A WING AND A PRAYER "Sibling Rivalry" & "The Family Table"

Perhaps our work of reconciliation means we'll have to tell a hard truth, or be vulnerable enough to apologize, or risk getting to know someone really different. Or perhaps it will be the hard work of learning about the root causes of homelessness, and working in a soup kitchen. It may be the dangerous work of peacemaking in the Sudan or Palestine. It is all gospel work that leads to new life. - p. 81

Communion is about learning to live and thrive with those obnoxious people around us, whether they are in our homes, our churches, our nation, or around the globe. The communion of saints is our natural home, and it is the only place where true joy is to be found! We, too, need to learn how to fight fair and dignify our neighbors who stand with us before the throne of God. We will only learn to be fully present before that throne when we can see the fellow child of God in the odious person who stands next to us. - p. 84

Seeing the good in the odious person next to us. Seeing them as a child of God. I must need some serious glasses, because I'm having trouble with ++Katherine's vision chart here!

I just finished sharing JESUS CAMP, the Oscar nominated documentary, with my Contemporary Issues in Media and Theatre class, and I am having some serious difficulties reconciling myself to the extremists represented in that film. Part of my response might be that I and my family are GREAT fans of the HARRY POTTER series of films. We enjoy the mystery, the intrigue, the battle between the archvillain Valdemort and the reluctant hero Harry. In it we find a great story of standing up for the disenfranchised, for the acceptance of one another regardless of weakness or popularity, and the recognition of one's strenghts in adversity. This epic, like many before and since, is a work of fiction, pointing metaphorically to some very real and very human experiences. Many contemporary theologians would even see in Harry a figure that is trying to emulate the hero who stands up for the rights of the poor, the weak, the suffering, and the humiliated, and to destroy the evil that corrupts society.

Camp administrator, Pastor Becky Fisher's vehement abhorrance of the books and films as celebrating the Devil hit a little too close to home. It's not that I deny her the right to her opinion--in fact, I very much support her right to buy or not to buy the novels, to view or not to view the films. What challenges me is that she directly attacks all of those who claim to be Christian and yet support this "homage to Satan." I am somehow supposed to embrace her opposition to me and my Christian beliefs. She would not even call me a Christian. Many evangelicals are challenged by inclusivist Christianity, and their track racks are filled with attacks on sacramental theology, accusing the catholic traditions of canabalism in our celebration of Christ's presence in the Holy Eucharist.

All in all, I am just not Christian enough for Pastor Becky or for Christians like her, in the radically pentecostal tradition. I am judged to be merely a "wannabe." And still, in these sermons today, ++Katherine calls me to reconcile with this person who equates me with the non-believer. How do I feel about this identification? How am I supposed to bury my own disappointment in her brand of Christianity that labels non-believers (and marginal believers--including, I suppose, me and my family) as eternally damned? How do I carry that in my heart as I approach the altar in faith each week?

I carry it, because that is the example that Jesus gave me in his Passion and Death. We all carry the barbs of the accusers, and we turn back to them, not with vengeance and pay backs, but with love and forgiveness. We are Christians, in the Jesus sense, not Christians in the Pauline/Deuteronomist sense. Our example was one of love, not one of hate; one of acceptance, not one of exclusion; one of peace, not one of war. This is the gift of Jesus Christ--to be able to respond with kindness in the face of accusation and disdain.