The One who has promised is faithful: Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 17, 2024)
Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost (November 17, 2024) at St.James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
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Transcript
Good morning. O Day of Radiant gladness. So I can't tell you how good it is to be here and to look on all your faces. Thank you.
I saw my spiritual director yesterday and she just got back from a long trip. She was at a conference in Ireland for leaders for peacemakers, and she spent the week with people who work to make peace in some of the places where peace has come to seem impossible. She spent the week with people working for peace in the Middle East in Palestine, people who live and work on a kibbutz that brings Israeli and Palestinian people together to live together and to be a source for peace with people who worked for peace in Northern Ireland. People all over the world who work in places. She said something like this, people who work in places where things don't get better, they get worse.
There are a lot of places like that in the world and sometimes it can seem a little cheap to promise that love will always triumph over hatred, that peace will always find its way. In places where lives and communities are torn by war, there are places where things don't get better. They seem to get worse. And she said what the people who do this work anyway need to remember is that it's not about what happens. It's not about the fruit that their actions produce. That can't be what keeps them going. In places where things get worse, not better, what keeps them going In places where things get worse, not better, is where they take their stand. In other words, who they have decided to be for us, it might be who we have decided to follow. Where does our power come from in times of trial? Where are our feet? Where do we take our stand and who are we called to be? Another way to put this might be something my husband fairly frequently has to remind me and it's a little more pithy. He says, Meredith, you have to demote yourself from president of results to vice president of actions.
I have to do. We have to do what God calls us to do. Whether things seem to get better or whether they seem to get worse, we have to be who God has made us to be. Whether that draws light and love and beauty as our being here at St. James has so often done, I mean, have you not seen the blooming of love in this place over these years and yet we are not guaranteed that when we be who God made us to be, when we do what God calls us to do, we are not guaranteed that all that will come our way is love and blooming.
Most of you know, I should say just in case anyone doesn't know that our congregation has received, has been a target because of who we are. Right? This week, somebody has been threatening and harassing your priest because of who we are, because of where we stand, because we're being who God calls us to be and doing what God calls us to do. And someone said to me this week, being a Christian is not for wimps. It takes heart. It takes heart. This is part of what Jesus is saying to us when Jesus says, do not be alarmed because we're all alarmed. I'm alarmed. I'm alarmed by what's happened this week. I'm alarmed by what I see happening in the world.
Oh, these great stones, these great institutions, these great buildings, Jesus walking in the temple, he says, you see all this, not one stone will be left on another. And of course, he was right. Not long after he was crucified, that temple was torn down and it was never rebuilt. The things that we do with our actions, they don't last forever and we can't guarantee the results. Nevertheless, Jesus says, when you see earthquake, famine, wars, rumors of wars, hatred, nation rising up against nation do not be alarmed. This is the beginning of birth of new life. Somehow this new life, this new birth has always been coming into the world. I feel even here at St. James in this week, as hard as this week has been for your vestry, for all of us really, something is being born.
Let us hold fast. To the confession of our hope without wavering for the one who has promised is faithful. Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together. Here we are. Here we are and encouraging one another and all the more. As you see the day approaching, when fear and alarm approach us, we double down on God's promise that God will give us everything we need to do what God calls us to do, to be who God has created us to be, to let our light shine. I wrote to you this week when Jesus says, let your light so shine before others, that people may see your good works and glorify God in heaven. He has to immediately go on to say, nobody hides their light under a bushel once it's lit. But of course, why wouldn't you? If your light draws ire and hatred, one might be tempted to hide that light under a bushel, but the calling is to double down, to lift the light higher, to look down at our feet.
I had a friend who had a nun say to her once, the best prayer is to look down at your feet and say, here I am. I have everything I need. We double down on the promise that God will provide for us what we need to do, what we need to do, what God asks us to do, and to be who God calls us to be and to shine the light of God's love, the way God has made us to shine and everybody here is shining. I wish you could see your faces, something's being born because the love that I have received this week is just the fullest expression of the love that has been flowing here the whole time. I mean, ever since I got here, what a pilgrimage it's been, and I see you taking care of each other. I see you taking care of yourselves. I see you praying. I know life is not easy right now, but I see every single person in this room and I will tell you, it is a self- offering to be in this room today. It just is. God bless you.
We don't stop loving one another and we don't stop shining our light. I have never been prouder of St. James Church. I have never been prouder of who we are and who we're going to keep being. And I'm so thankful to God who made us this way in the first place. God made you and loves you, and God called us here because we have light to shine, and I want you to remember that the light, it shines in the darkness. The darkness has not, and it will not overcome it. So do not neglect to meet together, encourage one another. Consider how you may provoke one another to good works. I love that. All the more as you see the day approaching for the one who has promised is faithful God in whom we stand now and forever. Amen.