The Third Sunday
after Trinity
8th June 2008 : 9:00am Sung Eucharist
Preacher: The Mt
Revd Katherine Schori - Chief Pastor and Primate of
the Episcopal Church in the
When Jesus calls Matthew the
tax collector to come and follow, his new disciple gets an earful of advice and
a string of remarkable examples. Jesus initiates and responds to a series of
startling encounters, beginning with the tax collector himself, when he calls a
collaborator with the Roman occupiers to his side. He dines with untouchable
folk. He lets an unclean woman touch him. He goes to the side of a dead child.
The report about this fellow certainly does make the rounds – because he is
breaking every rule in the law book.
Most of these encounters are
about touching and being touched. Jesus lets people touch him, both literally
and figuratively. He’s not worried about ritual uncleanness or about protecting
himself from the pain of the world. He is willing to suffer with the outcast
and the hurting. He has compassion, mercy, loving kindness toward those who
hurt.
Compassion rather than
sacrifice is about just that – the willingness to be vulnerable rather than
self-protective. Sacrifice here means the temple sacrifice, in the ritual of
restoring relationship with God by offering an animal to be sacrificed in the
temple. It’s about the fine points of the law. It does require something
costly, but it lets that animal, and the priest who
offers it, do the hard work. It’s actually rather mechanical, and does not
require any terribly difficult work from the person who offers the sacrifice.
Jesus and Hosea report that God is more interested in our response to another
person’s suffering. That is the righteousness of faith Paul talks about.
Jesus responds to the suffering
around him because he allows himself to be touched. In other encounters in the
gospels, it’s often reported that he was “moved with compassion,” a
construction that literally means he felt the pain in his gut. That’s what
compassion really means – to suffer along with another. When Hosea and Jesus
remind us that God wants compassion rather than sacrifice, we’re being invited
to cultivate that capacity for compassion, to let down the barriers that keep
us from noticing or feeling the world’s pain. It doesn’t mean wallowing in that
pain. It does mean walking alongside.
I heard a story recently about
a priest’s encounter with a new parishioner. This woman came to her priest and
said, “I keep thinking about committing suicide. Can you help me?” The priest
saw this woman’s obesity, and said, “You’re already doing it. You’re eating
yourself to death. I don’t know what to do about it, but I am willing to come
and pray with you every day until we find an answer.” The priest went every day
to this woman’s home to pray with her. Two weeks later, the priest was sitting
in her office and answered the phone. Someone was looking for a place to hold a
regular meeting of Food Addicts Anonymous. The church had space, the meetings
began, the parishioner found the support she needed, and she has lost nearly
150 pounds in the last year. She has indeed found new life.
None of those small encounters
was terribly earth-shattering. Yet each involved the willingness to be moved in
some way – the parishioner asked for help, the priest responded, somebody else
who’s been driving by the church asked for a space to meet. And please note
that none of those encounters requires a priest. Any one of us can offer to
pray with another. Any one of us can speak truth about destructive behavior. Any
one of us can help connect a need and a healing resource. Small vulnerabilities
can change the world. When we’re open to them, we find encounters and
opportunities like that all the time.
Follow Jesus; go and do
likewise. That is where our salvation lies – in the willingness to touch and be
touched, in human encounter with the pain and joy of created existence. Visit
those in prison, heal the silk, spread a feast for the hungry stranger, walk alongside the grieving. You will find Jesus there with
you.