Sunday, September 15, 2024
/Proper 19
Isaiah 50:4-9a, 22-28; Psalm 116: 1-8; James 3:1-12; Mark 8: 27-38
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN
If you all glanced at the Weekly Voice, which is St. Andrew’s weekly email full of parish news that comes out each Wednesday (shameless plug – you can sign up to receive it by scanning the QR code on the announcement page) you may have seen my article. In that article I described an experience I had in seminary attending an interfaith service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2002. If you have ever been to the National Cathedral, you know it is a large structure, and on the day of that service, there was no empty seat. It was standing room only.
From my seat, I watched the procession of dignitaries and clergy from all a variety of faith traditions including Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. These interfaith leaders all took their places near the altar within the National Cathedral. The preacher for the service that day was The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, who was the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in South Africa.
His sermon was, as you might imagine, perfect, impassioned, righteous. Bishop Tutu spoke of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote that one day, Yahweh, the God of Israel, would end all human conflict. Writing in verse 4 of chapter 2 in Isaiah, the prophet says that Yahweh, the God of Israel will beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, and that nation shall no lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” It was a powerful, beautiful sermon preached by a man who had lived through conflict, who had confronted apartheid. I do not know how else to describe his sermon but say his words had weight.
I left the service at the National Cathedral profoundly changed. I had hope. As you might expect this “pink cloud” or “honeymoon” experience of unity and optimism about peaceful existence amongst people of all nationalities and faith went away pretty quickly. Back at my seminary, I heard classmates say awful things about the religion of Islam. These were people studying to become priests, and when I heard what they said, I could not manage it.
One evening I went out to dinner, and went to use the restroom. I passed by one of the stalls, and stopped immediately when I saw graffiti written above the toilet. Written above the toilet was one word: “Muslims” with an arrow pointing toward the toilet bowl. I have no idea who wrote that, but I wondered – was the guy who wrote this call himself Christian?
Today we hear from the author of the letter, James, who cautions us about the power our words have. Venerable legend attributes authorship of this letter to James, the brother of Jesus. In excerpt we have today, James writes that “the tongue is a fire, it stains the whole body, it sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.” While he wrote these words over two thousand years ago, he might as well have been writing about the debate we had earlier this week between two candidates for the presidency of this country.
It is easy to harbor prejudice against someone or a group of people – so long as we generalize – or even better – marginalize them. Then we can really be certain of our prejudices. All Muslims are violent terrorists. All Christians are gun toting, pro-life advocates who support capital punishment. All supporters of former President Trump are idiots. Vice-President Harris is a Marxist.
All of these prejudices work – and thrive – as along as we never meet an educated and devout Muslim. As long as we never encounter a Christian who is pro-choice, and marches against capital punishment and gun rights. As long as we never encounter a Trump supporter who is well-read, kind, loving, and devoutly Episcopalian. As long as we ignore claims from leadership within the communist party of America that finds nothing Marxist or Communist in Vice President Harris’ agenda. Let me be clear: prejudice never survives experience.
Author Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us a straightforward way to hedge against prejudice of all kinds and to harness our tongue. He says – do not say anything about a person who is not in your presence that you would not feel comfortable saying directly to their face. Let me say that one more time: do not say anything about a person who is not in your presence that you would not feel comfortable saying directly to their face. If we do that, our chances increase that we will speak with integrity and love, rather than judgment or hate. We will beat the sword of gossip and lies into a plowshare of honesty and love. We transform the spear of hate into a pruning hook of peace. This, my friends, is how we change the world. AMEN.