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The
Cathedral Church
of Saint John
Ten Concord Ave.
Wilmington
Delaware
19802

voice: (302) 654-6279
fax: (302) 777-5789

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Dean’s Sermon
14th Sunday after Pentecost
6 September 2009

by the Very Reverend William B. Lane

We are responsible to and for one another.

That we are responsible to and for one another is a core value in the Judeo/Christian tradition and Islamic tradition as well. Proverbs puts it this way:

The rich and the poor have this in common:
the LORD is the maker of them all.
Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of anger will fail.
Those who are generous are blessed,
for they share their bread with the poor.
 
Do not rob the poor because they are poor,
or crush the afflicted at the gate;
for the LORD pleads their cause
and despoils of life those who despoil them.

Cain asks God, Am I my brother’s keeper? And God’s action makes it clear that the answer is yes.

We all meet people who for one reason or another prove unforgettable for us. One such person for me is a Rabbi in Israel named Erik. He is a leader of an organization known as Rabbis for Reconciliation. Erik is unabashedly a Jew and an Israeli. But he is also a man of justice, who lives out the great prophetic cry for justice that we find in the Hebrew scriptures. He understands that he is his brother’s keeper, and that his brother is Palestinian as well as Israeli. So he risks and receives abuse from the authorities and settlers as he speaks and walks the word and way of solidarity with Palestinians as they seek to farm their land, harvest their crops, and live in their homes, in other words, as they seek justice.

In a sense he and others like him, hold out the hope to the Palestinians that Isaiah holds out to Judah and Jerusalem as it goes into captivity:

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
"Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you."
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water.

It is not God’s desire that human beings live in political, social, economic or religious bondage, nor that the plight of those in such bondage be ignored. Jesus reminds us of that so clearly in Matthew’s Gospel Account:

Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, in prison and responded to your needs? Or, When was it that we saw you in such conditions and failed to respond? The answer of course, when your responded or failed to respond to the condition and needs of the broken, poor, and abused.

Even Jesus himself is reminded of this by the gentile woman whom he is about to reject. Her words have echoed through history: She answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go-- the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

In his admonition to the churches in the Diaspora James is blunt:

But you have dishonored the poor. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

When the 8th century BCE prophet Amos confronted the religious, social, and civil leadership of Israel, the northern kingdom of a divided land with its record and behavior of injustice and oppression of the poor, the demand was made that he get out of the country, go back home to Judah from whence you came. That so often is the response to those who call for reform, renewal, justice and equality. Marginalize them, get rid of them, even kill them. So often the voice of justice, care and concern is a voice in the wilderness, and when it seems that finally it is being heard, the force of reaction sets in.

Tomorrow is Labor Day, a national holiday. Do you remember the history of its roots in our country? It goes back to the late 19th century and the time of Grover Cleveland. Those whom today we call blue collar workers, a vanishing breed, were seeking justice in the struggle for decent working conditions and fair pay. During one of the strikes of the era, the 1894 Pullman Strike, United States Military personnel and Marshals fired upon the strikers and killed a number of them. In response to that Cleveland and congress passed legislation establishing Labor Day as a time for reconciliation and to honor the workers of America.

Jesus says we are in solidarity with him when we are in solidarity with those who too often have no voice, no power. In our own American history, we have seen the push back against such solidarity. There are key words that light up that push back: communism, socialism, liberalism. Social Security and Medicare, two programs vilified at their creation, and vilified even today as socialistic, make some quality of life possible for millions of men, women and children. On this Labor Day weekend, tell the woman who is a single parent and striving to support her family by working two jobs, which since they are both part time, do not provide health benefits, tell her you feel for her, you really do, but universal access to health insurance is just too socialistic, or it might cost me something.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

A few weeks ago, Beverly and I spent a brief time in Tunisia. While there we visited the military cemetery in which thousands of American military personnel who died in the North African campaign of the Second World War are buried. Row upon row of white crosses and name upon name inscribed on the wall behind them. These folks, from all backgrounds, some clearer than others about why they were there, spent their lives to buy us the opportunity to live freely and act justly.

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of anger will fail.
Those who are generous are blessed,
for they share their bread with the poor.

Faithfully,
The Very Reverend William B. Lane

Dean’s Sermons:

Cathedral Call Letters from the Dean

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