Since I last saw you, I’ve flown over Baghdad. Well, actually I did see some of you yesterday at Josh’s ordination and it’s my task this morning to connect the two in some fashion. What’s moved me this morning is this picture presented in the Gospel just read of Jesus standing up in the temple, reading the word of God, and then preaching the word of God much as we charged Josh yesterday and which he promised to fulfill in his ordination vows. Just like Jesus, right Josh? Actually, Josh has been preaching since his ordination as a Deacon so the novelty, as it were, today is his standing at the altar as a priest to celebrate the Eucharist. In either instance, pulpit or altar, Josh is proclaiming the Word, and he is embodying the Word. Gary Hall, Dean of Seabury-Western, will be with us after the 9:00 service to talk about what a priest is, and if Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians is to be believed, everyone here today has a part to play, everyone here today is part of the Body of Christ, everyone here today is to be filled with the spirit of God. None of the clergy exists in isolation from the rest of the Church. We can only be the Church together, you and I, Josh and Emily, everyone here counts.
However, after flying over Baghdad, I’ve recalled how it’s been my privilege the last two weeks to have a glimpse of the breadth of the Body of Christ, particularly as we seek to understand more about Islam and how the Church in Islamic countries experiences cooperation on the one hand or persecution on the other. To be truthful, I was surprised when I looked at that little map on the screen in front of me flying from Muscat, Oman, to Heathrow to see that we were indeed flying directly over Baghdad. When we touched down at Heathrow and boarded our busses for the terminal, sure enough, there was Condoleezza Rice’s United States of America plane serving as a witness to her purposes for being in the Middle East, God willing, desirous of peace in this troubled part of the world.
But picture, if you would, Jesus standing up in the synagogue in Nazareth taking and unrolling a scroll in which the words of Isaiah were written in the most ancient Hebrew and then as Jesus read in Hebrew an interpreter translated into Aramaic, perhaps as one would translate Chaucer into the more contemporary idiom. In my mind that’s a very middle eastern picture and, of course, it was Nazareth. It has something of the exotic about it that I felt visiting, for instance, various mosques where the Koran is chanted and then interpreted in that third of the Abrahamic faiths in this order, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
But even more specifically, Jesus quotes Isaiah by saying, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And that brings me right back here. It brings me right back to how it is that the spirit of the Lord is upon us—what it means to be living in the Spirit. It may well be that it conjures up an image of charismatic Christians with palms raised or gospel music or the emotion we feel in our worship. But listen to what Jesus said. The spirit of the Lord is upon us when we bring good news to the poor. When we proclaim release to the captives. When the blind receive their sight. When the oppressed are freed. Those sound very much to me like the things we repeat in the Baptismal Covenant, and they sound very much to me like the things we are trying to adopt from the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The good news is that we are forgiven our sins, our failures, our weaknesses, which then frees us to live freely for one another and for the sake of Jesus.
Mother Teresa once said, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” Jesus was telling his listeners in Nazareth and was telling us to look for God where people hurt. That hurt can be right here in our midst. Ella Grasso, former governor of Connecticut, had a plaque on her desk that said, “Bloom where you are planted.” For Mother Teresa, she chose to bloom where the poorest of the poor lived. She said, “The lepers, the dying, the hungry, the ones sick with AIDS, they are all Jesus.” And then she said, “I reminded our novices that during the Mass, notice how tenderly and lovingly the priest touches the Body of Christ. Do not forget, that Christ is the same Christ you touch in the poor.” Josh’s priesthood has to do with touching Christ in the bread of the Eucharist and serving Christ in the bread of the Eucharist so that we might touch and receive Christ in the Eucharist and be empowered to touch and serve Christ wherever Christ would be found, whether far away or close to home. That’s what Jesus did. That’s what a priest does. And that’s what we’re sent out to do.
Last Sunday I was in a gymnasium in Doha, Qatar. An Anglican priest from Scotland was celebrating the Eucharist. The lessons were the same as those read here. The hymns were familiar as were the prayers. The congregation was multinational with perhaps no more than 30% from the West. Christians from India were probably the largest percentage there. In addition to Anglicans/Episcopalians, there were Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists. Heather Voss’ mother was there, as was someone whose parents had been good friends of Bart and Helen Smith. What a miracle the Church is! What a blessing the Body of Christ is: Christ in bread and wine. Christ in the poor and needy. Christ in our hearts and minds. Here, there, and everywhere.
Amen.
