It’s always good to worship with you here at St. Andrew’s and for me it’s a special privilege to stand here in this pulpit from time to time and try to preach the Gospel. One of the things I’ve most enjoyed during my retirement has been the opportunity to listen to other people preach. Wendy and Bob are both fine preachers. I look forward to their sermons each time I come here on Sundays. Aren’t we fortunate to have such a wonderful rector and associate rector? Wendy and Bob are on vacation so here I am.

When I was a little boy growing up in Monticello, Georgia my family went to church every Sunday. Sometimes I paid attention. Other times I thought about something else. The preachers were very concerned about people who had not been saved and that they might not go to heaven when they died. I was afraid I would be one of those unlucky souls. Religion was scary.

When I was in high school a young minister came to our church right out of seminary. He had served in the air force during the Second World War and had come home to pursue his theological education.   I’m sure he was concerned about the soul of every person in that congregation, but he didn’t spend his time talking about heaven and hell. Francis was concerned about the way we treated other people and our respect for others. He sometimes spoke about the ways we white folks treated black folks. This didn’t sit well with many  church people. They wanted to fire Francis.  

My father was a leader in that church. He didn’t always agree with what Francis was preaching. I am so proud to say that Daddy always stood by Francis and supported him even though they sometimes disagreed. And even though a number of folks made life difficult for Francis and his family, they never did fire him from our church. By the way, he also preached a couple of Sunday afternoons each month at a little church out in the country. He was fired from that church after he said that the black principal of the public school for black folks had the same education as the white principal and that he even had the necessary qualifications to be the county school superintendent. After that sermon the church leaders met him at the door and told him not to come back.

As you might have guessed I had and still have great admiration for Francis. We still talk on the phone from time to time and share e-mail.

When I retired five years ago, Francis and his wife Clarice and their son Frank drove to Greensboro from their home in north Georgia to attend the party Saint Barnabas’ gave for Muriel and me. I was deeply honored.

For, you see, Francis Stewart was the first preacher I ever heard say anything about the social implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was the first preacher I ever heard talk about the social implications of the Bible. Other preachers talked about implications but they were referring to vices like drinking and gambling. And they made cryptic references to sexual matters. But Francis led me to realize that the Biblical faith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are concerned with how we treat others. I learned at home and in Sunday School to be a good little boy and to be polite and considerate of people’s feelings. But Francis led me to see that the Bible and the Gospel are not particularly concerned about being polite. The Bible and the Gospel are concerned about justice. The Hebrew and Greek words tsad-deek and dikaios usually translated as “righteousness” in the King James Version of the Bible, are more accurately translated by the word “JUSTICE”.

Anybody living in our little town could look at the discrepancies between the white children’s school and the black children’s school – they could look at these schools and if they were challenged to think about justice they could see that there was no justice in the educational system there in middle Georgia. There was no justice in the law of ‘separate but equal’ because though the schools were separate they were certainly not equal, and of course being separate was also unjust.

Francis was a preacher called to speak about justice. White folks didn’t like what he was saying. It made them angry.

So whenever I read the kind of scripture we’ve heard today from Deuteronomy and Second Corinthians, I think about my dear friend and pastor, Francis and the Gospel he preached.

This reading from Deuteronomy is concerned with how the haves treat the have-nots. This reading is in fact concerned with the economy. It speaks of the seventh year as the year of remission. This was the year when according to the Hebrew Law all debts had to be forgiven. So if someone had borrowed from you, when the year of remission came round you were required to cancel his debt. Some people just wouldn’t lend to a poor neighbor a year or two before the year of remission. They knew they might not get all their money back. Isn’t that amazing? What if Christians and Jews still lived by that kind of economy? If this country really and truly is built on Biblical teaching (and I’m not saying it is). But if it is, why don’t we still have a year of remission of debts every seventh year? Why doesn’t America forgive the debts of third world countries?

The Book of Deuteronomy also says God’s people are not to be hard hearted or tight-fisted toward needy neighbors. God’s people are commanded to lend whenever the poor ask. God’s people are to give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so. I don’t know about you, but that seems impossible to me. I don’t have much money and I feel concerned that I don’t lose what I have. It’s hard for me to give money to someone I’m not sure will use it well.

This past week we’ve heard the news about Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest people, who have devoted 60 Billion dollars to help the poor. That’s impressive. I don’t think they’ve given away everything they have. They’ll still have plenty to live comfortable lives of luxury. But still the billions they’re devoting to help the poor are impressive. What if other wealthy people followed their examples?

But, you know, I don’t think the Hebrew Law or the Gospel of Jesus Christ would call this giving of money “generosity” as much as they would call it “justice”. Everybody has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, says the Declaration of Independence. But doesn’t justice mean  everybody has a right to food and water, clothing and housing, education and a living wage, and medical care? And doesn’t justice mean everybody has a right to clean air and water?

This kind of justice is seldom done in this world. It’s rarely done in America or anywhere else. If justice is going to be done, we’re all going to have to repent. We’re gong to have to begin using what we have in new ways that benefit the poor and needy.

The reading from 2nd Corinthians says it actually is possible for any of us to be generous and give even if we are very poor. Speaking of the churches in Macedonia it says, “their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” It would appear that justice is not so much about protecting what I possess as it is about sharing what I have. And that,  is not the American way. It’s not the way of any other nation in the world. It is not how this world works.

It is about justice. If you’re like me, you know it’s hard to hear about justice that commands us to share more and more and not spend so much time trying to cling to what we have.

So we come at last to the Holy Gospel read in our midst this morning – the life and teachings of this man Jesus who gave up his very life for us on the cross and nourishes us with his very body and blood withholding nothing from us who need him every hour, every day.

Today’s Gospel tells us some things aren’t what they seem to be. What seems impossible can actually be possible. Even though the ideas and teachings of Jesus seem dead, useless, and impractical in this modern world, these ideas and teachings are in reality the hope of this world -- this world that seems to be on the fast track toward self destruction -- death.

A little girl is sick unto death. Her father, a man of importance, asks Jesus to make her well. As Jesus walks toward her house messengers come to say the little girl has died. Jesus need not come. Then Jesus says, “Don’t fear, only believe.”  That reminds me of an old hymn: Only believe, only believe, all things are possible, only believe.

Jesus goes go on to the little girl’s house. He tells the mourners, you can stop weeping. She’s not dead but sleeping.  They laugh him. But what Jesus says, turns out to be true. He takes her limp hand and says, “Little girl, get up!” And she does. She gets up and walks.

What does this mean? Was this a miracle or did Jesus simply awaken the little girl? He DID, after all, say she was just sleeping. Couldn’t it mean that things are not necessarily what they seem to be. It may seem impossible for you and me to reorder our priorities. But it’s not impossible. Our faith may seem lifeless but there’s still life in us, in the church and the nation. This country may seem to be going in entirely the wrong direction; a direction many self important experts in religion tell us is actually the right direction. But that can change. We’re not dead, Maybe we are unconscious.

In spite of our fears and anxieties about money and security God’s strong and generous, liberal and openhanded, freely given love for us is changing our hearts and we can become people of strong, generous, liberal and unselfish love toward others and especially toward the poor, the starving, the homeless and all the rest.

When I woke up Tuesday morning I was thinking of a song from The Man of La Mancha, called The Quest. Here are some of the words Don Quixote sang:

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.
…
This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!

Doesn’t this song come very close to much that Jesus teaches and what he does for us and for the world?

Through his suffering, death, resurrection, and expected coming again we are set free to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God. Micah 3:8 “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.

Amen.