The Rev. Brandon C. Ashcraft
Easter 5, Year C (Acts 11:1-18 / John 13:31-35)
May 21, 2025
Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Boundary-breaking Love
The English language has one word for love, while the Greek of the New Testament has at least four.1 There are several words in Koine Greek that are typically translated “love” in English, such as eros, philia and storage. The Greek word translated “love” in John 13:34-35, and indeed in most places in the New Testament, is agape. So if we want to take Jesus seriously, to love one another as he has loved us, we need to know what kind of love he’s talking about.2 John 13:34. The love of Jesus’ new commandment is agape.3 https://biblehub.com/greek/25.htm And moments before the Gospel we just heard, Jesus shows his disciples what agape looks like. Admittedly, today’s Gospel is a bit disorienting. Our calendar tells us today is the Fifth Sunday of Easter, but our Gospel transports us back in time to Maundy Thursday: the night that Jesus washes his disciples’ feet in an act of humble service. This tells us that agape is not a love of emotion-fueled desire; it is a love of action. A love of the will. A love borne of the will to delight in the well-being of the beloved. A love rooted in sacrifice and humility. There are many ways that disciples of Jesus can manifest this cruciform-contoured love.
The covenant of Christian marriage is one.
Two weeks ago, I had the joy of officiating a marriage in this very Nave. The couple I married that day were among the first newcomers I welcomed to Trinity after joining one year ago to lead our newcomer outreach. So, when our paths converged in this chancel 15 days ago, I could barely contain my tears of joy. Their marriage also marked a notable first in my five years as a priest. It was the first same-sex marriage I’ve ever officiated, which only deepened my pride and gratitude for a Church that fully affirms LGBTQ folx in all aspects of its common life.
Next month marks ten years since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex civil marriage in all 50 states.4 “Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015),” Justia Law, accessed May 17, 2025, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/644/. And this July marks ten years since the Episcopal Church codified same-sex marriage in its canons.5 Sharon Sheridan, “General Convention Approves Marriage Equality,” Episcopal News Service, March 8, 2018, https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2015/07/01/general-convention-approves-marriage-equality/. A decade into this new era, questions about LGBTQ equality might feel like finished and settled business to some. But, in truth, there is little cause for complacency and plenty of cause for renewed vigilance. At least one Supreme Court justice has suggested that the Obergefell decision should be revisited.6 Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Clarence Thomas’s Concurring Opinion Raises Questions about What Rights Might Be next,” The New York Times, June 24, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/clarence-thomas-roe-griswold-lawrence-obergefell.html. And the climate for LGBTQ+ equality deteriorated dramatically this past January 20, as it did for many historically marginalized communities. This was made clear when, in his first address to the nation on Inauguration Day, the President of the United States chose to deny the existence and the humanity of our transgender siblings.7 Donald J. Trump, “The Inaugural Address,” The White House, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/the-inaugural-address/. The relevant quote is “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” And it is against this backdrop that Trinity Church renews its commitment to embracing the very communities those in positions of earthly power are intent on marginalizing.
As our national leaders grow increasingly hostile to immigrants and refugees, the newly established “Trinity Neighbors” ministry is providing companionship and essential support to an immigrant family of five. Walking alongside this family as companions. Helping them to make their home in Boston. Nurturing a friendship rooted in mutuality. This ministry is a direct response to the call to love our neighbors that permeates the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Then, just last month, the Ministry Council and Vestry endorsed the newly formed “OUT@Trinity” ministry, a ministry whose mission is to continue “fostering a culture that wholly affirms LGBTQ people as beloved children of God created in the image of God.”
