Deacon: The holy gospel of our Lord
Deacon: Jesus Christ, according to
Deacon: Matthew.
Bishop Knisely: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
Deacon: Jesus said, whoever welcomes you
Deacon: welcomes me, and whoever
Deacon: welcomes me welcomes the one who
Deacon: sent me.
Deacon: Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will
Deacon: receive a prophet's reward.
Deacon: And whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a
Deacon: righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.
Deacon: And whoever gives even a cup of
Deacon: cold water to one of these
Deacon: little ones in the name of a
Deacon: disciple.
Deacon: Truly, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
Deacon: The gospel of the Lord.
Bishop Knisely: Praise to you, Lord Christ.
Bishop Knisely: May I speak to you in the name
Bishop Knisely: of God, who is father, son, and
Bishop Knisely: Holy Spirit.
Bishop Knisely: Amen.
Bishop Knisely: Go ahead and now be seated.
Bishop Knisely: One of the things you learn
Bishop Knisely: really early on when you're
Bishop Knisely: ordained is that people sort of
Bishop Knisely: look at what you're wearing and
Bishop Knisely: behave differently.
Bishop Knisely: I notice that if I have to fly and I'm wearing clericals, if
Bishop Knisely: I'm in my black suit or a purple shirt and I go to get on the
Bishop Knisely: airplane, people are either going to be really happy I'm
Bishop Knisely: sitting beside them or they're going to be very uncomfortable.
Bishop Knisely: People will sort of scooch away from you in line at Dunkin
Bishop Knisely: Donuts and at McDonald's.
Bishop Knisely: It's a whole thing, trying to
Bishop Knisely: order your Big Mac and your
Bishop Knisely: French fries.
Bishop Knisely: People project on you because of what you're wearing.
Bishop Knisely: And you learned that early on.
Bishop Knisely: As clergy, and sometimes that's helpful.
Bishop Knisely: And sometimes that can be a challenge.
Bishop Knisely: One of the things you notice when you walk around inner city
Bishop Knisely: inner cities, and I, as a priest, always served in inner
Bishop Knisely: city parishes, is that people will see you walking by and
Bishop Knisely: depending on their circumstances, will come up and
Bishop Knisely: want something from you.
Bishop Knisely: And sometimes that's wonderful.
Bishop Knisely: And sometimes it's like, oh, how
Bishop Knisely: am I going to disappoint you
Bishop Knisely: today?
Bishop Knisely: So when I was living in Phoenix,
Bishop Knisely: my wife and I are not very good
Bishop Knisely: cooks.
Bishop Knisely: And so we're really good at getting prepared foods from
Bishop Knisely: little grocery stores.
Bishop Knisely: We love Dave's.
Bishop Knisely: I just got to tell you, we would
Bishop Knisely: starve to death if it wasn't for
Bishop Knisely: Dave's.
Bishop Knisely: But there was a version of Dave's much smaller called Fresh
Bishop Knisely: and Easy in Phoenix, and I was on my way home from the office
Bishop Knisely: and Karen was still at work and she said, would you swing by
Bishop Knisely: fresh and easy and get some dinner for us?
Bishop Knisely: And I said, sure, sure, sure.
Bishop Knisely: I'm trying to get in and out the fresh and easy.
Bishop Knisely: That was close to where we were living.
Bishop Knisely: It wasn't the best part of
Bishop Knisely: Phoenix and it was kind of
Bishop Knisely: sketchy.
Bishop Knisely: And I'm like, okay, I'll get in.
Bishop Knisely: I'll get into the place.
Bishop Knisely: It was a guy standing around
Bishop Knisely: outside looking at people and,
Bishop Knisely: uh oh.
Bishop Knisely: So I get out of the car, I go
Bishop Knisely: into fresh and easy, I get out,
Bishop Knisely: I don't know what it was
Bishop Knisely: probably something wonderfully
Bishop Knisely: healthy and fulfilling, like
Bishop Knisely: clergy eat.
Bishop Knisely: And and I came out of the store and the guy looks at me and
Bishop Knisely: says, you're a priest, right?
