St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37
Good morning!
Today, let’s talk about . . .
CONFLICT!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but the last few weeks
our readings have been tracking along
with the letter of James.
James is a part of the New Testament,
a letter written by the Apostle James
to the early Church.
And as is the case
with so many of the letters in the New Testament,
this letter has a lot to say about . . .
conflict.
Today, James asks,
“Those conflicts and disputes among you,
where do they come from?”
Last week, he said,
“Our tongues are like a fire.
Look how great a blaze can be set
by such a small part of our bodies.
With just a few words
we can burn lifelong relationships
to the ground.”
And the week before that, he asked,
“Do y’all even believe in Jesus?
Because the way you keep drawing distinctions
and treating some people better than others,
it sure seems like you have missed the point entirely.”
James is frustrated
because people in the Church
are arguing,
posturing,
fighting,
competing,
one-upping,
taking each other to court,
treating some better than others,
and letting social distinctions get in the way.
And he has every right to be frustrated
because THE most radical thing
about the early Church
was that it was the one place
where social distinctions were not supposed to matter,
where all people were reconciled in Christ,
and where nobody thought better of themselves
than they did of others.
Rich dined with poor;
slave sat with free;
gentile worshipped with Jew;
arguments were resolved;
and debts were forgiven.
Yet everywhere he turns,
James sees Christians
jockeying for position,
fighting over small stuff,
and just being all around terrible.
Flip over to today’s Gospel,
and you see that Jesus dealt
with the same thing.
He is literally on his way to the cross,
yet his disciples are standing around arguing
over which one of them
is the greatest of all time.
They do not get the point.
* * *
Now it would be awesome
if we were able to say,
“Welp, good news, James!
Rest easy, Jesus!
Here in the year of our Lord 2024
we Christians finally got our act together.
“We don’t bicker;
we don’t fight;
it’s all forgiveness and love, baby.”
But we know better.
I don’t know why,
but it just seems to be part of the human condition
that we’re all embedded with
insecurities,
inconsistencies,
fears,
fragilities,
and core wounds
that make each us oh-so-human.
When we can let our guard down
and be vulnerable with one another—
when we can be honest
about our fears and wounds
and share them safely with one another—
in those moments
our humanity can be downright beautiful.
But so often
the thing we humans do
to protect and preserve ourselves
is to hunker down,
lash out,
burn our relationships,
and sometimes worst of all,
decide that we—and only we—are right.
This can happen in friendships.
This can happen in business.
This can happen in politics.
This can and does even happen in the Church.
* * *
That’s exactly why I was grateful
for something I heard last week
during Visioning Sunday.
As party of Visioning Sunday,
I asked you to come up with words
that you thought most accurately describe St. John’s
for where we are right now.
Three of the most repeated words were
inclusion,
community,
and welcome.
I think that’s because
when St. John’s is at its best
we understand
that all of us come into this place
with core wounds in our hearts,
burdens on our backs,
and voices in our heads,
looking for a place and a community
where we can be
included,
and welcome,
and safe.
Yet even here,
because we—even we—are imperfect humans,
even here, we can get it wrong.
The rector who snaps at a parishioner
because he’s been up since late in the night
and is overly tired.
The staff member who gets on the other’s nerves.
The vestry member and the committee member
who are at odds over an issue
and struggle to hear one another out.
This is why at every new member class
there is only one promise I make
to our new members,
a promise I learned from Lutheran pastor
Nadia Bolz-Weber.
That promise is:
“We will
disappoint
you.
“I’m glad you found us.
I’m glad you’re happy here.
But we are not perfect.
“At some point,
somebody at St. John’s
is going to disappoint you,
or irk you,
or hurt you,
or let you down.
“So choose today what you will do when that happens.
“Because you can walk away.
You can take your ball and go home.
Or you can stay,
and you can say to the one who hurt you,
‘You know,
that thing you said—
that issue between us—
I need to talk to you about that
because I care about you,
and I think we’re better than that.’”
That, my friends,
is when grace actually has a chance
to take our insecurities and conflicts
and turn them into vulnerability, healing, and a greater love.
* * *
Honestly, this is what I currently see happening
in the Diocese of Florida,
which held its convention yesterday.
The last few years
have not been great for our Diocese.
For a variety of reasons,
trust has eroded in recent years.
Finances have not been transparent.
Theological disagreements have been allowed to fester.
And probably worst of all,
we just haven’t gotten together much,
which means we don’t know each other.
And that’s a crying shame
because one of the best parts
about being Episcopalian
is that we are connected to one another
beyond the four walls
of each of our sanctuaries.
What happens at
Advent Tallahassee,
at St. Philips Jacksonville,
at Christ Church Ponte Vedra,
at Holy Trinity Gainesville
and all our other 60+ congregations
should matter to us,
and we should matter to them.
But over the last year,
people across the Diocese—
including several from St. John’s—
have been leading the charge
toward reconciliation,
transparency,
vulnerability,
honesty,
and trust.
And y’all, I think it’s working.
In fact, I know it’s working
because unlike our past two conventions,
yesterday’s diocesan convention was,
shall we say,
completely,
absolutely,
totally,
and deliciously . . .
boring.
No arguments.
No posturing.
No fighting,
or one-upping,
or letting distinctions get in the way.
Sure, people disagreed on this or that,
but we handled it
and one another
with respect and care.
Our diocesan finances
are now much more transparent.
Our diocesan audits,
which were backlogged for years,
are now being completed
and are coming in clean.
Camp Weed is being well managed,
but it does need our help,
and we’ll be talking about that
in the months ahead.
And almost all the resolutions yesterday
simply had to do
with making things
clearer,
fairer,
more transparent,
and more inclusive.
The one resolution that got tabled
was the one
calling for an immediate election
of a new fulltime bishop,
but it was tabled because
we know we’re not ready.
We’re still rebuilding trust.
We’re still getting our house in order.
We’re still doing the work.
But when the time is right,
we will search for and elect a new bishop,
and we will invite her or him to join us
in the beautiful, vulnerable, messy work
of being the Church.
* * *
So let me close with this.
Years ago in the first church I ever served,
there had been previously some considerable disagreements
and a few people had left the church.
In recounting story of their departure,
Fred Richter—a dear man of God—
looked at me and said,
“You know what their problem was?
They’d rather be right
than be in relationship.”
I heard that repeated yesterday, too,
when someone posed the question,
“Would you rather be right,
or be in relationship?”
Y’all, life is messy,
and we all have our wounds.
In a world where it’s so easy
to hunker down or lash out,
to burn our relationships
and decide that we are right,
consider the alternative.
Consider reaching out
instead of hunkering down.
Consider being vulnerable
instead of lashing out.
Consider being in relationship
instead of being right.
Consider grace.
Consider mercy.
Consider love.
Because at the end of the day,
grace, mercy, and love
are the only real power
we Christians
are supposed have
anyway.
Amen.