The Truth that Was Told

Like a large family gathered around a bounteous autumn table keeping the peace by not telling the truth, many of us heard more truth last night than we were quite prepared to deal with.  And as in a family whose peace has been disturbed by a sudden explosion of truth, some of the truth that has been spoken has more to do with exposing raw emotion than it does helping the family be whole.  Some of the sudden truth is more hurtful than helpful.  Some of the painful truth is essential to face in order to move on. Some of the most recent truth can easily be forgotten.  And some of the truth, well, it remains to be seen what we make of it.

Last night laid bare a truth about America we all know but we rarely speak.  Last night demonstrated why we are afraid to speak it.  This is the truth.   America is a country deeply scarred by its racial past.  That famous first Thanksgiving at Plymouth 393 years ago, though surrounded with the warm glow of mythology, was in truth marked in its very origin by racial tension and on-going violence between the English settlers and the prior Native American inhabitants of what we know as Massachusetts. That backdrop no doubt contributed to the fact that the indigenous people were not invited the next time the event occurred two years later.  Abraham Lincoln established a day of Thanksgiving in the midst of a Civil War that was about racial division down to its core.  We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing, but we have rarely talked quite so honestly around the table as we talked last night, and it is unlikely that the blessing we seek can be had without the honesty we have learned to fear.

Part or last night’s truth was the rage that lies not far below the surface in this country.  It makes itself known from time to time, but we are usually adept at stuffing it back where it came from, below the surface and in the shadows, back into the closet where all sorts of unspeakable things reside until, that is, they are unexpectedly spoken again.  It remains to be seen whether we can shove last night’s display of righteous rage, even rage manipulated by thugs and cowards for their own purposes, back into the darkness from which it came.  I hope we cannot.

There was truth spoken last night about the legal system in our country, which had little to do with the Grand Jury.  Something is deeply broken.  We know that. We do not like to look at it.  Whatever questions I have about the process, I now have no choice but to accept the Grand Jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson.  I do have a choice not to accept the uneven distribution of justice in this country.  I do have a choice not to accept the disproportional rates of incarceration among Americans of African descent.  I do have a choice not to accept the police procedures and tactics that unjustly target those in this country who are not white.  I do have a choice not to accept the growing divide in this country between rich and poor, which is no doubt breeding an unspeakable rage of its own.

I do not know whether I heard truth from the Grand Jury last night or not.  I am convinced that I heard their truth.  And from this point on, that case is closed.  I do not know whether I heard truth about Darren Wilson last night.  And from this point on, Darren Wilson is just irrelevant.  I do not believe I heard truth last night about Ferguson.  I think Ferguson was caught up in something not of its own making and beyond its ability to control.  And I think Ferguson was bearing the weight of a difficult truth for all of us, more than it should be expected to bear, more than any of us would be capable of bearing.

But the truth that concerns me the most this morning is the truth of Michael Brown.  There are some things about Michael Brown, to tell you my truth, I don’t really care about.  I don’t care that he may have stolen a handful of cigars from a convenience store one hot, summer afternoon.  I don’t really care in some ways whether shooting him was legally justified or not.  I do care that he is dead.

The truth I do care about is that a young man of promise beyond the mere potential that all of us still have as young men or women died in a violent fury four months ago.  I do care that his parents are left without him.  I do care that the world is left without him.  And I care a lot about whether Michael Brown’s truth is swallowed up in more violence and destruction and hatred. And I care a lot about whether Michael Brown’s truth instead might be the occasion when this American family of ours stops spewing forth venom about our racial past and present and decides instead to deal with them and create a different future for itself.  It remains to be seen what we make of Michael Brown’s truth this morning, and in the end, that is the only truth that really matters now.

What Really Means a Lot to Me

As a young priest (yes, young is something I really once was), I once brought a youth group to work at the soup kitchen at Holy Apostles Church in Chelsea.  Being I priest, I reasoned, is about creating opportunities for those in my care to meet Jesus, so what better place than a church that housed the largest soup kitchen in New York City and transformed its nave and sanctuary from worship space on Sunday to a place to feed the poor the rest of the week.  Oh, wait.  That really isn’t such a transformation after all.

This is the tale of two different reactions to the experience from two very similar teenagers.  Both were children of significant privilege.  Neither had ever experienced anything like Holy Apostles before.

After we got home, I asked the group what their reaction had been.  The only response I remember was from one of the two teenagers I mentioned, who said, “I learned to be thankful for everything I have.” 

It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, but it wasn’t entirely negative.  At the very least, he had learned that there was a vast gap between how he lived and how much of the world lived.  Still, I was perhaps unrealistically looking for some sense of questioning that gap and maybe asking, as teenagers like to do, if it were fair.  I hoped he might ask some questions about all he had and not revert to a sense of entitlement to it.  I hoped, again unrealistically, that there might be some connection between thanksgiving and sharing.  It was not to be.

The other teenager at issue was a neighbor and close friend of the other.  His name is Jamie.  Like his friend, Jamie also had led a pretty sheltered life with just about all the material possessions a teenage boy could hope for.  Frankly, I don’t remember much about him in New York the summer of our trip.  And I don’t remember what he said as we debriefed the experience together after we got home. 

But I happened to see Jamie this fall.  I preached at the church where I had known him as a teenager, the first time I’d been there in 20 years.  He was there with his son of about eight.  I didn’t meet his wife.  She was home caring for their new baby.

The subject of our conversation turned to mission trips we had taken when I was his priest.  I asked him about Belize, which I assumed would be the one this fairly well-off young man would remember.  He turned the conversation to the soup kitchen.  “No,” he said, “the one that really meant a lot to me was New York.”  And that made me deeply thankful, both to God and to Jamie.

