Homily for Pentecost 4, 1st July 2007
The Very Rev’d Michael J. Pitts
Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Let’s begin with the Elijah and Elisha story. It is a well known and well loved story and I am sorry if I spoil it a bit for you by suggesting that the Elijah and Elisha cycles in the Books of Kings are probably just two variants of one tradition. When the editors put both stories together they wrote the passage of today’s reading to make a link. But, as I have said many times, in the Bible we are dealing with stories, and stories have their own beauty and power, whether or not they refer to actual people or historical situations. I want to keep two details in mind from this story. One is its geographical location. Both story cycles are set in the Northern Kingdom, with its capital in Samaria. The second point is that Elijah is taken to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Let us move from Elijah and Elisha, more generally to consider briefly what we mean by Samaria, since that is the focus of the Gospel reading. Solomon, David’s son, had continued David’s work of unifying the disparate Hebrew tribes into a single state. But when, after his death, Rehoboam came to the throne, the fragile unity did not last long. There was a revolt and a civil war resulting in the existence of two, usually thereafter, mutually aggressive kingdoms, the Northern and the Southern, sometimes referred to as Israel and Judah. Several hundred years later (and it is during the earlier part of this period that the Elijah/Elisha cycle is set), first the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria, and, somewhat later, the Southern Kingdom to Babylon. After separate periods in exile, the two peoples came back, but from then on, mutual aggression turned into mutual hatred. By the time of Jesus, both kingdoms had become little more than two city states within the Roman Empire, Jerusalem and Samaria. John the Evangelist puts the relationship between the states quite succinctly, but diplomatically:
Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.[i]
So, it should not surprise us that the Samaritans were not prepared to offer hospitality to Jesus, even though hospitality to the traveler was a sacred duty. And it is probably not surprising that the disciples wanted to retaliate by calling fire from heaven. Note two things: this was not the transformative fire that took Elijah to a heavenly existence. This was to be the destructive fire of vengeance. But then, note that Jesus did not allow it to happen. Does this say anything to us about the aftermath of 9/11?
I want to move now to saying a few words about the General Synod of our Anglican Church in Canada which took place over the past two weeks. Joyce Sanchez will follow me to give a first hand account. The first of my words is that I feel heartbroken for the Gay and Lesbian members of our church and society, who had hoped so much that that the church might make one small step to their full acceptance by allowing priests to pronounce God’s blessing on them and their partnerships, thus calling attention to the importance of committed, covenanted relations. But it was not to be. The laity voted in favor, the clergy voted in favor, but a small majority of the Bishops denied it. In doing so, I believe they denied the Gospel.
Today’s story of Jesus in Samaria is one among many in the Gospels, in which Jesus speaks, or enacts, the good news of the possibility of an open, non differentiating, welcoming society in which all can find a home. How can our church deny that Gospel to one tenth or more of God’s children?
But I think we should be unwise if we restricted our concern only to the matter of the blessing of same sex unions and homosexuality in general, for they are part of a much wider problem. They are what system therapists would refer to as symptomatic issues, the current face of a much deeper underlying problem. That problem has to do with a society driven by fear, and within it, a church rendered paralyzed and dysfunctional by fear. I heard that fear loudly and clearly as I listened to what I could of the synod debates on the webcast. Some of those taking a position against the blessing of same sex unions spoke of the fear of losing the small remnant that is left of the Canadian Anglican Church. People, they said, would leave in droves. Others feared the break up of the world wide Anglican Communion, as though that actually meant anything real. Behind, again, these fears expressed at Winnipeg, I believe there are even deeper fears, above all the fear of modern society with its knowledge and science. I tend to look with awe and wonder at the discoveries (in so far as I can understand them) of physics, astronomy and geology, of evolutionary biology and genetics. But for so many they are the objects of the fear of no longer knowing who we are and what is our place in the world. One of the deepest fears of all is the fear of freedom, the freedom to love and rejoice in the world, both its beauties and its dangers. So many are afraid of the freedom to define our being and our place in the world for ourselves, rather that having it defined for us by others.
Paul is speaking of this freedom in the passage we read from the letters this morning.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters[ii]
For Paul this freedom was freedom from the oppression of a society which defined people as pure or impure, by a set of minute rules regulating conduct in every area of life. Of course this freedom was frightening and dangerous, and Paul went on to circumscribe it somewhat. But he did not deny the gift of freedom. He saw that we have been set free in Christ to work for a future humanity in which all could be united. At best (and he is not always at his best) Paul’s rules were not rules that defined whether we were inside or outside the community of God’s love. They were the rules which regulated the conduct of a community of acceptance and love.
So I believe in Christ we are free. We are free to embrace and rejoice in the all the knowledge of our world we can get our minds around. As we grow deeper in faith we can be free of the fear of others and the prejudice which keeps us apart from them. We can be free of the need always to assert ourselves and our own position, (while guarding to the death our possessions). We can be free of the greed and need for vengeance, which cause such problems for the peace of others and for the integrity of the ecosphere. We can be free to join hands with people of other faiths and commitments, to work hard together for the future of humanity and of the biosphere.
I cannot be too concerned that people might leave the church in droves if we pronounced God’s blessing on some marginalized couples who need so much our compassion. But I do have three concerns. I am concerned that there are many present members of our church who might leave because of the decision made by our Synod, feeling that there is no place for them in this church. I am even more concerned that thousands will continue estranged from and remain totally indifferent to a church which has no message, no courage and no vision of a new way of being human in a violent, unjust and self-destructive world. I am concerned that the western military-industrial complex is using its wealth to co-opt naïve or cynical church leaders to support its program of right wing world domination.
If freedom means freedom to be part of that domination system, then count me out. But if freedom means freedom to be ever more fully human in a more human society, living in harmony with its environment, then that I believe is the freedom of the Gospel, and to that I am prepared to commit my life.
