Where, Then, Shall We Go?

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: John 6:60-71

There is a story I have come to love, told to me by a man you will come to love. The man’s name is John Claypool (a preacher out of Mississippi, by way of Kentucky). John will spend a weekend with us next March, at which time he will probably not repeat this narrative.

It concerns a Mexican bank robber, Jorge Rodriguez, who operated along the Texas border around the turn of the century. He was so successful in his thievery that the Texas Rangers deployed a whole extra posse along the Rio Grande to try and stop him. Sure enough, late one afternoon, one of the special Rangers saw Jorge slipping quietly across the river into Mexico. So he trailed him at a discreet distance until the bandito returned to his home village. He watched as Jorge mingled with the people around the town well and then went into his favorite cantina to relax.

The Ranger slipped in and managed to get the drop on Jorge. Pointing a pistol to his head, he said: “I know who you are, Jorge Rodriguez, and I have come to get back the money you have stolen from the banks in Texas. Unless you give it to me, it is my intention to blow your brains out.”

There was, however, one flaw with the marvelously conceived and (to this point) exceedingly well-executed plan. Jorge Rodriguez spoke no English and the Texas Ranger spoke no Spanish. They were two adults at a verbal impasse.

About that time, an enterprising little Mexican approached the Texas Ranger and said: “I am bilingual. Would you like me to translate for you?” The Ranger nodded, whereupon the bilingual Mexican told Jorge Rodriguez who the Ranger was and why he was pointing a gun at Jorge’s head. Nervously, Jorge answered back: “Tell the big Texas Ranger that I have not spent a cent of the money. Then tell him to go to the town well….face north….count down five stones….find the loose stone….pull it out….reach behind….where he will discover the money. Please tell him quickly.”

Nervously, the Ranger inquired: “What did he say? What did he say?” Leading the bilingual Mexican to respond in perfect English: “Jorge Rodriguez is a very brave man. He says he is ready to die.”

* * * * *

Make no mistake about it. In a picture-driven culture, words are still important. And attention will be paid to anyone who can speak them clearly and in ways that lead to connections. We are hurt by what we can’t say….and by what we don’t hear. Ask the bandito in the cantina or the Ranger who chased him there. As a preacher, I have learned that I can open wounds with words and I can close wounds with words. In my professional life….and in my personal life….words have gotten me into trouble and words have gotten me out of trouble.

But why should I be any different from other people….like you….or you….or even Jesus? Who, more than once, got into trouble by what he said. In our little text of the morning, Jesus finds himself very much in trouble because of what he said. Not that I read enough of the text so that you can see all the trouble. To do that, I would have had to take you all the way back to the beginning of chapter six and read 60 verses more than I did. Suffice it to say that the unifying theme of John’s sixth chapter is bread….and the degree to which Jesus gives it (as in “here, take and eat”) measured against the degree to which Jesus is it (as in “here, feed on me”).

Trust me when I say there is plenty in chapter six to offend. The offense begins when Jesus says that he is God’s own bread….come down from heaven….and that whoever eats of it will live forever. Which pretty much equates him with God. And which pretty much elevates him over us. Which does not strike our ears harshly. We’re used to hearing this by now. But picture yourself hearing it for the first time. Picture yourself hearing it from another human being who looks and sounds like you (“I am God’s own bread, come down from heaven; whoever eats of me will live forever”). It would probably make you scratch your head….at the very least.

But Jesus notches things to a higher level by choosing some rather gory words to describe what he means. In the earlier gospels, Jesus calls this bread “his body.” In John’s gospel, however, he calls it “his flesh.” In the earlier gospels, he calls upon it to “be eaten.” In John’s gospel, however, he uses the words for “chomp” or “gnaw.” So a more literal translation might go like this: “Those who chomp my flesh and guzzle my blood have eternal life….for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

This is language more appropriate to butcher shops than churches. And when you add the fact that Hebrew law clearly forbids the drinking of blood, you can understand why Jesus’ followers began pulling away from him. Twice, in the text, we are told that they began to “murmur among themselves.” I love that phrase, given that I have known what it is like when people in the congregation begin to “murmur among themselves.” Finally, John tells us that many who were disciples (suggesting that, at this point, there were far more than 12) said: “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?”

But rather than making it easier for them, Jesus makes it harder. “Does this offend you?” he asks. “Well, if it offends you, what would you say if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before he came?” Meaning: “What if I were to take off right now (like an over-filled helium balloon), leaving you with nothing to show for this little encounter but stiff necks?”

