Two Turnings
John 20:11-18 and Psalm 126
 
John 20: 11-18: But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
 
Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And then, as Sister Miriam Elizabeth pointed out to me recently, there is this movement in our gospel for today—Mary turns twice. I have thought about those two turnings ever since she said that to me. The first is a turning of lament. It happens before Mary recognizes the risen Lord. She is lamenting that they have taken him from her. This first turning is a moment of loss—without hope. Then, he calls her name—and she turns again and says to him “Rabbouni!” This is the turning of resurrection, the moment of rejoicing. 
 
Tomorrow, as attorneys and justices take a next, and we pray, decisive step in resolving the legal issues we face, I call us to the turning of lament and to the turning of resurrection, our moment of rejoicing. I call upon us, as we reflect on the property in question, to begin our day with lament to remember those in our midst who have known, for centuries, injustices related to removal from their ancestral lands;  those forcibly removed from their homeland packed into ships to come here to face lives of torture and enslavement; and, those who have faced and face still, in parts of the world, grave dangers if they openly reveal their identities—including imprisonment or even death simply because of who they love. 
 
The privileges many of us who are white, cis-gender heterosexual people—particularly men— have known—in property ownership, wealth accumulation, in personal freedoms, yes—even in the capacity to build beautiful edifices in which to worship God—we have gained by the blood and agony of those whose suffering is hard for many of us to comprehend. 
 
Sociologists, including Justin Farrell from Yale University, have just released research confirming what Native Americans have known—that in the continental U.S., Indigenous tribes lost close to 99 percent of their combined historical land bases through European colonization and the expansion of the United States. Their documented presence was reduced from more than 2.7 million square miles to roughly 165,000 square miles.
 
Well into the twentieth century—into the mid 1960s, our white diocesan leaders denied seat, voice, and vote to our African American sisters and brothers in Christ at our Diocesan Convention—one of countless injustices with which they contended as they were fighting for their basic rights against constant threats of intimidation, physical violence, torture, and death in cities and towns across our state and nation. 
 
There are still approximately 69 countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality—nearly half of those are in Africa. These laws can, in many cases, be traced to colonial times. And we are at risk of a roll back on hard earned civil liberties for marriage equality, upon which hinges many basic rights for family members in this country.
 
As we pray for clarity and justice to prevail in our own matters of concern as a diocese, let us remember that our present trials sit in the larger context of the story of God’s mighty justice in this world. It is a story in which the circle is always, as Bishop Rob Wright of the Diocese of Atlanta has said, being drawn wider. The only true reason to hope for a favorable outcome of our present legal matters is so that we might use our resources rightly—to bring the light of the Gospel to transform powers and principalities that have harmed God’s beloved children, to restore God’s hope and truth and beauty in this world.
 
Our present conflict has at its roots very different understandings of what justice entails. Just under 10 years ago, you made painful, wrenching choices to stand firm with Jesus in his call to us to practices revolutionary love. You committed to building communities where there are no outcasts. I am profoundly moved by your courage, your clarity, your willingness to embrace the wilderness for these many years because you would not leave a single beloved child of God out of the circle. You respected the dignity of every human being by your actions. For that, you can be deeply glad. No matter what happens tomorrow or in the days ahead.
 
As we pray and tend to our own wounds and to the wounds of those with whom we have disagreed, and whom we love as we always have, I ask that we not lose perspective. When it comes to the story of land and property, Jesus calls us always to tend first the needs of those who have been most disenfranchised—those who have lived with injustice from generation to generation. See them. Center their experience. Honor their lives. Seek their well being first. This is the gospel call upon our lives. 
 
For all the nameless ones who have had land, freedom, dignity, and life ripped from them because of human sin, may we pause to lament tomorrow. May we name them. May this be the first turning of our day.
 
Then, I call us to the second turning tomorrow—the turning of resurrection.  From our lament, may there rise in us a conviction to walk in solidarity—with all those of good will who would join us—be they ones we have counted as friends or adversaries. May all of us who long to build the beloved community of Jesus join hands across all of our differences. May we walk from a past of division into a future where everyone, everyone has a seat at the welcome table. And we all feast together—no outcasts.
 
This is what beloved community entails—radical, unfettered welcome, safe harbor, just society. I believe there are those on all sides of our disagreements who know there is room at the table for everyone. There are those on all sides of our disagreement who want a world where their children, their siblings, their cousins, nephews and nieces, their parents and friends and neighbors can live without fear of harm simply because of who they are. 
 
