Proper 16B, August 26, 2018
1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69
St Thomas the Apostle
The Rev’d Leo Loyola
I love being a priest.
Not because I thrive the attention from what I wear, or the thrill of inspiring people hearing me preach.
I love it because it is, for me, a way of life. The priesthood allows me to boldly express my faith as a Christian.
And yet being a Christian—lay or ordained—is not always easy. Sometimes we get pigeonholed into the same group as other Christians who we vehemently disagree with theologically and those we simply abhor.
Take, for example, the Christian Right, those who arguably define American Christianity.
For these evangelicals, Christianity is about having the right principles and doctrines. It’s about morality. It’s about how moral values shape culture for the better. Under their terms, to be Christian means being on their side in topics such as homosexuality, marriage and family, abortion and politics.
I’m sure some among you cringe from the words that come out their mouths.
And then there is the troubling news happening within the Catholic Church.
Years ago, when I served as a priest in Hawaii, I’ve had former Catholics confide in me about their reasons for leaving the Catholic Church. Their Catholicism resonated so deeply in their faith and perspectives on life.
And yet, when news of sexual abuse scandals involving priests started cropping up, they got up and left. To them, staying meant being complicit with what they saw as systemic abuse.
Two weeks ago in Pennsylvania, we saw the depth of this cover-up. A report came out revealing the involvement of 301 Roman Catholic priests involved in over 1000 cases of child sexual abuse, dating as far back as 1947.
When we consider these stark examples, I fully understand why non-Christians judge us. I understand why anyone would leave the church. I understand why some would never consider entering one, except for a friend’s wedding.
Some among us who would like to just ignore them as anomalies. They are nothing like us. But let’s be honest, I’m pretty sure there are other Christian groups thinking the same about us.
And yet how can we disregard them? Not when our Prayers of the People ask for our Lord’s holy Catholic Church, that we all may be one.
When we pray this, we are recognizing those Christians we disagree with or even detest as one of our own. At the same thing me, when we pray such a prayer, we soberly recognize that we are one with them.
The alternate Psalm for today (Psalm 34:15-22) acknowledges that:
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry…The righteous cry, and the Lord hears them and delivers them from all their troubles…Many are the troubles of the righteous but the Lord will deliver him out of them all.
These are comforting words, and yet, who are the “righteous”?
Surely, we are. Every Sunday, we are always recognizing God’s deep capacity of love for us.
And yet, by the psalm’s definition, we must also include ourselves in the company of the “wicked”, those “who do evil” in the eyes of the Lord.
After all, who among us has done no wrong?
Whatever opinion we might have of ourselves, the Psalm ultimately informs us that we just don’t have the objectivity to decide who can be called the righteous or the wicked.
The Psalm reminds us that we have the inability to be objective about how we judge those we disagree with and even ourselves.
The Psalm reminds us that God alone has that perspective to see who we all truly are.
While we really don’t have this power of being righteous on our own, we do have the power to choose the path of righteousness.
By this, I’m not saying we can choose to become righteous. We can’t simply brush whatever wrongs we’ve done aside because we’ve suddenly found religion.
Forgiveness of sins doesn’t work that way. Forgetting our past doesn’t work overnight.
What I am saying is that in doing what is righteous, we are questioning our own ways, our own life choices. We are opening up our hearts to seriously explore a path of righteousness. That when we do, we open our hearts and minds to what a godly life truly can be.
Through our reading from Ephesians, the Apostle Paul encourages us to do all we can to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power”. When we put on the full armor of God, we are choosing to better value the lives of others. Even those who we might consider our enemy.
Even when it feels as if our “struggle is against enemies of blood and flesh”, and that we are theirs, Paul reminds us not to think with such tunnel vision.
“Our struggle,” Paul says in another translation of this text, is “against the powers and principalities of this world.” Our struggle is really against the cosmic and spiritual forces of evil present in the darkness of this age. Some call it the Devil; some the dark side of our humanity.
Whatever name we use, our faith wakes us up to the truth: that we need not accept it as our truth, our reality.
When we have people in our lives:
- Claiming that “truth isn’t truth”, that it’s simply another person’s version of it, or
- Denouncing and vilifying others, in order to make themselves or their viewpoint more powerful than they actually are, or
- Blindly disregarding the possibilities of God, while clinging to a constitutional separation of church and state.
In all the confusion we deal with every day, let us cling to what we know to be true.
Fasten the belt of truth around your waist. Put on your breastplate of righteousness. Put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Pick up your shield of faith. Take up your helmet of salvation and your sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:10-20).
Do all this to protect yourself from the temptation and to set your eyes upon what is good in the eyes of God.
And always pray, pray, pray for the strength to do so.
