It was a pleasant surprise to see that representatives of
every congregation in the South West Chapter were present at the Saturday
afternoon gathering in Shenandoah, hosted by Kim Gee, the Senior Warden of St John’s. The warm atmosphere of her home seemed to provide the appropriate
context for the theme of the day which was “reframing.” I was going to share
and adapt a presentation we had heard from Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook at the annual meeting of Living Stones Partnership earlier this month on that same topic. In turn she had been drawing from
Carol Howard Merritt’s book Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation.
I spoke about the significance that I had felt in reframing
my schedule so that in some places I have been able to hold conversation and
fellowship time ahead of worship. This had been a terrific experience in my
last visitation in Mount Pleasant, and our gathering for a chapter teaching in
the home of the Shenandoah warden was another fine example. It offered a more
informal atmosphere which also encouraged our opportunities for sharing our
various reflections on what was being presented. In the southern part of the
chapter (Council Bluffs, Glenwood, Shenandoah and Red Oak) we have tried a
number of ministry configurations over the years that have only partially
worked. The Red Oak congregation closed itself a year ago on Maundy Thursday;
and the Ministry Development Team concept has also only been partially
successful (Glenwood has a team). I came away convinced that we need to find a
clergy leader who could work with the leaders in Shenandoah and reside in the
town.
For the present, it was important that there be recognition
of the leadership potential in Shenandoah. The Reverend Artis Ferrell has
served the area as one of the last priests ordained under the old Canon 9
[Editor’s note: Title III Canon 9: Of the
Ordination of Local Priests and Deacons specified that “congregations or
missionary opportunities in communities which are small, isolated, remote, or
distinct” could, together with the bishop and Standing Committee, call persons
to be “ordained local Priests and Deacons and licensed to serve the
congregation out of which they were called.” This canon was revised in 2003 at
The General Convention of the Episcopal Church.], and continues to offer her
services even though she is deep into her retirement. She now focuses only on
St John’s, presiding at the Eucharist twice a month. The conversation to be had
at a diocesan-wide level continues to be about realistic congregational
development, and I am glad that Kim Gee, the St John’s Senior Warden will help
bring this conversation to the Board at its March meeting.
I met with the people of St John’s Shenandoah the next day.
There was further chapter support by members of St John’s Glenwood being in
attendance for worship. We confirmed a twelve year old who was first brought to
the church by her parents but then that duty was taken over by her grandmother.
It was a joy to give thanks for such grandmothers, as it was to see the girl’s
family members come out in good numbers to support her. When I asked her what
she aimed to do after her formal education was complete, she said that she
wanted to be a lawyer.
I ended the weekend with a visit to Patsy Martin, who was
suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).
Patsy is still chaplain to the local American Legion, and had originally been
nominated as priest for St John’s in the ministry development process that
unfortunately did not transpire. As always happens in such encounters, I walked
away quite clear that I had been blessed more than whatever I had been able to
bring.
Congregations do not always realize the significance of
their discipleship and their vitality for God. The congregations’ response to
Patsy’s situation has been tremendous. Theirs is true service, the hidden
service Jesus exemplifies in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also Patsy’s hidden
and on-going ministry to them as she continues to live among them in faith,
hope, love and great courage. In reframing hope, I talked about the claiming of
power as one of the steps of hope. The people of St John’s in their humility
are doing that; just as they are growing into a community of learned wisdom as
they engage the conversation about being Church in a small town in this new
age, and urge the rest of us to join in and invest ourselves in the process.
Sermon from St John’s Shenandoah, Iowa, 23 February 2014
Readings: Epiphany 7- Leviticus 19:
1-2,9-18; 1 Cor. 3: 10-11, 16-23; Matt 5: 38-48
From time to time, I turn to a small, but I think highly
significant, book written in 1967 entitled Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? It is written by Martin Luther King Jr. and I admit that I treat some of its
content like “secondary Scripture.” It contains a vision of the world that is
built on the very words of Jesus which we have before us today. Preaching from
the Sermon on the Mount has been challenging, and has opened up the need for
the inner work of the Spirit. However, I do not treat them as idealistic
visioning, nor as words for the saintly few, but as truths Jesus seeks us to
get our heads and hearts around; truths which nevertheless we have failed to
put into practice. In fact, we do not know what is on the other side of
obedience to the words of Jesus. Last week, we were invited to consider the
uselessness and sinfulness of anger, quarreling and jealousies. This week it is
the issue of revenge and payback that Jesus highlights. The Gospel passage goes
beyond these things and invites us to the loving of our enemies and the praying
for those who despitefully use us and the blessing of those who curse us.
All in all, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out in his
commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, which we find in The Cost of Discipleship, it is a message for extraordinary people. When asked what makes Christians different
from other people, God’s answer is that we are extraordinary. And it is the
very measure by which we relate to others—not seeking revenge and loving even
those who remain at enmity with us—that makes us so. Is that the way we look
upon Kiersten’s renewal of commitment to Christ this morning? We already know
that she is extraordinary in her professed ambition to be a lawyer one day but
the relational work of the Spirit can make her, and all of us, even more so.
