Sermon preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY 8 JANUARY 2006


"And Peter opened his mouth and said, 'Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality.'" (Acts 10:34)

The reverend clergy have been portrayed on the screen for decades, and I would like to suggest that historically the "angle" has always been the same. One must remember that in keeping with American folklore and stereotypes, clergy are an enigma. They are, as one wag described them, "six days invisible and the seventh day incomprehensible." They are deemed somewhat useful for the purpose of invoking blessings at graduations and retirement parties, and, of course, for presiding at the rites of passage of the faithful, when they come to church to be hatched, matched and dispatched! But clergy are not thought to inhabit the real world, where normal folk like doctors, lawyers, accountants and working stiffs of various kinds reside, since they are considered too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good!

Therefore, the angle always is "Isn't it amusing (or conversely, scandalous) that the clergyperson is doing so-and-so? So we are slightly bemused when Bing Crosby, in the old "Bells of St. Mary's" films is seen teaching the rough neighborhood boys how to pitch a ball, since according to the stereotype, such behavior are out of character. And we are absolutely incredulous when Father Bing devises a plan to save St. Mary's from the wrecking ball, since people who pray for a living are not supposed to be blessed with business acumen.

You may remember a sitcom in the 80's called "Amen," starring Clifton Davis in the role of the Reverend Reuben Gregory, a minister of an inner-city congregation in Philadelphia, who happens to be a very good-looking eligible bachelor. For several episodes, the audience laughs and cries with Thelma, a member of the choir, the deacons' board, and every other organization in the church which would bring her closer to her pastor. But Reverend Gregory, whose mind is on heavenly things, takes a long time to realize that Thelma is hitting on him, and an even longer time to finally propose.

Now we have "The Book of Daniel," a brand-new sitcom about an Episcopal priest and his dysfunctional family, and with this event it would appear that clergy movies have come of age. No one can accuse the Rev. Daniel Webster of being obtuse, or out of step with reality. If he were, he would be cured by evensong on any given day. His life is like a TV reality show. His mother has Alzheimer's and is particularly abusive of his father, the retired bishop. Somewhere in the Rector's familial or pastoral orbit there are people coming out of the closet, and illicit sex of every variety, with some old-fashioned adultery and promiscuity thrown in for good measure. Daniel and his bishop, Beatrice, are as fond of codeine-based pills as his wife is of Martinis and as his daughter is of pot. And it's not all about sex, booze and drugs. Filthy lucre also rears its ugly head: the Rector's brother-in-law has absconded with three million dollars of the church's money. And, oh yes; one parishioner makes it very clear that she is an unrepentant bigot!

There are predictably those who have called the new series blasphemous, irreverent and a mockery of religion (maybe because the Rector converses on a regular basis with a long-haired, long flowing robed Jesus right out of central casting)! Righteously indignant Christians can go to a website, sign a form letter and, without having even seen the show, ask NBC to repent and send "The Book of Daniel" back to the cutting room floor. Such people miss the point. This is art, this is social commentary. And, above all, this is caricature. A caricature, say, of the President, exaggerates his ears and narrows his eyes so as to distort his appearance, but we know immediately that it is nevertheless George Bush. Because clergy families do live in the real world, there is not one that is not affected by at least one of the issues the Websters are dealing with; we just hope and pray that no real family, clergy or lay, has to deal with them all!

My friends, those who are quick to sign on-line petitions to condemn something they haven't seen, believe that in so doing they are preserving the purity of the church. They want the church to be protected by a Colgate invisible shield. Their actions remind us that we live in a world that loves to establish boundaries, to erect fences and build gated communities, a society and creates fraternities, sororities and clubs, each with its own restrictive criteria for membership. We do this, I suppose, to create an illusion of security in which we surround ourselves with "our kind of people" and keep others at a distance. Such behavior bolsters our sense of identity; it can create an illusion of peace.

