Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

In the business world I lived in, When someone said the left hand doesn't know

what the right hand is doing, that was not a good thing. That was talking about things falling apart

pretty quickly. But here I believe Jesus

is speaking with hyperbole, delivering a powerful message for us. To give our attention to whatever we are

doing.

What our hands are doing. Where our feet are carrying

us. What our eyes are focused on. To be awake within ourselves and in our

interactions with others. To not fall

into or be in default ways of being that set up stumbling blocks for

others, and that do not follow Jesus

path of love. The path is made by

walking.

Walking makes the path.

Sometimes it's clear when we're starting a new path. Choosing a new school, a new work

position, retirement, sabbatical, being in a committed relationship, suffering, suffering a, a deep loss. New experiences with some direction to them. Sometimes they are anticipated, they are

thought through over time, and sometimes they happen spontaneously.

In his arms, he holds an infant, and he says, "Be like

this."

Innocent, and dependent upon one another, unstained by the

world; and open to being formed.

Be like this.

Curious seekers with BIG emotions.

Be creative and adaptable; imitating me. Someone you can

trust.

Welcome the vulnerable into your midst, and be like them.

For the leader among you is like the one who serves.

There is a reason why, in the Gospels, Jesus implores his

believers, his followers to be like little children.

Born anew to a living hope.

Jesus says, follow me, but be prepared to be transformed.

Talk about me, but if you're going to open your mouth and talk about exclusion,

if you're going to cancel people, if you're going to kick them out of your

life, out of this place, if you're going to deny your responsibility for the

people around you, don't speak in Jesus name.

If you're going to work in this world, To create a space

that's good for you at the expense of others don't speak in Jesus name If you are going to stand up in this world

and do work that is about your betterment

and the betterment of a few other people around you that look sound and

seem like you, please for the love of God don't speak in Jesus name.

But when you get up

in this world and you work for justice and peace in a way that humanizes and acknowledges the

beauty of every single person. Whether

you say the name of Jesus or not, you are speaking with the authority of the

God who made you. When you dedicate your

life to the care and concern of others and make sacrificial love your story,

whether you say it's in Jesus name or not, it is Jesus who speaks within you.

Are you beset with gloom?

Gloomy because someone like me refuses to accept your dehumanizing

dream, crushing his nose for an answer?

Oh well, still I rise. Maya audacious,

defiant backtalk is a sassy refusal to accept the life restricting consequences

of the denials, discrimination, and oppression by a dominant center and

patriarchal system.

Today we hear of a similar sassy refusal to accept a denial

of life in our Gospel reading. Here too,

we hear backtalk to someone in a position of power, supernatural power, that is,

whose denial of life and wholeness is also one of discrimination and

exclusivity. The episode is tense, upsetting

and complicated.

I cannot speak for you, but such is certainly true for myself

and in fact, the same appears to be true for the author of the Gospel of Mark

who locates a tired and possibly quite aggravated Jesus in the region of Thyre,

a Gentile dominated territory. It is

hard to imagine Jesus being at ease. He

is alone, attempting to go unnoticed in a house in a region in which there is

some history of animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles.

I need to say this, by the way, in this conversation, if

I don't say this, I will be very remiss.

Anger and hatred are not the same thing.

And many of you were raised, especially women, were raised to believe

that anger was bad and you should not have it or keep it to yourself. We were taught that you

shouldn't be angry about anything.

And you might be worried that what I'm saying right now

is that you should never be angry because that's bad friends. Anger is not inherently bad. In

fact, anger is a very natural part of our lives. Anger is a base emotion that we all must have sometimes. In fact , there

is a problem if you see injustice, hatred, violence, murder,

oppression, cruelty, and hatred, and anger does not arise in you.

We're supposed to feel angry

in the face of that which is deeply wrong.

I'm not saying don't be angry, but as the epistle writer James

says, your anger is not the thing that makes God righteous. We do not want to allow our anger to become self-righteous.

