Epiphany III

I had the pleasure of preaching on Epiphany III, 2012, at St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo:



In his poem, A Psalm of Life, Longfellow wrote:
Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time.
He was, I think, ruminating on the indelible impact that a good example can impress on our own memories. A good example in another person sticks with us, it remains marked as footprints on the sands of time and can lend itself to our need when we feel weak, in need of inspiration or comfort. Good examples inspire us to be good examples; good examples are rampantly reproducing like bunnies.
On the same topic, though, Mark Twain opined: Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. In this case, Twain seems to be alluding to the self righteousness that can sometimes accompany a good example. Or, this may also refer to the words all of us with siblings have heard from our parents on at least one occasion: why can’t you act more like your sister? She doesn’t do X, Y or Z.
So, the examples of others matter; the examples of others stand the test of time and can be hearkened to to gauge our own actions and examples.
In my very first course on sermon preparation, on day one we all received a list of topics to avoid in sermons. And on the top of that list, in capital letters was spelled out THEOLOGICAL MUSINGS. Prepare to watch me break the rules.
In the First Epistle to the Corinthians this morning, our patron St. Paul writes of a beautiful theological conundrum, and I believe it merits some thinking about. He presents the question of Christians who are eating meat sacrificed to idols. These Christians know that the idols are just stone and gold and paint, and that there is no divine power behind the idol. And who wants to waste good filet? So, knowing that the idols are hollow promises, they dig in and thank their pagan brethren for their generosity. But what do others think when they see this? Avowed Christians partaking in sacred rites of idol worship, even if there is A1 sauce? That can’t be right! What will people say? Taking part in sacred rites seems to give credence to the assertions made by that religion, doesn’t it? So, Christians must be idol worshippers, so Christians must either believe in pagan gods and their Christian God, or be charlatans and believe in nothing at all.
This describes a very real problem: when one’s actions or inactions lead others to actions or thoughts contrary to the Christian truth. All of those faithful Christians who are off eating meat sacrificed to idols know that the actions mean nothing, but to observers, it looks like apostasy.
In The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther wrote: A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none, a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one. This brings us to some more theology about what St. Paul is introducing in this Epistle to the Corinthians. He claims that those who would eat meat sacrificed to idols should think not only how their actions impact themselves, but of how their actions impact others. In response to the question that Cain asked God when Abel went missing: Am I my brother’s keeper?, St. Paul answers with an emphatic YES.
So what does this mean to us? Well, first of all, we should be thinking twice the next time we’re invited by a coworker to barbecue some sirloin sacrificed to Demeter or are asked to participate in a block party Bacchinalia, for sure. But we’re not very likely to be encountering pagan temptations too often.
But it should impress on us the need to think about the examples we set to those around us. For instance, I’m terrified of putting a sticker on my car that reads “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You”, since I sometimes am visibly demonstrative when people cut me off, and that seems to be a bad time to advertise the Episcopal Church. But, if Longfellow is right, and if our examples are imprinted like footprints on the sands of time, then starting to own our behavior, not only for our sake but for the sake of others becomes more pressing.
I knew, for example, that when my mother caught me as a child using language that was a bit mature, I could easily get out of punishment by saying that I had heard Daddy say the word just the day before. And I’ve heard many stories of parents cringing when they hear their young children innocently repeating the things that they overheard their parents say about their neighbors, relatives, or even their bosses. Ouch.
So, if we know to watch ourselves around impressionable young children, why do we assume that the middle-aged people around us aren’t impressionable? That’s the theology St. Paul is trying to impress on the Corinthians by talking about meat sacrificed to idols: we are all here together, and we are shepherds to one another on our journey to redemption, wholeness, and completion in Christ. And we’re just as impressionable as adults as we were as children.
But the good news that St. Paul and Longfellow have for us is that good examples persist, too. This weekend the members of the Cathedral vestry gathered together for the annual retreat and first meeting of the year. On Friday evening, all of us present were asked to talk a little bit about people in our lives whom we considered our spiritual heroes. And it became very evident that the good examples of people in our lives persisted with us, and still cast their light on our lives today, though those examples were decades or even centuries in the past. It is a comfort to remember, also, that even though both good and bad examples can shape us, it is the good that stays the longest, and the bad examples that fade. Bad examples cause harm, to be sure, but are absolutely less powerful than the good examples. In the Book of Common Prayer, this is touched on beautifully in the Rite of Reconciliation of a Penitent, or what we commonly would refer to as Confession. After the confession of sins, the priest, after pronouncing absolution assures the person: The Lord has put away all your sins. Or to rephrase it, bad examples are not footprints on the sands of time, for the Lord sweeps them away.
Being part of a community, being bound together in a common life, we all feel the joys and pains of those around us. Our liturgy each week also reminds us and reinforces that we are knit together as one people, and that we do not face challenges and opportunities all by ourselves. We do it all together. In the Eucharist, Christ comes among us anew as Incarnate God and Lord. And we sing together: One body are we, alleluia,
for though many, we share one bread.
Be known to us, Lord Jesus, in the breaking of the bread.
We strive to set good examples, but should humbly accept that we sometimes miss the mark. But we have the good examples of those around us and those who went before us to give us the courage to try again, to improve, to become more completely the persons Christ had called us to be.
In a sermon he preached last year, Fr Julian Browning, at All Saints Church, Margaret St, London told a story about an encounter he had with a visitor who wandered into the church for a service. I asked Fr. Browning’s permission to share the story that enfolded after the service. All Saints, Margaret St , as some background, is an historic AngloCatholic parish in London, and has been a leader in celebrating the historic tradition of Catholic Christianity in the Church of England for close to 150 years. It celebrates that heritage through its liturgy, through its beautiful and stunningly-appointed building, and through the richness of its arts and devotion. The newcomer in this story was a Low Church Anglican who wandered into All Saints during Solemn High Mass on the Feast of the Annunciation that included a procession of the church’s statue of the Blessed Mother being carried around the aisles of the church as flowers were strewn on the floor as the procession passed. Our poor newcomer in the story was aghast at the sumptuous building, the jewel-like windows, and certainly, the life size plaster Mary trouncing about the nave. After Mass, this newcomer approached Fr Browning, and still a bit shell-shocked and maybe hallucinating from the incense, he decided to unload to Fr. Browning all the things he thought were just terrible about what he had witnessed. But, being overwhelmed with horror, he could only stammer out how he felt that the windows were too bright and showy, and that seeing dozens of two-dimensional dead apostles and medieval nuns and martyred Reformation bishops staring out at him from the lead and glass of the windows, the newcomer couldn’t imagine how anyone could worship with all that gaudy glass around! And with a beatific smile, Fr Browning replied: Sir, the windows aren’t there for us to judge them. The windows are there to judge us.
What I think Fr. Browning was pointing out is that we need to be reminded, to be judged, if you will, by the good examples of those who have gone before us in faith. The generations of holy women and holy men whose lives were lived for Christ have set their footprints in the sands of time, and those footprints still show us a path. That great cloud of witnesses, as we call them, still pray for us here at the Cathedral each day, as we work out how to become better, how we can set better examples. Just like we are not alone because we have one another, we are not alone because we have the saints to pray for us, to encourage us with their examples, and to show us that a life lived for Christ brings wholeness, brings peace, brings completion. Amen.