Freedom to Put Others First
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Tifton, Georgia on January 28, 2018
Freedom to Put Others First
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
What does a Christ-like life look like? Really? When does someone’s life look like Jesus?
You are probably better at this than I am, but I can let myself off easy when it comes to trying to be like Jesus, because, I figure, he was God the Son. I assume I might fall short of being like Jesus. I get around this by my ongoing fascination with saints. These are regular people like you and me who rose above all expectation to more closely resemble Jesus than the typical Christian.
In 2006, I represented the Diocese of Georgia at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church when we were asked to vote on Florence Li Tim-Oi for the calendar of saints. I was opposed to naming her a saint. She had been the first woman ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion. “So what?” I thought. Who cares who happened to be first? That doesn’t make someone a saint! We could mark the occasion, remembering the ordination of women, without making the first person a saint.
Then I read her story and was humbled. When she was born on May 5, 1907 in the fishing village of Aberdeen on Hong Kong island, boy babies were highly prized. At that time, in that culture, a bowl of ash could be at hand to smother unwanted new-born girls. Her parents were Christians so delighted with their baby girl they wanted everyone who met her to know it. They named her Li Tim-Oi, meaning ‘Much Beloved Daughter’.
At her baptism, she chose the name Florence for the famous nurse, Florence Nightingale. While a student, she attended a liturgy at the cathedral in which an English woman became a deaconess. The Chinese preacher asked if there was a Chinese girl also willing to sacrifice herself for the Chinese church. She knelt and prayed: “God, would you like to send me?” She felt then a call that never left her.
While a student at Union Theological College in Canton, she led a student team rescuing the casualties of Japanese carpet bombing, nearly becoming a casualty of the Second Sino-Japanese war in the process. Then in 1941, she was ordained a deacon by the Bishop of Hong. Before long her Bishop sent her Macau, a Portuguese Colony crowded with refugees from the Second World War. The photograph from the excellent website It Takes One Woman shows Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as Deacon by Bishop R.0. Hall at St John’s Cathedral HK. Ascension Day 22 May 1941.
In 1943, Li Tim-Oi prepared 72 for baptism. Her Bishop would write amazed, “No other man pastor has yet had that experience in the Anglican Church in South China.”
During this time, no priests would make the journey to Macau and with her bishop’s permission and encouragement; she provided them with the Eucharist. Having no other way to care for the church gathered around Li Tim-Oi and seeing that her ministry was bearing more fruit than any priest he knew, he called Florence to meet him in Free China and asked that she be ordained a priest. He said that he was only acknowledging what God was doing through her in a place where no priest could or would serve. She agreed and was ordained and continued to serve in Macau.
After the war, Florence turned in her license to serve, though she did not renounce her orders. Priests could once again reach her flock. Her ordination was also a scandal in the larger church. Her bishop assigned her to a parish on the border with Vietnam. There the one her parents named “Much Beloved Daughter” discovered girls were not valued. She opened a large maternity home caring for children and assuring that new-born girls would not be smothered at birth. In a culture that didn’t value all life equally, she witnessed to the value of every human being and sustained the church with her great love.
Her witness made Florence an enemy of the state and she was sent to Communist reeducation camps determined to make her renounce her faith in Jesus. The Chinese Red Guard forced her to cut up her vestments with scissors, but they could not make her give up on her savior. They worked on Li Tim-Oi for 30 years. She tried to hold out against the brainwashing and would later confess that she contemplated suicide, but that the Holy Spirit never left her. She persevered, made to tend chickens and then to work in a factory, but always watched and forbidden to gather with other Christians. Florence prayed alone in the mountains and trusted God. Eventually China’s policies toward Christianity softened and she retired from factory work. By the 1970s, her church ordained women. She was a priest anew. Florence was allowed to join family in Canada and was licensed as a priest there. In January 1984 the 40th anniversary of her priesting was celebrated with her present at England’s Westminster Abbey. By the time she died in 1992, Florence Li Tim-Oi had served 13 more years as a priest. This icon of Li Tim-Oi is by the Rev’d Dr. Ellen Poisson, OSH.
Archbishop Ted Scott who was over the Anglican Church in Canada recalls, “She was never bitter, never harbored any resentment against those who caused her suffering. She had the resources to forgive all that had been done to her.”
