A Long Walk

Tuesday was an unseasonably warm and sunny day, so I decided to drive to one of the large neighborhoods behind St. Helena's to deliver the postcards announcing our Lenten services. The weather was beautiful, and the ground was dry and free of snow, so I wanted to take advantage of this rare opportunity to do some hands-on evangelism and outreach. I drove to the middle of each street, got out of my car, and walked to each house, leaving a postcard and one of my business cards underneath the doormat. I very much enjoyed being outside for several hours, feeling the breeze blow through my short-sleeved shirt and doing something that priests have always done, walking the streets of their parish, being visible. It gave me time to just rest and let my mind wander.

The interesting challenge of many suburbs, however, is that this neighborhood, like many others, was deserted in the middle of the day. It was like an incredibly well-manicured ghost town filled with huge houses with tidy lawns and luxury cars parked up steep semicircular driveways. I was shocked, though, to see how many houses still had Christmas decorations up at the end of February! I left cards at probably about 150 houses, and I thought that if the people in only 2 or 3 of them would visit us, it would be worth it. The only other souls on the sidewalk was the occasional person walking a dog. I felt a bit like Jesus wandering in the desert, albeit without Satan appearing, and fortunately, only for a few hours instead of 40 days. Most houses had a doormat with the word, "welcome," on it, and I wondered, that if anyone had been home, how true that message would have been. The optimist in me hopes that most people would be kind and friendly.

At the end of my walk, my shirt was sweaty and my legs ached, but in a good way. It occurred to me that my walk was a good metaphor for ministry, particularly during Lent. Despite all of our technological advances, sometimes there's just no substitute for an old-fashioned technique like walking the streets of one's parish. It's incredibly inefficient and time consuming. It's not particularly glamorous; in fact, it made me feel pretty awkward and vulnerable, as it always does. I realized that I might hear things I didn't want to hear, and so I had practiced beforehand what I would say if anyone reacted negatively to my presence. The fact is that the Lenten journey, like old-fashioned evangelism, is hard. It requires endurance and there's no getting around doing the hard work. It is meant to be fatiguing, because that's the only way we grow, by putting in the time and energy required to be transformed and to transform others. So, who wants to go with me next time?

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

A Tale of Knives and Nunchucks

An audio recording of this sermon is available by clicking here.

The letter to the Ephesians commands its hearers to, “put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” In this day and age, this sort of language seems out of place, whether for its militaristic overtones or the medieval worldview that it invokes. The image of Christian soldiers has often made me very uneasy, reminding me of shameful chapters in our history, like the Crusades and the Inquisition, when people have been oppressed and killed in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Talk of the devil and evil forces, moreover, seems superstitious and outmoded, calling forth visions of damned beings with horns and tails, inhabiting a realm of eternal suffering and unquenchable fire. And yet, I am here to tell you that these images are still compelling and relevant, even to postmodern people who think they have evolved beyond conventional understandings of angels and demons, of heaven and hell.

A brawl breaks out at Starbucks.

On Tuesday, I sat at a table at the Starbucks on Bryn Mawr in Edgewater, waiting for a parishioner to join me to plan adult forums for the rest of the year. As I sat in front of my laptop leisurely sipping my latte, a commotion erupted, and three men ran past me, swearing and knocking over chairs. At one point, one of these chairs became airborne as one man tried to shield himself from the blows of the other two, who were clearly enraged and bent on inflicting verbal abuse and physical violence. The shop’s patrons were alarmed, and so I packed up my stuff, and dashed outside to find a police officer. By the time I came back a few minutes later, a policeman was leading one of the men out of Starbucks in handcuffs. Over the course of the next several minutes, four more squad cars pulled up to offer backup, and the other two men were taken into custody, as well. The anxiety in the room quickly dissipated, and people returned to their drinks, conversations, and mobile devices. But my story doesn’t end there.