Today's story from Acts is the story of two men: Cornelius and Peter. You would not expect them to overlap. Cornelius was a Gentile (somebody from outside the Jewish religion) and Peter was a Jew. Cornelius was a high-ranking officer in the army of the Roman Empire (as a centurion, he led a squadron of one hundred men) and Peter had no rank at all. His only leader was a carpenter from Nazareth who had been put to death. Cornelius was a man of the world. Peter was a country fisherman with no experience outside of Galilee. Cornelius was a professional; Peter a common laborer. They were, as we would say, from two different worlds.

So how did their lives intersect? Peter grew up with the strict laws of the Jewish religion. He wondered what it really meant to be God's "chosen people." Did it mean that God would favor some people more than others? This didn't seem right to Peter. Cornelius was a religious man, a "God-fearing man" according to the Book of Acts. He went to the synagogue, said his prayers, but could only go in the outer courts of the sanctuary because he was a Gentile.

Peter was on a mission. Although he had grown up as a Jew, he had become a Christian, and he went around preaching about Jesus. He wanted Cornelius to become a Christian, too, but many people believed that since Jesus had been a Jew, and had come among Jewish people, if you wanted to become a Christian, you had to become a full-fledged Jew first. Peter thought, "I don't think so." So he preached a sermon. But the sermon wasn't preached in a church. It was preached in Cornelius' house. Peter started off his sermon by saying "God shows no partiality." Another translation of the Bible puts it this way: "God has no favorites." The Greek New Testament literally means "God is not an accepter of faces." In other words, God does not look at our faces and decide to like some people because of the way they look, and to dislike others because of the way they look. Then Peter says, "In every nation, anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him. "And after Peter finished preaching, Cornelius and everybody in his house decided that they, too, wanted to follow Jesus, and they were baptized.

In his actions, Peter teaches us two important lessons about evangelism. First, he didn't hole up in some temple and demand the potential converts come to him; he went to their own house, met them on their own turf. Second, Cornelius and his family converted because they were allowed to keep their cultural and ethnic identity while at the same time confessing Jesus as Lord. Requirements having to do with background or pedigree were thrown out. They were only required to believe.

There is not one shred of evidence that the NBC Websters and all the people around them did not believe. On the contrary, they are people struggling with the meaning of their faith. Episode One opens with a sermon given by Daniel about grappling with temptation. Even when Daniel pops a pill, or tries to, he has a conversation with Jesus about just whether he needs drugs to get over a crisis. He is all too aware of his failures and his foibles, and would be the first one to sing, "Just as I am, without one plea." The Websters, dysfunctional as they are, would be quick to say "Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick."

I don't think it is coincidental that the person who conceived this sitcom chose the name that he did. When you get home, open your Bibles to the sixth chapter of the Book of Daniel. Daniel, as you may remember, was the guy who interpreted the handwriting on the wall. Well, King Darius of Babylon named him a ruler of his kingdom, and put him over 120 satraps. Those guys were jealous of Daniel, and devised a way to get rid of him. They passed a law that anyone found asking a favor of God would be thrown to the lions. Daniel, being a God-fearing man, broke the law almost immediately, and was thrown to the lions, but as he later told the King, the angel of the Lord came and shut the lions' mouths, and no harm came to him after all.

Today, we come together in faith to baptize four infants. By the time they come to their majority, stuff like the Websters' sitcom will not even raise an eyebrow. But make no mistake. Despite the lace baptismal gowns, and the silver shell, the baptismal candles and the holy chrism, the hymns and the stained glass, and all the trappings of church, we are not baptizing these children for the church, but for the world. Oh how I miss the little sermon that was preached to the candidates in the old Prayer Book: "We receive this child into the congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end." (I guess it was the word "manfully" that cinched its exclusion from the 1979 Prayer Book!)

But that's ok. The new questions make it clear that it is our expectation that as they go into the world, they will not erect barriers, but tear them down; that they will not play favorites, but like their Lord, show no partiality. This is why we will ask them "Will you seek and serve Christ in all others, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? And to each question, they and their godparents will answer, "I will, with God's help."