My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
(John 10:27)
The Sermons at Calvary
By Father Richard Humke
WEIGHING CAREFULLY WHAT WE SAY
May 2, 2004, 4 Easter C, Calvary
Church
As
we move along in the Easter season, our Gospel readings no longer are readings
of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus, as they have been for the first few
weeks after Easter, but are now readings once again from earlier in Jesus'
ministry.
Today
we find Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, at what St. John calls the Feast of
the Dedication, but what we know as Hanukkah.
It was not then, nor is it now, a major holy day for Jews, but since it
has become so well known in America as a Jewish holiday that comes around the
time of Christmas, it is interesting to note this reference in our Gospel
today.
Our
Gospel says that it was winter, as we know it must have been because we know
that Hanukkah falls in December; and in an enclosed porch Jesus was speaking to
his fellow Jews who were gathered there.
They are asking him not to keep them in suspense any longer but to tell
them if he really is the Messiah, that long-awaited figure in Judaism
who would come at the end of time and make right all the wrongs.
Jesus
said to them that he had already told them (undoubtedly in a cryptic
way, which is the way Jesus speaks so often in John's Gospel -- not
straightforwardly, as we would like, so that we would have a "yes" or
"no" answer.) He says that he
had already told them, and they didn't believe. And he then says that, if they didn't want to believe his words,
there were the works that he had done; but they didn't believe those either.
What
we see is that Jesus says, in effect, "I have told you who I am, and
secondly, my works have shown you who am I." It occurred to me, as I read those words, that those are still
the two ways that followers of Jesus make him known: by what they say and by what they do.
I
think that they are both important, the saying and the doing, the words
and the action; but I have to tell you that I get very tired of listening to
the words. I get very tired of hearing
Christians of the American variety "witnessing" (as they love to call
it) to their faith. The airwaves are so
full of it that it is sometimes difficult to find a station that does not call
itself a "Christian" station.
Our politicians know a good thing when they see it, and so they, too,
have latched on to this business of witnessing by words to what they purport to
believe, never mind that their actions don't follow the words because,
apparently, no one notices anyway.
And
yet, I am very ambivalent about what I have just said, and part of me wants to
take some of it back because I do believe that words are important and
that we ought to be able to say in some kind of simple way what we believe.
All
of us ought to be able to make a witness in words for the faith that dwells in
us. I know that there are people of
deep faith in this church, and in every other church I have served, who are
slow to speak about their faith; and some critics might say that that is
because they really have none. In a way
I commend them for their hesitancy in speaking, not because I think they should
not speak, but because I know that so much harm has been done the Gospel by
those who speak out of their own needs to do so rather than out of the needs
of the Gospel -- by those who speak too soon rather than waiting
until their faith has matured.
I
hope that some of you have read Maya Angelou's autobiographical book, "I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." It
is a quite remarkable story in which she tells that she was raped at the age of
seven. Shortly thereafter the man who
raped her was found dead; and she came to believe, as small children do (and
sometimes older people as well) that somehow she was responsible for his death.
She
said that she did not speak one word again for five years. But during that time she read
voraciously: Shakespeare, Poe, Kipling,
Burns. And then one day she spoke
again. She says, "When I (finally)
spoke, I had something to say."
And I know she did!
Many
people cannot speak about their Christian faith and what it has meant in their
own lives because they believe that they have nothing to say. But some people who do speak have
nothing to say. Perhaps it is possible
for all of us to learn how to speak about our faith in simple terms so that,
when the time comes, we will have something to say.
Some
of us heard at the Annual Convention of the Diocese this past March of a
program that is being tried in a number of parishes. It is called, simply, "Telling Your Story." Everyone likes to talk about him- or herself
so that helps to get one going! And
then, in the course of telling the story of one's own life (within a structured
period of time, I hasten to say, because many of us think our lives are so
interesting that we could go on forever) one begins to see connections, and
coincidences and, for a person of faith, to see how God has been quietly
working in one's life to bring about good.
A side benefit of this, of course, is that a person becomes more at ease
in speaking to others.
I
would love to see this program at Calvary Church, and I hope next year it might
be possible. You have some persons who
were deputies to that Convention who could get it started. Another parish in the Diocese had this
program during Lent and over a hundred people participated in it. As the assistant rector reported recently,
"As many members of (this parish) learned during Lent, we are all on a
journey and each of our journeys is varied and challenging and marvelous."
We
can begin by telling our own stories, and then we will be better able to tell
how God has been at work in our lives, shaping them and guiding them and
redeeming them.
Words,
as we all know, are dangerous as well, for they can harm as well as bless. Fr. John Powell tells in his book "Why
Am I Afraid to Love?" of a young Jewish boy named Mike Gold who lived in
New York City in the 1920's. His mother
was concerned that he not wander far beyond his neighborhood, but she didn't
want to tell him that it was a Jewish neighborhood that he lived in or that
there were people who wouldn't like him just because he was Jewish. How could a little boy understand that?
But
one day he did wander out of his neighborhood, and what his mother
feared would happen, did happen.
A group of boys accosted him and began to taunt him with the question,
"Are you a Christ-killer, you Jew."
"I don't know," he replied, because he had never heard the
word before. So they beat him up.
When
he got home, his mother wiped away the blood and put him on her lap and rocked
him. As they rocked back and forth, he
looked at her and used the word "Christ" for the first time: "Mama, who is Christ? What did I do to him?"
That's
not the end of the story. He died a street person in 1967, and for the last
period of his life his meals were taken every day at a Catholic Charity house
in New York City run by one of the great saints and social consciences of the
20th C., Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day said
of Mike Gold just before his death, "Mike Gold eats every day at the table
of Christ, but he will never accept Christ because of the day he first heard
his name."
You
see, words have power, power to attract and power to repel. Even religious words, spoken for the best of
reasons, can be so hurtful. Before we
speak too freely, we need to learn to weigh what it is that we are really
saying.
Jesus
says in today's Gospel that his hearers can believe him for the words he says
or, if that is not enough, for his actions.
Some people will be attracted by our words, and others will be attracted
by our example. But never forget, if
either those words or those examples are hurtful, none will be attracted, and
we will have failed in telling the Story.
Richard
H. Humke
Richard
H. Humke