I tell of Florence Li Tim-Oi, whose feast day was this past Wednesday, because she exemplifies what Paul was trying to teach the church in Corinth. The problem with our reading from the 8th chapter of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is that it deals with a problem we don’t face anymore, whether to eat food sacrificed to idols. But the way Paul deals with this issue is to consider our freedom as Christians in a way that is very relevant to you and me and the week ahead.
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You see ancient Corinth was full of temples that offered animal sacrifices. Dinners were often held in the Temples and those who wanted to be known in town needed to attend. But as the food having been offered as a sacrifice was considered special because it was a sacrifice, could a Christian eat it? Paul said that the idols weren’t real gods. The meat was just meat. But then he goes on to explain that even though he is free, he doesn’t want to trip up another believer.
He writes, “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed.” Paul goes on to say that he abstains from eating the meat as he doesn’t want to cause someone else to sin.
While this doesn’t seem like an issue, consider if you have a friend who has trouble with alcohol and goes into recovery. If you go out together, you could order a beer or a glass of wine. But Paul would say you shouldn’t. Sure, you are free to drink, but think of your friend. Put her or him first.
That is the principal here and the reason I started by talking about Florence Li Tim-Oi. A Christ like life is directed out toward others as Jesus who taught us that the core of our faith is loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus was more concerned about other people than himself.
We see this in Florence. The Beloved Daughter sought only to respond to God’s call. She was willing to give her life for her people. And though she did not ask to be a priest, she willingly answered the call when no priest would serve her people. Then when the war ended, she was free to continue as a priest. She laid aside that right for the sake of the church so as not to be a stumbling block for others. Her ordination had been prophetic and it mattered a lot and a case could have easily been made for her to continue to serve, but that was not her choice. When the church was in agreement, she served once more as a priest.
This reading did influence me once in my priesthood. Having graduated from college in 1984, it is perhaps not too surprising that I had an earing. I was the first male aspirant for Holy Orders in the Diocese to wear one. It never came up in my interviews, though I did hear later that some wondered about me because of the earing. In any case, I served a number of years as a priest while sporting an earing. Then that changed when I visited Anne Trogdon shortly after she learned she had pancreatic cancer and there would be no treatment. She was a member of a neighboring church whose priest had just accepted another call. I wasn’t her priest, but I was the one who would walk with her through her final days.
On our first meeting Anne said, “I never thought the priest who saw me through to the other side would be wearing an earing.” She said it lightly, but I knew it was stumbling block. This might be a small concern if she had been someone else, but Anne was amazing. I watched as she made a list and systematically called family and friends by the dozens to let them know that she was dying, but she was grateful for the full life she had been given and approached death fearlessly.
I watched a Christ-like response to a pancreatic cancer. She led those closest to her to be closer to Jesus even as she was dying. She noticed when I stopped wearing my earing and when I told her it was for her, she first apologized, and then paused and said she was grateful. I was free to wear and earing, but I wasn’t free to offer any obstacle to Anne preparing for her death. Her funeral was packed with people she had talked to about dying. We joyfully celebrated her life. Forget me and my stupid earing. It just reminded me of Anne, who was free to make her death about her, really, we would have all understood. But she chose instead to use her last days to show more concern for her friends and family.
I may be free to do many things, but I am not free to lead others astray or to put myself first in all things. Yes, some healthy self-interest is already bound up in Jesus’ commands to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. But if you are always putting yourself and your needs first, you are not following Jesus. I’m not judging anyone but myself here. I am just trying to tell stories that challenge us.
Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry made the point well at last week’s Revival at Honey Creek when he named the opposite of love as self-centeredness. Florence Li Tim-Oi and Anne Trogdon were both more concerned about others than themselves. They exemplified love.
What does a Christ-like life look like? It looks a lot like Li Tim-Oi and Anne and it always involves showing your love of God through loving others.
I promise you this, in the coming week, you will have a chance to set aside your needs for the needs of someone else. And no one ever needs help when it is convenient. That’s not how life works. Following Jesus is inconvenient, because love comes at a cost. But this is not something more for your to do list. This is how God will bless you though your being a blessing to others. Just try this easy self test, if you can’t identify ways in which you put someone else first last week, you may need to make some changes. Don’t despair. This week will provide the opportunity.
Amen.
