Love’s Authority
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (January 28, 2024) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
The 2024 Annual Meeting of St. James’ Church. We’re here. We love you.
Listen:
Like what you hear? You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” from Mark 1:21-28
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
Some time ago, up near Syracuse—this was while I was still in training for the priesthood—I was in a church, in the congregation. The service was going along much like ours today, with the readings and preparations for the Eucharist. Then, all of a sudden, somebody stood up in the middle of the congregation, and they gasped, and then they collapsed.
And the whole congregation gasped, and, just like we do when the Gospel is proclaimed in the middle of the church, the whole congregation turned toward the place where this person had gasped and then collapsed.
I'll never forget this. This scene today from Mark's Gospel, where Jesus is teaching and everyone is focused on him, but then something happens that totally disrupts the scene. Everyone's attention turns away from Jesus and toward this person who is acting out of what possess them. This person shouts at Jesus, what do you have to do with us?
So that day in church, some time ago, someone stood up, gasped, and then collapsed in the middle of church. And everyone, out of fear and concern, turned toward that person. There was the briefest moment of pause, of paralysis.
And then the priest said, Joe, call 9-1-1. So-and-so, go wait by the doors for the responders. And then she walked right up to that person who had collapsed, who was still conscious, and she looked them in the eyes and she said, "We're here. We love you."
"We're here, and we love you."
She looked right at them and I remember them looking back at her and peace fell over the congregation even as this person was struggling, even as we waited for the ambulance, even as we waited to find out if this person would be okay... She said, We are here and we love you.
And when I think of the authority that people saw in Jesus that day in the synagogue, I think that this story from that day in church shows that such authority still shows up in the church today.
The authority Jesus had to cast out demons—the powerful influences that tear us away from God, that control our lives and our actions, the addictions and the diseases and the resentments—the power that Jesus had to cast out demons still flows through our church today.
It's the power that St. John writes about in his first letter when he says, "perfect love casts out fear."
In that synagogue in Capernaum, everyone turned toward that demon-possessed man who shouted, What do you have to do with this? What do you have to do with this mess? What can you do about this? And Jesus said, Get out of him. You don't have any power here. When the whole congregation was gripped by fear that a power greater than themselves had come into the room, had disrupted what Jesus was doing, Jesus said, you don't have the power to disrupt what's happening in this space. Get out of here, fear. Get out of hear, addiction. Get out of here, hatred. Get out of here, disease. Get out of here, death. You don't have the last word here.
The last word here, to all who suffer or struggle, is: We're here with you. We love you.
We're here with you. We love you. Whatever you're facing, we are here with you. We love you. Whatever you're afraid of, we're here with you. We love you. Whatever is corrupting and destroying you and tearing you away from your relationship with God, we are here with you and we love you.
And that love has all the authority.
This week a group of us saw a movie, "A Case for Love," that features our presiding bishop Michael Curry. He talks about how love is not a sentiment on a Hallmark card or a valentine. He talked about the power, the authority of love. Love is not just a nice emotion. For Christians, love is authority. Love is power. Love casts out whatever would corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.
Love has the last word.
In the sixth chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus gives that power, his power, to his disciples. He gives them the very same authority that people proclaimed him to have that day in the Capernaum synagogue. He says to the disciples, I give you the power, the authority, to cast out demons in my name, to heal in my name, to proclaim the good news in my name.
And in this church, we believe that the power that passes to Jesus' apostles by the power of God's Holy Spirit has been passed onto each of us through our baptism, through the laying on of hands by a bishop at our confirmation or our reception. Each one of us has received this power and authority, through the sacraments of the Church, through the nourishment we receive from the altar at Eucharist. We have the authority and the power of love.
We have the authority to stand and say, We're here. We love you. Whatever is happening, we're here and we love you.
Today is our Annual Meeting day, right? Such a beautiful day for an Annual Meeting. As the Gospel was being read, the back door opened briefly and I saw this beautiful wet snow falling and I thought, this is great. This is so good for mustering our quorum. It's so good for participation.
No one's playing golf today. That's true! Probably no one's even sledding. It's too nasty for that.
This power, this authority that we have: it enables us to do hard work together, the kind of work that we do in an Annual Meeting where sometimes we have to confront difficult truths. In our Annual Meeting today, we're going to talk about how this church has a deficit in funding our ministries. That's not fun. We would probably rather not think or talk about some of these difficult realities. It can be scary to do so. But perfect love drives out fear. We're here. We love one another. We can have the hard conversation. We can stand up for one another.
We have the power and the authority right now to say who and what this church is going to be about for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next hundred years, the next 200... how old is this church exactly? Somebody be quick with the math! 212 years. For the next 212 years. That's what we're about.
Every annual meeting we're about, not just who the church has been last year and who the church is going to be for the year ahead, what we've accomplished and what we hope to accomplish, but we're about: How is this church going to be here? How is this church going to testify to the world about the love of God?
We're here. We love you.
That means we can have hard conversations. We can lean in hard to our hope, to our mission, to what we're about, because it matters that we're here. Jesus commissioned us two millennia ago. And we are still here: standing up for the presence of God and the love of God in every community—in this community!
And we don't do it perfectly, but since we do it with love, we never have to let fear rule over us. And we never have to orient ourselves toward what we fear, but always back toward that face of Christ who is saying to us: I'm here and I love you.
Amen.