June 19, 2005 - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - Father Barry Woods

FIRST READING: Jeremiah 20: 7-13
PSALM: 69: 8-13; 18-20
SECOND READING: Romans 6: 1b-11
GOSPEL: Matthew 10: 24-39

I always have to take the Rector to task, a little bit, because of the schedule for preaching and helping out here. Two things are wrong about me being here to preach this morning. Number one, this is the weekend of the United States Open, and, yesterday, having to tear myself away from the television to prepare a sermon was not an easy task for me to do. So, first of all, I take him to task for that. And the second thing is that, once again, he has stuck me with one of the most difficult Gospels in the entire New Testament to preach on! That is why I am the retired Associate, and he is the Rector!

This is a very, very difficult Gospel, isn't it? How many thought so? Yeah! It's a tough one. It's tough for a lot of reasons, but I chose three. First of all, the Gospel is all about people who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. So, a lot of the Gospel just doesn't compute for you and me, because, in this day and age, nobody cares enough about Christ to persecute us. So, the fact that it is about persecution doesn't compute.

The second thing is that it sets up what appears to be some very difficult requirements to be a part of Jesus' "club". If this is really a manual of membership requirements, then it's a tough set of requirements, isn't it? - because we have to put things like family and friends and loved ones second, below our loyalty to Him

And, finally, I think it's a difficult Gospel because it very clearly and very unambiguously states that Jesus values the truth of the Good News of God more than He values relationships, and that's a tough one for modern Christians. Our teeth have been cut on, and we have been raised to believe that relationships are the most important things in the world, and, all of a sudden, we are faced with a Gospel that says no - that even those relationships must be placed in second place to our loyalty to Christ and to the Gospel.

So this is a tough Gospel. But there is something else going on here. It doesn't really make the Gospel any easier to digest or to accept, but there is something else going on here. You see, Jesus knew that His followers were going to be persecuted. He knew that. He knew that there was a time coming in their lives when the Jewish people who did not accept the new religion would drive out the ones who did. He knew that those first early Jewish Christians would be ostracized and rejected. He knew that they would be driven from the synagogues. He knew that their families would no longer welcome them in their homes. He knew that they would lose their jobs. He knew that they would lose their place in the community. He knew all this was going to happen; and, so, He searches for words to encourage them, and He comes up, as Jesus so often does, with strange words to encourage those people about to be persecuted. He says to them, "Fear not; you are worth more than many sparrows".

In my senior year at the Seminary in Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D. C., I was invited to a cocktail party, and the people present at this cocktail party were sort of the middle level of Washington, D.C., society - not the upper crust, but sort of the middle level - and I found myself, in the midst of this cocktail party, being accosted and confronted by a guy whose name, thankfully, I have forgotten. He was a professor at Georgetown University, and he was taking me to task about being a Christian. It is as close to persecution as I have ever been. He was taking me to task for being a Christian because he said to me, "How can you be a part of a religion and worship a God who is obsessed with making you feel small?" That was his view of Christianity - that, because we deal quite honestly and openly in confession with our sins and our failures, he thought that was all there was to it, and he said, "How can you be a part of a religion and worship a God who is obsessed with making you feel small?" Well, I wasn't going to convince him, and he wasn't going to convince me; so I thought I would kind of one-up him, O.K.? And so I ended the conversation with these words, "I am not small. I am worth more than many sparrows".

It is not God who makes us feel small. It is life that makes us feel small.

Guilt makes us feel small, because you and I feel small when we fail, don't we? When we fail, we feel small. And God looks at our guilt and our failure and our smallness, and He says, "Remember. . . .Remember, I allowed My only Son to be nailed to a cross for your failures. Remember, I allowed Him to be crucified so that you can put your failures behind you. Remember, I allowed Him to die a bloody death so that you can no longer feel small".

And anger makes us feel small, because we feel small when, in anger, we try to make someone else feel small; and, when that happens, God looks at our anger and the smallness that results from it, and He says, "Remember. . . Remember the love I showed to My disciples. Remember the love I showed to all the people. Remember the love I showed even to those who killed Me. Remember that love, and remember that the only way to be truly big is to make those around you big".

And fear makes us feel small, doesn't it? - small because we feel small when the future looms before us as something dark and something threatening. Maybe it's because of external circumstances, but maybe it's because of deeply internal things, and we get afraid of the future, and it makes us feel small - things like sickness, things like the loss of someone we love. All of those things make us fear the future, and that fear makes us feel small. And God looks at that fear and that smallness, and He says, "Remember. . . Remember My promise. . . Remember My promise that I will come again; and I will make all things new; and I will make all things good. Remember that your future is in My hands, no matter how dark it may appear. Remember that I have promised to be with you even unto the ends of the earth, and that promise means you no longer need to feel small because of fear".

So, this morning, if you are feeling small, remember that God wants us to feel big, but He wants us to feel big and to find our big-ness in His Big-Ness. He wants us to be so close to Him that we share in the Divine Big-ness.

In a few minutes, we will all gather at the altar rail again, as we always do on Sundays. We will all come here. This morning, if you are feeling small, bring your small-ness to the altar. Whether your small-ness comes from failure or guilt or anger or fear, whatever it is, bring it with you this morning, all of your small-ness, and lay it here at this altar rail, and let our small-ness be caught up in His Big-Ness. Because, in the mystery of this Holy Sacrament, that's what happens - we get caught up into the Divine Big-Ness.

And, no matter what . . . . . .

No matter what . . . . . .

Remember that you are worth more than many sparrows.

AMEN