A Letter from the Bishop of Ft. Worth

A Pastoral Request from the Bishop
This message is specifically directed to every priest in charge of a congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. However, I am sending it to all clergy, vestry members, and convention delegates on our mailing list so that everyone will know what I am proposing.
As the date approaches for our momentous Diocesan Convention vote in November, many parish clergy have attempted to make certain that their parishioners understand the issues surrounding the proposal that we separate from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. In several places parish forums have been held, where outside speakers have been brought in to present the opposing sides on the question of realignment. Some of you have preached sermons on this subject, written articles for your parish newsletter, and even in a couple of places brought in General Convention authorities to speak to your people. In addition, several different groups have been formed in the Diocese, including Remain Episcopal, Via Media, and Remain Faithful, which have attempted to educate, organize, and motivate the laity to take sides on the question: “Should we remain with TEC or with the Diocese?” Legal counsel has been engaged, lawsuits are being anticipated, various steering committees have been formed, and outside assistance from the “815” church headquarters in New York is being sought.
An important factor that has often been forgotten in all of the controversy is the need for prayerful discernment that seeks, above all else, to know what God’s will is for us at this particular time in our life together as a diocesan family.
As your bishop and chief pastor, I am inviting and urging that every congregation in this Diocese enter into an intentional 40-day period of prayerful discernment to be concluded the week prior to our Convention on November 14 and 15. This means that our start-up day would have to be either September 28 or 29. Furthermore, I am proposing that we all use the same materials and process that will lead us in this venture. All the information that you will need may be found at this website: www.40daysofdiscernment.org. Please go to that site today or tomorrow and get everything you need in order to begin.
Fr. David Klein has already completed this program at St. John’s Church in Fort Worth, and I am certain that he is willing to commend it to you and to answer any questions you may have about it in advance.
I will not force any of you to comply with this request. At this very tense and troubled time in the life of our Church, I am simply asking each of you to respect and be guided by my pastoral direction and leadership as your bishop by leading your congregation(s) in this discernment program. Ultimately, no one from outside can tell you and your people what you should decide is the best way forward for your congregation. This 40-day program is to help each local congregation, as a body of Christian believers, to enter into a prayerful and reasoned process to help discern a way forward through the crisis that is confronting us.
Please let me know how I can be of assistance as we move forward together as the Holy Spirit leads us.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
September 3, 2008


Commentary
+ Jack Iker has written a letter to the parishes in the Diocese of Ft. Worth asking for a period of 40 days of discernment so that in November the members of the diocese can vote at Diocesan Convention on whether or not to leave the Episcopal Church. This letter is typical of the kind of information that +Iker and even his predecessors have made available to their priests and congregations for years. If it had not been for many who have moved to the sunny south from other areas, most Ft. Worthians would never have known that they were out of pace with the rest of the Church. It was also the heavy work of Via Media and now Remain Episcopal that have given members of the Episcopal Church in the diocese a view of the Church that has not been controlled by the archconservatives. In many ways the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth reflects the strong influence of the Southern Baptists whose conference is based in the city.

But the seemingly benign plea for discernment by +Iker has its teeth. According to this letter the diocese should enter a time of prayerful discernment. But the “but” is there. It should only be done according to the same information which will be provided by the diocesan office. Once again the Diocese of Ft. Worth is trying to control the mind of the diocese which is the most un-Episcopal—un-Anglican thing you can do.

One of the most important charisms of what it means to be an Episcopalian is the freedom of thought. We have always looked askance at the Roman Catholic hierarchy that tends to bend the mind of its members. We have always tried to stand ready to embrace more than one opinion. Again and again we have seen +Iker and the likes try to control how people think which is not only un-Anglican, it just plain doesn’t work. All it does show is how worried they are when people hear both sides. The years of anti-liberal propaganda is beginning to fail as the world begins to recognize that the issues are no longer Liberal vs. Conservative. The issues are whether Christianity is going to be relevant to a coming generation. The fights must stop because at present no one can hear the Gospel for all the bellicosity.

