The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (Year C, RCL)
February 4, 2007
The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector
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Let us pray. May we each find a cause for which we are willing to die. May we each find a self with whom we can live.
This, my dear sisters and brothers, among many things, is what I learned during the past nearly seven months of my sabbatical journey. This is the
language that I have been given to express it: a cause for which to die, a self with whom to live.
Isaiah found his cause through a vision.[1] God, in resplendent robes, surrounded by angels, sitting on a throne. Isaiah,
we’re told, instantly recognized his sinfulness. His awareness of his essential apartness, estrangement from God. And his need, his desire to get right
with God. A God he believed was merciful, for, after all, although sinful, he still had been allowed to see the Lord of hosts. And so, in the symbolic
imagery of his vision, his lips were cleansed. He now had found the self with whom he could live – so to live into his dying cause: to proclaim to the
people the word of the Lord.
Peter found his cause through action. Jesus asked him to fish. To do what he already knew how to do – but, clearly, as of late, not very well. He did
what he was told, catching more fish than he had dared believe. Having dared not to believe, he then saw his sinfulness, his apartness from Jesus,
which led him to repent, falling at Jesus’ feet in abject confession. A confession that led to Jesus’ commission, defining both Peter’s self, who he
was, and his cause, what he was to do: “Don’t be afraid, from now on you will catch people.”[2]
During my sabbatical, I, unlike Isaiah, did not see visions. (There was a period during which I was enthralled almost nightly by a continuously colorful
stream of dreams. But that, I’m sure, had less to do with God and more with the exquisite ecstasy that is Tuscany!) Nor did I, like Peter, hear and obey
a command from Jesus, certainly not to go out a catch people and make them Christians, which is how this text often has been interpreted throughout two
millennia of Christian consciousness.
Nevertheless, I found a cause. A cause, as I reflect, toward which I had been moving for some time. A cause that incarnates love, unconditional benevolence
toward all, and justice, right and fair dealing with all, which I had identified as the heart of the Jesus story as I read and interpret it. The heart
of his life and gospel or “good news” message. A cause that has grown out of my life with you, my community, whose ethos is one of open engagement.
A community where we dare share what we think and feel, where we dare to disagree and, sometimes, be disagreeable, but, nevertheless, where we dare
to remain engaged, one with another, indeed, “the other” that each of us is.
The cause? I want, I will seek out “the other,” the stranger, those who and that which is different.
Where? Within myself and in any other individual. You and those outside of our community.
Why? Because love and justice compel me, compel my quest for peace between and amongst peoples. A peace that is neither the absence of conflict nor
achieved through the denial of difference, but rather, that recognizes our differences, yet, never loses sight of the common humanity we all share.
A peace that arises out of mutual understanding. An understanding that is the fruit of conversation. A conversation that is the vehicle, the primary
mode of transportation of personal engagement with “the other.”
I am willing to die for this cause. To forego the comfort of my previously tidy, self-serving worldview. To let go, finally, of my self-delusional,
myopic, blind idea that things ought to be as I think they ought to be. In other words, to see more clearly, accepting myself just as
I am and others just as they are. And, in that engagement, whenever, if ever the opportunity arises (for sometimes engagement is not possible – I may be
an idealist, but I’m no fool – for tragically we, humans, so sinfully, self-interested, have written and continued to update a world history replete
with unbending, unending partisan affiliations and sectarian allegiances that do not, will not lend themselves to engaging “the other”
in peace) to risk challenge and change… To my convictions – what I profess to believe. To my concerns – what matters to me. To my circumstances – where I am
and what I do.
I have found a cause for which I am willing to die. A cause, frankly, that scares me to death. A death, however, into which I am willing to live. A
death in which I have found the self with whom I can live with more integrity, authenticity, and inner peace.
What does this all mean? What does it look like? I really don’t know. But I do know that I have you. St. Mark’s. My community. My people with whom I
live and move and have my being. I have you with whom I, we can figure it out. Yet, even at this stage of uncertainty, I do know this. I want
us, as a community, corporately, collectively (not only as individuals, although there is nothing wrong with that) increasingly to open up and open out
in our engagement with the world and the larger church.
