A Church on the Move

The Reverend Rebecca Justice Schunior, Assistant Rector

In this year, we are reading stories from the Gospel of Mark. This has never been my favorite gospel with its “and immediately Jesus did that..and immediately Jesus did this.” It’s too fast paced for me. Yet I always want to examine a seemingly random connection – for example, the name of our gospel reading and the name of our parish community.

In the gospel story today we hear yet another healing story. Jesus heals the mother-in-law of Peter. The neighboring crowds of Galilee find out about it and Jesus spends a day healing the crowd. Healing stories can be threatening to a free thinking community like St. Mark’s. It’s so close to miracle – scientifically impossible and rationally unacceptable. But if we consider the first century attitude toward illness and disease – that it is a sign of sin, a sign of social unfitness – then Jesus’ healing becomes a radical act of inclusion. Those who are sick, like Peter’s mother-in-law, are raised up – they are raised into the community. Those who were invisible or embarrassing or forgotten are made whole. I’d like to think that the Jesus of the gospel of St. Mark is the Jesus of St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill.

But Jesus is not just healing in this story.  He steals away from the others and goes to a deserted place to pray. I think we can often assume that Jesus needs some much needed alone time, or wants to find a place of quiet meditation. But the word “desert” in the Bible never means quiet contemplation. The desert is the place where Jesus was tempted, the place where the Israelites were tested.  The desert is a place where intimate connection with God can happen but is also a place where will, courage and determination are put to the test. 

            Jesus leaves what must have been the joyous scene of healing, new health and recovery to go to a place of trial and temptation.  By the time Peter finds him telling him that everyone is looking for him, Jesus has made up his mind.  He is not going back to the village now.  He is not staying in this community continuing to make it well.  Jesus is leaving.  He will go to other towns, he will heal others, he will teach, and he will touch other lives. But not in this place.                   

Peter, when he goes out looking for Jesus may be hoping that they can all stay there, that his family can remain together and that Jesus would continue to be a healing presence in his community. But it is not to be. Peter will leave home and family. He will follow his mentor, lord and, savior on the road to Jerusalem and to the cross.

A church is a close community – or at least it should be. It should be where friends meet and where stories are shared across generations. Those who come here week after week are our family our beloved ones. And I was once in a conversation with a group of parishioners who wondered if it was really our business that poverty rates and unemployment rates and numbers of hungry children were sky rocketing in our own neighborhood. People brought up very good points – what about those who are already here? We can’t worry about those who are outside our doors. Or maybe we can, but we can best deal with that by writing a check.

            In 2003 many parishioners at my church, the Cathedral in Atlanta were upset that our Dean and our Bishop had voted to confirm Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. One man, nearly in tears, talkedabout the solace he found in the cross of Jesus. “Don’t move my cross!” he begged. Change in the church meant for him a loss of stability, a loss of all he held dear. I felt for him, I really did. But I was struck by the irony. Jesus literally says, “Pick up your cross and follow me.” The cross, Jesus, and the church who claims to follow him are always on the move. We never get to stay still.

            As a Cathedral of Atlanta member, I served on the Outreach Grants committee. Each year we awarded grants to worthy community groups and evaluated award recipients on their work in the past year. As a committee member, I was assigned to evaluate the Peachtree Pine Shelter in midtown Atlanta. Wearing my one and only pants suit and best pair of heels, I went to examine the accounts and ledgers of the largest homeless shelter in Atlanta. I wanted to appear professional and competent. Stepping over drugged out, passed out homeless men and walking up dirty and neglected stair wells, I was finally introduced to the director of the shelter.

            “We so appreciate your support,” she said, “but let me show you what we’d really like to do.” The shelter had been given a prominent art deco building in midtown Atlanta – in a growing business district. Anita, the director, showed me the art studio where she and shelter residents painted and sculpted. She showed me the kitchen where she hoped to train future chefs and kitchen staff. “I want to open a coffee shop, where everyone is welcome. There could be music, there could be art, there could be good food!” She beamed at me. “Still trying to cling to my professional façade I asked, but you let everyone in your shelter. It’s violent; it’s drug ridden. Just across the street are people I’m sure are drug dealers. This place is going nowhere.”

            Anita was unfazed.” I walk up to those drug dealers and tell them any day they want to turn the world upside down they’re welcome to come in here and help me out.”  For a second, I got what she was talking about. Homeless people, drug dealers, business owners, hipster teens, me, could all be in one place together sharing what we had and learning from one another.

            Last year I learned that this shelter finally closed down. It was always a blight on the city. Homeless people of all sorts in the heart of a growing city? The Atlanta homeless population was moved to the old city jail several blocks away.

            Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians that he wants to be all things to all people. The well adjusted among us may shudder at this language. No one can be all things to all people. It’s a road to loss of identity and sure failure. But I don’t think that’s exactly what Paul means. I think he’s talking about our call to walk with all sorts of people. In fact, in that walk, we don’t lose our identity but find it. Just as when I stood in my pants suit and my heels in a homeless shelter and realized I wanted to be in a place that welcomed the poor, the drug addicted, hell the drug sellers, and me, and the guy who didn’t want the cross moved.

            Outreach in churches can so often turn into a way of keeping certain people out, beyond our reach. But what if it were us reaching out, finding out who we are by who we reach? The church should always be on the move, leaving the comfortable behind. So what’s our next move?