Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Homily for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - Abraham's Test

Text - Genesis 22:1-14

Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith

Abraham's Test

The story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac is frightening.  I still remembering hearing it in Bible School one summer and having a panic attack. The next time my father asked if I wanted to go fishing with him I had second thoughts. “No, you go ahead, I think I’ll stick around the house with Mom.” 

Of course if someone were to do that sort of thing today, child services and the police would have a field day. 

But it was a different time and a different place.  Child sacrifice was not unusual, particularly among the Canaanite tribes even as late as 800 B.C.  It was a sign of ultimate religious fervor and loyalty to one’s god, and the fact that Abraham was willing to move in that direction indicated to all his neighbors that he was as devoted to his god as they were to theirs. 

Fortunately, God stopped Abraham in the nick of time and from then on, one of the story’s purposes was to serve as a polemic against child sacrifice and an announcement that Hebrew people would have nothing to do with it. 

However, the story is there nonetheless, and indeed God did instruct Abraham to kill his favored son, and we still think it has a touch of lunacy and weirdness that God would suggest such a thing. 

But before we jump too quickly to condemn God’s purpose and intentions, the event needs some context – God’s request for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac does not happen in a vacuum. 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - I Wish He Hadn't Said That.

The Gospel -  Matthew 10:24-39

Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith

I Wish He Hadn't Said That.

How often do we read the gospel lessons and shift a bit in our seats?  How often do we hear Jesus’ words and say to ourselves, “I wish he hadn’t said that”.  Today is no exception. In no less than 6 verses, Jesus says three things that make us cringe a bit.   

However, before we look at any of them, it might be interesting to figure out why there are things we wish Jesus had never said. 

We don’t mind hearing the parts about love and forgiveness and the promises of eternal life, but in the great scheme of Jesus’ teachings those sayings were few and far between.  Especially when we realize Jesus had five times more to say about money than he did about prayer. 

So what is it about these sayings we don’t want to hear? 

Most of the time, they do not serve our self-interest.  Instead of making us feel warm and fuzzy about who we are and our lifestyles, we are confronted with our prejudices and excuses.  They make us squirm because we realize there is a greater good than the one we are living and we don’t like to be reminded of our shortfalls.   

It’s sort of like hearing your recorded voice played back, and our first reaction is, “I don’t really sound like that!” 

But on the other hand, the tough sayings of Jesus are very good for us to hear.

Dr. Smith to Study at Merton College, Oxford

The Rev. Dr. David Smith, Pastoral Vicar at Emmanuel, will be on study leave at Merton College in Oxford, England from July 6 to July 26.

This year’s recipient of the Spencer family faculty incentive grant, Dr. Smith has enrolled in a course entitled “The History and Architecture of Oxford” taught by Christopher Day. The course description says, “Oxford has its origins in a settlement associated with a religious house founded by St. Frideswide in the 8^th century.

The history of Oxford provides a fascinating study since at most periods the great movements of English history were acted out within its confines; medieval monasticism, the Reformation, the English Civil War, the development of English art, literature and science, the grandeur of the 18^th century, the self-confident world of the Victorians, and the 20^th century technological revolution have all left solid memorials in the city and its environs.”

Dr. Smith plan's to write his research paper on "The Oxford Movement of 1833-1841 and its effect on the American Anglican Church.”

Homily for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - The Kingdom at Hand

The Gospel -  Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-15)

Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith

The Kingdom at Hand

Be careful what you pray for—you might just get it!  You can see a little of the dynamic of this bit of proverbial wisdom in today’s Gospel.  Jesus tells the disciples to pray that more workers would be sent out into the ripe harvest fields he saw all around him.  

If we assume that the disciples took their master’s urging seriously and did indeed pray for more workers, they soon discovered that God answered their prayers by sending out the disciples themselves!

Why and how Jesus authorizes such an important job to disciples who were clearly—at least as of that moment—completely clueless is a puzzle.  It’s like authorizing some high school students to go out and start doing some brain surgery even though they don’t have a clue about human anatomy, the nerve system, or electrical impulses in synapse construction.

And yet Jesus tells these people to go declare, “The kingdom of heaven is near.”  Even though they don’t have a clue, or understand the kingdom.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - What We All Want

The Gospel -  Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith

What We All Want

Despair, disease and death.  Not the most uplifting topics of conversation, but pretty common components of the human predicament and in the middle of all of them God shows up.

Matthew had had enough.  The money had lost its appeal.  He had plenty and was making more.  The cost of his wealth was higher than he could ever have imagined.  It was empty.  The worst thing that could have happened did - his people had ostracized him.  Though they couldn’t actually banish him from the town, they could dismiss him from their lives, and for a Jew, nothing is worse. 

Being part of the community, being blood Hebrew and embraced by all others with the same blood in their veins was the greatest joy of all, and now that was gone.  He couldn’t go to the synagogue.  The rabbis would not speak to him.  His own parents and siblings would have written him off.  He was dead to them. 

Matthew’s soul and body were not in the same place.  His body sat at the table in his tax office, but his soul, his real identity, was elsewhere.  He made a bad choice a long time ago and was paying for it.  He woke up every day feeling disconnected from himself.  It was a life of dissonance, as though a minor chord was playing in his head all the time. It made him wince.  It hurt, and he could not stop it.  He was sick and he was tired.

Homily for the Third Sunday after Pentecost - Laying the Block

The Gospel - Matthew 7:21-27

Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith

Laying the Block

It’s a shame we couldn’t read everything that leads up to today’s lesson. But if we did, it would include the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are the longest continuous monologue of Jesus in the entire New Testament. 

These last few verses are by no means a summary but they certainly offer insight about how important Jesus thinks his polemic is.  As usual, he speaks in metaphors that make us think, and ask a very important question; “What kind of person am I?”

C.S. Lewis once wrote that when we lose our tempers, we are tempted to excuse ourselves by saying, “I’m sorry about that, but I was really upset, and that situation just made me angry all of a sudden.”  However, says Lewis, the truth is probably a bit different.  For most folks, the situation did not suddenly make us an angry person so much as it became the occasion that revealed what an angry person we generally are.   

The gospel lesson read comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the longest of Jesus’ teaching monologues.  It is 3 entire chapters in length and it is a wonderful blueprint of what it means to be a disciple.  It begins with: