6th Sunday After Pentecost 2024

Second reading from Ephesians.

Blessed be the God and all of our Redeemer Jesus and the Messiah, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in the Messiah.

Just as in choosing us in the Messiah before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love, God destined us for adoption as our children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of God's will, and to the praise of God's glorious grace freely bestowed on us in the blood.

In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of God's grace.

Grace which God has abundantly poured upon us along with all wisdom and understanding.

God has made known to us the mystery of God's will, according to God's good pleasure that God sent forth in Christ.

A plan in the fullness of time to gather up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on earth, all into Christ.

For the word of God in Scripture, the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now they, the disciples of Jesus, came to Capernaum.

And when he was in the house, he asked them, What were you all arguing about on the way?

But they were silent, for they'd argued with one another on the way, who was the greatest?

So Jesus sat down.

He called the twelve and said to them, Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.

Then Jesus took a little child and put them among the disciples, and taking them in his arms, Jesus spoke to the disciples.

And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.

Later Jesus said, If anyone puts a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believes in me, it would be better if a great millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.

The Gospel of the Lord.

So just a quick word.

So if the liturgy seems, well, alien to you, it's because it is.

It's from Scotland, and I hope you will enjoy it.

And don't be worried, we're going back to what we're used to, but we're taking a trip the next few weeks.

I do hope you will enjoy it.

There are some really, really meaningful terms of phrase here.

Okay, that said, um, I do like to return to the story, and I'm especially grateful that the translator, the one who's put together the women's lectionary for the church that we're trying out this year, really grateful that she did this sort of pun in Genesis between the human and the humus.

Just to be clear, it's not hummus, humus, because this is how it goes in Hebrew.

Adam means human being.

It doesn't mean like Adam in Genesis 2.

Adam is human, and soil is Adama.

So there's this pun that humans are made from the soil, hence the humus and the human.

And uh there is this really lovely tradition that happens here in the rabbinic tradition.

This is the second time we get to hear about creation.

It's a little different from the first, that everything is made out of dirt, and God is sort of playing around in the dirt and sculpts this body, and it is only, and this is where the word comes from, inspiration that makes the body alive.

So, like, we're clay figures when inspiration leaves us, which is why we say in the funeral service and on Ash Wednesday, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, it is only by inspiration that we live.

You've heard me say this before, that in Hebrew, and this is still the case, it's been the case for about 2,500 years, God's personal name is not written nor is it spoken conventionally, because God's name sounds like a breath, like an inspiration, like and the rabbis have said very clearly, this is very compelling, that the first thing we say when we're born is God's name, like really loud.

And then the last thing we do when we die is we say God's name.

Inspiration leaves us, and we return to the soil from which we were made.

It's really a beautiful image.

And part of what I think we're invited to consider, particularly in the context of the disciples arguing about who is the greatest, the answer is the greatest is the one who goes, Hey, that's you.

Good news, you're the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

How can I say something like that?

Well, the Psalm does something really interesting, which I don't think makes any sense from an experiential perspective, but we are lucky to have physics to guide us here.

Dark is not dark to you.

I know that's nonsense.

Except, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, because we've got physicists in the room, and if I'm wrong, it's okay.

My understanding is that there is as much light in the middle of Mammoth Cave as there is in Aruba.

It's just that that light in dark places is not visible to our eye.

Because our eye only perceives this much of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Is that right?

If I'm wrong, you're going to tell me later.

You can tell me now if I'm wrong.

Because there's things like infrared light and microwaves, right?

And it turns out that dark places are full of light.

And I think the invitation that we get, right, is that sometimes we don't perceive somebody else's light.

Hence we might rank them beneath us, but dark is not dark to God.

That's really important to remember the next five months.

Because we got a reminder Thursday night about how people want us to perceive one another to their own advantage.

It is not advantageous to perceive our brothers and sisters as dark.

Their darkness is not dark to God.

In case you don't know, there was this like exchange of monologues that we call a debate.

It wasn't a debate, right?

Debate implies you actually listen to each other.

There was an exchange of monologues that happened in which we try to say somebody is bad and wrong and evil and there's no light in them.

