Year
A, Epiphany 2
In April, after my skype interview with the St. John’s search committee, but before the small group from the search committee visited me, I made a clandestine visit to St. John’s with my parents and my aunt who were in town. It was the Monday after Easter and no one was around. I wanted to go inside the church, but the doors were locked and I really didn’t want to look as though I was lurking and have someone call in a suspicious person. So we mostly just walked around the grounds. It was a beautiful day and the flowers were blooming. As I walked down one of the lovely brick paths, I said to my family, “I don’t have a chance here. Look at this place! They are never going to call someone like me.” I became a little more hopeful as I proceeded through the process and got to know your search committee. I never lost the feeling that I would be the most fortunate person in the world if I was called to be your rector.
I remain grateful for that
call. I am so thankful that you all
would take a risk hiring someone younger than your average rector of a church
this size and with such an historical legacy.
I am thankful that while you are a serious church, you do not take
yourself too seriously. I am thankful
that as your parish profile said, you sought a rector who has a respect, but
not reverence for your long traditions.
And I am thankful that you have been patient with me as I get to know
you and your customs. So far, no one has
slapped my hand when I have made a mistake.
You have been nothing but gracious and generous. I thank God for each one of you.
You might be wondering why I am
buttering you up. Perhaps you think I am
about to ask for money. This is not the
case. I am merely following the model that Paul, the author of 1st
Corinthians used so often in his writings. Paul almost always began with a greeting and a
thanksgiving; even when he was a little ticked off at the community, even when
he was writing from prison. He always
gave thanks. If I had followed his exact
style, it would sound more like this: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that
has been given you in Christ Jesus…”
When Paul
wrote the Corinthian people he was very careful to thank them for the gifts
that God had given them. While we often proclaim
that everything we have comes from God, we tend to take credit for the good
things. It’s hard not to, especially
when those accomplishments come as the result of hard work and practice. Yet Paul was pretty careful in this letter
to the Corinthian Church. This was an
important community. They were on a port and consequently had more money than
most. They were also exposed to more
people, more education, and more culture.
They were the elite and they knew it.
It would appear from other parts of the letter that they actually took
pride in the spiritual gifts that they acquired and used these gifts to make
them feel superior to other communities or even people in their own
community.
Because
of all of that, Paul took a fairly subtle approach in the beginning of his
letter. This is unusual because if you
know Paul, you know that he was rarely subtle and in this particular case, the
subtlety only lasts about 11 verses.
Enjoy it while you can. Another
rather subtle point that Paul made was in his greeting: “To the church of God
that is in Corinth… together with all those who in every place call on the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” As you can see, he started by acknowledging
them as the church of God, which is exactly what they expected to hear. However, they were not THE church of God,
they were “the church of God in Corinth…”
He went on
to add: “together with all those who in every place who call on the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ…” This probably does
not sound very scandalous to any of us.
I doubt that any of us are under the impression that we are the only
church God loves and cherishes.
However, in Paul’s day and age, there were the chosen and the
unchosen. People believed that God’s
love did not reach all people, but only a limited number. And even if they did believe in their head
that all people could call on the name of Christ, in their heart they believed
that they were the ones who God would actually answer. It’s like that saying, “God loves everyone,
but I’m his favorite.” Some of the
people in Corinth had started to believe that they were the especially holy
ones, the especially gifted ones. So in
this simple greeting and thanksgiving, Paul was saying that not only was Jesus
Christ the God of all people, but all were loved equally as well.
It
is important to be thankful for the church we are members of and to have
confidence that we are God’s people and following the word of God to the best
of our ability. Yet it is also important
not to get too insulated, too congregational.
When Paul was writing to the church of Corinth, there were no
denominations or dioceses. There were
communities and even then people found a way to seclude themselves from others.
I fear that it is even easier in this day and age to segregate ourselves from
other Christians and other faiths and consequently make judgments on
others.
In
1956 Martin Luther King delivered a sermon to his Baptist Church in
Montgomery. He called it, “Paul’s letter
to American Christians.” He started by saying
how impressed he was by all the advances we had made over the last 1900 years
but he quickly moved into what he felt were our lack of moral and spiritual
advances. At one point he spoke to the
division of the church, just as Paul had so many years before. He said, “They tell me that in America you
have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations.
The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations,
but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute
truth.”[1] When I heard that line I thought, what would
he say now? Some estimate that there are
over 30,000 denominations. It’s
impossible to keep track of them all so no can claim to know the exact number. One thing is certain, we are still warring
against one another. Usually that war
looks more like disregard and apathy than actual violence.
I
love St. John’s and I still find myself in awe of this church and in awe of my
place in this church. Yet we are all
called to remember that we are only as good or as holy as our acknowledgement
of God’s gifts to us and our reliance on God for all that we are and all that
we have. I know that we have been going
through some difficult times for the last couple of years. Everyone is ready to grow and reclaim the
greatness that was once St. John’s. Let
me say this: you never stopped being great.
You never stopped being loved by God.
God never left this place. We
won’t ever go back to who we once were. Why go back when we can go
forward? Why be great when we can be
loved by God? Why be THE church of God
when we can be one of the many churches of God?
When I arrived to St. John’s, nailed to my door was a piece of paper
that said, “We have been waiting for you for approximately two years or 730
days or 17,520 hours…” There is a lot of
waiting when the church is in transition.
So let me tell you this: you are the church you have been waiting
for. You are the church I have been
praying for. I will conclude as Paul
ended his letter, “The favor of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love to all of you in Christ Jesus.”
[1]
Paul’s Letter to American Christians by Martin Luther King Jr.
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_pauls_letter_to_american_christians/
No comments:
Post a Comment