The Rev. Canon Carl Turner | Festal Eucharist

Sunday, January 17, 2021 @ 11:00 am
The Second Sunday After The Epiphany
The Eve of the Confession of St. Peter
Sunday, January 17, 2021
The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

Festal Eucharist
11:00 am

Listen to the sermon

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A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
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“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Sermon Audio

I grew up in a large industrial city on the north east coast of England – Hull.  It actually has quite a grand name because of its original charter granted by King Edward I in 1299 which named it Kingston upon Hull.  But, it has always been known as Hull – the river on which it is built, filled with silt and mud.   Once a proud port with the largest deep-sea fishing fleet in Europe when I was a teenager, it had been heavily bombed in the second world war and had become depressed and bleak, with high unemployment in the 1970’s.  The silt and mud of the river and the growing number of derelict docks along the River Humber became a poignant symbol of its demise.  It reminds me of the way that Father Spencer would talk about his own hometown of Cleveland – “It’s the only city in America that is so polluted that its river caught on fire!”  Anyway, the city of Hull was immortalized several years ago in a best-selling book with a very unflattering title, ‘The Idler book of Crap Towns – the 50 worst places to live in the British Isles” in which Hull was voted …number one!  A Television program was made about it!  When the announcement was made that I had been called to be Rector of Saint Thomas, the first telephone call congratulating me came from Father John Andrew, the eleventh Rector, who was so excited on the phone because, remarkably, Father Andrew had also been born in Hull!  The irony of this was not lost on him, and when we met up in New York, we decided that the calling of two British Rectors who had been born in Hull proved that God must have a sense of humor!

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

The Gospels are filled with examples of tension and conflict and the authorities in Jerusalem are not only suspicious of Jesus because he attracts great crowds, they look down upon him particularly because he came from the North.  The Gospels give us glimpses of the tensions that exist at the time of Jesus because of the divisions of class, education, disability, gender, and race.  In John’s Gospel we see this vividly played out when the Pharisees and the Chief Priests send the Temple Police to arrest Jesus.  The people themselves are divided because they cannot understand how the Messiah could come from Nazareth and the police fail to arrest Jesus.  In the ensuing argument, Nicodemus challenges the position taken by the Pharisees and Priests: ‘“Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” They replied, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.”’ (John 7:51-52)

Their prejudice dulled their ability to reflect and to listen.  It is, sadly, a response that is found time and time again in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament.  We read in the prophecy of Zechariah: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear.” (Zechariah 7:8-11)

Jesus experienced this ‘turning of the stubborn shoulder’ when people left him because they could not cope with his teaching.  Again in John’s Gospel, after teaching about the Bread of Life, many of his own disciples left him.  To the remaining Twelve, Jesus almost pitifully says, “Do you also wish to go away?” To which Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67b-68).

And those who witnessed to him after his resurrection were also treated with disdain by those in authority.  The Apostles were flogged and imprisoned.  Zechariah’s prophecy became all too true for Stephen – one of the first deacons of the Church, who also became its first martyr – ‘“Look,” Stephen said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.’ (Acts 6:56-57)

Last Sunday, as we bade farewell to Father Spencer, I encouraged him to model himself on Jesus, our Good Shepherd, building up the body of Christ in love by being a pastor – a shepherd of souls who cares.  I also reminded him that being a pastor, whose life is modelled on the example of Jesus, means also caring for those whom we find difficult; those who challenge us, or even attack us.  Those with ‘stubborn shoulders’ and who stop their ears to the message of reconciliation and forgiveness.

There are many people in the world today, and even in this country, that continue to seek division; to put others down; and to take matters into their own hands if they do not get their own way.  In many respects it is as if nothing has changed since the time of Jesus.  The scenes of a mob storming the Capitol Building while Congress was in session was horrific, but all the more so because of language surrounding those events that described some people as ‘patriots’ and others as ‘bad’ or ‘evil.’   People still seem capable of stopping their ears and allowing hate to dominate.  And it is the presence of hatred that is so destructive in our world today.

I read an opinion article in the New York Times yesterday, in which an evangelical pastor described the response that he had received from fellow Christians after he had issued a statement following the events at the Capitol Building on January 6.  I found his account quite chilling, and all the more so because this was a conservative pastor who had loyally supported Mr. Trump over many years, and he as talking about the reaction of practicing Christians!   The pastor said, “Over the last 72 hours, I have received multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry. I have been labeled a coward, sellout, a traitor to the Holy Spirit, and cussed out at least 500 times.” ^[1]

Hatred can effectively ‘stop our ears’ and I truly believe that the refusal of people to listen, to truly listen and to understand another point of view is dangerous and can lead to division, mistrust, and even violent acts.  Yes, sadly, people of faith can sometimes be quite unkind to one another.  But the ability to hate and to act on hatred is a direct consequence of our fall from grace and the choosing of evil over good.  All human beings are capable of heroic acts of great love; they are also capable of making poor choices.  And it is this making of poor choices or refusing to engage with anything or anyone that is different to oneself or to one’s own worldview that can lead to extremism and acts of hatred.  Genocide in Nazi Germany, Serbia, or Rwanda for example; racial segregation in South Africa or the United States; religious persecution in China, the USSR, Pakistan, or Iran; inequality and institutional racism in the United Kingdom, not just in the London Metropolitan Police Force, but even in the Church of England which ordained me.

