Turning to Joy

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 15:1-10.

Three or four years ago, when Lee and I were still pretty new to the Shenandoah Valley, one pretty spring day we went for a hike out in the wilderness area at Ramseys Draft – and we got lost. Oh, not seriously lost, not hopelessly, blindly, “we're going to wander around in circles out here until we die” lost. But lost. We got off the trail – apparently at one point the trail went right and we went left – and we ended up following a track that looked like it was meant to be a footpath but that probably wasn’t made by humans, and that ended up taking us places we really hadn’t intended to go. First it took us through a very muddy patch, where there weren’t even stepping stones to get across. Then it took us through a thicket, where young trees were growing close together and the branches were catching at us as we went through. Finally it took us up the side of a really steep bank, where our footing grew less and less sure; and we ended up kind of stuck on the shoulder of a hill where we weren’t exactly in danger, but where a single misstep could have sent us tumbling down a steep slope to a bruising landing in the river. We were lost, stuck, not quite sure where we were and not at all sure how to go forward. So we didn’t. We turned around. We picked our way back along the false trail, until we found ourselves on the real trail, and from there could make our way back to the parking lot and our car. And I have to say I have rarely been happier to see my car than I was on that day.

I share that story with you this morning because I think it helps clarify something going on in our Gospel reading for today. In this Gospel story Jesus is having an argument with some Pharisees – something that happens in a lot of Gospel stories – and this argument is all about repentance. The Pharisees are upset with Jesus because he is eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, and the Pharisees think this is sending the message that God is soft on sin, that God accepts sinners before they’ve shown adequate evidence they really are repenting. Jesus, on the other hand, seems to be saying, “Look at them! – look at them sharing and giving and receiving in generosity and grace and showing compassion and enjoying! These are people who usually care only about themselves. Isn’t what they’re doing evidence enough that they’re repenting?” This whole argument between Jesus and the Pharisees seems to turn on what exactly you mean by repentance.

I think that for most of us the whole idea of repentance feels like a pretty negative thing. Repentance to us means feeling regret for our sins – negative. It means feeling remorse over our awareness of all the things we have done wrong – negative. It means making a firm resolve that we will not do those wrong things again – and I suspect that often that resolve takes the form of thinking “Oh, I really want to do that! But I know I shouldn’t, so I will deny myself what I really want” – negative. Is it any wonder we think of repentance as a spiritual downer, as one of the hard sayings of Jesus that seems to us not to be very good news?

But when Jesus talks about repentance in this Gospel today, he seems to be talking about something very different from regret and remorse and resolve. In fact, that language that Jesus uses around repentance is all about rejoicing and celebrating and partying in heaven. In spite of what the Pharisees think, and in spite of what most of us today tend to suppose, it seems that for Jesus the heart of the experience of repentance is joy.

Look at what happens in the parables Jesus tells today. Out of a flock of a hundred sheep, one sheep goes astray – at one point the flock went right and the sheep went left – and now it’s all alone, out in the wilderness, not sure where it is, not sure where to go, not sure if it’s going to find grass if it keeps going across this stony ground, not sure if there are wolves hiding just behind that rock over there – until the shepherd comes and finds it. And when the sheep is found, the result is joy. Out of ten coins, one coin falls out of the purse, and it rolls across the floor, and gets stuck between the floorboards or wedged between a couple of stones in the fire-hearth – and nobody knows where it is, and it can’t do any good, and its potential value going to waste – until the woman sweeps it up and finds it. And when the coin is found, the result is joy.

In these parables, Jesus seems to be saying that repentance is a joyful thing – not negative, not regret and remorse and resolve – but repentance is that thing that makes the difference between being lost and being found. Repentance is the thing that makes the difference between going down a path that isn’t taking you anywhere and is just getting you stuck in a dangerous place, and turning around and going back until you find yourself on the true path that takes you to sharing and giving and receiving and compassion and generosity and grace. Repentance is the inward and spiritual version of what Lee and I did on that false trail above Ramseys Draft. Repentance is backing away from what isn't working for you, and turning to God and letting God find you where you really are and lead you to where you really need to be. And the result of being found by God is joy.

So what might that be like for you? Is there some part of your life where you feel like you’ve been going down a path that isn’t taking you anywhere – at least not anywhere you want to be? Is there some place in your life where you feel like you’ve rolled between the floorboards, gotten stuck between a stone and a hard place, and you can’t go forward and you can't do any good and your value is going to waste? Is there some place in your soul where you can imagine turning around from what isn't working and going back and finding yourself on the true path that takes you where God is really leading you to go? And if you can imagine that, can you imagine the joy that God and the angels and you will feel when you are found?

In a few moments we will say together the General Confession. And in it we will express our regret that we have not loved God with our whole hearts, we will express our remorse that we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. That is part of our repentance. But today I want you to pay very close attention to the words that come next, to the words that express what we feel after regret and remorse. In those words we pray that we may delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways: in those words we pray that we may be found on the right path, and that being found there we will know God’s delight.

That’s the part of confession Jesus would have us pay attention to today. That’s the invitation to turn around and come back to joy that Jesus opens to us today. And in this Eucharist today Jesus is with us to break the bread and pour the wine and prepare the party for us to join. Amen.

