Good morning church! I’m Father Ralph Strohm, one of the retired priests ‘’In Residence” here at Redeemer. I quasi-retired to Florida a year and a half ago, after serving parishes in the dioceses of West Virginia, and in western New York, Buffalo and Rochester.
On this first full day and first Sunday of summer, first a little background on this Sunday in the church year.
The title of this Sunday is “The Second Sunday after Pentecost.” It comes after two high feast Sundays, Trinity Sunday and the Day of Pentecost.
On Trinity Sunday, last Sunday, we again reviewed the doctrine of the trinity, expressed in its traditional words of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but also suggesting the multi-dimensional nature of God.
Two Sundays ago was Pentecost. If you were in church on Pentecost you experienced a red tongue of fire hovering over your head and a violent wind right here in the nave and sanctuary of Redeemer! Remember? The coming of the Holy Spirit.
This Second Sunday after Pentecost is a transitional Sunday, moving us into a new church season numbered by consecutive Sundays “after Pentecost” and known by our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as “Ordinary Time.”
I have always liked to call this part of the church year, about one half of the year, depending on whether Easter is earlier or later, the “boots on the ground” season.
The focus is on discipleship. We’re not in the Advent/Christmas/ Epiphany or the Lent/Holy Week/Easter celebratory cycles. Rather, this new season is all about striving to live as disciples of Jesus in ordinary, daily life.
We’re trying to walk in our own sandals next to Jesus as he teaches us on our journey.
As “boots on the ground” continues through the summer and fall, we will encounter Bible readings which sometimes affirm our understandings of Christian discipleship, but sometimes challenge us to new understandings.
But, always the lessons remind us of the challenges we each face in striving to be faithful followers of Jesus. And, at the same time, through the lessons and the preacher of the day, whomever he may be, how the Good News reassures us and helps us live through those challenges. And so we begin on this Second Sunday after Pentecost.
I have been a jogger and runner for at least 40 years. Running seems to be in my blood, something I need to do. And, now that I’m older, running is one physical activity I can still do!
I mention this background because while reading a running magazine this week, I see this on the back cover: a barren western landscape; scrub grass; a few low hills; the view is far into the distance; a 2-lane, local, blacktop road; low, dark clouds hovering; and the only indication of human life is a lone runner – an advertisement for a new running shoe with this caption:
“The Road Wants to Break You: Will You Let It?”
In the Gospel lesson this morning the disciples are in transition. Jesus prepares them for mission to their own, “the lost sheep of Israel” his people, his community. We’re told Jesus gives “them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity,” (10:1)
In these preparation instructions, Matthew continues in today’s Gospel by also recording warnings Jesus gives to his disciples, among them:
I have been opposed; therefore, you will be too
expect to be called one of the many names for the devil, like Beelzebul
expect to be described as something you are not
Jesus directs them to speak boldly, proclaim from the “housetops” what he has taught them; that is to say, speak, as one commentator suggests, “dangerously,” so you will be heard! Jesus also reassures the disciples, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (v. 28)
As my disciples, God will never abandon you. How could he? For God even knows when a small sparrow falls. Finally, these disciples are warned that following Him will result in family strife; expect it, if you go against the religion embraced by your family.
This kind of friction or strife is not unfamiliar to us. For much of my life-time Protestants would not worship in a Roman Catholic church, and viceversa. Perhaps, today the same kind of strife would be present if a family member begins to worship in a non-Christian faith.
“The road, the road you will follow if you follow me, that road will try to break you: will you let it?”
There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus, following the road he calls us to travel with him. Jesus is laying out for the disciples what to expect. He wants them to have their eyes wide open.
Jesus is asking us to make a commitment to both companionship and fellowship, and a commitment to mission, a commitment that can conflict with, and even surpass the most precious things in, life including our relations with loved ones.
All these warnings and demands of us by Jesus when we go out into the world, “boots on the ground” discipleship, to confront our “lost sheep of Israel,” can seem overwhelming, or unrealistic. But, we are never left hopeless in our striving to be true disciples of Jesus, for we have as a compliment to the demanding Gospel lesson today, the insights that the apostle Paul offers in his letter to the Romans. We know from our Easter faith that despite being sinners Christ died for us.
Now, Paul helps us understand how our own baptism strengthens us for the road we travel.
Paul insists that we are the Body of Christ, that through baptism we are “welded” into Christ, we die with him and are resurrected with him (we are immersed in water with him in death, and rise out of the water with him in resurrection, to newness of life). In the power of the Holy Spirit we are his Body in our world, the here and now, the Body of Christ. We are one body of Christians, Episcopalians, but we are also the Body of Christ.
For Paul, Baptism is more than a mere reenactment. Baptism, for Paul, is how we enter into being “with Christ.”
By my count, the phrase “with Christ” occurs six times in our scripture passage from Romans. That’s how important it is to Paul.
As one part of the church and as the Body of Christ, what are we to do in the world, a world so full of evil and wrongdoing?
First, be a part of the companionship (fellowship) we share at Redeemer and be a part of the mission of Redeemer to the community and beyond. The words from our “Take Your Place” brochure: each of us is to take our place in the life, work, and worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Though our world is very different from the world of the first disciples, at bottom it is the same.
As disciples we are always called to respect others, to be honest in our relationships with others, and also to show through the way we live our lives that we are the Body of Christ, his hands, his feet, and yes, sometimes, his mouth in speaking the truth.
“The Road Wants to Break You: Will You Let It?”
Looking at our Old Testament lesson from Genesis, we are confronted with the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah is jealous! And, when Sarah’s own child is finally born, she no longer has any use for Hagar or her son Ishmael, and through Abraham she has them thrown out.
But God teaches that God does not also throw out those who have been thrown out. God never forgets those whom we forget. The road did not break Hagar or Ishmael. In lifting up their voices, God heard them and God intervened.
Perhaps we can incorporate this story into our Christian journeys. Perhaps, in the world we live in, as the noted scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier writes,
We are members of God’s covenant community, yes, … But that does not mean that God loves or favors us any more than God loves other people, of whatever race of status … In fact, the status which we are called is to be a servant people to the rest of humanity.” (quoted by Joy J. Moore in “Sojourners” p. 48, June 2014).
Yes, the road … the journey through our world … does at times want to break us.
But our hope and our assurance, as the Body of Christ, is that this road will not and cannot break us.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Ralph Strohm
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
The second Sunday of Pentecost
22 June 2014