Bishop James Mathes
St. George’s Day Evensong
St. Paul’s Cathedral
April 27, 2008
Luke 12: 13-21
Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN.
I.
This evening is a flow of banners, anthems, and Holy Scripture through which we remember England’s patron saint and revel in our Anglican heritage as a Church. It is an annual visitation of our roots, our identity, and our place in the array of faithful Christians. Yet we do all of this while around the planet there is deep questioning about this very Anglican identity of ours.
There are those who believe that the Episcopal Church has lost its way—that we have strayed from our Anglican brothers and sisters. And there are others who believe that the Episcopal Church is being quintessentially Anglican as we bring our Scripture and tradition to bear on the evolving social issues of the day. I should confess to you that I believe that today’s Episcopal Church is traveling a basic Anglican path. I am proud to be an Episcopalian. From my perspective, our Episcopal Church is carrying the mantle of St. George.
II.
For you see, our procession of a breaded dragon around the neighborhood and our delight in the legend of this saint slaying a dragon and rescuing a damsel in distress does not point to the real legacy of St. George. This saint’s story is much less fanciful and much more noble. Finding himself a soldier of high rank in the Roman army during the Diocletian persecutions, St. George refused to participate in this systematic persecution of Christians. He confessed his own faith in Christ assuring his own martyrdom. This patron of England is one whose principal battle was within his own soul, requiring him to sacrifice for belief and to refuse to participate in the suffering of others.
Like St. George, the Episcopal Church has increasingly stepped out as a voice for the voiceless. In a world of suffering, we recognize that we cannot stand idle. We cannot abide passively a world in which nearly 3 billion out of 6.7 billion fellow human beings live on less than two dollars a day. We cannot be content when thirty thousand children die each day because of poverty. We are moved to action when twenty percent of the world’s population consumes eighty-six percent of world’s goods.
And here in San Diego, we do not have to travel too far to see poverty haunting the lives of God’s creation. When I fly into San Diego at night I see the lights of an immense city. Yet it is really two cities, two nations, divided by a fence which is increasingly militarized. On each side reside two-and-a-half million people. Those in Tijuana have significantly less wealth, poorer health care and education, a shorter life expectancy, worse sanitation, and inferior housing.
And, of course, most are aware that the Episcopal Church has stepped out in her inclusion of those whose affections are directed towards those of the same sex. This is only the most recent place where we have stepped out with those who “travail and are heavy laden”—giving Christ’s refreshment. Before, it was those enslaved because of race, or disenfranchised because of gender. It has not been easy to move toward full inclusion of gays and lesbians in our church. It has not been easy to challenge the wider society to give these brothers and sisters of ours the same rights that heterosexuals receive as a matter of course.
III.
But we stand in the tradition of St. George. Now, it is tempting to keep our patron in the enchanted world of Dragons Slain and Princesses Rescued. That is so much safer and less controversial. But Scripture does not take us to places of ease.
In our lesson tonight, Jesus is pressed to assist brothers in division of spoils. He declines to enter this triangle knowing that to give to one is to take from another: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” He proceeds to tell a story that speaks directly to us. It is story of hording, of taking. It is a story of futility ending with, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
IV.
The treasures that we store up will not be our positions: bank accounts, impressive homes or cars. Treasures will be found in sacrifices of dignified solidarity for those who God created and loves, just as God love us. And so it should not surprise us that in our baptismal covenant, we promise to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being—every human being. This is the only way to eternal treasure.
The greed of the world delivers empty and ephemeral treasure, leaving byproducts of poverty, alienation, and prejudice. The essential Anglican ethos offers to Christians and non-Christians—indeed to the whole world—a different treasure found in a vision of the kingdom of God which is summed up in the word, "Welcome."
The etymology of this word comes from the old English word, wilcuma, literally the welcome guest is “the one whose coming is in accord with another’s will.” It is important to note that welcome does not mean to accept the presence of one who agrees with another. It is the coming that is to be in accord with our will. It is in this spirit that Episcopal Churches proclaim on signs, t-shirts, and bumper stickers: “The Episcopal Church welcomes you.” There is no foot note beside the word, “you”—no fine print. You means anyone and everyone. As the writer to the Hebrews so eloquently offered, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Consonant with this, the Rule of St. Benedict calls the community thus: “Let all guests who come to the monastery be entertained like Christ Himself, because He will say: ‘I was a stranger and ye took Me in.’”
Those who suffer around the world, across the border, crossing the border, and countless numbers within our community are such strangers. Might we turn our insatiable appetites from things that we do not need and instead welcome the stranger both near and far? Martin Luther King once said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” I must admit that I am an altruist at heart. King was a dreamer and I sense that God is calling us to dream God’s dream of the Kingdom.
In the kingdom come, I imagine a world where all God’s children receive bounty and plenty from a garden of abundance. Hunger will be no more. Sickness will end. This is God’s promise. That new world will not have fences and barriers to abundant life. No one will be illegal. All will recognize themselves to immigrants of God’s grace. And those labels and derisions of human invention will be no more: black, white, brown, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight—they will be absolutely meaningless.
But now here is the real challenge and where our Episcopal and Anglican call to inclusivity and conversation move us to vulnerability, gospel, and action. We are not to be content with the way things are --waiting for “pie in the sky bye and bye.” We are to join with those who suffer and participate in God’s dream now—a dream of new kingdom breaking in.
So, Jesus, who constantly points us to the sufferer and beckons us to be in solidarity with that one, invites us to be followers who imagine being a church of real, radical welcome.
This radical welcome will call us to see the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating world poverty in our lifetime as not only achievable but an absolute Gospel imperative. This radical welcome will call us to question a national stance that sees our border as a barrier borne out of fear rather than a threshold of hospitality. This radical welcome will require us to make sure that the outcast is fully included in God’s Church -- in all its ministries, with all its blessings, and yes, this includes our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
Desmond Tutu said it best at our National Cathedral earlier this year:
"… we are most like God when we are welcoming. Our God is a welcoming God. Remember our communion with one another is actually a divine gift. It is a gift from the Trinity. And the Trinity says our unity is not a uniformity. It is a unity in diversity. Be welcoming. Be like God."
This is where we find eternal treasure by being welcoming, by being like God. It is our Episcopal and Anglican charm—and gift to a divided and selfish world. It is costly and sacrificial. And it is where we find our eternal treasure. Welcome to the Episcopal Church. Be welcoming. Be like God.
AMEN.