Pentecost 14 2026

Romans 12:9-21                                Be the light                                       Susan J. Barnes                                                                                                               

⁹ Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰ love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers. ¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly;^[a] do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God,^[b] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

“Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good”

Paul wrote those words to the church in Rome, which was already suffering Imperial oppression. 

Reading them took me back to an experience at my first call at St. Matthew’s, Austin. 

I began in July 2001, after being ordained.  Father Joe Di Paola, the Interim Rector, had his hands full.  He was doing tender, loving work helping St. Matthew’s to heal. They loved to love their clergy and were heartbroken to have fired a Rector who was a terrible mismatch.   

Father Joe asked me to oversee the work of the full-time Youth Minister, Eric Liles.  That was a standard assignment for newly ordained clergy.   But it gave me pause.  I was 53 and single.  I hadn’t been around teenagers since I was one myself!  Nothing in my decades in art museum administration prepared me for the job. Supervise the youth program? Me?

God is good and merciful.  I needn’t have worried. 

Eric was a thoughtful, faithful, gifted youth leader.  The program was large and thriving. The parents were very active and involved in the best ways. Together with Eric they chose and helped teach the 7^th-twelfth grade Sunday school curriculum called Journey to Adulthood.  It focuses on spiritual formation, Bible study, and prayer. 

What a remarkable program! I was confirmed at about 12 as were most Episcopalians of my generation.  In the Journey to Adulthood, confirmation is a later rite of passage, capstone of three years of study and spiritual growth, including a pilgrimage.

I hung out in youth meetings and went on their summer adventures like a daytrip to Schlitterbahn, the huge waterpark in nearby New Braunfels. I had a blast and loved getting to know a group of faithful, thoughtful Christians: parents and youth alike. 

Then on the morning of September 11, tragedy struck.  Terrorists armed with knives, boxcutters and pepper spray hijacked four commercial flights: two from Boston and one each from Newark and Dulles. Their suicide missions aimed to destroy four symbols of American power: the White House, the Pentagon, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. 

Some Emmanuel members weren’t born on that dreadful day, but they know from their older relatives that it was an enormous trauma. Not since Pearl Harbor in World War II had outside forces made attacks on American territory.   Some of us had the horror of watching the World Trade Center towers be struck, catch fire, and crumble in real time—others saw it over and over again as the news programs continuously streamed the terrifying footage.  The third flight did hit the Pentagon.  But the fourth, intended for the White House, was brought down in Pennsylvania by the passengers.  Alerted on their cellphones, they teamed up and courageously overwhelmed the captors—crashing the plane, killing all aboard.

It was a watershed in our way of living and in modern world history.  A total of 2,969 people died that day including the 19 terrorists.  Terrible as that number is, it was miraculously small. 

A stunned, grief-stricken nation shut down.  Flights to and from all airports in the USA were grounded—leaving some people stranded here and abroad for days.  Volunteers and donations poured in for the rescue and recovery efforts at the Towers’ ruins by the valiant responders; later many of them suffered and died themselves from exposure to the toxins on site.  So did people who lived nearby. 

There was a global outpouring of support for America. I particularly remember the banner headline on September 12 in Le Monde, the left-leaning, leading newspaper in France. Nous Sommes Tous Americains “We are all Americans”. 

It is sobering, indeed, to look back and see how much changed in America and the world after that one day’s events.  Our NATO allies joined us as America launched the “War on Terror”, and invaded Afghanistan in October--was the first of our long and continuing military actions in the region.   

*****

At St. Matthew’s, Austin, the veil of ordinary life had been torn away from those teenagers.  Suddenly, very prematurely, they had to face big, eternal questions: Why do bad things happen to good, innocent people?  Where is God in this kind of tragedy?  And, urgently and practically, what are we as Christians called to be and to do in response?

The first thing was to pray together.   Father Joe sensed that need in us all. He held a service that night.  He opened St. Matthew’s large sanctuary to everyone for days. Many people came including some we had never seen.   

The Youth had bonded closely in their study and play. Instinctively they got together in the wake of the crisis.  With Eric and their parent/leaders they prayerfully combed the scriptures. They were seeking a way to reconcile Jesus’ great, unconditional commandment to love our neighbors with the all too human impulse to strike back.

Ultimately, by God’s grace they came to the passage we just read.  “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Heaping burning coals on someone’s head always struck me as punishment—such a jarring contrast to the loving kindness in the rest of the text.  It was a relief to read commentator Nancy Lammers’ explanation.  Paul lifted the phrase from Proverb 25: note it is a quotation. In antiquity, when your hearth fire went out you could not cook.  If you got coals from a neighbor you carried them home in a container on your head.  The heap of burning coals was a critical gift!

“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good”. 

The thirteenth century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi wrote “If everything around seems dark, look again. You may be the light.”

In the dreadful darkness of those days, the youth of St. Matthew’s were the light for the whole congregation.   With extraordinary spiritual maturity they found, embraced and shared their own call to Christian compassion and love. 

Through good times and bad we are called to be the light. When we can’t do that, we can seek God’s light out in others. 

Dolly Parton knew that.  Her greatness as a musician, a philanthropist, a friend was grounded in her deep faith. In a 2019 interview she said. “There is a God light in all of us…. And we need to connect to that to make us better people.” 

Dear ones, the light of goodness and loving kindness is all around us.

Just yesterday Claudia and I were queued up to check out at the Dollar Store. We had chatted with a man and his daughter in the school supplies aisle and laughed together as her younger brothers brought their snack choices to the shopping cart. We saw the family again at the head of the line and were surprised to see them leave without the purchases that the cashier had rung up and bagged. A woman from the group next in line ran to the door and called them back from the parking lot. Without a second thought, her companion had simply paid for their purchases, which they humbly and gratefully carried off.

Ordinary people on an ordinary Saturday sharing their God light in a quiet act of extraordinary kindness to a family of strangers.  And we were blessed to see it.

Thanks be to God.