(Community Matters) Excerpts from our very dear friend, Fthr. William Seth Adams’ sermon this morning:
the context for this sermon for those who do not know St. James Episcopal is that it was founded primarily by faculty members of Huston-Tillotson who were not allowed to worship at St. Davids because they were Black. Until 12 years or so ago, the congregation was nearly all African American. Since then, we have wrestled with a growing Anglo, Hispanic and African population, as well as a sizeable population of same-sex couples and parents adopting children of different cultures.
Reverend Adams:
. . . . I once described us, the people of St. James’ Church, I once described us to someone as “eccentric.” And not only that, but I said it was a remarkable virtue. As time has gone on, I am all the more certain that I am right. “Eccentric” and prophetic calling go hand in hand. “Not in the center,” that’s what “eccentric” means, “not in the center. That is where we are in the great scheme of things in east Austin, in the Episcopal Church. We are “not in the center,” and what a mercy that is. We are off center, perhaps on the edge. From there we have a prospect, a vantage point sufficiently distant from the center to be able to see what can’t be seen from the center. Our eccentricity is such a blessing!
. . . . In the lower right hand corner of some page in our local newspaper, very recently, our City Manager, Marc Ott, observed that, in his many years of civic public service in a number of major cities, Austin is the most clearly racially divided city he has known. The interstate highway that bisects our city is the marker of that divide, though surely the division is more complicated than that.
If we testify that racial separation and division are contrary to the good of our city, and if we testify that such division is not consistent with the wishes of God, and if we know ourselves to be a community called to risk prophetic action, what then? How can what happens here every Sunday become a paradigm for this city?
. . . . So I propose to the Vestry an invitation, first, to the congregation, and then to the City Manager and Chief of Police, an invitation to a meeting with us as we offer ourselves for prophetic action [hosting conversations that speak the truth about racial tensions & which discover paths for reconciliation – my words, inserted, not Bill’s] , the call which action we have answered before.
. . . . There would be a cost.* But called as we are, we really have no choice.
* the cost refers to Bill’s interpretations of two gospel readings about prophecy and the often condemnation of those speaking the truth
Karen & Ed Hartwell
Community Matters 