‘Did You Know You Were My Hero?’
Reflections on the Word
RCL Proper 25B
23 September 2018
Holy Trinity Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 23rd of September.
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 23rd of September.
When Archbishop Melissa and I talked about my coming to Holy Trinity Cathedral as Vicar, she invited me to meet with a leadership ‘coach’. She thought that this would help me serve you better as we navigate the process of property and congregational development. We agreed on three sessions and I had the last of those sessions just this past week. The coaching has been a gift and I know that I will be reviewing my notes and Roy’s comments in the weeks and months ahead.
During our first session Roy asked me what I hoped to become. Now it’s not often that someone asks a person of my ripe age of sixty-five, ‘What do you want to become?’ It was and remains an intriguing question. I told him that I wanted to become a wiser elder after the models of some people I have always admired.
One of those persons was Archbishop Michael Ramsey, the 100thArchbishop of Canterbury. After his retirement Bishop Michael spent several Michaelmas terms at my seminary in southeastern Wisconsin, returning to England before the snow came to blanket the rolling hills of the seminary grounds. Every day he went on a walk around the two small lakes to the west of the seminary. On each of these walks he took a seminarian along with him. Along the way he would talk about many things and there was not a single seminarian who came back from that walk without the awareness of having walked with a wise elder and a holy person. We used to say that Bishop Michael could come to the seminary and do nothing more than join for worship in the chapel, eat meals with us and take walks around the lakes in order to have a profound effect on everyone, whether students, faculty or staff.
Another person whom I have admired ever since I came to British Columbia was Jim Cruickshank, the former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral and sometime Bishop of Cariboo. In all the years I knew Jim I never heard him say anything cruel or demeaning about another person, even those who attacked him for some of the positions he had taken. Jim knew how to speak the truth in love. Jim also had the gift of deep listening. Any time I spoke with him I never sensed that he was just waiting to jump into the conversation to say what he wanted say. He listened carefully and choose his words with an awareness of how words can heal or hurt. Even towards the end of his life when his strength was diminished, Jim radiated the charisms of wise eldership and holiness of life.
I believe that at the centre of all three readings today there is an implicit question: Who is your hero? Who is your mentor? Who do you want to become? I know that the short answer is that we all want to become more like Jesus, more Christ-like in how we live our lives. But I find myself saying, ‘I want to become more like Michael Ramsey. I want to become more like Jim Cruickshank. I want to become wiser and holier.’ And that is precisely what we hear in today’s readings.
I know that we’ve come a long way since the time of Proverbs and the gender roles described in what can be called an ‘Ode to a Capable Wife’. Yet she is described as practical and careful in planning for the long term. She has many skills and does not refrain from responding to the needs of the poor. ‘She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.’ [1] Is there anything in this description we might not wish for ourselves?
Then there is our friend James who continues his efforts to enlighten the people to whom he writes. He wants them to understand the necessary connection between what we believe --- that is to say, what we love in the deepest core of our being --- and what we do ‘in all the occupations and cares of our lives’. He knows that there have been conflicts among them. He knows that the poor are not always treated with respect. And so he writes that ‘ . . . the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.’ [2] Does this sentence not describe the kind of person each one of us hopes we might become?
And we can always count on the apostles missing the point of Jesus’ ministry and teaching as they travel the highways and the byways of ancient Palestine. He’s talking about suffering and death; they’re wondering who’s more important among their rather nondescript group of misfits. So Jesus reaches out and brings a child into their midst as the example of how to be his disciple. What is it about a child that Jesus finds so compelling? Is it a child’s curiosity and wonder about the world? Is it a child’s willingness to offer affection to the most unlikely character? Is it a child’s ability to grow and to expand their understanding of what it means to be a human being? Do we not wish to see the world with a child’s eyes again? To see the possibilities that we sometimes fear are no longer possible?
Who do we want to become? Who are our models? It is tempting to go off on a diatribe about the cult of personality that pervades North American society or to lament the lack of character displayed by those who would exercise leadership, whether political or social or cultural. But I won’t. I will only invite you to remember the wise elder, the holy person, you want to become. I will only invite you to hear today’s scriptures and take to heart what they say about true wisdom and the fullness of human life. And then let us see who we are and become the person God knows us to be.
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