Читать книгу Proclaim! - Marcus George Halley - Страница 6
ОглавлениеWhen he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4:16–21)
I WAS BARELY A YEAR INTO PARISH MINISTRY when Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri.
Having served in racially and ideologically diverse contexts since I was ordained a priest, I have found that this one issue is seen from a multitude of vantage points and that the mere mention of it is enough for some people to shut down. That reality grieves me deeply. I also know that as someone who has lived thirty-three years as an African American in this country, this incident sparked something in me. The images of his lifeless body lying in the street and the way law enforcement officers were deployed to subdue the pain and anger of the Ferguson community triggered memories that I didn’t even know I had. It is as if, almost by default, this country regularly reminds black people of our place here. The message seems to be: we can occupy public space, but not too much.
I was serving in a historically white congregation at this point. To be clear, this community admitted that they wanted to be a more ethnically and racially diverse community, but like many historically white mainline congregations, the conversation was as far as many were willing to go. In this context, I found myself needing a place of refuge and escape, a place to soothe the open wound that had been inflicted by a society that treats black lives with open contempt or subtle disregard. I found the community I needed by attending a mass meeting at a local church in Kansas City, Missouri. The meeting was billed as an opportunity to gather as a community, to grieve, and to organize. The church was located in the historically black side of the town, albeit in the wealthier part. Whereas I regularly had to cordon off my experience as a black person to engage in worship with the community I served, I was free to be me here. We came together. We wept. We sang familiar hymns. We held hands. We hugged. We prayed.
My God, we prayed.
I am too young to know what a mass meeting during the civil rights movement might have looked like, but many in that room were there when Kansas City burned. It had only been a few decades since Kansas City police officers, trying to subdue another instance of civil disturbance, threw tear gas into a youth dance in a church basement, setting off the Kansas City Riot of 1968, eventually resulting in the death of six, injuries to dozens of others, millions of dollars in property damage, and a city traumatized by division. What felt true for me in that church is that faith has been a cornerstone of the way black people in the community have not only found solace in the face of terror and oppression, but also resolve.
Several decades removed from the event, I remember most vividly the direct connection between prayer and witness. Unlike many of the church services I’ve experienced, the prayer of that assembly had a trajectory. It is one thing to understand the Holy Spirit as the animating force underneath and within our prayer. It is something altogether different to understand ourselves as having been taken into that force and carried into a new, inspiring reality—the kingdom of God. Prayer and worship painted a compelling vision that left the congregation yearning for a better, more just, more compassionate world.
We sang and prayed and heard scripture proclaimed and then were told how to be in the world in a way that bore witness to the inbreaking movement of justice that is part-and-parcel to the reign of Christ. There was energy in that room and that energy was given a direction and purpose—organize new justice-oriented communities, be a just presence in your sphere of influence, believe that a more compassionate world is possible despite the desperate tantrums of injustice because God has already won the ultimate victory. It might even be suggested that the prayers of the community gathered in that room were eschatological, that is, oriented toward the promise of God’s future.
This experience was intentional. It drew a lot of energy and wisdom from the mass meetings of the civil rights movement. The spiritual and moral energy that supported the civil rights movement was cultivated in the Black Church, black Christian communities who trace their legacy back to the slave churches across the antebellum United States of America. These churches took on the task of reinterpreting Christian tradition in a way that was affirming of black people living in white supremacist power systems, redeeming and transforming a faith tradition white supremacy had distorted and twisted beyond recognition. Unlike their white, privileged counterparts, black Christians never had the ability to settle into Sunday performative religion because their lives were at constant risk. Part of African American Christian public worship makes clear that God is present with us and that because of God’s presence, our lives are being changed and the oppressive regimes that surround us are being dismantled as God’s “Great Day” comes ever more clearly into view.
The spiritual force underneath the civil rights movement was deeply rooted in scripture, such as Isaiah’s prophetic vision of the “peaceable kingdom.” Civil rights activists were not involved in any ordinary task. They knew themselves to be involved in work of divine importance. Churches not only supplied the space for these mass meetings to take place, they also set the tone. Nowhere is this more evident than Martin Luther King’s final speech at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, where he, invoking Moses on Mount Nebo, exclaimed:
I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ive-been-mountaintop-address-delivered-bishop-charles-mason-temple)
The context is very different and it can be argued that the privilege of white mainline denominations strips them of any urgency, but I often wonder if contemporary mainline churches have this degree of spiritual integrity and power or clarity of purpose. My sense is that we do not. Church for many is their last refuge of safety and sanity in a world gone mad, so any bandwidth for change, even personal change, has been squeezed out. The institution itself is facing such an existential crisis that energy is being diverted away from conversations about the purpose of Church and how we must deepen our call to Christian discipleship and is instead being poured into conversations about self-preservation. In this context, the function of worship then is to comfort us in what we feel is our affliction and to promise us the maximum amount of benefit with the least amount of effort. As much as we might like this to be true, this simply doesn’t reflect God’s mission expressed in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus tells followers like us over and over again that those who seek life, abundant life, must surrender the life they have now. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
That call to follow is the basis of our participation in God’s mission. While the attribution is misplaced and reflects the Episcopal Church’s self-understanding in a particular moment, the answer to the question of mission in the prayer book is spot on. The mission of God (the Book of Common Prayer says “mission of the Church”) “is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (Book of Common Prayer, 855). The primary actor in that mission is God, who is already out ahead of the church engaging in this transforming and liberating work. The invitation from God is to participate in this work, to join the movement as it were, to bear witness to God’s kingdom. God has already said “yes” to us by securing our freedom from sin and death. No matter how worthless or unworthy we think ourselves to be, God sees such immeasurable value and worth in us that God was willing to give of God’s own self to save us. To follow God therefore is to respond to God’s “yes” with a “yes” of our own. Far from being a celestial fire-insurance policy, joining this movement is what it means to be a Christian.
