"The Intemperate Savior" - Sermon for 10 Pentecost 8-17-25

Impatient. Divisive. Contemptuous.

Three words seldom used to describe Jesus, but here he is and there they are, all in one gospel passage.

Impatient about the slow pace and the grinding process of his mission. A mission meant to divide even closest kinfolk by its keen, unsparing edge. And contemptuous of the crowds, so proud of their prognostications, but blind to what is happening right in front of them.

This is a Jesus I can get behind! This is a Jesus whom I’ve often imitated.

It is the call and response of every Christian to imitate Christ, right?

Oh, sure – I’m supposed to be kind and compassionate, merciful and forgiving. I’m down with that. So why am I so often wrong when I’m impatient and divisive and contemptuous? It hardly seems fair!

A trap that I often walk right into when hearing the gospels is to put myself in the place of Jesus, no matter the setting. But as the writer of Ecclesiastes once wrote, and the Byrds later sang, there is a time to every purpose under heaven.

There is a time to be Jesus, and a time to be the person that Jesus is addressing. How does one know the difference?

We begin by asking in prayer that the Holy Spirit enlighten our discernment. What does God wish to show me in this passage? Where does God want me to put myself in the story? Does where I place myself build up, or does it tear down? Is it about love, or is it about ego?

Prayer and discernment take time to unfold. Our questions and God’s response will help us come to know, as God’s prophet Jeremiah wrote, whether we prophesy the deceit of our own heart, or speak the word of the Lord faithfully.  

So, is our impatience and divisiveness and contemptuousness always wrong? Experience shows that mine usually is. While we are called to imitate Christ, we must remember that we are not Christ. Often it is our ego that drives us. At least that’s true for me.

But Jesus shows us that there is a time to be impatient, a time to be divisive, and a time to be contemptuous. These can be holy, if their purpose is for one’s own conversion of life and the destruction of an unjust, unholy rock that needs to be hammered into pieces.

Around the time the Byrds sang, Martin wrote. Dr. King sat in a Birmingham jail and wrote a letter. The letter was to well-meaning liberal white pastors who took him to task for what they saw as his impatience, his divisiveness, his contemptuousness. “Be more like the kind and compassionate Jesus,” they counseled, “the merciful and forgiving Jesus. That’s the Christ you should imitate. You’ll accomplish more that way.”

Pastor King, in his imitation of Christ, was having none of it. His reply to his colleagues was in the spirit of the Jesus in today’s gospel passage. His reply wasn’t rash, wasn’t unconsidered, and wasn’t fueled by his ego or by a dream that he claimed solely his own.

His reply came from years of Holy Spirit-led discernment over where he fit in the narrative; and a decade of direct action in kindling the fire of civil rights that would lead, one April morning, to his baptism on a balcony in Memphis.

Remember, Jesus, too, was tempted by Satan to act impulsively. To forget what he had learned after forty days of prayer and discernment in the desert. To go for the quick fix, the easy answer, and the ego-boosting power and prestige the devil so deceptively promises.

Jesus knew his Ecclesiastes and he sang like the Byrds to the tempter. There is a time to every purpose under heaven. Your time is finished, you old devil. Your purpose is obsolete. The Kingdom of God is at hand.

God is near-by. Repent and believe in the Good News. Pray always and discern. Imitate Christ. And keep the faith. 

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

10^th after Pentecost C: Proper 15 – Aug. 17, 2025

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“The Intemperate Savior”