I promise you, if we dare to follow Jesus and “draw the circle wider” like Bishop Wright says, bright will be our future, clear will be our voice, beautiful will be the footprint we leave in every place where we plant ourselves—with or without buildings and properties.
 
Mary Magdalene went and announced to her disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” 
 
When we see the Lord in each and every one we encounter, then, those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Then, those who go out weeping, bearing the seeds for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Lament will give way to rejoicing. Resurrection will arrive, clothed in unrecognizable form. 
 
So, tomorrow morning when you arise, turn and turn again. For a new day awaits.
  
Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we rejoiced.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord ,
    like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
    reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    carrying their sheaves.
 

231st Diocesan Convention
Holy Cross Faith Memorial Episcopal Church, Pawleys Island
Sermon given at the Sending Eucharist on November 13, 2021

​There is a day I will remember forever.
 
It began with an early morning short plane ride then a bus ride to a place north of Chang Mai, Thailand where Lek Chailert has made a home for elephants who have been abused. In that home, the elephants lucky enough to be found by Lek are cared for and loved. Our family of four went there on July 22, 2013, the day I will remember forever.
 
We saw elephants whose eyes had been gauged out, whose ears had been cut and legs had been broken, elephants who had lived their whole lives in fear of physical violence. Often, when Lek found the elephants, they did not want to be with her, or even with the other elephants. They would isolate, hide even, for days or weeks before they would venture out into the clearing to join the rest.
 
Similarly, the trainers she recruited, called mahouts, often did not want to speak about their former work. Many of them had come from a tourism industry that taught them to use violence and methods of torture to subdue the elephants. They were trained to tie them up in what is called “the crush”, then jab them until they bled with spears, even blinding them, gouging out their eyes.
 
I’m not sure what attracted these trainers to Lek and Elephant Nature Park. It’s a mystery how a person comes to desire to change  the things that harm the soul. Perhaps, it was simply getting a taste of Lek’s vision. Or perhaps it was something they saw in the eyes of the creatures they sought to subdue. Whatever it was, something led these trainers to Elephant Nature Park, to care for elephants who had been abused by the very methods they themselves had used.
 
With Lek, the elephants and their human caregivers were learning a new way of living, together. It was beautiful to witness the love between the elephants and the mahouts. They easily showed affection to each other. They played together. The trust was obvious.
 
Our day with Lek and her friends was one of the most beautiful days of my life. All four of us would describe it to you, I think, as a day when time stood still, suspended.
 
There are moments in life when we just know we are in the center of our purpose. We are fully alive. Fully aligned with love. Those are abiding moments.
 
In his farewell discourse in the middle of John’s gospel, Jesus’s uses this one word over and over.  Abide. Or, in the Greek, meno.
 
Meno implies something more than just physically staying in a place. It has a deeper sense of connection, companionship, and harmony. It is used to describe how we are knit into God, like a baby is knit into the mother’s womb. John uses it to describe the deep down rootedness of a vine with intertwining branches.
 
We were made to abide. To dwell with one another and with our God. And from that place of deep connectivity, to live with joy, with generosity, and the kind of uninhibited delight we knew as children.
 
 
Episcopalians of South Carolina, I’ve seen how you abide. I can say that with some authority now, because I have visited most of you in your home churches—I have listened to your stories. And those I’ve not yet visited, I am coming soon! By early in the new year, I hope to have been with every community in this diocese.
 
You know, I’ve walked in to beautiful churches you where you have abided with the saints before you for generations. And, I’ve walked into a bank, into a storefront, into a grove of trees, onto a college campus, into spaces borrowed from other churches—I’ve walked into living rooms and onto porches, into gardens and beside beaches.
 
In all the places where you are, you share the same story—of how you love one another—how you are tending each other’s souls, how you have opened your eyes to see your neighbor and love them. It’s happening everywhere, this abiding.
 
That would be enough. Truly. I could stop preaching now, and  your witness would be enough. God is smiling on you. But, as we know, the story does not stop there. Your story, our story, has another layer. A very particular layer. You have lived for a decade now with a deep wound. The schism has been costly in more ways than we can ever count or name. I know that.
 
 
So, what does it mean, then, to abide in the face of such pain? How do we abide with those from whom we are cut off? In the church…in the world.
 
There is no easy answer to this question. It looks different in each circumstance. What we know is that God is in the business of bringing all the broken pieces, all the shards of our lives, back into oneness—knitting us back together. Like Lek was knitting back together the community of elephants with the mahouts who trained them.
 
