Proper A18: I should not lose anything of what he gave me.... (Jn 6: 39b)

The gospel today can be very easily misunderstood and indeed has been by many in the Church. For those of us with experience in Risk Management, it might come across as an instruction for properly jettisoning recalcitrant members of the Church, being sure to cover (for lack of a better word) one's tracks, being sure to handle conflict, if at all possible privately, resorting to a cascade of subsequent strategies to that point that the impenitent are cast off and shunned, for the good of the community and the purity of the message.


It degenerates to this frame of mind, because the premise is forgotten -- If another member of the Church sins against YOU.... 


This is about interpersonal conflict, not about a perceived conflict between the conduct of a sinner and his or her standing within the Church. The reason Jesus first suggests a private encounter is not only for the matter of charity, but whether the one discerning fault is indeed clear about the problem, or whether he or she has just been ticked off with the other person, so that the real issue might have become blurred.


It's also interesting to note what the acceptable outcome is for Jesus -- not that the offender is rehabilitated. Jesus seems to be satisfied when two people are able to "listen" to each other. The progressive steps are not that the witnesses affirm the strength of an instigator's argument, but only that the prospective offender understands the concern of the person feeling aggrieved.


Jesus challenges those with broken communication, confirmed among the community of believers, the Church, to consider the other person as a Gentile or a tax collector. That seems rather cut and dry. That seems rather clear, until we factor in the great complaint about Jesus throughout his ministry -- that Jesus eats and drinks with sinners and tax collectors.


Consider, if you please, the somewhat cynical adage: Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer!


In the logic of the world, this of course means, "Don't let your enemies out of your sight, because of what they might inflict upon you, should they somehow surprise you."


In the logic of faith, I would suggest that keeping one's enemies closer keeps us and them from stewing in our own juices of rage.


In conflict, "out of sight" rarely means "out of mind." More often than not, when I shut someone out of my life, I give up on my talents and skills to cooperate -- to resolve conflict. And worse than that, I deprive the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work through either of us for a greater, more lasting and more significant good. 


Again, look at Jesus' choice of words. We have usually thought of the word, "bind" to mean "blame," particularly in the legal sense of being held or being bound over for prosecution. In point of fact, binding usually means drawing things or people closer together than pulling things or people apart.


This is what becomes particularly corrosive in the life of the Church. In the Roman Church, we used to speak about the authority or the obligation of the Church to Guard the Deposit of Faith. Now Protestants or Anglicans may not have the same language, but I think people on the extremes of controversies within the Church today presume this same obligation. Liberals and conservatives are hell-bent (and I mean that pun to its fullest irony) they are Hell-bent on preserving the Church from the errors of the other. The radicals and the reactionaries create an environment of acrimony far harder to deal with than any heresy they purport or reject. The scandal of the Church is not our permissiveness or our strictness. The scandal of the Church is our acrimony. In the current conflict in the Church regarding morality and sexuality, we are not moving forward on the issues because we are too busy name-calling, because we refuse to talk with one another.


Some within the Anglican Communion think that many of our problems among the various problems would be resolved by the creation of a Covenant, defining minimum standards for membership. 


We're already bound to a covenant. That covenant is Baptism. That covenant is not restrictive but expansive. That covenant presumes the good will of those who have presented themselves for Baptism, as they discern and submit to the all-encompassing power and love of a God who says that we WILL be his people and He WILL be our God. When we think of Baptism as a Rite of Christian Initiation, we run the risk of ignoring the equally important aspect of Baptism as a Rite of the Renewal or the Re-Invention of the whole Body of Christ with the gifts the newly baptized bring to the Table, if you will, to the Table of the Lord.


Remember, the Baptismal promises are not only those of the candidate to renounce Satan and to accept Jesus Christ. The candidate will not have much of an idea of how those promises might be tested over the course of his or her own life in the Faith.


The final question in that Rite is one that CAN be answered in light of the collective experience and strength of the congregation.


"Will you who witness these vows DO ALL IN YOUR POWER to support these persons in their life in Christ?"


It is then the People of God already baptized who profess the Apostles Creed, who promise to "continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?"


We promise to persevere in resisting evil, to proclaim the Good News by Word and example, and to seek and to serve Christ in ALL persons. And finally, in the Rite of Baptism, it is we, and not the candidate, who promises to STRIVE for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being.


