Good Priest, Bad Priest

It's ALMOST Enough to make an Episcopalian out of you.

Yesterday was another special day in the catholic church because it ended the "ordinary time" with a celebration of Christ the Resurrected Redeemer and starts the Advent Christmas season. Get ready for pointsettas and dangling holly berries. The White House Christmas Tree is already up and I can't wait to get to Rock Center.
Being so special I decided as I often do to go to two church services to taste and see the difference in homiletics in various venues and the contrast couldn't have been more marked.
The gospel reading was read in both places. This was a great Matthew 25 launching pad for how Jesus will judge the living and the dead; by the good deeds that they do to feed the hungry, comfort the sick, visit those in prison, etc.
The Priest in the evening; a Bishop in a Cathedral got it. He really got it. In his gentle quiet peaceful manner he gave us a sense of the magnitude of the suffering of humanity, especially in this financial market, and how if it is going to be it is up to me, each one of us, to change lives with the compassion of Christ. He discussed the modern "leper" the individual outcasted from society because of Aids and the magnitude of that problem globally, which we tend to not want to think about in sugar coated christmases of dangling ornaments, retail sales and spiked egg nog festivities.

He discussed "homelessness" as not merely a financially deprived condition but one of lack of love- or caused by "rejection" because being without a home means a failure of people on an individual level to love each other sufficiently to want to make home with each other as well as a broader failure of society to tend to the financially despirate. The good Bishop reminded us that Jesus was simply kind. He wasn't a mean man. He was a gentle kind soul who won people with his wisdom, gentleness, kindness and warm respect- even people not shown respect by the official spiritual hierarchy- because Jesus simply loves absolutely everyone. He loves absolutely everyone so much, he died to prove it- and his Love resurrected him.


The Priest in the morning was another story. Respect for the profession will preclude my divulging names, but he needs to go back to school. His homily rambled about a greek philosopher's discussion about someone who refused to get married so he could serve the higher good of Christ's calling-conveying that all he thinks he has to do to be Godly is preserve his celibate priestly status --and in the process managed to insult everyone who believes it the deepest call of Jesus in their heart to have children and be married. It's amazing anyone threw five cents in the bucket after that one. It actually was against the message of the gospel reading.
Luke 25-et seq. makes clear that one's position, even one's ecclesiastical position does not guarantee a place in God's favor or grace alone. This is the text of the good Samaritan. Someone is robbed, and left for dead by the side of the road. The first thing that happens is a Priest walks right past him across the street. Why was that? It is possible this Priest thought that the guy was dead, and thus it would have been ritually unclean for the jewish priest according to his law to touch him. That would be the kindest interpretation. History has been less kind to him; history has condemned this priest as just too full of himself, uncaring about humanity and more concerned with hanging on to his priestly profile and demeanor and not dirtying himself with someone despirately in need.

Jesus' point about that Priest was that even if it was against the "rules" and thus would have been ritually unclean for the Priest to touch him, the notion of what was ritually clean or not was completely twisted on its head. A guy could be saved, and should be saved. It was the Priest who refused to do it- hanging on to and justifying his wrong actions by a misplaced perverted law. Jesus' point was that the elevated misplaced perverted law(s) and rule(s) were and are operating against life itself. Whenever that happens, it operates an unholy self-justifying idolotry that defies Jesus himself who was and is and ever shall be "the Life." This priest was proved by his deeds thus a False Priest. Can't you hear what went through the Priest's head- what if someone sees me around this icky looking creepy almost dead guy-he probably deserved what he got!

That Priest had an opportunity to create life in someone left for dead and instead chose a law that operated against life. When have you done that? God had to bring someone else along to do it and bring back to life what was left for dead because the Priest was too full of himself. He missed the "day of his visitation" and failed the test.

Then the Levite walks right by the guy. The levite was someone who held high status, honor, position and prestigue by virtue of his lineage. Perhaps a blue-blooded Republican Lobbyist.
Then there is a Samaritan. A half-breed, someone whose deeds made him more righteous than even the Priest. This Samaritan went above and beyond anything that the priest did (because the Priest did exactly nothing.) He
cleaned up the guy, gave him a ride, took him to a hotel and paid for it. Can you imagine? The Samaritan saved the guy who was injured and helpless, lying in a humiliated state and left for dead. The Samaritan, the nobody, the person without title like a Levite, without office like a Priest, without pedigree, status or even a lot of money--he took what he had to help a stranger.
This Samaritan has been likened to Jesus himself because Jesus's lineage has a few less than regal characters in it and even a Moabite named Ruth. Jesus himself was a bit of a "mutt" as Obama likes to call himself. Jesus is the savior of anyone reaching out to him and trusting he can help. He doesn't stand on formalities. He isn't concerned more with his status. He took every hit ever thrown at him -even unto death-in order to save humanity. He didn't hang on to his high position as Rabbi lecturer on the hillside when he said "your will be done" in Gethsemane.

James tells us that Faith without Works is exactly dead. It's not active faith, not alive faith, it gives birth to nothing, it is merely dead. It is full of itself. It is self-righteous naval-gazing. It is self-preservatory rather than self-expending.
Faith requires works. Faith requires a response or Love is so much hot air. Talk is Cheap.
Faith without works is an assumed Cheap Grace that doesn't carry any healing water.

It's a good reminder that if it is going to be this Christmas Season, it is up to me- and you.
And time to get off the high horse and start riding the white one.

So this Thanksgiving, I am encouraged by the good Bishop to care less what I look like to others and more what I do for them. I am also encouraged to not be impressed by people who care more about what they look like to others than what they do for them. How 'bout you.