That We All May Be One

We conclude the great missionary season of Epiphany today. I say “missionary” because this season has been all about the light of Christ shining into the whole world, making it clear that the Good News of God’s love was not to be limited to the people of Israel or any one,  ethnic group, but was always intended to be shared throughout the world to all people.  Because of that, the Last Sunday after The Epiphany every year has been designated “World Mission Sunday” by the Episcopal Church. Our mission to the whole world!

One of the ways we do “World Mission” in our church is by a network of Companion Dioceses. We pray every week for our long-term relationship with the Diocese of Brechin in Scotland and our one with Swaziland which was established during my time as Bishop of Iowa. And, of course, we now have an even newer companionship with the Diocese of Nzara in South Sudan.

They especially need our prayers these days as their country descends even more deeply into chaos and war. Please remember Bishop Samuel Peni and his family. He actually studied for the priesthood right here in our diocese, in Dubuque, at one of the seminaries there, and his family received financial support from the people of Trinity Cathedral. They are our companions in World Mission!

And we always read the Gospel story of the Transfiguration on this Sunday because it was one of the formative experiences for Peter, James and John as they were present at a powerful mountain-top experience of Jesus. And they realized –quite literally “in a flash” – that Jesus was the embodiment of the Law (represented by Moses) and the Prophets (represented by Elijah). This realization left them silenced for a time, but it didn’t take long for them to regain their voices and to be about their mission as apostles…as those who are sent.

Well, you and I are the “sent ones” today. We’re the ones who are sent to share with our families, friends, and neighbors what we’ve discovered about God through Jesus and the church, and to continue to let God’s light shine in our dark world today. Our Prayer Book Catechism says that “the mission of the Church is to restore all people…to unity with God…and each other…in Christ.”

But that’s a pretty sparse definition, so the Anglican Communion has tried to flesh it out a bit, by adopting something called “The Five Marks of Mission.” It’s a kind of check-list for us to see if we are being about the mission of the church. I’d like to share them with you this morning:

Mark #1 is “to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.” Obviously, it all starts there. We are to witness, by our words and our deeds, the extremely good news that God is in charge of this world, and that we are not! That’s what it means to live under the king-ship, the reign, the sovereignty of God…and to begin doing it right now! That’s one reason good preaching is important. It’s typically done by an ordained person, but more and more licensed “lay” preachers are being trained and commissioned for this important ministry.

Since Susanne and I moved to Iowa City, we’ve been attending New Song and I’ve been mightily impressed with the several lay preachers I have heard. They bring a unique and different perspective to the pulpit and to the proclamation of the Gospel that never fails to move me.

Mark #2 is “to teach, baptize, and nurture new believers.” So, Christian education is important for a congregation as well. If we have young people, then of course Sunday school and such newer programs like Godly Play and Journey to Adulthood need to happen. But, our formation as Christians doesn’t stop when we grow up and get confirmed!  Bible studies, Education for Ministry, and the kind of ministry formation programs we hope you will get involved in here at St. Alban’s help keep us alive and growing in our faith, instead of just stagnating and sort of “treading water” in our spiritual lives.

Mark #3 is “to respond to human need by loving service.” St. Francis famously said, “Preach the Gospel always…if necessary, use words!” And, by that, he meant that serving other people is also a way to demonstrate that they are valued and treasured by their Creator, and that God, and God’s people, want only the best for them. That’s why we’re so proud of you for the outreach you do in this community by hosting the various recovery groups, by the feeding program, the underwear ministry, the gift bags, and by the faithful jail outreach which emanates from your gathered life here as the People of God.

Mark #4 is “to seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind, and to pursue peace and reconciliation.” Some people are uncomfortable with the church speaking out in the public square, but the “separation of church and state” doesn’t mean that the church has no role in society. It means that the state may not establish any one religion in this country. The church should never be “partisan” but Jesus does call us stand with the poor and the marginalized, and to challenge structures that oppress and hurt people.

Sometimes, you can either keep pulling people out of a raging river one at a time, or you can go upstream and find out who’s throwing them in…and try to make them stop! The work Grant Curtis and others do to make our community a more accepting and welcoming place for recent immigrants and new citizens of the United States is a good example of this Fourth Mark of Mission.

