By the Rt. Rev. Larry Maze, Bishop of Arkansas
Editor's Note: The following sermon, on Matthew 24: 42-47, was preached by The Rt. Rev. Larry E. Maze, Bishop of Arkansas, at the Closing Eucharist of the South Central Regional Conference of Integrity Inc. at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 19, 1998, and is reprinted with Bishop Maze's permission:Over 1,300 years ago a 66 year old monk was sent from Rome to England to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. For the next 22 years Theodore of Tarsus labored among a people divided and frequently in battle over the collision of two very different realities; Celtic society impacted by the Roman Empire. And so, on this September 19, the feast day of Theodore of Tarsus, the Collect reminded us that God gave Theodore "grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been chaos." And we prayed, "Create in your Church, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the prince of peace..."
The collision of realities today are no longer the Celtic world colliding with the Roman Empire, but collisions coming from our own realities. Each generation has collisions of its own and each cries our for voices that can still proclaim the Gospel in the midst of the confusion. Some of those voices you have been hearing at this conference -- and will hear as our time goes on. Some of the voices are well known, and many of those voices come from the people sitting next to you. Voices that continue to speak good news, even in the face of collision and chaos.
What is the nature of the collision of realities that our generation faces? What is it that causes society to divide into neatly arranged camps and hurl barrages of hurtful words at one another? What is it that has the Church, the Body of Christ, so divided that our witness to a broken world is that we are too broken to help, that we are too busy deciding who gets to be in and who must stay our to preach any gospel that sounds like what Jesus preached and lived.
I want to suggest that the division of our day are not simple divisions of liberal vs. conservative, or orthodox vs. progressive, or any other such labels. Those tensions have always existed and we have not always found ourselves divided to the point that even common language is hard to find. But our divide is deeper and more encompassing than philosophical or political persuasions.
Several years ago Dr. Frederic Burnham of Trinity Church, New York City, speaking to a group of clergy said, "Our culture has divided sharply into two camps: those who are prepared to live with the ambiguities of this moment in history and those who are clinging desperately to the illusion of certainty - certainty about right and wrong, certainty about abortion, about when life begins and ends, certainty about morality and sexuality and family.
"There's nothing novel about the fact that people cling to certainty in difficult times, in moments of economic, political, and cultural insecurity. It's a historical given. But it is truly surprising to discover that virtually every issue that divides us in this country and in our church revolves around this single question of certainty."
I would add to what Dr. Burnham said. I would add that in the church there are those who have mistaken certainty for faith - who believe that to walk faithfully is to walk with certainty that they have determined the mind and the heart of God. Such is the depth of our desire for certainty. That faith becomes certainty and certainty becomes the test for faith. Those of us who live in the mystery of God's unfolding plan for our lives and for the universe and accept the ambiguities of such mystery, simply do not measure up to the test of faith that demands certainty.
The Gospel reading for Theodore of Tarsus begins "Keep awake then, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." It's an Advent Gospel and it speaks to me the mystery of God who breaks into human history in most unexpected ways. It speaks to those transcendent moments in life when we know that God has once again visited us in some unexpected event. Some ordinary afternoon, some unholy place, in some friend or even in some stranger, in the plain is being somehow disconnected from anything that matters much, in the joy that comes when we reconnect with life around us. Who can plan for such events? Who can arrange for God to behave in some predictable manner when all the evidence is that God will do what God will do. God's ways are truly not our ways, says the prophet.
And yet, today there are those who speak as though they know the mind of God and, with startling clarity, they tell us what pleases God and what displeases God. They speak of certainty as the hallmark of faithful people. Yet, some of us continue to experience God as the one who chooses to live in the midst of our tensions, in the midst of our ambiguities, in the midst of our life and yet always more than life. Always drawing us to truths greater than the truth of a given moment.
My infamous predecessor, the only American bishop to ever have been disposed by his peers in the House of Bishops, the Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown, wrote this in his autobiography: "America shall yet know the truth and the truth will make her free. But she will never come to know it by endorsing anybody's thesis, even mine. She will learn it only by uniting in the search for it, not by quarreling over the conclusions which are formed along the way... The formation of opinions is a necessary by-product of the search. But the opinion is not the search; and no opinion which is ever developed can possibly be as sacred as the process through which it is developed."
It occurs to me that marginalized people in any society are kept at the margins because of the opinions of the majority or those in power -- opinions that have been allowed to remain as unchallenged conclusions. But the opinion is not the search -- nor is it the truth.
And it has only been when marginalized people demand a place in the search for truth, when they challenge the old conclusions, it is only then that sacred journey towards truth goes on.
Racial minorities in this society finally demanded a place in the search for the truth. Because old conclusions have been shown to be simple opinions along the way. Women demanded a place in the search, and we've seen the collapse of male dominated power structures that were, after all, opinions along the way.
And now, gay and lesbian people are demanding that they join the search for truth -- that opinions that have for generations been layered in sanctified language -- are, nonetheless, opinions. But the opinion is not the search.
And so, together we continue to search. And the gospel writer says, "Keep awake, because you do not know when God will break in on you." Perhaps that is the certainty we seek. Not settling on opinions along the road to truth, but a certainty that it is God to whom we journey. May God grant us the grace to not deify our own opinions along the way but to stay faithful to the journey. And may we rejoice with all who will join us along the way.
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