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Praiseworthy Living
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12 October 2008 You have heard already this morning of the special place today’s scripture has in the faith and practice of Pat Armstrong. What you haven’t heard is that it was Pat’s mention of that scripture in a conversation that led to the gathering of some of the residents of Asbury in Kaye Silverwood’s apartment to reflect on this scripture. And it was thanks to that wonderful group that we also have today’s hymns, and thanks to Sally Duncan of that group that we have today’s particular call to worship. So it’s impossible to gather in worship this morning without thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for the life and witness of Jesus the Christ; thanksgiving for the life and witness of the apostle Paul; thanksgiving for the life and witness of Pat Armstrong’s Sunday School teacher; thanksgiving for the life and witness of each of you gathered here. Thanksgiving because you choose to give public witness to your faith in ways that are increasingly challenging in our culture. Of course, giving witness to our faith began as a challenge. As Helen has said, in the Roman world almost all worship was public. Private devotions, the whole idea that religious expression was something to be kept to oneself, would have been as foreign to Romans, Jews, and Christians as landing on the moon. As we have been learning in the class on Judaism, even prayer was lifted up within the context of public worship, within the context of the faith community until about the third century of the Common Era, when prayer moved beyond the synagogue, beyond the house of worship. Worship–and the practice of faith was public. So it is small wonder that Jesus is perfectly at home teaching and engaging in conversation with the various people of his community–family, friends, Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes. He isn’t a monastic; he isn’t off in some quiet tête-à-tête over a glass of wine in the seclusion of a private home, but out in the open, in front of God and Rome and everybody. The wonder is that it is such a struggle for us to follow in that path. Perhaps part of that dynamic is because we have allowed a certain faction of the Christian community to define what it looks like to be Christian in the United States, and because that faction tends to garner most of the media, we hide our own light behind black-out shades. Let me be clear: it’s not my intent to focus on civil religion, on populist Christianity–they get enough air time as it is. My concern is with our own witness, with the witness of the liberal, progressive branch of the Christian faith. The witness of those of us Diana Butler Bass calls “The other Christians. The ones you don’t hear about in the media. The quiet ones.”[2,5] Because I firmly believe we have a crucial witness in these times of heightened anxiety and fear and anger. A witness that challenges hate-filled epithets hurled at presidential rallies by publicly proclaiming a church that opens its doors to all the people, all the people, all the people. A witness that traces its roots through the defense of Sing-be Pieh and the 52 other West Africans captured in what is now Sierra Leone, whose right to self-determination was fought in the Supreme Court in the mid-1800's; a witness that is quietly present in the UCC flag flying on La Amistad, currently at port in Baltimore. Honoring this 200th anniversary of the abolition of international slave trade, the Amistad has sailed to England, Portugal, through the Canary Islands to Cape Verde, retracing the Atlantic slave route across the Middle Passage to Barbados, then back to the United States, some 14,000 miles. A witness that brought eighty-some people together yesterday in Bethesda for the Sacred Conversations on Race, where we were reminded of the Amistad’s UCC flag that proclaims our historic ties to justice and our contemporary sponsorship of that vessel. Out on the front lawn of the Bethesda UCC church are other signs of witness: a decorated tent that shows the congregation’s sponsorship of Tents of Hope for the refugees of Darfur; a peace pole with the message, “May Peace prevail on earth” in four different languages; a God Is Still Speaking banner. We have inherited a powerful witness, and through the practice of our faith, we are called to our own witness in these times...which is pretty close to what Paul is telling the church at Philippi. Philippi was ruled by Greece until the Roman Empire conquered it forty-two years before the Common Era. So by the time Paul writes his letter from prison to the church he started in Philippi, that city has been under Roman rule for about 100 years as an ‘outpost’ of the Roman Empire. “Paul uses the Greek word ekklêsia–which translates ‘called out’ – to describe the early Christian church. Paul understands the church to be an alternative society in the midst of the Roman Empire. Philippi is an ‘outpost’ of the Roman Empire; the ekklêsia is an ‘outpost’ of God’s reign.”[1] Our calling is the same: in the midst of the dizzying plunge of national and international stock markets, the freezing up of credit, a critical presidential election that surfaces sexist and racist attitudes, and the desperate attempts of local, national, and international governments to restore some semblance of control over it all, we are called to be an outpost of God’s reign. Across the dining room table, at work, in the grocery line, on the Metro, in the voting booth, we are called to keep on doing whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just...whatever is commendable. Turns out that Paul’s exhortations to the Philippian church look an awful lot like this congregation’s core values: core values that are the DNA of this church–commitment to social justice, service, outreach; treating people with respect and hospitality. Keep on doing these things and the God of peace will be with you. That’s a promise. **** [1]Seasons of the Spirit Congregational Life Pentecost 2, October 12, 2008, page 54. |