Finally, Mark #5 is “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” It has to be said that we Christians have not always taken our responsibility to this planet very seriously. And while it’s true that the first Creation story in Genesis says that we are to “be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it,” (Genesis 1:28), the second account of Creation says that God put us in the Garden of Eden “to till it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:1):  in other words, to be good stewards of the earth. Like a good farmer is to be a good steward of the land – so that it will bear fruit for years to come.

I hope that your vestry keeps that responsibility in mind as you make decisions in this congregation about how you care for this beautiful piece of property you are stewards of, whether that’s in how you conserve energy or how you re-cycle or how you take care of the land.

Well, we enter the holy season of Lent this week. This Wednesday is “Ash Wednesday.” Lent is a time of self-examination and repentance, of prayer, fasting and self-denial. I hope you’ve been thinking about something to give up for Lent or something new to take on…or both! But it’s not only a time for self-examination of our personal lives. It can be a time for the church to do some self-examination of our own –corporately.

Are we carrying out the mission of the church here at St. Alban’s, are we willing to make the kind of changes necessary to make sure we can continue carrying out that mission for years to come? Are we proclaiming the Good News? Nurturing our young people? Serving the poor? Speaking out against violence? Being good stewards of this beautiful world God has given us?

If not, there’s still time to repent. Still time to turn around and go in a new direction. Still time to heed the voice from the cloud which spoke to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration: Look: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

New York Times columnist, David Brooks, asks this question this morning, “How Should One Resist the Trump Administration?” Interesting first of all, from this conservative voice, that the question is not “Why” but “How” to resist. Brooks uses some interesting metaphors in wrestling with the issue.

If “the primary Trump threat is authoritarianism,” Brook opines, the U.S. may not slide into full fascism, but become a kind of “repressive kleptocracy” where democratic rights slowly disappear, federal contracts go to the oligarchs, and the media and judiciary are complicit. In such a case, what is called for is a “Bonhoeffer moment,” using street protests, disruptive tactics and fiery rhetoric against the Administration. (I note that Brooks would not recommend following Bonhoeffer in participating in an assassination plot!)

Alternatively, we could simply be in for a time of stagnation and corruption which would call, in Brooks’ estimation, for a “St. Benedict moment.” Following this founder of monasticism who fled into the desert to form alternative communities, then activists simply ignore Washington, put their heads down, and commit to making change happen at the state and local levels. And, presumably, wait for better days to come.

Or, David Brooks’ third possibility is that the main threat from a Trump Administration is “a combination of incompetence and anarchy.” In which case, it will collapse of its own weight and the task will be a “Gerald Ford Moment” which will eventually call forth a decent, experienced public servant who will rebuild the fabric of government and restore the trust of the people. Predictably, as a completely establishment conservative, Brooks thinks the third option is where we are headed and hopes for “a new establishment, one that works again.”

While one can wish that this scenario may indeed play out, my take is that our diagnosis of the current situation depends a lot on where we sit in society, the perspective from which we view this disastrous election and its aftermath. If you are wealthy and secure, like Mr Brooks, you can afford to see things calling for a “Ford Moment.” If you are middle-class and largely secure, like me, you can choose the luxury of opting for the “Benedict Moment” and hunker down, working to effect small changes locally. (I even wrote a blog recently entitled “Think Globally, Act Locally).

But if you are poor. Or if you are a woman. Or if you are a person of color. Or if you are an immigrant. Then you may well see this as a “Bonhoeffer Moment” and resist with every fiber of your being and by every means necessary.

Hopefully, not with the despairing last resort of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the horrors of Nazism.

Hopefully…not that.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5

I’m not preaching today but, if I was, I would say something like this: In confusing, uncertain and downright scary times like these, it’s important for the people of God to remind ourselves of what we are all about. We must remember that Jesus, and his earliest followers, lived in a time of oppression and violence. Their whole nation was under the domination of the Roman Empire and had been for a very long time.

