No Secrets (Proper 7A)

 

No Secrets

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7 A)
June 25, 2023 
The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, Ph.D., SCP

Mission Church of the Holy Spirit

Sutherlin, Oregon

10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Jeremiah 20:7-13 Psalm 69: 8-11, (12-17), 18-20 Romans 6:1b-11 Matthew 10:24-39

           
God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

A few years ago, while traveling to a family wedding in Utah, I found myself at St. Mary’s, a small historic Episcopal Church in Provo, Utah, home of the LDS Church’s Brigham Young University.  A liberal church island in a sea of red state conservatism, the small congregation bills itself as “nourishing souls and saving lives in Provo since 1892.”

 

In this beautiful little gem of a church, not much unlike Sutherlin’s Holy Spirit, I saw on the hallway outside the Priest-in-Charge’s office a small framed calligraphic sign.  Its gothic black lettering had the air of an authoritative dictum from the wisdom of the ages, if not an oracle of God.  Its words?  “Thou shalt not …   whine!”  

 

 

Today’s scripture readings seem to have a whining tone to them:  Jeremiah complains,

 

“O LORD, you have enticed me,

and I was enticed;

you have overpowered me,

and you have prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all day long;

everyone mocks me…

If I say, "I will not mention [God],

or speak any more in his name,"

then within me there is something like a burning fire

shut up in my bones;

I am weary with holding it in,

and I cannot.

For I hear many whispering…

"Denounce him! Let us denounce him!"

All my close friends

are watching for me to stumble.

"Perhaps … we can prevail against him,

and take our revenge on him."

 

The idea is that Yahweh’s word has possessed Jeremiah, taken him over, and made him the object of ridicule and persecution of all about him.  Jeremiah, despite himself, simply must speak God’s word in what we have come to call a Jeremiad, a non-ending stream of condemnation and woe, and simply accept the rejection of others and violent persecution.  So along with his prophetic woes, Jeremiah often violates the Commandment I saw in that church in Provo, “Thou shalt not whine!”

 

Jesus in today’s Gospel reading seems to take Jeremiah as the model prophet:  if you follow God, and say God’s word, you must expect rejection and persecution.   The disciple is no better than the teacher:  Jesus is rejected and killed; so will his disciples be.  But, he says, do not fear.  God will care for you.  But following the truth will bring conflict: I bring not peace, but a sword, not family unity, but family division.  So you better get your priorities straight: you will at times appear to hate your families if you really love me.  That is part of being Christian—take up a cross, just as I did.  This may not be whining, but certainly is a negative view toward life and family, one that sounds to us vaguely paranoid and extreme. 

 

So too today’s Psalm:  “Surely, for your sake, [O God,] have I suffered reproach, and shame has covered my face.  I have become a stranger to my own kindred, an alien to my mother's children.”  And why?  “Zeal for [God’s] house has eaten me up; the scorn of those who scorn [God] has fallen upon me.”  Acts of righteousness are turned on their heads and become things with which to taunt:  fasting triggers reproach; properly mourning the dead by putting on sack-cloth just brings on further curses.  The righteous person becomes the grist for common gossip and lewd songs by the less respectable members of the community. 

 

This sense of persecution despite—no make that because—of one’s religious faithfulness is a theme you see throughout the Psalter.  “God, I am faithful to you, but the bad guys around me lie in wait for me.”  “God, I love you, but they are coming after me with knives and whips!”  “Keep me safe, God, from my enemies!  Save me from the power of the dog!”

 

After Jesus’ unjust torture and death, early Christians saw these laments in the Psalms as some kind of prophetic description of Jesus.  But such a use ignores the fact that at times the Psalmist really does end up whining, and demands the most vicious sort of vengeance for the persecutors.  The Psalmist cries, “Don’t’ listen to his prayers!  Make his wife a widow, and his children orphans, with no one to help them!” Elsewhere, “Happy the ones who smash your little babies’ brains against the wall!”  This is far, far removed from “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

 

The basic idea behind the image of the persecuted prophet is profound:  this world is full of people and societal structures that are based on lies:  the lie that violence will set things right, that might makes right, that the dignity of a human being depends on such things as lineage, race, color, gender, religion, or class; the lie that ends justify means, that everything is O.K. as long as you get away with it, that appearance is all that matters. 