Bishop Knisely: Like, oh, yes, yes.
Bishop Knisely: He said, I bought two of these.
Bishop Knisely: Take this one.
Bishop Knisely: And he gave me a bag of oranges.
Bishop Knisely: And I thought, well, that's not what I expected.
Bishop Knisely: And I said, well, thank you.
Bishop Knisely: He said, no, no, no, no worries.
Bishop Knisely: And he walked off and I realized he had done something for me,
Bishop Knisely: not because of any relationship I had with him or anything I'd
Bishop Knisely: done to deserve it, or the kindness I had shown him.
Bishop Knisely: He just did it for me because of
Bishop Knisely: a relationship I had with other
Bishop Knisely: people.
Bishop Knisely: I don't know, maybe it was something in the air in Phoenix,
Bishop Knisely: but something similar happened not too long after I came out.
Bishop Knisely: And one of the things you learn
Bishop Knisely: in Phoenix is because of the
Bishop Knisely: heat and everything and the
Bishop Knisely: thorns, you get a lot of flat
Bishop Knisely: tires.
Bishop Knisely: And so I came out to my car and I had a flat tire.
Bishop Knisely: Oh. All right, well, I'm sitting there.
Bishop Knisely: I'll just pop the trunk, get the spare out, change the tire, and
Bishop Knisely: I'm getting ready to do that.
Bishop Knisely: And, and I, I guess a guy was a delivery driver saw me and said,
Bishop Knisely: father, father, let me change your car tire.
Bishop Knisely: I said, no, no, I can do it.
Bishop Knisely: I'm fine.
Bishop Knisely: God bless you.
Bishop Knisely: Thank you.
Bishop Knisely: But I got this.
Bishop Knisely: No no no no no no. Your hands
Bishop Knisely: are the hands that serve at the
Bishop Knisely: altar.
Bishop Knisely: Don't get them dirty or hurt them.
Bishop Knisely: Changing a tire.
Bishop Knisely: Really?
Bishop Knisely: I was not expecting that.
Bishop Knisely: And I tried to talk him out.
Bishop Knisely: He wouldn't hear it.
Bishop Knisely: He said, no, I want to change your tire.
Bishop Knisely: So he changed my tire.
Bishop Knisely: He did a very good job of it, and I'm trying to take out money
Bishop Knisely: and give him a tip or something.
Bishop Knisely: I said, please let me say thank you.
Bishop Knisely: And he wouldn't hear a word of it.
Bishop Knisely: He did that not because he knew me, but because of who I knew.
Bishop Knisely: In the gospel reading today,
Bishop Knisely: Jesus is saying something very
Bishop Knisely: similar.
Bishop Knisely: He's saying that if you do
Bishop Knisely: something kind for someone
Bishop Knisely: because of the relationship they
Bishop Knisely: have with me, Jesus is saying,
Bishop Knisely: you shall get an extraordinary
Bishop Knisely: reward.
Bishop Knisely: He's talking in a crowd of people and he's talking about
Bishop Knisely: the little ones.
Bishop Knisely: You think he's talking about children?
Bishop Knisely: The best we can tell from the text, he's not.
Bishop Knisely: He's talking about the disciples
Bishop Knisely: and the apostles who were with
Bishop Knisely: him as he's going about
Bishop Knisely: teaching.
Bishop Knisely: And he says to the larger crowd,
Bishop Knisely: look, if you give even a cup of
Bishop Knisely: cold water, That's not very much
Bishop Knisely: right?
Bishop Knisely: That's a pretty easy lift for most of us.
Bishop Knisely: If you give even a cup of cold water to one of these people
Bishop Knisely: because of their relationship with me, then you will receive a
Bishop Knisely: reward that is great in heaven.
Bishop Knisely: How do you feel about that?
Bishop Knisely: Because you're one of the little ones.
Bishop Knisely: Think about that, right?
Bishop Knisely: What if someone came up and said, hey, you're a member of
Bishop Knisely: Saint Peter's, right?