To which you can almost hear them say collectively: “We don’t get it. We don’t get any of it. We don’t get the living bread bit. We don’t get the gnaw-my-flesh bit. We don’t get the guzzle-my-blood bit. And we especially don’t get the up-up-and-away bit.” To which Jesus says: “No, and you probably won’t, unless it be granted you by the Father.” Meaning that your lack of comprehension probably means you haven’t been chosen….and that you don’t belong here.

Picture yourself in class….a very high-powered class….in a very high-powered school…. listening to a very high-powered lecture…..delivered by a very high-powered professor…..whose words are floating in a very high-powered way….right over your very low-powered head. In short, you’re not getting it. Which frightens you, until you look around and realize that nobody else seems to be getting it, either. So you suddenly get very brave. And you raise your hand very high. But, when called upon, all of the courage leaks out of your voice as you hear yourself mumble: “Could you please back up and go over that again? Some of us are not getting it.” Only to hear (in response): “Then I guess you don’t belong here.” That could take the wind out of your sails or the starch out of your socks. And it might even make you fold your tent and depart.

Which several did. Depart, I mean. People do, you know. At all kinds of times. And for all kinds of reasons. What’s more, it’s hard not to take it personally when they go, even if they say things like “Nothing against you, preacher” or “Ritter, this really isn’t about you.”

But allow me to let you in on a little secret. You can’t do this work without getting your ego caught up in it. A lot of people say you’re not supposed to. But they’re stupid when they say that. Simply stupid. No one of us will ever become a sufficiently pure messenger of God, so that all you see is God and nothing that you see is me. There’s always ego there. In greater or lesser amounts, to be sure. But I would advise you to never trust a preacher who says there isn’t. Instead, trust the preacher who is honest enough to name it, because it is only the preacher who names it who has half a chance to tame it.

People leave. All the time. Which hurts. And irritates. Probably both. This is true, even for Jesus. I can’t speak for you, but I can hear it in his voice. We are now at the end of chapter six. Most of the room has bailed. And to the few who remain….to the dozen who remain….he says: “Do you also wish to go away?” And for all Jesus knows, maybe they do. I’m not sure he’s sure about any of them….about any of us….or about me, for that matter. Oh, I’ll stick it out. In part, because I’ve already stuck it out. But there were times….not that I want to talk about them. But there were times. Everybody has times when they could just as easily go with the flow, when the flow is going for the door.

Maybe what Jesus said was: “I suppose you guys want to go with those other guys”…..all the while hoping they don’t (or won’t). Which is how it turns out, of course. They don’t. But not because they haven’t considered it. Peter speaks for them. And what Peter says is: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Meaning: “We don’t fully get it either. But we sense we can hear something here that we can’t hear any place else, from anybody else. Which is why we haven’t left. And don’t plan to.”

The phone rings late at night in the house where I live. It is you on the other end of the line, phoning from the house where you live. You have just hung up that very same phone, following a call from the hospital where your loved one lives. “You’d better come,” the voice from the hospital says. “He has taken a turn for the worse.” Which often means that your loved one has died. But since the caller does not possess hospital authority to tell you that….or because the hospital does not want to be responsible for your driving if you know that….the caller does not say that your loved one has died

So you go. And I go. To see the one who is already gone. Upon arriving at the hospital, everyone is ushered into a designated meeting place they call the “family room” (which is where families come together before they come apart). And the floor nurse says: “I’ll call the doctor. She’ll be here in just a minute. Meanwhile, can I get anybody any coffee?” And the doctor comes (before or after the coffee). But the doctor does not stay long. Her job is done. She did what she could. For as long as she could. Working as hard as she could. But it wasn’t enough. Which, whether she tells you or not, makes her uncomfortable.

Strangely enough, this is often where I (as a pastor) feel most useful. Not that I have anything in my bag of tricks that the doctor did not have in hers. Indeed, it is past the time for tricks (hers, mine or anybody’s). Just as it is past the time for techniques (hers, mine or anybody’s). Suddenly I am forced to go to work, precisely at the point where all the things that are supposed to work, no longer work. When the machines no longer work. When the mechanics no longer work. When the technology and the technicians no longer work. When the wonders of science and the well-cultivated intuitions of the medical staff no longer work. When everything and everybody we have counted on to keep the work working no longer work. And when we are confronted (in the face of all we do know) by all we don’t know….and (in the face of all we can do) by all we can’t do….how ironic it is that I am the only person left who is still working.

