Proper 5B, June 10, 2018
1Samuel 8: 4-20,11:14-15
Psalm 138, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35
St Thomas the Apostle
The Rev’d Joy A. Daley
Perhaps the best thing I read all week was titled “Is Jesus crazy?” His family and friends seem to think so in today’s Gospel, either that or he is possessed by the devil. I’m not sure which is worse. What it tells us is that Jesus’ behavior is suspect. He heals people on the wrong days. He eats with the wrong people. The folks he has chosen as disciples are not the brightest and best from the community. He hasn’t been trained or authorized by the religious leaders of the day and they don’t like what he’s doing. I wonder if even the people he was going to heal thought he was strange. Can you imagine being crippled your whole life and this stranger saying, “Get up and walk!” Are you out of your mind? And if they said those things about Jesus what do they say about us as his followers? Have you ever wondered if people think we are crazy? I kind of hope they do because if we are “Out of our minds” maybe we can live from our hearts and our very souls. We know from Jesus’ example that this kind of living is risky but it’s real. People may wonder about us. Our Presiding bishop is a wonderful example of this. Did you see the looks as the camera panned the crowd when he was preaching at the Royal wedding? It was quite amusing to see the perplexity and confusion on some of the faces, wasn’t it? What if we spoke and lived from the passion in our hearts rather than weighing the cost of every move we take? It might cause some strange looks, get us into some trouble but it may also lead us to live more deeply into the gospel message that we proclaim each and every Sunday from this pulpit and this table – the Good News of God in Christ. As Christians and Episcopalians maybe our true calling is to be a little crazy. Some say that the Episcopal church is a little off. Maybe we should be proud of that.
By now you may know that the General Convention of the Episcopal church is meeting in the beginning of July. This is the meeting of the whole Episcopal Church that gathers every three years for discipleship and decision, for fellowship and worship. It meets in various parts of the country and this year the meeting is in Austin. The elected house of Deputies and the House of Bishops pass legislation but there is a lot of work done in committees before it gets to that level. I’ve been to two General Conventions one in 2003 and the other in 2006, both amazing and powerful. In 2003 the Convention confirmed, after much debate, the election of Bishop Gene Robinson the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. Some people were joyful and others were upset. Some thought, “This is going to open doors,” others thought it would cause problems and it did both. Some people thought the Episcopal church was brave, others thought it was crazy. Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable, isn’t that part of what the work of the church should be? Then, three years later in 2006 the overwhelmingly male house of Bishops cast their votes to elect a new Presiding Bishop whose term is nine years. There were 7 candidates, 6 of them were male. There had never even been a woman nominated before and yet they elected Katherine Jefferts Schori the only woman on the list. Many thought the church was crazy and ran the risk of further division and yet as I walked down the street in Columbus Ohio later that day in my collar, people stopped me and were happy. I heard someone call out from a distance, “Way to go Episcopalians!” Though some thought the church was crazy Bishop Schori proved to be a calm and solid leader amid much controversy and the church went on. Then in 2015 we elected our first African American as our Presiding Bishop on the very first ballot. The Most Reverend Michael Curry. And when many mainline denominations continued to exclude gay and lesbian people from full equality, the Episcopal church passed A036. This resolution amended Canon 18 on the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony to become Celebration and Blessing of Marriage and adapted the words husband and wife to gender neutral phrases such as “both parties.” They also passed A054 approving continued use of “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant” (which General Convention approved for provisional use in 2012) and also authorized two new marriage rites to include gay and lesbian people. In the view of some of our Anglican partners we were seen to be taking actions that were too risky, crazy, out of our minds. They said similar things about Jesus. Now I don’t know what’s gong to happen at General Convention next month but I hope that when the body of Christians gets together to consider issues like racial injustice, the Me Too Movement and how the church has colluded in oppression, that some real honest questions will be asked, answers given and plans of action made. I also hope that the General Convention will finish what they began in 2015 in regards to marriage equality. I have hope that the church will follow the actions taken in recent history and go “out of its mind” and into its heart.
Bishop Curry wrote a book several years ago before he was Presiding Bishop called Crazy Christians, A Call to Follow Jesus (Morehouse, N.Y., 2013). In it he said, “Christians who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” He went on to say, “What we need are some crazy Christians crazy enough to catch a glimpse of the crazy transforming, transfiguring life changing vision of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So we are part of changing the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends. (p. 7-9) Jesus gave his very life for this dream. Was Jesus crazy? Some people say he was. I hope they say the same about us.