In the story from Exodus, we become so obsessed with the task of the Avenging Angel and the proscriptions of the actions of the Passover, adorning the lintels with the Blood of the Lamb and eating the meal as a people in flight, we lose the impact of this perpetual memorial and the significance of some of the foods.


While bitter herbs, roasted lamb, and unleavened bread symbolized urgency, they were natural foods of two different kinds of people -- nomadic herdsmen and crop farmers and their families. Herdsmen didn't have too many vegetables, so they tended to rely on the value of herbs they could carry around easily to infuse the meat of the animals they roasted. Yeast used by householders, landed people, was vital to their production of sustainable and storable products like bread and yoghurt, but yeast risked contamination, so from time to time, women would toss old culture for new. There were those times when the starter yeast cultures would not be ready, when the old cultures were being discarded. So the householders had to make do with what they had.


The covenant of the Israelites was galvanized by the ingenuity people from different backgrounds in Egypt that would sustain them 'til their arrival in the Promised Land and would sustain them through trials and pogroms to our own day.


The Passover was also a celebration and the empowerment of a people. The people assumed a priestly role. Sacrifice usually was made by the priestly caste, but not in this instance. Each household was to kill the Lamb and scatter its blood. While the benefits were to be personal, the memory was to be collective, so much so that smaller families were to seek out another family to share the lamb with to assure that as little as possible would be wasted.


I believe it was George Bernard Shaw, who is attributed as saying,


"Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language."


I would suggest that the Anglican Communion is thirty-eight provinces divided by a common faith. This is our genius, and this is our curse. This is the Mystery of Faith. Look at the final words of this gospel today as both an assurance AND a challenge:


"If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven."


In Romans today, Paul sets but one prescript, "(Nothing but) to love one another."


He continues,


"Love does no wrong to a neighbor."


Think about the simple power of these two ideas from Paul and go back to the prior sentence from the gospel:


If two of you agree...about anything, (it) will be done for you....


How will this happen? From without or from within? I don't know, but in your meditation, don't underestimate the power and the ingenuity of God. 


In the ways of the world, we know about the energy generated by soldiers, colleagues, parents, fellow citizens, and others who put their heads together for a common purpose. They're virtually unstoppable.


How much more so in the walk of faith? If we believe that by God's gift and call, we possess the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, doesn't it make sense that when we allow ourselves to agree with one another about something important, we allow the Spirit dwelling in each one of us to unite, creating a power, an energy, a potentially miraculous catalyst that will forge a cause, facilitate healing, and change hearts?

Proper A17: There are tough times ahead.

This may be said of athletes preparing for the Olympics, of those of us anticipating the course of our economy, and of those of us called to Discipleship in Jesus Christ.

The first seems glorious, unless of course you imagine yourself practicing six or seven hours a day toward your goal. When we reflect on the cost of athletic discipline, most of us have passed on that glory without too much regret. Thanks, but "No Thanks!"

The second, the economy, seems totally out of our control, unless in accepting this near certainty, we adjust our plans and lifestyle to anticipate leaner times ahead. It's ominous, but for most of us, it seems "Do-able."

And the third, the matter of Discipleship, may not have much of an impact on us at all, because we rarely ponder the cost, or even the value, of discipleship.

We are here at this altar, the threshold of Heaven, with every intention of serving the Lord, but hoping he doesn't ask much of us.

We hear it occasionally before the offering is taken, and we heard it last week, in the selection from Romans:

I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present
yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1

What is it, to be as a living sacrifice?

I believe that being as a living sacrifice means being ready to live our lives more closely to that of Christ, pushing the envelope as witnesses and as disciples, according to our station and according to our opportunities in our lives. I believe being as a living sacrifice means seeking opportunities to serve, not just "enduring " the inconvenience of our Christianity.

Such was the challenge for Peter in today's Gospel. By and large, to this point in their presence with Jesus, the disciples of Christ were people pretty comfortable with their role as observers of the actions and words of Jesus. And while Peter exercised great insight and discernment in proclaiming Jesus, "the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," he really didn't have to exercise very much courage. His acknowledgment and proclamation was made in the safe environment of his fellow apostles.

Today, however, Jesus continues his exposition to the Apostles in very harsh terms. After Jesus' great affirmation of the Holy Spirit at work in the heart of Peter, just as quickly Jesus accounts Peter as a "Satan" for his attempt to deflect Jesus from his mission and destiny.

