[Note from Rowland: Harry calls himself a 'Christian non-believer'. He's not where I'm at on a lot of things, but I like his 'spunk'!]

Harry T. Cook

1/25/09

Jeremiah 3: 21-4:2; I Corinthians 7: 17-23; Mark 1: 14-20

If, upon reading or hearing the lections referenced above, you feel as if the Bible is whipsawing you, it would be understandable. Jeremiah is calling for change ("Return [or change your ways], O faithless ones, and I will heal your faithlessness"). Paul's counsel is to stand pat ("Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called"). Mark depicts Jesus summoning working fisherman to drop their nets and go with him -- and he didn't mean for a minute or two, but for good and into a radically different life. So, then, is the challenge of our Jewish-Christian religious tradition to go, or is it to stay? Is it to change, or is it to remain as we are? Is it to shuck off some outer self and put on a new one or to remain our old familiar selves? There are, I think, two distinct dispensations where our religion is concerned. The first is tied to tradition, to what we've always been and done. Some wag has said that the seven last words of any church are: "We have always done it this way." The second is to go with the flow to stay relevant. As I edge closer to retirement 65 days from now, I have been sorting through 21 years' worth of correspondence -- some of it from and to the members of the church of which I have been pastor for all this time. The most interesting reading has to do with the allegedly monumental changes in our parish life for which I have both taken and been assigned responsibility.

One of the issues had to do with how and when the usher at the early service was to be given the alms basin to pass among the congregation. On one or two occasions, circumstances required that it be done differently. One of the letters I received about that kerfuffle sounded like a call for an ecumenical council to anathematize a heretic.

I have two letters in hand instructing me that it was improper for the altar servers then under my supervision to extinguish "the epistle candle" before "the gospel candle" because "the gospel candle never burns alone." Incidentally, that liturgical "crisis" occurred just as our congregation and the entire nation were trying to figure out how to respond to the onset of the Iraq war. Another more interesting batch of missives concerned the change we made more than a dozen years ago in the matter of receiving communion: the eucharistic ministers meeting members of the congregation on the main level of the nave, the latter received the host and the wine standing.

After one or two of our senior members almost fell to certain serious injury from the steps up to the altar rail, I decided that taking communion ought not to be a physical risk in addition to the theological risk it already is -- by which I mean what Paul meant in I Corinthians 11: 27-28: "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable . . . For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves."

That change in our lives made world Catholicism's reaction to the Second Vatican Council sound like a mere hiccup. Whole families left this church over the alteration of the mechanics of receiving communion, but not before causing a major ruckus. Then came my first book, Christianity Beyond Creeds, which was no more and no less a compendium of what I had been saying for 10 years. Nevertheless, it was considered, as one now-former member said, "The last straw." Not only were we receiving communion standing, but now it was being suggested that the stories you're liable to read in the Bible may not be necessarily so. Another mini-Exodus from the consequent peace and quiet of which we have happily yet to recover. During that episode I was not infrequently called an "non-believer." Seldom content to let a thing go, I would answer, for example, "You're right, if you mean that I don't 'believe' that Jesus was anything more or less than a human being, and, at that, quite possibly in part an invention of late First Century apologists." How wonderful, then, it was to hear myself included among those President Obama called "Americans" in his inaugural address earlier this week. "We are," he said, "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers." He might have mentioned the sub-division of us Christian non-believers.

But there's more: a little less than two years ago, I learned that the governing body of the parish had decided to add the Rainbow or Gay Pride flag to our mast to be flown under the American and Episcopal Church flags. The decision seemed unremarkable to me and certainly consistent with the terms of the Baptismal Covenant to the effect that we are committed to "strive for justice and peace among all people" and "to respect the dignity of every human being." (See Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 305.)

The decision created its own resistance. One person said on her way out that she would not come back to this church until "that stupid flag" came down. It hasn't, and neither has she nor has her family. To change or not to change? That is the question, whether 'tis nobler after all to suffer the slings and arrows that come with advocating change, or to take arms against that sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? Or putting it another way, "Is the cost of changing greater than that of not changing?" The chief objector to the Rainbow flag told us in her letter of resignation from the parish, "Our family was ready for a change." Just not the one here, I guess.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

© Copyright 2008, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.