Dark is not dark to God.

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus tries to make this point by force, by pulling on a child.

Now, a couple words about children.

This is not a glorification of children.

It's not.

In the ancient world, children were among the class of the most vulnerable people that there were.

I want you to think about 75 years ago in West Virginia, we sent children down coal mines because they fit.

Anybody been in a coal mine before?

That's it.

It is tremendously terrifying.

I used to think people were down there with picks standing up.

No, no, no, no.

A coal mine is like two or three feet in diameter.

And you travel on a barge, a high-speed barge on your back, and if you sneeze, you better not sit up because you're going to hit your head and knock your head off.

We sent kids down there not because they were strong, because they fit.

So child labor laws are like a new thing in the history of the world.

And at the time of Jesus, uh, children were just commodities.

Uh also considering that maybe 50% made it to the age of like 16.

50% of kids.

Because if you got a cavity, that was probably gonna be an abscess tooth.

You're probably gonna die.

So kids in the ancient world weren't like the sweet things that we love to say were like innocent and creative.

They were like, ah, probably gonna die.

Uh we need more work on the ranch, let's have some more.

I mean, like, this is kind of like the attitude, right?

And they had no rights.

So Jesus says, look, the way you treat somebody with no rights is the way you treat God.

The way you treat somebody whose light is imperceptible to your vision is the way you treat the light of God.

The way you treat the least of these is the way you treat the greatest of these.

Now, a couple more words about kids.

This congregation is amazing.

Anybody ever been to a church with a crying room?

What's the crying room for?

It's for noisy babies, right?

Thank you for not building a crying room.

Thank you.

If you did have one, I think you'd say the crying room is for the adults who need the quiet.

I really think that's what you'd say.

To your credit.

To your credit.

Turns out that there's like kids that sometimes walk around in the service, because that's what kids do.

Thank you for smiling.

Because we'd rather have them here than not, wouldn't we?

To your credit, we treat children pretty well.

Thank you for accepting that our acolytes serve you the Eucharist.

Because giving our children adult jobs is how we form them to serve in the church.

We don't give them the scraps, we give them the important work so that when they come of age, they'll say, I've always served my church.

You get it.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

I mean it.

I've personally benefited from it because mine used to climb all over me, and I used to be so scared, and you used to say, I've never had so much joy at seeing a child comfortable in church.

Thank you.

But I also want to remind you that this is not just about children per se.

This is about people who have the least legal protection and the people who have the least socially perceived dignity.

Now, I don't know who that is for you.

I don't know.

It's probably not children.

I think that's safe to say.

Because I think socially we've kind of figured that out, right?

Like we don't treat kids bad, that's not good.

Like Department of Family, Children's and Services, that's like a modern invention.

I hope you all know this.

We've kind of crested this hill a little bit.

There's still more work to go, right?

But we figured that out.

So I just want to invite you into my own difficult world for a second.

Because uh we've been reading this book that has really led me to think about people I've never had to think about before.

And to be honest, I still don't have to think about them, to my shame.

This is theology of disability.

So let me just lay out for you, you've probably heard of something called the Americans with Disabilities Act.

You know about this?

It says that public buildings have to be accessible to people who have disabilities, whether you perceive those disabilities or not.

Right?

Like if you want to go to TJ Maxx, it has to have auto-entry doors for people who cannot open the door for any reason.

Right?

They could be in a wheelchair, they could be on crutches, they could have their arms full.

There have to be auto-entry doors in public spaces.

City Hall has to have them.

Do you know who's exempt from the American with Disabilities Act?

Churches.

Do you know who raised the biggest stink about the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Churches.

Because they said it costs too much money to give disabled people access to our buildings.

Jacob's engineering has a fully accessible building.

They have to by law.

We Christian folks publicly fought the law because we said it was too expensive, which is another way of telling a disabled person, you're not, you're not worth it.

I do know in the retelling if Jesus takes somebody who's in a wheelchair who has autism and says, the way you treat this one is the way you treat God.

And these folks need access to God.

Now, I am outing myself.

I did not take a disability theology class in seminary, and I went to the only one in the country that had it.