Martin Luther King Jr, in Chaos or Community, talks about the need for a “true revolution of
values” relating to poverty and wealth; he calls for a “revolution of values”
with regard to justice in our judicial and governmental policies; and he
invokes a “revolution of values” among nations and in the matter of war and
violence. We only have to look in on affairs in the Ukraine or Syria or
Afghanistan and Iraq to know that we are not ready to study war no more. “We
are called,” he says, “to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that
will only be an initial act. One day the whole Jericho Road must be transformed
so that men and women will not be broken and robbed as they make their journey
through life.”
Jesus does not ease up on us in this week’s section from the
Sermon on the Mount. Revenge is a pretty basic human instinct. We feel that it
is only just to get our own back when we are hurt or abused by another, or by a
system. Jesus, however, says that we will only perpetuate the cycle of violence
and violation. Anyone who has experienced or witnessed people passing through
divorce proceedings can testify to the cycle and escalation of hurt which the
desire for payback can engender. Some of you might remember the movie “The War of the Roses” [1989, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner]. More suffering is piled up during the proceedings than seems
to have been present to cause the initial move to dissolution.
Once we respond to evil with evil, only evil wins. “Anger,”
says the Apostle Paul to the Romans, “does not produce the righteousness of
God.” And the implication is that this is so, no matter how right we feel our
cause may be.
Jesus says that there is only one way to kill a fire, and
that is to let it burn itself out. Refuse to attend to the temptation to
respond and it will run its course. He even suggests leaning into the violence—“if
someone slaps you on one cheek, offer them the other.” Of course, we don’t know
if this works because we rarely try it and not on a large scale. And we have
not tried it for more than 2000 years, since Jesus suggested it. Evil thrives
on provocation, and yet, if we refuse to fuel its fire with our own anger or
even sense of righteousness, it will run its course. Its ugly nature is also
revealed. You see, human beings are made in the image of a merciful and loving
God. At our core, there is goodness within us and if exposed, we can feel
shame. Others can also be ashamed for us, and be repulsed by evil’s abhorrence.
Jesus knows of what he is speaking. He is pointing all the
time to the Cross. Isaiah spoke of the lamb who was silent when led to the
slaughter, to the reed which though bent over, did not break. Jesus lived what
He taught; and He offered a way for us to live and to experience what it means
to bear our own crosses not just as burdens but as instruments on which evil’s
worst could be extinguished.
Yesterday we gathered as the Chapter at Kim’s home—a
wonderful gathering of members from the north and south part of the Chapter. I
think every congregation was represented, in fact. I spoke about the idea of
reframing—a concept I picked up at a recent Conference. What does it mean to
shift our perspectives and reframe our approach to faith and faith communities
and perhaps, as I have said, consider what is at the other side of obedience to
Jesus’ teaching? Few of us hang around to find out. We would rather rush to
judgment, or give as good as we get. And of course, even if we manage to
forgive, we will not forget! We have already shifted our attitudes towards
self-defense. And what is that phrase? “Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me
twice, shame on me!”
Yet Jesus goes further down the path He is offering. He goes
beyond forgoing revenge. He loves His enemy and prays for them. Think about
that. What does it really mean to pray for anyone? To intercede is to stand in
another’s shoes before God, on their behalf, and seek God’s healing,
deliverance, mercy and forgiveness. We bear the burden they bear, and we are
for that split moment that person. To pray for your enemy in all of his or her
nastiness is to become him or her before God. We stand in the shoes of the evil
one, the perpetrator, the persecutor. We take on that person and ask mercy, forgiveness,
deliverance. Again—Jesus is pointing to the reality and the meaning of the
Cross. For he who knew no sin became our sin. He loved us while we were far
off—the stranger, the enemy—and offered His love to bring us home. He invites
us to follow Him. It is a far cry from the disputes that tend to make up the
differences and conflicts within the Church that bears His Name.
Isn’t that approach more than naïve? Or at least, isn’t it a
form of perfectionism or idealism that does not take stock of human sinfulness
which we enfold in our understanding of human nature? Absolutely not! It takes
full awareness of how we are and yet Jesus says: “You don’t overcome evil with
evil—like against like; you overcome it by loving its perpetrators and
interceding for them before God’s mercy and grace. That is the meaning of My
Cross. And was My Cross the last word? No—My Love managed to have that and
still does for those who will follow Me. Remember how I humbled Myself to
become a human servant even unto death. But God highly exalted Me and gave Me a
Name above every name. That is the last word.”
To this perfection, Jesus finally invites us. Bonhoeffer
points out that following Christ is about undertaking the extraordinary as we
embrace Christ’s lesson to live by the power of the will to love.
And so let me leave you with this: Are we ready to be
extraordinary with God in Jesus Christ? This is the sense in which Jesus calls
us to be “perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect.” Perfection is about
leaning into insults and hurts; loving and praying for enemies and persecutors;
and so fulfilling by the bearing of our own Cross the law of Christ unleashing
the power of His Love to lead us into new life. Bonhoeffer further reminds us
that Jesus prayed for his enemies as He hung on the Cross. This is what gives
us freedom and helps us to read Paul’s words along with Him: “All is mine; and
I am Christ’s; and Christ belongs to God.”
“You shall be holy”, says the Lord, “For I am holy.”
Amen
