This is the sermon I gave as a part of my interview with St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Indianapolis. The readings come from the Feast day for St. Alban (June 20): 1 John 3:13-16; Psalm
34:1-8; Matthew 10:34-42.
Have
you ever had a song stuck in your head?
You know, one of those ear-worms that is there when you wake up in the
morning, sneaks into your consciousness at the strangest of times and won’t
leave until you go to sleep at night…only to begin the cycle again the next
morning? Well, I’ve had one of those for
the past couple of weeks.
I
blame our daughter, Erin. When she came
home from college for winter break she was watching The Gilmore Girls, a show
that began its original run in 2000, when our daughter was only 5, and ran
until 2007, when Erin was 12. I guess I
missed it back then. And now, the theme
song is stuck in my head.
The
show is about a mother and her daughter, so the premise piqued my
interest. Erin was watching one of the
later episodes when it caught my eye—when Rory Gilmore was in college and her
single mother, Lorelei, was navigating being apart from her daughter. It’s Erin’s second year of college, so I
could kind of relate.
That’s
about where the similarity ends, however. Lorelei raised Rory alone, without
the help of her wealthy parents or Rory’s father, and the two of them basically
grew up together, becoming each other’s best friend. They have a unique relationship style, witty
communication skills and sassy attitudes.
They are very dependent upon one another and spend a lot of time
together. What matters to one matters to
the other.
I got
hooked on the show, learned how to use Netflix on my own, started watching from
the beginning and since the end of December, I’ve watched nearly two seasons. According to Erin, that’s not “true” binge
watching.
So
when I began waking up with the theme song in my head every morning I either
needed to stop watching the Gilmore Girls for a while or I thought maybe I
needed to pay attention to the words of the song. The chorus is this: “Where you lead, I will follow. Anywhere that you tell me to. If you need me to be with you, I will follow
where you lead.”
Suddenly,
I realized these few words were not just a theme song. They were my
theme song, if I had a theme song about my faith in God. I chose so many years ago to follow Jesus
wherever. I promised to be with God
however. I opened my head and heart to
hear the Spirit whenever. These were not
just theme song words…they were a prayer!
Making
all those promises meant that I was going to be in relationship with the Holy
Trinity and by doing so, I was promising to live a life that others may not
understand, one that may even cause some people to hate me, like we were warned
about in First John. I was committing
myself to putting God first, ahead of my family and friends, which could change
the relationships I had with so many people, especially my parents and
brothers, like we are told to do in Matthew.
I would be expected to show
hospitality to people I didn’t know or who made me feel uncomfortable; to seek God in prayer, crying out for release of my fears, thanking God for all
I would receive; to be devoted to living out a life of faith in God.
Simply
put, I was committing to a relationship where I would follow the commandments
to love God and to love neighbor. I
would follow where God leads. I would be
present when God would ask me to follow God.
Consequences or not.
Oh,
but doing all of this is hard sometimes.
It’s hard to love people who are hard to like let alone love. It’s radical to put God above everything
else. It is counter-cultural to follow
Christ where He leads. It is almost like
turning the world upside-down to say I feel led by the Holy Spirit. But this is exactly what these pieces of
scripture are telling each of us to do.
Consider
the namesake of this place, St. Alban.
Here was a man who lived in a culture where to believe in God could get
you killed. So he did not believe in
God. But when a holy man knocked on
Alban’s door in search of a safe place to stay, the door was opened and refuge
was offered. Over the course of time,
Alban observed this holy man in prayer and in ritual and his heart was opened
to what God could be for Alban. Alban
turned over his life to God, converting at a time when being a Christian was
punishable by death.
It
seems like Matthew’s message was directed more toward the early followers of Jesus
or to converts rather than to people who have lived their lives believing in
God, don’t you think? Jesus is telling
his followers that following where he would lead would not be an easy path
because the world around them would not understand their choice. Their choice had the potential of severing
long-standing relationships, of bucking the political and religious systems of
the day. Their choice could sever the
followers from a secure life and set them up for potential death.
Somehow,
the refuge Alban had offered this holy man remained a secret for a while. Alban had time to learn more about how God
could be in his life. Though we don’t
know if Alban had a family, he could have, and this radical acceptance of Jesus
likely changed his relationship with the people closest to him. But Alban made the change in his life,
anyway. He opened the door to a stranger
and welcomed the Christ who had knocked.
He was forever changed because he offered as little as a cup of water.
When
word finally broke that Alban was harboring a Christian, the authorities came
to Alban’s door to take the holy man and behead him.
Instead
of allowing the man who turned his world upside down to be murdered, Alban
traded clothing, traded places with the man.
He was arrested. By the time the
switch was discovered, Alban’s guest had fled and Alban was sentenced to the
same death for his conversion to Christianity.
Alban
was hated because of his faith. He was
willing to lose his own life to save the life of his guest. He was willing to put God before everything
else.
And
God showed the people the power of faith when Alban went to his beheading. The river ran dry so Alban and the soldiers
could walk through. Water sprang at
Alban’s feet when he was thirsty. One of
the soldiers converted, only to lose his life along with Alban. It is said that the eyes of one of the other
soldiers fell out of his head when Alban was beheaded. God offered miracles to show the people
gathered that they should all believe.
The
story of St. Alban is rather gruesome.
But beyond the violence is the hospitality, the love toward a stranger,
the ultimate conversion to faith in the One God and then the actual, physical
sacrifice of his physical life for the sake of another. It is the story of being willing to follow
God where God was leading.
We
don’t live in a place where being Christian can get us killed, so living out a
life of faith in God does not have the same kind of dangers as does
elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean that
these messages from today’s readings don’t still matter.
Here
in this place is a community of faithful people who have devoted their efforts
to following where God leads. And God
led to some very interesting, somewhat counter-cultural places, I think.
I
don’t know of too many places where a community would be led to place crosses
honoring the voiceless victims of homicide on the front lawn in a show of
solidarity.
I
don’t know of too many places where a community would dig up a half acre of
their front lawn to provide a garden designed to help fill the produce bins at
local food shelves.
I
don’t know how many people of faith would offer baseball hospitality…not just
building and maintaining fields but actually showing up and cheering.
I
don’t know of any church narthex where an oar hangs on the wall to remind the
people of their call to follow Christ by paying attention and then responding
to the opportunities presented within the community and beyond.
This
seems to be a place where the people have taken up their own crosses to follow
Jesus and are finding joy in doing God’s work.
Because joy is often the result of following where Christ leads, isn’t
it? Running counter to what the world
may expect and offering ourselves to do the work of God in the world is hard
work, not necessarily because there may be sweat and emotional equity in it,
but because being in a holy relationship with God, because doing what God asks
us to do doesn’t always mesh with what the world wants.
Being
in relationship with God, following Christ, hearing what the needs are and
living into the OAR lifestyle every day may result in being hated by the
world. But it is what this community is
called to do, especially when remembering that St. Alban did what was exactly
what we were reminded of in 1 John: “We
know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down
our lives for one another.”
There
are many ways to offer ourselves to the service of God. But first we must be in relationship with
God. It takes commitment. It takes prayer. It takes being willing to be
transformed. Sometimes it takes an ear worm of a theme song to be reminded.
Let us
pray.
Where you lead, dear Jesus, I will
follow. Anywhere that you tell me
to. If you need me to be with you, Holy
Spirit, I will follow, if you lead. Amen.