St. James’ Sermon

(Community Matters) This morning at St. James Episcopal, our new rector delivered a controversial sermon – per my interpretation anyhow.

According to Rev Reggie Payne-Wiens, but for some failure to accept Jesus any of us could be Tiger Woods, Amy Bishop or Joseph Stack.  He cited how even Amy Bishop’s and Joseph Stack’s friends didn’t consider them crazy – Tiger being pigeon-holded by the media as arrogant rather than crazy. He noted he’d read Stack’s manifesto – which I read too – and agreed with a lot of it.  Agreed with a lot of it – are you kidding me???

Well, problems with the primary arguments of his sermon:

1. whether or not others saw Amy’s and Joseph’s craziness is meaningless.  We’re learning that Amy Bishop has been violent and unable to appropriately handle criticism her entire life.  Joseph Stack chose to follow the charlatans promoting kamikazi tax protesting (including weekly meetings to read the tax code and forming his own church), believed our government brainwashes us, didn’t believe there is freedom in America, and equated requiring a signature at the bottom of a tax return with forming a totalitarian regime,
2. what the heck does a relationship with Jesus have to do with discerning right from wrong?  As he was saying this, I was thinking, does he really think Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, agonstics, atheists or anyone else is less able to see the “thin line” between right and wrong – forget that these *aren’t* “thin lines” we are talking about.

I appreciate that Reggie clarified his beliefs about accepting Jesus, noting his belief that other faiths also find salvation.  But, noting that he may use this language addressing “believers” during our services is just as unacceptable. St. James’ rector should model the language of inclusiveness we take out to the world after our Sunday services, not model tribal language, even if to be reserved for inside our walls.

This posting doesn’t signal a lack of support for our new rector; the last sermon I heard (I missed services the last two weeks) was enlightening and delightful.  Reggie is new, warm, welcoming and is finding his feet at the home we have built in East Austin and have invited him to join & lead.  The standards for St. James are high – our values and priorities as a multi-cultural, inclusive community are not up for discussion.  Subjects as serious as the Amy Bishop killings and the Joseph Stack terrorism require great thoughfulness in all forums.  500 is a great batting average; I hear he’s hitting over 850.

update:  a friend from church wrote: hmmm…I see your comments and I can understand what you’re saying Eug…but to me the sermon came across more like this:  somewhere along the way, the people that did these horrible things weren’t always like that (on that I think we might agree). but they certainly lost their way. if we just write them off as “crazy” and consider ourselves too above that kind of thing”, isn’t it plausible that we can lose our way too?   that’s how I heard it…and I certainly can always be reminded that I am often too ego-centric, entitled, and often think of myself as “above that kind of behavior”