One of the first songs that I remember really enjoying as a child, was Ice, Ice, Baby, by none other than the legendary, Vanilla Ice. It’s not a great song, he was not a great rapper, but it was catchy, and it was ubiquitous around my 7th birthday. And I loved it. I listened to it all the time. Some of you may know that Ice, Ice, Baby, samples a baseline originally made famous by David Bowie in his song, “Under Pressure,” which came out some 15 years earlier. While Vanilla Ice was a childhood favorite, I didn’t hear Bowie’s, “Under Pressure,” until college, and when I did I, of course, thought I was hearing Vanilla Ice. Even to this day, when “Under Pressure,” comes on the radio, my mind immediately begins singing, “Ice, Ice, Baby.” My familiarity with this re-interpretation is so much greater than that of my familiarity with the original that I can’t hear the original without hearing Vanilla’s version. 
I bring up this incredibly important information about early 90s white rappers, because I think it illustrates some of the difficulties we may have in hearing the Bible stories that we read this morning. Our first reading was the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the garden and the second was Paul’s interpretation of this event and its relationship to Christ from the book of Romans. The story from Genesis was written at least 500 years before Paul lived, yet Paul’s interpretation of this story has become so influential in the time since, that it is nearly impossible for us to hear the original without hearing Paul’s interpretation speak through it. What’s more, in the 2,000 years since Paul wrote his interpretation, every important theologian since, has given their own reading of the original and of Paul’s interpretation. What this means is that there is around 2,500 years of baggage attached to this story, much of it wonderful, enlightening, illuminating reflection and interpretation that can help make the story relevant to our lives, and some of it, not so great, even oppressive and harmful. I’m going to do my best to speak to this story, to bring forth what I believe is its message, and try to make it relevant for us. What I hope you will do, is try to hear the story for the first time, try to let go of any baggage you have around it and concentrate only the story as I present it. Try to listen for Under Pressure, without hearing Ice, Ice, Baby. It may be that I only add another layer of unneccessary baggage to the story, but it could also be that you hear it in a new and important way.
I want to start not with the bible itself, but with my daughter Ruth. Ruth, like many children, was born into a world where things were given to her. She received milk, and love, and cuddles, and baths, and new diapers, and toys. Being remarkably fortunate, she received a loving family, and a caring Church, which both love her and claim her. Through no merit of her own she has been given countless gifts, literally everything she has. Ruth has also been given limits. There are certain things that we don’t allow her to do, to stand too close to the TV, to push her brother, to eat dog food. This last one, eating dog food, was a particular struggle with Ruth. As soon as she could crawl, Ruthie would race to the dog food bowl and start putting the little dry pellets in her mouth. We stopped her, and scolded her, and took the food from her, and put it somewhere else, but eventually we had to put the food where the dog could get it, and eventually Ruth would find it. Among the first words that Ruthie mastered was “Mine!” She would shout it anytime you tried to take something from her. I remember distinctly trying to take the dog bowl out of her hands while she clung to it and screamed at me, “Mine!” She has all the food she could ever eat, all the love a child could need, more toys than she will ever play with, she is blessed beyond belief, and yet what she really wants, what she insists is hers by right, is dog food. Despite all she has been given she wants is what she can’t have, what is bad for her. 

The story of the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, tells a story quite similar to that of Ruth and her dog food. God created Adam and Eve from the dust and breathed life into them. They owe their very existence to God. Yet that is only where their blessings began. God also created a garden for them to live in. A garden that would provide all they needed and which they were given to tend. They had each other, they had God, they had all that they needed. But, there was one limitation. They were not to eat from one tree in the garden. Thats it. Just the one. “Don’t eat of that one, because it will cause you to die,” God told them. This is a pretty sweet deal, you get everything you could ever need, a beautiful garden home, a partner, and a vital relationship with a loving God, and all that you have to do is not eat the fruit of a single tree. Yet, as much as Ruthie liked bananas and sweet potatoes and strawberries, the second I stopped watching her with that dog bowl on the floor, she was crawling for it at a sprint. Adam and Eve, despite all God has given them, refuse to accept their limitations, they seek out what is prohibited, what will cause them harm.

