A Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

A sermon preached by the Very Reverend Tyler Doherty at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark on September 24, 2023, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Woven like a golden thread through our readings from the past few weeks have been the twin themes of loosing–luo–and forgiveness–aphiemi. When we look to Jesus standing alone who tells us to stand up and take heart, when we listen to the beloved son in whom God is well-pleased, we get a glimpse of what love looks like embodied and enacted in a human life poured out in loving service. Feeding, healing, crossing boundaries in solidarity with the marginalized certainly, but perhaps more importantly loosing the ties that bind, the “mind-forged manacles,” of shame and blame, and pronouncing forgiveness–the oil of gladness deluge of mercy poured on each and every one of us just as we are, here and now, without restraint, and without condition.

Lazarus emerging from the stinky tomb is our paradigm for unbinding. After Jesus hollers at him to, “Come out!” the injunction to the people gathered around is a curious one on its face, “Unbind him.” Presumably, Jesus could have done the unbinding himself, but instead he invites, calls, the community around Lazarus to participate wholeheartedly in the unbinding. Healing is never an individual affair in the Gospel stories. It is always about restoration of relationship with God and with the beloved community. The great unbinding is being loosed from diminishing stories of self, other, and God–stories that always feature fear, scarcity, and lack–so that the love that’s always, already here might love us into loving others. Loved people love people. Unbound people unbind people. The Great Unbinding is the loosening work of the Easy Yoke himself–calling us out of fetid, lonely, isolated self-enclosure that we might be instruments of his grace, of setting the captives free one welcomed stranger, one received story, one box of food, one welcome kit at a time.

Loosing, as a fundamental disposition of the Christian life, is the exact opposite of what we saw from the unforgiving servant last week–grabbing someone by the throat at hissing, “Pay what you owe.” Christ-like loosing is what Joseph embodies in his relationship with his siblings. They are captive to the past–guilt over chucking him down a well–and anxiously worried about the future–”What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong we did to him?” They are imprisoned in the stinky, three-day dead tomb of past and future. God unlooses the siblings and Joseph from fear and envy in a great flood of washed-clean tears: Have no fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Do not be afraid! Loosen up! Let yourself be loosened up. Let love loose. All you have to lose are the ties that bind you from yourself, your neighbor, and God.

And Joseph’s astonished, tearful quip on the heels of his brothers’ tactful entreaty–“Am I in the place of God?--provides entry into our parable for today. “Of course, we can’t stand in the place of God!” we say. But, boy oh boy, do we spend a lot of time standing there, looking from the place of judgement and finding disappointment, scarcity, and lack where there is always only abundant, providential provision. Take Jonah. He did what the Lord asked, got chucked overboard and belched out of the belly of a whale, saved Nineveh through his preaching, and now finds a way in the midst of the ongoing miracle to lock himself away in a tomb of complaint, to bind himself to his thoughts of shoulda, woulda, coulda. He’s arguing with reality, arguing with God, and doubles down on his version of how things should be. Is it right for you to be angry and judgmental? Yes! And are you seriously angry about the tree whose shade you enjoyed losing its leaves in a perfectly predictable sultry east wind? Yes! Angry enough to die!

If our life is about living from gift, if our life is about saying, “Yes,” even to the scary parts, even to the hard, stomach-knotting, knee-wobbling parts, then an aspect of our work as followers of Jesus is to notice the ways we grab life by the throat and hiss, “Give me what I want!” Part of our work as followers of Jesus invited to participate in the Great Unbinding is to bring to light all the ways we talk ourselves out of the presence by holding to believed thoughts that circle the stinky, bound, black hole of “Not enough!” “Not what I want!” “Pay what you owe!” Being followers of Jesus means we learn to see differently–with the eye of the heart opened by love instead of the measuring mind of the book-keeper. Like a tincture, love clarifies our vision, and shows that we do indeed have a choice as to where we stand: under the withered, shadeless tree of bitterness, judgment, and complaint, or with Paul rooted and grounded in Christ, “Standing firm in the one spirit.”

It is God’s good pleasure to pour all of Godself on each and every one of us without reserve. No holding back. A good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over. In Christ the fullness of God is pleased, is delighted, to dwell and Christ indwells each of us. How amazing is that?! God in Christ through the Holy Spirit comes to us in over-abundant, super-saturated excess. Prodigally. Wastefully. Like a 50 gallon drum of Chanel No. 5 poured on our feet and perfuming the ground floor of Nordstroms to the great consternation of the Mall Cop. As Robert Capon tells us:

The Father’s will for you–his whole will, his entire plan of salvation–is that you believe in Jesus, nothing more. He has already forgiven you, he has already reconciled you, he has already raised you up together with Jesus and made you sit together in the heaven places with him…. But if you do not believe him–if you insist on walking up to the bar of judgment on your own faithless feet and arguing a case he has already dismissed–well you will never hear the blessed silence of his uncondemnation over the infernal racket of your own voice (448).

What does it mean, then, to believe in Jesus and nothing more? It means trusting in your own belovedness as the only real thing you or anyone else can say about you. In God’s eyes, the day-long workshop on how to write your resume and make yourself appealing to potential employers lasts 10 seconds–”You are beloved!”--and moves straight to the after party.

The Good News of the Gospel, however, strikes us as too-Good-to-be-True News. Elder Borthers of the Prodgial that we are. Jonases that we are. Grumbling Israelites stiff-neckedly murmuring while manna and quail shower down in a desert wilderness that we are. It strikes us not just as too-good-to-be-true, but it doesn’t square with the closet book-keeper in the back of our minds who’s always keeping score, always judging who’s deserving, always missing the raucous party to argue with the coat-check girl about the crease in our ticket. Are you really angry about the crease in your coat-check ticket?  Yes! Angry enough to die.

Truth is: We want salvation as something we earn. As something we merit. As something we deserve and others don’t. We’ve put in the hard work. We straightened up and flew right. We’re ex-sinners who’ve got our acts together. We got our just desserts. We self-improved our way to the Kingdom. Free Grace and Dying Love reveal earning our way to grace of this to be just another form of binding. We bind ourselves to a Crocodile God whose love we have to earn by our efforts and we bind others in our judgment of how they’re always falling short. We never hear, in Capon’s words “the blessed silence of [God’s] uncondemnation over the infernal racket of [our] own voice.” A whole city saved from perdition, a whole crew of day-laborers generously paid for picking grapes, and all we do is grumble.

“Are you envious because I am generous?” the landowner asks. The Greek is even better–ὀφθαλμός πονηρός–evil eyed. Are you seriously staring through those horrible, thick, book-keeper glasses and telling me not to lavish myself on everyone? Why not celebrate that the late-comers had an extravagant payday and join them at the party? Why not let God’s love loose you from the infernal racket of your own voice? Why not let God’s love move you to loose others from their evil-eyed grumbling? There's a party at the landowner’s place and everyone’s invited. An open bar with lots of wine. All of Nineveh’s there. Jonah’s there with his friend the Belching Whale. Joseph and his brothers are there eyes still bleary with baptismal tears. The Unforgiving Servant has loosened his grip on his fellow slave and they’re throwing one back together. One sip of that Divine Nectar and the infernal racket of your own voice quietens down. One sip and your timbered eye starts to clear. Take, eat, this is my body given for you…. Drink this all of you.”

Amen.