This sermon was preached on Sunday, July 22, 2018 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Mount Lebanon, PA. The readings for this sermon were: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Psalm 89:20-37, Ephesians 2:11-22, and Mark 6:30-34, 53-56.
My first night in my new apartment in Jordan, my roommate and I arrived late in the evening. As we were cramming all our luggage into the elevator, we encountered our elderly downstairs neighbor. Without hesitation, he invited these two strange American women into his apartment for dinner. We politely declined in the Jordanian way, three repeated “Thank you”s with increasing insistence. We didn’t want to inconvenience or impose. Granted, we had no food in our brand-new apartment most of the stores and restaurants were already closed at this point in the night, but we still declined and went upstairs with our stuff. After settling in, we spotted that a light was on in the store across the street and ran over, only to discover that the shop was actually one of the rare liquor stores in Amman. All they sold to eat were these bags of knock-off cheetos. So we returned to the elevator, exhausted, disappointed, and starving, only to run into the same neighbor again. My roommate and I looked at each other, and then we looked at him and we said sheepishly, “You know what, actually…” Again without any hesitation, our neighbor invited us into his apartment and he and his wife emptied their refrigerator onto the small plastic table in their cramped kitchen. Spread before us was a traditional Jordanian feast-- pita bread and pickles and hummus and homemade cheese they made in the basement of our building. Welcome to Jordan, indeed!
As we got to know our neighbors over the course of the next year, we learned that Abu and Umm Hassam were both Palestinian. We heard about their childhoods spent in exile, moving from country to country, relying on the hospitality of host nations and neighbors and distant relatives alike, unable to return home. They remembered what it is to be foreign and far off, and what a difference it can make to be brought near. Their hospitality and compassion was grounded in their own story.
Remember that at one time you were without Christ, being aliens in the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, writes the author of Ephesians. And in those words, this letter echoes the ancient theme woven throughout Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Love the foreigner as yourself, the Lord commands the people of God again and again. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you. For you were once aliens in the land of Egypt. Remember you, too, were strangers in a strange land. Remember how it felt to not belong, to be separate and cut off.
I love to ask parishioners in any congregation I attend was their first Sunday at their church was like, what they remember about it. I’ve heard stories about folks who showed them how the bulletin worked, grandparents who smiled reassuringly at stressed-out parents with loud, restless children, the usher who simply laid a comforting hand on a shoulder well after the sanctuary had emptied out. I love asking about those memories because I’ve found again and again that they deeply inform how those parishioners, in turn, offer hospitality to the next batch of folks to walk through these doors. Compassion grounded in memory.
My own first Sunday here at St. Paul’s was just nine weeks ago, and here, today is my last with you all. I have felt so welcomed here from the very beginning. You invited me to lunch, you genuinely wanted to know my story, you listened to my thoughts and ideas, you patiently answered my questions. You fed me with doughnuts and coffee and pulled pork, and you fed my faith with your precious, sacred stories. Over these last two months, you have embodied the spirit of Ephesians, treating me as though I belonged already to this church, the one household of God. Not just me though--I’ve heard your stories about how this parish has done the same for so many of you. Memories of how the priests, or the choir, or the altar guild, or the nursery school parents were there for you, bringing you near when you felt far off, outside the love of God.
Our Gospel story today starts with Jesus and the apostles wishing they were a bit farther off from everyone else. Jesus and the disciples are exhausted, and they’re hungry, and they’re ready to step away. But just when they finally try to go to a deserted place, the author of Mark writes: as Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. And then, in the abbreviated version we heard, the story stops there and picks up again twenty verses later with Jesus going somewhere else and healing. Turns out this Sunday lectionary skips over a really important bit. That part about Jesus and the disciples feeding a crowd of more than five thousand with just five loaves and two fish.
My first night in my new apartment in Jordan, my roommate and I arrived late in the evening. As we were cramming all our luggage into the elevator, we encountered our elderly downstairs neighbor. Without hesitation, he invited these two strange American women into his apartment for dinner. We politely declined in the Jordanian way, three repeated “Thank you”s with increasing insistence. We didn’t want to inconvenience or impose. Granted, we had no food in our brand-new apartment most of the stores and restaurants were already closed at this point in the night, but we still declined and went upstairs with our stuff. After settling in, we spotted that a light was on in the store across the street and ran over, only to discover that the shop was actually one of the rare liquor stores in Amman. All they sold to eat were these bags of knock-off cheetos. So we returned to the elevator, exhausted, disappointed, and starving, only to run into the same neighbor again. My roommate and I looked at each other, and then we looked at him and we said sheepishly, “You know what, actually…” Again without any hesitation, our neighbor invited us into his apartment and he and his wife emptied their refrigerator onto the small plastic table in their cramped kitchen. Spread before us was a traditional Jordanian feast-- pita bread and pickles and hummus and homemade cheese they made in the basement of our building. Welcome to Jordan, indeed!
As we got to know our neighbors over the course of the next year, we learned that Abu and Umm Hassam were both Palestinian. We heard about their childhoods spent in exile, moving from country to country, relying on the hospitality of host nations and neighbors and distant relatives alike, unable to return home. They remembered what it is to be foreign and far off, and what a difference it can make to be brought near. Their hospitality and compassion was grounded in their own story.
Remember that at one time you were without Christ, being aliens in the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, writes the author of Ephesians. And in those words, this letter echoes the ancient theme woven throughout Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Love the foreigner as yourself, the Lord commands the people of God again and again. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you. For you were once aliens in the land of Egypt. Remember you, too, were strangers in a strange land. Remember how it felt to not belong, to be separate and cut off.
