Sunday August 26, 2012
The Cathedral Church fo the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pa
Elizabeth Yale, Postulant for Holy Order, The Diocese of Bethlehem
Today, instead of being a good Episcopalian preacher and talking about the wonderful lessons, I want to offer you a challenge.
In effect, I am throwing down a gauntlet and you cannot run and hide because you have already agreed and accepted the challenge. Most of you have accepted this challenge multiple times a year since your baptism. So I am not really as courageous as you may have thought.
In case you need to refer to the specific wording or want to remember my challenge at a later time, it can be found on page 305 in the Book of Common Prayer. In case you haven't memorized the Book of Common Prayer, that is the section where the congregation renews their baptismal covenant before the prayer over the water and the candidate gets wet.
We read it there as the last question, "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” The answer there is, “I will, with Gods help."
"Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?"
"Will you strive..." We get lucky here at the start. Strive is a great active verb and so we can honestly, or not so honestly, say we are always striving. Obviously we haven't achieved justice or peace among all people yet. Those are gigantic words with multiple meanings. Are we just supposed to be striving for no war, or just war? Or are we supposed to be striving for the lions to be playing with the lambs? We know where we want to go, but we don't always know what it could look like and so we keep striving and trying to reach out to people, trying to create justice and peace in small areas and trying to build together so that one day, justice and peace can be had among all people.
The challenge here is how can you strive? How can you help create justice and peace among all people? You've given your word that you will, so I ask you, what are you doing? Do you pray for peace? Do you pray for justice? Are you part of an organization, like our beloved friend Tom Lloyd was? He worked for peace. He was passionate about peace. Will you strive for justice and peace among all people?
Okay, maybe you aren't passionate about peace. It doesn't raise your excitement level. It's okay, we haven't finished the challenge. Can you get passionate about respect? I am sure some of you get a little bit passionate when you have been disrespected. The second part of our challenge is "Will you respect the dignity of every human being?"
Every Episcopalian agrees to respect the dignity of every human being, yet not every Episcopalian respects the dignity of every other Episcopalian. We face a large challenge here. We can break it down. On a personal level, should I respect my own dignity? Ash Wednesday told me, I am but dust, and to dust shall I return. What dignity is there in dust? Yet baptism tells me that I am part of the household of God, I share in God’s eternal priesthood. I am one of God’s handiworks and one of his children, so maybe I don't deserve respect, but I should respect the dignity of this awesome creation of God’s that is me. Thus, I respect my own dignity. One down, 7 billion to go.
Should I respect your dignity? You, sitting in this church this morning. You are my teachers, my elders, my providers, my challengers, my family, and my friends. Some of you are annoyances and all of you are my brothers and sisters in Christ. You are dust and you are not worthy of respect. You are God’s children and worthy of the greatest respect I can give. Thus, I respect your dignity. Two hundred down, 7 billion to go.
It seems that seven billion is a large number and growing daily. Not quite the number of the stars in the sky or the grains of sand, so humanity hasn't fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham yet, but large enough for a crowd of every human being to take up more space than the state of Rhode Island. Now we could wave our hands a little saying that we respect the dignity of all the people in the Church, but that still leaves us with most of the world’s population up for consideration. If we want we can pretend that on any given daily basis, we could respect any other human being we interact with. But I am not sure that is true. I'll tell you why. It is hard work respecting the dignity of every human being.
I learned that for myself how hard respecting every human being can be this past summer in Naples, Florida while doing my Clinical Pastoral Education for my seminary program. I worked as a hospital chaplain for ten weeks in the community hospital where everyone and anyone can get some medical help.
My respect challengers were people such as these:
- The man who smelled and told me that I have no idea what the Hebrew bible actually says. (and no, I couldn't tell him that I have read portions of the Hebrew bible in Hebrew).
- The lady in the psych ward who had all of her possessions, that being the clothes off her back, taken by the police in an assault case who was given clothes from the nurses so she could be discharged to the local homeless shelter.
- The teenaged boy who told me off sarcastically for coming to see him, but who I went to see two more times to show him I care.
- The lady who demanded to know how someone can be called a Christian if they dance, drink, or smoke.
- The man who told me I was brainwashed and that I need to open my eyes to the real truth of the world in science and accept that there is no God.
- The woman who owns more than I will ever have and yet cried while telling me how terrible her life is.
- The woman who I loved who scared me completely because she was worried about brain damage after a terrible fall from a horse because her story resonated with my past fall.
- All the alcoholic, drug abusing men who came through the hospital who would tell me stories of their times in prison and the lessons that they haven't learned yet.
It's hard to respect those who have no respect for their own lives, their own minds, their own bodies and no respect for those around them. But I learned this summer that they are the ones who need our respect. They need the model and the encouragement to respect themselves. They don't deserve respect. They are dust and they are not worthy. But they are also children of God. We do not get to pick and choose who is one of God’s creation, one of God’s children. All are Gods. Our sign says, All are welcome. All are to be respected. Will you respect the dignity of every human being? How do you respect every human being? Who are your challengers?
I have one more thing to say about this challenge. As I have already mentioned, if you have been going to an Episcopal church regularly for any length of time, you have already agreed to take on the challenge today. There are no loopholes and no hope for escape, our assent is there on the page. "I will, with Gods help." We say, I will, but we don't say it by ourselves. We say it as a congregation. So many people seem to believe that they must handle their lives, their struggles, their joys, their vows, all by themselves. The band The Shins wrote a song called Simple Song, and it portrays a man telling a woman, his wife or girlfriend, about the connection of their lives, he says in the chorus, "I know that things can really get rough, when you go it alone. Don't go thinking you gotta be tough, and play like a stone." Despite the great song Paul Simon made out of saying, “I am a rock, I am an island,” its not possible. Even the great American Catholic priest and mystic Thomas Merton wrote a book titled No Man Is An Island. Even Jesus kept some friends with him throughout his ministry to support and help him. It's not healthy to believe life can be lived without any help. And we specifically invoke God’s help. We know that if we even think about asking God for his help, God is helping us. God may not be giving us the kind of help we want, but we cannot blame God for not standing up to his end of the deal. The reason I can stand up here and challenge you today is because God is helping me and has helped me. I’ll tell you a secret, its totally worth it. Dignity, respect, justice, and peace are all more than just words. They build community. They open the Kingdom of God.
No matter where you are or where your challengers are, you aren't alone. Even way down in Naples, Florida, away from my family, this community, the seminary community and most of my friends, I was still supported and helped. We are here to support each other.
Thus, I challenge you. "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?"
God is in. I am in. Are you?
