21 A Matthew 21:28-32, Hypocrisy and Good Intentions, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, September 27, 2020 10:30 am

Matthew 21:28-32

Yes and No brothers

21A Sept 27, 2020 St. Mark’s

This is the last week of Jesus’ life. He has either completely ignored his public relations staff, or more likely they have abandoned hope that he might be the least bit politically correct. According to Matthew, the week begins with Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a stolen donkey. Next he chases the merchants out of the temple. The following morning, he curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit. Today he returns to the scene of the crime, the same temple, to teach, and soon is cornered by the religious leaders who are livid. “Who does this nobody from the country think he is? Where do you get your authority?”

We should know by now how Jesus will answer. It is with a question and a story. He does not address the question of authority but instead looks into the hearts of the priests and elders to consider why they ask that question. Jesus knows that truth is not something people are told, but something they need to discover for themselves. So, he tells this story, hoping to bring them and us to a moment of clarity, a moment of awareness of the difference between what we think and believe/ and our actions.

Barbara Brown Taylor calls this the story of the Yes and No brothers. A father asks two sons to work in his vineyard. The first says, “No, this is not for me,” but later changes his mind and goes. The second one says, “Yes,” but never goes. “Which brother,” Jesus asks, “does the will of his father?” It is an easy answer. The first brother who actually goes. It is not what we say that matters, but what we finally do.

But the story is not what gets Jesus killed that week. The chief priests and elders become enraged when they hear this second part,/ when Jesus tells them which brothers they are. They are the Yes men who say all the right things, believe all the right things, stand for all the right things but never do the right things God asks them to do. They talk the talk,/ but do not walk the walk. They may think they were doing the right things, but they are so attached to their own ideas that it is hard to accept any change in how they live. Jesus tells them that people they despise are going into the kingdom ahead of them, not instead of them, but ahead of them.

Jesus is talking about hypocrisy, the major charge against religious people, that we say one thing and do another, loving each other on Sunday and ignoring each other on Monday because we are too busy living our own overwhelming life. This is usually not a conscious act. I do not know exactly how it starts. It is the human condition. We call it “good intentions.” Maybe we have such good imaginations that we believe we have done things we have only thought about doing. Consider everyday life, especially in this difficult time. Have you ever thought about calling or taking food to a neighbor, then decided on a card instead. Even that is still a gracious gesture, and you congratulate yourself on your thoughtfulness? I often even have a hard time later remembering whether I really sent the card./

In the past I looked out of my office window at home into the house of an elderly widower living alone. For years, I thought of all the kind things I would like to do for him, take him to lunch, get groceries for him, call him each day. Instead, I just rolled the ideas around in my head. I ended up only visiting him once when he went to the hospital before he died and then saying prayers the day of his death. Still, my husband and I will always treasure and will never forget even these two simple encounters with him.

It is so easy to get thoughts mixed up with actions. Right now, I know each of us is aware of at least ten people in this congregation and our life who are lonely during this pandemic who would be energized by just a phone call or even a card. If you do this, I can promise/ it will also change you. This will become the most joyful part of your day.

We all long also to care for creation. I remember the year I decided to simplify my life. I have a whole bookcase full of books about making my life simpler, taking care of the environment, returning to Walden Pond. At the end of the year, I only made one change in my life. I stopped using paper towels… and that only lasted for a year. It is a peculiar thing, this vacuum between our thoughts and our actions. We say we are going to work in the vineyard, but instead of harvesting the grapes we spend our time rearranging the stones along the path. When we fail to remember our ministry to each other, when we say love/ and do indifference, or say right/ and do wrong, or say “I will go,” and go nowhere,/ our heart hardens. As we stop reaching out to see the Christ in each other, we have more difficulty feeling and knowing the Christ within ourselves. There is no creed or a mission statement in the world that is worth more than one visit or call or card to a friend, or one cup of water held out to someone in need.

This is also infectious. Several weeks ago, I had a call from an old friend I had not spent quality time with for several years. When I heard she was calling, I thought, she is going to ask me to do something. It turned out, the call was all personal. She wanted me to know how much she treasured our relationship. We shared stories about our children and our grandchildren and how they were helping us make it through this pandemic. Even more powerful, her call empowered me to do the same to old friends I had not been able to meet or talk with. Caring is an action verb that can be more infectious than this virus.