I love to ask parishioners in any congregation I attend was their first Sunday at their church was like, what they remember about it. I’ve heard stories about folks who showed them how the bulletin worked, grandparents who smiled reassuringly at stressed-out parents with loud, restless children, the usher who simply laid a comforting hand on a shoulder well after the sanctuary had emptied out. I love asking about those memories because I’ve found again and again that they deeply inform how those parishioners, in turn, offer hospitality to the next batch of folks to walk through these doors. Compassion grounded in memory.
My own first Sunday here at St. Paul’s was just nine weeks ago, and here, today is my last with you all. I have felt so welcomed here from the very beginning. You invited me to lunch, you genuinely wanted to know my story, you listened to my thoughts and ideas, you patiently answered my questions. You fed me with doughnuts and coffee and pulled pork, and you fed my faith with your precious, sacred stories. Over these last two months, you have embodied the spirit of Ephesians, treating me as though I belonged already to this church, the one household of God. Not just me though--I’ve heard your stories about how this parish has done the same for so many of you. Memories of how the priests, or the choir, or the altar guild, or the nursery school parents were there for you, bringing you near when you felt far off, outside the love of God.
Our Gospel story today starts with Jesus and the apostles wishing they were a bit farther off from everyone else. Jesus and the disciples are exhausted, and they’re hungry, and they’re ready to step away. But just when they finally try to go to a deserted place, the author of Mark writes: as Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. And then, in the abbreviated version we heard, the story stops there and picks up again twenty verses later with Jesus going somewhere else and healing. Turns out this Sunday lectionary skips over a really important bit. That part about Jesus and the disciples feeding a crowd of more than five thousand with just five loaves and two fish.
If you’re not familiar with that story, you’ll heard it next week. But we do miss two important things by not telling it now. First, that Jesus being a shepherd to people means more than just teaching them. It means teaching them and providing for their bodily needs.
Secondly, we miss that Jesus’ compassion for the hungry and tired crowd is grounded in his own real hunger and exhaustion we just heard about. He looked at the crowd and he saw their lostness, and he saw their hunger and exhaustion. Saw and knew. See God, our God, took on the human experiences of pain and thirst, of love and loss. Our compassionate God became human, weak and fleshy. In Jesus, God suffered with, and ultimately suffered for. We gather here today at this table to remember that, and to ground our lives in that memory.
Our faith is, at its core, the carrying forward of generations of ancient memories. We remember how God acted to save God’s people from slavery and exile. We remember, here at this table, how Jesus brought us into God’s covenant and made us members of God’s household. We remember the divine compassion we know through Jesus.
And it is through those memories and our own that we, too, can be that divine compassion for others. We can be that the middle-school teacher who remembers how rough teenage years can be. The older folks who pay the check of the young, rambunctious family at the table next to theirs because they, too, remember dealing with toddlers. The established community who decides to open their homes to refugees and advocate for the rights of immigrants, because they, too, remember when their own grandparents were turned away because of their strange accents and foreign clothes. Compassion grounded in memory.
My last night in Jordan, I told Abu Hassam and his wife that I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for all they had done for me throughout my whole year. They replied they had only one request for me in return. Tell Americans that the Palestinian people are good people, Abu Hassam told me. Tell them that Muslims and Christians are as one, brothers and sisters in the faith.
Carrying forward their spirit, of course, it’s more than just telling. It’s feeding and welcoming, it’s keeping my eyes open for other hungry and exhausted travellers in my elevator. Carrying forward you all, the lessons I learned here at St. Paul’s about compassion, hospitality, and care, it means incorporating all of that into the Christian I’m becoming.
Every Sunday, from our first to our last, I pray that we might come to this table, asking ourselves: How do we carry forward the nourishing memory of the divine compassion we know at this table into our lives and into the world?
Secondly, we miss that Jesus’ compassion for the hungry and tired crowd is grounded in his own real hunger and exhaustion we just heard about. He looked at the crowd and he saw their lostness, and he saw their hunger and exhaustion. Saw and knew. See God, our God, took on the human experiences of pain and thirst, of love and loss. Our compassionate God became human, weak and fleshy. In Jesus, God suffered with, and ultimately suffered for. We gather here today at this table to remember that, and to ground our lives in that memory.
Our faith is, at its core, the carrying forward of generations of ancient memories. We remember how God acted to save God’s people from slavery and exile. We remember, here at this table, how Jesus brought us into God’s covenant and made us members of God’s household. We remember the divine compassion we know through Jesus.
And it is through those memories and our own that we, too, can be that divine compassion for others. We can be that the middle-school teacher who remembers how rough teenage years can be. The older folks who pay the check of the young, rambunctious family at the table next to theirs because they, too, remember dealing with toddlers. The established community who decides to open their homes to refugees and advocate for the rights of immigrants, because they, too, remember when their own grandparents were turned away because of their strange accents and foreign clothes. Compassion grounded in memory.
My last night in Jordan, I told Abu Hassam and his wife that I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for all they had done for me throughout my whole year. They replied they had only one request for me in return. Tell Americans that the Palestinian people are good people, Abu Hassam told me. Tell them that Muslims and Christians are as one, brothers and sisters in the faith.
Carrying forward their spirit, of course, it’s more than just telling. It’s feeding and welcoming, it’s keeping my eyes open for other hungry and exhausted travellers in my elevator. Carrying forward you all, the lessons I learned here at St. Paul’s about compassion, hospitality, and care, it means incorporating all of that into the Christian I’m becoming.
Every Sunday, from our first to our last, I pray that we might come to this table, asking ourselves: How do we carry forward the nourishing memory of the divine compassion we know at this table into our lives and into the world?
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| Abu and Umm Hassam, Amman, Jordan, April 2014 |
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