Proper 27, Year A
Homily for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke VA

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 25:1-13

It’s only been a few weeks now since I came back from our diocesan pilgrimage for Racial Justice and Healing. During that time we journeyed first to Memphis, then to Birmingham and on to Selma and Montgomery. In each place we stood in hard and holy places in which we had to face the depth of oppression, violence and dehumanization that has occurred in the history of this country as well as in our continued struggles for racial justice. And in each place, we felt the holy and life-giving presence of God who was, and is and ever shall be present.

To say that I felt God’s presence in places like the 16th Street Baptist Church and the national memorial for peace and justice isn’t just a trite expression. It was palpable…and most easily seen, for me, in the faces of my fellow pilgrims and sojourners as we walked together.

Each of us brought our own “stuff” to this pilgrimage…and by that I mean the literal as well as metaphorical baggage of our lives. Every person on that journey brought our knowledge, our history, our wisdom, our ancestors, our privilege, our oppression, our frustrations, our yearning for beloved community. Sometimes we had enough for a particular stretch of the journey, and sometimes we did not. Sometimes I found myself sobbing and someone holding me up. Sometimes my arms were wide enough to support someone else. In all these things, we found ourselves growing together in Christ as well as in beloved community over the six days and 60+ hours of bus-riding that we engaged together. Most of us, myself included, haven’t really been able to find the words yet to convey the depth of our experiences. So, there will be more sharing on that to come.

But there was one portion of that pilgrimage that has been a constant companion in my thoughts as I sat with this week’s Gospel lesson and prayed about my time with all of you. On the second day of our pilgrimage, we drove to the outskirts of Memphis to a place that was described as a museum of the underground railroad. It was someone’s actual house until 1997 when the then-owner recognized that some of the peculiarities of the house might have far more historical significance than she initially realized. It had been the estate of Jacob Berkle, a German immigrant and stockyard owner. In addition to the quaint house and barn with meadows for cattle to graze, it became increasingly evident by the holes in the basement, the strangely positioned doors and half-doorways and the re-discovered oral histories of formerly enslaved people who described the location of safe stations on the underground railroad that this place was instrumental to the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements of the late 19th Century.

On the tour, we saw the tiny corridors through which people passed unnoticed to safety. We walked into the basement and stood in the damp darkness where small crawl spaces to and from the outdoors…out of sight of passers by…came into view. We heard stories, and listened to oral histories that told of instructions being given through the patterns of quilts set out to air and the drumming and singing of spiritual songs in the fields worked by enslaved people that held meanings beyond what could be seen on the surface. One of the songs noted by our tour guide was the spiritual “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning.”

This spiritual is accompanied with steady drum beats, the kind that keep you working and moving as a group. The lyrics reflect the Christianity with which those who had been enslaved had also been indoctrinated and the scriptures of our Holy Bible turned into song would have been acceptable when heard sung by the laboring. But this song is also believed to have emerged as an encoded spiritual of the underground railroad: keep your lamps trimmed and burning, children don’t grow weary, the time is drawing nigh.

Entering into today’s Gospel in this way gives us a unique vantage point. Standing in that home made me confront the lyrics of a spiritual that was sung by enslaved persons whose reserve supply of faith and community was so strong that it fueled their lamps of liberation, whether for themselves or for their children and generations yet to come. We encounter history retrospectively, seeing what was and having to acknowledge that it doesn’t often hold the whole story. I could see these singing people, beloved of God yet enslaved by human hands. I could imagine them moving about their journey with their eyes open, seeing where and how there were means to reach freedom, to reunite with family, to boldly hope for tomorrows that would hold the possibility of salvation in this world or at least, in the next.

The holy oil of liberation that they carried with them is a tribute to their strength and their wisdom. The light they carried still burns on in their ancestors and generations that have come after them. That light of their presence on this earth and their resistance to oppression can be seen, if we have our eyes open to look. And God was with them, profoundly. The light of Christ that they sang into their daily motions was sustaining and keeping them in a way that the false and fleeting light of the self-righteous security of their oppressors never could.

Standing in this history is hard. Christianity has been weaponized in many ways and most especially during this horrific history of enslavement…and yet Christ’s presence was also there not in dominance but in love and liberation. To the foolish, freedom was a possession, a material thing that could be bought and sold. But the liberating power of Christ’s love isn’t like that. The liberating power of Jesus Christ doesn’t demand social place or position and it isn’t available for a price to those who have means; that liberating love thrives in relationship, that liberating love lives and grows when we are emptied. The wise ones sang, together. And their lamps were ablaze in ways that could not be bought or sold.

We begin to see this Good News emerging from Matthew’s Gospel when we realize that the wise are not the powerful or the wealthy; the wise are the ones who align with the liberating love of God which is carried with them in a way that cannot be possessed in this world. Like the words of Mary’s prayer, the Magnificat, our eyes begin to open to the ways in which our loving, liberating God moves to topple the oppressive hierarchies of this world and replace them with the humility, love and grace that is fueled by the liberating love of Christ’s presence. As our liturgical calendar moves towards advent, it is this urgency of staying awake and remaining in relationship that we are called upon to do, so that the liberating love of God brings a whole new realm of God into being:

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

This parable gives us just another glimpse into the upside-down nature of the realm of God, where we grow by giving away and are filled by emptying our hearts. The one who is coming asks us to have our eyes and our hearts open, to be fueled with the liberating love that is available in and through community with each other. Wisdom reminds us to do what our logic fails to recognize: pay attention, keep watch, don’t grow weary.

My work at the Diocese is all about discernment and formation. I realize that on the surface, I haven’t offered a lot in this homily about the work I do ministering with those who are called to serve the Church and the world as lay people, deacons and priests. In other ways, I’ve given away the two best lessons of it all, though: God has us, and we are people called to be community. God invites us not to cling to our lives or to think that we personally have all the reserves that we need for our work and ministry. God invites us to wait with prayer and patience, filling our reserves through the relationships where Christ’s liberating love is revealed. God invites us to share in a life of giving in order to receive; to empty in order to be filled. God invites us to understand the Gospel not as a hammer to be weaponized, but as a tool that breaks us open to make room for God to do the work in us that the world needs. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t about being privileged. It is hard, and holy and humble work. And if God is speaking to you in that place, whether you are called to lay ministry or the ministry of a deacon or a priest then I’ll accompany you as you listen and prepare with open eyes and open heart to do whatever work God has called you to do.

So, for all of us, the reminder is clear: keep your eyes and hearts open for God’s movement: in your life, in this parish, in the diocese, in your community, in the world. There are safe places along the way, and messages that your open eyes and heart can see that will guide you. And God will be with you, as you are with each other. There are others on the journey who help to share the load and spread the wisdom. The light of Christ that we carry and see in one another is not for the taking or the buying. But together, in community, we will find that we are filled with the liberating light of Christ and in that beloved community, we will always have enough.