The Rev. Julie Wakelee-Lynch
Sunday, June 24, 2018, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Albany, CA
Pride/St. Alban’s/Proper 7
Readings: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp7_RCL.html#ot3
In the midst of a world that feels overflowing with fear, distrust and dissembling, there’s a lot of love in the air today. Saul and David’s relationship was not exactly the inspiration for the psalm we sang together. But David and Jonathon were another story.
It’s unclear how much time passed from this initial promise of love until Jonathon’s death in battle, but it was a vow of faithfulness renewed multiple times, and Jonathan risked his life for love of David more than once. As the Pride festival continues in San Francisco and elsewhere this weekend, it is so beautiful to have our readings rooted in such a story of love. Love looks different in each setting, of course, but it always has these things in common: concern for the other, willingness to risk, and a sum greater than its parts.
The first recorded British martyr was a soldier in the Roman army who took in a priest fleeing persecution and, in return for lodgings, received the gift of faith. Many of the details about our Alban’s life remain unknown. For instance, scholars have long said the year of his death was in the early 300s, but more recent studies point to the early 200s. Was he a Roman citizen? Or forcibly enlisted into the Roman army? We don’t know. And, I don’t think it really matters. What remains and is the singular focus of our patron saint’s story is a conversion to self-giving love. Alban not only took in the man, he took in his teaching: learning about Jesus and God’s limitless love. He may have been baptized by the priest—again, we don’t know. And then, when his fellow soldiers came looking, he switched places and gave his life in place of his guest’s. Having heard the teaching to lay down his life for another, he took it seriously and put his love of God and neighbor into action.
We often sing together a hymn that proclaims, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea” And we believe that. There is a high value on love and mercy here–I believe it is part of the very DNA of this congregation. We aren’t flashy about it, we just live our love. It may take us to far-flung places, but mostly it is here, praying, making sandwiches and early morning breakfasts and writing letters and passing the peace and showing up for one another.
It struck me when I first interviewed here: how no one seemed scandalized at my marital status (divorced) or seemed concerned about a single mom being your rector (Maybe I was just so happy that I missed it, but I don’t think so…)
But one thing that has consistently struck me, and I don’t know if those of you who are regulars here have noticed it, or if it’s just such a part of our natural welcome
that it didn’t even bear noting, but excepting a small number of folks who’ve assisted short-term, every single clergy person who has been deacon or assisting priest at the altar here with me has been gay or lesbian.
I was welcomed here by The Rev. Barbara Hill, our beloved deacon, who died in 2015. I learned so much from Barbara about sacrificial love. I know her spirit remains with us.
One beautiful morning just a few months much later, the Rev. Michelle Meech, then a transitional deacon working at the seminary, came to church and, in her self-effacing way, asked if she might “hang out” here for a while, and her ordination to the priesthood took place in our sanctuary.
When I heard that my sometime spiritual advisor the Rev. Duane Sisson was retiring, I went out to Moraga to plead my case that he and Burt land here. I’m grateful they did!
It came time for Deacon Barbara to retire, and, fortunately for us, her wife, the Venerable Kathleen Van Sickle, brought her own beautiful charism as our deacon.
We raised up the Rev. Sara Cosca-Warfield to be a priest in the Church, and we are blessed that while she seeks what’s next, she’s often here at our pulpit and altar.And, worth noting: her wife, the Rev. Rachel Cosca-Warfield, is a pastor in the United Church of Christ.
The Rev. Will Scott and I have known each other for many years, and it’s a gift to us that he asked to make St. Alban’s his home base, too.
We’ve just been blessed for the past year by the loving ministry of Anna Rossi, soon, I hope, to become a candidate for ordination. The Rev. Reagan Humber, now serving as pastor of a congregation in Denver, worshipped and ministered here in the year or so leading up to his ordination. And the Rev. Jason Lucas, now a rector in Minnesota, served here while a transitional deacon.
Had the Church not (at long last) affirmed that when we proclaim that all are children of God, and meant ALL, including LGBTQ clergy and laity, imagine all the loving acts that would not have been welcomed, here, in this place: the visits to people at home and in the hospital, the beautiful sermons we would have missed, the works of feeding, the service of acolytes, altar guild members, vestry members and fiscal managers, lectors, ushers, flower-arrangers, Eucharistic ministers – there is literally no corner of ministry in this parish (lay or ordained) that has not been served by people who have otherwise been marginalized by both church and society for their sexual orientation.
In today’s gospel, the disciples are out in the boat. The wind whips up and they are paralyzed with fear. These days don’t feel too different in our society from what I imagine those men in the boat must have felt in their bodies. Jesus reminds them – and us – that love is stronger than fear, and has the power to work miracles. When we open wide the door to love, we follow in the footsteps of the self-giving love of Jonathan and David, of Alban, whose courage and faith imbue this place, and of so many who, whether in blessed memory or daily life make love tangible with courage, prophetic action, and service.
It’s going to take a lot of this love to heal our world. So let’s keep the door open wide, and not neglect the admonition from St. Paul: Now is the acceptable time. Now is the acceptable time for love made flesh in our words and deeds.
May the Holy Spirit, source of love and life, root us always in courageous love, and grow us ever more into a people of loving action.
