You are aware, I am sure, of
the recent, nationwide racial, ethnic, and gender-related conflicts, sometimes
violent, on several college campuses and in many neighborhoods. I have heard or
read eloquent commentaries and exhortations from truly concerned political
leaders and academic officials. Committees are being formed to study the issues
and recommend solutions. Yet, no matter what they say, regardless of the
committee reports, no less than a strong undercurrent of divisiveness will most
likely persist. Groups persecuted or perceiving themselves as victimized, will
demonstrate, sometimes with warlike rebuttal. Defenders of acquired turf will
continue, at least subtly, to guard against intrusions by "strangers" and to
persecute those appearing to threaten their territories.
We have also learned that one
or more children have been killed in their own communities for status sneakers.
We have been informed about adults who have unethically manipulated financial
resources of others to satisfy their own unquenchable greed. A few weeks ago,
one of my students told a business ethics class that an acquaintance who owns a
job placement agency has this practice: if a client confidentially
seeking a job is offered a new position, but refuses it, the agency
anonymously informs the client's present employer about the job search under
way; often the current employer then fires the employee, who rushes to accept a
post found by the agency, thereby providing the agency with its job-finding
fee. The agency owner sees nothing wrong with what he does, because the client
is placed in a new job.
In all of these examples,
individuals are experienced superficially - only as masks, masks of race,
ethnic heritage, sexual orientation, status holder, or impersonal client. A
person's race (and whatever that means to the beholder) is who one is;
an individual's ethnic roots (and whatever that means to the observer) is one's
total identity; a human being's sexual orientation (and whatever that means to
another) is one's total personality; a person's apparent status is what one is
all about; and, a client may be only an exploitable object.
It is equally possible that
many men and women experience themselves superficially, veiled by these limited
categories; I am a --------- and whatever that means to me).
Underlying all of these narrow
classifications is at least one basic issue: do we human beings have a
unifying, common ground? In other words, what can replace those categorical
barriers leading to persecutions, exploitations, and imprisoning self-images?
I propose that at the heart of
such intolerance, injustice, and violence is the sad reality that most people
don't recognize each other for who they really are. Further, many individuals
don't recognize themselves for who they really are. Only masks and clouded
images of race, of ethnicity, of sexual orientation, and of exploitable objects
are perceived.
These and many other alienating
masks and images were well-known to Christ, who prayed, "Holy Father, protect
by the power of thy name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one,
as we are one." Yet, nearly 2,000 years later his disciples, and others, are
divided seriously, often intolerantly, often violently, over our races, ethnic
heritages, sexual orientations, status symbols, and occupational values. In our
liturgies, based on our common baptism, we profess our shared, unifying
identity as children of God in Christ. First and foremost, this is who
we have decided to be; secondarily, though significantly, we are racial,
ethnic, sexual, and vocational creatures. Racial or other viciousness inflicted
on others different from oneself has no place among Christian people, and
cruelties imposed by Christians on any other peoples are utterly alien to the
Gospel of Christ.
I am NOT suggesting for one
moment that accepting oneself and others as children of God, or as unbaptized
human beings, exempts anyone from accountability for their behavior.
Some hard questions about the behavior of individuals and groups of
individuals, even nations, need to be asked thoughtfully and sensitively, such
as: is one morally responsible for knowingly engaging in activities that result
in a self-inflicted, chronic or terminal illness? what limitations ought to be
placed on citizens' entitlements? what accountabilities are appropriate for
fraud, abuse and injustice discovered in public or private sectors? are a
particular nation's policies self-defeating, unduly aggressive, or too
uncompromising? Many Christian leaders, in the name of compassion, or for
political expediency, are failing to consider thoroughly such factors. We need
reminding that the unity for which Christ prayed is not an all-embracing
approval of all human loyalties, values, and behaviors; in loving us all as his
children, the Creator does not thereby welcome all human conduct.
In this morning's reading from
Acts, we hear Christ addressing his disciples, including you and me, "You will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will bear witness
for me in Jerusalem, and all over Judaea and Samaria, and away to the ends of
the earth." That we are children of God by our baptism unites us; our calling
to be witnesses is the living out of our baptism. Informed Christians, knowing
who we are fundamentally, knowing with heart and mind who alone is God,
witnessing to what God has done in our lives, communicating our experiences and
beliefs, this is our shared, primary vocation. We may witness to this
identity and calling in all that we do: as friends and family members,
employers and employees, whatever our races, ethnic traditions and sexual
orientations, and as lay and ordained people.
With regard to ordination, it
is fitting that I quote some words from a seminary dean: "The ordained ministry
emerges out of the same sense of vocation which baptism makes possible for all
Christians, but is a call to a ministry of leadership within the Body of
Christ. Through ordination the Church designates some people to be
symbol-bearers on behalf of all. What makes ordination so important to the
Church is not that ordained people are any different or better or more holy
than others (they may or may not be), but that the office they take on invokes
those symbols associated with the ministry of Jesus Christ down through the
ages."
That we will suffer in our
witnessing is inevitable; a commitment to God in Christ before all other
loyalties, the raising of questions about values and behavior may exact a toll,
as it did for the prophets of Israel and for Christ himself. It should be no
surprise that Christianity is NOT just to make us feel good; if we hear
ourselves saying "I just want to be happy," let's remember that neither God nor
Christ have achieved uninterrupted happiness,
However, witnessing to who we
are is not relentless unhappiness! Being essentially a child of God is to be
set free from being lesser individuals; it is to be more fully human with
graceful self-esteem; it is to relate to others with equal regard, but not
naively; it is to be on a pilgrimage toward a more unified abundant life. Being
a child of God is to be "just as I am," just as we are - scarred, resurrected,
and ascended with Christ, strengthened to witness by the coming of God's Holy
Spirit.