I give thanks to Christ Jesus, our Lord, who is my strength, who has considered me trustworthy and appointed me to his service, although I had been a blasphemer, a persecutor and a rabid enemy. However he took mercy on me because I did not know what I was doing when I opposed the faith; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, together with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
This saying is true and worthy of belief: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. Because of that I was forgiven; Christ Jesus wanted to display his utmost patience so that I might be an example for all who are to believe and obtain eternal life. To the King of ages, the only God who lives beyond every perishable and visible creation—to him be honor and glory forever. Amen!
Meanwhile tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus, all of them eager to hear what he had to say. But the Pharisees and the scribes frowned at this, muttering. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus told them this parable:
“Who among you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, will not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and seek out the lost one till he finds it? And finding it, will he not joyfully carry it home on his shoulders? Then he will call his friends and neighbors together and say: ‘Celebrate with me for I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, just so, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine upright who do not need to repent.
What woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one, will not light a lamp and sweep the house in a thorough search till she finds the lost coin? And finding it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say: ‘Celebrate with me for I have found the silver coin I lost!’ I tell you, in the same way there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.”
I Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10 - Proper of the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (year C)
The Bible (Pastoral Community Version)
There is a popular TV series nowadays, called Lost. Recently, it became more popular in Brazil, because local actor Rodrigo Santoro (who also was Xerxes in the 300 movie) played a minor role in some episodes. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a passenger jet flying between Australia and the United States crashes somewhere in the South Pacific.
But even if you have not watched it (and I imagine you must be living in a lost island if you do not know Lost), you must probably recall a cartoon, very famous in the eighties: Dungeons and Dragons. The story behind it is that a group of children are pulled into the "Realm of Dungeons & Dragons" by taking a magical dark ride trip at a fairground. They want to get back home, but there is also something that prevents them from doing that (in 90% of the time, a stupid unicorn, by the way).
Being lost, inevitably, is not an unknown feeling for people. Some must have been physically lost, I imagine. I know a parishioner whose son got lost three times inside a supermarket, which forces her to keep him attached to her arm with a special rope for children. Others, even being adults, still get lost. I am one of them. I can get easily lost while driving, and I imagine this contributes to my disliking driving.
Being lost is not a good thing. Not at all. When one finds him/herself alone, s/he can think there is no way out of that situation. Society also contributes to that. Have you realized the impact that words such as "loser" and "lost case" (and other derivatives of the verb "to lose") have? I can imagine the pharisees and teachers of the law muttering about Jesus, the man who dared to have a personal relationship with those sinners and tax collectors, who were, to them "lost cases".
In response to that, Jesus left three parables (two in today's Gospel) about being lost. One of them is about lost sheep. It is interesting to notice that sheep can get lost very easily. Sheep tend to form groups for mutual support and protection. However, they are very sensitive animals, and anything can distract such fluffy creatures and make one (or even a group of them) separate from the flock. Our churches tend to be like such flocks, and it is not a coincidence that Scripture and the Church uses this metaphor very often. People can form and group themselves in worship spaces very easily. However, it is also very easy for them to get distracted or offended with the others, and leave their faith community. In some cases, sin (or even a non-sinful behavior which is seen as sin by many), can make one feel unworthy of being a God's child, forcing that person to run away from Her/His Church. The remaining "sheep" would probably say: that was a lost case anyway. This person is lost.
The other parable is about money. A woman loses one of her drachmas. A drachma was an ancient currency unit found in many Greek city states and successor states, and in many South-West Asian kingdoms of the Hellenistic era. It can be compared, more or less, to a daily pay. In Brazil, that would be about R$ 40.00, and I will leave up to you how to imagine a forty-real bill. The fact was that she lost one of those bills, but still had R$ 360.00 left. It was late (and probably dark). Most people (including myself) would try to find it at first, but in case of no success, they would still rejoice in having most of the money, waiting for the next day (and for sunlight) to look for it again. It was lost, anyway!
What one forgets is that the word lost presupposes two facts: that the object (or person) once was not lost, and can still be found.