We are fond of sharing our personal stories. So, I share but two – over the next few months, doubtless, I will share countless – stories that highlight
what I have said about my cause, my self, and you, my community.
First story. Last year, on Tuesday, November 7, at the invitation of the faculty of the religion and theology department of the University of KwaZulu
Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus, South Africa, I presented my Reflections on Pluralism paper at the Theological Café, the weekly gathering of
staff and students for presentation and discussion. In my paper, in which I put in print in one place my thinking of the past year or so, I speak as
a pluralist – one who not only recognizes, but also rejoices that we, humankind, share space with multiple distinct and differing, often competing,
sometimes conflicting cultures and world views. I also speak from my progressive Christian perspective, which I describe in this way. I believe in
the mythological or metaphorical truth of the gospel and not in any claims to its historical fact. At the heart of the Jesus story, I see death and
resurrection. The idea of death and resurrection make meaning for me. It is through this conceptual lens that I see and understand reality. Winter,
death, is followed by spring, resurrection. A belief, tested in the crucible of experience and found wanting, is rejected, death, and replaced by a
new sense of things, resurrection. Relationships are born, incarnation, sometimes they end, death, and as long as thee is breath, thee is the
possibility of new life, resurrection. The death and resurrection of Jesus are truth for me whether Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and raised from
the dead or, for that matter, ever lived. As all this is so for me, I can embrace my truth without having a need to dismiss, negate, or otherwise
invalidate the truths of others.
The response was illuminating. Some people, Christians whose beliefs were decidedly more tradition, walked out. Others challenged me. How could I be
so inclusive and still call myself “Christian”? My answer? Because the question – “Who is Jesus and who is he to me?” – remains at the core of my
existence, the primary inquiry of my life. My answer may vary, from time to time, but the question remains the same. I also was asked are there limits
to my openness? Being human, yes, of course! And is there anyone with whom I would refuse or choose not to engage? Yes, those who refuse to engage with
me. Others, often Muslims, found my approach appealing. For once, I was told several times, they had found a Christian who wasn’t content or intent on
making them Christian and, therefore, they had no need to pray that I become a Muslim.
That’s what I’m talking about! Conversation, not conversion!
Second story. Just before returning to the States, Pontheolla and I spent two days in Amsterdam. My hair had grown lengthy and unruly. I needed a
haircut. Badly. Near our hotel, I found a salon. Dina, a twenty-something, Dutch-born, Moroccan Muslim, was my appointed stylist. While cutting my
hair, we engaged in the following conversation:
“Why are you and your wife in Amsterdam?” She asked.
“We’re heading home after traveling.”
“Where have you been?”
“New York, London, Johannesburg, Munich, Prague, Salzburg, and Florence.”
“That’s a lot of places! How long have you been traveling?”
“Six months.”
“Why so long? Are you retired? You’re young!”
“No, but thank you! I’ve been on sabbatical.”
“Are you a professor?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a pastor of a church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.”
“So, you’re a Christian.”
“Yes.”
“You believe in God and Jesus?”
“Sometimes.”
Her brow furrowed with consternation, she asked, “How can you sometimes believe and be in a church?”
“I found the right one.”
“So, your people sometimes believe, too?”
“Some believe always. Some don’t believe. Some believe sometimes. Yet, all of us ask questions.”
She frowned again, adding the arched eyebrow of confusion and incredulity. After a moment’s pause, a look of recognition crossed her face. She stopped
cutting my hair and said, “So, your congregation is not, how do you say…?” She held her hands closely together.
“Narrow? Conservative?”
“Yes!” She smiled broadly.
“No, they’re, we’re not.”
Then, she held her hands widely apart.
“Yes,” I said. “Inclusive. I call us ‘progressive.’”
“Oh, I see! That’s good. I think religion can be good. I was born Muslim. My parents are devout, but I don’t practice. Too much violence has been caused
by religion. Your way means we can be different and still talk.”
I smiled. “Yes, I hope so.”
Whenever I think of Dina, I smile.
[1] The Hebrew Scripture appointed for the day is Isaiah 6.1-8.
[2] Luke 5.10. The gospel passage appointed for the day is Luke 5.1-11.
