That We All May Be One

Appropriate condolences and expressions of appreciation for an influential and provocative Supreme Court Justice have been offered at the unexpected death of Antonin Scalia yesterday. That is most appropriate, as would be delay in the immediate politicization of the process of approving his replacement. Let us at least observe an appropriate period for the grieving of his large family and many friends before switching on the judicial sausage-making machine.

I would like to focus instead on the many descriptions of Justice Scalia as “brilliant” and as possessing “a keen intellect.” He is universally acknowledged as a constitutional “originalist,” a method of constitutional interpretation that looks to the meaning of words and concepts as they were understood by the Founding Fathers. In other words, rather than seeing the Constitution as a “living, breathing document” he believed that it must be interpreted exactly as the 18th century framers would have understood it.

That is, it seems to me, exactly what biblical fundamentalists argue when they advocate expounding the “plain sense” of the Bible without need for interpretation, contextualization, or an understanding of progressive revelation even within the text itself. And while such Bible teachers may know the Scriptures backwards and forwards, chapter and verse, and while they may be experts in the Hebrew and Greek languages in which the original documents were written, they would not qualify as biblical “scholars” in my opinion.

Rather, they too deny that the text they study (in this case, the Bible) is a living,breathing document but rather seek to interpret it as it was originally written by its ancient authors, with their “scientific” knowledge and primitive world views. Perhaps these Bible teachers should be called “biblical originalists.” And, in that case, Justice Scalia might best be described as a “constitutional fundamentalist.”

As an African American commentator said this morning, “If the Constitution was not a living, breathing document, I would still be a slave and only worth what someone would pay for me.”

Most holy and merciful Father:  We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in thought word and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. (Page 267, The Book of Common Prayer)

So begins the “Litany of Penitence” Episcopalians use on this Ash Wednesday.  As much as I value the forty days of Lent as a season for prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, I must admit to increasing discomfort with our focus on begging for mercy from God, often seemingly groveling before the Holy One as “miserable sinners” not worthy to “gather up the crumbs under (God’s) table.”

Our sins don’t hurt God nearly as much as they hurt one another and ourselves. How much better if we said these words from our General Confession to each other, to the ones we have actually hurt and wronged by our thoughtless and selfish behavior:

“…I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart; I have not loved my neighbor (either). I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. For the sake of…Jesus Christ…have mercy on me and forgive me…”

I think we need to spend a whole lot more time this Lent asking one another for forgiveness and seeking to amend our lives for those many ways we have sinned against one another. Including the broader, actually more important, categories than we usually confess, such as those included farther down in that same Litany of Penitence:

“…all our past unfaithfulness, the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives…our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people…our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves…our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work…our waste and pollution of…creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.”

Yes, we have plenty of need for a season of “penitence and fasting.” Let’s just have the courage to confess our sins and ask forgiveness of the ones we have actually wounded —  one another.

Every Shrove Tuesday I think of Bill Sanderson. He was a priest in a neighboring parish in Cocoa Beach, Florida and was in a clergy, lectionary-study group with me for six or seven years. We also played tennis together several days a week for some of those years.

I think of Bill on this day because he was something of an iconoclast and, on Shrove Tuesdays, Bill and his parish eschewed the usual “pancake supper” and held instead a steak and wine dinner. His point was, if we’re going to fast, let’s really fast and if we’re going to feast, let’s really feast.

The parish I attend now does something of the same thing. While sticking to the traditional pancake supper, they feature really good, live jazz music offered by the Manny Lopez trio, a local celebrity and his friends. The mood is entirely festive and an appropriate way to feast before the fast begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday.

As Christians, I’m afraid we’ve really leveled out and tamed the annual cycles of feasting and fasting. Very few of us give up anything particularly significant for Lent beyond desserts or chocolate. And, with the possible exception of a few champagne receptions after the Easter Vigil, we don’t even celebrate together with much gusto.

All this is, I think, to our impoverishment. Of course, we don’t “have” to fast. We certainly should not do it to earn God’s favor or punish ourselves with some kind of penance. But, denying ourselves something, saying No to ourselves in small things can in fact strengthen our spiritual muscles so that we can say No when it is really important in life — No to cheating on our taxes…or on our spouses. No to drugs. No to revenge and violence.

Nor, I suppose, do we “have” to feast. Only if we want to celebrate the incredible gift of this fantastic universe and the beautiful “earth, our island home” on which we live. Only if we are grateful to have awakened this morning to another day of living and moving and having our being together as colleagues, friends, and lovers. Only if we recognize that none of this comes to us because we have earned it. But only because

God is good…all the time!  All the time…God is good!

And that calls for a Celebration.