When Jesus stands up in the synagogue to read the words of Isaiah, he is doing a series of incredibly important actions. First, he is reminding the congregation of God’s work. Second, he reinterprets the meaning of that work to meet the needs of his context. It is remarkable that in reciting the words of the prophet, Jesus engages in some interesting interpretation. According to the oracle in Isaiah 61, the prophet says that God has sent him to:
• Bring good news to the oppressed (v. 1)
• Bind up the brokenhearted (v. 1)
• Proclaim liberty to the captives (v. 1)
• Release to the prisoners (v. 1)
• Proclaim the years of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance for our God (v. 2)
But when Jesus references Isaiah in Luke 4, he spins it. According to Jesus, God has sent him to:
• Bring good news to the poor (v. 18)
• Proclaim release to the captives (v. 18)
• Proclaim . . . recovery of sight to the blind (v. 18)
• Let the oppressed go free (v. 18)
• Proclaim the years of the Lord’s favor (v. 19)
So much of Jesus’s other words may be attributed to translation, but it is curious that the middle proclamation, the “recovery of sight to the blind,” seems to be an innovation, something that we don’t find at all in Isaiah 61. It seems that Jesus is making clear that not only does he stand in continuity with the Jewish prophetic tradition, but he is remixing it. Not only has he come to set people free, to heal, and to restore, but he has come so that we might see what we otherwise could not.
To understand what this seeing might be, it is important to understand the world of Luke. For Luke, time was separated into two ages, the Age of the Flesh and the Age of the Spirit. As Luke’s Gospel unfolds, it becomes clear that the Incarnation, what Fleming Rutledge refers to as “the definitive invasion” of the territory that belongs to “the occupying Enemy,” has inaugurated the new age of the Spirit (Rutledge, Advent, 19). This is reflected in the topsy-turvy nature of society captured in Mary’s song—the Magnificat.
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.” (Luke 1:46–55)
Just as in Jesus’s later interpretation of Isaiah 61, Mary’s song makes clear that what is happening in this moment is connected to something has been happening for centuries. The overturning of society was the fulfillment of a promise “made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants for ever” in the same way that Jesus was the walking fulfilment of Isaiah’s oracle.
Jesus’s inauguration of the new Age of the Spirit did not immediately put an end to the Age of the Flesh. Rather, the Church lives in the interval between the death of the current age and the fullness of the next. As Fleming Rutledge later says, “The church is analogous to paratroopers who secure a place behind enemy lines. We are God’s commandos, guerrillas, and resistance fighters in the territory occupied by the enemy, who participate in establishing ‘signs and beachheads’ signifying the ultimate victory” (Advent, 19).
What does all this have to do with mission and seeing? The Church of God is called to be the vanguard of heaven. We are those who, by God’s grace, have been given a glimpse into the ultimate reality of God’s reign and are thereby called by God to establish outposts of that promised reign through good works, the development of spiritual practices, and the pursuit of justice and mercy. Christians are people who commit to living lives that, in big ways and in small, speak the joy of God’s coming reign. We are also those who see the ongoing renewal and re-creation of the world even in the face of existential threats like climate change and nuclear war. Far from being an excuse to abandon the world to whatever fate may come, our collective belief that God is out ahead of us renewing the world propels us out into the world in mission convinced of God’s ultimate victory and the eventual triumph of justice, compassion, and peace.
At its best, the Church can be the place where God’s reign is experienced more clearly than anywhere else. As the community of disciples gathered around the Risen Christ, we affirm, simply by our gathering that the relentlessness of life, not the yawning abyss of death, has the final say. We have compassion, justice, vulnerability, bravery, joy, and peace written deep in our communal DNA, even if centuries of schism, heresy, contention, and injustice have obscured them. Whatever else we are and whatever else we do, it has been given to us to bear witness to the kingdom of God on the earth by building communities capable of bearing the light of Christ into the darkness of the world.
