Sermon by Lou - MT16

This morning we send 31 people on our annual mission trip to McDowell County, West Virginia, the poorest county in West Virginia and one of the poorest counties in the nation. As the coal industry began a long decline and ultimately collapsed, the economy of this region has been devastated. The cleaner air we breathe has come at a significant cost to the people of McDowell County.

Over the past five years we have established a wonderful relationship with HEP – the Highland Educational Project, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia. HEP may have begun with a focus on education, but it has become much more. And while our trip will only be for a week, our connection to HEP is now year round.

Today’s trip is particularly significant, for two reasons. First, we are sending a record number of people: 25 young people and six adults. And for the first time we are partnering with another parish of our Diocese, the Church of the Nativity in Crafton. Shawn Malarkey, priest-in-charge of Nativity, and three of his youth are participating in the trip.

Historically, there has often been a problem with mission trips. It has been more a problem of attitude and philosophy than substance, the idea that we are going to rescue people, that we are better and more knowledgeable. We’re going to go in, fix a problem, and go home.

We will be doing meaningful work on our mission trip. There will be four work groups, two repairing homes, one working in the local animal shelter, and one at the HEP center. But equally important, we’re going to continue to build ongoing relationships, meet new people, and learn and grow. As it says in Steph Brown’s fabulous video about our mission trips, we’re not messiahs, we’re ministers. I would go a step further and say we’re not messiahs, we’re colleagues, partners, fellow travelers on the way, one part of the body of Christ connecting with another part of the body of Christ. We’re going not so much to change their lives as to change our lives.

My prayer for everyone going on the mission trip is that they will truly see the people they will meet, the people they will be serving, the people with whom they will be working, and that they will also come to a better understanding of themselves.

My prayer is prompted by the wonderful passage from Luke’s Gospel that we heard this morning, the story of Jesus, Simon the Pharisee, and the unnamed, so-called “sinful” woman. In order to understand the story through our 21st Century eyes and ears, a couple of explanations are in order. If someone were to crash a dinner party today, people would get upset. If Simon were living in Mt. Lebanon and the sinful woman showed up uninvited, he might call the cops. But homes in first century Palestine were much more porous, both literally and figuratively. It would not be unusual for townspeople who heard that Simon was throwing a bash to show up and check out the party as observers. It might have been welcomed as an opportunity for Simon to show off his good fortune and style.

If we are wondering how Jesus’ feet would be accessible sitting at a table eating dinner, the fact is that he was reclining, not sitting. The custom for a special dinner was to lie down, with your left side propped up on cushions, eating with your right hand, with your legs tucked up making Jesus’ feet accessible.

It would be shocking for a Jewish woman to touch, let alone kiss, the feet of a man if she were not his wife, mother, or daughter. And for a woman to let her hair down in public would also be scandalous. Just another example of Jesus hanging out with all the wrong people in all the wrong places. But the wrong people become the right people and the right people, Simon, become the wrong people.

My favorite line in the entire story is when Jesus says, “Simon, do you see this woman?” This sentence can be read in two ways: Simon, do you see this woman, or, Simon, do you see this woman. Of course, Simon doesn’t really see the woman. His own sense of self-righteousness blinds him to the real person who clearly trumps him – pardon the expression – in every sense: in loving Jesus, in showing hospitality, in having faith, and knowing that she is in need of forgiveness, all things that Simon lacks.

Simon obviously doesn’t see the woman, he doesn’t really see Jesus, and perhaps worst of all, he doesn’t see himself.

In our Baptismal Covenant, we promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. To seek we must be able to see. If we can’t see someone, the real person rather than our stereotypes, assumptions, and even prejudices, we won’t be able to see Christ in one another. We risk being like Simon and missing Jesus who is standing right in front of us.

And if we can’t see our real selves, sinners in need of healing and forgiveness, yet miraculously healed and forgiven through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we won’t be able to be Christ to one another.

So my prayer isn’t just for the 31 people embarking on the mission trip. My prayer is for each and every one of us. I pray that each of us might truly see one another, and ourselves, so that we might see Christ and be Christ. Amen.

(To view the mission trip video, “Unfinished Grace,” go to stpaulspgh.org, click on “Serving Neighbors,” then “Mission Trips,” where you can view the film. Or click here)