Standing with Others (Mid-week)

 

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

Standing with Others

October 21, 2020

 

One of the priestly blessings I use most often at the end of Eucharist is adapted from the Church of England’s Common Worship and is a summary of 1 Thessalonians 5:13-22:

 

“Go forth into the world in peace.  Be of good courage.  Render to no one evil for evil.  Strengthen the weak. Visit the sick.  Stand with the downtrodden.  Honor every person.  Love and serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.  And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among with you and remain with you always.  Amen.”

Deacon Carol Howser once told me that she had found the words “stand with the down trodden” particularly helpful, since she had a bad week where it was clear that through her efforts she could not really solve any of the problems for people she was working with, and that the best she could manage was to “stand with” them. 

 

Sara Miles writes that the most important word in the Bible is not “God,” “Jesus,” or “Mercy,” but simply “with.”  Relationship—being with someone, not simply doing things for them—is at the heart of our Christian faith and life.  She describes the Holy Trinity as a perichoreisis, a dance of the three persons with each other, the Incarnation as God made fully human and present with us, and Pentecost as the Holy Spirit sent to be with us in the Church.  Christian service is not simply doing things for others.  It is being with them, in relationship with them:

“Doing for, as mission groups and lovers and parents know, is super-tempting: it’s easier and often feels safer than being fully with. Let me act on your behalf, doing something for you as if my being were somehow separate from yours. Let me hand you a sandwich at a sanctified distance. Let me solve your homework problems without getting entangled in your other problems. Let me send you some flowers to apologize when I’ve been snappish, without having a real conversation. Being with is riskier. If I wait and listen and show you what I’m really like, my life becomes implicated in yours: we are no longer separate. And I might get changed by our relationship.”

May we learn to content ourselves to stand with others, simply be with them, fully present, and come to share gladly what our being with them leads us to share. 

Peace and Grace, 

Fr. Tony+

(adapted and reposted from 2013)