Calvary Episcopal Church - Memphis, TN

“Perhaps the question James is pressing upon us all is, “Will you turn your attention, turn your desires and your fears and your hurts, but also your joy and your hope and your gratitude, will you practice turning ever more of yourself and your life toward the aliveness of God that lives between us? Such turnings, such prayers, such intercessions really do still have the power to heal.”

Jesus was telling the disciples and us that when we take the last place in line, we enter the world of childlike imagination. From that last and lowly position, we have the perfect vantage point to wonder about things, to have the audacity to ask penetrating questions such as – Is this even the right line to be in?

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were the ultimate expression of the truth that God does the work of redemption as a pure and unqualified gift. All that’s left for us to do is try to believe that broken and imperfect lives like ours could be included in that perfect love and then live out of the gratitude that results.

What do we believe in these days? And what do you and I not believe? This is not just a philosophical exercise, and it’s not just for mindless recitation. What we believe and don’t believe will ground us and reshape our lives.

The purpose of the Church, then … the purpose of Calvary in Memphis … is to be the kind of community in which people begin to see themselves as desired by God. A place where we see ourselves as occasions for divine joy.

Where does God live?

If Church is somehow still of use to lives like yours and like mine, surely it must be as a place where whatever we’re afraid of doesn’t send us away from each other or set us at odds, but breaks us open to the God-given humanity we all share.

The Jesus who turned over the tables of the money-changers in the temple is the same Jesus who healed and hugged lepers. His anger propels us to challenge injustices in ways that orient all of us toward loving and serving others, especially those we see as hardest to love.

What if David is a man after God’s own heart in that David’s heart, at least on one eventful day, was capable of change?

This is a sermon about learning from women who stood at the edge of before and after and who found God there. This is a sermon about history and about the future, because this is a sermon about the eve of something - who knows what?