Peter says, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." But deep down, Peter realizes that the people in the shadow of Jesus risk the same destiny as Jesus, particularly if it appears that Jesus may not be there to protect them.

To be as a living sacrifice. Paul offers some suggestions as the beginning of discipleship today in Romans. Most of his adages seem to flow seamlessly, one to another. But some of these transitions are not as simple as the manner by which they trip from the tongue.

Outdo one another in showing honor. Honor to whom? Everybody! Without expecting anything in return.

Be patient in suffering. I don't know about you, but I rather relish whining.

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. I don't think it will take too much for me to transcend haughtiness, (though some of you might take exception to that,) but I for one do not feel anywhere ready to associate with the lowly, unless I stay in control of the agenda with them. When I've had enough, at this point, I want to keep the option to walk away. I'll surrender my pride, but I'm not too sure about surrendering my power.

Then there's the clincher: Do not claim to be wiser than you are. Ouch!!

From this, then, let us ponder the power and will of God, expressed in Exodus today.

Moses finds himself in the presence of His God, who does not acknowledge the unique suffering of Moses himself, but couches Moses' misery in the misery of a whole people. Remember, Moses had lost it all. He had been in the privilege of the Pharoah, but after killing a taskmaster for his mistreatment of an Israelite slave, Moses is in the unenviable task of shepherding his Father-in-Law's flock in the wilderness.

On the mountain top, Moses asks, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" God does not answer, per se. The only assurance God is given is that the Lord would be with him.

Who are you? Who am I? Not important. What is important is that God continues to hear the cries of the oppressed, and the only ones he has to send into the fray is you and me.

And finally, Moses asks how he can establish his credibility among the Isrealites: "You shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' " Not too much to go on. And remember how thin this will wear over the course of the wandering in the desert.

We never really fear our failures. We regret them. Sometimes we resent how they effect our pride. But we really never have to fear them. What we really fear is failing, because we have been brought up in an environment where our worth is measured by our success and not by our perseverance, dedication, determination -- by our sense of mission.

Thousands of athletes go to the Olympics, most aware that there are only a handful of medals. Billions of us profess a faith in Jesus Christ, yet not nearly enough of us proceed in the journey of faith in the assurance that all of us who are ready to lose our lives for his sake will find it.

Proper A16: The Burden of Freedom

Jesus brings the apostles to Caesarea Philippi, a town that stood as the antithesis of Jerusalem. Herod the Great built this coastal city just years before to show his superiors in Rome that great, imperial life was possible in the boonies of the Middle East.

And with this imperial flavor, this coastal town was also a potpourri of religious observance. As such, it seems peculiar that Jesus would bring his apostles here at all. Perhaps the evangelist wanted to have Peter exclaim the greatness of the Christ in this polytheistic setting to show the universality of Christ's Lordship. Maybe Jesus, in the plethora of answers he might anticipate to the question, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" wanted to contrast them to the variety of religious practices in that resort, commercial town. One might ponder whether by bringing the Apostles out of the region of regular Jewish practice, the Apostles might feel freer in their thinking and discourse. Indeed, maybe Peter's response,"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." could only be safely uttered outside Jerusalem and Galilee.

I think it's both ironic, yet somehow fitting that Jesus brings the Apostles outside a land that eats, lives, and breathes the covenant of Abraham to a place and situation where the Apostles might be able to loosen up a little, so that they could begin to think outside the box.
Now just as an aside, Moses' sister was a genius! She too found herself with an opportunity to "think outside the box."

Her mandate was really quite simple. All she really was expected to do was to stand "at a distance, to see what would happen to (her infant brother).

But She not only makes sure her brother is safely retrieved by Pharoah's daughter -- she somehow makes herself part of the scene so that she can parlay her mother back into the picture (with wages!!) to nurse her own son.

I don't know about you, but if I were that little girl, I'd be scared stiff.

Her world was a world conformed to the reality of an oppressed people in a foreign land. Yet by grace, ingenuity, or maybe sheer ignorance or luck, she allowed herself to be somehow transformed from this reality, so that she could consider other options, that is, so that she could become renewed of mind.

