It was a Communion Sunday at our church this past week, and it was also the Sunday after the shooting in Georgia. Here’s what I said in that intersection. The scripture was James 2:1-8, 14-17.
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Sometimes we speak in euphemisms, that is we say things we mean, but we don’t intend for them to actually be acted upon.
For instance, if someone comes to my house I might say, “Make yourself at home,” I mean make yourself comfortable, but if the person were to begin to rearrange the furniture or take pictures off the walls so they felt more at home, I would probably move fairly quickly to clarify what I meant.
If we were to distill our passage for this morning down to one sentence, it would say, “We can’t live out our faith euphemistically.” We need to live into our words. James offered a couple of specific examples to make his point.
First, he said, don’t say everyone belongs and then be impressed by money and power. Make room for everyone equally. Don’t play favorites. His second admonition is even more pointed: Don’t just say the right words, live them out. If we see someone who is hungry and cold, do more than say, “Be warm and eat well.” Feed them and clothe them.
As our translation puts it, “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?”
We can’t live out our faith in euphemisms.
That sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? Let your actions speak as loudly and clearly as your words. Put your money where your mouth is. Don’t say one thing and do another.
It becomes more layered when we apply his words on more than a personal level, when we look at the systems we are a part of. It matters that we bring food to put in the plastic crates in the Parish Hall so Leon can take them to the Hamden Food Bank. That food feeds people. We are doing more than saying, “I hope you find a good meal.”
And—not but—AND those cans of tuna and vegetables don’t change a broken system that makes it hard for many people to live sustainable lives.
Yesterday, Ginger and I participated in an event for Raise the Roof, which is a nonprofit on the Shoreline that raises money for Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Haven. Each year they have a kind of “Dancing with the Stars” gala that raises the bulk of their money. This is the tenth anniversary of the gala and they have funded over twenty houses in New Haven.
It is a wonderful event and a wonderful organization, and—not but—AND part of the reason they fund houses in New Haven is the land in Guilford or Madison is too expensive and the towns have regulations that make that kind of building difficult, even though actual affordable housing would be both meaningful and beneficial to those communities—to any community.
We have to continue to work to live out our faith on both levels, personal and systemic. We can’t do it all. We can’t meet every need. And we can do something. We can meet the need in front of our faces and we can find ways to do the longer work of changing our systems.
I know a big part of the reason systems have been on my mind is the school shooting in Georgia this week. Once again, we are all disheartened by the horrible news and still as a nation we have done very little to make it more difficult for people—for children—to get assault weapons. As a nation—as a system—our words and our actions don’t match. We could change things, but we keep choosing not to do so.
I know that is a brutal example, and it matters that we figure out how to talk about the systems we are a part of, that we could change. I spent a good bit of time this week deciding, first, if I was going to mention the shooting and second, how to talk about it because I know it’s not an easy fix. I know it means we have to be willing to have hard conversations.
And then I decided to say it out loud as an invitation to hard conversations. We can begin to change systems by learning how to have hard conversations. As I have said before, one of the best ways we can change the world around us is to be willing to really listen and talk to each other right here in this congregation. We don’t all think alike, or feel the same way about what is happening, and yet, we do—if we are willing to listen and risk with one another.
Let me tell you why I feel so deeply about the school shootings. I was a high school English teacher in Winchester, Massachusetts when the shooting at Columbine High School happened. One of my favorite things about my school, which demographically was a lot like Columbine, was the big pile of backpacks in the hallway outside my room. For me, it was a huge monument of trust: no one worried about something getting stolen, no one worried about something bad being in them, they just pulled their books out and stacked them up.
After Columbine, one of the first things my school did was to ban that stack of bags—not because they found anything, but because they chose fear over trust. And the school became less safe and less hopeful.
We are eight weeks from an election that shows deep divisions in our country, particularly if all we are looking for are deep divisions. What if we don’t look for divisions? What if we lean into our shared humanity? Jesus called us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That means I have to understand that you are as human as I am. We all belong to God.
Saying we are going to agree to disagree is kind of like saying, “Be warm and have a good meal,” to someone who is hungry and cold. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t deepen the trust between us—and the world, our country, our town, and our church need us to grow in our trust and love for one another.
We deepen our trust and love when we bring food for the food pantry, or we trust each other to bring enough lunch for our potluck, or gather to make prayer shawls, or play in the bell choir. We do it when we attend to the details of one another’s lives, remembering significant moments and checking in when we are sick or struggling. We are extending our reach by welcoming the Liberian choir in a couple of weeks.
One of the continuing ways we live out our trust and love, both for God and for one another is sharing this sacred meal together. We pass the bread and the cup from person to person as a clear symbol of our connection to one another in Christ. And so we come once again to the table, bringing our fear and our trust, as we share this meal . . .
Peace,
Milton
