Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Sermon
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Getting over ourselves and just doing the work of Christ
Preached at the Ecumenical Service hosted by the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Scranton
January 18, 2005, noon, at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Scranton
Your Excellency, sisters and brothers. I bring you affectionate greetings from the 67 Episcopal parishes in the 14 counties of northeastern Pennsylvania, the Diocese of Bethlehem. To us, the fact of this event is as important as its content, If you read our electronic meeting, you know many, many of us give thanks for it. It is our most sincere prayer that everything sung, said, and done here today may be used by God the Father to fulfill the prayer of our Lord that his disciples all be one. In my ministry I have not been in contact with any Catholic diocese that expends more time and resources to foster understanding and unity among Christians than our hosts in the Diocese of Scranton, so in the name of all I presume to thank our hosts for the sake of the work of Jesus Christ.
That said, I must warn you that less than 36 hours ago I returned from a trip that included Sudan and Uganda, where bishops are expected to speak for 45 minutes to small gatherings and for two hours to large ones. I will try to remember that I am back in America, but bear with me if I start to ad lib.
I mention Africa for two much more serious reasons. The first is to say that I rearranged the schedule of my trip in order to be here today — this opportunity is that important in my mind. The second is to share with you the fact that in southern Sudan, devastated by just under 50 years of war and anti-Christian persecution, brothers and sisters in Christ work together in every way they can, with few of the hesitations we have when contemplating cooperation. They cannot afford the luxury of aloofness. It’s amazing how much people can accomplish when no one cares who gets the credit.
Coming back from that experience, my major impression — forgive me for not being vague — is that at some point we are going to have to get over ourselves and just do the work Christ has given us to do. My generation is scrolling off the screen largely unconverted to Jesus Christ and our nation is no longer an entirely safe place to be a Christian. If we care about those facts, we are going to have to work together all 52 weeks, every year. It is clear that organic unity is going to be for another generation to work out: the peace of the world and the salvation of souls are on the table now.
In this regard, I can say that nothing in recent Christian history warmed my heart as much as the beatification of Pope John XXIII, and that is not just because our silhouettes are similar. He, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dag Hammarskjöld are my spiritual heroes. I apologize for the fact that they are all men, but I am a child of my time. Despite that limitation, what I want to point out is that my head is inhabited by a Catholic, a Baptist, and a Lutheran of different races and national backgrounds who have borne me several messages that increase and direct my hunger to be with you today in this setting. I have always lived an ecumenical dialogue since my teen years because of who I carry in my head. It is why I tend to speak on issues that concern us all without much diffidence: religion is public property in America.
In various ways these three have taught me to respect rather than deny difference; that stating one’s position clearly is always best; and that the more information people have, the less they will need to make up.
Above all, each of these children of God trusted God enough to take enormous risks. In his own way, each was so energized by a vision of God’s purpose for us that institutional security and personal gratification were put dead last, to the frustration of some of their colleagues. In the long run, each one loved God more than what he said about God. Think about that for a bit: each one loved God more than he loved what he said about God, and each trusted God enough to risk the loss of what is familiar and safe because of what he heard God saying to him. Who of us cannot profit from contemplating that commitment?
Each understood that our species is developing, sometimes but not always improving. Pope John, always a historian, changed my teenage mind about serious biblical study when he remarked straightforwardly that the gospel has not changed, but we understand it better now. Who of us would have the fortitude to say that, even if he did think it? It takes enormous trust to take seriously Jesus’ two-edged promise that there is more to be revealed to us, things perhaps hard to bear. But the Christians I admire trusted and dared to think new thoughts.
Each one brought people closer together. It is well known that John XXIII was the first to speak of other Christian bodies as “Churches” with a freedom and generosity that is historically unique. It is not so well known how much His Holiness had to do with our avoiding nuclear war in the 1960s and how grateful Nikita Khrushchev was in particular for his ministry. Hammarskjöld worked for the peace of the entire human family and lost his life in the process. King, whose birthday we celebrate as a public holiday, was driven by a vision of all of God’s children free together and treated everyone accordingly.
High ideals are fine things, but I must also add that besides taking risks and bringing people together, each of these three Christians was utterly practical and very good at getting things done, even though history likes to think otherwise. We do so like cutting people down to size — that’s the conspiracy of the mediocre against the saints, however. Pope John had already rescued 24,000 Jews, was a master of practical diplomacy, and managed to bring off an ecumenical council despite significant opposition. Hammarskjöld piloted the infant United Nations with skill and compassion and with far less organization complexity than we are used to. King’s community could bring down the entire machinery of Jim Crow without firing a shot because he understood the system better than did its proprietors. Each was wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove — and was so for the sake of others.
Trust, unity, and practicality can be themes for our life together, too, but they are hard work. Nonetheless I believe that the kind of work these Christians did, we can do, if we are willing to rejoice in and rely upon what they held in common: devotion to Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the gospels themselves. As your theme from 1 Corinthians reminds us, in Christ we have everything we need — because he has us. The overwhelming cheerfulness of Sudanese Christians amidst utter desolation has reinforced that truth for me. We stood in bombed-out ruin after bombed-out ruin and they began every meeting with TI MATAT PURANI PURA — praise the Lord. Jesus is real for them and among them and they are fearless.
I think I know why. They remember that it is not a small detail but the main point that in Jesus of Nazareth the eternal Son of God emptied himself of power, privilege and possession and was born in a barn, as vulnerable as one can get. It is not a matter of detail but the main point that for us he lived without a place to lay his head. It is the main point that when everything and virtually everyone turned on him or abandoned him, he remained faithful. When humanity was acting the way it acts, and it was clear that he would die, Jesus remained faithful, and made the offering you and I cannot make: complete and loving surrender to the will of God for the sake of the world. We can only enter into that sacrifice, and the fact that we do so separately perpetuates his agony.
Nonetheless, it is the Jesus who let go of everything we would call safe or secure whom the Father raised from the dead. It is the one who called on no one to defend his dignity, who would not let Peter protect him, who now sits at the right hand of God and will be our judge. He is the one Lord of our one faith and one baptism if we are disposed to let him. If we will be as vulnerable as he.
I remember a rush of conviction overcoming me at hearing Bishop Timlin remark some years ago that our divisions persist because at some level we like them. May the Holy Spirit give us the trust and ingenuity this year to fall out of love with them and together make some small witness to confront northeastern Pennsylvania with its Lord, Jesus Christ. Folks mostly know what we are against: is it not time for them to hear WHO we are for?
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