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Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 9) July 8, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 75 th General Convention of the ECUSA

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith. See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised-- only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule-- peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:1-16)

Sacred Differences
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop
(Revised 12 July 2007)

     A few years ago, I saw an article in the New York Times about mega-churches; churches with thousands of members, with worship spaces constructed like theatres or amphitheatres. According to a leading business magazine, mega-churches are those Protestant churches that attract at least 2,000 worshipers a week.[1]

     According to Forbes Magazine, several mega-churches are run like giant corporations with several “subsidiary ministries.” The 23,093-strong World Changers Ministries in College Park, Georgia, operates a music studio, publishing house, computer graphic design suite and has its own record label. The 18,500-member Potter’s House in Dallas, has a record label, daily talk show, a prison satellite network with broadcasts in 260 prisons, and a twice-a-week webcast.  The 25,060-member Lakewood Church in Houston spends $12 million annually on TV airtime.  This is a growth industry where pastors are the equivalent of business CEO’s.  They are places where religious growth not only equals success, but is seen as a sign of God’s blessing.  In 1970, there were just 10 mega-churches in the U.S.  By 1990, this number increased to 250, and today there are more than 740.  Average weekly attendance at mega-churches is 3,646.[2]

     According to one report I read, a mega-church begins by calling a preacher.  The charisma of the preacher has a lot to do with the phenomenal growth of mega-churches.  To a congregation of Episcopalians who can disagree for months or years over carpet styles and color, it might seem puzzling that thousands of people can attend a mega-church.  We wonder whether these people actually agree theologically, ethically, and politically with each other.  We wonder how such a large group forms community.  Well, in fact, they don’t.  Mega-churches often develop dozens of smaller groups, or cells, of people who nurture and care for each other.  This is true of most churches actually – regardless of size. People tend to concentrate on what they have in common rather than what separates them.  And they tend to associate with those who share things in common. In other words, making and maintaining a community of faith becomes the work of a small number of like-minded people.

     In trying to understand this phenomenon, Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that “we do not ask too many questions” of each other … For some people this means keeping secrets about themselves.  People learn what they can and cannot tell.  They learn the boundaries of [their faith] community.”[3] Whether in mega-churches, free-standing independent churches, or denominational churches like our own, we tend to associate with a group of people we believe think like we do.  We seek out “like-minded” people, knowing full well though, that even “like-minded” people have all kinds of differences.  We just try not to inquire too deeply about those differences, minimizing our differences and maximizing our similarities.  What we create out of this process is something that we call community. Sometimes our communities are bound together by things that resonate deeply within us; other times our communities are held together by superficial similarities.  In the end, what we call “community” is indeed complex.

     Tension, rifts, and schism can develop when one subgroup demands its way be followed by everyone. This was the kind of problem that Paul saw develop in the Galatian church.[4] The Galatian church was composed of like-minded people; members, if you will, of a cell church within the great “mega-church” of Galillean Judaism. Like all churches, they were held together by both deep and superficial relationships, just as our community is held together today.  The harshness of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is likely due to his realization that this particular church community was breaking down because too many groups were exerting authority and implementing procedures that were antithetical to the core of Christian fellowship – like requiring Gentile Christians to be circumcised as Jews before they could participate in the full life of the church. Paul understood that groups in the Galatian church were tempted by a very individualistic gospel based on the works of the law, where outward signs like circumcision gave a person a higher status than others in the church community.

     What was apparently at stake for the group that wanted to retain circumcision as a “rite of entry“ into the church was that circumcision to them was the recognizable sign of faith. It was, to them, the thing that defined their common identity.

