Preached on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16A), August 27, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen.
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”
To bind and to release: these are judgments God empowers us all to make. To bind and to release: these are privileges we all share in God’s sight. To bind and to release: it may sound harsh, even alarming, but we are called to think critically, and to act in ways that say yes to some ideas and no to others; yes to some practices and no to others; yes to some people and no to others. And heaven will follow our lead.
Now, the Church rightly worries about hospitality, about being warm and welcoming, about inclusion. All too often we haven’t worried about that enough, and people have been badly hurt. Many people who call St. Paul’s their spiritual home have been rejected by other churches. Andrew and I were not married, at least as far as the Episcopal Church was concerned, until 2016. By that time, we had been a couple for seventeen years. They say that America is never more racially segregated than on Sunday mornings, even though the early Christian Church was beautifully diverse. Christian churches participated in the genocide of Indigenous persons and the suppression of their cultures. Women and all who do not identify as cisgender male have been locked out of church leadership for centuries, even though Mary Magdalene was seen as equal to Peter among the first apostles, and even though wealthy women often bankrolled the first-century Jesus Movement, leading and managing the house churches, almost certainly presiding at the Eucharist. For the sake of countless people, I say yes, enthusiastically yes, the Church should worry about inclusion.
And yet, Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release will have been released in heaven.” We are called to make judgments, to think critically, to say yes and to say no. And this inevitably will lead to us closing the door, not only on ideas, but even, sometimes, on people who hold closely to those ideas.
There’s an old story about a parish administrator at an Episcopal Church who decided to reorganize the parish library. As they worked, the priest wandered through the library and saw that the shelf labeled “Anglican Theology” was empty of books. The librarian had merely moved them aside as part of a larger relocation project, but the priest laughed and said to the librarian, “Good one.” Anglican Christians are famous for not holding to a particular theological stance or ideology. We are open-minded, open-ended, hopefully open-hearted. We like “yes, and” rather than “either, or.” The great value of this is that we can imagine new possibilities; we can hear the Good News of Jesus Christ anew every generation; we can be adaptable, even spontaneous; we can be lit on fire by the elusive and unpredictable Holy Spirit.
But there’s a downside. We can too easily let our flexibility and open-mindedness allow us to stop thinking at all. We can decide that not deciding is a good decision. We can glibly say “We love the questions!” and conclude that there are no conclusions. Our faith can fade from a mystical journey into a vague, agnostic mist. Creator, Jesus, Spirit: who are they, really? Trinity? Oh, that’s just a big mystery. Finally we are left with a friendly spiritual community that doesn’t really believe in much, and doesn’t really do all that much. In the end, we may be warm and welcoming, and that can be pleasant, but into what, exactly, are we welcoming people?
And so we are right to discern, first, what and who we will bind. St. Patrick sings, “I bind unto myself the blessings of the Trinity.” We bind ourselves to the Trinity: our theology is essentially, vitally Trinitarian. Among other things, this means we are always, always communal and collaborative in all that we do. We rarely do just what I alone want, or what you alone think is right. We listen to one another, to our tradition, to Holy Scripture, to God. Once again I point to the Trinitarian understanding of our faith articulated by Roman Catholic theologian Michael Raschko: “Where[ever] the Holy Spirit moves at the will of the [Creator], the Word of God becomes incarnate in history.” Again, “Where[ever] the Holy Spirit moves at the will of the [Creator], the Word of God becomes incarnate in history.”
And so we are not just free-wheeling Holy Spirit enthusiasts: for us, the Holy Spirit moves at the will of the Creator, at the will of the One who saw the suffering slaves in Egypt, and by the Spirit sent Moses to draw them out. And we are Christologists; we preach Christ crucified: therefore, for us, the movement of the Holy Spirit is always shaping us into a cruciform life, a cross-centered ministry. This means our spiritual life together will always cost us a lot, as we pour ourselves out in service with self-giving love.
We bind ourselves to all of that. Therefore, we release — we say No to — cost-free, easy spiritual paths. “We thought we could find an easier, softer way,” as it says in the AA Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous is non-sectarian, but an Episcopal priest helped guide its design and formation) — “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” This means we as Christians, alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike, walk the harder road of cruciform servants baptized in the name of the Trinity. And so we release — we say No to — the easier path, and bind ourselves to people we don’t like, people who have been thrown away by the larger culture, people who offend our sensibilities, people who don’t look like us, people who have made bad decisions, people who scare and provoke us, people who remind us of our own frailty, our own fallibility, our own vulnerability, our own mortality.
This past Friday I just wanted to come into the office, but one unhoused person flagged me down to tell me about another unhoused person’s need for a bus ticket to Spokane. I am baptized in the name of the Trinity; I am living a cruciform life: I had to respond. But I felt tired; and I admit I sometimes feel irritated that nine times out of ten, I can’t just walk into my workplace in peace. I admit — I confess — that I sometimes imagine ways to sneak in the back way, unnoticed. But I had to respond. Even if this person might be scamming me, might be dangerous, might really just want something to fuel his fentanyl addiction, who knows, I had to respond.
Well. Here’s what happened. I approached him and identified myself, and told him I understood he wanted a bus ticket. I pulled out my wallet, where I had some cash from the discretionary fund. “Oh no, don’t give me money,” this person said. I really, really just need you to buy me a ticket.” Wow. Just — wow. I was surprised, and pleasantly so. He explained that he had just been in jail for a DUI, and he needed to get to Spokane to get some things prior to his next steps seeking housing back here. I remembered my own DUI history (as a cruciform Christian, I bind myself to the accurate memory of my own wrongdoing, and I release all fantasies that put me above any of our neighbors). I went inside, bought the ticket online, and came back out. “It leaves at 11:50,” I said. “Oh that’s quick!” he said. “Let’s go!” But at that point, I gently released this neighbor. I had another appointment and couldn’t just drop it to drive him to the bus terminal. “No, I can’t take you,” I said. “You have bus fare?” He did. Our relationship ended with a half-hug and a brief unspoken but heartfelt prayer.
In all of this I am not even a little distinguished or noteworthy. I’m just like all of you, all of us. (And it was your donated money that paid for his bus ticket.) We are bound to one another, and we release all claims of superiority over one another, or over anyone we meet. This is how we build our cruciform community in Christ.
And so we release — we let go of; it’s even right to say we reject — all inferior forms of Christianity: the ones that count the cost; the ones that preach the heretical “prosperity Gospel” where God blesses good people with health and wealth, and punishes the sick and the poor; the ones that offer easy and safe answers; the ones that support the principalities and powers of this world; the — I’ll say it again — inferior forms of Christianity. Jesus stands today at Caesarea Philippi, a monumental location that was erected to glorify the Roman caesar and his local collaborators, and he confers upon Peter our forebear (and through Peter, Jesus confers upon us) the power to bind to ourselves — and to God — certain practices, certain things, even certain people. We bind our neighbors to God forever. And Jesus confers upon us the power to release — to reject — those practices, those things, even those people, who stand against the creative power of the Holy Trinity. Now, God will always preach to everyone, even those most desperately estranged, so even as we say No, God will, in God’s time, do everything possible to get even Judas Iscariot back to Yes. Maybe God will do this through us, in due time. But for now, we release them.
Bind and release, bind and release, bind and release. I bind myself to you today, you the baptized people of God, you the Body of Christ incarnate in this place. And I release on your behalf, and alongside you, all that damages God’s dominion, God’s Church, God’s people. This is heady stuff. It is sometimes off-putting. But ultimately it is profoundly joyful and good, because this Rock on which Christ builds the Church is also the mountain where God will prepare a feast that nourishes all people and swallows up death forever.