April 11, 2008
Covenant
Easter 4A / Acts 2.42-47
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2.42).
This simple statement about the early church that we repeat two millennia later as part of our Baptismal Covenant says it all. We are asked, “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” And we answer, “I will, with God’s help.”
Then just so there’s no mistaking things, we spell out that teaching and that fellowship and what it means. It means to persevere in resisting evil, and failing, to repent and return to the Lord. It means to proclaim by word and by example the Good News of God in Christ. It means to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves… And it means finally and maybe most important of all, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. And our answer at each step is the same… “I will, with God’s help.”
In other words, we are that fellowship. We break that bread. We pray those prayers. The apostles are us. And we are the apostles. We are the ones who have the commission to be and to do these things.
I don’t know if Pastor Jeremiah Wright ever took those vows or a reasonable facsimile, but he sure sounds like he might have. Oddly (and tragically) his one remark that has proven most controversial seems to me fairly basic, as our Covenant attests, to a responsible understanding of the Christian faith.
Actually, when you think about it, even in a casual reading of the Prayer Book Daily Evening Office when one comes upon the Blessed Virgin’s startlingly lovely Magnificat, you’ll find her saying some remarkably similar things.
“The Almighty has done great things for me,” she says, “and holy is his name… he has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit, he has cast down the mighty from their thrones… ” (cf Lk 1.46-55).
Stripped of the emotion and the phraseology, Pastor Wright — and the Magnificat — are saying that the United States of America stands under God’s judgment no differently from the way any other peoples in any other land stand under God’s judgment. Surely we don’t think that when we sing God Bless America, we get a free pass or get to be overlooked on the torture we have inflicted in our current as well as past wars, on the bombings of civilian targets, on resorting to armed combat for economic reasons, on the disenfranchisement of native Americans, on the practice of slavery, and on and on. I am seriously depressed at the depth of the civil religion practiced in this country that would exempt us from being held responsible for our national sins any more than it would hesitate to offer thanksgiving for the blessings we have received and the good judgment we have shown. (1)
Are we reflecting on this? Has our House of Bishops or the church in any of its manifestations responded to this current controversy about which the media reminds us over and over again? Surely nobody even imagines that this is in any way even approaching a partisan issue, so why not? (1)
The flak over the pastor’s remarks only serves to distract us from the fact that we live in perilous times. Thousands are in serious economic straits. Millions are without adequate health care. We are in a war immersed in a kind of grandiosity and denial that is killing hundreds and leaving hundreds more homeless daily. I need not rehearse that litany. You know it as well as I and also have probably heard all you want to hear.
Just last month, a 36 year old New Jersey 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 coupled with severe unemployment and home foreclosures is seen by many financial gurus as a confirmation of an impending financial disaster not unlike the one my family and some of you 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 deep now into Easter. The gospel of Jesus and the great saga of this season 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 more than the usual number may be in search of these very gifts, and that some may search right here where these realities by which our affirmation of the Passion and encouragement of its redemptive healing can assure them.
That many of our churches would welcome them instead with an obsession with sex, with some quick-fix covenant, and with how many bishops can stand on the head of a pin is to our shame. It is surely an embarrassment to God. For the church is called to be, and the church must be, especially in these times, an embodiment of this Easter parable rather than merely one more religious institution bewitched and bollixed with the fear for its own survival.
Today’s lessons about the Good Shepherd and the 23d Psalm and the life of the early church recall our commission to be both pastor and prophet in these times. For this Easter parable is not one 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 in utter contrast to the Baptismal Covenant we have made.
I cannot recall when in recent times have these commitments in this Covenant been more central to our ministries. We have embraced these and we must and we can be ourselves refreshed by what they call to us to be and to do — to continue in the apostles’ teaching and 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 respect for the dignity of all.
The church — this church of St Ann — is the family where these things can and do happen, indeed, the church all over this land is the family where they must happen. The church must be the family where women and men and children can be loved until they can come to love and respect themselves and where they can then come to love and respect others. It is this we must offer and this to which we must live out the kind of winsomeness that makes it irresistible.
This ministry, this Easter parable for dignity, spells it all out in the Liturgy of the Eucharist when we come to stand or kneel before the Altar to receive the body and blood of the crucified and risen Jesus. Side by side, we are all equal. The clergy are our servants distributing bread and wine equally to all. When the words are said, The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven, let us hear The Body of Christ, the bread of justice. When the words are said, The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, let us hear The Blood of Christ, the cup of compassion.
For 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 we cannot avoid the further reality that the Lord’s Supper is also political criticism and economic challenge as well. (2)
By the grace of God and with Jesus’s presence, we can, we do, we must make these things happen.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1) Comments about Jeremiah Wright are adapted from remarks by the Revd Thomas B Woodward with his permission.
2) Parts adapted from correspondence with the Revd G Richard Wheatcroft with his permission.
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This is the best sermon that has ever been posted on the internet… ever.
Comment by lindy — April 11, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Lindy was right. Wow. Great sermon!
Comment by Diane — April 13, 2008 @ 4:54 pm