     But that particular group had apparently forgotten some important lessons from their own scriptural tradition. In the Old Testament there are two stories about how God’s sovereign grace had passed over traditional, law-following, circumcised Jews and had been granted to Gentile strangers. The first is the story of the widow from the wrong side of the tracks in Zarephath and the story of Naaman the Syrian, who was a Gentile and an officer in the army of Israel’s enemy.[3]

     The Galatians who wanted to keep ritualistic circumcision felt that those opposed to them were giving up a fundamental tenet of the faith. They became upset just like us when we are told that God loves someone we don’t want to sit next to, the people who disturb or offend us, but who belong to God just as surely as we do.  It is an attribute of being human to try to restrict God’s grace to our boundaries.  When we carve an image of God that looks a lot like us, shaped by the ideals and beliefs of our sub-group that rarely challenges us, we create an idol.  And the problem with idols is that as soon as there is more than one, they define who’s in and who’s out.  But God’s boundless sense of universal community tells us that all people – including those we cannot stand – are loved just as much as we are. 

     But the fact of the matter is that our sense of community ought to come directly from our Baptismal covenant:  to respect the dignity of each human being and to honor one another.  We have to work hard to prevent ourselves from becoming exclusive in our outlook toward each other – especially in the world of the Church.  We have seen by what has happened in the church since 2003 that we are not immune to tribal mentality where one tribe becomes suspicious of another, and where we insist that the members of one tribe must become like us or be kept out of Church life all together.  No, the Church is not immune to this kind of behavior, but because the Church is not like any other institution, it should know better.  We in the Church need to be reminded over and over again that it is God who makes us a community and not ourselves or the idols we create. 

     The fact of the matter is that we should celebrate the differences between us rather than try to homogenize them, because it is the differences between us that give God the best tools to open us up to the truth that is so very much bigger than we are.  That is why Paul advised the Galatians to “ test their own work” and to “bear one another’s burden’s.” It is through exchanging ideas with one another and by testing the theology of our group with that of another group, that we avoid idolatry and stand a better chance of coming closer to the truth.

     As Barbara Brown Taylor put it, “The truth is always more than any one of us can grasp all by ourselves.  It takes a world full of strangers and friends to tell us the parts we cannot see, and sometimes we want to kill them for it.  Jesus’ own people tried to kill him, more than once. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.  How did he do that?  I don’t know, but if we do not listen to him, [whether we are in a mega-church or a small congregation] we can rest assured that he will pass right through our midst and go away.”[3]

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2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram , was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram . The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel , and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria ! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel .” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel , which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel .” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus , better than all the waters of Israel ? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘ Wash , and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan , according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Psalm 30 Exaltabo te, Domine

1 I will exalt you, O LORD,
because you have lifted me up *
and have not let my enemies triumph over me.

2 O LORD my God, I cried out to you, *
and you restored me to health.

3 You brought me up, O LORD, from the dead; *
you restored my life as I was going down to the grave.

4 Sing to the LORD, you servants of his; *
give thanks for the remembrance of his holiness.

5 For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye, *
his favor for a lifetime.

6 Weeping may spend the night, *
but joy comes in the morning.

7 While I felt secure, I said,
“I shall never be disturbed. *
You, LORD, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains.”

8 Then you hid your face, *
and I was filled with fear.

9 I cried to you, O LORD; *
I pleaded with the Lord, saying,

10 “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the Pit? *
will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?

11 Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; *
O LORD, be my helper.”

12 You have turned my wailing into dancing; *
you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.

13 Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; *
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks for ever.

Galatians 6:1-16

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith. See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised-- only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule-- peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Collect of the Day

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Information downloaded from HCJB World Radio on 28 January 2004 from http://www.hcjb.org/displayarticle1347.html.
[2] HCJB World Radio, op cit.
[3] Many of the ideas about the gospel text are adapted from Barbara Brown Taylor.  “The Company of Strangers.”  Home By Another Way.  (Cambridge, MA:  Cowley Publications, 1999), 42-46. 
[4] The remarks about Paul’s letter to the Galatians were adapted from Timothy Merrill (Exec. Ed.). “Haphazarad Handoffs.” Homiletics.19(4):21-25, 2007.

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Copyright © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
5 July 2007

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