In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
On June 11, our Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, issued a letter titled “Acting Faithfully in Troubling Times.” A part of this letter reads, “At its best, our church is capable of moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice. I believe we can bring those strengths to bear on this gathering storm. Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated. That is not a role we sought – but it is one we are called to.”
Beloved, there is a lot going on in the world right now – some of it good and some of it bad – and we can disagree on what falls into which category. But we can’t pretend that what we’re living through reflects the beloved community that God intends for us. We heard in the reading from Second Kings that as the prophet Elijah was about to be taken up to God, his successor, Elisha, asked for a double portion of his spirit. God grants him that request, and the gift of prophecy continued in Israel. Prophets are so essential for the thriving and faithfulness of a community because in a world littered with noise, information, opinions, and positions, we are short on wisdom, which is what the prophets set before us: godly wisdom.
The Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel says that the prophets keep us focused on the end when we are intoxicated by the here and now. Prophets both name the doom that we are living in, and also point us towards towards hope. Another scholar who has written extensively about the prophets is Walter Brueggemann, who died earlier this month at age 92. He wrote that God raises up prophets when there is a depreciation of memory and a ridicule of hope. In other words, prophets help to remind us of God’s promises that seem too good to be true in our sad world.
In a book called The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann offers a definition of prophecy that has, more or less, become the textbook definition: “Prophets are to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to that of the dominant culture.” It’s that word “alternative” that is so compelling in his definition. Over the past few months, I’ve been focusing a lot on the word “relief” as a way of describing the gift of God’s gracious love. Grace relieves us from striving, chasing, and worrying about making ourselves good enough, worthy enough, or anything enough. Instead, our enoughness is given as a gift from God which can never be lost or taken away. This gift relieves us to enjoy life instead of enduring it.
However, there’s another element to the word relief – particularly in art, relief is something that rises above that which surrounds it. A relief isn’t a free-standing sculpture, rather it’s when the figures seem to be coming out of and transcending their background. It’s that understanding of relief as something that stands in contrast to what surrounds it that I’m talking about. God’s grace not only allows us to breathe a sigh of relief; it also gives us a holy alternative to our surroundings. And so, in that sense, the prophets also point us toward the relief of God’s grace.
A few weeks ago, the clergy of the Diocese gathered for clergy conference which always includes a time for our Bishops to address us and respond to questions. One of the things that they said was that we, the Church, are in a very precarious place right now because our congregations and society need two things from us: both the prophetic and the pastoral.
The Church, if it is going to be deserving of that name and sacred vocation, must be willing to stand up and speak up to promote the God-given ideals of mercy and dignity for all of God’s children. As Martin Luther King wrote from a Birmingham jail, the Church “used to be not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” Our prophetic task right now is to turn down the temperature on division and raise it on those who abuse and neglect the power they have been given. And, please, if you think you think I’m falling into siding with one political party or another – let’s get a cup of coffee or go for a walk and talk about that. Prophets, just like Jesus, are absolutely political; but calls for justice and compassion are not partisan.
This is what Presiding Bishop Rowe wrote about, the Church has a voice, and it’s not our own; rather, for reasons understood only by God, we have been conscripted and assigned the vocation of speaking on behalf of God in these troubling times. That’s the prophetic call that is before us. But there’s also the pastoral – the calling to be a place of refuge, rest, and comfort to those who are wearied, exhausted, and lost. The Church jumping into the partisan rancor and taking sides isn’t what a lot of people are looking for, especially people with the privilege of not being impacted by the barrage of what’s in the news.
Look, I get it. When I was a kid and was afraid of storms or monsters, I hid under the covers. The desire to ignore what’s going on around us, avoid the news, or say “Well, I just don’t like to think or talk about those things” is a very natural and human response. It’s a defense mechanism intended to save us from headaches and heartaches. And it’s not wrong to expect or want the Church to be a place of comfort and tranquility; this is a part of our calling – to be a hospital for the sick, a lighthouse to the lost, and a refuge for the weary.
And, I think you can see the tension between these two priorities right now. We have a sacred task to be both a prophetic and pastoral presence to the world. And clergy, in particular, are standing right on that fault line. Sure, some clergy go all-in on the prophetic and forget about the pastoral, and others forsake the challenges of prophetic ministry in favor of quiet pastoral assurances. But if we pay attention to Jesus, we see that he walked that line, right up to the Cross.
What matters isn’t that we figure out the right formula: 50-50, or 60-40, or 80-20 on the balance between the prophetic and the pastoral, what matters is that we remember that it is our sacred calling to be both, to be a place where both are valued, to pray for our leaders who are willing to walk down the middle of that line.