If anything has happened in this present age is that people can access all kinds of information at all times and in all places. As post-modern gurus are saying—no longer can people in power control information or process. What we must do is come to a place where community –that incredible mix of compromise and conversation must be at the center of what it means to be Church. The future of the Church is going to be less a matter of episcopal decrees and more about dialog. It is going to be less control and more about shepherding. Our bishops are going to have to be more in touch with the people of his/her diocese. The role of the bishop will be less the leader and more the pastor—one who can serve and listen rather than one who sets the agenda of a diocese.

Whether the Diocese of Ft. Worth votes to leave or not, there will be Episcopalians in Ft. Worth. Like the Diocese of San Joachin, there may some churches that will go. But a good number will remain faithful and will continue to be part of the Church knowing that the arguments that +Iker and the like propose are old hat and no longer important to the future of the Anglican Communion.

As we saw at Lambeth, the Anglican Communion is not about to divide. Yes, we disagree but it is not in us to split. We may be more willing to fight than switch. But we are still family. We are still unwilling to divorce even though we disagree.

What's it all about? Lambeth

After all the hype of the past almost 3 years, what has the Lambeth Conference accomplished? I have read several reports including the two missals from our bishop and his wife and am still puzzled by what has happened and why we spent inordinate amounts of energy, time and money on this conference. Maybe it was one of those things that ‘you had to be there’ to understand.

I am quite satisfied that it tried to legislate nothing. In that the Archbishop of Canterbury was wise. Bp. Sisk said that there was considerable difference in the whole conference because there was no attempt to bring legislation to the floor. The purpose of the whole conference was to listen.

+Gene Robinson quoted ++Desmond Tute about Lambeth
"We meet," he said. Full stop. That's what we do. We hold a common belief and hope in the Risen Christ, and because we care for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, we meet. We meet, and let God's Holy Spirit work among us, to allow us to see our common humanity, and to discover the Christ in "the other." While that might not look like much to the rest of the world, it is an amazing "product." It is precisely what we need during this difficult time. We don't need -- perhaps cannot possibly discern -- the answers right now. What we DO need and CAN discern, is that we are all in this together. That God IS working God's purposes out, even if we can't always see it. Even if we are in the midst of conflict and pain.”

And perhaps that is what we should allow our bishops to do—to meet, to talk and to listen rather than try to legislate.

From all the reports that I have gotten from bishops, members of Integrity, from the left and the right, the process of Indaba (small group listening intently to others) groups provided the kind of forum that the Church needed. Using a uniquely African formula for such discussion is not only politic, it may have provided a way around the posturing that is inherent when leaders of any kind get together. It called from the mainly manly group a type of listening that they are not used to doing. And in that, the Holy Spirit CAN do her work.
And evidently did.

I am deeply indebted to such people as Susan Russell, Elizabeth Kaeton, Katie Sherrod and Cynthia Black who went and talked and met with people to let them hear from us here at home. The members of Integrity and those who were stewards from all over the world—all of these spoke by their actions to the needs of LGBT persons. Even more I am indebted to those LGBT persons from Africa and India who put their lives in danger but spoke up about what it means to live in their countries as a gay person. It is these witnesses to the issue that need to be held up as the real heroes of Lambeth.