In providing his own interpretation of this story, Paul argues that the disobedience of Adam and Eve caused sin and then death to enter the world and to spread to all of humanity, all of Adam and Eve’s descendants. When Paul uses the word sin, he is speaking of a power that binds us, that leads us astray, and separates us from God. Sin refers more to the power, the force, that causes Ruthie to desire what she can’t have, the dog food, more so than her action of eating it. This power of sin is universal, it holds all of us under its sway. It causes each and every one of us to desire that which is harmful to us, that which is prohibited. 

It is at this point, that the objection is often made, that this seems to be a terrible injustice. Why should we, all of Adam and Eve’s descendants, suffer under the power of sin just because of a bad decision they made at the beginning of time? Where is the justice in that? What kind of God would allow that? These are understandable reactions to the story and Paul’s interpretation of it. Yet, I believe these objections miss the point of the story. Speculating about the justice and righteousness of God’s actions in creation and redemption is dangerous and unfruitful territory for us as finite and sinful human beings. The more question to me, is does this story and its teaching correspond to reality? Does it accurately describe our experience? Can it then provide hope and redemption?  

If you could relate to the story of Ruthie desiring what she shouldn’t have, then you probably already know that this story does correspond to our reality. Haven’t you ever desired something that you shouldn’t have? Haven’t you ever done something that you knew wasn’t smart, wise, or good, and you did it anyway? Often when we do such things we wonder what is wrong with us. Why are we so defective? Why does it seem like we can’t do what is right? Think of the shame that people feel when they cheat on their spouses. When they take drugs that they know could ruin their lives or even kill them. Think of how people feel when they lie to someone they love, when they break promises, when they say things they regret. If you’ve done these things, you know how they can make you feel isolated, alone, and ashamed, as though you were the only miserable wretch in the world. Part of Paul’s point is that you are not the only miserable wretch, being subject to sin, doing the things we know we shouldn’t is part of the human condition. It is something that we all do. An ailment that we all suffer from. It is the universal power of sin over all of fallen humanity. 

When we are feeling alone in our failings and sin, just hearing that this wretchedness is universal can be good news. We are not alone! We are not the only ones who feel like this, who struggle with us. We all do! Yet, that momentary relief of being in the same boat with others, passes quickly when we realize that the boat is sinking. The power of sin leads to death- to physical death yes, but before and possibly even worse than that, it leads to the death that describes separation from God. Your inability to resist the temptation of gambling, or of lust, or of drug induced euphoria, all of it can destroy your life. It can break relationships, it can outcast you from life giving communities, it can leave you isolated and miserable in your shame. Sin has real consequences in our lives. If we are enslaved to sin, we are doomed to this kind of separation from God, this kind of death. That is certainly not good news.

Fortunately, Paul, nor God, leave us in this situation. For Paul, the problem of the universality of sin and death brought into the world in Adam is solved by the grace, justification, and righteousness brought into the world by Jesus Christ. Paul writes, “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ abounded for the many….For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” The problem of sin is solved by God condescending to take on the form of sinful humanity. In Jesus Christ, God becomes flesh, God takes up the whole of sinful humanity into the person of Jesus Christ. All of humanity is therefore imbued with a new life force, a life which is in direct opposition to the force of sin active in our old life. By resisting sin in his life, by accepting sin’s consequence of death, and by triumphing over both sin and death in the resurrection, God has defeated the power of sin and death in Jesus Christ. God’s grace and love are infinitely more powerful than sin and death. Because of God’s adopting humanity into God’s very being in the incarnation, and God’s triumph over sin and death in the crucifixion and resurrection, a new life force, a new power has entered the world and our individual beings. Through baptism and life in the Church this life of Jesus Christ lodges itself within us like a seed and begins to grow. Our life in the Church nurtures this new life of Christ within us, through prayer, worship, service, and fellowship, the life of Christ and its righteousness grow within us. 
Although God’s victory of sin and death in Jesus Christ is final, it does not reach its completion in us or in the world before the coming of God’s kingdom. For now, we live in the interim period. Where the defeat of sin and death is certain, yet not fully fulfilled. We live in a fallen and sinful world in which God’s grace and righteousness is growing moment by moment. It grows within us and throughout all of creation. We still have to battle with sin in our live and the multiple temptations that it brings into our minds. However we no longer must face it alone with only our own power. We now have the power of Christ within us, and the more we nurture that power the less power sin has over us and the more free we become to live a life pleasing to God. It is true that sin has entered the world. It is true that it enslaves us all. It is true that it leads us to death in separation from God. Yet it also true that God has saved us. God has taken on our sin in Jesus Christ and defeated it. God has reconciled us to Godself by giving us the gift of new life in Christ. A life in which we are free to love and serve God and our sisters and brothers. May we remain ever grateful for this gift and may we always seek to nurture the life of Christ in one another. Amen. 

