+I had a seminary professor who, when reading certain passages of scripture would stop us midsentence and say, “That, that right there? Those words? They convict me.”
Well there are a several phrases in today’s readings that are convicting to the church and to the world.
From Acts:
“These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”
And from the Gospel of John:
“Love each other just as I have loved you.”
In Acts, Peter’s saying, “listen, even though these people, look different, talk different, are from foreign lands, they, at their core, aren’t any different from us, bring them into the fold, baptize them, call them sister and brother.”
In John Jesus says, “hey folks, do what I did, live how I lived. Love everyone.”
Allow me to tell you the story of the baptism that wasn’t. Two men, who are married, have a son, Jack. As a family they attend the Episcopal Cathedral in Orlando Florida. They like the church and all indications suggest that they’d been welcomed by the congregation. As is the case with young families, they scheduled a baptism for their son on April 19. Folks traveled from near and far to attend the blessed day. The cake was ordered, Jack’s white suit was all set, the Godparents were praying up a storm when, 3 days before the scheduled service, the Dean called Jack’s parents to cancel the baptism because there were several parishioners who had issues with baptizing the child of gay parents.
“These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”
“Love each other just as I have loved you.”
Convicted, indeed.
To make matters worse, the Bishop of Central Florida, Greg Brewer, got involved, saying’d meet with the parents to see if they were committed to raising Jack in a Christian household.
So…let me get this straight….Jack’s dads were attending the Cathedral, allegedly a Christian house of worship and they, Jack’s parents, requested their child be baptized. So, why does the Bishop need to “vet” them?
“Love each other just as I have loved you.”
Convicted, indeed.
Then, in Thursday’s Buffalo News I read a report of a “possible hate crime in Kaisertown.”
An inter-racial couple had a brick thrown through their living room window. Attached to the brick was a note full of racial epitaphs and other hateful language. Apparently, while this was the most violent of incidents, it wasn’t the first.
Now, I know that crimes need to be referred to as “alleged” until the investigation is complete, but it’s what came next in the article that made the top of my head explode.
Common Council member Richard Fontana was quoted as saying “The Kaisertown neighborhood.. has all kinds of mixed-race families, and [I’d] be very surprised if someone was harassed because of it…I do plan to talk with these people myself.”
WHAT?!
Blame the victim much, Richie? Because there are lots of interracial couples in his district, racism doesn’t exist?
Give me a break.
But wait, there’s more…
The article concluded with the following statement:
“A police official said there have been “about 10” calls for assistance at the [residence] in the past year… most of the calls sought medical help or involved property disputes, [adding] that none involved criminal activity.”
And that’s relevant, how?
Can you imagine your house getting vandalized and then, in the news report about the attack, details of the times and reasons you’d called 911 were spelled out?
Call me paranoid. Or an alarmist, or just plain cranky, but this smacks of, at best, blaming the victim and at worst, flat out racism.
“Love each other just as I have loved you.”
Convicted, indeed.
Folks, we’ve been talking about it for a long time:
It’s not ok to hate, it’s not ok to be intolerant, it’s not ok to discriminate. We’re called, above everything else, to do one thing:
Love others as we have been loved.
The Very Rev Will Mebane, interim dean of our Cathedral, describes the demands of the love of Christ, agape love, like this:
Loving others as G_D loves us obliges us to care for our neighbors in ways that are perhaps contrary to how we live our daily lives. To love as G_D loves us demands action. It means actually doing something ! Loving our neighbors as ourselves means if our neighbor is disparaged, hurt or discriminated against we must stand up for them! And just who is our neighbor? Well, everyone. This kind of love takes some serious courage. This kind of love requires strength, fortitude and faith. This kind of love, when unleashed cannot be mistaken for anything else.
“Love each other just as I have loved you.”
Convicted, indeed.
My friends, what happened in Orlando, what happened in Thursday’s Buffalo News and what happens all over our world time and time and time again is not Love, it is fear. Fear of the other, fear of the difficult, fear of the uncomfortable, fear of the unknown.
It’s far too easy to sit back and say, “all that intolerance isn’t here.”
“I don’t have a racist bone in my body”
“ I welcome everyone to this font and to this altar, no exceptions.”
Well guess what, that’s not true.
We’re human. We fear. Sometimes we even hate.
We don’t love everyone as Christ loves us.
How do I know that?
Because this very day people are starving to death.
This very day people are dying alone.
This very day children are being denied access to an education.
This very day people are being denied basic human dignity because of the color of their skin, the people they love, the G_d they worship.
This very day people are not being loved as Jesus loves us.
So that means we have more work to do. That means we have to stretch ourselves. That means we have to risk, that means we have to give more out of our abundance , that means we have to accept and love, as we have been loved. Everyone, everywhere, no exceptions.
And it means we cannot, we will not, we must not let any discrimination, any racism, any homophobia, any sexism, any classism, any xenophobia go unchallenged. We must stand for those who can’t, we must speak for the silenced and we must confront those who bully, abuse and deny.
We must.
Because if not us, who?
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