Lost and Found

 

St. Phillip's Episcopal Church

Laurel, Delaware
Pentecost VI - Proper 7 - Year A

June 25, 2023

 

Did you hear what Jesus just said?  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,  and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”

 

Well, after reading that Gospel I can promise you this: Next time I am asked to be a guest preacher anywhere, I am definitely going to read the lessons FIRST before saying YES.

My friend and colleague, Margaret Watson, says, “Sometimes, you just gotta let it lay where Jesus flang it.” And, that’s what I intend to do.

 

This is a sermon about how God surpasses and transforms our expectations, bringing a sense of peace out of turmoil, a sense of belonging out of a sense of abandonment, and a sense of hope out of despair.  In order to understand that, you must listen to and understand – out of all of the many things Jesus says to us in this gospel passage – the following words:

 

“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

 

First, let’s talk about families. The first lesson this morning is about the abandonment of Hagar, the Egyptian slave of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to conceive a child, Ishmael, the firstborn, because Sarah was unable. It’s the first recorded surrogacy.  

 

It wasn’t just that Abraham abandoned Hagar and his firstborn son Ishmael; it was that he sent them to the wilderness where they would face certain death. All of this because his wife, Sarah, wanted to insure that the son, Isaac, whom she bore by some wonderful miracle became the certain heir of his father’s legacy and did not have to share it with Ishmael.

 

Pretty chilling, isn’t it? But, some may argue that Abraham was just following directions from God, who told him not to worry, assuring him that Ishmael would not only survive but would live to see “a nation” come together under him, because he, too, is Abraham’s offspring.

 

Is this what Jesus was referring? This blind obedience to the voice of God, even if it causes the disruption and destruction of families? Is this what Jesus meant when he said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”?

 

Certainly, many preachers over the years have interpreted these passages this way. In my work with Hospice patients, I have seen family arguments lead to heartache when a well intentioned person, dying of cancer or heart disease and convinced he or she have been stricken with this illness as divine retribution for one sin or another – sometimes grave, other times trivial like “I once had a cigarette with some friends on the football field” or, “I had sex before I was married” – and the only way they believed they were going to gain entrance beyond the Pearly Gates was to leave their life savings not to their family but to a local pastor or Televangelist.

I have come to believe that the judgments we heap on ourselves – or the judgments we allow others to heap on us – are seventy times seven worse than anything we will experience when we come face to face with God. 70 x 7. I do not believe that the God of unconditional love we see revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is about judgement for infractions of what are human constructs, limited human understanding, of Divine will, in the absence of grace.

 

That is not what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s gospel. Jesus was warning against what it would cost to go up against the Roman Empire in order to be one of his followers. Hear Jesus say, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;”

The possibility of death lies in the direct confrontation of the teachings of Jesus with the ‘powers and principalities’ of the day. It is then that the sword of Jesus will bring us the peace we seek when we act on our convictions, when we find the courage to live in our lives what we say with our lips.

 

In the almost 37 years I’ve been privileged to serve as a priest, I’ve come to know several people who have made difficult decisions based on what they believe that has not killed the body but came very close to killing the soul, the essence of who they are.

 

I’ve known young women who became pregnant and their decision to have an abortion or to keep the baby and either raise them on their own or get married to a man their family didn’t like or thought too young to marry, caused them to be abandoned by their families. It was devastating to those young women who, no matter their choice, were acting on their beliefs.

 

I’ve known lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people who made the world-shifting choice to be who they understood God made them to be and “come out” – to be – their authentic selves. Because of that choice, they were abandoned by their parents and families. UCLA studies indicate that sexual minorities are twice as likely as the general population to experience homelessness in their lifetime, the highest proportion being transgender youth.

And yet, in each and every one of the people I’ve known who have sacrificed everything for their own integrity, their own authenticity, for their dream, find a sense of peace that they have done the right thing, even as their hearts are broken by rejection and abandonment.

Like Hagar and Ishmael, God has provided a well of water in the midst of the desert, and promises a new family and a new home to be built from the broken pieces of abandonment and betrayal.  

That is because no one is ever outside of God’s grace. No one. We can be outside an awareness of God’s grace but the pathway to our salvation lies in our awareness and acceptance of God’s grace, as St. Paul says, “so we, too, (like Christ) might walk in newness of life,” even when it comes in most unexpected ways and from strangers.

A final story: Howard Thurman, was an African American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. In his autobiography, Thurman tells of his lonely years growing up in Daytona Beach, FL, a segregated town, where the nurturing black community and a profound interest in nature provided his deepest solace.

Schools in Daytona Beach went only to the seventh grade, so Thurman's family scraped together the funds to buy a train ticket for him to travel to high school in Jacksonville. It was a dream for which many were willing to sacrifice – a dream of a better life for this grandson of slaves –despite the lies some people wanted them to believe about the limits or deficiencies or worth of the life of a person of color.

 

Buoyed by the emotional and spiritual and financial support of his family, Thurman set out to pursue his dream.  However, at the train station, Thurman was told he had to pay extra to send his baggage. Buying the ticket had left him destitute; he had no more to ship his trunk.

 

Suddenly, all the awful things people said about him and people of his color and station in life began to feel utterly defeated. This must be what it felt like to have someone “kill your soul but not your body”.

Thurman writes: “I sat down on the steps of the railway station and cried my heart out. Presently I opened my eyes and saw before me a large pair of work shoes. My eyes crawled upward until I saw the man’s face. He was a black man, dressed in overalls and a denim cap. As he looked down at me he rolled a cigarette and lit it. Then he said, “Boy, what in hell are you crying about?”  

And I told him.

“If you’re trying to get out of this damn town to get an education, the least I can do is to help you. Come with me,” he said.

He took me around to the agent and asked, “How much does it take to send this boy’s trunk to Jacksonville?”

Then he took out his rawhide money bag and counted the money out. When the agent handed him the receipt, he handed it to me. Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared down the railroad track. I never saw him again.”

 

And, just like that, God gathered up the broken pieces of his dreams and wove of them out of the kind generosity of a stranger in work shoes, overalls and a denim cap, a way in the midst of the wilderness.

God offered him a cool sip of the living water of hope when his mouth was parched with despair.
God cut through the darkness of uncertainty with the sword of possibility and provided a way forward not only for Thurman but for the many students he would teach and inspire, including people like Barbara Jordan, Alice Walker, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thurman never forgot that act of kindness, and dedicated his autobiography “To the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago.”

This is a sermon about how God surpasses and transforms our expectations, bringing a sense of peace out of turmoil, a sense of belonging out of a sense of abandonment, and a sense of hope out of despair.  In order to understand that, you must listen to and understand – out of all of the many things Jesus says to us in this gospel passage – the following words:

 

“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

 

Amen.

EK+