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Matthew 4: 12- 23
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles-- the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 

When I lived in California, there was a guy who believed he had figured out the exact date that the world was going to end. I believe the date he settled on was in October of 2012. I remember this because he took out huge billboards all over Oakland and the East Bay warning people to be ready for the day when it all ends. As you may have already guessed, he’s prediction did not pan out. Here we are still alive and breathing on the same Earth in the same universe some 7 years later. This type of certainty about the date of the world’s end is rightly ridiculed as foolishness. In fact in the very same Bible that this man and others use to predict the world’s end- Jesus is frequently telling us not to guess as to when the world will end, because it is not given to us to know. What’s unfortunate about people failing to heed Jesus’ warning here, is that it gives a bad name to eschatology. Eschatology is the fancy word for thoughts about the end of time and creation. Though Jesus did not want us to guess at a date for the world’s end, he was vehement about our need to expect it. Far from being merely the province of wackos and fringe sects and cults, the end time, eschatology is central to the Christian faith. 

The 35th Chapter of Isaiah contains a vision of the end, the eschaton. This chapter is written to the Israelites living as exiles in Babylon. It is meant to be a kind of pep talk, a reminder that God has not forgotten the people, that one day their period of exile will end and they will return home to Zion, to Jerusalem. This is the reason for the image of a highway- a road on which God’s children will travel safe from all that would harm them- this is the safe road home of which the exiles dreamed. But Isaiah’s vision goes beyond the immediate desires of the exiles- not only will they return to Zion, they also will experience everlasting joy and gladness, sorrow and sighing will flee away. What’s more, the deaf will hear, the blind will see, the lame will jump like a dear, and the mute shall speak. Waters will spring forth from the desert and it shall bloom abundantly. Isaiah’s vision points beyond the historical situation of the exiles and towards the future fulfillment of God’s kingdom. One day the exiles will return, and one day the world will end by the coming of God’s kingdom in its fullness. 

People often confuse the end time, the coming of God’s kingdom in its fullness, with the Armageddon. The Armageddon refers to a final war between the forces of good and evil that is take place before the end. Jesus frequently warns his disciples that wars, and famine, and persecution, and even earthquakes will all occur before the end arrives. His point is that although these events can feel to us like the end of the world, they are not to be confused with God’s kingdom. The end of the world is not a war, it is a banquet. It is eternal celebration of the kingdom of God here upon the earth. Its the time when all tears are wiped away, when wars and killing and sorrow and sighs all cease to be. When the lion lays down with lamb and no one is harmed on all God’s holy mountain. This beatific vision of universal peace, joy, and love is our best effort at understanding the magnificence of God’s kingdom when it finally arrives in fullness on the earth. 

A frequent objection to this preaching of God bringing about heaven upon the earth is that it can steal our desire and drive to make the world a better place. If God is going to bring peace on earth, than we perhaps we don’t need to worry ourselves with it. If wars and catastrophes are inevitable then we perhaps we don’t need to object to them. After all, who are we to meddle in God’s plan, God can take care of this alone. Although I follow the logic of this argument, I quite firmly disagree with it. It is my steadfast belief that faith in God’s coming kingdom does not demotivate our struggle to improve the world. I believe instead that this faith is precisely what motivates us to live full lives in which we can struggle for a better world without despair of it ever coming to pass. 