Returning to the matter of Jesus and the Apostles in Caesarea Philippi on one level, their conversation doesn't stray too far afield. The answers of the Apostles are not far flung. Their comments fall within the context of the covenant for the most part,

"Some say (Jesus is) John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

Peter's response however is out of the ordinary,

"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Messiah. Maybe. And as such it might be safe to assign Jesus a more common, prophetic title like "Son of Man." (That is, "Messiah," as servant of the people of Israel, as a son to his Father, in this case the Kingdom of Israel.)

"Son of the living God," however, was something "over the top."

Now we take this accolade almost for granted. We've been brought up with a pretty consistent theology of the Trinity. So for us, it is a "no brainer." On another level, we have our baptismal theology that impresses upon us the concept of an immanence -- of a closeness with the Father as Sons and Daughters of God. One would assume that through the closeness of God to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and others in the Torah, our Baptismal understanding of God's intimacy would have carried down to the Jews of Jesus' day. I'm not sure why that concept didn't prevail. Maybe they felt so oppressed for so long, maybe it was hard to keep that aspect alive in those circumstances.

So the question is: Are there things about our times and our world that make us overcome by the ways of the world?

Is it too idealistic to think that we can be spiritually transformed? Is such an idea even worthwhile?
Is a humanistic "rapprochement" all we can hope for? (And I'm not "dissing" secular humanists when I say this.)

You know the drill.

• Play the hand you're dealt.

• Sit tight. Keep your head tucked in.

• And there's my favorite minimalist recovery truism, "Live life on life's terms."

Now while I have a hard time with the fact that I'm not in control of the world around me, within my life, I have choices. Living life on life's terms does not mean rolling oneself up in a ball and playing dead. Living life on life's terms means accepting the things I cannot change and changing the things I can -- allowing myself to "be transformed by the renewing of (my) mind -- by

• study,

• prayer,

• and by what's most difficult for me, by fellowship.

Not just the fellowship of this worship, but by the fellowship within the broader community of believers.

(Now, I'll just drop this bomb and move on, because I am, like you, nowhere near to or comfortable with its implications.) Never mind the sometimes far flung practices of our different Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic brothers and sisters. It has become the practice of Christians of all stripes to relish our isolation -- even to institutionalize it. Ironically, the Christian community is at its most isolated on Sundays, between the hours of 8 and 11 am. It has become perfectly normal for us to think of our separated worship as acceptable. Even preferred.

There are many other challenges to Christian fellowship, but I would sum up the principal limitations as mere timidity and a lack of energy or enthusiasm. It's not that we don't want it. We just don't have the "Umph," to go get it!

Finally a word or two on the authority vested to Peter -- the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loosen. I don't know what it is about people that they yearn for less government yet more church. They want the church to be the last word on discipline and morality rather than the first. Our image of the keys tends to focus on magisterial authority and not magisterial freedom.

This was a unique challenge for me within the Roman Church and the sacrament of Reconciliation. The burden wasn't the challenges I placed upon the penitent. The burden was my commitment to be there for them in the midst of challenges often of their own making.

Why do we remember the binding part and forget the loosening part? Aren't the burdens of loosening as important and compelling as those of binding, especially when we recall that incident in the synagogue at Nazareth, cited by Luke in Chapter 4, verses 14-21, when he reads from the scroll of Isaiah 61:1-2 about preaching good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release for the oppressed, and the proclamation of a year of the Lord's favor?

God willing, let us one day become a community of believers comfortable with the perspective and discernment that the same Spirit that moves us and frees is the same Spirit that moves and frees others, even when we don't understand what they are being called to do.

Proper A15 / Everyone a Winner

We have before us in today’s readings two contrasting images of God's mercy.
In the reading from Genesis, we have the joyful reconciliation among Joseph and his brothers. In the Gospel, we have the mercy of God, strained through a sieve.
For Joseph, his purpose and destiny becomes clearer. For Jesus, his mission just seems all the more complex -- as it appears, far more than he bargained for.
There are those who might have difficulty with the exchange between the Canaanite woman and Jesus in the gospel from Matthew. Both sound determined -- robust. Some might say, "Defiant."

In short, I would suggest that this passage was one of those situations characterized by the moment where Jesus leaves the sages in the Temple.
Lk2: [52] And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Matthew, as a gospel prominently for gentiles, demonstrates how Jesus becomes aware of his expansive and inclusive ministry.
While earlier in this same gospel, Jesus says, in Mt5:17

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill,

Nonetheless, Jesus was getting quite fed up with the importance the Scribes and Pharisees were assigning to their own interpretations of the law, as if the law wasn't already so cumbersome.

