Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, July 22

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14)

The Gospels say nothing about Mary Magdalene being a prostitute. All we are told is that from her "seven demons had come out" (Luke 8:2). The passage quoted above points to the fact that something, or someone, had a power over Mary and compelled her to do the will of someone other than God. Presumably, that led to her condemnation by the "good people" of the town of Magdala. But Jesus's love "compelled" Mary to turn away from whatever demons controlled her life.

That love compelled Mary to remain with her Master, even when he was dying on the cross, when all the men save one had run away and gone into hiding. That love compelled Mary to go to the tomb early on Sunday morning, for no other reason than to be as close to Jesus as he could get. The love of the risen Jesus who called her by name – "Mary!" – compelled her to become the first apostle.

To be an apostle is literally to be "sent." And sent Mary was, first to the official 12 Apostles, then according to some stories, to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. According to the story, she held an egg and proclaimed that Jesus was raised. Tiberius scoffed that a man rising from the dead was as likely as the egg in Mary's hand turning red, which it immediately did. Whereupon Mary preached the Good News to all the royal household.

There are many forces in the world, which try to compel you to make certain choices – advertisers, political spin doctors, angry preachers, dictators. But what does love compel you to do? Pray that the same compulsion, which gripped Mary's heart, may move your own.

The Daily Office: Psalm 41

"Happy are those who consider the poor and needy! The LORD will deliver them in the time of trouble (Psalm 41:1)

The author of this Psalm has his share of trouble. "My enemies are saying wicked things about me: 'When will he die and his name perish?'" (v.5) But he is not a navel-gazer, focusing only on his personal trouble. In the midst of his own trouble, he refuses to forget the troubles of others. Even as he seeks comfort from his God, he also seeks the encouragement that only God can give, so that he will continue to reach out to the poor and needy.

It's a busy week here at Christ Church. Our Bishop, Henry Parsley, is coming to offer his support to us tomorrow. And on Saturday afternoon, we will celebrate with exceeding joy a wedding in the family; as Debby and Bill Simmons' daughter, Katie, is joined in marriage to Jon Atchison. On Saturday morning, we will consider the poor and needy as we continue our Beans and Rice ministry. From 9-11 am, we will hand out bags of uncooked beans and rice to any who come for help.

Even in the midst of our own troubles, and our celebrations, we consider the poor and needy. How happy God wants us to be in all these things!

Holy Hospitality: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Hospitality toward strangers is at the heart of today's story in Genesis of Abraham, Sarah and the three visitors. The Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev imagined the three as the Trinity, sitting round a table, with heads bowed in respect and affection toward each other. That isn't how the Israelites would have seen these three. Their understanding of monotheism wouldn't permit that. But as this story was handed down to them, they surely puzzled over its meaning.

"The LORD appeared to Abraham," we read. The one and only God chose to come to Abraham and Sarah, to give them the news they had longed to hear for so many years; that Sarah in her old age would finally have a son by Abraham. And yet what should Abraham see but "three men" before him. Later, we are made to understand that one of the visitors is the LORD, who will stay to converse with Abraham after the other two "men" go on to Sodom and Gomorrah. There they will test the Sodomites, to see if they will show the same hospitality that Abraham shows.

So here are three visitors one being God himself, the other two being "men" or "angels" of some sort. And Abraham shows his hospitality by running to them and bowing before them and offering them a meal and a place to sleep for the night. Of course, he would have been obligated to do this even if his three visitors were really just human beings In a harsh land of mostly desert and occasional wet and green, where people frequently had to travel to find better land, the code of hospitality reigned. If a stranger showed up at your tent, you showed hospitality toward them. And when you had to travel, you could trust that the same hospitality would be shown toward you.

And so Abraham bows before the three and begs them not to pass on, "if my Lord should find favor with your servant." But who is Abraham speaking to here? There appear to be three men standing before him. But only one is the LORD, his God. And surely Abraham knows that God doesn't need any food or water. What our Jewish brothers and sisters have understood is that Abraham is speaking to his LORD and is asking him to wait while he and Sarah show hospitality to the other visitors. Before God can even get a word in edgewise, Abraham interrupts him to say, let me show hospitality to your two friends first, and then I will listen to what you have to tell me.

And Abraham's God, who is our God, silently agrees that hospitality must be shown to those who need it before Abraham turns his attention to God. That's how important hospitality is to our God, and how important it must be for us. But of course, this is a nice story from thousands of years ago in a very different world. What relevance does it have for us 21st century Americans? At least in the case of Sergeant Marcus Luttrell, I believe its relevance was a matter of life and death.

