Sermon for Jan. 30, 2022
Jeremiah
1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30
You know, it must be tough to be a prophet,
someone commissioned to speak for God. If
there’s one thing most of Scripture’s prophets have in common, it’s this: Typically,
they didn’t want the job. We hear that
in the first reading today, with Jeremiah arguing that he isn’t mature enough
to be God’s spokesperson. Earlier in the
Old Testament, at the burning bush, Moses tries several times to convince the Almighty
that he’s not qualified before finally just saying, “Lord, please send someone
else” (Exodus 4:13). You could understand
why, right? Speaking on God’s behalf
usually means you’re telling people what they don’t want to hear. It’s a tough gig.
Well, in the Gospel reading today, Jesus
finds himself in a prophetic role right from the start of his ministry. Last week, we heard him give his “inaugural address,”
telling people the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to bring good news to the people
at the margins of society. And the folks
there in his hometown synagogue “spoke well of him and were amazed at [his]
gracious words,” Luke tells us (4:22).
They say, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (4:22) – implying, according to
some commentators, that they were pretty pleased to have Scripture fulfilled in
their hearing, showing how special they must be. But just a few verses later, the crowd is
trying to throw Jesus off a cliff. What happened
in between?
Well, as the folks in the crowd pat themselves
on the back, Jesus clarifies his point about bringing good news to people on
the margins. The good, churchgoing folks
there in the synagogue are thinking of themselves as the blessed ones,
having raised up this fine young man as God’s prophet. But the fine young man says, remember the past,
when God was angry with the chosen people for failing to follow a righteous
path. When the people were following
other gods and famine struck, it was a foreigner, an older widow, who received
a feast. It was a foreigner, a leper, who
received healing. God was blessing the
folks outside the circle, those who weren’t welcome at the table – the ritually
impure, the foreigners, the poor, the single women. Telling those stories, Jesus implies that God isn’t
so happy with the way the chosen people are living in that present day,
either. And the crowd at the synagogue
doesn’t appreciate the critique, driving Jesus to the edge of the cliff. It’s a tough gig, being a prophet.
Well, next Sunday, we’ll have the chance
to join our diocese in celebrating a prophet from our own history – Absalom Jones,
the first Black person to be a priest in The Episcopal Church. Each year, there’s a diocesan celebration of
Absalom Jones, and it’s coming up Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Episcopal
Church, 28th and Benton. I
hope you’ll join us for it.
Absalom Jones is one of those names from Church
history we may not know very well.1
He was born enslaved in 1746 in the
Delaware colony. At 16, his mother and
siblings were sold, and Jones was taken to Philadelphia. He’d learned to read as a child and was
allowed to attend a night school in Philadelphia. At 20, he married and soon purchased his wife’s
freedom, but his master wouldn’t let him purchase his own. Eventually, when Jones was 38, his master freed
him.
His master was an Episcopalian, and Jones
and his wife had been married in an Episcopal congregation. But once he was free, he began worshiping at St.
George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, as the new Methodist movement explicitly opposed
slavery. There, he met a man named
Richard Allen, who would make his own place in Church history; and the two of
them started an aid society for freed Black people. They were also lay ministers at the Methodist
church; and through their work, the congregation grew by hundreds, most of them
Black. The Black worshipers raised funds
to build an upstairs gallery to hold the growing congregation. But the White members saw all this as a
threat, and the leadership decided the Black worshipers would be segregated,
sitting in the upstairs gallery. One Sunday,
as Jones sat downstairs, ushers tried to remove him physically; and all the
Black worshipers walked out in protest.