We have become used to the Pharisees being given the "Bum's rush," (as if they deserved it.) But the treatment of the Canaanite woman leaves us cold.

David McCracken in The Scandal of the Gospels

The central issue of this passage is not Jesus' mission to Jews versus Gentiles; it is not even cleanness versus defilement. The central issue is offense versus faith. And it is posed in a highly offensive way: pious and law-abiding Pharisees lack faith, and a Gentile dog has great faith.

Some may actually see the woman who confronts Jesus as one who might be forcing Jesus to come to terms with some of the prejudice that might have rubbed off on him from within his culture. Others suggest that Jesus purposefully used such harsh words against the Canaanite woman to set the stage for the expression of the faith that he knew would emanate from her. And there are actually a few who find this line of dialogue so foreign to the mission of Christ that they dismiss this event as reported here, and in a slightly different way in Mark 7, as incompatible with the mercy of Jesus, and thus, perhaps, some later insertion to show the broadening mission of Christ to the Gentiles.

Grant LeMarquand sees a juxtaposition between the Joshua of the OT, who leads the Israelites into the Land of Canaan by conquest, and the Joshua, (that is, Jesus,) who is led by a Canaanite to the New Promise of mercy. In an online essay "The Canaanite Conquest of Jesus," LeMarquand writes

In fact, it may be that it is not just the woman who is converted but Jesus himself. In the midst of his testing of this woman, Jesus’ attitude appears to shift...It appears that Jesus has been turned; he has been confronted with and has learned the meaning of his own teaching concerning “mercy”. The story of the Canaanite woman is a story of Jesus’ own “conversion.” In this narrative the Israelite is conquered by the Canaanite.

Chris Haslam, a Lay Theologian in the Diocese of Montreal, tells us

In (Middle Eastern) cultures, barb is traded for barb, and insult for insult. It is a kind of wit unknown to Westerners. As one commentator puts it: “It is good peasant humour, not theological debate.” Here insult is turned into commitment.

We are not dogs. The Canaanite woman used the image to drive home a point, but we are not dogs. Nor are we worms. In Ps. 22:6, when the psalmist says, "I am a worm and not a man," he was speaking of the manner in which his detractors saw him.
When we allow ourselves to think of ourselves as dogs or worms, it becomes all the easier to think of others the same way, even if we're not prone to "name-call."

The great faith of the Canaanite women is enough for Jesus. He doesn't know anything else about her, and that doesn't seem to matter.

The challenge for us is to have the courage of the Canaanite woman. To be self-assured as she to our own intrinsic value. And to be able to express the deepest desires of our hearts.

Here comes the Dreamer.

Now this is the introduction to the easy sermon today.

[Unfortunately, this acclamation at Joseph's arrival amongst his brothers follows an incident omitted from today's passage, where Joseph reveals dreams that he had that his family might be subject to him, as we know becomes the case through the drought that drives the Brothers later to Egypt.]

So to suggest that the message to be drawn from this rendition is merely that dreamers are people with ideas, and that ideas are to be held suspect, or that one should never let go of ones dreams would be an altruism that doesn't do justice to the complexity of this moment.

Today, however, I'd like to plumb the depths of the story to indicate a further problem, with, in this case, not the best of resolutions – greed and vengeance.

Recall, if you will, the tensions within this house.

Joseph's brothers are the offspring of Leah, Rachel's sister, Leah's maidservant, and Rachel's maidservant. Joseph is the only child of Rachel, who took a very long time to conceive.

Now, while Joseph is the offspring of Jacob's preferred spouse, this grants Joseph no rights over the elder brothers.

They are disappointed that Joseph is obviously in such high regard with their father. They are also angry, because Joseph ratted them out to their father about their poor workmanship.

What pushes these brothers over the edge to the point that they were ready to kill him? They were envious, but which siblings aren't?

Let me suggest that what puts these brothers over the line is their collective disdain. As herdsmen,they had a lot of time on their hands to compare notes.

These boys were brought up in the rivalrous enmity of the mothers, characterized best in Chapter 30, where, among other things, Rachel forfeits bed rights to Leah once, so that Leah might give Rachel some of the mandrakes Leah's son, Reuben, brings home. These women are nothing short of nuts, and their children have to try to grow up with some semblance of normalcy in the midst of it. This enmity cascades through these kids along the lines of loyalty to their mothers, and of course, Joseph finds himself "odd man out" -- the common enemy, if you will.

