The Venerable Howard Stringfellow
February 19, 2006
Isaiah 43:18-25; Psalm 41; 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Saint Mark 2:1-12
In the Name of the True and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
If your comfort in seeing me here equals my joy in being here, all is well. Once again, I am delighted to be with you, and I give thanks for the opportunity. The parishioners and the staff of this Cathedral Church have meant and do mean a great deal to me. I am grateful to you.
“And the LORD said, ‘You may very well cut yourself off from me, but I shall never cut myself off from you.’” Forgive me for giving you my version of the Old Testament Lesson so succinctly: “You may very will cut yourself off from me, but I shall never cut myself off from you.”
Some families have members who are cut-offs: people who, when they don’t get their way, just cut off members of their family: the cold shoulder and worse: no more communication; no more exchange of anything, really; and no more relationship. And in the form of this Lesson, God intrudes upon my quiet to say that we may cut ourselves off from God, but God will not do that to us.
We should understand that God means this and means for us to go and do likewise: no cut-offs—no refusing of any opportunity to take part in reconciling the world to God. The four fellows do this in the Gospel. They bring their paralytic friend to Jesus, and, without knowing it, they are reconciling that friend to God. They literally bring him to Jesus, and Jesus forgives the man his sins, and Jesus heals him who walks home under his own power. And that paralytic, forgiven and restored to the fullness of health, is reconciled to God.
We are to go and to do likewise. We Christians have a mission to do our part in reconciling the world to God. This is God’s goal and purpose. It’s what we pray for when we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christ’s work of reconciliation is what all Jesus’ preaching, teaching, and healing are all about: to dramatize the nature of the kingdom of God, and to call people to the choice of joining. Through revelation, through prophecy, through the Scriptures, and especially through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have been given the vision of the kingdom of God, and our lives are to be spent fleshing that vision out so that it becomes reality.
“Thy kingdom come.” We have to be at least a little bit careful with what we pray for. What if we get it? What if that kingdom isn’t what we expect it to be? What if that woman who broke in line at the Dunkin’ Donuts is there? Or that man who told you your answer or your service or your idea wasn’t good enough—what if he is there? We may have to face the fact that Jesus died and rose again for them, too. And we’re called to bring those very irksome and very disagreeable people to him for forgiveness and restoration to the fullness of health.
As we bring people to Jesus we have to expect to become nearer to him ourselves. We have to expect that what we are and what we have may need some adjusting. We may need to be a little more like him than our appetites and sinful natures alone make us. We may need his grace to be his instruments, and we may need it, as I certainly do, in fairly large amounts if we are to bring people to him.
“Thy kingdom come.” I hope that this doesn’t sound new. At least since 1835 members of the Episcopal Church have considered themselves missionaries, for then we named our church the “Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.” And more recently, the General Convention in 1997 reaffirmed that each and every member of the Episcopal Church is a missionary.
We are here to do our part in reconciling the world to God. Whether we understand that imperative to be our free response to the Great Commission or to the Great Commandment, we are united in one call from God to do our part to reconcile the world to God.
The World Mission Committee and our Bishop have kept our mission steadily before our eyes. Opportunity after opportunity has been extended to us to do our part to reconcile the world to God. Those opportunities will not cease; they will continue for as long as our very human need for God makes itself known and for as long as God gives us strength. I don’t think we need to have any doubt about the gift of God’s strength: “You may very well cut yourself off from me, but I shall never cut myself off from you.” The strength we need will be given to us.
In Christ, we heard in the Epistle, the word is always Yes. All the promises of God find their Yes in Jesus Christ. The healing of the paralytic, a healing which includes the forgiveness of sins and the strength to walk, opens the kingdom to us, a kingdom where God reigns and where God’s justice and God’s mercy are the order of the day. That kingdom is our inheritance; but it is ours for a purpose: to be given away—to be given to those whom God calls to be his and to be his forever.
In Christ’s Name. Amen.
