“God is on mission in Christ.”
Transfiguration of Jesus
Aug. 6, 2005
Mr. Steve Polston
St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church
Indianapolis, Indiana
In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Well, it’s been about a year since I was a pilgrim in Brazil, meeting with other Christians — Episcopalians — listening, praying, singing and dancing.
We were of the belief before we traveled to Brazil that the gathering of youth from this diocese, the Diocese of Brasilia and the Diocese of Bor in the Sudan of Africa was to be a mission-oriented trip. You know… the classic idea we learned as children from missionaries who traveled to distant lands to witness to non-Christians and build schools, hospitals and orphanages.
At least, we learned that if we were in Baptist churches, or Methodist churches or Holiness churches. I’m not a cradle-born Episcopalian, but I know that many people’s backgrounds may have included the image of spirit-filled, well-educated people coming to witness to us about what was happening in Africa and Latin America and China. Maybe some of you learned this way, too.
Indeed, as we gathered last summer to learn about our two-week journey, the possibility of helping out with a building project for the Landless People in a communal farming operation was presented. We were ready, willing and able to perform such work! Just give us some hammers and nails!
And we were prepared to join Sudanese Christians at a retreat center, which is much like Waycross. We would learn about what life was like in refugee camps in Africa, share stories and faith and music with them and the Brazilians.
It would be all like Dr. Charles Allen said a couple of weeks ago when he preached here at St. Timothy’s: “Every Day With Jesus is Sweeter than the Day Before!”
But the Africans couldn’t come to Brazil. They were caught up in the sort of Kafka-esque bureaucratic mess you’ve come to expect from people who are trying to travel to or from Africa, especially from the Sudan, where many people have never lived in the midst of their own indigenous culture. You are aware of the genocide that came upon the tens of thousands of people while the rest of the world wasn’t watching. I won’t go farther with this.
The Africans couldn’t get exit papers to travel to Brazil. We were disappointed, of course, but developed a new plan. We were spiritual pilgrims, living at the church retreat center for a couple of weeks, spending our days praying, singing, dancing and studying the Bible in the context of all-day Eucharistic feasts. If you’ve never been to church for a full day, you’re missing something. If you’ve never been to church for 10 days straight, you’re missing quite another thing! Our evenings were filled with laughter, dancing and music. We tried to learn Latin dancing from Portuguese-speaking Episcopalians. They tried to teach us. It was fun!
I think, though, that what transformed my life, was going to the Landless People’s communal farm for a weekend. They weren’t ready to have us work with them to build a roadside produce stand, for reasons that are unclear to me, but they were ready to treat us to several days of barbecue cookouts — feasts, really! — and to tell us their story.
They pointed us toward the history of the Landless Movement throughout the world, in which people appropriate privately held ranches and squat until the police run them off or the government pays for the land and lets them form small farms. It is a struggle that ends in death by violence for so many. I won’t go farther with this.
Since my return last summer, I’ve joined up with the Diocesan Global Missions Committee, who sent us pilgrims. In my work with the Global Missions Committee, I’ve begun to get a better sense of how mission is done in the Episcopal Church.
Deacon Donna likened our journey last summer to building relationships with the rest of the church and the world, strengthening our faith and theirs.
I think she hit the nail on the head.
This summer, the Global Missions Committee read a study document (about 50 pages) prepared by the national church convention two years ago that was designed to be studied in parishes, dioceses, committees, retreat centers, and then responded to. It was about as dry as a piece of cardboard or a really bad meatloaf.
My task was to lead discussion so that our diocese could make a report on how our missions projects relate to the national church’s efforts, and how our efforts relate to the efforts of the rest of the Anglican Communion and the rest of the church.
I wrote a nine-page summary, which we read together and which I hope wasn’t as dry as the aforementioned meatloaf.
What struck me clearly was the theological understanding of what missions can do — build partnerships and relationships that mirror what God is doing with humanity. The phrase that sticks with me is this: God is On Mission In Christ.
The premise is that God wanted to change the world. He did this by giving his son Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It was a supreme act of forgiveness. God could not change what had happened and he was utterly incapable of reconciling our failure as humans. He had spent so much time (the reading from Exodus today is just part of a longer story about the covenant with Israel)… God had spent so much time making us his own — and we had failed to live up to the agreement — that he could in no other way see how we could live up to the covenant agreements. God had to forgive us and atone for our sin by giving up his precious Body and Blood.
… We were so abjectly incapable and unavailable…
Well, what happens in these mission partnerships mirrored throughout the Anglican Communion, with our diocese and the dioceses of Bor and Brasilia, for instance, is that we go as pilgrims and seekers and try to learn from our Christian family in other parts of the world. Are you aware, for instance, that more missionaries are sent from Africa and Asia to Latin America than the so-called First World church sends? Those phrases — First and Third World — now are supplanted by the phrases Global North and Global South.
Our mission, now, as Episcopalians, is to go to be with people the way that God has gone to be with people, as a partner, a friend, a seeker, to find out what the need is, and then to find out what is being given in return. As the Global North listens to the Global South, we look forward to finding out what they believe we need.
This mutuality in mission — the partnership model — is one that I believe is coming into its own.
And I look forward to the day when we at St. Timothy’s, for instance, will open our Gleaner’s Food Pantry… very soon, I hope! What I hope we will be open to is the message that the world — our neighbors in this part of the city — will bring to us. I don’t know what they’ll say, but I look forward to it.
Maybe, somebody who comes to receive food will leave a gift of their own wisdom, the wisdom born from poverty or hunger or homelessness. Or the wisdom of looking to God for the supply of all our need.
Are we ready for this message? We will be willing to receive the most beautiful of gifts — truth, spirit, longing?
I wonder if, as we reflect on the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, if we can still feel the wound of so much carnage of our own soldiers, sailors and airmen in the battles of World War Two? I wonder if the pain of VietNam, the Gulf War, the Second Gulf War, the martyrdom of our American children in the service of war and self-martyrdom of suicide-bombers, is something that will lead us to something better.
We have responsibility in our neighborhood to feed our neighbors. We have responsibility to help the world be rebuilt. We have a responsibility to the covenant of Jesus Christ’s atoning death and majestic transfiguration so that the Kingdom of God can be fully lived into in this parish, this diocese and in the world.
Are we ready for the lessons the world will bring to our door when we once open the door?
The New Testament Lesson and Gospel for the day point to the utter inscrutable power and love of God to create atonement for sin, heavenly food for hungry souls, majestic living for the tears of desolation, sin, sickness and sadness.
Amen.