Joseph is of no significant threat to them. His dreams of lordship might tick them off, but to the point of death? Not in and of itself.

The feelings their mothers had together against Rachel was perfectly understandable, except when you consider the level of deference God had for Leah's plight and the level of devotion Leah had toward God. Again, in the details the lectionary can't possibly serve, God blesses Leah with children, because in Genesis 29:31, God sees Leah is unloved. In verses 32 through 35, Leah names her children in recognition of God's favor toward her. She continues to praise God, as her maidservant Zilpah bears more children through Jacob on her behalf.

In the company of mixed ages, there's not too much more I'm comfortable saying about the backdrop of events leading to Joseph's ill fortune other than to ask this question, (albeit, with the hindsight of 21st Century eyes,):

Doesn't it strike you odd how Jacob compensates for his remorse over Rachel's apparent barrenness?

Again, two of these brothers have tasted blood already. Simeon and Levi, in Chapter 34 of Genesis, to avenge the rape of their sister, Dinah, by Scehkem, son of Hamor, persuade all of the able-bodied men of Hamor's clan to endure circumcision, so that their clan can intermarry into Jacob's clan. While the men were recuperating, the two of them swept through Hamor's city, slew the men, and paved the way for the rest of the brothers to sack the city, take their women, their children, and their wealth.

This family has some real issues with anger and its inappropriate and disproportionate response to crises.

While quite extreme in their final actions, the forces of collective rage has similar effects within our own families and Church.

We think the bickering going on in recent years within the Church and amongst our families is justifiable and maybe even healthy.

The impact of that illusion in another day may not have been that significant exponentially. But that day is long gone -- especially within the Church.

Consider the arrogance of both extremes in Church regarding the sexual morality debate. Our children see us fighting and are forming their own moral base for what's euphemistically called "just rage." And it's my opinion that that issue will come up in their lives with far greater consequences than just the confusion regarding appropriate sexual decision making. It's this sense of collective rage that continues to tighten the trigger on decisions leading us to war and on decisions rendering the plight of the poor as the problem FOR the poor to sort out alone.

Arrogance amongst adults in families is observed as adults model to their children. Kids cannot sort out the nuances in moral decision making in the absence of Christian or even civil demeanor.

We set all of this against the challenge of Paul to the Romans today:

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? (Rom8:14-15a)

If we persist in the venomous practices of rage and enmity, however just, within our families of origin and our families of Faith, we will not be about the task of the Great Commission -- to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We cannot let issues stand in the way of our obligation as Christians to live out and bring about the Kingdom without excuse, compromise, and above all, without "Just rage."

Let me place this in the example of the response of one Christian herald, in the face of those who would do less for the poor, in light of the abuses of which they are accused, one Thomas of Villanova, a 16th Century Augustinian, who said:

If there are people who refuse to work, that is for the authorities to deal with. My duty is to assist and relieve those who come to my door.

Our duty is nothing less than that of Peter in today's gospel: To call out for Jesus; to recognize his power to deliver us as we submit to his will in obedience. And to rest assured that even in our less-than-astute challenges we place before him, he will still be there to pull us up out of the mire of our own doubt and lack of courage.

The reading from Genesis speaks of perseverance and devotion in the face of nearly unimaginable challenges.

Jacob is on the lamb, as it were, hiding from Esau -- out to kill Jacob for his trickery in stealing his birthright from their Father, Isaac.

As all seems at an end, he goes to work among the herds of Laban and comes across Rachel, for whom he enters into service for her hand, only to be deceived into taking Leah, Laban's older daughter first. But he persists for Rachel, even to working another seven years.

Imagine Leah in the midst of all this. She participates in the deception that gets here married to Jacob, yet has to live with him for seven more years, as Jacob slaves and pines for another. Maybe Leah feels out of it -- maybe she had aspirations to be with Esau, and she could have been as disappointed as Jacob.

But they find themselves together, and in time, perhaps in circumstances not unlike our own.

All of us at one time or another find ourselves in relationship with what we perceive as two different people. We find ourselves with the one who is the person we struggle to make our own forever, and at the same time, with the person we do not really know -- with the person we never bargained for. An at the same time we find ourselves in that inner conflict, our partner often finds him or herself in the same predicament -- longing for the person they fell in love with.