After my meeting, I jumped on the Red Line for my usual commute to Grace. When the trained pulled into the Jackson station, we interrupted another altercation already underway. As the platform came into view, I witnessed a woman attempting to defend herself with nunchucks against a man wielding a knife. The doors opened, and an officer in plain clothes whipped out his badge and shouted, “CPD!”  He exited the train and attempted to separate the two combatants and calm them down. Aided by another police officer in plain clothes, he apprehended the man with the knife, who had attempted to seek refuge on the train, all the while spouting obscenities. I thought about how frightened the German couple standing in front of me must’ve been, their school-age daughter in a wheelchair, facing the door where all of this turmoil was occurring. The two officers managed to subdue the aggressor, remove him from the train, and put him in cuffs. The woman, still holding her nunchucks, thanked the police officers, and announced, “he had the devil in him. He had the devil in him, and he showed his true colors.” I’m not making it up; she really said that.

Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

It was harrowing to watch both of these scenes unfold before me, and to feel powerless to intervene. I was grateful that the police were responsive and professional during these incidents of unexpected violence that endangered so many innocent bystanders. It was fortunate that an officer just happened to be standing in front of the door -- in my train car -- at that precise moment. I don’t know if it was divine grace or dumb luck, and I frankly didn’t care.  But when I become complacent, feeling that the world is safe, moments like this remind me that human beings can still be agents of great suffering and violence, that evil really exists. I am not saying, of course, that the perpetrators of this violence are evil or are somehow not loved by God, but rather, that human beings—and that includes all of us—are susceptible to the lure of all kinds of sins, to selfish motives and evil urges.  We may not all act on these temptations, but they prod and goad us, encouraging us to give in to our baser impulses. This is what the reading from the Ephesians is all about. The devil is all around you, he’s crafty and powerful, so be on your guard and protect yourself, the reading tells us.  You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re immune. After all, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, who offered our Lord wealth and power, if only he would bow down and worship him. 

I know that in the twenty-first century, sin is a topic that is out of fashion, and out of sync with contemporary sensibilities. Nobody wants to hear about it. As Jesus’s disciples say to him in this morning’s Gospel, while our Lord is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, “this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”  Sin seems like a topic for fire-and-brimstone sermons from the seventeenth century. Besides, the Church has done so much to make us feel bad about ourselves, because of our sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity, or for using birth control or getting divorced, and a host of other things, that we’ve consigned sin to the theological dustheap. But I’m bringing back Old Time Religion this morning just for a moment, because I think we’ve overlooked something. There is a reason that we make our confession every Sunday before receiving Jesus’s body and blood at the altar: sin is real. It is not only the sin we commit as individuals against each other for which we ask for forgiveness, but it is also for our participation in institutionalized sins, such as racism, misogyny, ecological devastation, and rampant consumerism. We have a lot of sin to repent for.

Jesus's Baptism in the Jordan.

Ephesians offers us jarring language that chafes against our inclination to think of ourselves as just fine the way we are. I have always subscribed to the concept of original blessing, rather than original sin. When God said on the sixth day that everything that she had created was very good, I take God at her word. We ARE very good, but that doesn’t mean we can do without God, that we are self-sufficiently moral without God’s help. Even as good as we are, “the spiritual forces of evil” are formidable, and so we need to be vigilant and disciplined, because sin could crop up anywhere, at Starbucks or on the Red Line. To “take the shield of faith, to “fasten the belt of truth,” and to “put on the breastplate of righteousness” expresses the human aspiration to overcome the temptation to give in to sin. “As shoes for your feet,” Ephesians counsels, “put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” In the face of sin and evil, we wrap ourselves in God, who shelters and protects us like armor.

This topic comes up most poignantly whenever I prepare new Christians, or their parents and godparents, for baptism. “Don’t be put off by the old-timey language,” I tell them. “Your child will face all kinds of evil in her life: human cruelty, apathy to the suffering of others, violence, greed, selfishness, and many other things that will divide her from God and her neighbor. In baptism, we are asking for God’s protection and guidance in such moments.” Indeed, the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer asks the person or sponsor, “will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.” The response is, “I will, with God’s help.” The Prayer Book suggests that the avoidance of sin is impossible, and so we just plug away as best we can and rely on God’s help to set us back on to the path of peace. As the disciples asked Jesus, I now ask you, “this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”