Going It Alone
It has been 15 days since
I have been called as rector, of this beautiful church,
this warm and caring congregation, managing a small part-time staff
in a city, just a half-hour north of Babylon,
a few blocks from county and state courthouses,
three blocks from public housing,
next to an elementary school,
in one of the wealthiest counties, in our wealthy state,
in our wealthy country.
And noone has yet changed the locks.
I've been wishing that I could bring for you
two big stone tablets,
tablets that had been given to me, from on high,
from God himself, or at least from seminary,
Tablets that would give us instructions, a road map,
a plan by which we, here in our small congregation, could implement with confidence,
without any sort of fear or worry,
our anxieties about the future,
dissipated like a dandelion's seed in the wind,
a formula where all we would need
is to plug in our own numbers,
put the right people into the right places
and voila, a prosperous and vital parish appears.
Two tablets,
or even just one.
One would do.
One tablet handed by God.
By Fiat.
We'd need verification of course.
Someone would.
Who knows what advice would be on those tablets?
I don't have those stone tablets.
But even if I did what then?
I could utter orders.
"We are changing the altar linens." What then?
"Pews will be out by July 1st." What then?
"I'm giving the endowment to a local youth development organization"
"And we will be replacing hymns with praise music."
"Next week, you must drag a friend" or
"there are no excuses for your appearance. Attendance is required."
Each one of these might be appealing to some,
intrusive to others.
Barking orders, however,
rarely moves a people and often
the tone, the imperious tone, invites resentment
and resistance
So I will modify my tone and be extra sweet,
use small spiritual bribes and caresses
to soften the sharp stroke of change.
So Moses is giving his people advice,
and his people are frustrated
You know people who give you advice.
It might be good advice.
It might be the right thing to do.
You know these intelligent people
who have your best interest at heart,
and you just won't do it.
You need time to think, at least.
You thought of it before they told you after all,
that good idea.
And you don't want them taking the credit.
That's how people feel about prophets.
Telling people what to do,
how to live their lives,
make corrections.
Driving an SUV,
becoming a vegetarian,
Thos enviromental fascists.
Telling me to exercize every day.
Telling people what to do.
All these people with great ideas.
All these people with wonderful advice.
All these people with tablets of their own.
I bet every single one of us has turned down
some good advice.
Sometimes we knew it was good advice at the time,
but there was a part of us,
a deep inexplicable part of us,
a part that is inscrutable and mysterious,
the part that says we can go it alone.
That we don't need anybody.
That our lives are our own.
that our choices are owned,
like trinkets,
small possessions,
badges of honor,
pins of identification
that we wear upon our shoulders,
with pride,
and sometimes,
regret.
I don't need anybody.
You hear the child say that before they run away
for being told they are going to do too many chores.
Because they've been grounded one too many times
I don't need him, says the disappointed wife,
when she's found out about her husband's moral failures.
I don't need anybody.
I can do it alone.
And people do seem to be doing fine, alone.
It is a testimony to capitalism,
to the cooperative nature
of the buying and selling
that allow people to find vegetables in a supermarket,
then till them in their yard;
to buy meat at the butcher's than
slaughter it themselves;
to have regularly laundered clothes that
you wear just once.
Kings didn't do that 400 years ago.
Daily bathing, what a lovely way to start the day.
no-one pours water for us,
it just appears through the pipes.
Most of our well-protected ability,
our socially encouraged desire
to go it alone,
relies on the work of others.
Even waking up
relies on an alarm clock
designed by someone else.
our finding a vocation
depends on mentors,
on people helping us find work.
Saying I'm going it alone,
is sometimes just another way of saying,
I don't want to be responsible,
for you,
and in practice it even seems, we say
I don't want to be responsible
for me.
No, we're living alone,
the connections we have to each other,
mystified by the ordinariness of commerce,
but meaning, connection, power, hope eludes us.
Not to say that people who are alone have it wrong,
no - we have networks of friends,
we have reliable companions,
we have our daily luxuries,
our daily necessities,
and they are oh so very good,
that the soft whisper of wanting to share a good thing,
is just that a whisper.
The more troubling spect,
is the sense, that being alone,
that's all we need.
That our salvation,
is in ourselves.
The church in corinth had lots of people who thought this way.
Each individual thought that they were so liberated,
that the consequences of their actions
did not matter.
Because they had faith,
they were free,
and this meant that those who didn't feel comfortable with the group
ended up feeling excluded.
The church of the free,
was, in fact,
the church of me.
So Paul writes this church and says, simply
if one member suffers, all suffer
if one member is honored, all rejoice
the church of the free,
could not be the church of me,
but could only be, the church of we.
After Moses had returned he found that
his people,
bereft of leadership,
had decided that
they needed an idol,
based on their own abundance,
not on the righteousness of the law,
the work of God,
but a God of wealth.
The God of me,
The God of easy reward,
the God of fertility,
which, sometimes it seems
that conservatives in the church
secretly worship.
So Jesus enters the synagogue,
where he has already proven,
that he knows the scripture with authority.
He opens this scroll,
these holy papers,
these sacred leases,
the advice you know
you should take,
and says we are free,
when you in this room,
decide that you are all free together,
and that your destinies rise and fall,
on the love you have for one another.
"This is the year of the lord,
here now." How odd that must have seemed,
"Here?"
"Is the man kidding?"
In that human misery,
the backwater of the Roman Empire,
prisoners set free?
What soldiers has he been talking to?
who here has recovered sight?
Imagine, me saying to you here,
no, the war on drugs has ended,
we've closed the soup kitchen because there's
enough work for everyone,
and your credit cards, they've been paid.
And Jesus says, in your presence,
its been done.
But if you think you can wait to do it,
if you think you can do it alon,
if you're waiting to build that sacred calf,
you are mistaken.
When Jesus is in the room,
he has become the glue,
that has transformed going alone,
inthe the power of going together.
So we've got this advice,
that what we have here now,
if Jesus, his faith and his love is present,
that his word is fulfilled here now,
in this church.
Because we believe
that although our church has seen many friends leave,
depart to to be close to their families,
or to be with God,
or find themselves overwhelmed,
by the demands of culture and its temptations,
we here,
have just begun the journey,
And as we continue that march into
a new kiind of church, it will be up to us,
to gather those exiles,
into this community,
that would love and nurture them.
For today,
Among us here,
That God of love that we rely on
to keep our hearts moving,
to keep our souls whole,
to keep us focused on the one true path,
That God will be leading us as a new church,
by the power of his cross that we carry with him,
the promise of his peace will be fulfilled here.
Not as the church of me,
But as the church of we.