Maybe it’s just that Jamie had learned to be thankful for everything he had.  Somehow, though, I think it’s a lot more than that, and I think that has infinitely more to do with the direction his parents were steering him than anything I did.  Still, I may have had a very small influence.  After all, going to New York to work in a soup kitchen was my idea.  And, of course, you know what I hope.  I hope he met Jesus there. 

So this Thanksgiving I’m thankful, not so much for what I have, although I guess I should be.  I’m more thankful for people along the way who have allowed me to share their lives for a little while or a long while.  I’m thankful for Jamie.  I’m thankful for Jamie’s friend.  I’m thankful for all of you. 

And, of course, I’m thankful for Ginger, Matthew, and Andrew and Jessica, and of course, Annie the Labrador Retriever. 

I am thankful for the part of my life I’ve been able to share with others, and the parts others have shared with me of theirs.  I don’t know what Jamie meant for sure, but I know that’s what really means a lot to me.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Peace,

More Hope

As you well know by now, this week’s gospel reading (Mt. 25:31-46), the parable of the sheep and goats, is particularly important to me.  It forms the basis of a lot of my theological thinking, and it is the lens through which I see the church, the world, and the interaction between the two.  In truth, it is the passage that forms the basis of how I understand the basic interaction between God and humanity, Christian or not.  It has everything to do with how I understand mission. 

You remember the story.  The Son of Man gathers all of humanity together and separates them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.  The sheep, gathered at the right hand, are blessed; the goats, gathered at the left, are condemned.  The basis of the judgment has to do with how one has responded to the needs of the poor, giving them food when hungry, drink when thirsty, welcome when lonely, clothing when needed, and whether one has visited them when sick or in prison.  “Truly I tell you,” says the Son of Man, “ just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  The Son of Man and the poor are one.  It is a radical teaching.

It is also a disturbing teaching, for the opposite is also true.  “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

And that is a pretty sobering message, or at least it is for me.  I know that I pass many a hungry person on the streets of New York and do not even look in their eyes.  It is rather like fear of looking directly at the face of God perhaps.  The judgment to come ought to cause me sleepless nights.

Sometimes, though, I run across reason to hope.  An article in ENS last week was such an occasion.  Two weeks ago, an Episcopal priest named Mark Sims was arrested and charged with a crime in Ft. Lauderdale.  He was fingerprinted, photographed, and released with a court date on a charge that carries a possible $500 fine and 60 days in jail.  Do you know what the crime was?  It was that he fed homeless people in a city park and he led his congregation to do likewise.   

Now I don’t know Mark Sims, although I’m calling him today.  I want to hear his story.  I want to hear his story because I’m pretty sure he has seen Jesus, and that is something I would like to hear about.  I want to hear his story because I think he had five talents and just made a big profit.  I want Canon Sims to know he inspired me to be a better Christian.  I want Canon Sims to know he has given me hope, not just hope to avoid the judgment.  More importantly, it has given me hope to enter into the presence of God more fully day by day on the streets.  And isn’t that what the mission is?

Peace,

The End is Near?

It’s not uncommon to see someone holding a sign in Times Square with a rather disturbing warning:  “The End is Near.”  It’s enough to cause sleepless nights. 

This week’s epistle (1 Thess. 5:1-11) has St. Paul holding such a  sign.  “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (v. 2).  Paul and the earliest disciples believed the world would soon end.  From their perspective, the end was just around the corner.

And that fact had concrete consequences for how to live, according to Paul.  “Let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (v. 8).  With God so close at hand, it ought to call out in Christians, not fear, but faith, love, and hope, the most important Christian virtues. 

Here’s the problem with the end.  No one knows when it is coming.  It will come suddenly according to Paul, like a thief in the night or the sudden onset of labor.  So, the coming of the end calls for perpetual vigilance.  One must be constantly prepared.  Paul specifically calls for disregarding any thought that the coming of the end has been delayed.  And that’s the way it is, nearly 2,000 years after Paul did the equivalent of taking to Times Square with a scary sign.

It seems to me there’s only one approach to this reality.  It has been a long time since Paul announced the message, an awfully long time to be on the edge of preparation.  The End is Near?  Who knows?  I think we’re better off to treat the end as if it’s here now, not near but already come.  So let the faith, love, and hope Paul counseled prevail.  The end is here!  Or at least we’re going to act like it is.

Peace,

Hope

Some books you read in order to know something.  I recently read a book by Larry Sabato called the Kennedy Half Century.  Dr. Sabato is a political scientist (my undergraduate major) and he wrote about how the legacy of John F. Kennedy had influenced the administration of each of the Presidents who had followed him for the next 50 years.  It is a book I read in order to learn something about a subject that interested me, politics.  I read the Kennedy Half Century because I wanted to know something a period of time in which I have lived and by which I have been influenced.

The Bible is not such a book, try as we often do to make it such.  This week’s epistle (1 Thess. 4:13-15) is a good example.  It speaks about an important topic, one that has been of ultimate interest to human beings since human beings appeared on the Earth, which is what is beyond death.  First Thessalonians does not offer information or knowledge.  It does not even offer opinion.  It offers something much more important to being human.

Paul wrote, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”  What the Bible has to offer is hope.  It may be an informed hope, but it is still fundamentally hope.  And hope, I think, is, in the end, more important than knowledge. 

This is a bit hard for those of who have grown up in the modern world, which is all about what we know.  Faith, though, has a different value.  It is all about what we hope. 

Knowledge, after all, will pass away.  I don’t know, of course, but I believe hope will last.  At least I hope so.

Peace,