If you have read Isak Dinesen’s wonderful book, Out of Africa,1 or seen the movie, you remember the story of a young Kikuyu boy named Kitau who comes to Dinesen’s home in Nairobi one day, asking for work. He becomes one of her most trusted servants, but after three months he asks for a letter of recommendation to Sheik Ali bin Salim, a Muslim in Mombasa. Dinesen offers to raise Kitau’s pay considerably, but he is resolute about leaving.

He finally explains he is trying to decide whether to become a Christian or a Muslim. The purpose of his living with her has been to see the ways and habits of Christians up close. Now he will live for three months with Sheik Ali to see how Muslims treat each other and then decide. Stunned,/ Dinesen says, “Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came here.”

God does not tell us ahead of time, or more to the point, God keeps telling us all along.

Kierkegaard tells us Jesus wants followers, not admirers. Whether we say yes or no to him is apparently less important than what we do. The important thing is what our lives say, /and this is as easy to figure out as the story of the Yes and No brothers. Jesus asks us to look into the mirror. What is moving? Is it our mouths… or our hands and our feet?

Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Yes and No Brothers,” Home By Another Way, pp. 187-191.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

21 A Matthew 21:28-32, "Revelation," St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 27, 2020, 8 am

21 A Matthew 21:28-32 “Revelation”

Sept 27, 2020, St. Mark’s 8. Joanna Seibert

The religious leaders of Jerusalem have heard about Jesus and are seeing him for the first time. They immediately question his authority, especially in their Temple where they are the authority. Jesus is a country boy from the north with no advanced degrees or resume. Jesus has the nerve to tell them they are not practicing what they preach. Their mouths say “yes” to God’s law, but their actions say “no.” Jesus tells a story hoping they will realize what they are doing.

Perhaps if Jesus wanted to tell a story today about authority and our place in God’s kingdom, he might retell Flannery O’Conner’s last short story, “Revelation.”

The story opens in the waiting room of a doctor's office in the South, where a smug Ruby Turpin chats amicably and surveys and assesses others in the room. A gospel hymn plays on the radio, “When I looked up, and He looked down.” A homely girl, Mary Grace, whose face is blue with acne, sits nearby reading a thick blue book. She is home from Wellesley College.

Mrs. Turpin feels a tremendous self-satisfaction regarding her own position in the world and the waiting room. Her caste classification boils down to race and ownership of land. As she and husband Claud own a house and a little land to raise pigs on, she is obviously superior to people who own only a house. Since she is white, she is superior to any blacks, regardless of how much property they own. What she is really thinking is how could anybody be superior to Mrs. Turpin?

Inevitably Ruby Turpin joyfully speaks out, "When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, I just feel like shouting, 'Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is!' It could have been different!... Thank you, Jesus, thank you!"

Mary Grace no longer tolerates this self-congratulatory blather and hurls her book, Human Development, at Mrs. Turpin, hitting her over the left eye. Mary Grace then lurches across the waiting room and lunges for her throat. Mary Grace is subdued and falls into some kind of fit. Mrs. Turpin leans over Mary Grace and asks, "What have you got to say to me?" Mary Grace answers as she is transported from the waiting room to a psychiatric hospital, "Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog!"

Mrs. Turpin wonders if this may be some message from God. "How," she asks God, "am I both a hog and me? How am I being both saved and from hell?"/

In O'Connor's world-view, both are perfectly consistent. O'Connor believes Mrs. Turpin is indeed a hog, just like the ones she raises. Simultaneously, Mrs. Turpin is saved because all are entitled to God’s saving grace. That Mrs. Turpin is neat, clean, pleasant to the black workers, and volunteers time at her church is nice, but it is not what entitles her to God’s grace; God offers grace freely to all: prostitutes, tax collectors, poor and well-to-do blacks and whites. Note that the name of the harbinger of this message is Mary/ Grace.

At home on her farm, Mrs. Turpin questions God out loud. She sees a vision of the souls of the people from the waiting room walking up to Heaven. “There were entire companies of those who are dirt poor, clean for the first time, and bands of blacks in white robes, and battalions of people she considers freaks and the lowest dregs of society shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the rear of the procession are people like herself and Claud who have had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. They are marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they always have for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone sing on key. Yet she can see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues are being burned away.” And all the souls are shouting Hallelujah.