Growing up one of my family Christmas Eve traditions is to watch the movie, “Its a Wonderful Life,” as we eat and get ready for the 11 pm service at our church. Each and every time, my father sheds a few tears at the final scene- the scene in which all of George Bailey’s friends show up at his house on Christmas Eve and save he and his beloved Building and Loan from bankruptcy. It's a touching scene illustrating the movie’s line- “No man is poor who has friends.” One might think that having seen the movie enough times to have memorized the final scene, would somehow spoil the rest of the movie. When you know that everything is going to work out in the end much of the suspense is removed from the film. All of the bad things happen to George- and there are many such things, are now viewed from the knowing perspective that none of them will triumph over him. We can watch George fall into the ice water as a child, watch him be hit by the drunken pharmacist, watch his desire to leave Bedford Falls be continually frustrated, watch him attempt to kill himself, and watch Uncle Billy lose his $8,000, and still know that none of these catastrophes will have the last word. In the end, we know that all will work out for George Bailey, not in the way he wished perhaps, but in a more beautiful and divine fashion. Knowing the ending doesn’t take away the power of the movie, we can still feel bad for George’s misfortunes, but we need not worry or despair. We can follow George Bailey to his lowest point, empathize with his depression and hopelessness, and still feel the joy of the final scene because we know that is where this catastrophe is heading. 

Happiness is a response to events in our lives. Getting a job, making a friend, having a great meal, all of these are things that can make us happy for a while. Joy, on the other hand, is an inward feeling that comes with confidence in God’s coming kingdom. We can feel joy at times when we are happy, and at times when we are sad. Joy is the comfort and peace that come with trust in God. Even when things are bad, even when George is jumping off the bridge into the icey water below, even then we can still feel joy because we know that God’s kingdom is coming. We know it is to be a marvelous banquet where all our problems and conflicts and sin are washed away. 

When John the Baptist asked Jesus if he was the one to come, Jesus replied by paraphrasing Isaiah’s vision. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus claimed that in him, the kingdom of God had come to the earth. It was present in his ministry- his healings, his forgiveness of sin, his love for the poor, all bear witness to the presence of God’s kingdom in his time. Wherever Jesus is, there is the kingdom of God. When he departed this earth he promised to be with us anytime two or three are gathered in his name. And so we trust and experience his continued presence with us today. It is this presence of Christ that we feel in our worship and service here at St. Paul’s. When we celebrate this presence in Holy Communion we have a taste of what the kingdom is like in the here and now. And when we proclaim that Christ will come again, we anticipate the day when God’s kingdom arrives in its fullness- when sorrow and sighing shall be no more. 

The gift of joy comes to us through faith. Through God, Jesus, the Holy Scriptures, and the Church we come to know and trust that the eschaton, God’s kingdom, is indeed coming. Nourishing this trust in worship, communion, fellowship, song, and prayer is what sustains us through the most difficult of times. The more we come to trust in the coming of the kingdom, the more we will feel its joy in our lives. The more we come to trust in the coming of the kingdom, the more we will desire to spread such joy and faith to others. The more we trust in the coming of the kingdom, the more we are inspired and motivated to better the world no matter how desperate and gloomy it may seem. God has promised that the kingdom will come, and we who share a foretaste of it in communion may continue to resist despair and the powers of death with joy in our hearts for we know that God is bringing about the end of the world by the full appearance of his kingdom- a banquet where all are welcome, where hurt is no more, where sorrow and sadness melt away. May we come to this faith through God and may we face our broken world with the joy of Christ in our hearts. Amen.

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When I was 5 years old my parents sat down my brother and I to inform us that we would all be moving to Pennsylvania. My brother took the news in stride. I burst into tears and began screaming. When my parents finally calmed me down enough to ask what I was so upset about, I told them, “You’re making me move and you won’t let me take my stuffed animals with me!” My parents quickly taught me what a moving van was and assured me their would be enough room in it to take all my stuffed animals with us to Pennsylvania. As soon as I had been assured, I quit crying, and never said another word of protest. 

As silly as this may sound, I loved my stuffed animals as a kid. Each of my stuffed animals had a name, and a personality, and even their own best stuffed animal friends. I had created a whole pretend world in which my stuffed friends and I lived and interacted. They were my friends, and I genuinely cared about them. The idea of being separated from them was terrible. Even worse was that I thought my parents, the “real” people who were supposed to love me, were so indifferent to my friends and the love we shared, that they would forcibly separate us. For me, and for a lot of children, creating personalities for their stuffed animals, dolls, or toys, can be our first effort at forming loving relationships. It is a way to practice loving and caring for others, a way to learn how to be in mutual loving relationships. 