Bishop Knisely: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bishop Knisely: Have a cup of water on me.
Bishop Knisely: What would you think?
Bishop Knisely: Right?
Bishop Knisely: You belong to Jesus.
Bishop Knisely: If we could see you as the angels see you.
Bishop Knisely: We'd see the shining cross that's there on your forehead.
Bishop Knisely: That was put there when you were baptized.
Bishop Knisely: And the priest drew the sign of
Bishop Knisely: the cross in holy oil on your
Bishop Knisely: forehead.
Bishop Knisely: If we could see with the eyes of angels.
Bishop Knisely: We'd see the cloud of white
Bishop Knisely: light that surrounds you simply
Bishop Knisely: because you are one of the
Bishop Knisely: baptized.
Bishop Knisely: I mean, wow.
Bishop Knisely: What if you could see each other that way?
Bishop Knisely: Or what if you could see the people that you meet every day
Bishop Knisely: and see in them the image of God that they carry simply because
Bishop Knisely: they are human?
Bishop Knisely: The Pope talks about in his latest encyclical, The
Bishop Knisely: Magnificence of Our Humanity.
Bishop Knisely: And he's referring to artificial intelligence.
Bishop Knisely: But but I think he's also just
Bishop Knisely: making the point that one of the
Bishop Knisely: things that's extraordinary
Bishop Knisely: about our incarnate selves, our
Bishop Knisely: fleshy human nature, is that we
Bishop Knisely: carry the image of God within
Bishop Knisely: us.
Bishop Knisely: And because we carry the image
Bishop Knisely: of God, We look like Jesus to
Bishop Knisely: the universe.
Bishop Knisely: We all do.
Bishop Knisely: Simply by being human.
Bishop Knisely: It's extraordinary when you think about what it means to be
Bishop Knisely: made in the image of God, and the recognition that the rest of
Bishop Knisely: the universe gets a blessing simply by our presence in it.
Bishop Knisely: Now, you'd think we'd live up to that, right?
Bishop Knisely: And we'd live our lives in such a way that the relationships we
Bishop Knisely: have would typify the blessing that we are to other people.
Bishop Knisely: But we don't always do that.
Bishop Knisely: I was looking at the comment section of the New York Times
Bishop Knisely: articles this morning.
Bishop Knisely: I should not do that before I go to church.
Bishop Knisely: There was not a whole lot of recognition of the image of God
Bishop Knisely: in those comments.
Bishop Knisely: I got to tell you.
Bishop Knisely: People were arguing and they
Bishop Knisely: were biting, and they were
Bishop Knisely: pulling at each other just as we
Bishop Knisely: humans do.
Bishop Knisely: And in spite of all that, we are still made in the image of God.
Bishop Knisely: But what would it be like if we
Bishop Knisely: could actually live our lives
Bishop Knisely: that way?
Bishop Knisely: What would it be like if we
Bishop Knisely: actually saw each other as being
Bishop Knisely: created in the image of God, and
Bishop Knisely: treated each other with that
Bishop Knisely: kind of respect and dignity that
Bishop Knisely: is ours, not because we deserve
Bishop Knisely: it, but because of who we are in
Bishop Knisely: relationship with.
Bishop Knisely: I mean, that's kind of the point of the ecclesia.
Bishop Knisely: The word ecclesia is the word Paul uses for church.
Bishop Knisely: He uses it in Romans a number of times.
Bishop Knisely: It's not a new word.
Bishop Knisely: He's not making it up.
Bishop Knisely: Ecclesia is a Greek idea, and it means a crowd of people.
Bishop Knisely: And it's usually described by
Bishop Knisely: the teachers and the
Bishop Knisely: philosophers as being a
Bishop Knisely: fractious bunch.
Bishop Knisely: When an ecclesia is gathered, you know, there's going to be
Bishop Knisely: arguments and there's going to be pushing and shoving.
Bishop Knisely: And Paul uses that word for church.
Bishop Knisely: We tend to dress it up and we make it into ecclesiastical and
Bishop Knisely: we use fancy language.