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you… the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

There is a difference between Mrs. Turpin and the chief priests. When Ruby Turpin has “the book thrown at her,” she stops to hear the message. The priests do not. They look to destroy the messenger whose words of change are too painful. /

During this pandemic we have experienced change after change after change in our lives. Each of us here has made a decision like Ruby Turpin to listen to the messenger and change to save our lives, wear masks, stay socially distant. It has not been easy. Sometimes we had to have the book of Human Development thrown at us! But we are here celebrating the life of the messenger who constantly sends other messengers, other authorities to save us. Let us celebrate today the life and death and resurrection of the messenger who promises resurrection, new life daily/ and in the life to come.

May we sit close to Mary Grace in the waiting rooms of our lives as she tells us about change, and ask her to tell us a little more about Human Development, because we are a people who so much want to keep singing Hallelujah,/ on/ or off-key.

Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation,” Flannery O’Connor The Complete Stories, pp. 448-509.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

18 A Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage, September 6, 2020, 10:30, Romans: 13:8-14, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock Arkansas

18A Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage September 6, 2020. Romans: 13:8-14.

“Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

On the second Saturday in August, people all over the country assemble in Hayneville, Lowndes Country, Alabama, to remember the martyrdom of an Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, brutally murdered on August 20, 1965, as he protected an African American teenage girl, Ruby Sales, from a shotgun blast aimed at her.1

The pilgrimage starts at the courthouse where a trial lasting less than an hour found the white man who murdered Daniels “not guilty.” It moves to the place where once stood a small country store where Jonathan was killed. The pilgrimage then moves back to the courthouse for Eucharist, where the bread and the wine are consecrated on an altar once used as the judge’s bench for that 1965 sham trial.

Bishop Kendrick of the Central Gulf Coast recalls last year that this march takes place on the same date as the disastrous march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, now three years ago. The similarities are too much to bear, reminding us to question the advancement in racial justice in our last three quarters of a century. Too often we fail to recognize who our neighbor is. We pray that the next generation can do better.

“Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

The twenty-six-year-old Daniels hears the call by Martin Luther King, Jr. for students to join him in the Selma to secure voting rights for African Americans. Simultaneously, Jon hears King’s words blending into the ancient melody of the Song of Mary, the Magnificat, as he sings at Evening Prayer: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat/ and exalted the humble and meek.”2 Jonathan is given leave from Episcopal Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to go to Alabama.

In Selma, he brings small groups of black high school students to services at St. Paul’s, the local Episcopal church. They are initially shut out but eventually seated while parishioners openly scowl at them./ Recently, Bishop Michael Curry preaches at that church when he visits Selma. His message is, “See, we can change.” (Henry Hudson presently serves at St. Paul’s.)

Jon returns to seminary in May to complete his examinations. In July he returns to Alabama, where he lives with a black family and works on resources for people of color.

On August 13, Jon and others travel to Fort Deposit to picket three whites-only local businesses. Just eight days earlier, Lyndon Johnson signed the historic Voting Rights Act. On that Southern-hot-Saturday, all twenty-nine protestors are arrested and taken in a garbage truck to the nearby jail in Hayneville, the county seat. They are held in cramped conditions in the crowded, unsanitary jail without air conditioning or showers, and little water for six days before receiving bail.

Daniels writes his last letter to his mother from the jail for her birthday. “Dearest Mum, An eminently peculiar birthday card…from the Lowndes county jail… The card I bought and the present will have to wait, but I sure will be thinking of you with love and prayers!” The hastily written note arrives on his mother’s 60th birthday, the day of his murder.

After their release Friday, August 20, Jon, a Catholic priest, and two black girls, seeking relief from the heat, go to purchase sodas at a Varner’s Cash Store, one of few local businesses serving non-whites. Tom Coleman, an unpaid special county deputy poised with a 12-gauge automatic pump shotgun, meets them at the door with the message to leave or be shot. The part-time deputy aims the gun at a seventeen-year-old Ruby Sales, a student at Tuskegee. Jon pushes her out of the way, takes the bullets, and dies instantly. Ruby Sales describes the horrific scene as seeing love and hate, the best and the worst of white America in a split second. Ruby is so damaged by the incident that she does not speak for six months.3,4 Coleman also shoots and seriously wounds Richard Morrisroe, the Catholic priest.

When Martin Luther King Jr. hears of Daniels’ murder, his response is: "one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels."

“Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

The all-white jury acquits Coleman after a trial of less than one hour. Only registered voters can be on a jury, which excludes most blacks.

