Christopher Thomas
Sermon for Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – 10/4/20
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Psalm 19
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46
Breathe…
Breathe…in
Breathe…out
Breathe…
Breath. It is the universal symbol of presence. Neither you, nor I can be present, without breath. If we are present, breath is ever present. We can only go, maybe seconds, without, breath.
In our finiteness, it is, in fact, the alpha, and the omega, the beginning, and the end. Light and dark, day and night, good and evil, right and wrong, up and down, everything that we consider, it seems, is rooted in breath.
Even God.
Even as we consider God, God, Godself seems rooted in-spiration.
Inspiration!
Then God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…”
God’s presence in breath begins the holy covenant of graciousness with God’s people Israel, the covenant that continues to, through, and beyond today!
Breath inspires presence!
Presence inspires God!
For wherever two or three gather together in my name, I Am (that’s Capital A), there, with you!
Presence!
But what say you, gracious God, when that is the one thing that we cannot do, are told not to do, a virus condemns us from doing?
Breathing…presence?
Lord knows I (you, me, we) long to be present. It’s been how many months, six, seven, I’ve stopped counting in de-spiration. For I so deeply long to know you, to know the body of Christ, the great I Am, it’s sweet taste on my tongue, it’s breath in my nostrils, even the breath of someone’s coffee at hospitality, or someone’s bitter, lingering cigarette aftertaste, so that I may somehow know you again. I need you to be present to me dear God, in-spiration.
I feel as though we have been cut off! Pandemic seeks to de-spirate! Am I alone? Do you feel this way? Is the great I Am, God, still present, still with us, in breath, in-spiration? Is God still breathing?
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows God’s handiwork.
One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
Their sound still goes out into all the lands,
and their message proceeds to the ends of the world.”
They must have Zoom!
Does, can, will breath, in-spiration, take other forms?
Jesus said (spoke, spirated, inspired), “Listen…”
As he inspired a parable, a parable about the proper tending and care that goes along with presence, in the vineyard. How the vineyard is tended says something about presence, God’s presence, and our presence. We’ve covenanted to be in relationship, as landowner to tenant farmer, God to God’s people. Are we tending that gift that has been presented to us as stewards, to steward?
And so, it is interesting, in this time, and in this space, and in this place, to be considering, of all things, a stewardship campaign, called, “Breathe!”
What an absolutely queerly, brilliantly, inspired theme, thank you Stewardship Chair Randy Hering!
Breathe!
Breathe in, and breathe out.
Be still, and know, that I Am God!
When you do, we know that you are present, with us, around us, among us, in us, and beyond us.
And so, what does this mean, for the next three weeks of the “Breathe” campaign, and beyond, you may ask? Good question!
When you breathe, in this case, by filling out a “breathe commitment card,” the community of St. Thomas the Apostle knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are present! You breathe your breath of life-giving spirit into the lungs of St. Thomas the Apostle. The reality is those lungs of spiration simply don’t inflate without you. You are God’s hands and feet, the body of Christ in the world, and so, they just don’t. You are St. Thomas, and St. Thomas is you.
Secondly, every single time you breath your presence into St. Thomas the Apostle, you make a space and a place for one more person to find hope in believing that God loves each and every, ALL Doubters of Great Faith, and even those who are not. You shine the beckoning light of Jesus Christ’s hope into a sorely hurting world, and you say to that world, “We’re breathing here! We’re present, and we so deeply long for you to breathe and to be present and to be inspired with us, in us, for us, around us, and beyond us! Come witness with us the Great I Am!”
That is huge, wonder-making stuff!
I want us all to take a big, deep, life-giving breath of that, because that, folks, is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not defined or confined by COVID-19.
It is the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, that fills this place we know and love as St. Thomas the Apostle, always has been, is now, and always will be. It inspires into presence each and every one of us that make up this rag-tag band of Doubters of Great Faith.
“Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached this goal; but I press on to make it my own, through presence, because Christ Jesus has made us his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; BUT THIS ONE THING I DO: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward, breathing into what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus!
Breathe!
Amen!