I am also encouraged by brave stance of + Marc Andrus of California who has said he will not abide by the moratoria.
“Archbishop Rowan in his final presidential address, given just after we received the reflections document noted that, “There will be some who cannot abide by these moratoria, and in this they signal that there are steps to deeper unity they cannot take; or it may be that they conceive of deeper unity in other ways.” I take this to be a profound and generous idea. In not abiding by the moratorium on same-sex blessings I take it as incumbent on me and on us in the Diocese to actively labor to both understand the position of those to whom that moratorium is important, and to convey the reality of our life together to the world. I must redouble my efforts at inhabiting a deeper unity.”
Knowing +Marc, I know that he will do just that; these are not just words of kindness.
I doubt if those bishops who attended Lambeth will come away without being in someway changed. Whenever we journey for a fourtnight with other, whenever there has been solid and important sharing going on one is changed. But with that said, it is absolutely imperative that those of us who call for the end of homophobia in the Church, must also be willing to enter into a deeper unity with those who are not yet ready to hear this from us.
I find that when I have been confronted with those who are willing to share their fears, I am much more willing to take those fears into consideration when I am trying to articulate what it means to be Christ’s own in the world. But we must be mindful that not only must we listen to the fears of a world that cannot yet address the gay issue in their own lands, we must be willing to continue to address the needs of gay folk in our own.
The continued need to abolish the moritoria on same-sex marriage, the consecration of GLBT persons to the episcopate, the support of gay clergy in their parishes and ministries and the welcoming of LGBT persons to our churches still remains our business. It still remains to be the way that we have allowed ourselves as Church to speak of what Christian inclusion means.
For those in African, issues of Christian inclusion mean something different. And they need to address those differences themselves. But we must at the same time remind them that there are LGBT persons in their midsts that are being discriminated against. The same way that our African or Latin American brothers and sisters have to remind us of our consumerist sins, or the use of power in this nation.
The end of the conference and the Archbishop’s (ABC) address is so reminicent of General Convention. While there had been no legislation and the bishops had worked hard to hear each other, it was clear that the ABC wanted to push his desire for a Covenant and to continue the Windsor Process. It was like the end of GC2006—a blatant overthrow of the process that had been worked out in the trenches. It was as if the Indaba groups meant nothing—and perhaps the ABC had not participated in one—the need to be incharge came to the fore.
Where does this leave the Episcopal Church? No place different than before it. What will it mean for General Convention 2009? More of the same, I fear.
But if the Bishops of the Episcopal Church are going to be people of integrity they must be willing to end the moritoria. If they are going to stand for something but still continue to disallow the on-going process of including LGBT person into the life of the Church, then they are nothing but clanging cymbals. But if they are to end the moritoria and take up the real work of inclusivity and unity, then we will be a better Church for it.

The Messiness of the Holy Spirit

I have been watching the various comments by bishops at Lambeth. It is good to hear that the bishops are speaking with candor in their small bible study groups.

As Bishop Wolfe from KS and Bishop Frade of Southeast FL have said today, they don’t expect to iron out the issue of homosexuality in the Church at Lambeth. Thanks be to God! Lambeth couldn’t do that anyway—it is merely a meeting of bishops, not the representation of the whole of the Church. Nor could it speak on something about which men—and it is overwhelmingly a meeting of men—can speak only once every ten years. It is the media that want quick answers from Lambeth, not those of us in the Church.

What I am seeing from the various blogs and news commentaries is a meeting that is less about making decisions and a group of folks who are about listening. And Lord knows, we need to be about that in the Church.

It is clear from the reports from most of the bishops I have followed that some sort of Covenant is not going to be acceptable to TEC. The Anglican Communion has never been a church with a magisterium or a block of doctrine to which one must subscribe. And I would guess that the majority of Anglicans don’t want this either. It is just too easy for such a body of doctrine to be used as a bludgeon and interpreted by a small group to wield power. And while it might give us a better understanding of the faith, it would hamper the continued growth and movement by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

The Holy Spirit makes for a messy Church—Thanks be to God!

So difficult yet so simple---

"I found some astonishing things in the course of my study that had never occurred to me. Frankly, in the days that when I thought I’d had it with religion, I just found the whole thing absolutely incredible. These doctrines seemed unproven, abstract, and, to my astonishment, when I began seriously studying other traditions, I began to realize that belief, which we make such a fuss about today, is only a very recent religious enthusiasm. It surfaced only in the West, in about the 17th century. The word ‘belief’ itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. In the 17th century it narrowed its focus, for reasons that I’m exploring in a book I’m writing at the moment, to mean an intellectual ascent to a set of propositions — a credo. ‘I believe’ did not mean ‘I accept certain creedal articles of faith.’ It meant, ‘I commit myself. I engage myself.’ Indeed, some of the world traditions think very little of religious orthodoxy. In the Qur’an, religious opinion — religious orthodoxy — is dismissed as zanna — self-indulgent guesswork about matters that nobody can be certain of one way or the other but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian.

