Library
Sunday, March 04, 2007
AMEN! and Pass the Bread
Mike’s Farewell
By Kyle Lewis
Galatians 3:26-29
All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, and you will be given what God has promised.
On the front of the bulletin, Bishop Desmond Tutu is quoted from his book God Has a Dream. In this quote, Bishop Tutu is trying to communicate one of the challenges of the faith… to help his readers understand the essence of God’s care for each particular person while at the same time emphasizing God’s overreaching care for all people. While in general, this may seem simple, in specific, it becomes difficult for us to believe that God’s care really does extend to me – to you - individually as fully as it extends to all – to each - of God’s people. Perhaps an even more challenging concept is accepting that God’s care really does extend to every other person just as fully as it is made available to each of us.
In our scripture today, we hear that no matter who we are our faith in Christ makes us equal with every other person. Even in the liturgy for the meal we will share together this morning, we hear these words “By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world…” That concept of oneness is a common thread that we hear – that we speak – over and over as part of the Christian church. I just wonder if we really mean it? Is our willingness to partner with others limited to those whose ideas mesh easily with ours? Are we prepared to celebrate being one even though there are issues of significant importance upon which we differ?
Some of you have heard me say that when I came to St. Andrew eleven years ago I left a church where I was “the liberal” on staff and joined a church where I was “the conservative” – and I hadn’t changed! St. Andrew was a new environment, with new ways of thinking about God, Jesus, the church, and our world. I welcomed the challenge and the openness to think in new ways. I have appreciated those who have pushed me to think about my theological assumptions, to re-examine and re-fine them, and to do the same with those who are a part of my ministry. The challenge has come when this process has led me to different conclusions than that which might be the mainstream of thought.
Am I still able to hold this Biblical image of “you, of me, of all of us, each one, held as something precious, fragile in the palms of God's hands.” as Tutu writes? Are you able to hold this image for me – even if we don’t agree?
Tutu speaks in his book about another related African ideology. “Ubuntu” is simply described in this phrase “I am because you are.” Tutu expands on this concept in this way:
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
This concept says that I cannot be all that God has created me to be unless I am doing everything I can to enable every other person to be all that God has created them to be. This, in essence calls out to each of us not only to rest in the palms of God’s hands, but to become the palms of God’s hands for others. To delicately, with enormous intentionality, honor others for who they are – who they are becoming – challenging them to become more without defining the more that God may be calling them to and accepting them in every place along the way. It is a difficult charge, and one to which I must confess miserable failure in my personal life and in my ministry.
But what I know is this: because something is difficult, because I have failed in the past, I am not exempt from this call to ubuntu. My lack of ability to live God’s love fully only requires that I seek to be more open to God working in and through my life in the future. My prayer for all of us is that we can do this more completely as we release ourselves and those around us from preconceived notions about who we are and what we believe.
Last month, I was in New York for my first Executive Table meeting of the Division on Ministries with Young People. Saturday was an exhausting day with a great deal of work to complete. One of our international members asked permission to have a special prayer time for a friend who was going through a crisis even as we were meeting. He placed our candle – symbolizing God’s presence – in the middle of our group, asked us to join hands, and began to pray in his native language, following his prayer, another of our international members prayed for his friend’s friend – also in that person’s native language. To close our prayer time, our Bishop Brown prayed in English and ended with AMEN. Everyone in the room repeated the AMEN as we came to the close of this holy moment. After the session, I was talking with one of the people who prayed telling him I couldn’t understand any of the words of his prayer, and yet I knew exactly what he was saying. At that point, another of our international delegates joined the conversation to say “Isn’t it interesting that no matter what language we speak when we pray, we all end with AMEN!”
It was a striking moment for me. It was an affirmation that even though we are all so different – different languages, different traditions, different ethnicities, different lifestyles, different beliefs – we can all join together in a single voice AMEN! “I am because you are.” As we move into the future, may we hold each other knowing that our fates are inextricably woven together.
And all the people said: “AMEN!”