"But in fact..."

Today I am at St. Mark's in Leominster. The readings for today can be found here.

My name is Rich Simpson and I serve on Bishop Fisher’s staff as his Canon to the Ordinary. For those who did not study Latin (and that includes me) the Ordinary is a just a fancy name for the Bishop, who (among other things) ordains. So I bring along with me today the greetings and good wishes of our ordinary, our bishop,  Doug. He and I are both grateful for all of you, including and especially your interim, Fr. Will, and your vestry and officers, especially your senior warden, James. And the members of your Search Committee, led by Terry. I know that group has been on pause, but we are ready to get going again, and I remain hopeful about your future. (Always with God’s help!)

Although I’ve gotten to know those leaders pretty well over these past eight and a half years that I’ve served in this position, especially since Fr. Jim’s retirement, this is only my third time among you on a Sunday morning. I was here on February 2, 2014, and then I was here again after Jim left, on October 20, 2019. The world has changed a great deal since then, and so I’m grateful to be back with you this morning and grateful to re-open the search for your next rector.

Today is the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany. Over these weeks we have had an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the Incarnation and of our shared vocation to be the Church – to be light of the world, and salt of the earth. The magi reminded us on January 6 that the Christian life is a journey toward Christ and that once we behold him we are changed for good. We get there by hints and guesses and we bring our gifts, and also there is no going back to the old dispensation; we must find another way home.

And then on the first Sunday after the Epiphany we found ourselves again at the Jordan River, where Jesus is claimed as God’s beloved. So, my friends, are we, in Holy Baptism. I’ve renewed my own vows more than once in those same muddy waters of the Jordan, as has Fr. Will and perhaps others here as well. It’s a moving experience. But you don’t have to go to the Jordan to remember that we have been claimed and marked and sealed as Christ’s own, forever. You can remember every day when you wake up and every night when you rest your head on your pillow that you are God’s beloved and everything we say after that about God, about our neighbor, and about ourselves is rooted in that claim on us. As our Presiding Bishop likes to say, “if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

And then Jesus shows up at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee where the party is so good they run out of wine. Remember? Perhaps you know that Bishop Fisher’s favorite Biblical story is the feeding of the 5000. Bread and fish for everyone, with leftovers. It’s a good story. But for my money, the miracle of all that water into wine is even better and at least a companion to the bread and fish story. What is more glorious than a table with fresh fish, fresh-baked bread, and plenty of wine? Cana of Galilee becomes shorthand language that reminds us to look for signs of abundance in our lives, to look for miracles at weddings and funerals and all of the moments in between. And, I think also to remember that the best is yet to come. Who serves the best wine last? Well, God does!

I could belabor this but then I’d never get to my text for the day. So I’ll just mention the overflowing nets full of fish we heard about last week and the beatitudes today from Luke’s Gospel. Jesus’ words turn our worlds upside down – in the first century and in the twenty-first century. It is the opposite of a prosperity gospel. It insists we stand with the poor, and those who are hungry, and those who weep. Next week will be a continuation of the Sermon on the Plain, and then we’ll get to the Mount of the Transfiguration where we will behold his glory. And then it will be Lent...

Almost unnoticed over this same time period, however, have been our epistle readings. Since January 16 and continuing through to next Sunday we get six weeks of readings from just three chapters of Paul’s first letter to the early Christian community in Corinth.

Do you remember their story? They were a mess! Even in the snippets we’ve heard over the past month you can piece that together. You don’t need to be a Biblical scholar; just a close reader. Paul is trying to remind them of who they are. He is trying to remind them that they are God’s beloved. He is trying to remind them that they need each other. You don’t need to do that when everything is going well. They were fractured and divided and hurt and maybe even polarized as we find our own world to be these days. And so he tells them:

… there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 

He is reminding them they are on the same team. That they need each other. And then he tells them:

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

And then those words addressed first, not to a couple of their wedding day but to a congregation where people have run roughshod over one another:  

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth…. (you remember how it goes, I’m sure) And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

But there’s more. Last week we got to chapter fifteen and we heard these words:

I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain.

The hints were already there, but that pivot makes it abundantly clear. All that talk about many gifts and one Body and all that talk about love is addressed to people who are in danger of forgetting. People who think there are some “real” Christians in their midst and some posers. People who are tempted to believe that they are the most gifted and that others are not gifted enough. People who have been acting as if others don’t matter. It is in places where arrogance and boasting and rude comments and irritability and resentments take hold that you have to remind folks not to rejoice in wrongdoing, but to rejoice in the truth. Right? By chapter 15, it’s even clearer. “I would remind you,” St. Paul says. (My siblings in Christ!) I remind you of the good news I proclaimed and you received! So live like you believe it!

Which brings us to today. I know it’s taken me a while to get here but I can move quickly from here, I promise. Imagine that first-century community gathered in someone’s home, in a time before church buildings, receiving this letter from Paul, much respected but also complicated and opinionated. A good pastor willing to step into conflict when necessary.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ--whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

And I can break it down from there into just a five-word sermon. Ready? Now if…but in fact.

Now if Easter didn’t happen, now if Christ wasn’t raised, now if the tomb wasn’t empty, now if Jesus is not alive, then we are of all people most to be pitied. If the resurrection isn’t real, then we may as well pack it in. We can let polarization and fear and arrogance and domination and bullying and win. We have no hope of a better life or a better world. Now if we are just here going through the motions, trying to keep a building open, trying to hold onto the past, it’s not worth it.

But in fact, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. But in fact we are an Easter people. But in fact, even at the grave we dare to make our song. But in fact in these weeks between Epiphany and Transfiguration we find signs of God made manifest all around us, signs of new life, signs of new beginnings. 

But in fact, we see signs of Easter life signs of faith, hope and love across this diocese. And they give us the strength to carry on and to not lose heart. But in fact we carry in our bodies already signs of the resurrection, and in this Body of Christ here and in the work we are called to as servants of the risen Christ to bring hope and reconciliation to the neighborhood. But in fact we do not lose heart. 

But in fact, Christ is risen/the Lord is risen indeed.  

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.