So, if religion is not about believing things, what is it about? What I’ve found is that, across the board, religion is about behaving differently. Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something, you behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action: you only understand them when you put them into practice." Karen Armstrong

A few years ago when I first read Karen Armstrong’s autobiography The Spiral Staircase I found that there was so much in her life that paralleled mine. In her work I found a soul-sister, a woman who had tried to follow God in the only way she thought a woman could—by being a nun. In those days, women could only aspire to marriage or the convent. I knew I was not called to marriage, to raise children to the glory of God. Ergo…

And while I respect highly the lives of the sisters with whom I lived, my calling was not to be second class citizens in a patriarchy which did not practice what it preached. What Karen Armstrong found impossible and what I still find impossible is to see that faith is a matter of beliefs. And now even as an Episcopalian, and even working for the Lutherans, I can not boil faith down to a body of dogma or confession to which I assent.

Faith is a relationship, pure and simple. It is the on-going, ever-widening familiarization with the God of all creation. Unlike Bishop Spong, I know God as person. I am impressed with those who can relate to that which is not person. But frankly I can only really relate to God who is beyond, yet within, who is person and personable. Call me anthropomophic and I will agree--it is how God interacts wtih me.

I am not saying that doctrines aren’t important—they certainly help me talk about God—they give me a way to discuss the ineffible. But the doctines do not hold the truth of the Divine—they merely catagorize it. What holds the truth of the Divine is the relationship, that intimate encounter that Moses knew that made him radient on Sinai—that Samuel knew that emboldened him to speak to Eli—that Paul knew on the road to Damascus--and countless others have embraced over the past 4,000 years.

Scripture is an important part of our relationship with God. It tells us stories of those who too have had relationships with the God of all creation. It has given us ways to journey with God but its law is merely road sign. It is the way that we live out the journey that is important.

It is how we live that is important. It is the practice of being totally human while being embraced by the Divine that makes us faithful. That is what it seems to me what Jesus is saying in the Gospels. Do my actions reveal the God that loves me? Is God incarnate in me by the way I live? Arggggg! It is so difficult! And yet at the same time, it is so simple.

GAFCON

It must seem to those nations represented by Gafcon bishops that the Anglican Communion is a terribly inequitable place. Those African bishops represent a distinct majority of Anglicans in the world. And yet it is the white, western bishops who still run the Communion.

The GAFCON Statement, (Global Anglican Future Conference meeting in Jerusalem as a protest to Lambeth) is a desperate declaration that the Thirty-nine Articles should be the standard by which the Anglican Communion should be run. And yet, that is not the story. The whole effort is still a demand for power. The proposed Primatial Council concept is not a call for equality in the Communion. It is a desire to wrest control of the Communion from the Western hegemony that still calls the shots. It is a clear rejection of the Archbishop of Canterbury as a sign of unity for the Communion.

This may be the first real threat to the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury in recent centuries, but it is certainly not going to be its last. If the “liberal” church agenda is what is being attacked by GAFCON, it must be remembered that it is the “liberal” agenda that has given the African or Latin American Church much credence at all.

The use of the Global South by the unwieldy fringe elements of neo-evangelical and the uber anglo-catholic elements in the American church has been disgraceful. It has flamed anti-American/Western sentiment through out the Communion in order to attempt a power coup on TEC. This coup has been thwarted by the last General Convention, the House of Bishops and the election of ++Katharine Jefferts-Schori as Presiding Bishop in the US. But it has not cooled the issue in other countries. It has just opened Pandora’s Box.

