Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
I must ask myself a dozen times a day, “what time is it?” Maybe you do as well. We look at our watches. We know instinctively where the clock function is on our computers or phones. Most of us – to some degree of another – watch the clock so that we can be on time, so that we aren’t late. We do this for lots of reasons. But I think usually it’s because we want to show respect – respect for the other people we’re going to meet, respect for our own and their busy calendars with lots to do that day. We realize that the event can’t start until everyone is present. And we don’t want to be the one holding everyone up or the one who is left behind. We don’t want to miss out.
And the other question we ask ourselves before a meeting or event is – am I ready? Have I done the necessary prep work to function at a high level? If I’m an athlete, have I been to practice that week? Did I pay attention to my coach? If I’m a student going into an exam, have I studied, did I do the homework? Did I pay attention in class and take decent notes? Am I ready? At least, am I as ready as I can be? And maybe we won’t know the answer to that question until after the meeting, after the exam, after the game? But we can prepare.
So this week’s gospel gives us a lot we can relate to. Some things in it are not so clear: wedding celebration traditions and the conventional expectations of the relationship between masters and slaves that are assumed in Jesus’ teaching are lost on us. But Jesus’ bottom line transcends time and culture and is always applicable: be watchful, be ready. Live consistently in such a moral way that you are always ready to give account to God of how you live. Live love. Join with current saints and those through time who have built up God’s kingdom on earth. And do it fearlessly.
As a church, we commemorate the lives of some of these witnesses. This week one of those who we remember is Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian and witness for civil rights.
Jonathan did not set out to be among the Great Cloud of Witnesses. But he did set out to follow God’s call to him. After graduating from Virginia Military Academy, he felt called to the priesthood. So he enrolled in the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a deeply spiritual man and there is every reason to think that his life would have been an inspiration to many. Jonathan could look forward to a long life as, perhaps, a parish priest. He would be in his 60’s now, approaching retirement, having probably baptized, married, counseled, and buried a large number of parishioners. He would have had plenty of opportunities to live out his faith.
But while he was in seminary he felt a restlessness. The Holy Spirit had intervened as the Holy Spirit often does. In March 1965, Jonathan Daniels heard a televised appeal by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., asking for workers to come to Selma, Alabama, and help secure the right to vote for all citizens. Jonathan’s initial impulse to answer this call was strengthened during the singing at Evensong of the Magnificat, the beautiful song of Mary, also found in Luke’s Gospel.
“He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.”
Jonathan told his friends that he knew he had to go to Selma. “The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.” Here we see a living example of a faithful witness – Mary, the mother of Jesus - inspiring a modern day faithful witness – Jonathan even though they were separated in time by nearly 2,000 years.
Jonathan went to Selma, where he lived among those he was called to serve as they struggled to claim their right to vote. On August 14th, Jonathan and several others were jailed for participating in a picket line – confined to the sweltering heat of a windowless jail in August in the deep South. They were released six days later and walked to a store to buy cold drinks. Ruby Sales, a black teenager, was the first to reach the door. She was met by a man armed with a shotgun who cursed her as he lifted the barrel of the gun. Jonathan pushed her aside to shield her and took the blast of the shotgun point-blank in the chest. He died on the spot.
In his book, Brightest and Best, Sam Portaro theorizes that the man who threatened Ruby Sales that day in August had been taught all his life to fear and hate anyone who looked different from him. He had been taught that to respect the rights of a black person — even one merely trying to buy a bottle of soda pop from a neighborhood market – would in some way, diminish his own life.
Jonathan Daniels, on the other hand, nourished by Holy Scripture and the sacraments, encouraged by faith in the transformative power of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ, was filled with faith, hope, and love. On that top step of the little store in Selma, Portaro writes, “fear met faith, greed met hope, hatred met love.”
Jonathan’s death shocked the world. It also galvanized the movement that he had joined with the desire to bring about the kingdom of God, to prepare the world for the coming of the Master.
The forces that were at work in Selma in l965 are at work in the world today. Our lives are complicated. We, too, struggle with the presence of fear and greed and hatred, even as we thank God for the gifts of faith, hope, and love.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls on us to hold fast to Jesus, that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, that we may lay fear aside and run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.”
Faith and action cannot be divorced. Fear must turn to trust, and trust must grow into faithful action, building the kingdom that it is God’s good pleasure to give us.
Jonathan’s call and path were unique to him. We are not all called to the same path or witness. We are not all called to place ourselves in mortal danger. But we are all called to be responsible for what we are and what we do. We must have our lamps lit and be dressed to serve. That preparation and the conviction that we are in our own unique ways living into our call to serve drives out all fear and frees us to do our part in the work of building the kingdom that God promises to give to us.
As Episcopalians we have a beautiful roadmap in our baptismal covenant: we must be ready to live out our baptismal vow to put our whole trust in grace and love, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. And last but never least, we must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. We must be about the work of the faithful even if we don’t feel like Jesus is going to come knocking anytime soon.
And if we are caught up in our faithful action when the Master returns we will be blessed. In Jesus’ parable, the slaves who were up ready to serve the late-returning Master were rewarded with the Master cooking them a meal and sitting with him at the table. In this we too shall be blessed. What a glorious day that will be. Amen.