On his last night with his disciples, Jesus gives tells his closest friends that when he is gone, they must love one another as he has first loved them. This commandment to love as Christ first loved them is so central that it is to be the identifying mark of all Christian communities- “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we are to seriously attempt to follow this command, as I believe we must if we are to follow Christ, then we need to first be clear about how we are to love one another. Love is an unfortunately broad word which can refer to a variety of experiences- everything from friendship, to romantic love, to how we care for our children, or how we feel about good coffee. To make matters more complicated, our personal understanding of love, is always conditioned by our lived experiences- we understand what love is by how we have experienced it. Sometimes these experiences are harmful or abusive. They can lead us to mistakenly believe that this harm and abuse has something to do with loving. So if we are to make a real attempt to follow Jesus’ command to love one another as He first loved us, it is important to understand how Jesus loves us.

There is a tendency to think of Jesus’ love as a principle that is universally applied. God is love and therefore Jesus loves all people. While that has some truth to it, it can lead us to think of the love of Christ as being impersonal and mandatory. Imagine a young man proposing to someone and saying, “I love you. I love all women, really. You know what I love everybody.” It would make the moment a little less special wouldn’t it? God does not love us in the abstract. God does not love us because we are merely a part of a larger whole that She loves. God does not love us because God must love us. God freely chooses to love us. God freely chooses to love each, individual, one of us, just as we are. God doesn’t just love, humankind, God truly, deeply, personally, and voluntarily loves you. Right now, just as you are, Jesus loves YOU. 

In addition to being free, voluntary, and personal, Jesus’ love for us leads him to give freely of his whole being to each one of us. We see this in his life- how he devotes his time to healing others, to loving others, to setting them free from sin and awakening them to true, eternal life, in the kingdom of God. Most especially, we see it in his voluntary, sacrificial, death on our behalf. Jesus’ love for each of us is such that he gives his entire being, even his body and blood, so that we may have life and have it abundantly. The love that Jesus shares with us is a personal, self-giving love that does all it can to lead us to a full, flourishing, life. It is a perfect love, and it is perfectly offered to everyone.

Knowing that you are loved like this by Jesus is great news. Subsequently realizing that you are then to attempt to love others in this same way, is more than a little daunting. “Ohh great I just have to love as perfectly as the Son of God, should be easy.” The truth is that we can’t love as perfectly or as broadly as Jesus did. Given that he is divine as well as human, and that we are merely forgiven human sinners, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But then what are we to do?!? How are we to follow Jesus’ commandment if it’s not even possible for us? To fully love as Christ loved in this life is not possible, but to practice loving one another in and with Jesus Christ, to grow in our capacity for Christ like love is certainly possible with the grace of God. The Christian life is an ongoing attempt to practice loving others as Christ first loved us in the hopes of growing more and more in the love of Christ. 

There are a multitude of ways in which we practice loving others as Christ loved us. We do so in the life of our congregation: we feed each other, we listen to each other, we care for one another’s children, we offer help to one another. This is not always easy, or natural for us, because we can drive one another crazy. We can get on each others nerves, we can even insult and offend one another even if we didn’t mean to. And yet, it is this very people, the sometimes annoying, sometimes offensive, very different people that we are called to love. Through the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we often do so, we often manage to give of ourselves in love to each other. May God continue to help us grow in our Christ like love for one another. 

Our personal relationships, especially, partnered romantic relationships, are another way we way in which we seek to practice loving others as Christ loved us.The Church has long honored marriage as a way for people to live out the command of Christ by fully, deeply, giving of themselves in love to one another. We have rightly held us these committed, personal, loving relationships as emulating and pointing towards the love of Christ. As someone who now has 6 years of experience in marriage, I can tell you that the sometimes difficult work of fully loving another person as they are, has been for me much needed and practice in living out the gracious love of Christ. Just as my stuffed animals helped me to practice loving relationships, so too has my relationship with Shannon helped me to practice the self-giving love of Christ. I love my wife, Shannon, and I am grateful to her for loving me. I am also grateful for the Church which affirms our love as good and sacred, which affirms it as pointing to the love of Christ.