The worshiping community where I have most clearly seen the crashing-in of the reign of God was during my yearlong internship with Church of Common Ground. The Church of Common Ground is a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta that worships, builds community with, and advocates alongside members of Atlanta’s homeless community. This community worships outdoors 52 Sundays a year, singing and praying under an awning or tent when the weather becomes inclement. When I was there, the church had a storefront location that housed their support ministries: a daily Bible study, support groups, numerous AA meetings, a weekly foot clinic, and a space where folks could come in, grab a drink of cool water, charge their phones, receive their mail, or clear the chairs out of the way to stretch out on the floor and take a nap. What I witnessed in this community each day was drama and chaos, but also a church that intentionally gave their prayers direction and focus. They prayed for dignity to be shown to those who experience poverty and homelessness and then invited people from so-called “big-steeple” congregations and wealthy neighborhoods to worship and build relationship and community with them. They prayed for ways to deal with hunger and then made sandwiches and incredibly strong and often bitter church coffee, offering them freely to whoever asked. They prayed for forgiveness of their sins and then opened their hands to receive the bread and wine, surrendering bits of their guilt and shame in the process, exchanging them for morsels of the bread of angels. This community showed me the degree to which it is possible for us to be radically changed in worship by paying attention to the ways that the kingdom of God comes very near to us if we are open and vulnerable enough to experience worship just beyond the edge of what makes us comfortable.
Church of the Common Ground is where worship-as-mission first came alive to me.
When I served in Missouri, I stumbled into facilitating the anti-racism trainings required for ordination. I worked with a small team of folks who would drive many miles to offer this training to those who needed it. When I first began, I expected it to be a miserable process that people had to be coerced into. From feedback forms, that is what many participants expected as well. What my team and I worked hard to do was to establish brave and courageous space where learning could happen without shame and where participants could be inspired to make changes in their faith communities that might open them up to relationships imperiled by the subtle (and not-so-subtle) white supremacy that stalks many of our faith communities.
There would always come a moment though, when, as a trainer, I could tell when I had run up against a participants’ red line. No matter how much we discussed the challenges and joys of building authentic relationships across difference or how much we highlighted God’s mission of reconciliation into which we have been called, there would inevitably come a point where individuals simply were unwilling to go. Maybe it was the monochromatic images in church art and architecture, monolinguistic liturgies, or monocultural expressions of worship that convey a message about who belongs in that community and, by default, who does not. There was always something that people were unwilling to hand off in order to experience the kind of fuller expression of God’s kingdom we only experience when we worship with people different from us. When worship becomes an extension of our own personal piety divorced from any sense of God’s mission, it becomes an idol of our own making, a carefully curated religious artifact that struggles to convey and communicate the transforming grace of God. Instead of a liturgy of the reign of God, all we are left with in that moment is a liturgy of the status quo.
When Jesus stands up in the synagogue to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he lets the community know that the status quo has come to an end, that a new day is dawning, that the very thing for which generations of God’s people had prayed had finally come to pass. It is my belief that when we gather as followers of Jesus Christ, we do so in the same spirit. Whether our communities gather in storefronts, or campus chapels, or basements, or school gyms, or parks, or neogothic structures, we proclaim that a new day is dawning not just for the world at large, but for the community within which we gather. Each time we gather, we repeat the words of John’s Revelation: See, I am making all things new. The deepest prayers of a community—healing from trauma, freedom from addiction, reconciliation from years of structural racism, hope in the middle of economic strain, deep relationships in a culture of increasing isolation—are all caught up in the prayers and witness of the local church, if we are paying attention and are willing to get dirty. We declare that there is healing, there is freedom, there is reconciliation, there is hope, there is community. In Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, and Prayer, Rowan Williams raises and then answers a question about the location of a Christian community vis-à-vis suffering and chaos. He writes:
If we ask the question, “Where might you expect to find the baptized?” one answer is, “In the neighborhood of chaos.” It means you might expect to find Christian people near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered, disfigured and needy. Christians will be found in the neighborhood of Jesus—but Jesus is found in the neighborhood of human confusion and suffering, defenselessly alongside those in need. If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny. (Williams, Being Christian, 4–5)
The Church stands in a paradox—at the meeting and overlap of two ages—one that is passing away and another that is on the rise. We stand with Jesus and Mary, announcing the arrival of the promise of God even as we wait on its fullness. It is our work to take our place in the messiest places in our communities, where abuse and neglect erode human relationships, where addiction and violence corrode human dignity, where poverty and oppression stifle the human spirit, and to declare—by word and example—the Good News of God in Christ. Public liturgy in that context can’t always be staid and safe. The joy of our prayers is mingled with the grief of human suffering, our Alleluias cohabitate with groaning and weeping.
But we stand anyway, because God’s Spirit is here, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