The murder of Jon Daniels shocks the Episcopal Church into the realization of racial inequality and moves the church on an expanded path of working for civil rights.

Ruby3,4 goes on to attend the same seminary as Daniels and now heads the SpiritHouse Project in Atlanta, a program using art, spirituality, and education to bring about justice/ with redemption. Ruby believes that a four hundred-year-old “culture of whiteness” is destroying our nation. She reminds us it is not white people, but this canonized “culture of whiteness” that is our socialized problem from birth. But she preaches hope in believing that we are redeemed by telling our story to each other, finding out where that inner hurt comes from that makes us believe the color of our skin can be used as a hierarchical power over others, especially as the circle of whiteness narrows in our country. We are called not to look at the color of someone’s skin, but like artists, look for the life behind and within each other’s faces. Love becomes the frame we see people in.5 How do we do this? Sales 3,4 believe that we must share our collective and individual stories, through the arts, spiritual reflections, and literature/seeking justice/ in the spirit of redemption.

At Daniels’ alma mater, VMI,6 an archway in the barracks is dedicated to him, marked by a plaque with words from Daniels’ 1961 valedictorian address to other graduating cadets: “My colleagues and friends, I wish you the joy of a purposeful life. I wish you new worlds and the vision to see them. I wish you the decency and the nobility of which you are capable.” Every VMI entering class views the documentary Here Am I, Send Me: The Story of Jonathan Daniels.

“Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Bishop Curry7 recently describes Jon Daniels as, “an ordinary Episcopalian just like you and me, an ordinary Episcopalian just like you and me, and so many other ordinary Episcopalians we do not know about, who hear about the love of Jesus and are moved by the suffering of others not treated as neighbors. Ordinary Episcopalians who are led to pray on their knees and then pray with their feet.”

Our associate priest, Michael, reminds me that the School of Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee, loads all first-year students into a bus at seminary orientation to go to the Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage. He describes it as a moving experience, as many are visiting the site of a martyrdom for the first time.

Because of the pandemic this year, the march is live streamed from the Diocese of Alabama. I watched it last month, and the pilgrimage is just as powerful as Michael says. I share with you the most moving moment for me at the close of the pilgrimage.1

Participants hold up pictures of the martyrs of Alabama, men, women, children black and white killed because of our blind belief that people of color should be denied basic rights, only available to persons with white skin. A member of the congregation holds up a larger-than-life picture when each martyr’s name is called. That participant holding the picture then loudly responds, “PRESENT.” Would you join me in speaking again this response: PRESENT?

We see and hear called out the names of four young black girls killed instantly by a bomb shortly before church services in 1963 in Birmingham at the 16th Street Baptist Church: “Addie Mae Collins, 14, PRESENT; Denise McNair, 11, PRESENT; Carole Robertson, 14, PRESENT; Cynthia Wesley, 14, PRESENT; and finally, we see and hear Jonathan Myrick Daniels, 26, PRESENT.”

1Virtual Jon Daniels Program 2020, Diocese of Alabama.

2The Jon Daniels Story, William J. Schneider, ed. (The Seabury Press, 1967).

3Ruby Sales Ted Talk, “How We Can Start to Heal The Pain of Racial Division,” September 2018. https://www.ted.com/talks/ruby_sales_how_we_can_start_to_heal_the_pain_of_racial_division

4Way of Love podcast about Daniels and Sales Going where it Hurts with Bishop Curry https://wayoflove.episcopalchurch.org/episodes/season/3/episode/7

5Frederick Buechner in Beyond Words, originally in Whistling in the Dark.

6Virginia Military Institute Archives.

http://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/digital/collection/p15821coll11/id/1216

7Bishop Curry on Jonathan Daniels Sunday https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2020/08/17/episcopal-martyr-jonathan-myrick-daniels-honored-in-online-commemorations/

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Wearing God, 18A, Romans 13:14, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 8 am, Sunday September 6, 2020

Wearing God

“Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ..” Romans 13:14 NIV.

There are over one hundred biblical passages about clothing, and many like this one, refer to putting God on as if we were wearing God. In fact, I recommend Lauren Winner’s recent book called Wearing God. She reminds us that even as Adam and Eve were leaving paradise, God made clothing for them. (Genesis 3:8-15). God clothes us, asks us to cloth others, and when we do, tells us we are clothing God. (Matthew 25).

