We have so many ways of learning about God. We learn from Holy Scripture, of course. We learn from our worship, from the seasons of the year and the glories of nature, from one another, in our prayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a way of watching movies that can open our minds and hearts to God in ways more powerful than we might imagine. When we see a movie strictly for entertainment, we\u2019ve received our money\u2019s worth, but when we watch the screen through the eyes of faith, God can touch us in ways that are worth much more, ways that are surprising, even transcendent. Ordinary, commercial films become \u201cJesus movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take the film, The Green Mile, for instance. The Jesus figure in The Green Mile is obvious, of course. John Coffey, an enormous black man in the South, has been accused of murdering two small girls, and upon his arrest he is delivered to \u201cthe Green Mile,\u201d death row in a southern prison. It becomes apparent fairly early in the film that John is innocent; he is sweet and what we used to call \u201csimple-minded;\u201d despite his huge size, he weeps quietly at times and is afraid of the dark. He shows tenderness to all but the truly evil ones he encounters on the Green Mile, and after a couple of miraculous healings, there\u2019s no doubt in our eyes just who John Coffey represents. He\u2019s our Jesus figure in this movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus showed us the nature of the Divine as he walked this earth among us. So what can John Coffey show us about the nature of God if we view him through the lens of Christ, praying that the Holy Spirit guide us to any truth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Matthew\u2019s Gospel today, we learn that \u201cJesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.\u201d Matthew continues: \u201cWhen he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compassion. \u201cCom-passion.\u201d \u201cFeeling with.\u201d Feeling another\u2019s pain, another\u2019s suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In The Green Mile, one of the several climactic scenes shows us a gruesome execution, one in which a sadistic rookie deliberately omits a step in the electrocution process, essentially cooking a Cajun inmate named Edouard Delacroix, a man for whom John Coffey \u2014 and the movie\u2019s viewers \u2014 have developed a fondness. In one of the most graphic death scenes in cinematic history, as Del screams and jolts and jerks and smokes, John Coffey, in his own death row cell, experiences exactly the same torture. He jerks and grimaces as though he were sitting in \u201cOld Sparky\u201d himself. The lights on the Green Mile dim, then burst, as he lives through Del\u2019s electrocution from afar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the body has finally died and has been removed for burial, the officer in charge of the Green Mile, Paul Edgecomb, returns to his block and walks to John\u2019s cell. Sweat pours from John\u2019s body; he is still trembling. He says to Edgecomb through clenched jaws, \u201cBoss, Del, he the lucky one. He out of it now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDo you mean you heard that all the way down here, John?\u201d asks Edgecomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, Boss. I felt it,\u201d replies John.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Coffey, our Jesus character, actually felt the pain of his friend. He experienced his torture, as though he had somehow been in the body of Edouard Delacroix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Com-passion. Feeling with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFreely you have received, freely give,\u201d Jesus tells the twelve as he send them out to preach and heal those for whom Jesus has such great compassion. We might overhear him saying something like, \u201cHeal every disease and sickness. Cast out evil spirits. Take the message of the Kingdom to those who live on death row every day of their lives. Help me care for them. Have \u201ccom-passion\u201d on them. Feel with them. I can\u2019t do it all by myself. The task is too great to be done alone, even by me. And it\u2019s not God\u2019s purpose that it all be done by me. You\u2019re in this, too. We can\u2019t do it without you. You\u2019re going to be my Body on earth soon, so you\u2019d better get out there and start learning what that means before I leave you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the followers of Jesus, his disciples, the ones who had left fishing nets and families to follow and learn from this magnetic young man who spoke so winningly of his heavenly Father, these twelve meagerly prepared ones were now to take their first steps as apostles \u2014 those who are sent out to do for the hurting of the world that which Jesus himself wishes done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we step into their shoes today, let\u2019s listen to this story carefully, because it is our story, too. We are his disciples today and more \u2014 we are his Body. Christ, the compassionate one, is the Head of the Body. Information Central. Where the commands to the Body come from. Unless our own head tells our index finger and thumb to move closer together, we can\u2019t do so much as pick up a pencil. We need, as Christ\u2019s Body, to listen more carefully to Christ, our Head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is Christ telling us? To go out and be do-gooders in the name of the church? No! Some folks see this passage as a mandate for evangelism, and that can look scary, even impossible, especially for Episcopalians. During the Decade of Evangelism, the 90\u2019s, someone was heard to say that an Episcopal plan for evangelism was to build a really attractive aquarium next to the ocean and then wait for the fish to jump in. That\u2019s not what Jesus is calling us to here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus is sending us out to do the work that springs from a heart filled with compassion, with empathy, with doing our best to experience another\u2019s pain. We can never reach this ideal, of course; each person\u2019s pain is unique. But the heart of the compassionate Christ, which is and must be our own corporate heart, has no place for criticism, for judgment, even for merit. We help those who need help, not those we deem worthy of our help. It is not our own help we offer, of course; we are merely the vehicles for Christ\u2019s healing touch, his saving grace, his Word of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we move more deeply into our identity as Christ\u2019s Body, as 21st century apostles, in this work of embodying Jesus today, church growth is a side effect of Christ\u2019s impact on those we encounter. Evangelism happens because the \u201cevangel\u201d is Good News indeed! And as we do the will of the one who sends us out, our own lives become daily more filled with the love and grace of our Savior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freely we have been given, not deserving. Freely and with compassion we are called to give. The harvest is plentiful, and we are the laborers today in a field filled with weeds and hungry for the harvest. Shake off the dust and let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Katherine Merrell Glenn<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have so many ways of learning about God. We learn from Holy Scripture, of course. We learn from our worship, from the seasons of the year and the glories of nature, from one another, in our prayers. There is a way of watching movies that can open our minds and hearts to God in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[90],"class_list":["post-511346","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-6a"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":90,"label":"Proper 6A"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478399,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511346\/revisions\/3478399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}