As I’ve listened, I hear some of the same wisdom Lek had coming from you. You have talked to me about your neighbors, friends, even family, with whom you find yourselves in conflict. I hear your pain and your hope. It might be easier to cut and run from our adversaries. But their wounds, too, Christ calls us to tend. I’ve heard how you are tending not only your wounds, but their wounds, too.
 
This tending the other, the one who has harmed you, is hard work.
 
I understand the cost of these past ten years has been great to you. I understand that, even now, we are not finished with that difficult road.
 
And I think your stamina to continue to see it through comes from the fact that, through the trials you’ve endured, you have realized how important it is to you to stand for what you believe is right. You are crystal clear that when you say all are welcome, you mean all. You are crystal clear about God’s justice. There is nothing naive about your faith.
 
And, from that non-naive place, I also hear something else. I hear that you believe a heart can change. I hear that you have become adept at finding common ground with those who see things differently than you do.
 
There is a great temptation in the face of chronic conflict to withdraw, to become cynical—or, worst yet, to begin to think the gospel doesn’t really hold in every situation, that it’s not up to the acid test of real life.
 
But we know the gospel holds. In every situation.
 
The gospel holds in every circumstance precisely because God’s love is the strongest force in this world. And that love conquers fear.
 
Late in the afternoon of July 22, 2013 at Elephant Nature Park, Lek Chalert walked with our family into a field where several elephant families were resting in the afternoon sun. Lek took our sons, George and John, and invited them to sit with her at the feet of one of the young elephants. Lek then crawled under the elephant. It was a moment that could have been fearful for me—in fact, I probably should have, by all accounts been really afraid. Here were my two sons sitting where this elephant could take them out with one stomp.
 
But, I did not really have an opportunity to engage fear. Because, what happened next was more compelling than fear. Lek began to sing a lullaby. Quietly, to this young elephant, while she was sitting underneath him. There in front of me were our two boys sitting at the feet of this elephant with Lek, singing the lullaby from under the elephant belly. And, somehow, I did not fear for their lives.
 
I knew, in that moment, I was hearing the song of redemption. Redemption from all the violence, from all the harm these creatures had endured. Redemption from all the shame, from all the burden the mahouts had carried.
 
When Lek sang her lullaby, she sat under a beast who could have killed her with one movement. Hers was not a sentimental act. It was, rather, an act of resistance against a belief that fear and hatred win. It was an act born of the conviction that love is stronger than any evil. She chose to abide beneath the belly of the elephant.
 
Such is our calling. To sit beneath the belly of the elephant and dare to sing a lullaby. To abide in the company of the saints and martyrs.
 
God redeems this world by our abiding in all the places that need love most.
 
There will come a day when we will lie down under the belly of all we have feared the most. Only, we won’t be afraid anymore. Instead, we will sing the lullaby of redemption, together.
 
What a day that will be.
 
A day we will remember forever.
 

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Good morning! What a joy to be with you today. What an honor. Thank you, Congregation of Calvary and Mother Ann, for having me and for welcoming our guests. I love being a people who follow the lectionary—And then there are days like today… my first sermon as your bishop. And the lectionary hands me divorce.

Yesterday was glorious. This morning is glorious! You have created such a beautiful day! And now, the gospel drives us here. To divorce. Isn’t that the way it is in this world? The glory and the agony come together in this life.

To contemplate today’s gospel, we must go back to the beginning…the very beginning—the story of the creation of marriage we just heard from Genesis. Marriage is the very first human institution. It was born when God realized there was an absence of a peer for Adam among all the other creatures.
Wonderful as those animals were, there was no partner among them who could engage Adam as equal, who could push back, none who—as Presiding Bishop Curry said it to the bishops a week ago—knew his jive. No one who could give him that look and say, “Seriously, Adam? You’re gonna wear those fig leaves to dinner?” Yes, Adam needed someone who could push back. An equal. A peer.

So, what does God do? He puts Adam into a deep sleep —that place between worlds where we dream. And from that place, while Adam’s ego needs are taking a rest, while he is simply being, breathing, dreaming, God can do his best work. It’s a sweet, still place where marriage is born.

Marriage is the archetype for all our closest relationships. All the other ways we’ve used marriage—to keep people out—to oppress one another based on gender identity, sexual orientation, race, age, religion, class—all are mere aberrations. At its heart, marriage is a way to get love into this world through the power we enact when we come together with another. We are stronger together.