And this is the difference between God and mankind. God, represented here as both a shepherd and a housewife, does not give up until S/He finds what was lost. God is the father of a flock full of distractive sheep, and also the mother of a treasure of silver coins, like us. And all of us, human beings, were destined to be God's children, since the beginning of times. It is true that sin, unfortunately, made us "lose" the way. My hope, however, is to know that there is no one who cannot be found again. And God keeps searching incessantly for those people. Our attitude, as members of the Body of Christ, is to understand that all of us are susceptible to this state of "being lost", and, on this continuous path of conversion, we have probably gotten lost sometimes (or, at least, were tempted to). Jesus, as the lesson from I Timothy says, came to this world in order to save the sinners, so that they would have eternal life. And the Church must have open doors, daring to follow the example of her master, who had personal relationships with those regarded as sinners, despite the condemnatory eyes of modern pharisees, who still insist in populating our communities. As Christians, we have to learn how to see the others with God's merciful eyes, to whom nothing is eternally lost.
May the Church of Christ, and especially this faith family, understand that this is a place of transformation and regeneration of the sick and wounded, and may we have the courage to follow Christ's example, never giving up, even on those who are considered "lost cases" by society.
Sermon preached at Christ the King, a parish of the Anglican Diocese of Rio de Janeiro, in 09/16/2007.
Pride is odious to both God and man; injustice is abhorrent to both of them. Sovereignty passes from one nation to another because of injustice, violence and wealth. How can there be such pride in someone who is nothing but dust and ashes? Even while he is living, man’s bowels are full of rottenness. Look: the illness lasts while the doctor makes light of it; and one who is king today will die tomorrow. Once a man is dead, grubs, insects and worms are his lot. The beginning of man’s pride is to separate himself from the Lord and to rebel against his Creator. The beginning of pride is sin. Whoever perseveres in sinn opens the floodgates to everything that is evil. For this the Lord has inflicted dire punishment on sinners; he has reduced them to nothing. The Lord has overturned the thrones of princes and set up the meek in their place. The Lord has torn up the proud by the roots and has planted the humble in their place. The Lord has overturned the land of the pagans and totally destroyed them. He has devastated several of them, destroyed them and removed all remembrance of them from the face of the earth. Pride was not created for man nor violent anger, for those born of woman.
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to offer hospitality; you know that some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember prisoners as if you were with them in chains, and the same for those who are suffering. Remember that you also have a body.
Marriage must be respected by all and husband and wife faithful to each other. God will punish the immoral and the adulterous.
Do not depend on money. Be content with having enough for today for God has said: I will never forsake you or abandon you, and we shall confidently answer: The Lord is my helper, I will not fear; what can man do to me? Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Consider their end and imitate their faith. Christ Jesus is the same today as yesterday and forever.
One Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and he was carefully watched.
Jesus then told a parable to the guests, for he had noticed how they tried to take the places of honor. And he said, “When you are invited to a wedding party, do not choose the best seat. It may happen that someone more important than you has been invited, and your host, who invited both of you, will come and say to you: ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!
Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that your host may come and say to you: ‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honor for you in the presence of all the other guests. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised.”
Jesus also addressed the man who had invited him and said, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives and wealthy neighbors. For surely they will also invite you in return and you will be repaid. When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they can’t repay you; you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the upright.”
Sirach 10:7-18, Hebrews 13:1-8 and Luke 14:1,7-14 - Proper of the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (year C)
The Bible (Pastoral Community Version)
Time passes by very quickly, and soon, I will be twenty-six years old (isn't that much already?). However, God has blessed immensely and I do not believe I look that old (bless my heart)! Well, even sounding like a joke, some people still believe I am eighteen, and that has been pretty common throughout my life. I have always looked younger (and hope I still look) than I actually were.
Today's Gospel is about parties: many of them! I love parties and I have always loved dancing! Who does not? And when I was about to have eighteen years of age, I was very eager to going to nice parties that happened at the fanciest night clubs of Rio. I was rediscovering myself (unfortunately, far from God) and clubbing was part of it, especially coming from a tradition that considered such events inherently sinful. However, I looked younger! Nowhere I would convince people I could get in, while some friends, who looked older, could pass through the nightclub personnel easily.
