The benefits of exile
Submitted by Heather on August 02 1999 at 09:53:58
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I attended a Quaker potluck the Sunday before last, with mixed results. The first half of the potluck consisted of an excruciatingly long discussion of domestic matters (a five-minute discussion comparing the relative merits of sugar versus artificial sweeteners) and financial matters (a woman wearing a tee-shirt that said, "Live simply, that others may simply live," described how she and her husband had spent one hundred thousand dollars in renovations on their house). Eventually, though, one of the Friends started describing a class on Alternatives to Violence that he had attended at a local prison. He said to the others that he thought their congregation should hold worship meetings at the prison. "Why's that?" asked someone. The Friend was silent for a moment, then said, "It has something to do with what Jesus said about sitting at table with the sinners . . ." And at this point, all my alarm bells went off, and I thought, "Uh-oh. This man has never actually spent time with prisoners." I knew what he meant, of course, but I also knew that he would not have spoken so blithely of "sinners" (with the unspoken assumption that he himself did not fall into that category) if he'd actually spent time with those on the margins of society. What was painful, of course, was to realize how blithely I myself spoke such words not long ago. Still, it was one of the first times in my life that I'd attended a Christian social gathering in which people actually talked about visiting prisoners, tending the sick, etc. I presently attend a parish which upholds the Anglo-Catholic tradition of community outreach: the AIDS group is very active, and every week the Grate Patrol brings food to the homeless. The church even sponsors dinners for street people during the winter months. Yet the average conversation at the post-service coffee hour goes something like this: "It was a terrible mistake to drop the Comfortable Words and the Prayer of Humble Access. Our new rector is turning this place into a Romish parish." "Nonsense; he's simply taking advantage of the 1979 prayer book. The penitential passages are perfectly appropriate for Advent and Lent, but during the rest of the year--" "Why not just go whole hog, then, and switch over to Rite II? That would get rid of everything penitential." "The Church has always allowed for variations of this sort. If we contrast the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with the Liturgy of St. Basil--" And so on. It's as though the activities of the Grate Patrol are not allowed to penetrate the inner sanctum of the sacred coffee hour. I remember one exception. Two summers ago, just after I'd launched Greenbelt Interfaith News – which at that time was a little local newsmagazine, running items with headlines such as, "Paint Branch Offers Religious Services on Tape" – the head of the Anglican Church of Canada visited my parish. I promptly nabbed him during the coffee hour for an interview. He took it in good grace – he was no doubt used to giving interviews ad nauseum – but at one point we were interrupted by two men who had just entered the coffee hour. They evidently didn't know who I was speaking with, but they had apparently surmised from his ecclesiastical robes that he was someone of importance. And so Archbishop Michael G. Peers interrupted the interview in order to spend five minutes talking with two street people. And I just sat there silently, thinking, "This is a true bishop of Christ." These days I think I think my reaction would have been different. Instead of thinking of what a great honor it was to interview an archbishop who reacted that way to being buttonholed by two homeless strangers, I think my eye would have wandered around the rest of the room, and I would have wondered why everyone wasn't reacting this way to the entrance of the homeless people. What in heaven's name was the point of this gathering? Were we coming together each Sunday only in order to argue about whether the rector should r estore the singing of Agnus Dei during communion? If Jesus walked into the room right now, would we even notice? Which bring my thoughts back to the quotation at the top of this board: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." It's a defiant quotation, in certain ways; a shout to the world, saying, "Yes, even here, in this so-called den of iniquity." Yet I wonder, really, whether the quotation isn't more appropriate here than written on the archway of many churches. I think that all of us here, in our own ways, have felt alienated from our churches. Some of us have left our churches; others of us remain within them but do not feel that we can be completely honest with them. It's worth remembering that Jesus underwent a similar experience: * * * And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" And he said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Caper'na-um, do here also in your own country.'" And he said, "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eli'jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Eli'jah was sent to none of them but only to Zar'ephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli'sha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Na'aman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away. [Luke 4] * * * The very next anecdote we hear about Jesus is of him healing a demon-possessed man. That tale reminds me of the ones I've heard on this board, of people here reaching out to children and adults in school, in hospitals, in bars. In many cases, the people that CBF members reach out to are not Christian, and nothing is said about Christianity. Yet "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." The Christian Consultation on Boylove 1999 suggested that it might be helpful if churches were "to establish a support and accountability group that will walk alongside the boylover." Yet I think it's likely that many people here already have the first member of such a support group; as the people here reach out to others, one Figure walks alongside them unnoticed. If we had remained a little longer at those coffee hours, would we have had this opportunity? So I have two thoughts in the end. One is that our exile can be our salvation; the "poor in spirit," if they take their sorrows and use them as a force to help others, end up with the riches of heaven. And the other is that, if it is at all possible, we should "sit at table with the sinners" – and I think we all know where many of those sinners are to be found. It is the righteous, the complacent, the people who discuss liturgical changes while street people wander unnoticed among them, who are in many ways in most need of God's help. We are undoubtedly among the complacent on most occasions (I myself am not above a roaring good debate over the relative merits of Rite I and Rite II), but by the grace of God we've been forced to be a little more awake than the average Christian. It was right for us, like Christ, to leave the synagogue and spend time with the poor, but eventually we need to go back and share what we have learned, even at the risk of being flung off a cliff. Heather |