These past few months, and even these past few years, have been a time when many of us have wondered many things about the level of debate on "moral values". Whether what we are hearing is coming from politicians or religious types, the decibel level of their narrowly tailored definition of moral values has been quite high. Does our Redeemer really live? Does God hear the cries of the poor? Can there be true justice on this earth? I am going to say something that might be shocking to some of you, so, hold on to your seats. As Anglicans, as Episcopalians, you and I belong to the Catholic religious tradition. We profess this in the Nicene Creed we say each week. I am not saying Roman Catholic; I am saying Catholic, as in universal. Our Catholic religious tradition believes that the life of the Blessed Trinity is expressed for us through the Communion of Saints of which we are all apart. We believe further that the Communion of Saints is meant to be the model, insofar as humanly possible, of the corporate life of the society and community in which we live. This is not some kind of naïve thinking: it is what we believe. What we do not accept in our tradition is the notion of what we sometimes refer to as rugged individualism, though individualism is what governs much of what passes for politics in our country today and invades all aspects of our culture.

On the way in today I was listening to Krista Tippet on NPR. She and her guest were discussing what were going to be the most prevalent holiday gifts this season: which turn out to be personal electronic devices with ear-pieces. Now, I have an iPod and I love it! But their conversation this morning involved how these devices take us out of the world, out of our community: disconnect us so to speak. And I believe there is a tie in to today's Gospel to this discussion, with both of these being very counter-cultural. As Christians we believe rather in a society whose underlying principle is the care and nurture of every member of the human family. Our responsibility is as great towards the poor and the forgotten among us as it is toward those of wealth and means and celebrity. In fact, as Catholic Christians, the poor and the disenfranchised are our first order of business. We are indeed our sisters' and our brothers' keepers. Our rich religious tradition is not based on exclusivity and narrowness of thinking.  

We are going to need to remember this fact over the coming months and years as we continue to reside in the midst of our controversies of the day. We are going to have to remind ourselves more than once that the basis of our concern is not some kind of wishy-washy impulse to do good, but the basis of our moral concerns is the life of the Communion of Saints, and therefore the inner life of God. This is always where the Christian begins. And what this means is that we are going to have to go back into the streets, and continue the fight for justice in our society and we are going to have to stand up and be counted, even though many people will not be listening. Not to do so would be to deny our deepest beliefs, and to abdicate our responsibility. But to stand and be strong, to "stand firm", as St. Paul instructs us to today... to witness to the world as we should... will be to have the faith of Job enabling us to shout "For I know my Redeemer lives." We cannot ignore injustices or oppression of any kind, either small or large. We need to continually claim and be a progressive voice and proclaim a progressive understanding of Scripture following the model Jesus set for us today. And beyond this, our actions, our work, will be an example of living a life modeled on Christ, whose incarnation, whose life and death and resurrection was done for each and every one of us. And this work, our work our religious tradition teaches us, is truly the work of God in our world. And we are the ones to do this work.