Sermons & Pastoral Resources

Sitting Up Front With Jesus

by Rev. Susan Russell

I am just back from "O Little Town of Birmingham" where my travels took me NOT bearing gifts for my rector's brand new born-in-December granddaughter but attending a national meeting of Episcopal theologians and academics who gathered for two days at the Cathedral of the Advent to reflect together on the topic "Reconstructing Anglican Comprehensiveness."

It was a very "dense" two days.

And having just come from that experience, it is with new appreciation that I hear the first lines of our lesson appointed from Paul's letter to Timothy this evening: "Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening." For there was wrangling over words a plenty in Beautiful Downtown Birmingham—learned, academic wrangling at its finest—and a great deal of it, frankly, went over my head.

I found myself dusting off seminary vocabulary and forgotten historical data. I confess I had the same trouble memorizing my heresies in seminary as I had memorizing my times tables in 3rd grade. I still get monophysitism and modalism mixed up, arminanism and arianism confused—and I therefore hold those who have mastered the nuances of the historical heresies in the same kind of awe and envy that I held those who could rattle of their 7-times and 8-times in elementary school. So we were not too far into the keynote address by the dean of the cathedral—which began by deconstructing an anthropological argument in order to demonstrate the flawed soteriology and Christology of his opponents' conclusion—that I found myself thinking he must know what he was talking about because his WORDS were so big—his emphasis so emphatic—his certainty so certain. In this elite circle of academic theologians I was definitely out of the comfort zone of where my own abilities lie—and feeling very much out of my league, began to wonder why on earth it had seemed like a good idea to journey to Birmingham for this particular gathering.

Perhaps because of the academic nature of the conference—or because of the amazing sense of humor of the Holy Spirit—as I sat there on the verge of feeling very sorry for myself indeed, it was ironically the words of a very famous, very learned professor that came to me—offering both me both comfort and insight. "It's our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

These words—offered by Professor Dumbledore to Harry Potter of Hogwarts fame—were what offered the anchor I needed at that precise moment: words that reminded me that in the end it is not our abilities: our education, our power, our influence or even how good we are with words—how successful we are at "wrangling over them"—that show what we truly are - who we truly are. It is our choices . . . how we choose to treat each other, choose to use the resources we have been given, choose to live our lives in relationship with God and with each other . . . that ultimately matter most of all.

Our success oriented, poll-watching, paper publishing, achievement focused culture is challenged by the idea that the very things that make us "successful" by the world's standard—the gifts and abilities that seem to define us in so many ways—are not finally all that important—at least not to God. And lest we think this challenge is somehow unique to the 21st century, it was is, in fact, the same profoundly counter-culture/counter-intuitive/even radical idea that Jesus offered in the stories we hear this evening from the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus' indignant words to the disciples "whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" challenged them to rethink just what this kingdom of God thing was all about. His insistence to the rich man that reciting and following the letter of the law - getting an "A" on the theology quiz—is not what God required of him shocked and saddened him - and he went away grieving. Just so Jesus continues to challenge us—me—to examine my priorities, to not just rely on my "abilities"—not rest in my achievements—but to make wise choices.

It is an oft repeated theme here at All Saints Church but one of the most important choices we are called to make—over and over and OVER again—is whether we will live in the house of love or the house of fear: whether we will embrace a theology of scarcity or abundance. And that choice—choosing love over fear—is ultimately the most important choice of all: a choice that sometimes comes with a cost but always comes with great freedom.

The choice I made in Birmingham was to choose to be present in the discussions even though I didn't understand every word, nuance or reference; to choose to believe that I had something to offer even though I am not—nor do I aspire to be—an "academic."

Stepping away from that place of fear that who I am isn't enough, I was able to listen with different ears—and I came to hear that there were actually two conversations happening in the room—two parallel themes in the learned papers and scholarly presentations being offered.

The first was the "official" one—the question on the table: Is there enough room in what we have historically called "Anglican comprehensiveness" for the differences that currently challenge our unity? And in a nutshell there were two distinctly different answers being offered: "Yes, we are uniquely gifted as Anglican Christians to weather this storm of disagreement as we have others in the past." And "No, this time we have gone too far."

The second unspoken question was and is to my mind the much more critical and telling: Does God have enough love to go around? I heard it again and again as an undercurrent in the papers presented—the debate engaged. Those who maintain that there is indeed room enough in this church for people of many perspectives, opinions, and theologies spoke again and again—in their words and in their body language, in the tone of their voice and the timbre of their discourse—of God's abundance, Jesus' inclusivity, the Holy Spirit's generosity.

Meanwhile, those who believe we have gone too far—that Anglican comprehensiveness is NOT comprehensive enough to include the new Bishop of New Hampshire, the blessing of same gender couples or ... well ... ME!—offered eloquent and impassioned pleas that were full of language about winners and losers, defeat and victory. I struggled to understand their angst, their distress, their anguish - their sense that if there is room for me at the table somehow there isn't room for them as well. I still do not understand it—but I do not have to understand it to feel it - and it is, for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, very real. Just as the grief of the rich man was real as he walked away from Jesus' invitation was real. Just as the irritation of the disciples at letting those messy, noisy, hard-to-control children near Jesus was real.

And today, it is in thinking about those children around Jesus—thinking about my OWN children—that I find what I think is a window of understanding into some of what I encountered in Birmingham. I wonder if much of our struggling and fighting about theology is really another version of the fight that was always ready to break out between my two sons over the seemingly critical question: Who gets to sit in the front seat? I wonder if those who cannot imagine a church that makes room for those beyond their comfort zone are not really asking the existential question that faces every child when a new addition to the family looms on the horizon: Will Mom still love me if we let this new kid into the family? Is there really enough love to go around?

Is there enough love to go around? The radical message of God's inclusive love we celebrate here at is—as Paul says elsewhere in Holy Scripture—foolish to the wise. Jesus showed us—over and over and over again—how big this love is that God offers us and challenges us to give in return. Showed us by how he welcomed the stranger, the sinner, the outcast—how he continued to challenge and broaden the understandings of those who came to listen to him of who was in and who was out. And every time they thought they had it figured out, he said "But wait, there's more!" But unlike the classic late night commercial, the "more" he offered was not a set of Ginsu knives but the gift of God's radical and inclusive love—made incarnate in Jesus—made available to all.

"They will know we are Christians by our love," goes the song. Not by our legislative strategy, although that is sometimes the means we must use to implement this love God has given us to share. Not by our vocabularies, although there are indeed times when we pray God to give us the words we need to speak the truth that needs to be spoken.

Not by our abilities but by our love: the love we have received from the One who is the source of all love, all goodness, all grace: the One who has loved us unconditionally and then called us to "go and do likewise." The One who continues to challenge us to make the choices that show what we truly are: beloved children of the God whose front seat is big enough for all of us.

Amen.

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