Lambeth will not be able to do anything to assuage the brittleness of the emerging countries’ testiness. GAFCON will never be able to garner enough support in the wealthier countries to make their desires known. A breech between the two parties has formed, not because of sexuality or moral lassitude. It has been created by policies deeply engrained in colonialism, in imperialistic economy, and educational opportunities denied.

Should there be a legislative body for the Anglican Communion? I don’t think so at the present time. The standards by which an elective body operates are not the same from one country to the next. Even elected bishops are not seen as essential in the UK and certainly not seen so in much of the Global South. Those western nations would not accept such heavy handed authority in their churches as proposed by GAFCON.

There is a tendency to ignore the GAFCON bishops for their short-sightedness. We tend to belittle their efforts to voice their anger at nations who keep them from being able to deal with such immense issues of economics, AIDS, national development, literacy, etc. The only thing that they can really do is voice their fear at the loss of local culture in the face of western consumerism. And ultimately are we not afraid of the same thing? Are we in the West not also afraid of losing our autonomy in the face of globalism?

The manipulation of the bishops of poor countries by big right-wing money elements in the Church will go down in the history as one of the most shameful acts of Western Christianity. But what it has done is amplified the voice of Africa and Latin America in ways that they have never been heard. And when the right-wing money goes away, those countries will still have voices.

The Solemnity of Peter and Paul

June 29, 2008
Acts 12:1-11
Psalm 87:1-3, 5-7
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18
John 21:15-19
Today we celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Unlike my own Episcopal tradition, when a major saint’s day falls on a Sunday, Lutherans celebrate the feast day, so the readings are different, the tone is different and the subject of the sermon is different.
The feast of saints Peter and Paul is an interesting one because these two saints were paragons—the absolute authorities in the Jesus movement of the first century.
Peter was the leader of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles—those who were not from Jerusalem. Saul of Tarsus, began as a persecutor of the Christians because he was a good rabbinic Jew who thought his faith was being attacked from within by the Jesus movement. Then in an dramatic encounter with the risen Christ on his way to Damascus, Saul comes to believe in the risen Christ and become its most celebrated apostle to the Gentiles.
The early Christian movement—you can’t call it a Church yet. It was merely a movement in the years between the death of Jesus and the death of the apostles—about the year 67. It was a time of tremendous evangelism. It was a time when people heard the stories of Jesus, his life, his message that God cared for us, his death and resurrection and it brought people to a new understanding of what it meant to be faithful to a single God. It was a faith that was not determined about what you were to eat or wear. It was a faith about transformation of one’s life. It was a faith about achieving shalom—that sense of balance in one’s life and community. In some places the followers of Jesus’ Way lived together in community. In some places they met in synagogues. And in others, they met in peoples’ homes.
But it was these two saints that directed the movement at its very beginning --Peter, the staunch Jew following the Jewish customs and Paul, the virulent Pharisee who found that the message of Jesus crossed cultural bounds and opened the Way of Jesus to those who had not been born Jewish.
Judaism at the time of Jesus was one which was really solely for those who were ethnically Jews—those whose mother had be of the lineage of one of the tribes of Israel. And depending upon which party one belonged to, the tribal aspect of one’s faith colored how you observed your faith. But in the few generations preceding Jesus, there were those from the various nations around the Mediterranean who had come to follow the ways of the Jews without becoming circumcised. These followers of the ways of Judaism were called Proselytes.
Following the first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the followers of Jesus, many were drawn to this new way taught by Jesus. Many who were not Jewish flocked to the communities that worshipped God according to the teachings of the Christ. And the spread of this religion throughout the Empire was rapid. Even in Jerusalem the early Christians had to appoint deacons to serve those who were unable to attend the prayers of the worshipping community. It is interesting that some of those deacons have remarkably un-Jewish names, hinting that the early community was both of Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.
In the book of Acts, we hear of a growing dissension between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. Evidently the Jerusalem Christian community was sending missionaries to the churches that Paul was starting in Galatia, Rome, Corinth and Thessalonica telling those churches that they had to be circumcised if they really were to be followers of Jesus. It isn’t surprising because even among the Jews of Jesus’ day, the difference of how one observed the rules of kosher were problematic.
Paul ministered and preached to those who were not Jewish. He traveled through Asia minor and Greece sharing the Gospel. He called those who were not Jewish to submit to baptism as a sign of their embracing the teaching of Jesus. He did not require that they become Jewish first, or observe the whole of Mosaic law.
Finally sometime around the year 50, Paul went to Jerusalem because there were concerns that Gentiles who had become Christians were not observing the same customs as the Jewish Christians. Paul confronted Peter and the Jerusalem leaders with the issue—especially the one of the eating of non-kosher food. Peter capitulated to Paul’s understanding of what righteousness meant and accepted baptism as the sign of one’s faith in Jesus rather than circumcision and observance of Mosaic Law.