  What we wear communicates a great deal about who and what we are. We feel and often act differently depending on the clothes we wear. My experience is when I put on my clothes, I often remember a past experience when I last wore them, and I feel differently than before I put them on.  I have many clothes I should  give away, but cannot, because I look at them and remember a lasting experience I had wearing them. They are like a scrapbook of times when I was with others or alone and knew I was loved and cared for by the God of love.

Many people in Mourner’s Path, our grief recovery group, talk of wearing a piece of clothing of their loved one who has died, often a shirt. The smell, the feel, brings them closer to that person.

 I particularly remember wearing a black shawl one New Year’s Eve when I walked a labyrinth at Christ Church. Suddenly I felt the love of my deceased grandmothers wrapping around me and keeping me safe, loved, and warm like the shawl around my shoulders.

I also remember the first Sunday after my ordination. I stayed late at St. Margaret’s talking with friends and was late meeting my extended family, still celebrating at a Chinese restaurant for brunch. I was pushing my way through the crowded restaurant to meet my family, and I suddenly remembered, “I am now wearing a clerical collar. Perhaps, I should not push my way through restaurants anymore!” I slowed down.

Two more clothing verses.

“Put on the whole armor of God, so that you can stand against the devil’s schemes.” (Ephesians 6:11 NIV) I often keep this passage from Ephesians with me when I go into a difficult situation.

There is another passage from Colossians that explains even more the meaning of wearing the armor of God, and what we can take to those difficult situations. “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12). This is a quite different coat of armor Paul tells us to wear.

Here is a suggestion. For the next week, as we dress, buttoning our shirt, zipping up our dress, pulling up our socks, hose, and pants, putting on our shoes, consciously imagine we are putting on God, wearing Christ, especially compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience as Paul suggests.  Could that possibly make any difference in how we will feel about ourselves /or how we treat others just for that day?

Joanna.  joannaseibert

Paul's Letter to the Romans and St. Mark's, Little Rock, 11A, July 19, 2020, St. Mark's

Paul’s Letter to the Romans and to St. Mark’s

Romans 11A, July 19, 2020 St. Mark’s Joanna Seibert

A Letter from Paul to the Romans and St. Mark’s.

“I, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, to all God’s beloved in Rome and St. Mark’s, Little Rock who are all called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. Without ceasing, I remember you always in my prayers, asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (Romans 1:1-12)

I traveled over 10,000 miles, concentrating my ministry on the eastern side of the Mediterranean, from Jerusalem to present day Turkey, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Greece. Goodness knows, I should return there, but I leave that to you. I want to move westward, to Rome, Spain and now to Little Rock, Arkansas.

I had not visited the church in the capital city of Rome, just as I never visited St. Mark’s in the capital city of Arkansas, but I have definite plans for you both. You will hear my letter to the Romans twenty-five times in your Sunday lectionary this year and frequently in your Daily Lectionary at Morning Prayer. The deacon, Phoebe, carried my letter to Rome. I send this letter to St. Mark’s by your three priests, Danny, Michael, Patricia and your other deacon Susan. They have spent considerable time with me and can explain all passages you find difficult. Greet them warmly. They will from time to time read my letters on upcoming Sundays.

I have read much about your church. I am a church planter/ and am pleased to hear that your congregation began as a home church like the churches in Rome. I remember St. Mark’s birth almost seventy years ago in 1952 on Epiphany (January 6) in the home of Dr. Ralph and Louise Law on Kavanaugh.

There are more similarities between St. Mark’s and the church in Rome. Jewish Christians started the Roman church. In 49 CE Emperor Claudius deported the Roman Jews/ including my later companions and tent makers, Priscilla and Aquila, because of riots about Jesus. The Gentiles then became the predominate Christians in the Roman church. The Christian Jews returned to Rome when Nero came to power five years later/ and found their churches now led by Gentiles. Considerable conflict in beliefs developed between Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians.

St. Mark’s began with long time Episcopalians. Today I see St. Mark’s now composed of fewer cradle Episcopalians and more people from other faiths. I applaud you for not having conflicts with members from other religious backgrounds. I hope it stays that way.

I want to disabuse you of this idea that I do not support women. Priscilla led the church in Corinth and Eph/e/sus, just as St. Mark’s led other churches in this diocese to have female clergy when Peggy Bosmyer came as a deacon.