Something that was said at clergy conference has stuck with me. It was a comment about our Baptismal Covenant, which Episcopalians love to quote. Generally, we talk about seeking and serving Christ in all persons, striving for justice and peace among all people, or respecting the dignity of every human being. And those are good things, I’m not against any of it. But the Baptismal Covenant is bigger than that.
It also includes the question, “Will you persevere in resisting evil?” If I’m remembering correctly, it was our Bishop who said that it might be time for us to focus more on what it means to resist evil. On this point, I do want to be very clear because when I say “evil,” some of us might be seeing a particular politician’s face in our mind. Richard Rohr, a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest, has a new book out about the prophets and he reminds us that the Biblical prophets rarely direct their speech at kings, but rather the people who through their complicity, willful ignorance, and silence go along with the evils that are happening.
A lot of people might think that the image that best represents the prophet is the bullhorn, but that’s not it at all. Instead, Biblical prophets hold up a mirror. So, as I’m talking about resisting evil, I’m not talking about a president, party, politician, or person. Though some of them have egos big enough to give it a shot, no single person has the capacity to represent evil. Evil is bigger than a person, a position, or a party. Instead, evil is a force that is bigger than humanity, which is why we need a Savior to deal with it.
Reinhold Niebhur noted that groups are always less moral than individuals. People who we disagree with are not evil. People who do bad, selfish, or dumb things are not evil. Instead, evil is the sum product of our duplicitousness, our cowardice, our ignorance, and our brokenness. That is what the Baptismal Covenant tells us that our faith is about – being willing to trust in God’s alternative to the evil that festers among us. As Abraham Heschel put it, the prophets confront us with the truth that while only a few may be guilty, all are responsible. Resisting evil is what it means to be Baptized, it is what it means to share in Christ’s Body and Blood, it is what it means to call Jesus “Lord.”
As far as what evils there are to resist, there are plenty: environmental degradation, divisiveness, racism, sexism, gun violence, militarism, toxic masculinity, the trafficking of human beings, violence being tolerated in our speech and in our streets, masked agents abducting people with no due process. I’m sure you can help me add to that list. In the reading from Galatians, we heard St. Paul name a lot of such evils. I’d suggest that perhaps “quarrels” and “factions” might be two particular evils for us to stand against.
It’s vital remember that none of us has to resist all of these evils and we never do this work alone. The Gospel is always relief, not a burden. Resisting evil isn’t work to do, it’s walking the way of love which stands in relief to the way of death.
In the Gospel passage from Luke, we see Jesus speaking about the steadfastness and resoluteness that is needed to walk this way. Elisha also demonstrates this with his fierce commitment to continuing Elijah’s prophetic ministry. The prophet would ask us what are we steadfast about? Where is our allegiance? What do we prioritize? Our ROI, our comforts, just going along to get along, being on the winning side? Or do we focus instead on resisting evil, showing mercy, forgiving our enemies, speaking the truth? Again, we might turn to Galatians and focus on gentleness and generosity.
The point is that this is a prophetic moment for the Church and those of us who are bold to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” In the book of Esther, Esther has to speak a hard truth in order to resist evil. And her mentor and cousin, Mordecai says to her, “Who knows? Perhaps you have been brought here for such a time as this.” Beloved, none of us asked to live in such contentious and turbulent times. We didn’t sign up for this. That prayer we’ve been praying, the Prayer attributed to St. Francis, it’s been preparing us for a moment such as this though. All of those prayers that have been uttered around the world, for peace, for compassion, for help, God is answering them through the Body of his Son, which is the Church, us.
At the end of the reading from Second Kings, the newly empowered and commissioned prophet Elisha crosses the threshold of the Jordan River. There are thresholds that our prophetic calling would have us to cross. This doesn’t mean we start name-calling, blaming, or vilifying. But it does mean that we might have to cross the threshold of our comfort zones. We might have to do things that we’ve never done before – showing up at protests in solidarity with others, clearly stating that violence is not something that followers of Jesus tolerate as a solution, providing refuge for those who are persecuted. Just as the thresholds of our values and civility are being crossed, the Church has a prophetic line to hold in resisting evil. There is a holy alternative to this mess other than “more of the same,” and it is the Church’s task to nurture, nourish, and evoke this difference that Christ makes.
Now, God doesn’t make mistakes, and as Will Willimon is fond of saying, “You being a follower of Jesus was his idea long before it was yours.” When you were Baptized, God knew what God up to. Yes, you were named as God’s beloved in that act of grace, but God also knew that you would be useful as a part of God’s plan of resisting evil. You have been born, baptized, and brought to a moment such as this. Though these are troubling times, we are given the relief of God’s love.