There have always been people in the Church who were attracted to and in relationships with people of the same sex. There was not, until the last century, any socially acceptable space for these people to be in mutual, loving, committed, and public, relationships. The widespread condemnation of homosexual relationships in society was shared by the Church. In most cases gay people could only pariticpate in the life of the church if they kept their loves secret. While others had their relationships honored and held up as models of the practice of Christian love, gay people heard their relationships dishonored, degraded and condemned. If they could keep their sexuality a secret, then the church might be open to them. But the Church would never affirm them nor their relationships as sacred attempts to share the love of Christ with another. Disregarding someone’s loving relationship, claiming that their relationship is evil, telling them that they and their love are sinful is an incredibly damaging thing to do to someone. It does not help lead them to freedom in Christ and a full, flourishing, life. It isolates them. It alienates them. It can lead to a damaging self-image, and in turn to despair, depression, addiction, even death. These have been the fruits of the Church’s prohibition on same sex love- fruits not of love, but of death. And why have we, the Church, chosen to cause such harm to people earnestly seeking to follow Jesus? What was the offense for which we were willing to dole out such terrible punishment? Simply put, all these people wanted to do was to emulate the love of Christ in their loving relationship with another. They wanted to love others as Christ first loved them. For this genuine effort to practice loving as Christ loved, the Church has rejected, condemned, and severely damaged these children of God. 

As a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ, I want to apologize to all of you, gay and straight, for this shameful, sinful, behavior. When gay people bravely and publicly declared their love for one another and asked to be a part of the Church we were wrong to reject them. We should have welcomed them with open arms. We were supposed to love them as Christ loved us, and instead we rejected and harmed them. That was wrong and if the Church is to be the Church of Jesus Christ it must end this practice. If we truly wish to follow the commandment of Jesus to love one another as he first loved us, we must recognize, honor, and affirm, the loving relationships of same sex couples as genuine, sacred, attempts to emulate and point to the love of Christ for the world. May it be so. Amen.

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I went to seminary with a young man by the name of Sam who looked like he walked straight out of J. Crew catalog. Sam was remarkably handsome, he was in great shape, and he dressed immaculately. Sam was smart and well educated, he was a graduate of Columbia University in New York. What’s more he was white, and straight, and to top it off he was very polite and kind. The way in which Sam seemed to so effortlessly check off all of the boxes of what our society considers to be normal, healthy, and good, drove me nuts. I still remember silently despising him as I stood outside our dorm smoking a cigarette after pulling an all nighter to not quite finish a paper when he waved hello to me as he finished his early morning run. He was just so together, so normal, he was the prototype of what our society thinks a nice, young man is supposed to be. 

There is a tendency in religion to think that God only wants the best. This tendency is born of a desire to show love and honor to God, to recognize that God is holy. There’s nothing wrong with desiring to give God your very best. I encourage all of you to give the best of your lives to God and to the church, to honor God by making of your lives a living sacrifice. However, the tendency to imagine that God only wants the best can take a rather harmful turn when it is applied to people themselves. In ancient Israel, the priestly class sought to maintain the holiness of God by enforcing purity laws meant to insure that only those who were adequately prepared, the very best, could stand in the assembly of the Lord. This meant that anyone or anything that they deemed abnormal was prohibited from joining in the religious life of the community. One such prohibitive law is found in the 23rd Chapter of Deuteronomy where it says, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.” 

At first glance this seems a terribly odd and terrifically specific prohibition. Yet the practice of crushing a young boys testicles, or removing all their genitalia, was fairly common in the societies that surrounded Israel. Many of these Ancient Near Eastern Societies castrated boys to serve as eunuchs in their official courts and their harems. Such a practice was alien to Israel, and as such it was deemed impure, and eunuch’s were thus cut off from the assembly of the LORD. When you are trying to collect only your best to present before the LORD, when you are trying to make a congregation full of Sams, you simply can’t allow in people that are so atypical, people that are so different, people that don’t fit our mold of normal and good. 

For years this prohibition was relatively uncontroversial simply because there were almost no Eunuchs in Israel. However, that began to change after Israel and Judah were conquered by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. After this conquest, many Israelites were forced into serving the courts of these Emperors, and in these societies it was only eunuchs who could perform such roles. Many Israelite men became eunuchs during the period in exile. This raised the question anew- would these Israelites, now eunuchs themselves, be allowed into the assembly? Could they be included in God’s love and grace?