In her weekly unofficial letter to the clergy this week, Bishop Mary said this, “We are called to fight evil, but we are also called to know how to fight it. Evil is not effectively resisted with hatred and with guns. Evil cannot be defeated with evil, negation with negation, terror with terror, missile with missile. The process of negation must be reversed. Only affirmation can overcome negation. Evil can be battled only by good. Hatred can be laid to rest only by love.”

That, my friends, is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus.  And if you ever doubt it, go and look at the mosaics in the floor of our church’s narthex.  There, you will find the words of Jesus prominently displayed – “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”  (Matthew 26:52)

I was also reading some letters of Thomas Merton last week, and I came across his Easter Letter to his friends in 1968.  In his letter he relates the tragic death of Dr. Martin Luther King to the significance of it happening during Passiontide, just a few days before Palm Sunday.  Apparently, Dr. King had been tentatively planning to make a retreat at Gethsemani Abbey, Merton’s Trappist monastery in Kentucky, before leading the “Poor People’s March” but, instead, had chosen to go to Memphis where he was assassinated.  Only the day before, on April 3, Merton says that a friend of Dr. King’s and Merton’s wrote to him saying, “Martin is going to Memphis today; he is going cold into a hot situation, and I wish he were going to Gethsemani instead…”  Merton continues in his letter, “it is evident that Dr. King was expecting something and went to meet it with his eyes open. His final speech was certainly prophetic in its way. I believe he felt the best thing he could do would be to lay down his life not only for the Black people but for the whole country.” ^[2]

“I’ve been to the mountaintop,” said Dr. King the day before he died.  How poignant that words like mountain top and Gethsemane are associated with the events surrounding his death.  After the Last Supper, when Judas left to betray him, Jesus went to a mountaintop – the Mount of Olives – before descending to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray in agony.   Previously on the Mount of Olives, Jesus had wept over the city of Jerusalem; on that same Mount of Olives, he had taught his disciples and prayed; it is where he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but it was also where he shared with his disciples the prophecy that they would desert him, and of Peter’s three-time denial of him.

Yes, Jesus knew all about hate.  After he was transfigured, he taught those closest to him about his impending passion and death.  After that particular mountaintop experience, Luke tells us that Jesus set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem, in spite of the dangers.  Luke tells us this twice.

In 1957, Dr. King preached a sermon about love.  But in that sermon, he also confronted the topic of hate.  This is what he said,

“We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.” ^[3] 

My friends, we read in our newspapers, on social media, and witness on our television screens signs of hate over all the world.  When I was a teenager, I would go to bed frightened that there might be nuclear war in Europe.  Now, all those years later, I think that the greatest threat facing us is the growing sense of hatred and entitlement that we witness all over the globe.  We witness it here in the United States too, and while the insurrection we witnessed on Capitol Hill which led to several deaths is worrying to me, I am just as worried about the hatred that I saw being poured out that day, and the way that hatred continues.  And, of course, quite naturally now because of our shared humanity, we are tempted to respond in kind.  But as Bishop Mary said, hatred can be laid to rest only by love.  Now is the time above all for us to practice the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ – not just to stand up for justice, but to show great love and respect; to put into practice the way of love given to us by Jesus himself.  That is the way that we will truly rid ourselves of division, of racism, and above all, hatred; that is the way that we will challenge extremism and acts of violence – by following the example of Jesus which, in turn, was at the heart of Dr. King’s message of non-violence just as, in a similar way, it was the same message at the heart of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s vision for a new South Africa.

Sadly, those of us who attempt to conquer hate with love may be characterized as weak or naïve or shallow.  Look at the images of what seems important around the world – men (yes usually men) with weapons and loud voices drowning out everyone else.  But that should encourage us even more to follow the example of Jesus Christ our Lord and our God.  We may be seen as weak, but we know that God’s weakness is greater than human strength.  Or, as Michael Ramsey once put it, “Is there, within or beyond our suffering and frustrated universe, any purpose, way, meaning, sovereignty? We answer, yes, and the death and resurrection of Jesus betray this purpose, way, meaning, and sovereignty as living through dying, as losing self to find self, as the power of sacrificial love.” ^[4]

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

“Come and see.”

Let us pray.  A Prayer for our Country from the Book of Common Prayer:

Amen.