But the challenge to covenant relationships is not only rediscovering passion -- it's a matter of also learning how to stay in love, by growing into the love for the person you or I never bargained for. It's a matter of learning not only to be in love but to stay in love. To love without condition, knowing the person we cherish is still there in the midst of the stranger, while this other person rears his or her peculiar head from time to time. Knowing too the invitation to grow in love with this other, less captivating, less interesting character.

We seek to discover the qualities of the lesser-known other in a person, keeping mind all the while that the person we cherish is still there, and more than that, there most of time with all those qualities we cherish. And that it is in this quest of the lesser-known person we discover more to be admired. And also, in the search, we discover more about ourselves.

This image can be transferred into the life of Faith in Christ through the Church.

I know from my own experiences, passages, and shortcomings, I have not generally allowed myself to grow closer in my journey within the Episcopal Church.

I had few illusions of what I was getting myself into. But as a result, I have allowed my cynicism to get into the way of the excitement and mystery community life in the Faith was meant to be. I have written off those elements and people in the Church that have caused me grief or disappointment. I have become less a man for being merely, "Right."

As I have said more than once,

"The journey is not about being right. The journey is about being true." Being true to oneself. Being true -- being THERE -- for others. Being there for the elusive moments of grace, which really only manifest themselves in the midst of great sacrifice and trial, because only in trial do we fail. And only in failure do we reach out for fellowship and help. Only in failure do we recognize the purpose of community and fellowship.

As a parish or as a component of that which we call the Church, we can only celebrate fellowship that endures, not merely the fellowship that "feels right."

If Jacob merely stewed about how he was ripped off by Laban in the additional seven years servitude following his union with Rachel, both unions would have suffered greatly. While we know nothing of the details of that hiatus, we know from further reading in Genesis, things were far from perfect with Jacob and his Father-in-Law, Laban. And the tension between Leah and Rachel persisted. But Jacob tried his best, and his efforts (and the unknown maturation in Esau) resulted in a reconciliation between brothers.

Progress in spiritual growth can occur even when the portents do not seem advantageous. Indeed, spiritual growth often occurs precisely when it shouldn't.

Perhaps it is in looking for the good to be had, rather obsessing on the injustices of the faults that beset us, particularly in the relationships that matter in our lives, that then both ourselves and those we care about can grow and be fruitful.

Which brings me back to the Church, the mission of Christ and our will for its growth.

There has been a lot of consternation during these days of the Lambeth Conference by those who could not sully and compromise the Great Commission by eating and drinking with sinners at the table of the Lord at Lambeth -- that to do so would be condoning a permissive attitude within the Church.

Now for the hard stuff of today's Gospel -- tacked on after some rather forthright and familiar imagery about the Kingdom as Mustard seed, yeast, treasure and pearl. And that is the net. We might take the image at mere face value.

The net is cast. All the fish are hauled to shore, and the angels sort through the good from the bad. Now what's so tough about that, particularly when we all presume that those of us hearing this are the presumed beneficiary of the angels' good taste and discernment.

Even if we have such presumption, (which we might have at the peril of our own souls. But I digress), nonetheless it means allowing ourselves to be in the midst of the mire. If we merely hold ourselves a good arm's length from what we perceive as the perversions of life and their adherents, we run the risk of being outside the cast of the net.

(You can refresh my memory, but I don't recall the image of fishing in the old testament as an image of selective fishing, (the use of a hook, if you will.)

Evangelization can be very hard work, because we are called to cast the nets -- nets that bring to shore what might appear to us to be the best and the worst of life. In some way, I think some of us have been content that we've baited a hook, dropped a line, fastened a bell, and are hoping for the best.

This does not work in spreading the gospel, and it certainly does not work in relationships.

In both relationships and the spreading of the gospel, we have to presume everything and everyone is for Christ -- that on a personal level and on an ecclesial level, it is not for us to do the sorting out. It is for God's angels. (Now unless you're hiding wings under your shirts and blouses, your aren't them.)

Thus we are left with a challenge and a blessing, all rolled up in two phrases that form the crux, in my opinion, of the whole body of the writings of Paul:

[The first:] We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose Rom8:28

[and Second] I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord Rom8:38