Homily June 24: Clarity and Hospitality

Many of you will remember the church of the 1950s. I don't have personal experience with that -- I wasn't born then, as you all know -- but it must have been a great time to be in church. It was a time when people seemed clear about what they were doing -- participating in and building a community -- and they all wanted to get there together. Our church was overflowing each Sunday. There were fights, of course, but there was a general agreement on direction.

Of course, that changed. The 60s questioned everything, the 70s found everyone focused on themselves and the 80s and 90s were the "greed is good" era. There was a growing sense that everything was up for grabs, that there was no particular truth you could count on. It seemed like if you wanted to be part of a growing church, you had to be part of one with all the answers, simplistic and not particularly thoughtful. Or you could be part of one where you came away with more questions than answers, a kind of ambiguous shrugging of the shoulders.

Along the way, our Episcopal Church often seemed to delight in ambiguity. As we became more concerned about our decline, this tendency naturally increased. Vagueness, it seemed, would ensure that nobody would leave -- that nobody would even be challenged or offended. Insipid mission statements became common -- damaging, because people felt that they were doing something (these statements sounded OK) but not really creating passion, commitment and self-sacrifice. We couldn't say what we stood for, because a) we didn't know b) we were afraid of what knowing would mean or c) we were afraid telling others would put them off.

In their landmark book Death of the Church (which I highly recommend, as it articulates these concepts very powerfully) Mike Regele and Mark Schulz put it this way:

Within the American church itself a serious battle has raged for much of this century (written in 1995) over what the baseline elements of the Christian message are. The essence of the Christian story has fallen victim to the relativism that has entered the church.... While theologians battled one another, local congregations stagnated.

What I notice "on the ground" here in San Leandro, California, is that there sometimes seems to be a fear that if we're clear about what we stand for as Anglicans and Episcopalians we will somehow be seen as unfriendly, closed-minded or inhospitable. (I have a fair amount of this fear myself, so I'm not pointing fingers. Really.) We want to be welcoming and warm, and at All Saints we certainly are both. I love our earnestness and sincere desire to be kind and make a difference in the world. It's a really appealing quality.

But I also worry about that fear of offending, especially in sharing the basic, core beliefs of our faith. We mainline Episcopalians (not all, but it seems pretty common) seem to expect our neighbors to be so gun-shy of any mention of religion that we hold everything back.

It's as if we assume from the get-go that any mention of faith, even offered with great warmth to people who seem to be freezing to death, is somehow going to be seen as an act of hostility. We seem so often terrified that any mention of God, much less Jesus Christ, will be understood as pressure to be part of something stupid, closed-minded or bullying. In this way, we allow others to define for us what it means to be Christian.

This is sad because it seems to be true that (as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs) "if you want to keep it you have to give it away." That means that if we don't "give away" the Anglican, Episcopalian faith that has been passed to us -- one of the greatest Christian traditions the world has ever known, a tradition beautifully crafted to thrive in today's pluralistic, global culture -- we will lose it. Yes, we will have been welcoming and very hospitable. And we will cease to exist. There's something wrong in that picture!

It's important that we don't lose sight of our purpose in our desire to be hospitable. Our purpose is actually as clear as it is serious: to create opportunities for men, women and children to hear Jesus' gentle, gracious call and decide how they want to respond. Our concern for them is not dependent on their decision, by the way, but if they want to follow him, we do our best to help them (and allow them to help us, too). We help them by working on our own spiritual growth, listening deeply, and caring -- and knowing what we stand for.

I'm not going to get into a long discussion of the things we do stand for. But a basic, starting list would be this:

1. There is a God. That "Higher Power" creates and sustains all things, including us, and is concerned about and engaged in all aspects of creation. There is no place or person in whom God is not -- who does not get God's loving care.

2. There are many ways to see and experience what God is like. For us, the life, person and work of Jesus Christ -- kind, powerful, compassionate, present, joining us in suffering -- tells us what God is like (and that God is not just a "what," but a "who"). While our individual experience varies widely, as a church, we derive great joy, optimism, awe and gratitude that the entire fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ -- the "incarnational" theology that is so essential to Anglican understanding.

3. The Bible offers essential guidance for a rich spiritual life. We engage it seriously. And we encourage those of us who see it as metaphor to experiment with taking it literally -- and those who see it literally to take it as metaphor. Both will benefit from the deep engagement this requires.

4. For spiritual growth, a disciplined practice is required. We believe that we don't earn God's love by the things we do, nor do we change our value in God's eyes in any way by the choices we make. But we do believe that nothing worthwhile is accomplished without some effort on our part.

5. Involvement in our communities, in meeting real human needs, challenging injustice and involving ourselves in the decision-making of our elected bodies (where systematic injustice is both created and fought), is an essential part of Christian life. We engage it without "writing off" anyone.

This is just a beginning. There is much more that we can say. But the point is this. To thrive, as individuals and communities, we have to have a clear story, as Regele and Schulz put it, a "grand story" that helps us understand what we're doing and being in the world. This story must be compelling. They say, "Passion is a response to a hope larger than oneself that compels people to give themselves to the cause." So very true!

Passion and clarity are inseparable. Dithering, insipid, wishy-washy vagueness does not generate either passion or commitment -- what people actually seek from us. We Episcopalians are part of a great story. New chapters are being written right now. We are learning to be one of many great traditions, all with value, while recognizing that for us the Christian story is most transformative and powerful. As we reclaim and proclaim our Christian story, refusing to let others define it for is, we will find our passion rekindled, commitment increased -- and we will thrive.