Now this long history lesson has very little meaning to us today because we are long past recognizing Mosaic Law as the measure of one’s faith. Peter and Paul were the ones who worked out what it meant to be Christian and it changed the character of Christianity from being a sect of Judaism to being a different faith altogether. But we still celebrate these two saints together not only because they were great followers of Jesus, but because they taught us how to agree to disagree. The sad part is all too often, we don’t pay attention to the hard work that these two saints must have done to come to a compromise so that all could worship in the same Church.
And I believe that it was the work of these two devout followers of Jesus—two Jesus called to minister to those who wanted to worship God in holiness and truth.
Peter was a fisherman, a devout Jew, an early lover of Jesus, perhaps impetuous, and one who like us, allowed his fear to get the better of him in the face of Jesus’ death until he was empowered by the Holy Spirit. From that point onward, we find that Peter was an important and courageous leader of the faith. Paul, who never knew Jesus in this world, was like all those who had come to know the Christ from others. He taught with the fervor of the twice born. These very different men, these men who came to know Jesus found their commonality was in their love of Jesus. They did not stand on personal privilege or ego. For the sake of the Church they found that they could compromise.
It is a lesson we need to hear today. We need to hear that two great men, great lovers of Jesus, with great talent and great abilities could come together and say yes to ways that could lead the Church out of confusion that could have killed the Church before it was really born. We need to hear of a faith in Jesus that bridged the gaps of culture and the wisdom of those who could lead the neophyte religion into a new place.
I am thankful that we have this feast today. Peter and Paul teach us much. Those with ears, let them hear. Amen

Seduced by God's grace

Proper 7A
June 21, 2008

In the reading from Jeremiah today is a passage that many preachers identify with. The translation as it was read this morning is a bit more elegant that the Hebrew actually intends. The word enticed really has a more earthy sense to it. It would be better translated seduced. Jeremiah feels that he has been seduced into being a prophet by God. He has had to proclaim the doom that God will bring down on Judah to the scorn of those who laugh at him. Jeremiah in this passage laments his lot. He complains that he has to cry out to the people that the Babylonians will come and take Judah captive, but he cannot do otherwise. He tries to keep silent, but the truth burns in him until it must come out.

I understand Jeremiah’s lament. I know what it means to be seduced by God’s truth and love and to almost naively point out flaws or lack of integrity. Folks do not really like whistle blowers. The majority of folks do not appreciate those who find the chinks in the constructs of their businesses, political systems, organizations or churches. We like our world to be comfortable. And even though it doesn’t work quite the way that we want, we are willing to put up with the chinks if we don’t have to look at them too hard.

