(http://edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany5a.html)
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” –John Winthrop, 1630. https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/
At Tucson’s Rogue Theatre not long ago I saw a play about a small group of people in an isolated community who shared a common, if strictly limited faith, and therefore a common, if strictly limited, attitude toward life.
Into their community comes a free spirit, a refugee from another country, someone who brings a different sense of the joy of life and of the possibilities of life to them despite her own long-standing grief.
P.S. Babette can cook.
The name of the story is “Babette’s Feast” and as a result of the sumptuous Feast that Babette prepares for the people of the small community, they begin to embrace Joy and Grace a little more warmly than they have before.
As they gather and share the meal they talk and reconcile; old grudges drop away as love emerges.
They begin to embrace joy, and grace, a little more warmly than they have before – in fact, a lot more warmly, so that it is as if for an hour, they’ve had a glimpse of heaven.
The prophet Isaiah (25:6) gives us a vision of a heavenly banquet:
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
In the midst of this story’s unfolding, I recalled the reflection “church is church” – as the members of the close little community bicker with each other, and at the end, when they embraced each other, and reached a moment of grace, I said to myself again, “church is church.”
That is, both the good and the bad, the happiness and the bickering, and the possibility of the release of mercy based on God‘s own infinite mercy— are church.
Actually, that’s the point made by one of the characters: we are surrounded by God’s infinite mercy. Let’s open our hearts to it.
The feast helped.
The phrase “church is church” I heard in a group of ministers in about 2010 where a black church musician and pastor was listening to people from very different faith backgrounds from his own talk about what was going on in their congregations and how they were feeling about it and in a moment of recognition he said “church is church.”
We all have these experiences, as pastors, as church members, as people of God. Even in other contexts– at work, at home, with friends, there is the blessing of community in experiencing both conflict and grace together. As the Psalmist (85:10,12) says,
Mercy and truth are met together :
righteousness and peace have kissed each other;
The Lord will also give us all that is good :
and our land shall yield its plenty.
We have a lot of the same ways of being with each other, the ways we behave, in the way we treat each other and feel about each other, in the congregation, regardless of denomination. In fact, I remember “church is church” when I have spoken with Sufi leaders and Sikh leaders, as well as Christians of my own and other denominations.
Church is church, and we embrace the grace as well as the grit of life together.
The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew in Tucson.
Published under the title, "The blessing of community", in the Arizona Daily Star, Sunday February 19th 2023, E3.
https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/the-blessing-of-community/article_882e2f64-a31e-11ed-a8e8-630de1ae0383.html
No comments:
Post a Comment