I had an old Hollywood buddy who once told
me the trouble with most people is that they don’t know what they want and they
don’t know who they want to be. I may not know either, but I certainly know that
there are four guys I never want to
be:
Self-Pity
Guy. I
may serve a working class parish in a dilapidated building. I may not make the
Joel Osteen big bucks. But I’m proud of my little congregation, and I have
chosen to be here. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me because I don’t
feel sorry for myself.
How
Soon Can I Retire Guy. I’ve seen a lot of clergy over the years who have just
walked to the end of their ministries. They had great careers and did wonderful
work for the Kingdom of God, but, at the end, they just kind of slowed down and
let the congregation slow down with them. I don’t want to be that guy. But neither
do I want to be…
Big
Score Guy. You
know that guy who wants to hit one more home run before he retires from
ministry? He’s the guy who is going to get his parish into a capital campaign
to build a new social hall or merge his congregation with another church or
start some other fabulous program and then he’ll retire and the whole thing
will turn to crap. I don’t want to be him, but I most definitely never want to
be…
Stumbling
Block Guy. He’s
the one who puts a stumbling block in the path of the little ones—the ones who
are weak in faith. And this week, the news has been full of stumbling blocks.
You couldn’t turn on the TV in America
this week without seeing the face of Bill Cosby, and I can’t help but see
tragedy here even as justice is being served. I remember laughing myself silly
when I was a kid listening to Cosby’s Why
is There Air? album. He was hilarious and, to many, he was a hero. The first
African American to star in a network TV drama. “America’s Dad.” A man who
showed white folks that there could be a two-parent black family in the upper
middle class. A strenuous champion of education.
How utterly disappointing—heart-breaking,
really—to see him led away in handcuffs. He had gained so much admiration,
respect, and influence and chose to use it in a sick and shameful way. It would
have been better that he never possessed such notoriety than that he should
have used it to commit the crimes for which he is now being justly punished. And
when an idol falls, faith is shaken.
But the bad news continues, doesn’t it? The
crimes of Bill Cosby are dwarfed next to the recent report from the
Pennsylvania Attorney General about clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church
here in the Commonwealth, and other reports are surfacing about this scandal in
Catholic church bodies around the world.
Now
please understand: I am not trying to re-fight the Thirty Years War. This isn’t
a Lutheran versus Catholic thing. I only bring it up because it’s in the news,
knowing full well that there has been clergy abuse in all denominations. Nevertheless, when I read the reports of my
fellow clerics’ perfidy, I almost want to cry. The eyes which lusted and the
hands which groped were better cut off than cause the decades of pain they inflicted.
And the stumbling block of criminal behavior was, of course, made into a road-closing boulder by the hands of bishops and other church officials which were used to
write letters of transfer rather than reach for the phone to report the crimes.
How can we do anything but stumble, I
wonder? From priests to movie and TV stars to pro athletes to candidates for
the Supreme Court[i],
and even presidents, it seems there is no one in whom we can put our faith and
trust. No one we can look to for guidance and moral certainty. No one, that is,
except Jesus Christ.
We who call ourselves “Christians,” who
bear the name of Christ, have taken on a sacred responsibility to see Christ in
others and to be Christ for others. The
consequence of our sin is that we shame our family name. Our misdeeds aren’t
just about us. Our guilty actions aren’t just that we risk God’s displeasure.
Stumbling Block Guy robs others of
their sense of belonging to a community and the paradigm of death, hope, and
resurrection which grants peace to our souls and helps us make sense of this
crazy world.
The stumbling block need not be a heinous
crime. It can be as simple as the arrogance of exclusion illustrated by the disciples
in the Gospel lesson for Pentecost 19, Year B (Mark 9:38-50). It is anything which keeps others away from
the love of Christ.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray
that God’s name would be made holy—in us. We are praying to receive the
honor of bearing that sacred name. Let’s understand that this honor is not for
ourselves, but for those around us—our kids, our neighbors, our co-workers, our
extended family, whomever. Our honor and our duty is to reveal Christ and give
him glory.
I once did a funeral for a Cuban-born
physician who served at our local hospital. He had been killed tragically in an
auto accident. He was raised under a Communist regime which sponsored atheism
as its state religion. He had never grown up knowing Jesus. As a young doctor
he went to Spain as part of his medical training and fell in love and married a
Roman Catholic girl. When his sons were born, he insisted that they be raised
Catholic. Even though he had no conception of the faith, he was so taken by the
virtue and decency of his wife that he wanted his boys to be what she was.
Can we all try to walk so in the honor of
God’s name that others will see us and say, “I want to have what YOU have?”
God be with you, my friend. Keep the
faith.
[i] I’m
not going to weigh in on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings as I feel
too ambivalent about this subject. Besides, chasing this rabbit will really
lead me away from the Gospel message; moreover, I know this issue will be
resolved by politics and not by theology or moral scruples.
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