proper21-st-pauls.md

Sermon: Oct. 1, 2017: ✤ St. Paul’s, Monroe, NC

Opening image: Tony Campolo’s story

There is a well-known story told by Tony Campolo that you may even have heard. I’ve told it before. In fact I never get tired of telling it.

I heard Campolo tell this story. It went like this:

He found himself unable to sleep after his arrival in Hawai’i to take part in what became Hawaiian Island Ministries. It’s a long ways from Pennsylvania to Honolulu and it often takes a day or so to get adjusted to the time difference. Late, long after midnight, he found himself out on the streets, looking for a place to a snack or something to drink.

There was a bar tender behind the counter who came over and asked him, “What d’ya want?”

He said he wanted a cup of coffee and a donut.

As he sat there munching on his donut and sipping his coffee at 3:30 in the morning, the door of the place suddenly swung open and in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.

Their talk was loud and crude. He overheard one of the women say, “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be 39.”

Her “friend” responded in a nasty tone, “So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get you a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Come on,” said another woman. “Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that’s all. Why do you have to put me down? I was just telling you it was my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should you give me a birthday party? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”

When Campolo heard that, he made a decision. He waited until the women had left. Then he called over to the bar tender and asked him, “Do they come in here every night?”

“Yeah!” he answered.

“The one right next to me, does she come here every night?”

“Yeah!” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d’ya wanta know?”

“Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday. What do you say we do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”

The bartender responded to the suggestion that they give a birthday for a prostitute by asking Campolo, “What do you do, anyway.” To which Campolo said, “I’m a preacher”.

The bartender was disbelieving and said, mockingly, “What kind of church do you peach at?” Campolo responded, “The kind of church that gives birthday parties for prostitutes.”

At that point the bartender was undone. He said, “Nah, that couldn’t be true. If there was a church like that I would be going to it.”

Matthew gospel says: Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus said, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes got it.”

Jesus interaction with chief priests and elders is remarkable.

They come up to him and say, “Do you have a permit to be doing that?” “You don’t have a right to do that so just stop it.”

And Jesus does kind of an amazing thing right there. He says, “Well, I’ve got a question for you? If you give me a good answer I’ll answer your question.” Now that’s a pretty uppity thing to say the elite - powerful folks who were talking to him.

Here’s the Cotton Patch version. That’s the one done by Vernon Jordan in the 1950’s. The one where the whole setting of the NT is shifted to Georgia. Jerusalem is called Atlanta. If you don’t know it you should look at it some day.

Returning to the church, he was approached during a teaching session by some ministers and elders who asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this permission?” Jesus replied, “All right, I’ll ask you just one question, and if you answer it, then I’ll tell you where I got permission to do these things. John’s baptism, was it divine or human?” They conferred with one another, saying, “If we tell him ‘divine,’ then he’ll ask us, ‘So why didn’t you accept it?’ If we say ‘human,’ we’re scared of John’s crowd, because they all regard him as a man of God.” So they told Jesus, "We really don’t know. “Okay,” he said, “then I won’t tell you where I got the authority for my actions. But give me a reading on this: A man had two boys. He went to the older one and said, ‘My boy, go work in the orchard today.’ He said, ‘Will do, Pop,’ but he never did. Then he went to the younger one and told him the same thing. But the boy said, ‘I won’t go.’ Afterwards he felt like a heel, and did go. Which of the two obeyed his father?” “Why, the last one,” they said. “And I’m telling you the honest truth,” Jesus said, "that the hippies and the whores are taking the lead over you into the God Movement. For John confronted you with the way of justice, and you didn’t buy it. But the hippies and the whores bought it, and you knew it. Even this, though, didn’t make you feel like a heel afterwards and go buy it yourselves.

• Jesus was addressing the good folks who were having a hard time figuring out that he was talking to them. “Who me. You’re talking to me?”

Follow up: Do we get it?

Couple from Spain, came to church and went home asking, “That was so wonderful! I wonder what they want from us?” But it was good enough that they came back the next week. When they went home that day they said to one another, “You know, I don’t think they want anything from us.”

In other words they thought that all that was on display at the church was Grace.

There was another woman who came to our church. She was on welfare and definitely not a part of the old guard which was mostly Japanese folk who had been there for years or generations. She was Lebanese from Rhode Island. She lived in the neighborhood and on her daily walk she would stop and talk to all the homeless people that lived in the neighborhood.

One day she was talking to one of the homeless folk that both Mary Pat and I knew for a number of years. The homeless person said to her, “There’s this church you need to come to. They heave a healing service on Wednesdays. Come and see.” So she did. She stayed. Eventually became a leader and a vestry member even though in a lot of ways she was at least a little crazy.

She invited other people. One of them was a woman who, when she showed up at my healing service and I went to lay hands on her, a bird popped out of her hair and landed on her shoulder. She showed me pictures on her phone of clouds and she asked me, “You see the angels don’t you.”

Among my favorite people in the church at the time I retired was a young couple that was still living on the street. Both of them had been to jail and it was partly because of that experience that they were intent on not using drugs. They were in church on Sundays and had some of the best input at our mid-week bible study.

There are many other examples from my own life. But it’s not about me. It’s all of us.

[e.g. Fr. Tom & dressing as a homeless person and sitting right in the middle of church.]

Jesus did it. What should we do then?

At the heart of the gospel, at the core of our “reading and inwardly digesting” the scriptures, is the challenge to figure out what it means to us?

Jesus tells us stories. We tell one another stories. Jesus had a special affection for the sinners and prostitutes. What are we supposed to do with that.

As the AIDS epidemic was exploding in the 1980’s, our Presiding Bishop challenged all the clergy in the church to adopt one person who had AIDS and get to know them, become their friend, and minister to them. I figured, well, I guess I need to do that. I did. And I found that I received as much as I gave.

One of the times that I was listening to Tony Campolo at HIM in Hawai’i, he said to the 3,000 people or so in the audience, "I want you to go out those doors and sign up to support one of those kids in Compassion International. The power of his testimony and his message led me to figure, “Well, I guess I need to do that.” I’ve been sending money every month to Latin America ever since.

The message today is: I don’t know who the sinners and prostitutes are in your world. But go out bring the message of Grace to them.

For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.