Most may not realize the impact of this letter in church history. A passage from Romans was instrumental in the conversion of Augustine ( 13:13-14.) The commentaries of Luther and Calvin on Romans shaped the Protestant Reformation. John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed” at a meeting on Aldersgate on hearing the Preface to Luther’s commentary on Romans. See, people still have difficulty understanding me and read and write COMMENTARIES./ Many say no other book in the Bible has been more influential than my letter to the Romans, but I will leave that conclusion to you. (Grieb, x)

Let me summarize my letters, my ministry, what I wish on my tombstone. I have spent my career working for church unity and raising funds for the poor. I applaud you for your ministry to St. Francis House, Hall High, your Food Pantry, ERD, and Mustard Seed Grants.

I especially write to you suffering in this pandemic and an awareness of racial injustice. I know this is unlike anything you have experienced. I, as well, have been a prisoner and under house arrest. Wait with patience. (8:25) The love of God will work for the good during this uncertain time just as God has done before. (8:26-28)

Today in your lectionary you hear a small section from my letter to Rome. My letter is difficult to understand without reading it all the way through like a real letter. It is a continuous story. (Grieb xxi) When you hear little snippets each Sunday, You miss my entire proclamation of the overwhelming love and Grace of God through Jesus Christ. God loves you so much that God sent Jesus to let you know God desperately wants a relationship with you in life and in death. (14:8)/ Take an afternoon. Read Romans at one sitting. Don’t miss chapter twelve, my love letter. (Garvey)

Today’s reading does include one of God’s major themes: Creation is good/ and is a reflection of the love of its Creator. (Garvey) “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains…; and not only.. creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly while we wait for adoption.” (8:22-23).

I write to introduce my theology to those who may not know me well. I did not start the church in Rome or your church. Consequently, I am often misunderstood. I want Rome and you to hear my exact words.

Some call me God’s defense attorney. Critics call me disloyal to Judaism. Karl Barth got it right in his commentary about Romans when he said, “Christians who try theology without Israel/ are sawing off the very branch on which they are sitting.” (Grieb xi)

I write to reassure Jewish Christians in Rome that God is still faithful to his covenant with them. But I am the apostle to the Gentiles, which includes all of you. …I write to Gentile Christians that you also are included in God’s covenant. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek!” (10:12)

I write to urge Christians in Rome to quit fighting over nonessential matters and live together as a UNITY with DIVERSITY. This is a crucial message to you and the church at large. You must welcome those with whom you disagree. This is not optional. ( 14:3, 15:7, 5:10)

I write to Roman house churches to begin building a base for operations in Spain. I write to you to become a base for ministries in Little Rock and Arkansas, especially to your neighbors, to minorities, and those in prison. I do see you spreading the good news with your livestreaming of services around the world.

I write to remind you that you and I are so alike. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want.”

( 7:19). We are in the same boat. Sin is real, but so is God’s radical Grace for all. (Garvey) Remember what Michael recently preached: “the love of Christ, through the Spirit has been poured into each of our hearts (5:5) and comes to us in our weakness/ and intercedes for us in our prayers” in this community.

Most importantly, I write to tell you of God’s righteousness made evident in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, which has changed everything forever. Nothing in all creation can separate you and me from that love of God in Christ Jesus. ( 8:39) Next week Danny may tell you more about this.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword?

No… neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you and me from the love of God in Christ Jesus...” ( 8:35-39)

Does that mean the same today as 2000 years ago? You can bet your life on it!! You claim it every time you gather to worship. It is the proclamation you wrap yourselves and your tiny infants around as you emerge from the baptismal waters, and it is the first thing proclaimed at your burial./ (McCreath 77)

By now you must be getting tired of hearing my story. I want to hear your story, your letter. It is time for you to share your stories of God’s presence in your life. I ask my scribe to put down his pen and ask you to pick up your pen and write your letter about the love of God in Christ Jesus and share it.

In the meantime, for the rest of this church season, make ready your guest room, for I, Paul, plan to spend a lot of time with you.

“To the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.” ( 16:27)

Katherine Grieb in The Story of Romans (Westminster, Louisville, 2002).

Amy McCreath in “Exchanging Abundance,” Preaching Through the Year of Matthew (Morehouse 2001) pp. 75-78.

Vicki Garvey in “Reading Paul’s Letter to The Romans,” Building Faith, Building Faith.org. December 21, 2018.