As Christians in the 21st century our religious inheritance includes a prohibition against sexual relationships between two people of the same gender. Though this prohibition has always been somewhat controversial, in the last 60 years it has become much more so. Millions of people now live in committed, loving, sexual relationships with people of the same gender. And these people, courageous enough to be true to the person God created them to be, have insisted that they too have a right to share in the grace and love of God. They have insisted that they too belong in the assembly of the LORD. 

The first strike taken against the prohibition on eunuchs in the assembly of God was taken by the prophet Isaiah who wrote, “Thus says the LORD, ‘To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters, I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” The word of God that came to Isaiah directly contradicted the earlier legal prohibition against eunuchs. Isaiah heard a new Word from God, a Word of inclusion and love, and he did not hesitate to speak this new Word against the old understanding.

When Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, set off a new religious movement, a new people of God, the question about Eunuchs and their place in the community was still a live one. The stance that the new community was to take was made known from the very beginning; it was made known by this story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. There are two points from this story I want to bring to your attention. The first is that it is God who takes the initiative. This is not a side project of Philip’s, its not a trivial, optional, issue on which there is much room to disagree. No, the angel of the Lord sends Philip to where the eunuch will be, and the Spirit of God instructs him to sit beside the eunuch in his chariot. From the very beginning, God makes clear that this new community will not be a community of only the most normal, most admired, most typical people. God sends Philip to share the gospel with an Ethiopian eunuch. 

The second point that I want to make is that ultimately it is Philip who must answer the question of the eunuch, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” God brought these two together, God helped bring the Word to the eunuch, but ultimately it is Philip, it is the Church, that must answer the question, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” When gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people come to the Church in our time, the same question is put to us, “Is there anything to prevent me from being baptized?” We know that the Spirit of God was given to the Ethiopian eunuch after he was baptized. We know that the word of God that came to Isaiah contradicted the earlier prohibition against them. So the question isn’t what the bible says, or what God wishes. The question is whether we will meet our LGBT siblings with the loving acceptance of God or if we will insist on worshipping normality and legalism instead. My prayer is that we will do our best to embody the Holy Spirit in welcoming all to be baptized, loved, and affirmed within the church. May it be so. Amen. 

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I used to swear a lot. Not necessarily in a mean or nasty way, it was more that I frequently accented my speech with a few four letter words. But then I became a Pastor and a father. Once people know that you are a pastor, they begin to apologize to you for using profanity; as if it were the first time you were hearing these words, as though they were defiling your virgin ears. As odd as this is, it does drive home the point that what we say matters. Around clergy, people often want to be good, to do good, they want to be perceived as decent and kind. And those four letter words, although sometimes useful, can undermine this effort. They can make you sound mean, or careless. After realizing this, I tried to cut down on my cursing, because I want to encourage people in doing their best to be kind, and I definitely don’t want to come off as careless or mean. 

Yet as much as becoming clergy has chained my speech patterns, becoming a father has done so even more. My daughter Ruth is getting to the point where she can speak in whole sentences, and, of course, she learns to speak from listening to us. She is a parrot. She will repeat nearly anything you say. If you have any doubt that curse words can sound nasty or mean, wait until you hear a two year old say one. When it comes from the mouths of babes it is easy to see how such language can be ugly, nasty, or even mean. So I now try my best to limit my swearing, I try not to do it at work, try not to do it at home. In my former life, single, with no kids, and working construction, it seemed so natural to swear, but now I have changed, circumstances have changed. I’m not the same person that I was back then. And so know my behavior must change as well. Though I still bring them right out anytime I’m venting to a friend or family about my frustrations, I’m doing a lot better at limiting my swearing, 

Our New Testament reading this morning was nearly the entirety of Paul’s letter to Philemon. This letter is unique in all of Scripture not just for its brevity but for its content. Although the letter is addressed not only to Philemon but to the others in his church, it nevertheless is written as a personal letter. In it Paul speaks directly to an individual, most likely Philemon, about a very personal matter; Paul wants Philemon to welcome home his estranged former servant Onesimus, as a brother. Paul is writing from prison where he has met and befriended Onesimus.  He baptized him and ever since Onesimus has been helping Paulin his apostolic ministry. He has become a valued colleague and trusted friend to Paul. 

