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New Rules for New Life

The Rev. Canon Elizabeth C. Knowlton
Genesis 21:8-21; Matthew 10:24-39
Proper 7  – Year A
22 June 2008

I remember those first few weeks of college.  Everything seemed new, and frankly much of it seemed scary.  I had met a few people at orientation.  Some of those would become lifelong friends.  Others, never really became part of my inner circle.  There was a way in which we all had the same look in our eyes.  We were trying to figure out the lay of the land.  Who would be the popular ones?  Who would be the smart ones?  Who could we trust?  How would we answer the question…..what is your major?

Eventually of course a community among the freshman emerged.  We learned the rules of Albion College.  By my birthday in November, my friends knew that they should paint the rock on the quad to celebrate.  We had become Britons and could yell the words to Io Triumphe with the best of them at the football games.  We knew who we were in that context and we began to breathe much easier. The rulebook, while not written down, had been assimilated.

“Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.”

These words from Jesus to his disciples are frankly rather uncomfortable.  But underneath them is a deep truth.  To follow Jesus is to be open to the mystery of God in a new and radical way.  And if we commit to that path fully, everything we think we know will be challenged.  Assumptions we hold will be uncovered and brought into the light.

This is not to say that our family will be cast aside, but we will have to leave home on one level or another. There is a way in which we will have to look at our family, our communities, and our way of life through the lens of Jesus as we go from passive participation to a more conscious spiritual life. This is difficult because the reality is we assimilate the rules of our families and communities as a way to make sense of our experience.  Our religious views do that as well, but if we remain truly open to God, we will not stay too comfortable for too long.

Many of you know that I recently returned from a trip to Tanzania with members of the Cathedral.  To really understand all that we saw and experienced will take a good bit of time and reflection.  But one thing I am sure of is that I will never think about the Body of Christ in the same way.  You cannot be exposed to a Diocese of 550,000 Anglicans who live halfway around the world and see our own community in the same way. 

After one of the confirmation services we attended in the villages, Bishop Mhogolo said to us, “You really have no idea what your presence here means.  One of the people from the last village said that you are the only Americans in their memory that have ever come to their village.  For them to know and see that there are people in the United States that care enough about them to come and meet them and worship with them, gives them a new image of their brothers and sisters far away.”

For us as a group, we learned a thing or two about hospitality.  In the most modest of villages, we were showered with gifts of welcome and celebration. We were offered food and drink and a place to rest.  At every new place we arrived, a song and dance had been prepared to welcome us.  Whether it was a wooden spoon placed in our hands, or a traditional Kanga draped over us, we were shown in very tangible ways that we were meant to feel welcome, even in settings we couldn’t have imagined from Atlanta. 

The act of meeting one another was not a side purpose of the trip, but emerged as having central importance.  We had been told that ahead of time, but it was clear as we went along, that our American tendency to want to “fix” things would need to be held in check.  It was wonderful to see the places that will receive our medical supplies later this year.  But, being on the grounds of the hospital was a stark reminder that no single container could begin to meet the needs of that community. 

At one point as we toured Mvumi Hospital I had to step outside.  I was overwhelmed by the poverty we had seen the previous day and the facility we were now seeing.  It was a nice facility.  Nicer than I expected.  It was clean and involved in supporting maternal and child health.  Yet we heard a baby had died the past week because there was no powdered milk available.  There was no oxygen in the entire facility.  And the shortage of trained medical staff was overwhelming.  I was sad and I was angry.  I was perplexed and I was challenged by my own excesses at home. 

The fact that we couldn’t “fix” it immediately, was however an invitation to a deeper relationship.  It made me pray in a new way.  It was much more like the prayer of Hagar that cries out to God in grief for the suffering she witnesses, than the calm intonations of the morning office.

But in the midst of that emotion, was a quieter voice that nudged me to remember.  To remember that it was not up to me, or the Cathedral, to fix this.  That God was already present and working.  That yes we had a call here, but that the call was for us as well as for our brothers and sisters there.  We might bring medical supplies, but they were gifting us with a tangibility of faithfulness and joy that we needed just as desperately as they needed oxygen tanks. 

At the end of our trip we had a roundtable discussion with Bishop Mhogolo and others we had met in the past week.  We reflected on what we had seen and heard.  One of the most wonderful moments of that time was when the Bishop said, in the most diplomatic of ways, “It is important for me to say that I am not anyone’s project.”  “As we move forward it is important for us to realize that you bring things and we bring things and together we work for God’s glory.”  “We need to keep focused on doing God’s mission together.”

Together.  Yes, that was the reminder was the deep connectedness we share as members of the Body of Christ.  It is the connection that goes beyond our familial, or national, or denominational differences.  It is the reminder that if we trust in the God who counts the hairs on each of our heads, we will find our way together.  There is a deep need we have of one another in the love of God that calls us to know and care for each other.  I don’t know what this trip will yield for us a community.  But I do know that this is just the first step in an exploration of what we are called to do together.  If we enter the process in the spirit of the Gospel, we will be challenged.  We may need to let go of some of our previously held frameworks and rulebooks.  It is a great challenge and a wonderful invitation to new life.   I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Amen

Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org

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