Sermons

Today is Rally Day, a day that appears nowhere in the Bible or on the liturgical calendar, but that serves as a wonderful day in the life of any congregation. So much is happening. Committees, having kept their programs under wraps for several months, are chomping at the bit and ready to rock and roll. The Stewardship Committee is working on a video. The Nominating Committee is soliciting names for service on the boards of Third Church, Session, Deacons and Trustees. Please fill out the form enclosed in your brand new red friendship pad or send in an e-mail. The Sunday school enterprise is ready to go, with a great group of children and teachers, and yet we have an important need for teachers for several classes. If there is even the slightest inkling of a call on your heart to teach in our Sunday school, please see Becky D’Angelo-Veitch today or call her this week.

The choir is back – we missed you, friends. We also welcome Lucinda Meredith as our new assistant organist and say a special word of thanks to Robert Swenson and Kathryn Cowdrick – Bob and Katy, thank you for sharing your wonderful gifts with us this day.

Next Sunday is our second Spotlight Sunday, a day designed to invite visitors to come and experience life at Third Church. It would be wonderful if 50 or 75 or 100 of you took the invitations available at the green Evangelism Committee tent today and mailed them to friends or neighbors or co-workers, or forwarded the e-invitation that we will forward to you early in the coming week. And so happy Rally Day. Thanks especially to the Board of Deacons for arranging our NCN seating this morning, and to the Congregational Fellowship for their work in organizing today’s festivities.

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It has been quite a summer. We have been Matrixed, Nemoed, Pirated, Sinbaded. We have been Angeled, Bad Boyed, Swatted, Biscuited, Spy Kidded and Freakyed. We have been Giglied. We even have been Terminated, though to a lesser extent than our friends in California might be in just a few weeks.

Amidst all these summer Hollywood blockbusters, or blockbuster “wannabes,” a little gem may emerge. Mine for this summer was called “Bend It Like Beckham,” a small British film that aspired to be this year’s “Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Its surface subject was soccer. Its focus was two young women: Juliette, whose mother thought that soccer, or football, was unladylike; and Jess, whose Pakistani family’s Hindu roots condemned Jess’s soccer aspirations for cultural, religious AND gender reasons.

“Bend It Like Beckham,” by the way, refers to David Beckham, perhaps the most popular athlete in the world beyond these United States, an amazingly rich and well-known footballer whose ability to make a soccer ball twist and curve is truly remarkable. Beckham is also married to a former Spice Girl, something akin to Michael Jordan being married to Madonna in terms of social significance. If you don’t know what a Spice Girl is, well, consider yourself lucky.

At any rate, you should see the movie. It is sweet and charming and funny. And it features an important theme in the end, perseverance in the face of adversity, taking a stand when the odds are stacked against you, or, to slide not very elegantly into the world of faith, making a witness when such witness-making is either disdained or ignored.

It is Rally Day at Third Church. Two years ago on this day, we had a friend with us on the front lawn, “Horse Chess-nut,” part of Rochester’s “Horses on Parade” event. I loved the concept and I loved our horse. A little communal whimsy, the city drawing together. I liked even more that with many, many corporate and political sponsors, here was a church in the mix, a little evangelism, if you will. Horse Chess-nut reminded the community, and us, that we were here, open for business, alive, engaged in the world. That’s not bad. Again, to slide not very elegantly into the world of faith, we were making a witness, a testimony, the church making its mark in the world, on our terms yet aware of all that is around us.

It seems like a good theme to run with on this Rally Day 2003. Who we are to be as Third Presbyterian Church on this first day of a new church year, 2003. Who is God calling us to be, each one of us. Who is God calling us to be, all of us, together, the body of Christ in this little corner of the city, in this little corner of the church, in this little corner of the world? Who is God calling us to be and what is God calling us to do, what mark is God calling us to make, what game is God calling us to play.

It is a question of biblical proportions, as well it should be. Mark’s gospel offers us a facet of the question with a rather breathtaking story. Jesus is out and about, and he sneaks into a house for a while to avoid public notice. It does not work. A woman, a desperate mother and parent, hunts him down and lets Jesus know about her little daughter, who is afflicted with an unclean spirit. The woman has several strikes against her: gender, clearly; religion (she is a Gentile); and ethnicity (she is Syrophoenician). And Jesus, somewhat inexplicably except for his focus on the Jewish community immediately surrounding him, dismisses her. He equates her plight with the plight of a dog, and says that the children, that is, his Jewish followers, need to be fed first.

One can only imagine how she felt at that moment. And yet, and yet, in the face of adversity she summoned something from the deep wells of faith within her, and cleverly and perhaps sharply said to Jesus: “even the dogs get to eat the children’s scraps that fall from the table.” And we are stunned. And Jesus is stunned. The woman must have been stunned. And Jesus has what I can only think of as a conversion experience. “For saying that,” he says, “you may go, and your daughter is well.”

Can we cling to this encounter on this Rally Day? Perhaps it offers an ethic, a perspective, for today and beyond. It is a miracle story. From long distance, because of her mother’s faith, the young girl was healed. Yet Mark spends scant time considering the miracle and considerable time in the set-up, or what in fact seems to be another miracle – the encounter between Jesus and the girl’s mother. We should remember that.

