Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Josép Martinez- Cubero, OHC
Second Sunday after Epiphany - Sunday, January 17, 2021
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Can anything good, redemptive, and just come out of the present brokenness in which we are all living? What is our call as Christians? These are the questions stemming out of the lectionary readings for me on this second Sunday after the Epiphany, the time manifestation, revelation and seeing what really is. What is our call as Christians? We are called to love. And that does not mean being nice, although in many circumstances being nice is a good thing. But Jesus said that the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Never did he say: “You shall be nice to the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” “You shall be nice to your neighbor as yourself.” This is important because if, as baptized Christians, we are to renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, and we are to renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and we are to renounce all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God, then we must call out evil for what it is. That is the loving act right now, and it will surely not seem very nice to a lot of people.
Some twelve years ago, I was teaching a voice lesson in my Manhattan apartment on a Saturday morning when I received a phone call from a mother of one of the Pied Piper Actors Society members. The Pied Piper Actors Society was the leadership and service youth group of the Pied Piper Children’s Theatre, the community outreach program I founded and ran at Holy Trinity Church in Manhattan for 15 years. Sam was at the hospital. His stomach had been pumped due to alcohol poisoning.
The story is that a group of about ten Pied Piper Actors Society teenagers plotted and succeeded in getting a hold of a substantial amount of vodka and beer, going to the park after dark and having a party. Most of them had never drank before and were curious. So they proceeded to get very drunk and chaos ensued. There was a lot of vomiting, passing out… you know, that sort of thing. Two of them who had not drank, thanks to the fact that they tried and thought it was vile and didn’t like it, became very frightened about what was happening to their friends and began to try to get a hold of parents to confessed what had gone on, and to let the parents know they were in trouble and needed help. A passerby saw one of the teenagers on the ground barely breathing and called 911.
To say I was beyond stunned by the news is an understatement! The kids of the Pied Piper Actors Society did this? The group known in the entire area of Northern Manhattan for their good behavior, maturity and outstanding qualities of leadership did this?? Oh I was angry! It was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was also one of the most important and oddly life-giving experiences of my life. I came to know a lot about my relationship with God and a capacity for love I didn’t know I had, and experienced first-hand what the love of Christ sometimes looks like. And I’ll say this: it did not look nice!
I immediately called an emergency meeting with all the parents of the kids involved. All came. I know now that many of them were thinking: “Oh God, Rey-Rey is really angry!” Others thought I was meeting with them to dismiss their kids from the program. (It did cross my mind.) And yes, my ego attended that meeting, too! “Do you realize how damaging this could have been to the reputation of this theatre program?” I remember asking. But by the grace of God, I was able to get passed my ego, and ask for their help. I told them I needed to turn that horrible incident into something wholesome and good.
Punishment for the sake of retribution has never made sense to me. But I did want those kids to meet some serious consequences for their selfish behavior. I also urged the parents to examine their own drinking behavior, as I needed to do mine. The parents were amazing. It was a wonderful, heartfelt dialogue, and they offered many good suggestions. In the end, I decided those kids needed to work. After some investigating on how much alcohol each kid had actually drunk, I created a chart that indicated how many hours of volunteering work each of them would have to do according to how much they drank that night. A certain amount of hours of manual labor had to be done at the theatre, the other hours had to be done at a not-for-profit organization approved by me.
I called a meeting of the members of the Actors Society for the next day, in the evening. It was not optional. They had to be there if they wanted to remain in the group and wanted to continue participating in the theatre. All came. Yes, they were terrified, and that was OK with me. The ones who had not been part of the incident were wondering what was going on. I called the names of each of the ones who were in trouble and asked them to stand up. I explained to the group what they had done, the entire time talking through my clenched teeth. I gave them “their sentence” and explained to them the reason for it. All of the energy they had spent engaging in such incredibly selfish, hurtful and hateful behavior had to be redeemed by energy spent in good actions for the theatre, the community and themselves. We got a lot of great work done in the months that followed!
But more happened. I brought in a drug and alcohol counselor to have several sessions with the kids so they could learn more about the subject. I engaged in one-on-one conversations with each and every one of those kids to hear them and get to know more about their experiences at school, at their homes, etc. Why? Because I knew it was not my job to change them, but it was my responsibility to be a good role model and to make it very clear to them where I stood.
I will forever be grateful to have been guided by the Holy Spirit to live out the love of Christ throughout that whole situation- a love that requires boldness, engagement and accountability instead of avoidance, politeness, and niceness.
What is our call as Christians? We are called into relationship with a God whose capacity to restore and resurrect has no limits. I don’t know how to exist without believing that there is no place, time, circumstance, or situation that is beyond God’s ability to redeem. Can anything good come out of last week’s events on Capitol Hill? The answer is YES! This must be our hope as people of faith- a hope we must model for the world. And that hope requires us to speak prophetically, especially those of us with a platform to speak publicly to hundreds of people about the Jesus of love, hope, and justice and to call out the evil of a false Christianity that leads rioters to enter the nation’s Capitol Building raising a cross and signs that read “Jesus Saves.” Lord have mercy!! Throughout his ministry Jesus called out religious hypocrisy at every turn, and so must we if there is to be any redemption from what is happening in this country.
Last week we saw first-hand the spiritual forces of wickedness our baptism requires us to renounce. Christian nationalism is heresy, and a sin. White supremacy and any kind of racism are wicked forces of evil. Christianity and white people are not entitled to any privilege in our civil government. God does not love Americans or white people more than anyone else. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are anti-Christian and are sins. Any kind of homophobia or discrimination against LGBTQ+ people is anti-Christian and it is a sin. Nativism and nationalism are anti-Christian and are sins. Saying one is a Christian while, in any way being a part of, supporting, or covering up these evils is a horrible hypocrisy! No, I do not need to listen to or try to understand anyone’s racism or homophobia. As a Christian, I am called to call it out for what it is, and for the love of God, invite them to repent.
May we, like Samuel, who obeyed the call to name corruption in his own religious home, and to call out sin for what it was, even if it meant to turn the institution that sustained him up-side-down, live boldly into the call of Epiphany and speak prophetically, that we may see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending.
¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo!
Amen+
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