 

Humanity on its good days can bear only so much truth, and on its bad ones cannot bear any truth at all.  A person living in the truth, however feebly, is bound to be an affront to the world of lies, and attract the enmity of people of the lie.  Thus arises the persecuted prophet, the martyred righteous.   Encouraging those who seek the truth to not fear, but to expect conflict, as Jesus does in today’s Gospel, is a grace rooted simply in acknowledging the hard facts of life in a world full of lies.   

 

But the idea that the righteous will be rejected and persecuted has become a commonplace all too often abused.   “I am being persecuted on account of my religion” is a plaint often heard when law and government in a pluralistic society ends up prohibiting retrograde actions like discrimination or hate crimes motivated by bigotry that may happen to have the endorsement of some religion or another.   It is also heard when the government requires businesses to provide basic conditions for work and standard-of-care health coverage for workers.   Such whining—and whining it is—abounds even when the law provides for exemptions on grounds of religion or conscience, even in the absence of a legal requirement to operate the specific kind of business at issue.   

 

Beyond this, we see occasionally in churches, both traditional and progressive, a sick twisting of the image of the persecuted prophet.  Since true prophets are persecuted in this world of lies, so goes the reasoning, then I should act in ways will bring about my persecution.  Martyrdom for the true way thus becomes a way to reassure oneself of the rightness of one’s cause. 

 

There is a great difference between this and real persecution.  I know that people are suffering for their faith in this day and age.  I once saw neat little rows of cigarette burns up and down the back of a man who was questioned by his country’s security forces because he had attended church with me.   Confusing real religious persecution with not having one’s way in public policy cheapens the idea of religious freedom and makes it harder to see it when persecution actually occurs. 

 

There is a difference between deliberately provoking persecution and milking martyrdom and the Satyagraha, or Truth Force, of the non-violent activist seeking rightness and justice.  One is sectarian and partisan; the other aimed at applying universal truth to all of us equally. 

 

This difference is hinted at in today’s Gospel reading. 

 

We are called to companionship with each other, sharing with each other (“companionship” comes from Latin cum panis, sharing bread with).  We are called to walk the way with others, not stand in opposition to them.  Sectarian concern, partisan interest, an “us vs. them” mentality works against this.  If we claim to have the truth against someone else’s lie, and actively try to fix them and convince them of the error of their ways, to turn them from being one of them to one of us, this is not only bad psychology and poor salesmanship, it turns us into opponents, as antagonists, not comrades walking the path together.  It is the difference between cold hearted sectarian propaganda and authentic, heart-felt sharing of good news, evangelism.

 

This is why in today’s Gospel, after saying not to fear the persecution that is sure to come, Jesus tells us to not keep secrets or hidden doctrines, plans, and teachings, and to tell publicly what he taught us privately.  No special knowledge, privileged doctrine, or insiders’ path for Jesus’ disciples! No special class of initiated, “in-the-know,” true believers over against the great unwashed, the uninitiated, the unenlightened outside the ambit of some hidden truth.   

 

It is not about us vs. them.  We are all in this together.  And living in the truth means accepting sharing that truth with all, without fear or favor.  If they cannot bear the truth, and turn against it and us, then it is they who have drawn lines and stood in opposition.  But we must always continue to consider them as in this together with us.  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”   “Forgive them seventy seven times, not just seven.”  “Be perfect in compassion and grace like our father in heaven, who gives the blessing of rain and sunshine equally on the righteous and the wicked.” 

 

Sisters and brothers, we are only as sick as the secrets we keep.  We are only as sectarian and partisan as the exclusions we impose on those who differ from us.  Faith in a loving God, gracious and kind to all, demands that we live in truth without fear.  While expecting rejection and meanness from those who cannot bear quite as much truth as God has graced us to bear, we must never feel smug in having a special secret truth that marks us as special, as ones apart.  We must continue to welcome, love, and let our lights shine.  No secrets, no sects.

 

“Thou shalt not whine.”  This week I invite each of us to look at the things where we believe we may be better informed, or more truthful, or closer to God than those about us, both in and outside the Church.   Let us ask whether we are walking beside these others, or setting ourselves in opposition, however benign, to them.  In the process of this reflection, let us find ways to better connect with those about us, to walk with them and share bread with them, and not judge or stand in opposition with them, even if this is as a teacher.  Let us seek ways to be channels of God’s love and grace to all. 

 

In the name of Christ,  Amen.