“Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle? Who may abide upon your holy hill? Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”

Truth is a tricky commodity, isn’t it? Especially for us Episcopalians in these days, post-Convention. There are two diametrically opposed positions that Episcopalians are regarding as right and true that have been in the news as of late. These two diametrically opposed positions impact also our own parish family. Some of us are applauding the actions of General Convention and the consent to the election of Gene Robinson as bishop coadjutor in the Diocese of New Hampshire; others of us are appalled by the consent. And still others of us are somewhere between the two.

What makes the truth so difficult to discern is that both sides in the debate are striving to state their positions out of love and respect for scripture, for tradition, and for reason – the three traditional sources that Anglicans (including Episcopalians) take to heart. Even more, both sides are striving to serve God and their neighbor to the best of their ability and with hearts full of faithfulness, care and concern. Millions of Episcopalians have asked God for guidance; for discernment, and for the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit.

The danger to us, I believe, is not that we hold different theological positions – because we do on any number of issues from euthanasia to war to abortion to gun control to issues regarding our sexuality. I think the larger danger is a spiritual arrogance that automatically assumes that all members of any one church, be it St. Andrew’s or any other, hold the same position on this or any other issue. In churches where many members are celebrating the consent of Gene Robinson’s election, other members are mourning, some quite painfully and silently. In churches where many members are protesting the consent of Gene Robinson’s election and considering breaking away from the Episcopal Church, other members of those same churches are mourning, again quite painfully and silently.

Conflict and the clash of differing positions is nothing new. The gospel reading we have from Mark today is a good example. The questions undergirding this particular clash of positions are “How best to love and serve God?” “How best to keep God’s commands and statutes?” Sometimes we snicker a little at the Pharisees because Jesus seems constantly at odds with them, but we forget that what motivated the Pharisees was a deep and abiding love for God and a deep and abiding concern that God’s law be kept absolutely. To that end, they created over time an elaborate series of regulations around the law. The idea, in essence, was to make enough rules to cover any eventuality so that there was no chance that the commandments themselves could be broken. It was a wonderful and marvelous intention, but one doomed to fail because all their loving and faithful attention came to be focused on the rules themselves, rather than on God.

Jesus urges an understanding that rules are only a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. All God wants, all God has ever desired is that we hand over our hearts to him. It is the inclination of our hearts toward God, day in and day out, which God requires. And the reason is critical. Left to our own devices; left to our desires, selfishness rules, not God. Jesus says, “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Where Jesus spoke within his own tradition of Judaism, and urged his fellow Jews to once more incline their hearts to God as a antidote to selfishness and its resulting evil, Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians speaks to what is now a community of Christians spread far beyond the tiny geographical area Jesus inhabited. As an ambassador for Christ in a pagan empire, Paul understands evil in a much more cosmic sense. In this part of his letter, he urges Christians to suit up as if for battle, but instead of military hardware, we are to suit up with the character of Christ himself. The whole armor of God, which we are to put on, is the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith. We put these on, Paul says, in order that we will be ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. We go into battle not so that we might win arguments, win elections, or win satisfaction. We go into battle not to make war, but peace; not to defeat enemies but to bring others to Christ. We go into battle not because there are sides, but because Christ calls us to bring all sides together.

“Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle? Who may abide upon your holy hill? Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”

As I know, love and respect all the people who make up St. Andrew’s, it is God’s Spirit dwelling in your hearts that I respond to and value. You have given your hearts to Christ, and that is what most matters. In this congregation we are Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, native born and immigrant, young and old, high church and low church, male and female, white collar and blue collar, liberal and conservative, gay and straight, introverted and extroverted, long time members and brand new members, and much, much more in between.

What we share, different as we are, is that we are committed to the same Christian ethic. Instead of striving to overcome our differences in order to be like-minded, we accept that even in our diversity, we are like-hearted. To be like-hearted is to strive to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. To be like-hearted is to embrace our baptismal promises, with God’s help, by continuing to be part of the church, by resisting sin and evil, by living out our faith through our words and actions, by looking for Christ in every human soul, and by putting on the armor of God as reconcilers and peacemakers.

Today we are privileged to offer the sacrament of baptism for a brand-new member of St. Andrew’s, William Hidalgo. We can’t promise Will, as he is growing up, that he won’t face conflicts and hard times, sad times and disappointments. We wish we could protect him from the hard things that will come his way, but we can’t. We can’t promise a lot of things. But we can promise him that he will always be made to feel welcome here. We can promise him that we will love and cherish him, we will include him, we will be part of his life, and we will pray for him and with him. We can promise, along with his parents, to teach him what it means to live life as a Christian, and what a clear difference it makes in life when we’ve given our hearts to Christ.

And so let us pray for Will’s sake, beginning life today as one of Christ’s own. And let us pray for our own sakes that we might always, as ambassadors of Christ, speak the truth from our hearts. The words of our prayer are simple and we’ve heard them before, but today perhaps we need to once more claim them as our own:

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable to you O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

Amen.