Galatians 5:1, 13-25
The Gospel of Luke 9:51-62
Preached virtually for St. John’s Lutheran Church, NYC
June 26, 2022
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Beloveds of Christ, grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Liberator, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Happy Pride. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Reed Fowler, and I served as the vicar, or pastoral intern, at St. John’s from 2020 to 2021. It is such a gift to be invited to preach here again this morning, for Pride, and also while St. John’s is entering into a time of transition.
Pride might feel different this year, in the midst of continued violence and legislation against the LGBTQIA+ community. Pride might feel different this year, as we navigate a continuing pandemic, meeting each other again for the first time after time apart. And Pride might feel different this year, in the midst of pastoral transition, with this congregation preparing to enter into its next life cycle.
Transitions can stir up old conflicts, insecurities, fears. Transitions can be a rebirth, a pivot point, a fresh start. And transitions can be a time of creative dreaming, and intention around what to carry, and what to let go of.
And in this whirlwind of transitions and Pride and what we each bring with us from our daily lives, we encounter Paul.
This particular passage from Galatians often shows up at Pride within the 3-year lectionary cycle. It is one of many examples where Paul places a distinction between flesh and Spirit. Hearing this language now, we might jump to the assumption that Paul is talking about two distinct parts of one person, a Grecian mind-body dualism where we can separate out the parts of us that are flesh and the parts of us that are Spirit. Instead, Paul is writing about two types of people – we all have flesh and we all have Spirit, intertwined, and what defines us is which aspect we are led by. Leaning into the flesh puts the Spirit to death, while leaning into the Spirit brings abundant life.
Hearing this language now, we might be tempted or compelled to write off our bodies, believing the desires of our bodies to be sinful. This text has done real harm in that way. But knowing that Paul had some hang-ups around his own physicality, and knowing that God came to us in a body, in Christ, this passage is a place to exercise some judgement in what to take, and what to let go of.
God coming to dwell among us, enfleshed, points to a centrality of the flesh, in a physical sense. The same word is used in the Eucharistic language of the Gospel of John – this is my flesh, given for you. A critical aspect of queer theology, emerging from the LGBTQIA+ community, is knowing that our bodies our sacred. Our bodies are holy. They carry desire, and connection, and wisdom, and history.
A harmful habit that has emerged, in part because of the flesh / Spirit duality that Paul has set up, is that we often ignore our bodies. It’s easier. We ignore what they are trying to teach us, to have us feel, we ignore what our bodies are carrying – memory, trauma, desire, fear. And especially in the midst of all we have been carrying for years and decades, ignoring our bodies can be an act of self-preservation. It makes sense. But it also alienates us from our bodies, and therefore from each other, and from Creation.
How do you feel today? On Pride Sunday, dispersed from the sanctuary, in the midst of a continuing pandemic, perhaps mourning the way things used to be and those who have been lost, or mourning all that has been revealed about the oppressive systems that we may be complicit in, through no fault or action of our own.
How do you feel today? On Pride Sunday, celebrating how far we have come in terms of justice and living into our true selves, perhaps celebrating a new job, a new baby, or another year sober, joyously spending time in the sun, by the water, reading and creating and living.
I invite you to take a breath with me.
And another.
Before we continue to the Gospel text, I’d like to pause, to give us all a moment to check-in with the holy wisdom of our bodies in a body scan. You can close your eyes if you want.
Breathe in, and pay attention to the crown of your head. Feel your connection with the sky pulling you upward.
And then follow that line down to your face, and neck, and shoulders. Notice any emotions or thoughts, or images that come up.
Continue to your chest, through your ribs, to your belly. Notice how and what your body is feeling.
And again continuing through your hips and legs, noticing any aches, pains, or energy.
Imagine the thread from your crown continuing through your body into the earth, rooting you here, where you are now, connecting you to the ground, and to Creation.
You can open your eyes, and as you do, think of all that you are carrying. All that your body is processing – whether that be grief, joy, fear, anxiety, hope, or most likely, a mix of all of these things.
And added to everything we are each individually and communally carrying is a pastoral transition, a time for this congregation to live into your next cycle of ministry, “a diverse community of faith seeking to share the love of Jesus Christ with all creation”.
This transition is not good or bad, it’s just more to process, and so it might feel like a lot on top of everything else. But it’s a natural cycle in the life of a congregation. It’s a time of reflection, loss, curiosity, and commitment – to each other, and to the ministry you share as St. John’s.
