September 6, 2020: Ordinary Time, Proper 18
Opening
It is good to be back with you at The Church of Our Saviour. Last time I met with you – you still looked like a computer screen. And here we are, back at the computer screen. But it’s about to change, isn’t it? Next week a new chapter is being forged as you return to modified in-person worship.
It will be an exciting and adventurous time. An important time. You will be discovering a new way to be church, even as you seek to return to what you used to do. It will be the same, but different. It will provide unexpected experiences and spawn new hopes. “Faith, hope, and love abide – but the greatest of these is love.”
We gather today on Labor Day weekend. Again, it’s not like any Labor Day weekend I have known. But that can be a serendipitous thing. To be unique. To be unlike anything we’ve known.
Labor day, a day for parades and barbecues. Family gatherings and one last trip to the beach. But mostly that’s not what this Labor Day is going to be like.
All of the best discoveries of my life have been unlike anything I’ve known. Sights that I’ve seen. Mountains I’ve climbed. People I’ve met. Accomplishments I’ve enjoyed. Disappointments that have brought out my inner strength. They’ve all occurred from what was unexpected combined with some kind of openness to Grace.
So, a unique Labor Day. Just knowing that led me to Google “Labor Day.” One thing surprised me. It was that while most of the world observes “Labor Day”, most of the world observes it on May 1st. It turns out that it’s another one of those arenas where most of the world is doing one thing but the US does something different, the most dramatic is the metric system. “Only three countries – the U.S., Liberia and Myanmar – still (mostly or officially) stick to the imperial system.”
Most of the world doesn’t follow the US pattern of keeping students away from school for months at a time. So, in education we’re an outlier.
Labor Day the outlier. Labor Day, the last Sunday before new beginnings. It really leads me to my knees before the Scripture of the day.
Scripture today
Today we hear about uniqueness. About a time like no other. A time established that will be for a memorial for the rest of the ages. We hear of the Exodus account of the observance of the first Passover.
And today we hear from Matthew’s gospel about how the smallest gathering there can be, the most seemingly inconsequential gathering in Jesus’ name, is sufficient to bring the presence of the Lord of heaven and earth, the king of Glory, the prince of peace.
Amazing, don’t you think?
As if the scripture for today points right to this moment in which we find ourselves, a unique moment in the life of our church, a day like no other, when the gathering we anticipate will be far smaller and more modest than we had hoped.
But we anticipate the very presence of God.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough–you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (1 Co. 5:7, NET Bible)
2 or 3 gathered in his name and he will be in the midst of them. So he says in Matthew 18. Christ. Passover lamb. Community gathered. Scripture is telling us something here.
What is God speaking to us?
One of my professors at seminary, oh so many years ago, would repeat over and over again one of those sound bytes that is true throughout the ages. Prof. Petersen would say, "Where 2 or 3 are gathered together – (and then he would pause, for a long time if needed, to give us time to speak the words we have heard in today’s reading) – and then he would add, “no, there you will have politics.”
This strange new world we are living into seems so permeated by politics. It is even more jarring than it was in 1980 when I was in the middle of seminary. Politics – the thing that we experience as dividing us so profoundly and we see no way out? What is God telling us today?
My teacher meant by his mantra that politics is not some all-powerful brew. It is simply the thing that happens between human beings whenever 2 or 3 come together. 2 or 3. That’s the smallest community there is. Even in the smallest community he said, you would find stuff of which politics is made. It’s made up of all that makes us human: language, emotions, delight, wonder, surprise, sadness, grief, hope, love … The list goes on and on. That’s what community is made of. And politics is made up of all those things.
Community. The human community.
In the late 80’s I was living in one of the old suburban churches in South Bend/Mishawaka, Indiana. We elected a bishop then. And on his first visit to that church where I was living, St. Paul’s, he told a story that I will never forget.
The story began in the Philippines during the 2nd world war. His father was a missionary priest there when the war broke out and with the collapse of the US presence there many Americans were placed in interment camps. Frank Gray’s father and family were among them. His father continued his missionary work with the community around him for years until eventually the war was at an end and they were to be returned to the mainland.
The now Bp. Gray told this story in such a way that we were drawn into the presence of it. He described taking a ship to San Francisco, boarding a train (I’ve been on that train) bound for Chicago. Another short train ride to South Bend and the family disembarked and made straightway to the church and home of his grandfather – the Bishop of Northern Indiana. The church and the residence were none other than the St. Paul’s where I was living and we were all listening to his talk.
Frank Gray explained, slowing down for emphasis, that as he walked through the front doors of St. Paul’s, he was suddenly surprised by his first experience of “Church” as building. Up to that point in his life “Church” was people gathered. 2 or 3. Maybe more.
Community.
Passover. Our first reading today from Exodus. Passover is essentially a community event. It makes no sense as an individual thing because the one thing it requires is the telling of the story. The telling of the Exodus and deliverance by God. Unless you’re telling yourself a story, it requires a community. Whether it’s Passover in a magnificent palace or temple, or Passover in a barracks at Auschwitz, Passover is a community event where God is present.
Community. That’s what you have been. That’s what you shall be. However small you may be as you gather in this building for the first time in months – it will be sufficient. It will be just enough that the God of creation, the Lord of all, the Prince of Peace will show up.
So much for a community that is small. What I especially hear the Spirit telling us today, telling us about community, is that our perception of the size of community is far too small. If the Lord of the universe sees fit to show up for our tiny communities, then we must begin to expand our notion of what community is.
It is not those gathered around this church – even if it is the oldest in Rock Hill. Community is bigger than this city. It is bigger than this state. It is bigger than this country. It is bigger than all the places that use the metric system. It is big enough to hold all of humanity in its arms.
“He’s got the whole world, in his hands.” The spirit is telling us today that we need to sing that song and sing it loud enough that the whole world will see and know that Jesus is Lord – of all.
Notes
- Exodus 12
- Matthew 18
