The Third Sunday after the Epiphany (January 23, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

The Fifth Crusade lasted from 1217-1221. Around this time, as you can imagine, tensions between Muslims and Christians was quite high. One contributor to these tensions was Sultant Malik el-Kamil of Egypt who promised gold to anyone who brought him the head of Christians. In response, the Pope decried the sultan. Things were chaotic and violent. Yet it was precisely at this point that St. Francis took a friend and they engaged in an arduous journey to visit the sultan. Upon their arrival, the sultan and his court assumed the monks had come to convert to Islam. When the court became aware that Francis was not there to convert but to preach, the sultan’s advisors suggested the sultan kill the saint. Yet, al-Kamil did not oblige those requests, and instead let Francis preach about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The sultan was so impressed that he invited them to stay with him for a week. While Francis did preach, he also lived out his rule to “be subject to every human creature for God’s sake” by not engaging in quarrels or debates with the sultan. While it doesn’t seem like the sultan converted, we can look at this story as an example of what St. Paul talks about in our reading this morning about engaging with non-Christians.

Last week, we began a short sermon series based on the epistle readings these past few weeks called, “Living Sacrifices: Living into the Christian Story.” We talked about stories and the power they have on us. Rwandan Catholic priest and professor Emmanuel Katongole reminds us that the purpose of the Church community is to “bear witness to the fact that in Christ, there is a new identity.” And this new identity, which we receive from being in Christ, transcends and shapes all other parts of our identity. It transcends our race, national identity, sex, and class. Our culture tells us stories that prioritize those aspects of our identity but in, in the Church, we seek to understand our lives in terms of a different story. That story is the Gospel. So, last week, we talked about how the story of the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord brings about our reconciliation with God and brings us into communion not only with our Lord but also with each other so that we are like different parts of the same body united by the head who is Christ. This, then, impacts our life together in the Church which should be described as mutual love and self-giving through the unique spiritual gifts we can contribute to the health of the body and in the relationships we have with one another that feature God-honoring conduct.

Today’s Epistle reading is a continuation of the same passage from last week but it marks a shift in Paul’s view: he’s not longer talking about how we act within the Church so much as how we engage those who are outside of it. And I think, as we go through it, that you’ll agree that the way Francis engaged with someone who would have been considered by many a harsh enemy of Christianity is a good summation of St. Paul’s words.

To begin with, it helps to remember that Christians occupy an interesting space in that we are in the world but not of it. Fr. Katongole uses the term “resident aliens” to describe our current position. What’s more, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, we are “ambassadors of Christ.” By virtue of our situatedness, we touch upon those outside the Church frequently (and statistics tell us that, as we continue to become increasingly post-Christian, this phenomenon will become increasingly common). What we will see is that in these encounters with those outside the Church, we shouldn’t see them as enemies or as sub-human but people for whom Christ died. This requires us to walk a fine line; a line that, on the one hand, requires us to preach the Gospel while also seeking to get along with them by treating them with dignity and respect.

We can consider discipleship as telling better stories about ourselves and we can define evangelism as telling those stories to others, communicating it in both word and deed, so that we invite them to become participants in the story.

So Paul begins his discussion of engaging with outsiders with the exhortation, “Be not wise in your own conceits.” In other words: avoid the mortal sin of pride. Christians should be different from the world but that difference shouldn’t be a point of pride. The root of any righteous behavior we exhibit is grace, not ourselves. Like Ephesians 2:9 says, this is a gift of God “lest any man should boast.” Put another way, Christians are conduits of God’s love. We certainly evangelize using words but if love doesn’t underly those words, St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13, then we become resounding gongs and empty noise.

Paul makes it explicit that this humility doesn’t just belong in the Church but to those we meet outside it. We see that in his threefold command: Don’t recompense anyone evil for evil; provide things honest in the sight of all men; and “live at peace with all men.” We don’t repay evil for evil because, as Church Father Origen pointed out, doing someone wrong because they wronged us is often worse because someone may have wronged us by accident but repaying them is always intentional. For example, if you get cut off in traffic, you were wronged. Maybe the person is a selfish driver; maybe they just didn’t see you. But if you respond from a place that seeks to “get them back,” whether by yelling, making gestures, or riding their tail, you’re choosing to do what you know you shouldn’t. So instead, we “Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” Paul recognizes that, in terms of decorum and basic ethics, there are universal standards of behavior that all of us, Christian or not, can agree upon. So Christians shouldn’t be a people who are known for violating those. This becomes a means whereby we “live at peace with all men.” Of course, this is caveated by Paul that it’s peace insofar as peace is possible. Yet, the reason that peace isn’t possible isn’t us, but others.

Undergirding much of what St. Paul says here is the missional concept of flexibility. This appears explicitly in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22 “And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” By accommodating others, we put them ahead of ourselves, thereby exhibiting the same humility our Lord showed in his Incarnation and death on the Cross.

This also means not taking vengeance. It doesn’t mean we won’t be angry; but, it does mean that, even when we’re wronged, we should be willing to extend forgiveness. This is a sign of faith because it shows that recognize it’s God’s place to “judge the quick and the dead.” Our normative calling isn’t to be instruments of judgment but instruments of love. That God is the one “unto whom all hearts are open and all desires known” makes him uniquely qualified to be the judge of all humankind which frees us to love our enemy. “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” This enemy-love is an imitation of and participation in Christ’s actions towards us: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The image of heaping coals upon our enemy’s head isn’t a passive aggressive attempt at getting the upper hand; rather, it speaks of frustrating their intentions of adversarial resistance. The goal is always for their good and conversion. Christ could have called down heavenly armies on those who set themselves up as his enemies; instead, he gave himself up specifically for those who opposed him. We are called to do the same.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen that the Church is simultaneously inward and outward facing. Our internal life is the communion we share with one another where we each each other in developing in holiness so we can complete our mission. That mission involves “going out into all the world.” We’re not to be repulsed by non-Christians, an attitude Mother Maria of Paris called ascetic disdain, but we are to positively engage them by building common ground with them by showing them the love our Lord showed us even when we were far off from him. Our battle is not against flesh and blood; not against other people. The battle is against principalities and powers. From our vantage point, then, people outside the Church are not our enemies, but victims enslaved by sin and the Devil. They are in need of liberation from bondage and we are called to be the means by which God frees them. Because at some point in our lives, the Church did that for us. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.