St. George's is on the move
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams
Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia
Pentecost 3, June 18th, 2023
Then Jesus went about ..teaching in their synagogues amd proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and sickness. Matthew 9: 35-10:23
Saint George’s is on the move, out and about in a major way during the month of June. And that is happening in at least three different ways. This morning, we had a sending forth prayer during the 8:00 service for the seven people who went on the youth service trip. They are en route to West Virginia right now as part of the Appalachia Service Project. The Reverend Paddy Cavanaugh, Parks Gilbert and Matt West are the adult leaders and Nick West, Nicholas Lowe, J.S. Wilson and Sam Arny are the teens. This is the second summer for the trip and it is such a formative experience for everyone involved. The Appalachia Service Project is much like Habitat for Humanity, but it is specifically designed for young people. Doing this work really helps our teens to connect the dots between what we profess in church every week about Jesus’ compassion for others and our call to continue his mission in the world. It also helps the participants understand that not everyone lives the privileged life that many of us do in Arlington, but that all of us are part of one, inter-connected human family, whatever our circumstances.
And just last Sunday, Saint George’s was out in the world in another way. Our LGBTQ+ group hosted a table at Capitol Pride and 15 Saint Georgians spent the afternoon connecting with the folks who stopped by. There was a continuous stream of people and it was so great to be there in solidarity with folks, many of whom had had harmful experiences with church in the past or others who never knew that church can be a place of deep welcome, genuine hospitality and full inclusion. What a blessing it is for us to be an instrument of God’s warm embrace of all our siblings.
And finally, next Saturday, the One Journey Festival is happening on the grounds of the National Cathedral. This fabulous event was birthed through our Saint George’s refugee ministry, with the leadership of Wendy Chan and Norma Kacen. One Journey celebrates the cultures and contributions of refugees from around the world and it is very inspiring to see this movement spreading across the country with so many community partners. One Journey demonstrates Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom through us in our own day and time. Welcoming the stranger is at the very heart of our Christian faith. We worship a God who welcomes us and we are called to welcome others in return.
In today’s Gospel Jesus and his disciples are out and about too. They are on the move, proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus shows compassion wherever he goes. He recognizes that the people he meets are “harassed and helpless,” literally translated “oppressed and thrown to the ground”. And seeing their suffering affects him to his core. His compassionate response comes from the very deepest part of his soul.
At this point in his ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus sees his mission specifically to his own people, the people of Israel. But after his resurrection he directs his friends to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”. Jesus gives his followers the authority and the responsibility of carrying on his work and he warns them that it is not going to be easy. “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” We are to look at the world and see it exactly as it is, in all of its ugliness and all of its beauty and possibility for renewal. And we can be Christ’s hands as the Spirit reshapes the world to bring it into greater alignment with God’s original dream for us.
Tomorrow we celebrate Juneteenth, the day that the last enslaved African Americans learned that they had been freed by virtue of the Emancipation Proclamation 2 ½ years earlier. Juneteenth has long been celebrated in parts of the African American community, but it was largely unknow to others until it was finally declared a federal holiday in 2021 when the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act was signed into law. June 19th, 1865 was the day that ALL Americans were finally legally free, a full 87 years after our first Independence Day, July 4th 1776. Our Founding Fathers did not have in mind their Black siblings when they declared our independence from the British crown with these eloquent words. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”. Slavery was the original sin of our country. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had a huge scotoma that prevented them from recognizing that “all men are created equal” means that every human being means every human being. President Abraham Lincoln picked up where they left off when he declared that enslaved persons in confederate states would be forever free. The issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation was a monumental step forward. Supremely important. It was a new beginning and yet the long and winding road of racial healing has had many ups and downs and it stretches far into the future. Celebrating Juneteenth tomorrow is a much needed reminder that we must all work to continue the work of living into our highest and noblest ideals. We have come so far and we have so very far to go. And this is not just a civic matter. It is a matter of faith, a profoundly important faith matter. There are no second class citizens in the Kingdom of God. There are only children of God, created in God’s own image, who are meant to live as one human family. Our race and reconciliation committee, led by Lyn Crawford, works throughout the year to help us continue the work of becoming aware of racist attitudes that we may not even know we have, to recognize when subtle microaggressions are happening every day and to actively work to become anti-racist. This is the work of the kingdom, God’s work. It is about renewing the world around us and also being renewed ourselves. We are called to do the internal work as well as the external work. Self-examination and amendment of life as well as the work of racial equity in our society.
And as we do this work, we know that it is not us, but the Spirit of God working in and through us. We are not able to do it on our own, but we can, with God’s help. And we know that God is a God of both justice and mercy. Just as Jesus had compassion for the harassed and helpless in today’s Gospel, he surely has compassion for each of us as we go forward to continue his mission in this world, ministering with people in Appalachia, ministering with our LGBTQ+ siblings, ministering with refugees and staying faithful to the long journey of racial reconciliation. “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching ..and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and sickness…Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but. The laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.’ May God to give us the strength, the courage and the resolve to be a laborer.