Not that I was ever taught what to say. Which used to frighten me. But it frightens me no longer. For I know something that the doctor didn’t know (when she said: “We tried everything we could, but we lost him”). What I know is that he wasn’t ours to lose. He was God’s. Or, more to the point, he is God’s. And God translates the language of victory and loss far differently than we do.

            “Do you also wish to go away?”

            “To whom would we go, Lord? You alone have the words of eternal life.”

* * * * *

Two months ago, a young man died….suddenly and tragically. His grandmother called a friend and said: “See if you can reach Dr. Ritter, he’ll know just what to say.” Notice that she did not say: “He’ll know just what to do.” So her friend called me. I called the boy’s grandmother. And I spoke words that I didn’t really think about beforehand….nor was I scripted to say beforehand. Words which changed nothing. But may have altered something.

Two weeks ago, after praying with a cancer fighter who is now in her 17th round of a 15 round title fight, she said: “Those words are beautiful.” To which I said: “I don’t have the faintest idea where they came from.” To which she said: “I know where they came from.”

But this is not about me, don’t you see. The title of today’s sermon departs from the text. My title is not “To Whom Shall We Go?” Instead, it is “Where, Then, Shall We Go?” I am talking “church” now. For this is where we would come to know the Holy One, whose thoughts are not necessarily our thoughts and whose ways are not always our ways. This is where we try to penetrate what the Celts call that “thin membrane” that separates things temporal from things eternal. And this is where we come to tell the stories which take some of us years to “get”….and then, in a transforming moment, get us. Life saving stories.

Do you remember Scheherazade? She was one of the wives of the Emperor of Persia. And Persia’s emperor was a man who was convinced that all women were unfaithful. So he vowed he would marry a new wife each day, have his way with her at night, and would have her executed early the next morning. Which constitutes a rather large problem. Except that Scheherazade was a very clever woman, who set out to save all the women of Persia. So on her wedding night she began to tell the emperor a tale that so fascinated him, he decided to stay her execution for an additional night so he could hear the rest of the story. You know the outcome as well as I do. Scheherazade kept on talking and so fascinated the emperor that he listened to her tales for 1001 nights, after which he was sufficiently convinced of her fidelity that he made her his consort.

Let me ask you a pair of questions. How do you get from one day to the next in a world where, sooner or later, everything “dear” dies? And where do you hear the stories that stay the execution.…or point beyond them?

Friday morning….48 hours ago….58 of us are walking through the sanctuary of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit. What we are not doing is going to the front of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit. That’s because there is a casket at the front of Hartford Memorial….an open casket….holding a 12-year-old girl….outfitted in her very best and prettiest come-to-Jesus dress. She is lying there because she was the little girl who was raped and murdered, just a few days previous, by an 18-year-old boy whose family is also a part of that church.

We weren’t there for the service. We were there for a tour. We just happened upon the casket. As we left, people were gathering. And I suppose the preacher, Charles Adams (who’s as good as any, and better than most), was sweating over what in the world he could say. But the truth is, there is nothing “in the world” to say. He could (and probably should) agree with everyone in the house that it doesn’t get any worse than this.

But somewhere, in the midst of the utter hopelessness of it all, he should hint….maybe just hint….that it doesn’t get any better than this, either.

            “Will you also go away?”

            “Where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Note:  John Claypool’s story of Jorge Rodriguez is drawn from his Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, published under the title “The Preaching Life.” I am also indebted to the biblical scholarship of Barbara Brown Taylor who cleverly and carefully unwrapped the “offense” of John’s sixth chapter, leading many of the disciples to “murmur among themselves” and “go away.” Unfortunately, I was not able to stay and hear Charles Adams’ sermon or eulogy for 12-year-old J’Nai Glasker. But given his homiletical skills, I have reason to believe it was as helpful as it was excellent.

Additional Note:  In the Detroit Free Press of Thursday, September 14, it was suggested that murder and rape charges against 18-year-old Michael Gayles (accused of the crime that took the life of J’Nai Glasker) may be dropped because of insufficient evidence. Michael Gayles’ attorney has suggested that his client’s DNA did not match DNA taken from the victim’s body, even though he allegedly confessed to the crime on September 4. I include this information in order to update my closing story in a timely and responsible fashion.