I didn't go because it didn't apply to me.

And we have a concept of beauty in the church that is very much predicated on ability.

It's traditional, it's been so.

It's not just us, right?

You go to any Episcopal church, I challenge you, and you find going to the chancel beast.

Well, I get it, right?

It's visible, it's lifted up, and it is inaccessible.

We built that hallway uh 12 or 13 years ago.

It's a lovely addition, and you know what we didn't build into it?

We didn't build in ADA compliant doors because we didn't think about it.

So a couple of months ago, when I, for the first time, read a book on disability theology, and I talked to the vestry like, hey, like, we probably should have some auto-entry doors here.

They said, yeah, and let's not just have one, let's have two.

Like we're clever people when something comes to our attention, like we figure that out, right?

So we've got these doors.

And there's this interesting thing that we sometimes say, again, I'm going down my own rabbit hole.

If you get bored, look at the windows.

Sometimes we say, well, we don't have disabled people who need those doors, so we'll just wait until we have one and then we'll add them.

And I hope you understand when we say that, what we're saying is we're gonna be inaccessible until we decide it's worth it for us.

And I might suggest to you Jesus is calling us out on that.

Because I'm gonna tell you we've got a problem.

And I'm part of the problem because we redid the sanctuary several years ago, and it's gorgeous.

I mean, it is classically beautiful.

And I will tell you this with integrity.

I think we have the most beautiful church south of the beltway, at least.

I really believe that.

And if you want to go to that ambo, it is inaccessible to you.

I don't just mean if you have a disability in walking.

I mean, I sit there and hold my breath at 8 o'clock every week when I see people go up and down those stairs because they're dangerous.

The last time we had a supply priest, she almost tripped coming down, and she's able-bodied.

I didn't see this problem for years, but I'm telling you, I see it as a problem now because it's not accessible.

Now, we can come up with some interesting thoughts on the ambo.

Like, well, if a disabled person wants to read the prayers of the scripture, we'll just make an accommodation for them.

And I get that thinking.

It's just, I don't want anybody to have to make an accommodation for me.

I want accessibility to be normal, not the special case.

I actually think that's what Jesus might be suggesting to us.

What do we normalize?

And what do we make people have to be accommodated to?

Now, you may not care about the ambo, and to be honest, I mean, we've had it for a long time.

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm telling you, we're gonna do something about it.

It won't be there anymore.

It can't be there anymore.

It's already denying people access to read the scriptures, not because they're in a wheelchair, but because they're afraid they're gonna fall.

That handrail right there, if you hit that, you're going over it.

It isn't gonna stop you.

It took, I've been here nine years.

I saw it six months ago because I chose to read a book and listen, and that was a miracle of God.

I'm gonna have a foot surgery in September.

Because I can't.

And I'm gonna be in the boot for a couple of weeks.

And listen, it's gonna be really hard to get up there.

I mean, I'm young, right?

I can push up there on crutches or something.

But it's not accessible.

I know we might be thinking, well, when we call the next priest, if they're disabled, we'll solve it then.

But you see, the problem is the structure is telling that priest not to apply here.

Does this make sense what I'm saying?

Now you might be thinking, but geez, isn't that gonna cost more money?

It'd have been cheaper if we thought about it when we built the place.

It's always cheaper when you think about it up front, right?

But we don't make decisions because they're convenient, we make them because they're right.

I mean, I hope.

I actually think that's what Jesus is inviting us to consider.

I'm throwing this ambo problem out, and you may not care about it.

You may not, and it's okay.

By the way, if you do care about it, I would love to have a conversation about how we make it right.

We make it right when we make it accessible, right?

How we make it right, where does it go?

Is that piece of furniture too tall for somebody in a wheelchair?

Probably.

So how do we fix?

I mean, I'd love to have that conversation, but I think we also want to have this conversation in our own heads.

Where are we making God, love, full communion?

Where are we making that inaccessible to people?

If you have more melanin in your skin than I do, that is not a disability.

But socially it is a disability.

Because the average person of color will make categorically less than I will make.

If you have different genitals than I have, that is not a disability.

But we've made a social disability because the average woman will make categorically less than I will make.