It’s a time of intention – discerning what to take, and what to let go of. It is a time of discipleship. Of following Jesus Christ, loving each other and your neighbors, even when that is potentially challenging, frightening, and destabilizing.
Beloveds, discipleship is not an easy road. You know this. You know there are risks – in discipleship we are asked to let go of the patterns and systems we know for something else. For something emergent and life-giving. Discipleship can be harsh. Following Jesus will mean not having stability. It will mean moving on from the trauma of our past. It will mean not turning back. Outside of God, nothing is guaranteed on this journey.
When Jesus and the disciples travel through a Samaritan village, they are denied the kind of radical hospitality Jesus himself practices – the kind that doesn’t leave anyone out. Jesus shares meals freely with sex workers, tax collectors, people living in poverty, people who are experiencing homelessness. He inverts the power dynamics of who serves and who receives, and miraculously feeds over 5,000 people with broken bread.
And yet, the Samaritan village he passes by on the way to Jerusalem doesn’t extend even the basic hospitality for travelers towards him, and Jesus keeps going with nothing. It’s too easy, here, to say that we would do something different. To villainize the Samaritans, to rain down fire, but that’s not what Jesus would have us do. In the larger political framework, at this point in Jesus’ ministry, it’s obvious that there is going to be a clash of power at some point – he is too controversial, loves too radically, for there to be any other inevitable result. The Samaritans might not want to be associated with that clash, with sheltering Jesus, because of the risk it poses to their own security within Empire. For that village, the cost of discipleship is too great – fear was more powerful. I imagine Jesus saddened by their fear, but he is compassionate and keeps moving.
In this time of congregational transition, there might be a protective instinct to turn inward. To be like the Samaritans and decide that the cost of discipleship is too great. It is a harsh, and true, thing to say that discipleship can be alienating. It can be painful. It can be unknown. And so when Jesus tells his followers that they will not have a place to lay their head, that they cannot return to bury their father, that there will be things left undone and unsaid, I imagine Jesus speaking sadly.
I imagine Jesus as mourning already – he knows how far the disciples have come, but he also knows how far they still have to go. How far the road to Jerusalem still is. How many people they have passed by, who didn’t come with them, and I bet there are people who left because the cost was too high and hope was too painful. We’ve encountered Jesus as a mothering hen, who wants to protect us from harming each other even as he knows he can’t. But he can agitate us to be in deeper relationship and practice deeper hospitality. He desperately wants us to have abundant life in community. He wants us to experience the deep joy and comfort of God.
This is the call of discipleship. These are the possibilities we are called towards – abundant life in community, deep joy, and transformation.
St. John’s is entering into a period of transition – a time of being in-between. The embodied wisdom of the LGBTQIA+ community can be one of your guides – you are entering into a liminal space, much like the liminal spaces Jesus often embodied – between death and life, between the world as-is and the world as-it-could-be.
Jesus calls us into the in-between spaces, because they hold so much possibility for growth and authentic life. He calls us to discipleship, which breaks down the border walls between the mundane and the sacred, between worship and our daily lives, between grief and joy. When we travel with Jesus in these liminal, transitional spaces, we are traveling with God, and towards God. Towards the fulfillment of God’s Creation – a Kin-dom of radical hospitality and community. It is not an easy path. There are personal and political costs. There’s a lot to unlearn, and transform. But Jesus is urgently going towards Jerusalem, taking risks, because we are all made in God’s image, made for abundant life, and the Kin-dom can’t wait anymore. We are healing towards something beautiful and challenging, and life-giving, if we can get out of our own way and follow Christ.
St. John’s, when you hosted me as your intern last year, granting me such a gift in being able to serve this community, listen to your stories, and share in your griefs and in your joys, I found a community that was resilient and strong and hopeful. You have navigated transitions and challenges before, with grace and love, and I know you will again now. Dreaming together into what’s next, being “a diverse community of faith seeking to share the love of Jesus Christ with all creation.”
Beloveds of God, in this time of transition, pay attention to your bodies. They hold wisdom. Pay attention to the call of discipleship. God is with you. Pay attention to each other, what you need, and what you can give – in this congregation, in the neighborhood, and in your connected communities. Amen, and happy Pride.
Reed Fowler 