Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
Do We Want to be Healed?
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, February 1998
It's anybody's guess as to why Jesus asked the man who had been
ill for 38 years, "Do you want to be healed?" (John 5: 6) I'Il
tell you my guess. Some families reinforce sickness: lots of extra
attention, having the family make its plans around youS Perhaps
he had a lot to lose.
It's anybody's guess as to whether or not the Episcopal Church
in the United States wants to be healed, or whether we have institutionalized
our infighting and become comfortable with half-empty churches.
Perhaps we've gotten used to it. If so, we are the ones whom God
asks, "Do you want to be healed?" Do you want to be a vital, growing
community of faith?
I'm sure that in this room [at Diocesan Convention] the only answer
any of us would consider is that we certainly do and, please God,
let it be soon. We want to see our country peopled by disciples
of Jesus, worshipping God by our sides and together with us serving
those in need around us. I honor and respect that. But, let's ask,
what may be the cost of health, of growth? Our parishes are generally
of a size where most people know one another, where the rector
knows everyone personally, where people can be treasurer for life
- no matter how hard they try to get out of it. If one of these
parishes triples its numbers, none of those things will be true
anymore If your church is to provide intimacy under those conditions,
it will have to do so by forming small groups: parishioners would
have to expend extra energy to maintain the level of intimacy they
are used to. If pastoral care is to be available to everyone, there
will have to be serious lay ministry. If equity is observed, power
will have to be shared with more people.
Let me make it a bit worse. Every parish knows who it does and
doesn't want as members. Become a "Peace watcher" and a "coffee
hour watcher" and you will see what I mean. God had to remind Jonah
(Jonah 3:10 - 4:11) that God's love is for everyone - a problem
the first Christians had as they struggled with the idea of mission
to the Gentiles.
It is a problem that has not been entirely overcome. Whom would
you least likely welcome in church or at parish social functions?
Released mental patients? Paroled prisoners? Poor people? Super-rich
people? People who support Green Peace? People who belong to the
National Rifle Association? How would you feel if they suddenly
got religion (who says they haven't?) and wanted to join your church?
St. Paul asks a very different kind of question. His usual practice
when he came to a town was to go to the synagogue and preach to
Jews and to "God-fearers" and hangers-on.
In Athens, however (Acts 17: 21-31), he takes his mission to the
marketplace. He comes to a culture that thrives on novelty and
is skeptical about religious matters. Bit it is a culture in which
people are worried about the chance that they might be offending
some god they haven't heard of. They have built an altar "to an
unknown God."
So we find St. Paul neither in his normal place nor using his
normal pattern of preaching. Instead he speaks the language of
his audience and, using their literature to illustrate his preaching,
does his level best to communicate in a way they can understand.
Are we willing to do that? In an age that gets most of its information
electronically, are we settling for small service listings in the
local paper, hoping occasionally to get an item printed among those
fillers on the religion page which I'm not sure everyone reads?
Don't stop those forms of communication, but think with me, please.
If we are serious about wanting to reach a generation quite at
home in cyberspace, will we go there? At the same time, do we know
where to resist the culture? To a generation that values a church
primarily in terms of the services it provides, will we resist
becoming another service agency competing for customers, and find
instead a way to speak a convincing word about emptying ourselves
while following a servant Messiah?
I think we in the Diocese of Bethlehem will do what we are called
to do. I think we will because I know for a fact that many of our
churches are already working very hard to be what God wants them
to be in their communities.
Many of our churches are laying a foundation of vigorous lay ministry
that will serve them well as they grow. A small but growing number
are reaching out through electronic media. Most of the vestries
I meet with want to break free of purely maintenance concerns and
be about the business of welcoming the reign of God.
History is on our side. The major point of the book of Acts is
that when the Church rose to meet a new challenge, the Spirit of
God was there to bless their efforts from Jerusalem to Rome and
beyond. In our own country, when this church was near extinction
in the period between the revolution and the first third of the
1800s, Virginia Seminary sent out a new kind of missionary, and
the strong Southern wing of this church was fertilized.
In our own time, we have seen the nation and our denomination
begin new life when one woman, Rosa Parks, was just too tired to
obey the rules of a racist culture, and simply sat down on a bus.
America's conscience still has a great deal to do to provide equal
protection and equal opportunity for each of its citizens, but
there can be no retreating from that issue.
Yes, there may well be discomfort to being healed of our short-sighted,
timid, or self-protective ways, but remember that the one who told
us to go make disciples of all people - all people - in his very
next breath said, "I am with you always, even to the end of the
ages."
It's about death and resurrection. When we accept the pain of
dying to familiar behavior, we find fuller life. That's why over
and over again, we need to come to where broken bread and crushed
grapes poured out are the most intimate means we've been given
for union with Christ and fellowship with one another. God uses
symbols of brokenness to impart life - that is a promise impossible
to misunderstand.
I certainly do not know all the ways in which our call to be faithful
will challenge us. I do not know what about our life together will
need to die if we are to be healed of inaction. I do know that
if we take the risk of following the Spirit into strange territory,
we will be born and again and again to rich and useful life for
God. "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this." (1
Thessalonians 5:24)
(return to Bishop Paul's Columns
Index)
Please direct any
questions or comments to the webmaster@diobeth.org