That aid society for free Blacks also held
religious services, and Episcopal clergy would sometimes officiate. Eventually, this unofficial congregation grew,
with Jones leading it; and the group decided to affiliate with a denomination,
petitioning to become an Episcopal congregation. But they did so with specific conditions:
that their congregation would be received as its own body, that they would
control their own affairs, and that Jones would be considered for ordination. All of that was downright radical, but the
congregation was admitted into the Episcopal Church in 1794. Jones was ordained a deacon a year later, eventually
becoming a priest in 1802. In his preaching,
Jones hammered away at the evil of slavery and called those benefitting from it
to repent; but he was also beloved by his congregation for the depth of his
pastoral care. He served them, and his
larger community, until he died in 1818.
Jones’ story is inspiring, and his example
helped set The Episcopal Church on a course toward full incorporation of all people
into the body of Christ and its leadership. But it’s been a long and halting journey. Even though Jones’ congregation
was admitted into The Episcopal Church and Jones was fully ordained to
lead it, he and his parish still found themselves outside the circle. The diocese ruled that Jones’ parish would
have no representation at diocesan convention, no voice in setting rules,
policies, and budgets. In fact, the
parish was not allowed to participate in the life of its own diocese until
after the beginning of the Civil War.2 Meanwhile, although his own brothers and
sisters in Christ wouldn’t accept him and his congregation, Jones continued to
sound the prophetic call beyond the Church. He was part of the first group of Black
leaders ever to petition Congress, when they advocated for repeal of the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1793. And his “Thanksgiving
Sermon,” preached on the day when the U.S. slave trade became illegal … that sermon
went viral for its day, being published and read widely.
I love the message of inclusion in the story
of Absalom Jones and his congregation. That
message guides us toward being the beloved community that the apostle Paul saw growing
out of the Good News – being bound together in a unity that dismantles our assumptions
and preconceptions; knowing that we are each other’s brothers and sisters, no
longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but one in Christ Jesus
(Galatians 3:28). All that is right and
good and true.
And, as much as I love the message, I also
have to accept what that message means for someone like me, in a place of
privilege. I think it means that working
toward unity in Christ brings a duty for those already inside the circle, a
duty to hear and act on the critiques coming from the people who haven’t always
been on the inside.
We’ve heard a lot about privilege,
especially over the past two or three years, and we’ve heard any number of
calls to examine it. As someone who
embodies pretty much every privilege in our culture – male, white, straight, middle
aged, middle class – I hear many prophets’ voices. And I represent a Church, The Episcopal Church,
that has embodied privilege from before the country’s founding. The Church, and I, have been trying to do a
better job not just of listening to the prophets’ words but listening for
them. But I think we struggle to internalize
how we should change – what does it look like to set privilege
aside? Maybe some of you find yourself in
a similar situation.
We’ll, here’s one example of what it looks
like to set privilege aside. Bishop
Diane, our new bishop provisional, has made a change in diocesan communications,
one that’s been brewing a long time but now has fully come to be. All our diocesan communications will be bilingual,
in English and Spanish. Why would we do
that? Well, responding to the present, a
handful of our 47 congregations have a high percentage of Spanish speakers among
their members, so there’s the immediate need to honor their presence among us. Preparing for the future, the missional work of
our diocese in the next few years will likely involve intensifying Latinx ministry,
especially here in Kansas City. And
looking to the past, going bilingual also recognizes that the Church we’ve been
isn’t completely the Church God wants us to be and that speaking someone’s
language is a good way to bring people to the table who really haven’t been
invited there before.
When we set ourselves to the work of unity, and ask others to do the same, that carries with it the obligation not to throw the prophets off the cliff when their insights make us uneasy. As clumsy as this work can be, we’ve got to seek out the folks who aren’t at the table, and ask for their participation, and learn from it. Keep listening, God says. Hearing one another’s hearts is a long, slow process; but that’s what it takes to knit us together as Christ’s body, healing our hearts into his.
1.
Jones’
story compiled from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalom_Jones
and https://houseofdeputies.org/2018/01/30/new-biography-absalom-jones/.
2.
Hein,
David, and Gardiner H. Shattuck. The Episcopalians. New York: Church Publishing,
2005, 58.
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