Tonight, I felt like the stranger, the foreigner that I am, in Sudan.
Tonight, I felt like the stranger, though not at a restaurant or market.
Tonight, I felt like the stranger in the Episcopal Church.
Tonight, during the sermon, I became the alien.
The alien who does not know Jesus and is in need of saving. Someone that needed to know the saving Grace of Jesus.
I became the symbol of what is wrong with the Anglican Communion
The symbol of those that have lost their way and are in need of the correct road map.
The teacher who has forgotten the lesson and so the student steps in.
The sinner.
The Rt. Rev. HIllary Garang from the Diocese of Malakal was the substitute preacher. Fresh from Lambeth.
Prior to his sermon, I prayed to keep an open mind.
During the sermon, I began to question why has God put me in such a theological setting? The common liturgy is strangely not enough comfort.
I was not comforted by the Bishop's words of redemption, salvation and grace. Their meanings sounded "different" to me. He said that the Africans, along with the Indians, were to bring the True Gospel to the world. They would send missionaries into Europe and North America.
He stated that African-Anglicans have been made to feel less than others within the Anglican Communion. I have heard that said.
Tonight, I knew how they felt.
It feels awful, lonely, without community. Without God.
Is this the lesson?
Note: I would really like some feedback on this one. I am hanging out here having discussions with myself and getting no where.
1 comment:
Ok kiddo...first, I love you very much, and so do a lot of people, so just because you are the stranger doesn't mean we don't have your number, and your number is !.
That being said, I remember a comment made to me by a friend who had been interviewed for fifteen positions as rector and always came in second or third. I asked him what he had learned about himself in all that. He said, "I learned it was nothing personal."
You become lumped with "them," those who are viewed as hurtful, deranged, wrong, sinners, etc, and it is nothing personal. You are simply the present tense of "them."
I think in some ways that is what the situation of the Pheonician woman is in the Gospel. She is not an Israelite, a member of the family. She is a foreigner and a worshiper of strange gods.
But then she looks Jesus in the eye and says, "Help me." and when he still avoids doing so, says "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs get the scraps under the table."
well.. that was the Gospel, and who knows if that has relevance here. But one way or another, the bishop gazed over the Anglican landscape and saw "them" and you are part of "them." But he didn't gaze on you.
So you gaze on him. You look at him and say, "nevertheless here I am, a child of God."
No Son of God or one speaking in his name can do more than say, "your faith is wonderful."
hang in there...being a stranger in a strange land is only one of many visions of loneliness and grace that you will have.
When you come home no one will know what you are talking about, but you will, and so will God. That makes two. Maybe some of us can also hear, and there will be more. The end of being a stranger for Jesus Christ's sake is to become a friend of all.
Thinking about you more and more.
Mark
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