Sgt. Luttrell was one of four Navy SEALs in 2005 who were assigned to find a kill or capture a Taliban leader in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, their position was discovered almost as soon as they deployed. Soon, they were being fired on from all sides by anywhere from 80-150 Taliban insurgents. The running firefight continued for hours, and eventually three of the four SEALs were dead. Sgt. Luttrell was the lone survivor, and he himself was seriously wounded, having been blown off a cliff by a rocket propelled grenade. But still he kept moving and shooting, killing six more of his enemies as he walked and crawled for another seven miles.

In the meantime, a Chinook helicopter took off to find the missing SEALs, but Taliban insurgents shot it down, killing all 16 Navy men on board. Sgt. Luttrell was close to his end as well. Bleeding and exhausted, he wandered into a Pashtun village called Sabri-Minah. All he could do was throw himself at the mercy of these villagers. But these backward Pashtuns, living in a world as harsh as Abraham's, understood the ancient code of Hospitality, which they called Lokhay Warkawa. If any of those villagers had seen Luttrell outside of their village when he was healthy and on the hunt, they probably would have killed him. But now they took him in; gave him a place to sleep, food to eat; and they cared for him as best they could, just as they would have cared for one of their own.

Of course, it wasn't long before word got around that an American soldier was in this village. The local Taliban soon heard of this. And they sent some insurgents to this village to claim their prize. When they arrived they were met by the men of the village. The Taliban said, we want the American. The Pashtun villagers said, you can't have him. He came to us, not as an enemy, but as a stranger seeking hospitality, and we are obligated to extend it to him. Unhappy, but unable to challenge the Village, the Taliban left. Some days later, one of those villagers walked 20 miles to the nearest Allied base, and arranged for Sgt. Luttrell to be picked up and carried to safety.

Abraham understood the importance of showing hospitality. The people of Sabri-Minah understood the importance of showing hospitality. What might Abraham, and some Afghan tribesmen, be able to teach 21st century Americans about Hospitality?

St. Benedict

Proverbs 2:1-9
Luke 14:27-33

The Feast of St. Benedict is celebrated on July 11, which happened to fall on a Sunday. The Resurrection of our Lord always takes precedence over an individual saint. So, as we celebrate our midweek Eucharist on Tuesday, we at Christ Church remember Benedict today.

At the beginning of the 500s, the Roman Empire had collapsed in Europe. Barbarian chiefs fought each other, trade collapsed. The Roman infrastructure also collapsed. Inflation became astronomically high. For most, life was a struggle not to starve, or be murdered. Seeing the chaos around him, Benedict withdrew to a cave to do nothing but pray. He took Jesus's words to heart and let go of all possessions –any material thing of passing value that would distract him from the eternal value of knowing Jesus Christ.

In that letting go, Benedict began to find the wisdom promised in Proverbs. Soon, others began to be drawn to the hermit in the cave, sensing the calm that reigned in that cave amid the chaos gripping Europe. Eventually, Benedict founded a community, from which almost all other western monastic orders would come. The monk who sought solitude in the cave became the founder of communities all over Europe where travelers found hospitality, and those who committed themselves to the monastic life found wisdom and love.

But you don't have to be a monk or a nun to live the Benedictine life. At the heart of the Benedictine community was the Daily Office of psalms, scripture readings and prayers. That tradition continues in our own Daily Office, as found in our Book of Common Prayer. It continues when I or two of us gather to say Morning Prayer at 9 am, Monday through Thursday. Can't join us in person? No problem. Just click on the Daily Office online. Don't have time for all those psalms and readings and canticles and creeds and prayers? I get it. So just pick one psalm, one biblical reading, and one prayer, every day. It will take less than 15 minutes. You'll be praying with us in the church, and we will be a Benedictine community, letting go of our fears and gaining the wisdom that comes only from being in the presence of God.

The Daily Office, Joshua 2:1-14

So what's this doing in the Bible? The chosen people taking help from a prostitute? Well, for starters, it's a cliché, but no less true, that but the grace of God goes every sinner from Rahab's day to our own. Who knows what circumstances put Rahab in the position of feeling she had no choice but to sell her sexuality for far less than what it was actually worth in the eyes of God.

But Rahab, whom the local residents of Jericho can only see as the local whore, recognizes what they don't: "I know that the LORD has given you this land…for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below." That LORD is Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, whom Rahab recognized as the God of the entire universe. For this, Rahab is recognized in the New Testament as a hero of faith, along with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses.

And look at Jesus's family tree in the Gospel of Matthew. There you will find Rahab listed as the great-great-great grandmother of King David. Ultimately, she is the ancestor of Joseph, and by adoption, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We would do well to imitate Rahab's trust, rather than be offended by her.

My Enemy, the Good Samaritan

Boundaries: we all have them. Some are very visible and public, like national borderlines. Others are more personal, rooted in a wounded heart trying to protect itself against further hurt. In either case, those boundaries help us to answer the lawyer's question to Jesus: "Who is my neighbor?" While most of us have heard the call to be good Samaritans from today's parable, the fundamental question that Jesus answers today is not how to be a Good Samaritan, but who is my neighbor.

