March 17, 2008
Dignity
Just last month, a 36 year old father of three came home from work, walked off the commuter train, crossed the tracks, and deliberately placed himself in the path of the oncoming train. He was killed instantly. Later it was learned that he feared he was going to be “downsized.”
My family lived through the Great Depression of the late twenties and early thirties, the four of us barely getting by. Similar stories then were not all that uncommon. Today’s subprime market’s collapse leading to severe unemployment and foreclosures is seen by many financial gurus as a confirmation of an impending financial disaster not unlike the one my family lived through. Many of these experts are deeply concerned about widespread unemployment and the crippling indignity which always comes in its wake. This young father’s suicide may be a tragic parable of our times.
We are a day into Holy Week. The gospel of Jesus and the great saga culminating in Easter at heart tell another parable, a parable of hope and abundance, a parable of peace and of justice. There is every reason to believe that our congregations will swell in these immediate days and that more than the usual number may be in search of these very gifts, those realities of which our invitation to the Passion and encouragement of its redemptive healing assures them.
That we would welcome them instead with our obsession with sex, with some quick-fix covenant, and with how many bishops it takes to depose another is to our shame. It is an embarrassment to God. For the church is called to be, and the church must be, especially in these times, an embodiment of this gospel parable rather than merely one more religious institution bewitched and bollixed with the fear of its own survival.
Instead, the church must turn to its commission to be both pastor and prophet in these times. For this parable is one not only of compassion and nourishment, but, as well, one of prophetic indictment of the very divisive forces in our society that bring about these current conditions that humiliate and denigrate ourselves and our neighbors.
I cannot recall when in recent time have the commitments in our Baptismal Covenant been more central to our ministries. We have embraced those and must and can be ourselves refreshed by our fellowship and by our liturgies, by our resistance to evil, by our repentance, by our proclamation of the Good News of God in Christ, but above all in these days by a Christ-seeking and Christ-serving leadership that strives for justice and peace and most importantly the respect and dignity of all.
The church is the family where these things can and do happen, indeed, the church is the family where they must happen. The church is the family where women and men can be loved until they can come to love and respect themselves and then come to love and respect others. It is this we must offer and this to which we must find the winsomeness for it to become irresistible.
Richard Wheatcroft is a good friend and colleague. He has put this ministry, this parable for dignity, like this: “In the Liturgy of the Eucharist we come to kneel before the Altar to receive the body and blood of the crucified and risen Jesus. Kneeling on the same level, side by side, we are all equal. The clergy are servers distributing of bread and wine equally to all. All receive the same amount of bread and wine. When the priest says, The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven, I hear The Body of Christ, the bread of justice. When a chalice bearer says, The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, I hear The Blood of Christ, the cup of compassion. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer writes, ‘It is in food and drink offered equally to everyone that the presence of God and Jesus is found. But food and drink are the material basis of life, so the Lord’s Supper is political criticism and economic challenge as well.’”
By the grace of God and with Jesus’s presence, we must make that happen.
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