Deep Concerns!

Sermon preached on June 3, 2006, Easter 7, Saturday:
(Acts 28:16-20, 30-31, Psalm 11:4-8, John 21:20-25)

Being a priest means getting fun mail and email fairly often. A good amount of the email or snail mail that I receieve seeks to address some deep concern the writer has for the church I am working at (Saint Mary the Virgin in Times Square). Let me give you two examples.

Recently I recieved a letter going on about how aweful we were because we are a Roman Catholic church (actually, we are not; we are an Episcopal Church) and how the Roman Church has been unbiblical since the Emperor Constantine introduced all sorts of Pagan practices into the church, such as Sunday worship (actually he didn't do that, the disciples did that, its in John, Paul, and Acts among other NT places), how we worship saints and statues (actually we don't, all of our prayers are addressed to God), and how none of the things we apparently did were attested to in the Bible. I've gotten numerous letters like this over the last two years and had many conversations that were very similar. Defending my parish and Western Christianity against these wild accusations and pointing out the many inacuracies in the letter would have been an exercise in futility, but I was tempted to write a brief comment about the fact that the Bible he was so sure had all the answers was inextricably tied to the Church that he hated so much. After all, the Church gave us the Bible as well as all of the traditions and customs that he finds so unbiblical.

I get many emails from people who are deeply concerned about various things as well. Usually the emails are liturgical complaints written in such a way as to just be borderline nasty (but not quite). A recent email wondered about the dating of a certain feast during the year and how we could break with tradition by celebrating it on a Sunday rather than on a Thursday. In an effort to be helpful, I replied the reasons why we do what we do. This of course initiated a barrage of emails nitpicking various things in my repsonse. Again, it would have been pointless to argue with someone who needed so badly to be right about things that he wasn't even involved in, still I was tempted.

Both of these examples, and many like them, are no different than the every day encounters all Christians have with the world. The world, be it in the church or outside, is deeply concerned with details and often we are all tempted to wade into the deep waters of deatils. Details are often important, but when you or I resort to nastiness, anger and outright hatred to ensure that the details we find important are correctly observed by everyone else, then we've got a problem. If I spend all of my time making sure I'm right and correcting the many mistakes I see in others, then I am not going to have any time to spend following Jesus, let alone any time showing others that despite all of the errors we all make, Jesus still loves us.

How are we to navigate a world (and a church) where details are important and still be disciples of Christ? One way is to set our hearts firmly on the pilrgim way. Jesus reminded Peter not to be overly concerned with the fate of the Beloved Disciple. He simply asked him to feed his sheep and follow him. By accepting the direction of the Holy Spirit and using the gifts he has given us to point others towards Jesus, we will find, I think, that we will be less concerned with what others are doing wrong and more concerned with showing the love of God to others, regardless of whether they are on our side or not. As we follow Christ, may we alwasys pray the Spirit to help us seek first the kingdom of God.