While OUT@Trinity may be a new incarnation of ministry, its mission is hardly a new endeavor for Trinity. One of the many incredible parts of working at Trinity Church is that we have an Archive and an Archives Manager on our staff! And God bless her, she is always willing to unearth artifacts that tell Trinity’s story. Artifacts like advertisements for services held at Trinity during the darkest days of the AIDS crisis. Or a recording of the 2016 “Equality Evensong,” which included a sermon delivered from this pulpit by the Honorable Margaret Marshall, one-time Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice and author of the 2003 decision that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.8 Mary Davenport Davis, “Trinity Church Boston Celebrates Sacred, Secular Marriage Equality,” Episcopal News Service, June 3, 2016, https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2016/06/03/trinity-church-boston-celebrates-sacred-secular-marriage-equality/. Coupled with the memories of our long-time members, these artifacts tell a clear story: Trinity Church in the City of Boston has been striving to embrace the LGBTQ+ community for many years. Now, we renew our commitment to maintain that legacy, at a moment when it is sorely needed.
Let’s be clear, however: the role of LGBTQ+ people is far from a settled issue when we look at the wider Church, even in our Anglican Communion. Across the pond, in the Church of England, disagreements on this issue along with that of women’s ordination are sowing seeds of division, threatening the unity of our mother Church.
In an article published this month in The Church Times, the leaders of two London parishes known for their radical welcome offered what I believe to be an essential theological insight in this ongoing conversation. They remind us that the full inclusion of these communities in the life of the Church is not about the Church doing something “for gay people” or “for women.” Rather, their full inclusion is “fundamentally about the way in which the Holy Spirit renews the Church itself.”9 Samuel Wells and Lucy Winkett, “Separate Structures Put the Church of England in Danger,” The Church Times, May 9, 2025, https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/9-may/comment/opinion/separate-structures-put-the-church-of-england-in-danger. And as the Acts of the Apostles reminds us, the Holy Spirit has been renewing the Church from the very beginning by drawing the circle wider: by tearing down barriers and upending established norms.
Today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles describes an event known as the “Gentile Pentecost,” a watershed event in the life of the early Church that had profound implications for the composition of the Christian community.10 This event is first described in Acts 10. The passage appointed for this Sunday is Acts 11:1-18 is a re-telling of the event from Peter’s perspective. Indeed, 2,000 years later, we can scarcely fathom just how controversial it would have been to incorporate Gentiles into the community of Jewish followers of Jesus. For the original followers of Jesus, the notion of welcoming outsiders who did not share their customs and norms was unthinkable.
But I want to be clear what this story is not saying. This story is not a blanket condemnation of Jewish customs. The practices of circumcision and abstaining from certain foods, these customs were and are a gift of the Jewish people’s covenant relationship with God. But for the community of the New Covenant, the Church, the Holy Spirit eradicates these markers to expand the boundaries of the community. When the Holy Spirit descended on Corenlius and his Gentile household, she was breaking down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles and expanding the boundaries of the Church to include all people and all nations.11 Ephesians 2:14 As Peter, the Jewish leader of the early Church, relays the story to his fellow apostles, he boldly proclaims: “If then God gave [the Gentiles] the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”12 Acts 11:17 (NRSVUE), emphasis mine.
As I journeyed alongside that wedding couple over the course of the last year, I had the privilege of witnessing their mutual love and fidelity, the depth of their faith,
and their earnest desire for the Church to invoke God’s blessing on their marriage. And in my homily, I reminded them that their marriage, like all Christian marriages, had a purpose that extended beyond themselves. Their marriage, their union, their life together was not only for their mutual joy. It was also a sign to the world. And this isn’t just some idea I cooked up for a sermon! If you were to open the Prayer Books in the pew racks in front of you and turn to the marriage liturgy, you would find a prayer that, for me, marks the theological summit of the entire service. In this prayer, we beseech God to make the life of the newly married couple “a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.”13 The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), 429.
Friends, we live in a sinful, broken world. We do not have to look farther than today’s headlines to see that. But we are people of resurrection hope. A community rooted in agape; the love of Jesus Christ. And we are called to be signs of that love. To be a healing, reconciling, despair-conquering sign of joy to the world. May we have the strength and perseverance to walk always in this love, drawing the circle ever wider, empowered by the boundary busting, barrier breaking power of the Holy Spirit – who, in the fullness of time, will not be hindered.