We wonder about Jesus’ first response. Pheme Perkins writes that one of the intriguing aspects of this story is that Jesus shows that he knows how to lose an argument, and that the woman, an apparently able partner in this “verbal sparring match,” turns the “demeaning phrase” about dogs to her advantage. (New Interpreter’s Bible, pages 609 and following) Lamar Williamson writes that Jesus’ initial rebuff of the woman affirms the priority of the Jews in Jesus’ mission. The woman’s response allows that priority to stand but persistently asks for attention to Gentiles also. Jesus’ granting of her request approves the woman’s attitude and provides for the early church a warrant for its mission to the Gentiles by grounding that mission in the early mission of Jesus itself. (Interpretation Commentary, page 138)

That may be. I am in awe of this woman’s submission, her persistence, her trust. And I am in awe of her chutzpah. All are aspects of faith that commend themselves to us this morning. And yet I would turn this dynamic around as well, to explore Jesus’ response just a bit. Not only are we called to serve, we are called to learn. We learn from the hungry people that show up at this place, or the kids who participate in our tutoring programs at schools 6 and 35. We learn from the children we teach in our Sunday school. That seems to be a gospel lesson. In our little parochial Presbyterian world, conservatives learn from liberals and liberals learn from conservatives, or at least we should.

So at least a portion of our Rally Day ethic is suggested by the gospel this morning through this dining table encounter – a faith that trusts and persists, a faith that is open to new voices and experiences.

Beyond a slew of summer movies, it has been an interesting summer. Two of the most compelling news stories featured religious themes. In Minneapolis, Episcopalians elected Eugene Robinson as their first openly gay bishop. In Alabama, an intense legal clash occurred as state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore refused to budge and move a two-ton Ten Commandments display from the courthouse.

Now a preacher should be smarter than to preach about sex OR politics, but in my humble opinion and at the end of the day, both episodes seemed to be teachable moments. Though we Calvinists have some theologically genetic predisposition against bishops, I believe that our Episcopalian sisters and brothers took a faithful stand, and perhaps in the meantime offered we Presbyterians a glimmer of hope in what will be the inevitable openness of our own ordination standards. Thank God.

And while there is a significant conversation to be had about the interaction of religion and politics in American public life, the founders sought with great wisdom to avoid anything that resembled an official state religion. Separation of church and state, a phrase first adopted by Thomas Jefferson several decades after the constitution’s writing, was initially offered to protect religion from government, but the door swings both ways. And we should thank God for that as well, and for a little common sense.

At the same time, we should remember that many Americans, and many Christians, feel differently on both issues, and we should pursue ways to address that deep question with an abiding sense of humility. And remember that all of this is happening within a broader context, a world at continuing war, marked by bombing upon bombing, death upon death, and a nation preparing now to commemorate the second anniversary of a most horrible day, an anniversary that we will seek to commemorate in this place on Thursday at 12:10.

But that’s enough sex, and enough politics. Back to religion, the other topic you are supposed to avoid at parties. We have embraced an ethic, embodied by the Syrophoenician woman’s persistent faith and by Jesus’ healing response. Now we need some tactics, some deliverables, some how-tos. Those, too, are offered in the biblical material of the day.

We will spend a little time with the epistle of James this fall. Martin Luther did not like James, calling it an “epistle of straw.” John Calvin replied that even straw provides a little nutrition, and we will seek that nutrition. Luke Timothy Johnson writes that James has the “clearest” ethical message in the New Testament. James is concerned about the practical aspects of faith. How we behave to and with one another. How the law serves not only to prevent us from doing bad things but supports us in doing good things. How we become free people in our allegiance to God’s wisdom. How life in the community should look. How a life lived in love should look. (New Interpreter’s Bible, pages 177 and following)

These are our questions, are they not, and James offers answers that resonate with our Rally Day mandate. Faith without works is dead, James insists. Just do it, he seems to say. Acts of love and mercy and compassion are the marks of our wisdom, of demonstrating that the faith we claim has truly claimed us.

And in the second little episode of our gospel lesson, Jesus heals a deaf man and suggests to us again that all persons are clean, all persons are part of the kingdom of God, all persons are children within the human family and therefore have something to offer. That the kingdom of God is about inclusion AND fulfillment, that there must be basic rhythm to our witness and proclamation. We show no partiality. We love our neighbor. Our faith is alive, in adverse situations, in sideline situations, our faith is alive.

It is a “Bend It Like Beckham” kind of faith. Against the odds, we will make our witness, share our story, play our game. In face of cultural pressures, financial challenge, religious infighting, we will play our game.

We do not have altar calls in the Presbyterian Church. For some of us, known at times as “God’s frozen people,” that’s good news. We do not have altar calls. First of all, we do not have an altar, but rather a communion table, because we believe somehow in the mystery of our faith that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient. And my friend Joanna Adams reminds us that “our tradition places ultimate emphasis not on our making a decision for Christ, but on God’s making a decision for us in Christ.” (Sermon at Fourth Presbyterian Church, August 10, 2003)

So we do not have altar calls. But today is day for re-commitment. And there are so many things to which we might re-commit. There are big issues facing our city, our county, our region. Two significant ones continue to present themselves in urgent ways. The first is the manner in which neighbor is killing neighbor in our city, handgun violence and its racial implications. The second is this region’s economic future. What difference might it make if you and I, and this church, got truly serious about addressing these issues.

Or what difference might it make in this church as we re-commit ourselves to a new year. Volunteer. Join a committee. Lend a hand. Invite a friend. Do something new, or do something old in a new way. This place is overflowing with energy and opportunity, and we are invited in ever more profound ways to capture this moment and be creative stewards of it.

Or what difference might it make for you and me to re-commit to something in our own lives. Repairing the breach in a relationship. Having that important talk. Taking that important step. Seeking that support. Making that important lifestyle change.

What might it look like if you, and I, and all of us together, kept asking these most extraordinary questions about our world, our church, our lives? What needs healing? What needs our persistent faith? What needs our love? What needs God’s love. What witness shall we make, what stand shall we take, what testimony shall we offer, what game shall we play?

We do not have altar calls, and yet this is a moment to commit and re-commit. Happy Rally Day. Amen.