Who’s Sorry Now? (With Apologies to Ali MacGraw) 5/26/2000

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures:  Luke 18:9-14 and Joel 2:12-14

News Release (May 6, 2000)

In a May 4 service that included the symbolic wearing of sackcloth and ashes, United Methodists confessed the sin of racism within the denomination.

The act of repentance, together with a call for reconciliation, was an attempt to recapture the spirit of Methodism lost when some African Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries felt compelled to leave the church’s predecessor bodies and formed their own congregations.

In words and dramatic imagery, the Rev. Anthony Alexander, a Central Pennsylvania delegate, and the Rev. William B. McClain, a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary, told the stories of the discriminatory acts that led to the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal churches.

But racism remained for African Americans who stayed. When the Methodist Episcopal Church North, Methodist Episcopal Church South and Methodist Protestant Church united in 1939, a separate jurisdiction – the Central Jurisdiction – was created for Black members. Retired Bishop James S. Thomas, who remembered the sorrow of that period, noted that God has now given the church the opportunity “to climb a higher mountain than we’ve ever climbed before.”

Responding to the call for confession, participants received a strip of sackcloth to pin onto their clothes and a rubbing of ashes on the wrist as signs of penance.

Bishop McKinley Young of the AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church responded that he couldn’t speak for his grandparents but added, “I wish they could hear your confession tonight. I believe that there is a balcony in heaven, and that there are clouds of witnesses who bend their ears to hear.”

“It is my hope that we will be deeply committed to making this symbolic act a reality.”

(“United Methodists Repent for Racism,” Daily Christian Advocate, The General Conference of the United Methodist Church)

The Sermon

Let me begin with a simple question: “What does it mean to pray well?”

There are people who say that I pray well. Earlier this week, someone said to me over the phone: “We certainly appreciate your prayers….because everybody knows you have a direct line.” Which I take as a vote of confidence, even though I am not comfortable with the theology that lies behind it.

Other times, I’ll be out for dinner and someone will say (as it comes time to bless the meal): “Oh, good, we have an expert here tonight.” Or else the host will pray after making some comment about giving me the night off, before adding: “Of course, it won’t be nearly as good as you would do.” Which makes me feel badly, even though I do appreciate “the night off” and truly enjoy being the one hearing the words rather than the one saying the words.

I have had a book of prayers published. Which made me feel good….especially when people said nice things after reading them. But which was a bit awkward, given that prayers aren’t something that should be reviewed for their literary quality or theological content. There is something slightly odd about being the “designated prayer” for a college. I can understand “poet laureates.” But I have never heard of a “prayer laureate”….although that’s how someone at Albion once introduced me.

The other day, I actually had a prayer applauded. It was at Albion, where we were dedicating a softball field. I stood on home plate and offered the dedicatory invocation. At the conclusion, the team applauded. And then went on to win. Not that there was any connection between those things. But upon leaving the home plate area for the comfort of the bleachers, someone said: “I bet that was the first time that you ever had applause following one of your prayers.” Unfortunately, I had to tell him it wasn’t.

The problem, of course, is that any prayer offered in public is a prayer with an audience. But true prayer should have an audience of one. I’m talking about God. One recalls the sarcasm employed by a reporter who described a preacher’s invocation as “the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience.” So again I repeat: “What does it mean to pray well?”

Keeping that in mind, let’s turn directly to the text. It’s a parable….meaning a story told by Jesus. Which means that it may be true. Or may not be true. As concerns the characters, they could be people Jesus actually knows. Or he could be making them up as he goes along. Fortunately, for purposes of character analysis, there are only two. One, a Pharisee. The other, a tax collector. And the text says that both of them went to the Temple to pray.

The story says that the Pharisee prayed standing by himself. Don’t make a big deal out of that. Standing was the customary posture for prayer. And separating oneself from other people was a fairly common thing to do. The Pharisee is depicted as saying:

O God, I give thanks to You that I am not like other men….robbers…. swindlers….adulterers….or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of everything I get.

Immediately, we find ourselves standing in judgment of his prayer. Too haughty, we say. Too proud, we say. Much too focused on self, we say. Which I suppose it is. The Pharisee is giving eloquent testimony to everything he isn’t, followed by a recitation of everything he is. And we are disinclined to like him.

