This was the sermon I would have given on last Sunday but I ended up in the hospital but am home now.
A Sermon for II
Epiphany All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC January 20,
2013 Thomas E Wilson, Rector
Paul’s letter to
the Corinthians was written to a church that was dealing with a
squabbling group of people who wanted win over their opponents. Paul
writes to tell them that they are all part of the one body of Christ
and all have a spirit from God that can be used to become one in
Christ. The 12th chapter of the epistle which our lesson
for today is from, is a prelude to Paul’s point in the 13th
chapter that the gifts of the church is faith, hope and love but the
greatest of these is love.
This weekend we
remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and we horror his
leadership in the areas of Civil Rights and it is well that we
remember his contributions in that area but today I want to look at
his contributions to our spiritual life as Christians. In 1963 King
was leading a campaign to stop discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama.
He was arrested and put into jail. While he was there eight leaders
of the religious community, two Episcopal Bishops, two Methodist
Bishops, a Roman Catholic Bishop, a Presbyterian Moderator, the
Pastor of First Baptist in Birmingham, and a Jewish Rabbi wrote an
open letter called “A Call to Unity” condemning Dr. King’s
actions as an outsider fomenting trouble. They praised the actions of
the police to maintain order and recommended that the problems of the
discrimination should only be handled by the courts and the church
arguing that the matters be decided in court.
King responded by
writing a letter in response, which is now known as A Letter From
a Birmingham Jail. The jailers refused to allow him paper so he
wrote it in the margins of the newspaper scraps which were smuggled
out and assembled in the offices of the organization. The New York
Times at first refused to publish the letter in its magazine. It was
finally published and it was shot across the bow of the American
religious establishment.
He wrote in part:
. . . I must
honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I
do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find
something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the
gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has
been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to
it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly
catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery,
Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white
church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the
South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been
outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and
misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more
cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the
anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.
In spite of my
shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white
religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our
cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel
through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I
had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been
disappointed.
I have heard
numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to
comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I
have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree
because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your
brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the
Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth
pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a
mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I
have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with
which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many
churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion
which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul,
between the sacred and the secular.
I have traveled the
length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern
states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have
looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires
pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her
massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found
myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their
God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett
dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were
they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and
hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary
Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of
complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"
Yes, these questions
are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the
laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of
love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep
love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the
rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great
grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ.
But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social
neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time
when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early
Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they
believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that
recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a
thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early
Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and
immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers
of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the
Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a
colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in
number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to
be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and
example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and
gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the
contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain
sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from
being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of
the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often
even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of
God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not
recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose
its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed
as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth
century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the
church has turned into outright disgust.
Perhaps I have once
again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably
bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I
must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within
the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.
Many churches
struggled to respond. In the church in upstate New York in which I
was in the youth group and an acolyte we had many arguments. I was
one of the ones who pushed for greater action but got few responses
than an admonition to respect my elders and to be patient. The next
year the white wife of our white Bishop was arrested when she tried
to enter with some of her black friends Trinity Episcopal Church in
St. Augustine, Florida to desegregate it. Trinity had withdrawn its
pledges to the Episcopal Church in response to “outside agitators.
Back in the Diocese of Central New York, many of my church were
appalled, but here was one of my elders I could respect.
I was one of those
youth of whom Dr. King were disgusted by the church and I started my
half century struggle of a love/hate relationship with the Lord I
loved and the Institution with which I had a hard time. I was all for
pushing a liberal crusade for justice but somehow it took me years to
see the deeper side of Dr. King’s theology. What he was calling for
was a recovery of the message of Christ to stand up for justice but
also to love one’s enemies. As Jesus had disarmed Peter in the
garden, so also we were to peacefully confront our enemies in order
to work for reconciliation. His work on disruption was a plan for the
entire system of oppression to collapse under its own weight for
there could never be enough courts and jails to enforce the laws of
discrimination but discrimination of the heart could only battled by
love. I wanted victory and humiliation of my foes. He wanted to be a
loving brother in the Kingdom of God.
Dr. King had many
faults; he like all of us was both a sinner and a saint. But he was a
prophet who pointed us in the direction that our faith in Christ
calls for us to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our
God.” The purpose of the church is not to enshrine the status quo
but to live into our Baptism and allow the Holy Spirit to change us
so that we might be freed from the prisons of our society’s, and
our own, agendas by loving our neighbor and our enemy.
In the Gospel from
John for today, Jesus turns the water into wine and it is the best
wine for the celebration and I think the power of the Spirit of God
has the ability to make us water people to be the wine poured out for
the wedding feast of Christ and his church.
No comments:
Post a Comment