A NOTE TO THE READER, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE NOT A MEMBER OF OPEN DOORS MCC:
I usually don’t recycle sermons for this blog, but I thought I’d make an exception in this case. Many in my congregation have been away from church this past Sunday, and I thought I would adapt my sermon from last Sunday as a blog post here. It holds particular relevance for us who are awaiting the 2019 Seoul Queer Culture Festival, but if anyone else is reading this at a time when you’re not sure what you should be doing in a particular situation, especially where you may expect confrontation or somethings adversarial, you might find it hellpful. Happy Reading!
Dear fellow partners in ministry at Open Doors MCC,
As you know, I’ve posted concerning the death of Rachel Held Evans. This past week, we’ve also marked the death of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche community in France, which became the L’Arche network of communities supporting those with developmental disabilities.
He was the son of a decorated Canadian military officer from Quebec, Georges Vanier, who was appointed as only the second native-born and the first Quebecois governor general of Canada. Jean, his son, first sought purpose through military service in the Canadian Navy, and then through academia, when he earned a doctorate in philosophy and taught at St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto.
In 1964, he made a radical decision – he left his teaching position in Canada, moved to a village in France caled Trosly-Breuil, bought a house, and invited two men with developmental disabilities who had been living in institutions to live with him. Other formerly institutionalized persons joined him, other persons came to serve as assistants to them, and it became known as L’Arche, ‘The Ark’. L’Arche homes and communities are now found throughout the world. He received many honors throughout his life, including the Order of Canada, the Legion of Honor of France, and in 2015, the Templeton Prize. Negative evaluations of his work are rare – in my research for this sermon, I found only one.
The interesting thing to me is that Jean Vanier and Rachel Held Evans, although from different countries, living and dying in different situations and circumstances, gained the same expressions of love and grief. I’ve been thinking about why this is the case. It has to do with more than their fame, or Jean Vanier’s universal admiration, or Rachel Held Evans’ widowed husband and orphaned children.
I’d like to suggest that in both cases, they offered the prospect of relationships with other people. Jean Vanier founded a profoundly successful movement to create communities for disabled persons because its basis was not charity or doing for others – it was about being in community with them, that in assisting them that one could learn from them and find a new way of looking at the world and themselves. In her own way, when Rachel Held Evans was in debate or discussion with those with whom she disagreed, she held out the invitation to relationship, not to confrontation. As her friends and co-founders of the Evolving Faith conference, Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, wrote so eloquently in their tribute to her in the Washington Post, she should not be remembered as a rebel or a renegade, someone who was ‘against’ something. She was ‘for’ so much – for people, for expressing oneself, for giving, for honesty. As one ‘Bible teacher’ put it, ‘in an era of gross hypocrisy, she was alarmingly honest.’ Maybe that was how she was able to go into places and situations that many of us would avoid.
This ability to offer relationship instead of confrontation or judgment is what I see in two of the readings from last Sunday’s lectionary selections from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel According to John.
We commonly know these readings as ‘the conversion of Saul/Paul’ (Acts 9:1-20) and ‘the restoration of Peter’ (John 21). Well, in the light of the loss of these people who were beacons of the light of faith, I view these stories differently. One made the point that Jesus wasn’t offering Peter forgiveness or a restored position of leadership. He started by offering a renewed relationship – a meal, breakfast, which the risen Jesus prepares, and offers without conditions. As that meal is shared, the relationship is renewed with a simple question: ‘Do you love me?’ That love will lead Simon Peter, Cephas, into some dangerous situations, but it will ultimately allow him to make real the new life that is found in following Jesus.
Likewise, Saul’s calling (not really his conversion) also leads the disciple Ananias to into a situation which he views as dangerous: ‘God, you’re asking me to go to one of our mortal enemies?’ Yet, it is by going to that situation and being willing to engage Saul not as adversary, but as a potential new sibling, that leads to new life for this man who was once a persecutor of the people of the Way.
So, in the light of the examples of Rachel Held Evans (especially) and Jean Vanier, and as you’ve read in my previous post, I’ve decided that my place at the Seoul Queer Culture Festival is not on the festival grounds, but among those whom we would consider our adversaries, and who would consider us ‘enemies of the cross’ – not to denounce or deny, or to meet a fist with a fist, but simply to have conversations, to ask, to understand what it is that drives them to take the stands they take, to take the actions they take, to say the things they say.
Now, that’s where I believe I need to be this year. I won’t tell you where you should be in SQCF this year, but whatever you decide, try to be in the places where you can make or renew relationships, perhaps by helping out at the booth of another group, or by walking in the parade, or by talking to people about this gathering place. Be salt, be light, be yeast – be the presence that brings a new flavor, or illumination, or a new place of growth in people’s lives. That’s how we will be the most effective at SQCF this year, by engaging in relationship with others. That’s how we will bring the light of our Good News into the world.
My Hue In The Rainbow 