Moderation and Faith
Sermon by The Rev. Wallace Adams-Riley
Rector, St. Paul's Episcopal Church
September 5, 2010 - The 15th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon Text
Dear God, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds, and think through them;
Take our hearts, and set them on fire. Amen.
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The via media. The middle way, between two extremes. We Episcopalians (we Anglicans) are both Protestant and catholic. We are drawn to balance. We are, by tradition, broad and inclusive, and the phrase "via media" echoes through our self-understanding.
And we tend to want people to be, and, to a certain extent, we expect people to be "reasonable," to be level-headed, you might say.
All this just seems like part of being a faithful Christian.
Or a faithful Episcopalian, anyway.
Moderation in all things, right?
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So then, what on earth do we eminently reasonable people do when Jesus goes and says something like, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple"?
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Jesus, I mean, come on. Settle down, now.
Be reasonable, Jesus.
What's all this talk about "hating"? Hating those whom we love most, hating life itself?
"Hating," that's a dirty word, now. Didn't your mama teach you that Jesus?
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Okay, okay: hyperbole, right? I mean, you're just trying to get our attention.
You know we can be stubborn; and so you're just trying to get through to us.
Okay, we get it, Jesus.
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Is it really that easy?
I mean, is it really that easy to dispense with the radical demands that Jesus makes, the radical demands of discipleship?
We just chalk it up to hyperbole?
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Or might there be something dangerous or even, dare we say, wicked in that kind of rationalization?
Do we let ourselves off the hook too easily, settling for something tepid when compared to what Jesus is actually asking of us?
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Somewhere along the way, you've probably heard of and perhaps read C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. The collection of correspondence purports to be letters of instruction from a veteran demon, named Screwtape, to his nephew, a novice demon named Wormwood, one tempter teaching another the dark arts of temptation, as Wormwood, the apprentice demon, does his best to bring to damnation a British man referred to only as "the Patient."
Well, after the initial flush of excitement that the Patient experienced upon his conversion to Christianity, he, the Patient, naturally, comes down off that initial spiritual and emotional high, and attempts to adjust to the everydayness of living out his faith; meanwhile Screwtape continues coaching Wormwood along.
Here are a few lines from Letter IX, in the collection.
Screwtape writes,
[Y]our job[, my dear Wormwood,] is to make [the Patient] acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about "moderation in all things." If you can once get him to the point of thinking that "religion is all very well up to a point," you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all, and more amusing.
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"A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all, and more amusing," the demon says. "You can feel quite happy about his soul."
Moderation does, indeed, have its place, as any thinking person recognizes. But when does moderation, when does "reasonableness," we might say, begin to undermine our commitment to God? When does it become rationalization? When does it become unfaithful?
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You probably have never heard of Bishop George Murray.
I never had, until, that is, Gena and I went to serve in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast a few years ago. Bishop Murray was the first bishop of that diocese (which was created only in 1970) and he had been retired for some years by the time we arrived.
I'm quite sure I would have been glad to have had the opportunity to meet Bishop Murray, in any case; especially since I had arrived to serve in the diocese that he had helped create; that said, after we had been in Pensacola for a while, there was something, specifically, I learned about Bishop Murray that made me decidedly more interested in meeting him.
It turns out, Bishop Murray was one of the clergy to whom Dr. King wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail," one of the defining documents of the Civil Rights era.
Dr. King has been on our minds in recent days (even perhaps more than usual), with gatherings last weekend in Washington; nonetheless, in case the details, from this particular story, are not fresh in your mind: It was the spring of 1963, and Dr. King was leading a massive, non-violent protest against segregation in what was, at that time, widely considered to be one-of-the-most-staunchly-segregationist cities in America. And, in the course of the protests, Dr. King and countless others were arrested and jailed.
Well, on the same day that Dr. King was arrested, eight white clergy from the Birmingham area wrote an open letter to those participating in the protests. Entitled "A Call for Unity," the authors of the letter acknowledged that there were, indeed, social injustices in Alabama; however, in the name of peace and order, they urged the protesters to leave the streets, and to rely on the local courts, as they sought justice. And they branded the protests "extreme," "unwise and untimely."
And so, it was in answer to these eight Birmingham clergy that Dr. King wrote his now famous letter, from a cell in the Birmingham Jail.
In that letter, he wrote:
I must [confess] to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
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I have tried to imagine what it must have been like to be a recipient of that letter.
What it must have been like to look back on that moment, and to have been one of the ones who was "more devoted to ‘order' than to justice."
One of the ones who "prefer[ed] a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is justice."
One of the ones whom Dr. King found more frustrating than a member of the Klan or the White Citizen's Council.
One of the "moderates" who stood in the way of Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the "moderates," who stood in the way of justice.
One of those people fearful of tension, and too attached to order.
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Through a mutual friend, a fellow priest, I tried to arrange a lunch with Bishop Murray, so that I could have the opportunity to meet him, and talk with him about his experience.
However, even with my persistence, it never happened.
It turns out, Bishop Murray didn't really like to talk about what had happened in Birmingham. That he felt hurt. That he felt people had misunderstood him, when he was trying to do what he thought, at the time, was best.
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Bishop Murray has since died. However, I am told that, after Birmingham, Bishop Murray worked hard for the cause of integration, and the dismemberment of the Jim Crow system in Alabama, and in Florida.
And I know a priest to whom Bishop Murray personally ministered when that priest was persecuted (and had his life threatened) for bringing about the integration of an Episcopal school in Pensacola.
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The truth is, there have been times when we have all done as Bishop Murray did.
We have all, in the words of Dr. King, been the ones "more devoted to ‘order' than to justice," the ones who "[prefer] a negative peace," "the absence of tension," to a "positive peace," "the presence of justice."
We have all kept quiet when we should have spoken;
We have all remained passive, when action was called for; out of fear of tension, out of fear that others would be upset with us.
We have all "moderated" our religion, in the words of the demon Screwtape.
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Meanwhile, meanwhile, Jesus calls us beyond such timidity, such caution, to a commitment so total, so radical, that no attachment or loyalty or deference, to anyone or anything, would keep us from following where our Lord leads.
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Moderation has its place. And, of course there is a time for restraint; a time for waiting; for praying; and for discerning, yes, thank goodness.
But then... but then, even if it costs us, even when it costs us, even when it costs us the regard, the support, the approval of others, there come those times, in our lives, there come those times, Jesus is telling us, when we must speak, and when we must act, regardless, regardless of what father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, or anyone else believes, times when we must speak, when we must act.
Regardless, regardless, of the cost, as followers of Jesus, as followers of the one who said, "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."
