When I first started preaching, words like fornication and prostitution were

not part of the everyday vernacular. But over the last 8 years they have not only

been part of the everyday vernacular, they have been part of our very public

discourse regarding our highest leaders in the nation. In seminary, you would only

ever hear of these words as part of scriptural reference, but never in everyday

discourse guided by your moral compass in order to discern the leading of 335

million people.

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It used to be that a preacher’s biggest legal worry on Sunday morning was

publicly supporting a political candidate from the pulpit risking the non-profit

status. Now it seems our biggest worry is challenging a political leader from the

pulpit risking legal action including but not limited to defunding, loss of non-profit

status, prosecution, and even incarceration. But not just challenging for oppositions’

sake, but challenging that leader to be a better person, more merciful, and more

compassionate. I know that I am only speaking from 15 years of pulpit experience,

others may recall moments in history like this throughout five, six, seven decades.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, of the Episcopal Church in America, modelled

for us the latter. On January 22, she challenged our new president with becoming a

better leader, a more merciful leader, and more compassionate leader, for all

Americans and the world, and especially for our immigrant neighbors, our

neighbors who might be considered the least of these. In some respect she did what

Paul did 2000 years ago. Much of what Paul taught is really difficult to hear on good

days, and really challenging to take-on on those difficult days.

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What does creating freedom look like when it seems that so much of who we

as a church have come to embrace as part of our vocation and mission is now being

restricted, being challenged, being controlled by a law that is inappropriate at best,

and law that is being used as a tool for denigration at its worst? There is a twisting

of what it means to be free. Some would now have it that to be free means being able

to do what ever you want and justify it by changing the law. When a teenager tries to

be independent they fight against control. They want a kind of freedom. This is

natural, but the Corinthians thought that freedom gave them license to do whatever

they wanted. But just because you are able to do something, doesn’t make it

beneficial or good. The new leadership of our country is doing the same thing. Like

teens they think taking back control is freedom, but just because you change the law

and threaten to hold others accountable to it even if you won’t, doesn’t make it good

for the people.

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I think Paul was raising an issue that is difficult to share. Paul was lifting up

the way some would have the law interpreted; as if it were good to follow for some

and not for others, but then accountability could only be one-sided. I know I’m going

out on a limb here to say this, but I don’t think Paul was actually talking generally

about sexual activity or prostitutes, or dietary restrictions, or monotheism, or

circumcision. I believe Paul was talking about that which separates us from God’s

love. And don’t get me wrong, God doesn’t separate God’s love from us, but us from

God. And we do this by defiling something that is of God and through Christ. By

being consumed by something that we turn inward and acting upon our own

indulgences. This does not allow us to live fully with each other nor with God.

We see it today when some support inappropriate laws more closely than the

reign of God on earth. The inward indulgences of some have sacrificed the real work

of being a follower of Christ, that of bringing about the kin-dom of heaven here on

earth.

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If it all really is about sexual immorality than how do we wrestle with

leadership who dismiss their own acts of sexual assault, among other things?

How do we reconcile rhetoric that claims to be of God, but denigrates and

harms each other?

For one of the very few times in the last 15 years, I’m not really sure how to

end this sermon.

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- Our immigrant friends and neighbors are being rounded up and hauled

away once again without just cause.

- Women seeking help from clinics are no longer being protected by the

laws that once kept them from being harmed on their way into the clinic

offices.

- Those seeking asylum with a court appointment following January 20 th had

their appointments cancelled without any opportunity to reschedule or

reason.

- Our family members had their identity stripped of them once again by a

mandated binary system.

- The rich diversity and history of our communities is being washed away

by the removal of resources and funding to support DEI initiatives.

- Shall I go on?

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We are left with no other choice but to the church but more Christlike. Be

followers of Christ, but more Christlike. If the church is going to be called the

radical left, then I say we radicalize compassion! Paul wasn’t literally talking

about sexual immorality or circumcision, or monotheism, or dietary

restrictions. He was calling the Corinthians to not defile what God calls good.

We need to further examine what it means for us to live in a way that unbinds

us from defilement, and frees us in Christ.

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This is our continual act of creating!

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Amen!

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Rev. Brian Gaeta-Symonds