And so, "a man was going down" between Jericho and Jerusalem. Any man, or woman, Jesus doesn't say what kind of person. It could be anyone, you or me. And he fell into the hands of robbers; who took everything he had, even the clothes on his body; beat him to an inch of his life; and left him by the side of the road, naked, to die.

And so along came a priest, perhaps on his way to Jerusalem to perform his worship duties at the Temple. Generally speaking, this road between Jerusalem and Jericho was only traveled by Jews. Surely the priest knew his duty to love his neighbor as himself. And even the lawyer would agree that a fellow Jew fell inside his boundary. But as a priest, he had to avoid contact with the dead, or else he would be considered ritually unclean and unable to perform his priestly service. From a distance, he couldn't tell if his neighbor was already dead; but it was probably more prudent not to take the chance. The same went for the Levite, the acolytes of the day.

But now along comes a Samaritan merchant, with enough wine and oil to sell, apparently on a business trip. Samaritans and Jews hated each other. There were very clear boundaries between Samaria to the north and Judea to the south. They wouldn't even travel through each other's territory if they could avoid it. Ironically, the national boundary was very clear because the religious boundary was less so. The Samaritans claimed to be descended from the northern tribes of Israel, who had been decimated centuries earlier by the Assyrians. They claimed to be more faithful followers of the LORD, the God of the Jews, than the Jews themselves. They had their own temple, which the Jews had once destroyed. The Samaritans had once spread human bones inside the Jerusalem temple, thus forcing the cancellation that year of the observance of Passover in the Temple.

Jesus himself had encountered Samaritan hostility when one of their villages wouldn't receive him because he set his face toward Jerusalem. He knew that he was throwing a bomb into his discussion with the lawyer. But throw it he did. And consider the Samaritan in our story. He knows that he is on a road mostly traveled by Jews. He can assume that the half-dead man beside the road is his enemy. Why delay his important business for an enemy?

Yet, out of a compassion that respects no human boundary, this Samaritan treats his enemy as his neighbor. He uses wine, which he might have sold, as a disinfectant for the man's wounds. He uses oil, which he might have sold, to soothe his burning body. He takes on the packs he had put on his donkey, so that the wounded man who can't walk can rest. He takes the man to an inn and pays for his care and lodging. And in case the wounded man's care costs more than what the Samaritan gives the innkeeper; he promises to pay the man's debt so that the innkeeper won't claim him as an indebted slave.

What a boundary Jesus has tried to break. "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers," Jesus asks the lawyer. Put yourself in the place of that half-dead man, Jesus prods him, and ask yourself who your neighbor is. The poor lawyer can't answer the question directly. He can't even bring himself to say the word, "Samaritan." All he can implicitly admit is that the face of the neighbor he sees bending down over him is the face of one showing mercy. And while he can't say it, he knows that is the face of his enemy shattering the boundaries between them.

Who is your neighbor? Jesus doesn't answer the lawyer's question directly. He told a story and tossed the question back to the lawyer. I can't answer that question for all of you. Only you know your boundaries. But I can tell you this. Put yourself in the place of that naked, bleeding man by the side of the road. Then think of the person whom you could never imagine offering you help. Then, imagining yourself as the person who fell into the hands of robbers, look for the face of your enemy bending down to help you. I hope you can answer, more directly than the lawyer could, Jesus's question: Who is your neighbor?

Cold Love

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matt. 24:12)

It's been said that truth is the first casualty of war. Perhaps the second is love. When people see the damage done by immorality, the first instinct is to reassert the old morality. Then, if you gain enough power, you can perhaps re-impose that morality. The desire to restore order in a world of moral anarchy is understandable. But our Lord and Savior warns us today that the worst casualty of that war may be our love.

Preachers rail at a culture that seems to have shut its ears to the Good News. So the solution is to just yell louder. That's what the street preacher I heard in Williamsburg during our family trip seems to think. He stood just close enough to a street to say that he was on public property, so that the police couldn't make him leave. And he yelled about escaping damnation. Meanwhile group of high school students visiting Colonial Williamsburg stopped to see the show, and to make fun of the street preacher.

My son later told me that he also goes on the campus of William and Mary and does the same thing. He seemed to save his angriest comments for the girls who dress too skimpily. Was his criticism of our permissive culture wrong? Probably not, but who cares about an angry guy who can't even take the trouble to be a friend to those whose souls he claims to care about?

The person whose soul you're trying to save won't care about anything you say unless he or she sees that you care about them. Are we called to be evangelists – communicators of the Good News? Absolutely. But perhaps what our Presiding Bishop calls "evangelistic listening" should be our first approach to that communication. Keep your love warm.