul
says in our lesson: “May
the God of hope fill you [us] with all joy & peace in believing,
so you [we] may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Abounding
in hope & by the power of the Holy Spirit, yes, you would do
as Paul encourages us to do. You do welcome one another as Christ has
welcomed you. You will
welcome a John the Baptist here as he marches down the center aisle
in his burlap bag.
I
am
convinced you can
reflect the unity we know of God's Mystery. This Unity is Holy
Community, the Holy Trinity: 3 in One, One in 3 – Unity which
welcomes all sorts & conditions of people.
I
am convinced of this because I have seen you welcome strangers. This
is not new to you. Beloved Brothers & Sisters, in the 7 months
I've been with this beautiful Body of Christ, I have seen your grace
& purposeful unity in stressful times.
I
am convinced of this also because my husband & I have witnessed
such an encounter among Episcopalians in another church. We remember
the Sunday when the lessons we have today have just been read. The
lay preacher has just started her sermon, focusing on John the
Baptist.
In
walks this burlap bag guy wearing the denim
“Jesus Saves” jacket.
He strides toward the front.
Most
of us think he's helping illustrate her sermon, the preacher's prop,
a theater student from the college across the street where she
teaches.
We
think this until we smell the scent of body odor trailing him like
incense lingers after a procession. We see people shift away
uncomfortably.
After
the sermon, one woman on the pew scoots closer
to him & opens the Prayer Book to the Creed for him. He doesn't
use it. He knows the Creed by heart. He knows when to stand, sit &
kneel. We learn later he's an Episcopalian. He has drifted into our
community off his medications & far from his home in a state far
away.
He
becomes part of parish worship & fellowship. He chastises us for
throwing out food left on plates after the parish supper &
rescues it from the trash for his next meal. He chastises me for
shaking crumbs from table cloths into the yard; however, he stops
picking them up when I remind him they are for the ants & the
birds.
This
Beloved Child of God teaches us much & gives us new perspectives.
God has put him among us for us to learn from him, & for us to
bless him. The head of mental
health happens to be a parishioner & eventually locates his
family, gets him the medicines he needs & helps him return home.
When
we see someone who is different or someone who irritates us, what
assumptions do we make? The burlap bag man assumed I was
thoughtlessly wasting food when, in fact, I was careful not to throw
crumbs into the trash but was feeding God's creatures outside.
Jesus
meets us where we are. Our scriptures tell us of “the knowledge of
the Lord”, which some translate as “devotion”2
to the Lord. They tell us of “fear of the Lord”, which some
translate as “reverence.”3
Our scriptures remind us: God constantly reaches out to us in love,
peace, mercy. Sometimes God wears a burlap bag to do this.
God
does this to bring us into closer relationship with God & into
fullness of life.
We
know Jesus dies for each of us before we ever ask forgiveness. This
knowledge should create devotion in us & replace fear with
reverence & gratitude.
Jesus
dies for each of us while we are still trailing the odor of our sins,
while we are “off our meds” & have no idea where we are,
where we come from, where we're going.
Jesus
dies for us while we are still a disheveled mess.
Jesus
reaches out his hand to us while we are a brood of vipers & lets
us bite his hand over & over.
Eventually
we will run out of venom.
Eventually
we will curl up in peace, wrapping ourselves around Jesus, hearing
his heart beating, beating,
beating in harmony with God's love.
Jesus
does this just because. . . .
. . . . just
because God loves you.
Beloved
Child, God invites YOU to feast in peace & unity in God's Holy
Community of Love.
Share
this feast.
Share
this feast.
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. 1970.
1
* An alb is white! So I am being redundant.
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