Maybe a Crocus in the Snow

Christianity is not a very attractive religion, if we are to judge it by the behavior of its followers. Only a casual reading of history will reveal a shocking and scandalous record of anathemas and calumnies hurled by Christians at other Christians whose lens of the faith differed from their own. In the East, during the Middle Ages, it was not unusual even for bishops on the outs with those in power to have both tongue and eyes deleted. In the West, the fire of the stake was more common. In the New Testa-ment, one gathers more than hints that St. Paul himself was consigned to the road to eventual martyrdom not by unbe-lievers, but by doctrinal enemies within the very community professing Christ. Fast forward to the Rennaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Wars of Religion, and I'll rest my case.

I'm not saying this as any kind of excuse for the current deplor-able situation in the Episcopal Church, or in world-wide Anglicanism generally. I'm only noting that it's nothing new. The question, to Episcopalians (and all Christians) who take the Sermon on the Mount, John 3:16-20, I Cor. 13, and Gal. 5:13-26 seriously is this: what are we going to do about it? We are given the ministry of reconciliation; what are we going to do about it?

Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it, as we begin another Lent. I am going to honor every other human being on the face of the earth as a child of God. That means everyone. I am a Christian, saved and marked by Christ, and I know this as surely and deeply as I know my name. As a child of God, however, I am also kin to every other human being, for he or she carries the same image of God as I do, of the same Father.

The next thing I'm going to do is refrain from damning those with whom I disagree. This doesn't mean I won't rise to the fight; my genes, after all, are Celtic. What it does mean is that my opponent is not, ipso facto, my enemy. I think I first realized this as a seminary student. Like nearly all the others, I came to the seminary through a prayerful and somewhat arduous faith-journey, and with my own set of convictions and presuppositions. I had quit my job, sold my home, andmoved my family to this new threshhold. When I met classmates who saw things radically different, I was shocked and so were they. After all, we couldn't both be right, and too much was at stake! It took some time for me to sed that, at a basic level, we were both wrong! Neither of us (and nobody) saw with the eyes of God, and never would, in this life. Our lens distortion was, and is, real. The experience changed me, I hope for the better.

As Episcopalians and Anglicans, we've developed a way to be pretty good at this. We come together to worship God, not to associate only with the like-minded. So it is that anglo-catholics, evangelicals, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, and all the rest come together at the communion rail. We stand together to say the Creed, and nobody tries to pry open anyone's soul to examine precisely what she or he means by each proposition. We exchange the Lord's peace, regardless of this or that quarrel du jour. All are sinners, and redeemed. All are hypocrites, and struggling. All are loved by God, and each wonders, in his or her own way, how to love back. If we can start there, perhaps we can show an attractive face to the faith we profess and the Church we love.