But Mike, Jesus is talking about children here.

He's talking about people who are socially vulnerable.

Those are children, those are women, those are people of color, those are people who are transgender, those are people who are in the LGBTQIA plus category.

Those are people with disabilities that are imperceptible to your eye.

Maybe they have autism or aspergers.

Those people are vulnerable.

So if we want to be great, if that's our ambition, then we're called to be the servant of those people.

Not because they need our serving.

What they need is our recognition that we don't give people dignity.

We recognize that God has already given it.

We recognize it with our access.

The access that is ours to give because we've taken it from other people.

Like I said, maybe this was not the sermon you wanted to hear.

Jesus says something that sounds a little rocky here at the end.

He says, if you put an obstacle in the way of one of these little ones, I'm standing on an obstacle right now.

It'd be better if you put a millstone around your neck and threw yourself into the sea.

Please, do take Jesus seriously that it's important.

Do not take him so seriously that you think he's advocating suicide.

That is not the goal here.

Jesus is not telling you God is going to give you a really big spanking if you don't get this right.

Because that's counterintuitive.

And the point is, we're already giving people with disabilities spankings and we need to quit.

God's not going to say, I'm going to spank you if you don't quit spanking.

I'd like to remind you that anytime you hear the phrase the sea in Scripture, you should automatically think, oh, that means watery chaos.

It doesn't mean literal water, it means watery chaos.

Now, Paul writes about the watery chaos of baptism.

And he says that baptism is dying with Christ in the sea so that we can live a new life with him.

The point of baptism is to die to the old way we've settled for, so that we can have a resurrected new way of living that is substantiated in Christ.

And listen, sometimes it is very painful to change.

It will be very painful to not have the ambo there.

Because some of y'all have been here since 1993 when it was put there.

We might need to have a funeral for the ambo.

I don't say that as a joke.

I say that because change is painful.

And sometimes we need to grieve publicly, but it doesn't look like it used to.

Why do we do it?

So that we can put dead things in dead places and live a new life with Jesus.

The funeral happens, and every funeral we do in this church has not the promise that we're all going to die.

We know that.

The promise is that there will be life that will be different.

So what are we encouraged to bury?

Well, our ableism and our racism and our heterosexism.

We are encouraged to drown those things in the sea and put a weight on them so that they don't come back out.

Tie them and drown them so we can live a resurrected way of living.

Well, when you say that, Mike, it sounds really figurative.

Yeah, it sounds better, doesn't it?

And it is painful.

I don't know if you have somebody in your family that has asked you to use different pronouns for them.

I do.

It is painful for me because it's awkward.

It's inconvenient.

I'm not telling you you need to believe in them.

What I'm telling you is if I tell you my name is Mike and you call me Michael, I'm not going to receive that well.

Why?

Because I'm the one who asks you how to call me.

It's okay if you don't agree internally.

But if you show that externally, how am I going to process as anything other than disrespect?

I'm not asking you to agree.

I'm asking you to call me what I want to be called.

But Mike, that's inconvenient.

It's painful.

Yeah, throw it in the sea and drown it so you can live a new life.

Because the alternative is what?

We live in alienation from our brothers and sisters?

Is that what we want?

How do we be greatest?

We drown that crap.

I mean, sorry, that's what we do.

We drown that crap so we can make room for new life in us.

I'm not asking whether somebody is born male or female.

I'm asking us to respect how they want to be called.

That's it.

How do they want to be called?

It was really painful for my parents to stop calling people of color Negroes.

So much so that they don't always do it.

That needs a millstone around its neck.

I hope we can agree on that.

I hope we can agree on that.

Now, I don't know what God is calling you to ground, but I guarantee you it is something.

I guarantee you there is something in each one of us that needs to be drowned in the sea of chaos so that we can live a new life with Jesus Christ.

The good news is we got like 24 weeks to reorder our time.

And the good news is whether it's a problem like that ambo or those doors, and those are maybe basic problems, but they're a start.

We do have each other to figure this out.

I'll be grateful for your help with the ambo.

I'll be even more grateful for your help with the people I don't see that I am instructing, obstructing.