The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City
May 16, 2021
Year B: The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John: 5:9-13
John 17:6-9
Our Essential Oddness
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Well, once again we find ourselves living in an in-between time and an in-between place.
As you are well aware, on Thursday, the CDC surprised and also confused a lot of us by loosening many of the Covid restrictions that we have been living with for these many months.
For those of us who have been vaccinated, the CDC declared that we no longer need to wear masks outside and in many cases even inside, although Governor Murphy disagreed about that. And, we’ll be keeping our masks on in church at least for a while.
The CDC announcement came on Thursday, which was also my birthday, and it kind of felt like the whole city was celebrating with me – there were so many people out and about, reveling in the chance to see full faces, and even to hug people we love.
But, we’re not quite there, yet, either – wherever “there “ is. Many of us are understandably cautious, knowing only too well that Covid can come raging back, sending us back behind our masks and into lockdown.
An in-between time and place.
And, here at St. Paul and Incarnation, we’re in an in-between time and place, too.
Some of us are back in church this morning and I’m back in this old familiar pulpit, which means more to me than I can say.
At last, we’re back in our beautiful church able to see each other in person – able to pray together – able to extend a wave of peace to each other – able to receive Holy Communion, at last.
But, things are not as they were in the “before time” – lots of limitations are still in place, and many of our parishioners have chosen to stay home and still participate over Facebook.
An in-between time and place.
And, Sue and I and all of you are in an in-between time, and place too.
Our Sundays together have dwindled to a precious few.
I’m trying to tie up loose-ends here so I can leave the church in the best possible shape for my successor, and I’m also getting ready to move (well, maybe thinking about getting ready to move) and I’m looking ahead to St. Thomas’ and beginning to make some decisions about my next chapter.
Meanwhile, your wardens and vestry are hard at work on the transition, preparing for the first weeks after I’m done, looking ahead to the exciting and challenging next chapter in the story of St. Paul and Incarnation.
Finally, all of us Christians are in an in-between time and place, too.
On Thursday, we celebrated (on the phone, anyway) Ascension Day – the fortieth day after Easter when we recall the ascension of Jesus into heaven.
We’ve begun a ten-day stretch of in-between time – it must have been really strange and unsettling for the first disciples – a strange and unsettling stretch of in-between time after Jesus’ ascension and before the dramatic arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
An in-between time and place.
For the past few Sundays our gospel lessons have been taken from a part of the Gospel of John that’s often called the “Farewell Discourse.”
The setting is the Last Supper, but really the Farewell Discourse is a long monologue by Jesus.
It includes teachings, like when Jesus describes himself as the vine and we are the branches.
It includes commands, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
And, it includes a prayer from Jesus to the Father, a prayer that the disciples and we get to overhear.
As you probably noticed, it’s a dense text, but if you pay attention you realize that Jesus is in an in-between time and place, too. In a way, he has already gone to the Father and left us behind, but at the same time he is also still here with us, giving us some final, most important instruction.
And, here’s what I really want to talk about: in today’s selection from the Farewell Discourse, Jesus points out that we his followers are in – you guessed it - an in-between time and place.
Jesus prays about us, “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
That’s the thing about the Christian life: we are very much in the world with all of its beauty and all of its trouble, but we do not belong to the world.
We are in the world but we are not to be of the world.
Or, to put it another way, if we’re living pretty much like everybody else, then we are not faithfully following the way of Jesus.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite books. It’s called Resident Aliens. In it, the authors make the case that the Church has gone off the rails because it has forgotten this key point – we are in the world but we are not of the world – we’re not supposed to live like everybody else.
They argue that we need to recover our essential…oddness.
Here’s what they write, “We believe that many Christians do not fully appreciate the odd way in which the church, when it is most faithful, goes about its business. We want to claim the church’s ‘oddness’ as essential to its faithfulness.”
Our essential oddness.
But, let’s face it, it takes courage to be odd. It’s much easier, far safer, to go along and get along, to keep our heads down, and just live like everybody else.
During this in-between time, some of us have been looking into the history of the Episcopal Church in Jersey City – and you’ll see some of the first fruits of that work next Sunday.
As we’ve talked to longtime parishioners and dug into our records we’ve learned a lot – some of it beautiful and wonderful – the way people found a strong sense of community in our churches – the way the church really was the center of people’s lives – the way clergy and lay leaders offered wisdom and compassion to the congregation.
But, back in the “good old days” the church was very much part of the establishment – it was expected that pretty much everyone went to church – and often the church simply went along with the culture of the time, including racism. Because the church was such a normal part of life, it lost its essential oddness.
So, in the case of Grace Van Vorst, it bears the name of a family that enslaved people, and the church building sits on land donated by that family.
Here at St. Paul’s, Susan has dug into our old registers and seen that parishioners used to be identified by their race – just like they would have been out in the world.
And then, there’s the “original sin” of Jersey City Episcopalianism, the fact that people of color were generally not welcome in our churches, the sin that necessitated the founding of Incarnation, where Black people could worship in peace.
Back then I’m sure there were people who were not happy about this state of affairs, but my sense is most people liked the idea that people had their own churches, or simply accepted it as the way of the world – which, of course, it was.
But, we are meant to be different.
We are meant to be in the world but not of the world.
We are meant to be odd!
Our essential oddness.
And, during this in-between time, when I look back at what we have done together, with God’s help, at our best we’ve been odd.
It is odd to open our doors to anyone who wants to join us, all different kinds of people, some people we like, some we’re not so sure about, some maybe we don’t like at all.
It is odd to invest a lot of time and money into community suppers where we throw open the doors to anyone who is hungry for good food, anyone who longs for community – and it’s even odder that we ended up mostly feeding people who were not our parishioners.
It is odd to walk the streets of Jersey City on Good Friday, praying at places that the world sees as God-forsaken, sprinkling Holy Water to restore God’s good earth that has been stained by violence.
It is odd to put in a ton of work to transform our parish hall into a residence for families who have no other place to live, taking the time to get to know them, to play with the kids, and also to give them the space and privacy that we all crave.
It is odd to invest a ton of money into a community center in a neighborhood that the city has written off for decades as unsalvageable, as not worth the effort. It is odd to dream that a paved-over park occupied by drug dealers could ever be transformed into something beautiful for the neighborhood.
It is odd to open our doors to people from faraway lands, people the world teaches us to fear and despise. It is odd to offer them not a cage but a gorgeous Lighthouse, built by faith and love.
And, it is odd to look into our own past – the good and not so good – acknowledging the failures of our spiritual ancestors and also our own shortcomings, promising to be even more faithful in the future.
Our essential oddness.
So, here we are my fellow “resident aliens,” my odd brothers and sisters.
Here we are, once again in an in-between time, once again in an in-between place.
Like the first disciples we may be feeling uncomfortable, confused, frightened.
But, Jesus is praying for us just as fervently as Jesus prayed for us two thousand years ago – praying that we don’t forget that we are in the world but not of the world – praying that we remember – and even celebrate – our essential oddness.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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