Some of Jesus’ fellow Jews counseled violent revolution to overthrow the government. These were the Zealots of Sicaari (dagger men). Others followed the path of withdrawal. The Essenes and others retreated into the desert to avoid being persecuted and to create an intentional community of prayer and holiness; there to await the coming of the Messiah. Still others like the Pharisees and Sadducees tried various ways to “go along to get along.” They paid attention to their religious observances, but made the compromises they could with the political establishment and, in the process, were often rewarded by the state in ways tangible and intangible.

Jesus taught another way — the way of non-violent resistance to the powers-that-be. He and his closest followers continued to live “in the world” but to live lives that were remarkably different from the dominant culture. Like salt they livened things up a bit in the midst of the meager rations of everyday life. They stood with the outcast and the marginalized. They brought what healing they could into the lives of the poor. Occasionally, by openly debating the issues (with the Pharisees and others), by staging a mock procession into Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, and finally by undergoing public martyrdom, they brought a shock to the taste buds of those who feasted on the provisions of others.

By public preaching and teaching, by enacted parables of resistance and justice they sought, like that lamp on a lampstand, to shed light into the darkness of their day. They stood up to tyranny, but without breaking a bruised reed or lifting up their voices in the street. They were salt. They were light.

Are we?

For evangelical Christians: Donald Trump’s moral check list from the 5th Chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. “Works of the Flesh:

1. Fornication – Check
2. Impurity – Check
3. Licentiousness – Check
4. Idolatry – Check
5. Sorcery – Not so much
6. Enmities – Check
7. Strife – Check
8. Jealousy – Check
9. Anger – Check
10. Quarrels – Check
11. Dissensions – Check
12. Factions – Check
13. Envy – Check
14. Drunkenness – Not so much (teetotaler)
15. Carousing – Check

“Works of the Spirit”

1. Love – Check (family)
2. Joy – Unknown
3. Peace – Not so much
4. Patience – Not so much
5. Kindness – Not so much
6. Generosity – Not so much
7. Faithfulness – Not so much
8. Gentleness – Not so much
9. Self-control – Not so much

No wonder he was like a fish out of water at the National Prayer Breakfast!

On my long drive to Florida, as I often do I listened – and sang along with – a CD from the Community of Celebration (the musical arm of which was called “The Fisherfolk” decades ago).  I serve as Bishop Visitor to this wonderful community of Christians now living in Aliquippa PA, incarnating God’s love and healing in a distressed, formerly “Rust Belt” neighborhood.

As so many of us remain deeply saddened, depressed if not angry, and nearly hopeless following Donald Trump’s election, his Cabinet selections, and his recent executive orders, it is all very well to resist, to demonstrate, and to begin planning for the next elections to bring some sanity back into our government.

But we also need words and music to help us lament. I was touched deeply once again by this modern interpretation of the ancient Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy) by J. Page-Clark and sung by the Community of Celebration in their worship and on a number of albums and CDs. I wish I could sing the haunting melody for you over this medium. But these are the words:

Look around you; can you see. Times are troubled, people grieve. See the violence, feel the hardness. O my people, weep with me.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison

Walk among them; I’ll go with you. Reach out to them with my hands. Suffer with me and together, we will serve them, help them stand.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison

Forgive us, Father; hear our prayer. We would walk with you, anywhere. Through your suffering, with forgiveness, take your life into the world.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison

Join me in praying these words through your tears…

And mine.

A prayer for the Women’s March from today’s Scripture…

“...our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert, and always persevere...”

(from the Letter to the Church at Ephesus, Chapter 6)

Today is the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter and marks the beginning of the 2017 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The week will conclude on January 25 with the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This is a week during which Christians are asked to pray for the unity of the church. The modern ecumenical movement, which has church unity as its goal, is sometime said to have started with the formation of the World Council of Churches after World War II.

But the Council itself came into being largely as a result of the merger of two already-existing movements — Faith and Order which focused on matters of doctrine and church structure/governance and Life and Work which explored ways the churches could work together around issued of justice and peace in the world. Those movements came into their own after the First World War.

For a long time, the emphasis was on Life and Work since the differences in Faith and Order among the churches seemed too great to overcome. However, a renewed emphasis on faith and order from, say, the 1960s has brought about a remarkable number of agreed statements, full communion relationships, and even mergers where previously separate communions (denominations) have become one. It has been a remarkable half-century.

As ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, I spent many years in bilateral and multilateral dialogues — Anglican – Roman Catholic, Lutheran – Episcopal, the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), Episcopal – Methodist, Presbyterian – Episcopal and others. While I would not take anything for those experiences and the advances toward the unity of the church we made, I believe we have gone about as far as we can go in the Faith and Order side of things. Now, especially now, it is time to focus again on Life and Work.

I have been reading a lot of Dietrich Bonhoeffer lately because I sincerely believe that the United States is facing some of the same challenges Germany faced in the 1930s with the rise of Nazism and Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer was deeply involved in the fledgling ecumenical movement of his day and derived much strength and support from ecumenical colleagues in England and the United States as he became a leader in the Confessing Church in Germany which opposed Hitler and the capitulation of the established church in his rise to power.

Fortunately, Donald Trump does not have an established church in the country to co-opt. There is a reason we have a separation between church and state. However, his embrace of the so-called “evangelicals” (I recoil at letting them claim that hallowed title) and the “prosperity gospel” preachers may well give him a kind of cover and lead people to believe that the racist, misogynist, and xenophobic policies he is likely to promote are actually “Christian” positions.

It will be up to Christians in a renewed Life and Work movement (and, I would hope, a strengthened World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches) to bear witness to the truth of the gospel and resist any attempts to apply a veneer of “faith” onto right wing politics. We have seen this done before. The Confessing Church in Germany, however heroic, was a bit late in mounting resistance to Hitler and his minions.

We must not let that happen again.

Much has been written about the unconscionable irony of President-elect Donald Trump getting into a war of words with civil rights icon John Lewis virtually on the eve of this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is just one more example of Trump’s insensitivity and tone deafness on the matter of race relations in this country over which he will soon preside.

It will be enormously difficult for Donald Trump to “bring this country together,” as he claims to want to do, if he continues to denigrate African Americans, women, immigrants, the press, allies in NATO and the United Nations, and so many others. One of Trump’s most dangerous characteristics (and he has many) is his prickly, thin-skinned nature which we see played our daily on Twitter. Presidents, even the most popular ones, are constantly being criticized — sometimes deservedly, sometimes not. Are we in for four years of daily rants about every such critical remark? Probably.

A more rational response to John Lewis’ (and others) opinion about the “illegitimacy” of his presidency and decisions not to attend the inauguration would have been for Trump to reach out to them or at least to state publicly that he would do all he could to win their confidence and trust in the days and months ahead. Alas, another missed opportunity.

I have been reading a lot of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth lately and considering the similarities between what we are going through in this country and the situation the German people faced in the 1930s during the rise of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler. I do not believe Trump is another Hitler yet, but I fear he might be. Hitler was “elected” by a population who felt that democracy was not working for them and that they therefore had to have a charismatic, unconventional leader who would “drain the swamp” and get things done.

Hitler began by embracing Christianity and the German church because he knew it was in his best interests to do so. Prophets like Barth and Bonhoeffer saw through this ruse and finally felt the need to set up a “Confessing Church” in opposition to the established church which has fallen under the dictator’s sway. We are fortunate not to have an “established” church in the United States for Donald Trump to co-opt, although his embracing of the so-called “evangelicals” and “prosperity gospel” preachers is troubling.

I have mixed feelings about our National Cathedral agreeing to participate in the inauguration by providing a choir and hosting the interfaith prayer service. On the one hand, we have had that role for many decades even when many Episcopalians opposed a particular candidate and surely it is right to pray for our leaders whether we agree or disagree with them. On the other hand, never before have we seen a President-elect who has made so many public statements which are at odds with the spirit of Christ and the teachings of the church. It would have been a powerful witness to respectfully decline the invitation to participate this time.

When all is said and done, on this Martin Luther King Day, we must heed the witness of John Lewis and his mentor, Dr. King, not to keep silent in these days, but to remain eternally vigilant lest the slippery slope that led the German people to plunge into the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust be our fate in the coming years. It can happen here!

King famously said that “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice” and I believe that. But, as this recent election has shown us, that arc has many twists and turns along its path.