When God joins husband and wife, wife and wife, husband and husband—those two want it to last forever. No one begins a marriage wanting divorce. No one plans it. But, as the Pharisees who approach Jesus in today’s gospel knew all too well…Sometimes, it is unavoidable. Sometimes, given our human frailty, it is necessary.

There are things you don’t come back from easily, when we are joined together as one—be it as a couple, as a church, as a nation. The causes of divorce comes in many forms. But one thing they have in common—they all tear us asunder. You know a thing or two about that. Schism. Schism, yes…
But what about being displaced from your historic sacred church for white folks to get a new neighborhood? What about being told your baptism doesn’t quite suffice to open the doors for your seat, voice and vote in your own church’s diocesan convention until 1965.

What about baptismal records that put down with pen and ink the names of white people as “owners” of your ancestors as they were being baptized into a gospel proclaiming freedom and truth? And what about all the ways the diocese, the city, the country has not made reparations to you for all that has been taken? Yes, you know a thing or two about being torn asunder.

Mr. Hamilton was good enough to spend some time with me to begin to tell me your story. I listened carefully. He’s a good story teller, as you all know. But more importantly, he gets to the heart of the matter. That visit was a first step. I have much more listening to do. I understand that.

You know and have lived in ways I can never know or live, the reality of a divorce so deep one wonders how we as a church, as a nation, as a world can ever come back from it. And I name and respect that you have been disproportionately harmed by the sins born of our racism, which I, as a white Episcopalian—as a white person— have committed and from which I benefit.

Divorce of the kind you have known is born of inequality and oppression. And the impact has been grave. Any work we do together must begin with this acknowledgement. So, the Pharisees ask Jesus, is it lawful, this thing called divorce? Is it lawful to tear asunder that which God has joined together?
Well, that’s not really the question, is it? The question is not is it lawful. We know the answer to that. The question, rather, is how do we prevent it in the first place? How to we stop killing the dream of God? The Pharisees were squarely focused on the question they had posed—is divorce lawful? Jesus is trying to reframe the question and call them back to love. And then, something happens. Something wonderful happens. These parents off to the side, are trying to move unnoticed around all this heavy conversation to get their children into the presence of Jesus.

So in the midst of a conversation about divorce, we can now see a mother lifting up her toddler to Jesus, a child darting between the crowds of towering adults to find Jesus and crawl into his lap, other children drawing near because they sense, as only children can, that this is a grown up they can trust.

It is as if the children are conspiring with Jesus to change our frame of reference. Jesus takes the cue. He says: “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them…Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive he kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” The children and Jesus together return us to the dream of God. In this unexpected turn, we see, through the action of children, what we must do.

The only way to repair the fabric of our common life is to find our way to Jesus and begin again. We must be born anew. We must begin again. Baptism is where we begin again. Our baptismal vows bring us back. The waters of our baptism run deep. No hurt, no offense, no sin goes deeper than those waters. Grace reaches them all. And grace, of the sort Jesus brings, is not pablum.

We preach not just a slight tune-up, not just a little self improvement. No, the gospel assumes divorce of every kind. It assumes the most wretched, unspeakable sin the most untouchable grief, the most entrenched anger and disappointment at human failings. The grace of Jesus is strong. It is true and just. Jesus’ grace restores life.

Life where we strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human begin. Life where we seek and serve Christ in all persons. Life where we resist evil, life where, when we fall into sin, we are given space to repent and return to the Lord, life where we proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.

The gospel returns us to the dream of God, born in our first sleep. We become in baptism, God’s children again. We become strong enough to disrupt all the divorces in this world that rip us asunder. We did not come all this way across continents and millennia, across crusades and blood stained roads, across soul bearing oceans, across unmarked-graves and stolen sacred spaces—we did NOT come this far by way of a polite, make-nice surface, pale imitation of the good news Jesus came to deliver.

No. We came this far by faith. Faith that the grace of God —a grace we do not understand and cannot control, can make us whole and just and strong. The grace of God will lead us places we do not want to go. Through grace, there will be times when you will have to speak truth to me I may not want to hear as I seek my own repentance and our collective repentance as a church, here in South Carolina. Through grace, I as your bishop need to listen with an open mind and an open heart, seeking first to understand. And, sometimes, through grace, I will need to speak difficult things, too.

I ask for you to lean in with me—with playfulness, with forgiveness, with curiosity and the will to learn and grow together. We don’t have to get it all right today. Thank God. We simply have to begin. Always, we begin again. Together, you and I begin. My heart is glad. God bless you and keep you. Amen.