3rd Sunday after Pentecost

I remember the first time I went out in public wearing my priest collar, soon after ordination. I was so self-conscious (!) – this mixture of pride and presumptuousness. I had to stop at the grocery store on my way to work. And while standing in the check-out line a woman in front of me turned around, saw me, and suddenly got all flustered. She started fumbling in her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and thrust it into my hands and said, “Do something good with it!” and left the store.

“Wow!” I thought. “Who knew?!” Turns out, that was the only time this has ever happened. But it was a significant moment – this inaugurating experience of my new vocation. By virtue of this collar, people will now have expectations of you – of who you are and the values you live by.

It’s also led to some awkward experiences. I remember going to the dentist once after work, dressed as a priest, and Kathryn was with me. She was four at the time – clearly impressed by how brave her father was having his teeth cleaned. And then she started talking. “My daddy never cries.  My mommy sometimes cries. In bed. She says daddy doesn’t love her.”

It was awful! And there was nothing I could do about it because my mouth was full of the hygienist’s hands and tools. And what Kathryn was describing was the Saturday morning I’d gotten up early, to let Cynthia sleep in, and made breakfast for the kids. And hours later, Kathryn wandered into the room and found Cynthia still lounging in bed. She asked if we’d saved her any breakfast and Kathryn said, “No,” so Cynthia jokingly said, “Boo-hoo, nobody loves me.”

I’d actually been a good husband and a good father. But so far as the hygienist could tell, this priest’s daughter was ratting him out for being a such a horrible husband that his wife was now reduced to this sniveling, pathetic mess who couldn’t even get herself out of bed, but lay there crying in front of her children that her husband didn’t love her.

But you know, it’s reasonable for people in the community, when they see someone wearing a clergy collar, to have certain expectations of them. They do represent the church, which means they represent the values of the church. And, in some legitimate sense, they represent God!

Both in the church today, and so far back as ancient Israel, the priest is charged with particular liturgical responsibilities to serve the community in the name of God. In our tradition, it takes three distinct forms. The priest is charged to absolve people of their sins, to bless them, and to consecrate the elements – like water, wine, and bread – in the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist and other sacramental rites. That is their liturgical duty. And what we see in this is the primacy of the church’s mission to declare and assure the faith community that the nature of God is to forgive, to bless, and to nurture.

As the psalmist prayed:

Know this: The Lord himself is God;

he himself has made us, and we are his;

For the Lord is good;

his mercy is everlasting;

and his faithfulness endures from age to age (Psalm 100:2a; 4).

But this priestly duty extends far beyond the priests alone. They communicate God’s love in a liturgical way to those assembled in worship. But then that assembly is sent forth out of the church and into the world, bearing that same assurance: The Lord is good, a goodness known through forgiveness, blessing, and nurture. For so did God proclaim to the Israelites, from the moment they were first assembled as a nation: “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodus 2:6). Their job as a people was to live in such a way, that the world would know the goodness of the God they served.

And so that mandate carried on to the church, and through the centuries, and to us at St. John’s, that we would be priestly people for Gig Harbor. In calling ourselves Christians, in saying we belong to St. John’s, we are all “wearing a collar” (as it were); we are all in our persons representing the Church, the values of the Church, and the God in whom the church takes its identity.

And if there is any question about what that means, or what it looks like to be such a priestly people, it is captured in the mission of this parish: Be like Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look to Jesus.

And if there still is any confusion about what that means, listen afresh to today’s gospel message:

Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:35).

He taught. He healed. And, as is clear in the surrounding passages, he set people free from evil spirits. These are three hallmarks of Jesus’ ministry. And why? Because he had compassion for them.

If there’s any one thing to hear this morning, it is this: that we, like Jesus, would foster within ourselves God’s spirit of compassion.

I’ve told this story before, but its message continues to guide me by its wisdom. It came from comedian, actually, telling the story of a conversation he had with a fellow comedian who was a transgendered woman. She was describing to him what life was like for her. And he was curious; he appreciated her candor. But at one point, in response to something she’d said, he told her, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And she looked at him – seriously and intently – and told him, “I don’t need you to understand me. I just need you to believe that I’m having a human experience.”

And he paused, trying to absorb what she was asking of him. And then he told her, with great compassion, “I believe you. Because it takes one to know one.”

Just as he was living his life – with all its own passions and fears and strivings – so was she. It wasn’t the same life. As a trans woman, he couldn’t even relate to it. But he could choose to see in her, a fellow human creature, also striving to make sense of this life, to make sense of her life, and to find her place in this world.

It’s like that mantra we so often prayed for our neighbors in our nighttime prayers during COVID, “Just like me, they want to be happy. Just like me, they want to be safe.” We don’t need to force people to be like us, to believe like us, to behave like us. It is sufficient, for us, to grow in our compassion for them – to see in them, and to believe of them, that they, too, are doing their best to figure out this life they’re living.

I remember several years ago hearing with horror the news reports coming in from the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were killed and 53 injured – the deadliest attack in this nation’s history on the LGBTQ community. And, like many of you, I’m sure, I’d never really thought much about gay nightclubs. I’d never been to one. But if I were pressed to say what I thought of them (and if I were honest), I assumed they were just kind of unseemly places, full of debauchery. I’m not a nightclub kind of person – gay or straight.

Which is another way of saying, I knew nothing about them. I certainly didn’t understand how for many in the gay community – especially in years gone by – how these clubs were the only place where gay men felt totally safe, away from prying eyes and judgements and harassment.

In a recent Time magazine article, Brandon Wolf wrote,

Growing up in rural Oregon, I often dreamed of a world where I could be all of myself. A world where I didn’t feel the nagging societal pressure to be “Black enough” for some spaces and “white enough” for others. A world that saw my queerness not as a deal breaker, but as a superpower.

Pulse Nightclub embodied that for me. After packing two suitcases and running away to the refuge of Orlando, I found what I had been looking for. The spinning disco balls dared all of us to dance like no one was watching. The beats radiating from the floorboards unearthed our authenticity, nudging us into rhythmic protest against a world that had always told us to uncross our legs, stiffen our wrists, and deepen our voices. Inside those walls, we were normal.

And then he went on to describe what it was like when the shooting began and how the sanctuary of that world was shattered. I don’t relate to his story. He’s not describing a context that has had value for me. But in listening to him, my heart breaks. Of course that nightclub was a haven for you from this world that wanted you dead. Or at least silent and conforming. Of course it was.

And I share these two particular stories – of a trans woman and a gay man – because they represent two of the big issues our society is contending with: What does it mean to be an engendered person? What does it mean to be sexually orientation? These are real questions and there is still much wisdom to be gained in answering them, a wisdom that will be wrought by many sources. And as we stumble through them, there are those ready to stride forward and break the boundaries and discover new freedoms and potentials, and there are those who want to hold on to the familiarity of how things have always been. It’s the constant tension of this life, both as individuals and as a society. We always want to revert to the stability of what is known and familiar and there’s always a craving for the new life mandated by the dynamic nature of this creation to which we belong. And in the midst of this tension, there are real people, living real lives, at every point of the spectrum, who are harassed and afraid.

And Jesus sends us out to join in God’s work – to be a priestly people who mediate God’s love for the world: who bring forgiveness, blessing, and nurture. And the pulse that beats within us, that lifeblood of Christ we consume at every Eucharist, is compassion.