Let Us Not Grow Weary
A Sermon by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, July 3rd 2022.
“..So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for the family of faith.” Galatians 6: (1-6) 7-16
When I was in seminary back in the day, seniors were required to take a one-week course before they graduated that was officially titled “Oral Interpretation of Scripture”, but everyone called it “Read and Bleed”. The purpose was to learn to read Scripture aloud in a way that conveyed the meaning of the passage. A very no nonsense Roman Catholic priest would come over from Washington to coach us. He had a beautifully resonant, powerful, speaking voice. We would all take turns reading various passages and he would critique us. Thus the name “read and bleed”. And the passage that I remember most vividly was from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, a few chapters before today’s reading. “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Whenever a reading from Galatians comes up in the lectionary, I still hear Father Burke in my head giving his firey rendering of Paul’s words. “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Paul speaks like an angry father, a father who is disappointed and frustrated, but who underneath that hurt, loves them very deeply. By the time today’s reading comes along a few chapters later, his anger has cooled and his love for the church he had founded in Galatia is much more readily apparent.
The thing that got Paul so exorcised was the ongoing difficulty that the church in Galatia had in understanding the radical nature of their life in Christ. Today, Christianity is distinct and separate from Judaism. But in the very earliest days, the Jesus Movement, as our Presiding Bishop likes to call it, was very much a part of Judaism. Paul believed that the Good News of Jesus was for everyone, that is was universal. He is often called the “Apostle to the Gentiles.” He traveled all over the Roman world sharing the Gospel. But as more and more non-Jews became part of the Jesus Movement, a lot of questions began to arise within the emerging Christian church. Did Gentile converts have to convert to Judaism in the process of becoming Christians? Did they have to conform to Mosaic law the way that Jewish Christians did?
These questions about who was in and who was out created a lot of controversy, divisiveness, and “judginess,” all of which really got Paul’s ire up. He told the Galatians in a myriad of different ways that none of this mattered. “For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” Following Mosaic law was not a top priority. It wasn’t even a requirement. The only thing that truly mattered was proclaiming Jesus crucified and risen and living in harmony with one another. Ethnic and cultural diversity within their community was a blessing. They had varied backgrounds and experiences, some had grown up in Judaism and others had been pagan, but all of them were now one in Christ. For the sake of the Body of Christ and for the sake of the world, they were to focus on their mission to live together in love so that they could love the world.
In today’s passage Paul says, “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right…whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” These past 2+ years have been the hardest that most of us have ever lived through. The pandemic kept us apart from one another for so long. And everything going on in our culture from the erosion of women’s rights, to concerns about other freedoms potentially being at risk, to challenges to our beloved democracy, all of these things have created so much instability and uncertainty for everyone. Forces are still at work that threaten to pull us apart. We know that as members of the Jesus Movement, we have to resist those forces, we have to make a conscious decision to come together for worship, to be strengthened and empowered to go back out into the world to work for justice and peace.
“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right…whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” That means that our worship life here at Saint George’s is first and foremost. It is our top priority. It is the glue that holds us together, both as individuals and as a community of faith. Jesus tells us again and again and again in the Gospels, to love God beyond all else, and out of that love for God, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We love God in a host of ways, but the main way is through worship. We all feel so very blessed to be able to worship in-person again. During the height of the pandemic we had to be totally on-line and as much as we missed each other and we missed communion, we really appreciated the worship videos that Ben, our Minister of Music, and Elena, our Director of Communications, put together for us. The videos that we broadcast each Sunday kept us all connected and they also reflected the diversity of our community. It was great to see the variety of people leading us in the readings and prayers, people of all ages, little ones who had just learned to read, teenagers, older parishioners, single people, couples, and families. And since we’ve been back in-person we have missed some of that diversity. And we are also having some challenges with people signing up ahead of time to fill the various roles. We used to ask people to submit videos, and now that we are in-person, we rely on people taking the initiative to sign-up in advance of the services each week. Some of our difficulty in signing up ahead of time I think, is that we are all still in this strange, “post-Covid but not really out of Covid”reality.
A lot has been written lately about the ongoing trauma and decision fatigue that people are experiencing. It makes it harder to make commitments ahead of time. So, we really have to prioritize what is important to us when we feel overwhelmed. It forces us to decide where to put our energy and focus, knowing that we can’t put it everywhere. And we have to make our commitments manageable. Nobody can do everything. And since the most important thing we do as a church is to gather on Sunday mornings for worship, our top communal priority right now is strengthening our worship support.
Our ministry leaders have really been carrying us through, and they super-de-duper need our participation. And when we participate, we feel more invested, more a part of this community. It takes all of us to be the Body of Christ. There are five leadership roles in the service that especially need our involvement right now. They are Altar Guild, acolytes, ushers, Eucharistic ministers, and lectors. Altar Guild members prepare the Altar and clean-up after services. Acolytes carry the Cross and torches in the procession. Ushers greet people at the door, bring up the bread and wine for communion and generally keep us organized. Eucharistic ministers read the Prayers of the People and- spoiler alert, soon and very soon they will also be offering the chalice during communion again. Lectors read Scripture. And if you sign up to read, fear not, nobody is going to subject you to Read and Bleed. These ministries are so important and they are for everyone, not just a chosen few. There is on-the-job training for all of these roles. As Jesus told his disciples, “You will not be left comfortless”. We have seasoned folks who will gladly mentor you. As much as they love their ministry, they also want to share it with others. There are no outsiders at Saint George’s. Jesus makes us all insiders.
Our life here at Saint George’s is so very precious and we want to prioritize it and grow from strength to strength. Our nation and our world need us now more than ever as we work for justice and peace. And we need each other as we proclaim our faith each Sunday and support one another in our life in Christ. “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”