Sermon preached by The Rev'd Abbott Bailey

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

On the Occasion of the Rev'd Nicholas Lang's 35th Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood - Saturday, January 12, 2008

What an incredible celebration! And what a delight it is to be here with you all. It is especially wonderful because we all know that this day as it is unfolding before us in this place was not a foregone conclusion ten years ago when Father Nicholas celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination. It was not at all clear that ten years later, this church would be filled with this many people – evidencing this much resilience and exuding this much joy and love. It was not a foregone conclusion that there would be such a vibrant ministry here, a brand new Skinner organ backed by – or should I say “fronted” by – the stunning sound of choristers, that there would be beautifully restored grounds with a new labyrinth, and a multi-clergy staff. None of this was a foregone conclusion.

In fact, it might have still been considered a pipe dream. Not quite as ridiculous as thinking that a man who died on a cross a common criminal nearly 2000 years ago would now be worshipped around the world as Savior and Redeemer, but a stretch none the less.

All of this is a testament to Father Nicholas – to his vision, leadership and passion for the expansive message of the Gospel. It is a testament to you who have joined him in ministry here. It is a testament to getting the Great Commission right. And most of all, it is testament to the One who, in the words of Isaiah, builds up ancient ruins, raises up former devastations and has called all of you together – to be priests of the Lord and ministers of our God.

While words seem inadequate to describe what is happening today, our senses behold the incarnation of the Gospel right here in our midst. We are witness to the power of the Great Commission given to us by the living presence of that common criminal, dead and now raised, who still calls us to “go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Here we taste, and see and smell the truth of Jesus’ promise to be radically with us in awe-inspiring ways.

This promise of God’s presence is one of the significant messages of the Gospel of Matthew. It both begins and ends with it. When the Angel appears to Joseph in a dream, he refers to Jesus as Emmanuel – God is with us. At the end of the Gospel, Jesus’ very last words exhort the disciples to remember, “I am with you always to the end of the age.”

What we learn of this promise from the Gospel of Matthew, however, is that it has something to do with the church. This Gospel is considered the most “churchy” of the Gospels, and is, in fact, the only one that refers to the church specifically as an entity. It is in this Gospel that we hear Jesus tell Peter that he is the rock on which he will build the church. It is in this Gospel, and only here, that we get the language of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But what we learn about the church in this Gospel is that it is not about a building, but about people gathered to be God’s presence in the world. Matthew does not end with the ascension of Jesus or some powerful portrayal of Pentecost. According to Matthew, Jesus neither leaves his church nor returns to it. Instead, he is always with it, inextricably entwined in all it is and does, and very significantly present through those gathered and then sent forth in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When Jesus tells the disciples to go make disciples, he is commanding the church to participate with him in his ministry – to continue his mission in the world.

The mission to which the church is called is very specific. It harkens back to the first time Jesus sent the disciples out and told them to “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons.” In other words, he told them to be radically with others as he was radically with them – breathing his healing and life-giving spirit into them and into the world around them.

What we learn at the end of the Gospel, however, is that this mission has undergone one very significant change – a change that was foreshadowed in the listing of four gentile women in Jesus’ genealogy that begins Matthew’s gospel. The first time the disciples were sent out Jesus told them to go only to “the lost sheep of Israel” – to avoid the Gentiles and Samaritans. Later, Jesus even told a Canaanite woman, when she asked him to heal her daughter, that it was not right to take children’s food and throw it to the dogs. Now, perhaps having learned from the Canaanite woman, Jesus tells the disciples specifically to go to the Gentiles – to the very people he originally eschewed.

In so doing, Jesus tells the disciples to extend beyond themselves. To go to those who are different from themselves. To reach into places unknown to them. To embrace those they fear – those who had heretofore been considered unclean, undesirable, and perhaps even unredeemable. In sending them out to the far reaches of all that was considered socially and religiously acceptable, Jesus once and for all signaled the rupture of any and all boundaries that might be used to separate people from the love of God. The disciples were called to baptize them into the body of Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female – only God’s beloved children.

This was the mission of the church then. And it is the mission of the church now. It sounds a lot like Radical Welcome, doesn’t it?

It reminds me of a story told by Fred Craddock, a preacher and New Testament Scholar. He tells it like this: My wife and I were on vacation in Gatlinburg and over to our table came this old man who was a greeter and, I learned later, a part owner of the Black Bear Inn. He said, “Good evening,” and we said, “Good evening,” and he asked where we were from; we were at that time in Oklahoma. And then he asked what I did. I was getting a little irritated because he was a stranger, and he didn’t need all that. But when I told him I was a minister, he said, “I have a story about a minister” and pulled out a chair and sat down at our table. Uninvited by the way, but it’s his business. I thought he was going to tell a joke; everybody has a joke about a minister. I thought, he’s going to tell one, and I would pretend I had never heard it and smile, and he would go away. At any rate, he said, “I was a born not far from here, out from the village of Cosby, in a place called Laurel Springs. My mother was not married. The children at school made fun of me. I ate my lunch alone. I hid during recess because they said ugly things to me. When I went to town, people looked at my mother and me. I just figured they were trying to make guesses as to who was my father. So I had a very painful childhood. In the course of it, I started going – about middle school age – to Laurel Springs Christian Church back in the woods; it had kerosene lamps. There was an old preacher there with a long beard, a chiseled face, and a deep voice. I liked to hear him preach but I didn’t want to be embarrassed, so I would just go for the sermon and rush out. I did that for some time. One day some of the people gathered in the aisle, and I couldn’t get by, and I felt this hand on my shoulder, and I looked around and I could see the face and the beard of the preacher. I was scared to death because I was always afraid of being embarrassed in public. He stared at me as though he was trying to guess what man in the community was my father. After he looked at me carefully, he said, ‘Boy you are a child of…’ He paused there. I just froze. ‘Boy, you are a child of…God. I see a striking resemblance.’ He swatted me on the bottom and said, ‘Go claim your inheritance.’ That was really the first day of my life.”

What this man experienced as a boy was the radical embrace of God in the words and gestures of a wild country preacher who had no sense of social or religious boundaries, but a keen sense of the expansiveness of God’s love.

When Jesus told the disciples to go make disciples, I imagine him sending them out with a limitless capacity to embrace the people of the world as God’s children. It is that same limitless capacity that I see at work here at St. Paul’s. While Father Nicholas may not be a country preacher with wild eyes and a long beard, he has in a very real sense put his hand on many a shoulder and said, “My friend, you are a child of God. Welcome to the Body of Christ.” St. Paul’s has become a place where the contemporary counterparts of Jews and Gentiles and Slaves and Free come together to do the work that God has given you to do – to comfort those who mourn, heal the sick, feed the poor, and to proclaim liberty to the captives. It is a Great Commission – as meaningful now – and as needed now – as it was nearly 2000 years ago. So, go make disciples, continue to be a radical presence – see what new barrier God is calling you all to break through in the years ahead, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you all to the end of the age.