Euangelion
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, preached a sermon in Venezuela about seeing the glory of others. In the course of her sermon, she says what I think is the strangest and stupidest thing I have ever heard/read for a sermon. In her sermon, she recalls Acts 16 and the story about the demon-possessed slave girl who prophesied. This is what Jefferts Schori has to say:
There are some remarkable examples of that kind of blindness in the readings we heard this morning, and slavery is wrapped up in a lot of it. Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God. She is quite right. She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves. But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness. Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it. It gets him thrown in prison. That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so! The amazing thing is that during that long night in jail he remembers that he might find God there – so he and his cellmates spend the night praying and singing hymns.
I know that St. Paul is the heinous villain of liberal Protestantism, but really, really, who believes such a tortured reading!
As Cyprian said: Nec episcopus computari potest, qui evangelica et apostolica traditione contempta.
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