We pray that God will take ordinary things. Things like bread and wine and water and oil and use those ordinary elements to convey God's extraordinary grace and love. It matters. It matters that we recognize these gifts from God and it matters too that we acknowledge the reality of evil. I don't envision a return to three years preparation for baptism, or it's once a year occasion, or even necessarily that whole facing west and facing east business that our forebears practiced. But I do give thanks for the fact that we hold those ancient promises That we reaffirm those renunciations and those affirmations every time we renew the promises of our baptism

The Apostle Paul probably wrote the letter to the church at Ephesus, which has been the focus of your preaching series over these last weeks, while he was in prison in Rome after his third missionary journey. Paul would have visited that region three times over the course of his ministry. First, just for a few months to establish the church, establishing also leaders in that place who would continue the ministry that he had begun. And later in his second voyage, for three years, he stayed with the Ephesians. And finally, he went back as part of his last journey to Jerusalem. Over that time, Paul saw the church grow into a body of multiple cultures.

In his letter, Paul teaches that through Christ all creation has been reconciled to God. In doing that, God has reconciled all of us to each other, and so because we are reconciled to God, because we're reconciled to one another, God calls us to live differently.

To live as a people who have been transformed.

For me, the third grade was probably one of the best times of my life. I could pick out my own Umbro shorts, scrunchie my own ponytail, And ride my bike freely around the neighborhood from sun up to dinner time, getting into some good and maybe not-so-good trouble with the other kids who lived nearby.

I learned to cook, spent unnumbered hours creating trampoline routines, and made prank phone calls to my friends from school. Is your refrigerator running? Better go and catch it.

I vividly remember a Saturday morning in July of 1994, climbing the gutter at the elementary school down the street and slipping in through an unlocked window, and scaling down the bleachers into the gymnasium. So that we could swing on the big rope in the open gym. Being eight was great. Life was good, not a care in the world.

Nostalgia set in earlier this summer when I realized with sentimental longing and wistful affection that the mothering of my own eight-year-old children has been marred by the same two words that begin our reading from Ephesians today; be careful.

And then what happened is as many of you know, I had a sort

of a conversion experience when I was 20 and I realized, oh gosh,

dang, I do believe in God. This is real that I believe in God. And in fact, I

think I'm Christian. I do believe in Jesus. And from the moment that that

happened, I felt this sort of need to prove some things.

From the moment that I was called back into my faith, I felt the need to prove myself. In my case, I didn't feel the need to prove

to other Christians that I was Christian.

In my case, I needed, I felt the need to prove to my friends and those

who knew me for the last few years that just because I was Christian didn't

mean I was all of a sudden going to become a jerk. It was really important to me.

I wanted people to know that

even though I believed in this Jesus guy and I was in on

this, I was very concerned and wanted to prove to my friends that this

wouldn't change the way that I loved them and hopefully it wouldn't change the

way that they loved me.

This certainly is not unity. Is unity a difficult ask for today? Today America has become more divided than ever. For many, unity is viewed as a threat to peace. to one's personhood or individual identity altogether. Unity requires someone must win and someone must lose. Unity means a loss of freedom.

Unity means a loss of merit or a loss of dignity. Unity also means a loss of stability, a loss of security, and a loss of safety. Today, to some, unity is indeed frightening. Unity And yes, unity is indeed frightening because unity requires vulnerability. Unity often takes its victims to unchartered and unknown territories.

Unity might lead to becoming friends or falling in love with someone you never dreamed possible. Unity might lead to agreeing with or even having compassion for another person that they have been conditioned to hate. Unity might lead to someone challenging their own worldviews, then to confusion, and then maybe some resolve.

I've never heard or read anywhere that unity is easy.

Now that this is my last Sunday with you, it's time for me to tell you my real name, because in so many ways, our name defines us, roots us in this world, gives us our identity. My real name isn't the name that my parents put on my birth certificate and that I was called at my baptism. It's the name my grandmother gave me when I was born. My father's mother, Ah Yun, was the name-giver for the Chin family.

An ancient Chinese saying goes, "The family is essential under Heaven." The family is the foundation, the center of Chinese culture, with the male child responsible for continuing the family lineage and, importantly, passing on the family name. So girls are traditionally not valued.

But the birth of the first child, male or female, is always an occasion for celebration and joy. So when my parents' first child was born, a girl, Ah Yun named her Mei Li, meaning "Beautiful Daughter." Girls are often named lovely names like that--Coral Flower, Beautiful Girl, Lustrous Pearl, and so on. I think it makes the girl more appealing when the time for marriage comes along.