Year B: June 13, 2021 | Famous Last Word
Proper 06, Year B
Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
June 13, 2021
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch a video of the sermon, please visit this page.
“Famous Last Words” [1] by My Chemical Romance has been stuck in my head all week. The song closes their third album, The Black Parade, which carries the listener through the operatic saga of the Cancer Patient. The track seals the story with a particularly dramatic flourish, carrying the audience to uplifting musical heights while the conflicting lyrics abandon us to a comforting yet confusing sense of limbo. Did the protagonist die? Did they recover? Was it all just a dream—or maybe a waking nightmare? There’s no real ending—the listener is left to themself, scrambling to cobble together a conclusion only through the efforts of their own hopes and fears.
I feel a lot like that today.
This is my final Sunday at Holy Cross. I first arrived as a freshly minted priest just under two years ago, and now it’s time to make space for someone new. It’s been an unusual experience for sure, what with the pandemic taking over only nine months into the job. I’ve probably celebrated fewer Eucharists but let more Morning Prayer than any other curate from our diocese in the last 50 years! But despite the oddities of our time together, I’m thankful for the training I’ve received—the opportunities you’ve all given me to work and learn and grow in this ordained calling. And I while I would love to tell you what’s happening next for me and Shannon, unfortunately, I can’t. We simply don’t know. To use a popular Episcopal phrase—and much like the audience after “Famous Last Words” fades into memory—we find ourselves in “a liminal space.” The future continues in front of us, paths gradually—almost imperceptibly—emerging from the fog, each brandishing hope and fear of its own. None are certain. None are clear. And yet, no matter what any of us might wish, time forces us forward.
There’s a certain weight to approaching an ending, an internal pressure to do or say the right thing, to leave with a bang. Frankly, I wish I knew how to close our time together with “famous last words” of my own. But rather than saying anything grand or new, I think I’ll keep my final message simple and focus on just one word:
Faithfulness.
If there’s only one thing you remember from these last two years together, I want it to be faithfulness.
Modern American Christianity too often demands conformity within a dominant[2] culture. In the name of “faith” or “belief,” it wants us to behave in certain ways, to think certain things, and to pledge ourselves to certain social positions. Since true religion directs all aspects of one’s life, following Christ will certainly influence us in those areas. But none of those things are what makes a person a Christian. The Bible—and God, for that matter—is far less concerned with what we think is true, with our agreeing to any one thing, than it is with us building a life of faithfulness.
Faithfulness isn’t found in a single action, moment of agreement, or emotional decision. The work of being a Christian spans all our days. It’s a continual choice: the choice to walk in the path and pattern of Jesus. It’s the training of oneself, moment by moment and opportunity by opportunity, to follow the Way of Love, to offer kindness, dignity, and respect to everyone we encounter. It’s actively doing what is best for the other, even if that might cause difficulty for the self.
Faithfulness is one of those things that we often make more difficult in our heads than it is in reality. We preplan “what if” situations where we have to decide between following God and serving our neighbor. But that dichotomy is an illusion.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with your heart, soul, and mind, and that the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.[3] But he uses an interesting word between the two phrases. Most English translations read it along the lines of “the second is like it.” However, although the “like” term can indeed mean “similar,” it also frequently carries the meaning of “equal to” or “the same as.”[4]
I don’t think Jesus is establishing a hierarchy here. Loving God does not come before loving your neighbor. He’s telling us the two are identical: you cannot love God without loving your neighbor, and no one has ever had the power to love their neighbor apart from loving God in the first place. There is no choice between them. The steps you take to love your neighbor are the embodiment of your love for God. Or as John tells us, “Whoever won’t love the sibling they’ve already seen can’t love the God they haven’t seen.”[5]
You might be wondering how I moved so quickly from faithfulness into love. The fact is, faithfulness and godly love are also inseparable. “Agape” love—God’s unconditional love—is a love based in devotion and commitment. It’s an active, useful, faithful love—a love that keeps showing up, a love that carries on. In the end, love for God, faithfulness to Christ, and service to your neighbor are all one thing. No matter how much we might want to—no matter how often we might try to—we can’t divide those things. There is no real choice to be found among them, no lyrical limbo couched in passionate chords, no liminal space to leave us wondering what to do.
In many ways, this is the end. It might not be a complete goodbye—I still plan to lead online Morning Prayer through this Friday—but for many of us, this is it. So again, if there’s only one thing you remember from me, if only one lesson from our two years together sticks in your mind, may “faithfulness” be that famous last word.
[1] https://youtu.be/hxhdhBRP06Y
[2] One too often based on emotional abuse, whiteness, and so-called “conservativism”
[3] Matthew 22:37-39
[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ὅμοιος#Ancient_Greek
[5] I John 4:20b (my translation): As is frequently the case in the Bible, the first negation in the sentence is subjective (perception or volition) while the resulting negation is objective (statement of fact).