I do not know if you are aware of what happens at the night scene. There are people, called “promoters” who organize such parties. Their cell phones have thousands of contacts. They are patronized by everybody, because promoters can determine who is “in” and who is “out”. Once I heard one say “o please, I will never allow a girl wearing a tiara come in... so last season!”. Yes, promoters can be cruel. And soon I found out that not looking old was only one of the many pre-requisites one had to have in order to get in the most fabulous parties in town. You had to be good looking, you had to be successful, you had to be famous!
Jewish parties were no different from the parties we have nowadays. Some of them were religious, and we have probably heard much about them. However, Jesus specifically speaks of private parties, such as weddings and luncheons. This is because, like night clubs, those parties had “promoters”, and a list of who was in, and who was out. Only the rich and well-seen were invited. The excluded and oppressed never got a chance of taking part of such events. What a shame!
To ancient Jewish culture, such parties had a very important meaning: they used to show to friends and extended family how wealthy and fortunate someone were. Weddings, for example, could last one week. One week of festivities: wine, food, music and dances. And if you have been to a Jewish marriage, you have probably seen joyful dances in which different people hold hands and form big circles in a joyful movement of bodies. I bet you would join the crowd if you had the chance, as probably did Jesus, when he was invited to parties.
The idea of a God who dances might sound strange to some, especially to those who come from more conservative traditions. However, dance was an integral part of the celebrations of the ancient Israelites. It was used both in worship in ordinary life and on occasions of triumphant victory and festivity. The sacred dance mediated between God and humanity, thus bringing the Israelites into a closer relationship with their God, Jehovah. Dancing was so intrinsic to their religious life that, of all forty four words in the Hebrew language for dancing, only in one is there a possible reference to secular movement. The most frequently used root for the word 'dance' in the Old Testament is
hul which refers to the whirl of the dance and implies highly active movement.
Early Christian tradition also tells us about dancing. St. John of Damascus, in the 8th century, used the Greek term perichoresis (
peri – around;
choré – dance) in order to describe the existence of multiple divine persons in one another in the Holy Trinity. It is interesting to notice that, alone, apart from each other, all three persons are separated. However, if they hold hands and dance, they become one sole God. There is a co-indwelling and what one does, the others can do. God is dancing, for sure.
God dances following the gentle breeze that rubs your face when you leave for work. God dances according to the gibberish a baby murmurs. God dances following you, when you are running, barefeet, on the grass. God dances according to the Anglican aerobics: sit down, stand up, kneel, cross, bow, raise hands, clap hands (OK, hardcore charismatics would do those last two)... God dances Quinceañera waltzes and even to the sound of Black Eyed Peas. God dances around you while you are sleeping, and when time comes, S/He will be there to take you in a lovely dance, to Heaven. God dances listening to your heartbeat.
Perichoresis, thus, is not only a dance of the Trinity. Perichoresis is an invitation for us to join God in this joyful dance. Our path towards holiness, in fact, means joining God and being one with Her/Him, and at the same time become one with the others. And then, like the Jews dancing in big circles, we would hold hands and join our God and our brethren in this wonderful movement.
Once I heard a joke saying that Jesus was the best promoter ever, because “he could organize a party with nothing more than a loaf and a cup of wine, which endures until today”. Jesus rocks, doesn't He? And this party happens every Sunday in many communities, around the world. It is called Holy Eucharist. When we gather together around the altar, and worship God, we take part of this dance (even being difficult for some, but I reaffirm: you should move your bodies a bit more). It is an equality party. All are given the same amount of bread and wine. No one has more or less rights.
What puzzles me is that, unfortunately, there are some who want to be the “promoters”, when Jesus was the official one. They want to predefine who is “in” and who is “out” of this party. And during these almost 2,000 years of Church history, that has happened much more than we could imagine.
You must have visited churches with side galleries. Normally, old churches have this feature, and even some new ones still do, in order to preserve architectural traditions. Galleries, however, had a very sad purpose at the beginning: they were built in order to keep African slaves distant from their owners. Galleries were, in fact, a means of segregation. They were a man-made barrier with the sole intent of excluding some of God's children from the full life of the Church.
