Let us pray - May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
On this, my last Sunday with you (can you believe that it has been nine months already), I cannot miss the opportunity to start with some words of thanks. First, I must say thank you to Fr. Kurt, Fr. John and Deacon Tracy for their patience and graciousness in leading and mentoring me. Their willingness to include me in the liturgies of the church has been a key factor in my professional development and I am extremely grateful to all three of them. I also must thank the lectors and sub-deacons, all of whom generously shared their duties with me; your kindness has been much appreciated. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the entire congregation on behalf of the whole Wall family your hospitality made us feel like members of the parish family from our first Sunday here and the six of us will miss being with you very much. Thank you to all of you for making us feel so at home. Here endeth the thank-yous.
The French Creole of Louisiana introduced the idea of lagniappe to American culture, a word that Wikipedia defines as “something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure” or in other words, a little something extra. I bring this up only because that is how I will always remember my time at Saints Peter and Paul. When the diocese directed me here for my field education, I expected to learn about the art and science of being an Episcopal priest; I expected that my time here would be a valuable but routine step in my journey towards ordination. What I didn’t expect was the lagniappe that awaited me here. What was that little something extra, you ask? Well, it was the complete transformation of my understanding of the love of Christ in the Episcopal Church and in the world. I have been an Episcopalian my whole life and attended more churches than I can count. In all that experience, I have seen congregations that volunteer to help at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, who raise money for far-flung causes and send parishioners on mission trips to exotic places, all of which are honorable and Godly Christian pursuits. But, here at Saints Peter and Paul, we are not insulated from human suffering in the way that many other parishes are, we are enmeshed in the kingdom of God, warts and all and it is a gift that we joyfully embrace. This congregation’s authentic, tangible and intentional witness to the Gospel is that little something extra that has transformed my understanding of the real meaning of the love of Christ in the world.
We have heard a great deal about love lately. The compilers of the lectionary were single minded when selecting the readings for these middle three weeks of the Easter season and so we have heard a lot about love – a whole lot. Mother Karen gave her spin on the topic two weeks ago, Father Kurt took his shot last week and now here I am, the least qualified of the group, looking to tie up the loose ends. The word love is mentioned 75 times in the Gospels and 148 times in the epistles, by comparison the concept of forgiveness shows up only 56 times in the whole New Testament. Make no mistake, Christ intended love to be the defining characteristic of his followers.
The 1 John passage tells us that to love God is to obey the commandments. In the Gospel reading, Jesus tells us that his commandment is to love each other as he loved us. The Synoptic Gospels further elaborate on the importance of love saying that “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ’This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:36-40). So what does all this love talk mean?
Whereas the English language uses the word love to express a broad range of affectionate feelings, in biblical Greek there were four different words for love. There was storge love, or the affection between family members. There was eros, the passionate love shared by a couple, philia the dispassionate, sisterly and brotherly love of friends and, finally, agape, the unconditional love of the Christian family. All the talk of love that we have heard over the last several weeks is of the agape variety and it is not as warm and fuzzy as you might imagine.
Joseph Fletcher, a 20th century Christian ethicist wrote, “We can say properly that Christian love is a matter of loving the unlovable, the unlikable. Indeed, it is even more radical than that in its nonreciprocity and non-congeniality…. there is nothing sentimental about Christian love…. The radical obligation of the Christian ethic to love even the enemy implies unmistakably that every neighbor is not a friend and that some are just the opposite. But Christian love (which is not a matter of reciprocity at all) is agapeic – not erotic or philic. Love wills the neighbor’s good whether we like him or not” (Moral Responsibility, pg 20-21).
This is tough stuff. The ramifications of this kind of love are paradoxical, even mind-boggling. Each of us can likely conjure up the image of a person that disturbs us, or makes us feel angry and ungenerous. Go ahead, picture that person in your mind’s eye. You may be thinking of someone you know well or maybe someone generic and anonymous. Regardless of whom you see in your imagination, that is the neighbor that you are called by Jesus to love. I am not suggesting that you must forgive those who have harmed you physically or emotionally. Nor do I claim that reconciliation is always an appropriate response to a broken relationship, but I can tell you unequivocally that Christ has commanded us to love one another and we must seek agape love for even those people who challenge our ability to love at all. If you are nursing an old wound, now is the time to start the path to healing, not necessarily by forgiving or reconciling but by opening yourself to the possibility of the transformative power of Christian love.
The nurturing of such love is vital to the renewal of Saints Peter and Paul. If we are going to grow and flourish through this kindling process, it will be because agape love is the defining characteristic of this congregation. I know that many of you are physically and mentally tired, keeping this church vibrant is exhausting work, but it is also valuable work, and I entreat all of you to dig for that last full measure of energy to revitalize this place. Montavilla needs Saints Peter and Paul as a bastion of refuge in a cold and lonely world and the Christian community needs Saints Peter and Paul as an example of Christ’s love to his people.
The theologian Charles Marsh notes that, “our sojourn into a violent and hurting world is shaped by the memory of the Christ who was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn” (Anglican Theological review, Fall 2009, 552). He then ironically points out that many Christians worship this homeless man on Sunday and then ignore one on Monday. Not here, you have made caring for the most vulnerable among us a cornerstone of your ministry and you are to be commended for your commitment, but this is no time to rest on your laurels. It’s time to follow Father Kurt as he leads the way to renewal. It’s time to embrace Mother Karen’s invitation to kindle the fire here. Take a few minutes to share your five favorite hymns (the forms are still in the back) and then sing them loud and proud, even if your voice is as bad as mine. For those of you with the time and the energy (and I know that some of you are preciously low on both), pick one new ministry to support. We can use more hands in the sacristy working with the Altar Guild, and a few more people on the hospitality committee would go a long way in ensuring that all the great eating that goes on around here will continue. Someone needs to mow lawn and there is always room for more sub-deacons, lectors and ushers. Of course, Brigid’s Coffee Hour and Rahab’s Sisters, the face of Saints Peter and Paul in the community, can always use more hands at the oars. Now is the time for dedicated prayer by each of you to discern how you are going to help revitalize this congregation. Saints Peter and Paul is lagniappe in Montavilla, this church provides a little something extra in the neighborhood, an extra dose of agape love that sets you apart as a haven of refuge in a cruel world – this is your calling, pursue it with vigor and joy in both your worship and your outreach.
In closing, I pray that you will see yourselves as I see you, as a community dedicated to living out Christ’s mission in the world. God has blessed you with the opportunity to be the face of his love in the community, the beauty of your witness has been transformative for me, and you will continue to transform lives as long you remain a beacon of love in the neighborhood. And remain you must. Amen
(by seminarian Sean Wall, May 13, 2012)
