The Saugatuck Homily

August 7, 2022, All Saints Episcopal Church, Saugatuck, MI

Lordy, but the good people of The Lectionary are making us work this morning. Metaphor upon metaphor, apocalypse upon apocalypse.

‘Come now, let us argue it out,” says the Lord.

Okay.

Will you pray with me?

The Lord be with you.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Make these words more than words and give us all the spirit of Jesus. Amen.

I want to argue.

I don’t like being called a sheep.

I don’t like being called a slave.

I don’t like being called a thief.

I don’t like being told what to do.

So, yes, O Lord, let us argue it out.

But already, I have misstepped. I have confused an argument with God picking a fight. I have confused apocalypse with disaster when what God is offering is a place in the conversation, when what God is offering is rescue.

Isaiah continues…

though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be like snow;

though they are red like crimson,

they shall become like wool.

“There is no question. You have made a hash of things,” says the Lord. “But that is not the end of this story.”

There is always a second chance. Always. That’s the good news we call the Gospel. Second chances, third chances, even fourth chances are by design. God always wants to argue it out with us, to deliberate, to wrestle and wrangle…to repent and seek forgiveness.

Of course, we don’t have to accept God’s grace. But it is always there for us. God always wants to rescue us from ourselves, our unkind misperceptions about one another, and the mistakes we make. We all make mistakes. They do not have to define us. In fact, God would rather they not.

In our passage from Isaiah, God is calling out the people of Jerusalem. Their liturgical practices are an ineffective veneer on their shallow ethics. People are suffering. The needs of the poor and justice for the oppressed are being ignored. The plight of the widow and the orphan are being ignored.  

“Come, let us argue it out,” says the Lord. “I’m not interested in the coherent beauty of your liturgies when people are suffering while you stand around burning insence.”

That’s a hard word…especially for us Episcopalians who pride ourselves on the beauty of our liturgies. There’s nothing wrong with beauty. We heard that in the Psalm this morning. God be praised for it.

In the face of suffering, however, God wants more than beautiful liturgy for us.

Hear that again. God doesn’t want more from us; God wants more for us.

God breaks in like a thief and steals our attention.

See this. Not that. See now the city of God. Allow it to transform how you see the world.

God brings an apocalypse, that holy inbreaking of grace and responsibility, begging us to awaken to God’s Kingdom here with us. Paul in Hebrews calls it a “city.” Luke’s Jesus calls it a Kingdom. Choose your metaphors wisely, but clearly we are being given a great and precious gift: one another and all creation as God would have it.

One possible example of what this looks like comes from my diocese, The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. In 2021 at the 227th Convention, the gathered passed a resolution “which committed the Diocese to create a $10,000,000 fund for reparations to benefit Black, Indigenous, and peoples of color communities.” A task force was named (We are still Episcopalians after all.) and the diocese will sell land to begin to raise that $10,000,000 endowment.

The resolution cites that “the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia have a long history of support for and complicity with chattel slavery, violence against Indigenous peoples and land, segregation and other racist systems.” It further acknowledges that the Diocese “is home to numerous church buildings constructed by enslaved people, and many parishes within the Diocese of Virginia are grappling with their history of support for slavery and white supremacy, and their ongoing complicity in racial injustice.”

Ben Campbell, a member of the task force and an Episcopal priest, has been a life long advocate of racial reconciliation in Richmond, VA and someone who has reminded parishes and politicians alike of our responsibility to the healing of our cities, our nation.

“I became convinced that you couldn’t talk about Christianity without talking about racial equity,” [Campbell] explains. “Virginia claiming to be Christian and following racial discrimination was unbearable hypocrisy. I decided I had to work as a servant of Christ for the healing of the community.” This was 1970, the year I was born. Maybe that context is helpful. This is the work of generations, not weekends.

Now, approaching 80, his lifetime of work is bearing fruit. With the monuments to the confederate generals being removed or relocated, the church in Richmond is becoming an agent of change rather than a bastion of a deeply racist status quo.

“Come, now. Let us argue it out,” says the Lord. “Embrace the apocalyptic vision.”

There can be no salvation then without justice now for the orphan, the widow, the oppressed.

Whether it be Isaiah, Paul, or Jesus himself, there is no individual version of salvation in that heavenly kingdom. It is always collective. And the sign of it on earth is the Church as we rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.

These are the works we are called to first and foremost. Everything else is a privilege. Maybe especially our worship together.

We are sustained in this work.

We are sustained in this work by the Love of Christ.

That God loves us cannot be overstated.

That God loves all of creation cannot be overstated.

“Come now, let us argue it out,” is the beginning of a conversation that includes, “How I love you! I adore you! You are all my Beloved!” God comes to us in Christ Jesus as the incarnation of this love.

Come now, let us argue it out.

God charges the Body of Christ, you and me, to such service.

Come now, let us argue it out.

Women are reinventing the church.

Come now, let us argue it out.

People of color are reinventing the church.

Come now…

LBGTQ people are reinventing the church.

The oppressed…Come now.

The widow…Come now.

The orphan…”come now, let us argue it out,” says the Lord.

Come. Now.

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Saugatuck, MI