Your Spiritual Ancestors

homily preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA

by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Associate Priest for Adult Formation

Wednesday, August 30, 2017 (5:30 p.m.)
Readings: 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Psalm 126; Matthew 23:27-32

“Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors,” Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees. I thought I might understand what this meant, but I had to look it up just for sure. And I was right. Jesus means to say, “Finish the evil work your ancestors started.”

Jesus is giving his critics an outright dare: “Your ancestors killed the prophets, and I know you want me dead, too. Well, what are you waiting for? I’m standing right here.”

Jesus’ audacious challenge comes near the end of a prolonged tirade against the scribes and Pharisees, just before he announces that he will destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. His critics really will take him up on his dare before much more time has passed. And when the evil forces take the bait, Jesus will win by losing.

This text is also problematic. Since the earliest days of the church, some Christians have used it to justify anti-Semitic persecution, as if Jesus, himself a Jew, with an all-Jewish cast of disciples, were condemning Jews in general and forever after. Of course this is ridiculous, but clearly, we can’t ignore it. Anti-Semitic forces are on the rampage in America right now, and we are derelict in our Christian duty if we don’t oppose them.

No, I see it like this instead: in every people and in every generation, there are those who will stand on the side of love and those who will stand on the side of fear. Our thoughts, intentions, and actions and their consequences are very complicated, and sometimes it’s hard to tease out whether love or fear is motivating us more. Self-reflection is crucial and must be renewed through constant vigilance. This is, in fact, what a life of faith looks like: pondering, acting, receiving feedback, and then allowing that feedback to change us.

We decide what kind of people we will become.

In my sermon last Sunday, I asked the question, “Who are your spiritual ancestors?” It’s a question that moves us beyond genetics into the ramifications of our own actions. As demonstrated by the way you act in the world, on whom do you pattern yourself?

Believe it or not, Jesus talked about this question quite a bit. He announced that he was giving his listeners “the sign of Jonah,” which I think we can connect to three days in the deep before a miraculous rescue. Jesus also called Peter a descendant of Jonah, though likely for more humbling reasons. And other people do it, too: some of Jesus’ followers call him “Son of David,” while others align him with Elijah, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist.

Furthermore, Jesus warns his self-righteous critics about relying on their genetic connection to Abraham, because “God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham.” At another time he even says their father is not God, but the devil.

Indeed, it is our actions, not our beliefs, that demonstrate who we really are. We are never lost causes in God’s eyes, no matter how deplorable our actions become. (After all, Jesus even compares Peter to Satan at one point.) But God needs us to be honest about the essence we take on. A person who tells one lie is not a liar, but a person who lies over and over earns the label. A person who entertains a fleeting racist belief is not a racist, but a person who uses his power to bolster white supremacy is a racist regardless of his inner thoughts.

Our actions matter. We become what God will call us on the last day. In one of his later parables of judgment, Jesus portrays God as saying to some, “Go away from me; I never knew you.” It’s terrifying to imagine that we might make ourselves unknown to God by closing ourselves off.

But it does us no good to live in fear of such a situation, either. If you have a history of low self-esteem, you might wonder frequently, “Am I deplorable?” The good news is that those who entertain the notion that they might be deplorable probably aren’t. It’s those who wall themselves in with excuses whom God has a hard time reaching. If we can make ourselves vulnerable to God, and if we can find people in our lives to whom we can entrust our own vulnerabilities, we already have a taste of salvation. This means deconstructing some of our defensive walls.

At this point, I’m reminded of a lyric from Pink Floyd about people who wall themselves off, and yes, it’s from the conclusion of the album The Wall.

All alone or in twos, the ones who really love you/

Walk up and down outside the wall/

Some hand in hand, some gathered together in bands/

The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand/

And when they’ve given you their all/

Some stagger and fall/

After all, it’s not easy/

Banging your heart against some mad bugger’s wall.

It is through us that God reaches those who would make themselves inaccessible to human goodness. This ministry can feel free and effortless, or it can feel grinding and exhausting. We don’t always know how we do it, and I’m quite certain that we reach people in spite of ourselves.

I invite you to trust that God is acting through you to reach people who need to be reached. Sometimes that can and must look like bringing people with you to church. At other times it can just mean a kind word to a stranger. Sometimes it means saying the thing that will make everyone uncomfortable. And at still other times, it can look like acts of extraordinary courage or heroism—so extraordinary that we will never be able to identify where the strength to do it came from.