Bishop Knisely: But but it really just means a crowd of grumpy people.
Bishop Knisely: And that's what Paul was
Bishop Knisely: describing and is describing all
Bishop Knisely: of us.
Bishop Knisely: And yet, because we're part of
Bishop Knisely: that crowd, if someone gives us
Bishop Knisely: a drink of water because we're
Bishop Knisely: part of that crowd, they get an
Bishop Knisely: extraordinary reward.
Bishop Knisely: You know, it's not like what it was with Abraham, who had to put
Bishop Knisely: everything on the line for his faith with God.
Bishop Knisely: Everything, everything he had been told, everything he
Bishop Knisely: believed, everything he and Sarah had hung their hopes on.
Bishop Knisely: He was asked to put on the line for God.
Bishop Knisely: And that faith is what makes him a hero.
Bishop Knisely: A hero whose memory has been preserved for all this time.
Bishop Knisely: We have it much easier or much harder.
Bishop Knisely: I don't know, because we have to do an easier thing and believe
Bishop Knisely: that the same consequence applies for us.
Bishop Knisely: We're celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
Bishop Knisely: as a nation later this week.
Bishop Knisely: Hooray!
Bishop Knisely: We're not all excited about it.
Bishop Knisely: It's not like seventeen or nineteen seventy six.
Bishop Knisely: I remember what the Bicentennial was like.
Bishop Knisely: I'm older than I look, and I remember how we got dressed up
Bishop Knisely: and the way we celebrated it for the whole year.
Bishop Knisely: And here we are in the two fiftieth, and I feel like my
Bishop Knisely: daughter, who probably won't see the three hundredth, is getting
Bishop Knisely: cheated because she's not seeing the same thing.
Bishop Knisely: It's a moment.
Bishop Knisely: We're divided.
Bishop Knisely: We are at each other's throats.
Bishop Knisely: We're biting and sniping and pulling at each other.
Bishop Knisely: Just like in the comment sections of The New York Times.
Bishop Knisely: And yet that Ecclesia is all made in the image of God.
Bishop Knisely: You want to heal that?
Bishop Knisely: Try treating each other as if
Bishop Knisely: their dignity is not dependent
Bishop Knisely: on what they say or do or how
Bishop Knisely: they behave, but simply because
Bishop Knisely: they exist.
Bishop Knisely: And they were created in the image of God from the beginning.
Bishop Knisely: I have noticed it changes you.
Bishop Knisely: That guy who changed my tire changed my whole week because I
Bishop Knisely: saw myself differently.
Bishop Knisely: I don't usually think of myself
Bishop Knisely: as a person who serves at the
Bishop Knisely: altar.
Bishop Knisely: I think of myself as the person who worries about how we're
Bishop Knisely: going to pay the bills.
Bishop Knisely: He didn't see me that way, and
Bishop Knisely: because he didn't see me that
Bishop Knisely: way, I started to see myself, at
Bishop Knisely: least for a little while, in a
Bishop Knisely: different way.
Bishop Knisely: The guy who waited around outside the grocery store.
Bishop Knisely: I've never forgotten it.
Bishop Knisely: Clearly.
Bishop Knisely: What if you people of Saint Peter's could change?
Bishop Knisely: Maybe not the whole nation.
Bishop Knisely: Just change your neighborhood.
Bishop Knisely: Just change your neighborhood by
Bishop Knisely: treating each other as people
Bishop Knisely: who are worthy of dignity and
Bishop Knisely: respect.
Bishop Knisely: Not because of how you vote or
Bishop Knisely: what you believe, or the flags
Bishop Knisely: you fly or anything else like
Bishop Knisely: that.
Bishop Knisely: But simply because you are a human being and you are a child
Bishop Knisely: of God, and you glow with light by virtue of your baptism, and
Bishop Knisely: there is a shining cross on your forehead that the angels can see
Bishop Knisely: and long to witness.
Bishop Knisely: What if just being human is enough?
Bishop Knisely: That would be something.
Bishop Knisely: It might change your day.
Bishop Knisely: Amen.