People hearing Jesus would not have agreed with us. They would have viewed him as a pretty good guy. Jewish literature has preserved for us the prayer of an unknown rabbi, spoken around 70 A.D. It begins:

I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast given me a place among those who sit in the House of Study and not among those who sit at the street corners. I rise early. They rise early. But I rise to study the words of the Law, and they rise early to engage in vain things. I live for the life of the future world. They live for the pit of destruction.

Which means that the Pharisee’s prayer is not unusual. Nor would Jesus’ hearers view it as surprising. And I concur. All told, the Pharisee sounds like a pretty good guy. The vices he steers clear of (stealing….swindling….fooling around with women) are vices we all ought to steer clear of. And the spiritual disciplines he undertakes are disciplines we all ought to undertake. I don’t know about fasting. But I do know about tithing. And concerning both fasting and tithing, this fellow goes everybody else one better. He fasts twice as often and tithes twice as much. I could build a church on people like him. In fact, I have built churches on people like him. Say what you want about his attitude, but don’t knock his behavior. All told, it’s pretty darn good.

But there’s this other fellow praying in the near vicinity. This guy is a tax collector. Which, as you know from other stories in the New Testament, makes him a dismal and despised creature. Everybody looked down their noses at tax collectors. Notice how many times the occupation is linked with a discussion of sin….as in “tax collectors and sinners.” There’s a reason for this. Israel was an occupied country. Rome was the taxing authority. Meaning that you paid taxes to a government you couldn’t stand….in amounts you couldn’t afford. What’s more, you didn’t have much to say about it. It was clearly “taxation without representation.”

But Romans didn’t handle the collection part. They hired Jews to do that. And each person they hired was given the right to collect taxes in a certain region. In short, the Jews who were hired to collect taxes were given a franchise over a specific area. And the amounts to be collected were left unspecified. The tax collector knew how much the Romans expected. But anything he could get on top of that figure could be kept for himself. And it was not uncommon for tax collectors to keep a lot….lining their pockets with the shekels of their countrymen. If Jewish citizens objected, the Jewish tax collector could appeal to Roman authority to back him up. And Rome generally came to his defense. Because the alternative was finding Romans to make collections. All in all, the system worked pretty well if you were Roman….worked pretty well if you were a tax collector….and worked pretty poorly if you were a Jew making payment. Can you see why tax collectors were hated?

But back to this fellow’s prayer. It’s pretty short….pretty simple….pretty humble. He beats his breast (a sign of penitence and mourning) and says: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In fact, there is legitimate reason to translate his prayer: “Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner”….as in “chief of sinners.” All of which sounds lovely, 2000 years removed. But it doesn’t obscure the fact that everybody hated his guts. And you and I wouldn’t like him much, either. To whatever degree this fellow is hanging around the church, he probably has his hand on the collection plate….taking out rather than putting in. And having met a few of his kind in the four churches I have served….including the lady who put her hand in the till at Nardin Park to the tune of $151,000….I know that you can’t build many successful ministries on the backs of people like him.

When you really look at these two people, the choice is obvious. You’ll take the tither and try to humble him up a bit. You aren’t going to take the crook on the basis of one grandstand play for mercy. Except that’s what Jesus does. Takes the crook, I mean. Blows off the tither. And says that when both go down to their houses, it will be the crook who will be “right” with God. Which is not what you would expect. And certainly not what Jesus’ hearers expected. Put it this way. What if Jesus had begun his story by saying: “The Pope and a pimp went into St. Peter’s to pray.” You wouldn’t expect (nine lines later) that the pimp would be the one to come out smelling like a rose.

What’s the issue here? Spiritual pride is the issue here. And how can you tell spiritual pride when you see it? By its lack of contrition, that’s how.

Contrition: the ability to be genuinely sorry for what one has done….or failed to do. Sorry to lovers. Sorry to neighbors. Sorry to deity. Sorry to history. Dress it up in theological language and call it “repentance.” Dress it up in psychological language and call it “remorse.” Whatever you call it, it’s still about being sorry to someone for something….and being capable of saying it as well as feeling it. In Jesus’ story, that’s what separated the two guys in the Temple. And one suspects that’s what separates us still.

Once upon a time, in a tear jerker of a movie called Love Story, Ali MacGraw looked at Ryan O’Neal and said: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Which sounded so incredibly romantic, until you sat back and realized how stupid it really was. I can’t imagine being in love with someone who could never be sorry, and say so. And were I afflicted with a similar inability to express remorse, I can’t imagine anyone being in love with me. Apart from God, I mean. Because that’s his job. But, even then, our love relationship….God’s and mine….wouldn’t amount to a hills of beans, given the arrogance of my self-righteousness.