So when you look to your spiritual ancestors, you may be able to identify one in a self-deprecating way, in a way that says, for instance, “Oh yeah, I’m like Peter, always sticking my foot in my mouth!” Don’t stop there. I may feel like Peter the foolish fisherman today, but am I training to be what Peter became in time, an apostle, an evangelist, and a martyr? Identify the spiritual ancestors you wish to adopt for yourself. Roman Catholics do this well when they take on the name of a saint at confirmation. Which forerunners in the faith show you what it’s really like to be a Christian?

Finally, of course, remember that you will never actually be exactly like any of these people. I may have heroes, but I can only be myself. Our uniqueness is by God’s design, so let’s trust that God loves us in our uniqueness. Your unique witness to God’s love will knock down walls and reveal God’s love to others. In fact, I am confident that it is already doing so. Pray that you may see it for yourself. Amen.

Typical Humans

sermon preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA

by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Associate Priest for Adult Formation

Proper 16A [Track 2], The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 27, 2017

Isaiah 51:1-6; Psalm 138; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Isaiah. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Listen! The prophet is speaking. Listen! Isaiah has words for us today. Across 27 centuries, he is speaking to a people he never could have imagined on a continent he never dreamed of. Isaiah is speaking to the people of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bellingham, Washington, in the United States of America.

Isaiah is addressing “you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD.” Could this mean you? His words were originally intended for God’s Chosen People in exile. For generations, they have been under the heel of their oppressors. Isaiah announces that God is about to set them free.

But first, the prophet sets the stage with a brutally honest assessment: “The heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats.” All things will come to an end. Death will come—and not even with dignity. Futility is the dominant flavor of life. If this isn’t the case for you and me, we are anomalies in human history.

Isaiah is addressing typical humans, and typical humans are scared most of the time. We fear, rightly or wrongly, that someone is trying to take away what little we have, and we will turn violent to protect ourselves. Typical humans do not trust that God is at work in our lives, or that we can depend on each other for help, because personal experience has demonstrated that we can’t. Typical humans march in the streets of Charlottesville, armed to the teeth, stubbornly defending the tiny world we think we understand while threatening a world of people who are even more vulnerable than we are.

God loves typical humans.

You may protest. You may say, what about love, heroism, patience, trust, selflessness? Typical humans have these things too, but let’s admit it: they are fragile features that fail when they are not carefully nurtured. We can and do develop virtues. But always, lingering just under the surface, hopelessness and fear wait to burst out against a creation that apparently wants us all dead. Don’t expect any human being to act fearlessly, including yourself. And when your virtues do shine through, be surprised and grateful. Thank God for being so obviously present and involved in our lives.

For God is involved, as Isaiah proclaims: “My salvation will be for ever, and my deliverance will never be ended.” Isaiah assures us that even while God allows human suffering to occur, God is present in and beyond all our finalities.

Isaiah’s words are intended as both comfort and challenge. Change is terrifying, and suffering is ubiquitous. But look! “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” Isaiah speaks to you. You were dug from the quarry of God’s universe. You were hewn from the rock of humanity. You are “a chip off the old block,” even when circumstances have placed you in exile. Trace your ancestry. You are a child of Abraham, at least by adoption. We are just typical humans, but God loves us and wants a relationship with us. We are God’s people, and God has made covenants with us.

In her book Your Faith, Your Life, Jenifer Gamber writes that God’s covenants are not just practical, but transformational. “We see the world through new eyes, through the lens of the covenant. Instead of seeing the world as indifferent, random, hostile, and threatening, we see life as purposeful, relational, and inviting. God’s covenant shapes our every action and cannot be dissolved.”[1]

God made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah that their descendants would show everyone in the world what God is really like. Through Moses, God made another covenant: a basic set of laws to show us how to be God’s people in a way that others can best see God through us. God made a covenant with David, that long after his own dynasty, a descendant of David would once again sit on the throne of Israel. And then Jesus invited us into a New Covenant prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people … They shall all know me … for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”[2] God keeps all these covenants with us to give us hope.

And so we come to today’s gospel reading. After much calling, teaching, and healing, both among and beyond the Jewish people, Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

Thanks to Isaiah’s writings, first-century Jews expected a Messiah. This would be a descendant of David who would fulfill that covenant promise and restore the kingdom of Israel. This context is likely at the front of Peter’s mind—Peter, a child of Abraham, a member of God’s covenant people. All in a flash, he sees, and then he speaks, in typical-human and typical-Peter fashion, hardly knowing what he is confessing: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!”

And Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!”

Now, Peter’s given name was Simon, and he may well have been the son of a man named Jonah. But in another gospel, Jesus calls Peter “Simon son of John”[3]—not Jonah. So there is not universal agreement among the gospel writers on the name of Peter’s father.