When I was a child living in Jim Crow South, there were two different colored water fountains in stores—one for white folks and one for “colored people”. For most white folks in Ft. Worth, those 2 drinking fountains were just part of the construction of society. For me, even when I was young, those 2 drinking fountains were signs that there was something radically wrong with society. Even as an 8 year old, I would drink from the “colored” fountain much to my mother’s embarrassment. As I grew older, that construct of society became more and more a sign of what was wrong about my society rather than something that I could ignore. I got kicked out of a high school history class because I was not outraged that white women didn’t get to vote before black men did. My radically southern and bigoted world history teacher was horrified that I might believe that black folk should be equal. After all she was a good Christian woman who went to church every Sunday! Something burned in me—it was not just orneriness. It wasn’t just a matter of being different. Something inside of me claimed a priority of Truth with a capital T.

Truth is a mysterious thing. We sometimes think that we know the truth of something because we recognize the facts about something. But the kind of Truth that Jeremiah had to deal with—the kind of proclamation that he had to make was not something that he could explain. It was something that burned inside of him. It allowed him to speak the truth that no one wanted to hear—that the leaders of his country were selling his nation down the primrose path. He had to proclaim like Jonah that if the people of Judah continued in the path that it would be to their destruction. He could not be silent even when he wanted to be.

One of the major criticisms of mainline Protestantism these days by the younger generations is that we don’t practice what we preach. We preach love and kindness, but often time our churches quarrel viciously. We say we are welcoming and big happy family, but we tend to include only those who look or act like us. I am not talking of St. Luke’s or even the Lutheran Church. But I am quoting what I am hearing from surveys of the 40 and younger crowd by various organizations about mainline churches throughout the country.

Part of the problem is that we are not familiarizing young people with what Truth is. We are not teaching people of all ages that what is honest is part of their own relationship with God. When we are baptized we enter into God’s understanding, God’s holiness and we will forever struggle with what is Truth, what is Holy, what is Right.

In today’s Gospel reading we hear those words that give us all pause:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
Jesus understood the call to integrity. He knew the call to be a whistle blower in the name of God. Jesus knew his disciples when they went out to spread the Gospel would not have to know exactly what to say or how to preach. But he did know that if they could be true to the voice inside them—be true to what was honest and true, that they would serve God as did he, as had Jeremiah, as had Moses or whatever saint that had preceded them.
We have all been seduced into believing that we can walk the Christian path simply by being good. But that is not what Jesus teaches us in this passage. Sometimes we have to color outside the lines. Sometimes we have to step outside of what is acceptable behavior to follow the Lord of Life. We must demand of ourselves a willingness to pay attention to the holiness that God has opened up within us. We have to be willing to not accept a lesser form of living than the integrity that Christ holds out to us.
For those of us who have embraced Christianity we must be willing to practice what we preach—we must be willing to look at how we respond to the Truth we find within us and how we live it out in out lives. The cost of discipleship can be severe. It may mean rejection by those we love the most. Peer pressure is not just a phenomenon of the young, you know. Peer pressure is “keeping up with the Jones”, “being part of the team”, “fitting in”, “go along to get along” or “just being one of the guys.” It is as much a problem for adults as it is for kids.
Paul reminds us in Romans that in our baptism we have died to all that is not of God. We have been renewed by God’s love in baptism. We have opened that space so that we can know what Truth is and we can live in the promise of that baptism here and now. Yes, it may cost us, but the reality of God’s promise is much greater.
I serve here at St. Luke’s because I spoke the Truth to my bishop. He did not like the Truth that I spoke and has forbidden me work in my own church. The cost of that truth telling almost broke my heart. And the loss of access to my beloved denominational home is painful to me still.
At the same time, God has called me here. God has opened new truths to me in a way that I could not have imagined 10 months ago. God has promised that his eye is on the sparrow. We need not fear what comes from being a disciple. The Gospel is the promise of new life every day—it may not be the life you were planning, but it is the life of living with integrity the life that God has given us in baptism.
I would charge you to look at the places in your lives where you are just “fitting in”. I would invite you to challenge yourselves to live the lives that God has opened for you in your baptism—lives that are drawn to the Truth that resonates within you. And I would invite you to live those lives with integrity, boldness and love. Our world needs to hear that Truth —the truth of our beings, the truth of our baptism, the truth of the Gospel. AMEN