“Who’s sorry now,” Patsy Cline croons. And suddenly it appears that everybody is. These last few weeks have been a good time in the contrition business. Everywhere I turn, I find people who are heaven-bent on making an apology.

According to yesterday’s paper, Governor Engler is sorry he told 14 kids they had won a Presidential Scholarship when they hadn’t….at least, not yet. Robert Montgomery Knight is sorry that his “abusive and uncivil behavior” over the course of 29 years has suddenly become an embarrassment to the University of Indiana. And Sheriff William Hackel is sorry he missed his son’s birthday and his wife’s anniversary, although he neglected to direct any remorseful language in the direction of the 26 year old whose “complaint of harassment” (how’s that for descriptive restraint?) led to his conviction and incarceration.

Last week, we Methodists joined the Pope….who has been apologizing to everybody for everything, including the descendants of Galileo (for condemning him too vocally) and the descendants of six million Jews (for supporting him too silently)….by apologizing to both Catholics and African American Methodists, for sins historical and contemporaneous.

Whenever anybody says “I am sorry” to God (or to any of God’s children), somebody is certain to raise the question of sincerity. How many times have you tried to apologize to somebody who said: “You don’t really mean it. You’re just saying it so that I will get off your back and leave you alone, so things can go back to the way they were.”

Well, that’s always possible. I can’t always judge insincerity when I hear it. What’s worse, I can’t always judge insincerity when I say it. There have been times that I have expressed more remorse than I felt (given that it seemed appropriate and/or required), only to discover that in the act of expressing it (out loud), I began feeling it (inside).

Indiana University’s president, Myles Brand (whose patience and mercy must be drawn from rivers deeper than mine), said he was all-but-ready to can Bobby Knight, until the coach showed up at his door (on the eve of the Sabbath) to throw himself on the university’s mercy. Concerning those two hours, the president said:

Before the meeting, I didn’t think he could change his behavior. But I’d never seen Bobby so contrite and apologetic, or so sincere. He made me a personal pledge. He gave me his personal word. And I believe him.

So what does it matter what you and I think? For now.

As concerns institutional apologies, what can they hurt? They may even help. To the degree that they can set the record straight (as if any record can be set completely straight), apologies can serve history. And to the degree that the people voicing them are willing to stand behind them, apologies can serve community.

Let me briefly engage myself (and you, by proxy) in a little Q and A. I don’t have 20 questions. But I do have 10.

·      Did things happen to African Americans in the early days of the Methodist movement for which an apology is in order?

I have researched the records and the answer, unequivocally and resoundingly, is Yes.       

·      Did things happen in historical encounters between Methodists and Roman Catholics for which an apology is in order?

            I have not researched the record, but I will take it on faith that they did.

·      These things on the historical record, was I guilty of them?

            No.

·      These things on the historical record, were you guilty of them?

            No.

·      These things on the historical record, would you and I have been guilty of them, had we lived then?

            Probably….given our human propensity to “go with the flow.”

·      How am I implicated in any of this historical stuff?

Professionally, my career has thrived and prospered under systems that have hurt and denied others.

·      Have I ever done anything (specifically) to Roman Catholics?

            If resentment is a sin, I have resented them.

·      Have I ever done anything (specifically) to African American colleagues?

            If paternalism is a sin, I have patronized them.

·      Is sackcloth and ashes my style?

            No. If I have to eat humble pie, I prefer it be sweetened with a dollop of ice cream.

·      Does that mean I am uncomfortable with the contrition expressed in Cleveland last week?

No. Not at all. I’ll mount that horse of contrition and ride it gladly. If I have any qualms about all the “I’m sorrys” coming out of Cleveland, it has more to do with who we didn’t say them to….than who we did.

But it’s a start. Beggars can’t be choosers. And, in the presence of God, I guess I’m a beggar. From time to time, I need reread those texts which reduce my status.

Some years ago, the London Times ran a contest inviting readers to write in and tell them “What’s wrong with England?” They said that the answers would be judged for originality, clarity and brevity. The winning answer had but two words. It was submitted by the writer, G. K. Chesterton. Who, in answer to the question, “What’s wrong with England,” said: “I am.”

* * * * *

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

I tell you, one went down to his house more justified than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”