Why does Jesus say “Simon son of Jonah,” especially at this moment? I wonder if he might be intentionally connecting Peter with the prophet Jonah, the hesitant, stubborn, would-be prophet who initially refused God’s call. Jonah was a coward who failed God and ran away. But God kept appointing living beings—a fish, a plant, a worm—to set Jonah straight. God taught Jonah humility, submission, and in the end, trust, by consistently frustrating Jonah’s cowardly agenda.

Adam de Costa, The Denial of St. Peter(source: Wikimedia Commons).
Peter isn't out of the woods yet.

I think that Jesus is helping Peter trace his ancestry, not genetically, but in story. Simon son of Jonah is “a chip off the old block”—he’s just like his mythical ancestor who kept failing and being called up short. And this is why Jesus chooses Peter specifically—because “flesh and blood has not revealed this” to him, but God the Father. Peter proclaims Jesus as the Messiah not by his own insight, but by the Holy Spirit working through him. Now he is to become the Rock. The Church will be built on rocky people like Peter who fail and who then open themselves to God’s judgment and grace. The Church will be built not on extraordinarily virtuous humans, but on typical humans.

[Did you hear the story this week about William Aitcheson? Struck by the naked bigotry in Charlottesville, he shared his story publicly for the first time. He confessed that 40 years ago, he was a member of the KKK, but then he dropped that life and become a Roman Catholic priest. “I’m sorry,” he said publicly. “I have no excuse, but I hope you will forgive me … We should not forget. Our actions have consequences and while I firmly believe God forgave me—as he forgives anyone who repents and asks for forgiveness—forgetting what I did would be a mistake.”[4] Father William has taken leave from his position so the church can decide what to do about him. It took him 40 years to do it, but he did it. Here is a typical human, one of those rocky heroes on whom the church is built.]

My fellow typical humans, who are your ancestors? Do you claim cowardly Jonah as your forefather in the faith? Or Jacob, who plotted and schemed and cheated? Or David, who screwed up and screwed around and repented? Or Sarah, who snorted at the notion that God could give her a child? Or St. Paul, who, like Father William, persecuted Jesus’ followers and then did a 180?

My fellow typical humans, who is your Messiah? Does he shore up power for himself and those like him? Or is he a suffering servant who shows us how to be truly human in any kingdom: to love, to care, to trust, to protect the vulnerable, and to sacrifice even for the sake of those who just don’t get it? Does your Messiah seek vengeance, or compassion?

My fellow typical humans, what is your Rock? Is it some worldly method of success, wealth, power, respect, security? Has God built the church on such a rock? Or does God instead call the rockiest of people—losers, infidels, failures, racists, cowards, drunks, crazies, abusers, fearmongers, and jerks? You know, the fewer virtuous credentials we can claim, the less likely it is for people to mistake God’s deeds for our own.

Oh, but this is hard, isn’t it? We don’t want to be typical humans. We want God to make us exceptional. And God will do so—I really believe that! The thing is that the path to holiness leads directly through the valley of the shadow of death—a valley that we will all go through, by the way, not just the best of us.

And this is where the Church stands. The Church is not, in and of itself, the Kingdom of God. It is the place where we trace our ancestry in story, and it is a sign of God’s continuing presence among us. It can be a catalyst for deeper courage and deeper love. The Church is not a group of people who have it all figured out. We are merely those who find seeking after God not only to be worthwhile, but to be the most important thing in life. We are those who are willing to stand in the rubble of our failures and announce clearly, “God is here, too!” We are those who have found love in a hopeless place.

We typical humans who are baptized members of the Church are learning that the only God who could ever love us is completely atypical. We pattern our lives after a Messiah who sought not vengeance, but compassion—not perfection, but growth. We succeed by failing, because our vulnerabilities make us loveable, and our receptivity makes us reliable. Failure and suffering will happen to all of us anyway, but growth is optional. Some people spend their entire lives saying no to growth. Will you choose to undergo it?

Listen to the prophet! Isaiah has words for us today. Listen to the Messiah! Jesus is speaking to us in the United States, and right here in Bellingham. Are you paying attention, my fellow typical humans? “The heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats,” and God is loving and saving every one of us typical humans. You, too.

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[1] Jenifer Gamber & Bill Lewellis, Your Faith, Your Life: An Invitation to the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing, 2017), 22.

[2] Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)

[3] John 1:42, John 21:17

[4] New York Times. Other perspectives on Aitcheson began to emerge after I prepared this sermon, most notably this, which suggests that Aitcheson came forward not out of conscience, but out of fear or what was about to be revealed publicly. Also see this and this. If I were to preach this sermon again, I would reconsider my use of Aitcheson’s story as an example of “rocky heroism.” Actions have consequences, indeed.