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Recently retired Bishop of Alabama, Kee Sloan, is known for scattering his preaching with wonderful stories from throughout his own life. Telling these stories inspired Bishop Sloan to write a series of novels based on those life events. The second and most recent book in the series is Beulah, which covers his protagonist, Buddy, in the earlier years of his ministry and marriage in Mississippi.
At one point in the book, Buddy takes a young black man he has befriended out to lunch. Shortly after, one of the wardens of the church accosts Buddy for doing so. Buddy is confused. He says he paid for the lunch with this young man with his own money, not the church’s. “Yes”, says the warden, “but we pay you.”
There are multiple reasons to be shocked by this story. The racism is certainly one. The other is the control the church tries to exert on the one who is supposed to be their shepherd.
This is a good story for us to hear because it matches the truth many servants of God have faced throughout the millennia. Buddy showed a way of living, a truth, that his parish did not want to see. Instead of listening, they wanted to control Buddy and his message.
This same sort of control is what others tried to exert on both Amos and John the Baptist in our readings today. Amos was sent by God to proclaim to the Israelites the news of their coming destruction. God did this for the same reason God often does so: to give us a way out. But the King’s priest wouldn’t have any of it. He wants Amos to go and sell his wares somewhere else. The only problem is that Amos isn’t a professional prophet. He is “a herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees.” The Truth he offers isn’t his own; it comes straight from God.
John the Baptist, as we hear, was well beloved by King Herod, for he loved to listen to John speak. But the minute John the Baptist points out the truth that Herod married his sister-in-law, he is arrested, and Herodias, Herod’s wife, conspires to destroy John the Baptist, leading to his death.
We often don’t want to know the truths of the evils in us, as individuals or a society. But to grow, to escape the danger our sins bring to us, we need to hear them. We need to hear the inconvenient truth of ourselves.
Hearing the Truth is how we can “set our hope on Christ”, as we hear in Ephesians. It is how we can turn away from ourselves, and set ourselves back towards God. It is how we receive redemption. It is how we are set free.
Revealing that Truth is not an easy thing. For many of us, it leads to rejection by others. It can be in the simple rebuffing Amos receives from the establishment in his time. For some, it can lead to death like with John the Baptist, or at least it can feel like it.
That is why churches like St. Luke’s are so vital. Thus far, I have been given not only a warm welcome, but something else that I have not always received: respect. I understand I have a lot to do to build your trust in me, and building that trust cuts both ways, but thus far, the attitude towards your clergy here at St. Luke’s has been extremely commendable.
Because so many who dedicate their lives to God face the same confrontations that Buddy did in Beulah, as well as what Amos and John the Baptist encountered, it is that much more vital that St. Luke’s is a force and presence in our Diocese and in the wider Episcopal Church. St. Luke’s can be a shining example to others of how to listen to the church’s leaders.
But this respect will mean nothing if we don’t choose the right rector. Our next rector will hopefully be someone who, like Amos, John the Baptist, and Buddy, speaks the Truth even when that truth is inconvenient to those listening. The next rector hopefully will be someone doesn’t just speak what he or she wishes, but has an ear towards God’s Word and preaches that alone. Only then can we move forward in the hope of grace and forgiveness that comes from Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone.
The Truth can be hard for us to hear, but we need to listen to it. My prayer is that whoever St. Luke’s chooses as the new rector will be the kind of person who shares that Truth and in doing so brings us all closer to God in Christ Jesus.