How many Afros do you see in the Church, especially in leadership positions? Aren't we still segregating, even in a more subtle way?
And what about women? Some months ago, I had the opportunity of visiting the Rev. Carmen Etel, the first woman to be ordained here in Brazil, more than twenty years ago. She shared some of the struggles of those women who desired, by then, to become priests. A fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, disregarding beautiful passages of the Gospels and even of Pauline letters, was used by some in order to segregate those who have always worked for this Church, and been the majority of our membership. Thank God, in our Province, women can accede to the threefold ordained ministry.
How many women clergy do you see in the Church? Aren't we still diminishing them, thinking they cannot be as effective as men in their service?
Once, I received a message on a web portal. It was from a guy, named Fernando... He said he saw some comments and postings I have published on the Internet, and that he was very happy with what he read. He was gay, and lived with his partner in São Paulo. Since his childhood, he struggled with his sexuality, in a very conservative church, and was submitted to all sorts of “treatments”. Then, he finally gave up and decided not to believe in the cruel god he met there. I remember his last phrase: “Can I attend an Anglican Church? I'm not effeminate, and I will not comment I have a partner. Can I just go there and sit? Please, pray for me. I want to get closer to God.” And then I thought: our church has produced so much good theological material de-mystifying homosexuality. He would be welcomed in so many parishes. Why is this happening? But before I could reply to him, he deleted his scrap.
How many Fernandos do we still have? Longing for a safe place where they can be themselves?
Years ago, I was part of a church located in a medium-class neighborhood. There was a beggar who always went there, but was banned, because she was stinking. Then, she would sit in front of the church, and try to listen to the service. Minutes before its ending, she would leave, take her packages and go back to the place she normally used to spend the day, two blocks far from that church. Comments from parishioners were far from candid: “she could have found a job”, “she could have taken a shower before going to church”, “why doesn't she find a place to live, instead of polluting the streets”. Some parishioners, however, insisted on giving her food and clothes, which she accepted gladly. The pressure from other members to isolate her from parish life, however, was stronger. Eventually, she disappeared. I have no idea where she is now, but I hope God found a better place for her to worship.
How many miserable people are still excluded from our parish life? Why are our churches so empty of poor people?
Why is the Church, still, trying to say who is “in” and who is “out”?
Our Lord Jesus Christ suggested us to invite those who were considered the outcasts of society. He was aware that our tendency was to invite the rich and famous, so, we would have access to their chic world. He knew our tendency was to try to occupy the most important places in parties, so we would look good and be as famous as the host. However, that is not what is expected from a Christian.
The lesson from Hebrews resumes what us Christians are expected to do: we have to be hospitable, and seek fraternal love. Fraternal love means a compassionate heart to listen to the pleas of the oppressed, whomever they are! In doing so, we will achieve happiness. Many of them will become like angels in our lives (and some of them, I believe, are angels, in fact). In being humble, caring and self-giving, one day, we will be exalted by God, because we have a God who does not discriminate anyone. More than that, our God overturns the arrogants and establishes the lowly in their stead.
Yesterday, I watched a short video on Anglicanism. It was showing some characteristics of our church, and it almost brought me to tears of joy, for being part of a church who has been a prophetic voice for inclusiveness in the last years, taking a firm stand against war, misery, oppression and prejudice. The video had a motto: “The Anglican Church waits for you, with open minds, open hearts, open doors...”
My brethren, we have to invite, bring and receive everybody with open minds, open hearts and open doors. We cannot keep this secret with us. We ought to dance with God, and invite as many people as we can to join the crowd. In this dance, we all are equal and we all become one with God. And this dancing-God will teach us how to dance better this dance of holiness. We will grow together. But for others to join, we have to be Christ's promoters. Not the ones who say who is out, but the ones for whom everybody is in. Our church is too good not to share.
Our ultimate goal is to invite all to take part of this godly party, and develop a relationship with God through the divine dance, with
open minds, open hearts and open doors... Always! Amen.
Sermon preached at Good Jesus, a parish of the Anglican Diocese of Rio de Janeiro, in 09/02/2007.
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