|
|
Forging a Future Worthy of Our Past
|
|
| 11/9/2008 |
In his remarkable, quite beautiful speech this past Tuesday night, Senator John McCain said, “tonight, more than any other night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my President.”
It was his spirit of reconciliation that impressed me. It has been a very long two years as citizens in our country. Last Tuesday night, we were all tense and tired, I’d even say on edge, regardless if we were Republican, Democrat, Independent. At a moment in which it would be easy to be angry and small, Senator McCain reminded me that all of the blood, sweat and tears of the last two years was about something important, far greater than our own self-interested positions.
He finished by saying, “And I call on all Americans to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe in the promise of America, because nothing is inevitable here. We never hide from history,” he said, “we make history.”
The promise of America is be a nation of ideals, calling each individual who shares in the promise to rise above the narrow confines of self-interest and commit to a purpose higher and larger than just our own needs. We are committed to freedom and equality as real ideals, not political slogans, and we strive to live lives that prove those ideals are reachable for all. The perfection of those ideals is never fully realized and always out ahead; like the ideals of the Kingdom of God, we strive but never fully achieve them. Still, we don’t shrink from the struggle. Nothing is inevitable. We don’t hide from history, we make history.
When I came into Christ Church on Wednesday morning to say my prayers, I reflected a bit on what the seven signers of the Declaration of Independence and five signers of the Constitution who are buried in this hallowed ground would say about the election of Barack Obama as President, the first African American as President of the United States. I think it is safe to say that they couldn’t even conceive of it. But what they did in those revolutionary years made last Tuesday possible. They helped forge the tools to build a future they couldn’t even imagine, a future not their own.
I see Christ Church that way. In November, 1695, 39 families assembled on this hallowed ground to say their prayers, and they linked their faith to the commonwealth they sought to build in this new place. I don’t think they could’ve imagined that 313 years later we would gather here to do the same. They couldn’t conceive of who we are, or relate to our lives, or understand our struggles. But in their gathering in 1695, and through their faith, they left us the tools to become who we are today as a church. They were not just about their present, they were about our future.
In their faith, they committed themselves to God who makes history through the feeble creatures who tend God’s creation. We gather this morning to commit ourselves to God’s unfolding future, revealed as history proceeds, through this temporal church. We are here for ourselves, but we are here for the people who will gather here 313 years from now. We are here to keep the irrevocable promises of God.
We don’t hide from our history, we love our history, but the promises of God call us to keep making history from Second and Market Streets in Philadelphia.
I went to the dentist last Thursday, and the dental hygienist asked me those polite questions between scraping and rinsing, like, “What do you do?”
I wasn’t wearing a priest’s collar. I told her, “I am a priest.”
She looked so surprised, raised her eyebrows, and said, “Really?” I get this a lot. Do I really seem so impious that I couldn’t be a priest?
“Where is your church?” she asked.
“I serve Christ Church, in Old City,” I said.
Now she looked even more surprised. “But Christ Church, it’s so famous!” as if it was hard enough to believe I was a priest, much less the priest at a famous church.
I said, “We are famous,” and what I wanted to add was this: We are famous for who is there now, and what we give to our people and city in the present. Sure, famous people once attended Christ Church like Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, but the people at Christ Church today have just as much, if not more, vision, faith and courage to transform the world about us. We love our past, but we seek a future worthy of that past. If Christ Church were not a living, breathing, hopeful, inspiring, loving, transforming church in the right now, the history here would mean little to a few.
America is a promise to the rest of the political world. Christ Church is a promise, too, and we are its promise-keepers.
The promise of Christ Church is to be always here--to be full of faith, to inspire the discouraged, to nurture the doubtful, and care for the broken and weary. Contrary to how we are too often perceived by those who know us not, we don’t live in our past. We honor it, we preserve it, but we seek a future that is not our own—a future defined by the vision of the Kingdom of God. We are called to make real the radically inclusive love of God that proclaims there is room for all at God’s table. The promise of Christ Church is to show the transformative power of God’s grace, and to make the power felt of, “Whoever you are, and wherever you are on the journey of faith, you are welcome here, as you are to receive the blessings of God so freely given.” There is a second part that I rarely say, “We who are here do not invite you to come in; we have all been invited by a loving God who seeks us as we seek God.”
The gospel story this morning, about the ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom to arrive and begin the marriage banquet is an odd one, and it doesn’t quite fit what I am trying to get across on this day that we dedicate ourselves to the ongoing stewardship of Christ Church, but I am going to give it my best shot.
Jesus tells a story of five of bridesmaids, dubbed the wise ones, who have enough oil for their lamps to keep them burning while they wait for the bridegroom and the feast to begin. The story turns on the tension of not knowing when the party was to start. Like going to a concert, latecomers would not be seated. Everyone had to be ready.
Five other bridesmaids, dubbed the foolish ones, forgot to bring their lamp oil. They want to borrow some, but the wise bridesmaids don’t want to risk the chance that they all won’t be able to keep the lamps lit long enough to greet the bridegroom and enter the feast. So the five foolish bridesmaids go off to buy oil, and in the meantime, the bridegroom arrives, the feast begins, and the five foolish get locked out.
As I trust in the radical abundance of God that shares the oil, and as I trust that there is always enough, and I believe the doors of God’s kingdom are always open, or if they are shut for a moment, they will be opened again, this story startles me. Also, if anyone is going to forget his oil for his lamp, it’s me.
I always want to rewrite this story, so that one of the wise bridesmaids says, “Hey, bridegroom, our sister’s aren’t here yet; you’re just going to have to wait.”
The mission of Christ Church might be best said, “We are here to keep the doors of the church open, burning our oil for as long as it takes for all who have no awareness of God’s love, mercy and grace. After all, if they aren’t here, it’s not their fault, it’s ours.”
I always think the wise bridesmaids should’ve reminded the others, “Do you have your oil?”
But, then again, on this Sunday where we commit to the future of Christ Church, Jesus’ parable reminds us that we must be responsible for that future, even if we can’t see it.
On Stewardship Sunday, we might simply say that to commit to the financial future of Christ Church is to insure that we have oil in our lamps to be the beacon to the world around us that Christ Church has been for 313 years, and can be, through our generosity and wisdom, for 313 years more.
Here is our Stewardship prayer, which says it best:
Gracious God, we are thankful for your presence in the world and we are mindful that you are present through us. May we face the cares of this world in ways that give life to your truth in our communion with each other. May we serve as faithful stewards of the future of Christ Church as well as of its history. May we use the beauty to which we are heirs to sustain the spiritual lives of the parish. May we raise our children in the universal message of love brought to us by your son Jesus Christ. May we open our doors to inquiring minds eager to cross boundaries of belief and condition to discover your intentions for our civil society. These things we pray in your holy name. Amen.
|
|
|
|