We are not sure what is the cause of the estrangement between Onesmus and Philemon. It could be that Onesimus was an unfree servant in Philemon’s house who simply ran away. It might be that Onesimus stole something from Philemon. It could very well be both. But whatever it was, after having met Paul, the two of them decide that Onesimus should return to Philemon to try and make things right. Paul is unable to travel with Onesimus so he does the next best thing, he rights him a letter to take to Philemon. As it turns out, Paul doesn’t just know Onesimus’s master, he actually baptized Philemon as well. So Paul, using his authority, power, and privilege as an apostle, writes to Philemon to ask him to forgive any debts that Onesimus owes, and to no longer treat him as a servant, but rather to welcome him as a brother. 

Slavery was a fact of life in the Roman empire in the first century. It was the way of that world. Though not nearly as barbaric as chattel slavery here in the United States, slaves did still belong to their masters, they were not free to leave or to live independent lives. It is therefore, not surprising that Philemon and his house had slaves, for that was the norm. But at some point in his adult life, Philemon converted to Christianity. He was baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This conversion meant that he was living a new life, as a new person. He now belonged to Christ, he was now living in and for Christ. He no longer belonged to the world, and he no longer lived for it. 

There are those in our day, and certainly in Paul’s day as well, who view belonging to a church as similiar to belonging to a country club. For them church is a nice place to visit with other like minded people, a place to feel that you are among the good and righteous, but certainly not an institution that requires you to change how you live and interact with the world. This is not the way that Paul viewed faith in God. For Paul, and for Jesus Christ, faith meant turning your world upside down. It meant belonging to a different kingdom, a kingdom in which the meek were blessed, a kingdom in which there was no male or female, jew or greek, free or slave, for all are one in Christ Jesus. Paul believed that faith called you out of the world into a life of service to Christ. 

So when Paul meets Onesimus and hears of his estrangement from his former master and his fear of reprisal from Philemon, he knows how he can help. In the ancient church, apostles had incredible authority, their words were taken as divine revelation. This means that Paul could command Philemon to release Onesimus from slavery and forgive his debts. However, Paul chooses not to command Philemon but rather to remind him what his new faith requires of him. Paul writes, “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment… I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own free will. Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all , or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand, I will repay it-- to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord.”

Previously, Philemon had treated Onesimus as the world treated him, as a slave, an inferior person. But now, Philemon has been baptized, he has begun a new life as a follower of Christ. What does this new life require of him? It requires him to see Onesimus as a brother in Christ and no longer as a slave. It requires him to forgive his debtors just as his debts have been forgiven. It requires him to see God in the face of his brother. It requires him to do all that he can to help Onesimus serve God as best he is able. Paul reminds him of his new faith, he reminds him of his new life in Christ and how this life requires him to treat Onesimus as a brother in the flesh and in the Lord. 

The world of 1st Century Rome provided many reasons for one to view oneself as superior to others. Masters were superior to slaves. Greeks were superior to Jews. Men were superior to women. Romans were superior to Barbarians. All of these categories divided the people against themselves. In this respect not much has changed from the world of Rome to our world today. Our world is also full of reasons to view yourself as superior to others. The rich are superior to the poor. Whites are superior to non-whites. Citizens are superior to non-citizens. Those who work are superior to those who don’t. Our world is full of dividing lines, things that separate us from one another, things that justify our poor treatment of those different from ourselves. Yet we do not belong to the world, just as Philemon no longer did. We belong to God in Christ. We belong to the church and not to a country club. This belonging to God, this belonging to the church, makes demands upon our lives. It demands that we give up our feelings of superiority. It demands that we see others as siblings in Christ. It demands that we do as Paul did and lend every ounce of our power and privilege to set another free. This is what our faith requires of us. It requires us to acknowledge that we are no more than forgiven sinners and to extend that same grace, forgiveness, and acceptance that we have received in Christ to all others. May we begin to see others, as Paul saw Onesimus, as beloved brethren in Christ. 
Amen.

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