St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
June 11, 2023
Year A, Proper 5: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Drawing the Circle Wider
If you were here last week, you may remember that it was Trinity Sunday – the day when we are invited to reflect on, and celebrate, God’s inner life.
Our God is One in Three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – bound together by love.
God is Community.
God is a Community of Love.
And, as I said last week, I assume that our God who is a Community of Love could have just gone it alone for all eternity, perfectly complete and fulfilled.
But, on the other hand, by its very nature, love needs to be shared, right?
And so, in a way, maybe it was inevitable, even necessary, that God would widen the holy circle by creating all that is – inviting all of us to be part of the holy community of love.
Over the past week, as I’ve continued to reflect on the Trinity and how God widens the holy circle, and as I’ve sat with today’s lessons, I’ve been thinking about how God is a risk-taker.
It would have been much easier and safer – there would have been no divine headaches and heartbreak – if God had simply continued to go it alone.
But, once God creates a physical universe – once God creates all that is – once God creates us – God creates the very likely – really inevitable – possibility that things will go wrong.
God creates the likelihood that we will reject the divine invitation.
But, God still takes the risk.
And, not only that, but God invites us to take the risk of widening the circle of love, too.
We heard some risk-taking in today’s lessons.
In the Old Testament, God calls Abram to leave home – to abandon just about everybody and everything he has ever known – God calls old Abram and childless Sarai and their nephew Lot – God calls them to leave home and journey to an unknown land.
God promises that somehow Abram and Sarai (who will be renamed Abraham and Sarah), with no offspring of their own and seemingly way too old for new life – God promises to make of them a great nation.
And, not only that, God promises that in them “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Scripture makes it clear that Abram and Sarai were nobody special – none of their family or friends would have expected that God would choose them for such a monumental task.
But, God takes a risk and chooses a couple with seemingly more days behind than ahead to plant the seed of a people who would carry the news of God into the world – to widen the holy circle in a history-shattering way.
And, obviously, Abram and Sarai take a big risk, too.
Leaving home – especially at an advanced age – in no small thing.
And yet, they take that risk, they place their trust in God, and, step by step, they widen the circle.
And in today’s gospel lesson we heard some serious risk-taking and circle-widening, too.
One of things I try to keep in mind when reading the gospels is that they are set in a very difficult time for the people of Israel.
God’s people lived under Roman occupation, governed by local puppets who served at Rome’s pleasure.
The time of Jesus was tense with simmering resentment and ever-present fear, and the persistent hope that the God of liberation would act as God had acted in the past and free God’s people.
As in every occupation, there were local people who collaborated with the occupiers, whether to save their own skin or to profit off of the misery of others – or maybe both.
And in first century Israel, the tax collectors were probably the most despised of the collaborators.
They were Jews who worked for the hated oppressors. They were widely seen as corrupt, lining their own pockets by overcharging their own people.
So, it is no small risk when Jesus approaches Matthew the tax collector and says, “Follow me.”
And it is no small risk when Matthew leaves his tax booth and goes off to follow Jesus.
And it is no small risk when Jesus dines with Matthew and his tax collector and sinful friends.
The Pharisees flip out – what is Jesus doing, breaking bread with these horrible people – the worst of the worst? By hanging out with these rightfully outcast people, Jesus jeopardizes his own credibility – he risks becoming an outcast, too.
But, nevertheless, Jesus takes the risk of widening the holy circle – inviting even the people who are hardest to love into the community of love.
And the two people who ask Jesus for help, they’re risk takers, too.
The leader of the synagogue kneels before Jesus – his daughter has just died – in fact, back home the funeral is already underway – he kneels before Jesus absolutely confident that Jesus can bring new life out of death.
And the poor woman who has been bleeding for twelve long years – by now, most people probably give her a wide berth – you know how it is when somebody’s been sick for a long time, even kind people grow weary of other people’s problems – this woman who has been suffering for so long, she takes the risk of reaching out and touching the fringe of Jesus’ garment, confident that Jesus offers healing.
And, Jesus draws the holy circle wider, inviting everyone – even the seemingly hopeless - into the community of love.
And now, here we are today, in our own difficult time, with simmering resentment and ever-present fear.
Today, God the risk-taker’s invitation is the same as it was in the days of Abram and Sarai – it’s a call to journey from the familiar into the unknown.
Today, God’s invitation is the same as it was when Jesus widened the holy circle by calling everyone, even Matthew the tax collector and his friends, even the hopeless, into the community of love.
One of the biggest reasons why I love St. Thomas’ is that I see us answering God’s invitation all the time.
Frankly, we have the resources to spiritually coast for a good while, but that’s never the choice that we make.
Instead, so many of you ask, what might God be calling us to now?
How can we be an even more generous servant church?
How can we welcome even more people into the Community of Love?
And so, we deepen our support of the Community Crisis Center and we’re about to welcome back the Paul’s Place Camp.
We open our hearts to a couple of young guys from Afghanistan.
We slide down the pew to make room for newcomers - spiritually hungry people who arrive here just about every week.
Next week, parishioners both young and not so young, will kneel before the Bishop confirming or reaffirming their faith.
Our God who is a Community of Love takes the risk of widening the holy circle.
And God invites all of us to take some risks for love, too.
I’m going to close with a blessing by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin:
May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short;
Grace to risk something big for some thing good;
And Grace to remember the world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth and too small for anything but love.
Amen.
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