Seeing Persons

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Philemon 1-21.

What happens when you look at a person, and see something more than just stereotypes, or prejudices, or social conventions? What happens when you look at a person, and see them as something other than just a screen where you project your own fears or desires or ambitions or threats? What happens when you look at a person and see – a person: a living, breathing, thinking human being, who has hopes and fears and dreams just like you do, and who might, just might, be someone you could relate to?

I think that question is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Because I think – and a lot of psychological and social studies find – that we human beings do a lot of projecting onto other people. We do a lot of sizing up of other people, assuming that we know what they will do or how they will act or what they might say or whether we can approach them or whether we need to run away from them, depending on how we see them as black, or white, or Hispanic, or teenagers, or elderly, or running in gangs, or all by themselves, or men, or women, or rich, or poor, or powerful, or victimized. We have a way of making judgments about people based on the categories to which our perceptions assign them. And we have a way of doing that so quickly, so unthinkingly, so unconsciously, we’re not even always aware that we’re doing it. So the question what it would be like if we could stop doing it isn’t even a question we are likely to think to ask. But what would it be like to look at someone and see, not what we expect, but see who they are?

Our Epistle reading this morning puts that question before us in a very particular way. Paul’s letter to Philemon is one of the shortest letters in the New Testament – in fact, it’s one of the shortest books in the entire Bible – and it is written for one purpose: to get Philemon to look at his slave Onesimus, and to see him not just as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.

The letter doesn’t tell us enough to know exactly what’s going on here. We don’t know if Philemon sent Onesimus to Paul to serve him while he was in prison. We don’t know if Onesimus ran away from Philemon and fled to Paul for protection. We don’t know if there is enmity between Philemon and Onesimus that Paul is trying to reconcile. All we do know is that, according to the conventions of Roman law, Onesimus belongs to Philemon; Onesimus has no rights, no privileges, no status in society, other than what Philemon chooses to give him; and Philemon can do just about anything he wants to Onesimus, up to and including having him executed if he is returned as a runaway slave. What we do know is that Onesimus has no life of his own to speak of, and that Philemon can project onto him just about anything he wants to.

And that is the point that Paul is addressing. Because Paul is sending Onesimus back. Paul is fulfilling the requirements of Roman law, and he is instructing Onesimus and Philemon to fulfill those requirements, too. But Paul is also adding something new to the picture: above and beyond Roman law, Paul is adding Christian reality to the mix. While Onesimus was with Paul he was converted, he was baptized, he is a Christian now; and that means that Onesimus and Philemon are brothers, they are equals before God,  both of them called to mutual love, both of them called to active compassion, both of them called to work together in effective faith. Outwardly, according to law, they may still be master and slave. But when Onesimus gets home, he and Philemon are going to have to learn to see each other differently. Philemon must look at Onesimus and not see “slave.” Onesimus must look at Philemon and not see “master.” Both of them must look at each other and see past all the baggage, all the expectations built up by unjust power, and learn to build a new relationship as persons, children of God, with strengths and weaknesses, and gifts and talents, and needs and shortcomings, and faith and love, there for each other, and there for the church, and there for the world.

What happens when we can look past baggage and stereotypes and expectations, and see each other as persons, held together by Christ? What happens is that lives are changed, and lives are saved.

About three weeks ago, on an ordinary Tuesday at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy elementary school in Decatur, Georgia, school clerk Antoinette Tuff was at her post in the school office when a young man named man named Michael Brandon Hill walked in carrying an assault rifle and other weapons and a backpack that was suspected of holding explosives. Hill said he had no reason to live, and that he expected to die that day – and Tuff said she could see in his eyes that he was ready to kill and it didn’t much matter who.

Now I would guess that most of us, in that kind of situation, would have looked at Hill and we wouldn’t have seen a person at all. We would have seen the rifle. We would have seen the threat. We would have seen a gunman – not even a whole man at all, but just a gun-man. But Tuff saw something different. Tuff saw past the stereotype and the expectation and the threat, and she saw a person: a person in pain, a person who was lost, a person for whom she felt real and genuine compassion. So she reached out to him as a person. She told him she could see he was having a hard time. She told him she was having a hard time, too. She told him she’d lost hope when her marriage of 33 years ended, and she could understand if he didn’t feel any hope in anything. But she said she was getting through it – and he could get through it, too. She’d help him get through it. And she’d start by helping him put down his gun, and lay down on the ground, and let the police come in without shooting – and she would stand over him and not let the police hurt him. Antoinette Tuff saw Michael Brandon Hill not just as a gun-man but as a person; and she reached out to him as a person; and she saved his life, and her life, and the lives of who knows how many schoolchildren and police.

What happens when we can look past baggage and stereotypes and expectations, and see each other as persons, held together by Christ? What happens is that lives are changed. What happens is that lives are saved.

May God grant us grace to look at those around us and see past the stereotypes and preconceptions and prejudices that divide us, and to see each other as persons, held together in Christ’s love, and working together to bring Christ’s love to the world. Amen.