Dear Doubters of Great Faith,
There were several identifiable steps along my journey to this passion I now own and possess for social justice ministry particularly in the area of racial reconciliation, healing, and privilege. While I was still a Church Business Administrator, I attended several gatherings of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes (CEEP), and heard a presentation by the Rev. Mike Kinman, sometime Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, MO, and now Rector of the famed social justice parish All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, CA.
The year was 2014, and St. Louis had been for many months in the throes of protests over the killing in Ferguson of Michael Brown. The scene was not unlike what we witnessed in Dallas following the death of George Floyd. Downtown St. Louis was awash in daily marches of protesters decrying an end to senseless police violence. Fr. Mike told us in his presentation how he had daily conversation with the leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement to find out how his congregation, the Cathedral, could ally with them, to try to make some difference in making their voices heard. He knew the power of the ally, and he wanted to walk, arm-in-arm, to use his congregation’s privilege, in some way, to make a difference in the struggle.
And here is what impressed me the very most about what he said, and what they did. In their daily calls, Fr. Mike would ask what they needed that day – food, water, provision. One day, he was told that they needed these simple kits to pass out to their people that would combat tear gas. Fr. Mike and the Cathedral could do that! They assembled all the supplies that they needed, on the High Altar of that great gothic cathedral, and did the messy work of assembling those kits, blessing those kits, and sending them out the side door of the Cathedral, onto the downtown streets of St. Louis, into the waiting hands of protesters who immediately used them to do God’s work!
By the time he finished, I was in tears (and remember, I am not a “cry-er!”). I had never, in all my 50-ish years seen the altar of Jesus Christ used in that way, so literally for the dirty, most holy work of Jesus Christ. And those people literally were the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, in that time, in that space, and in that place.
It was holy work, every bit as holy as what goes on at altars every Sunday morning. It impressed this Episcopalian about what kind of work I would be about, and where I had to be about it.
What happens on the altar says something about who we are in the world. And how we are in the world says something about who and how we stand in front of the altar. Holy work of all sorts and kinds happens on these altars of Jesus Christ.
We too are called into that holy work. It remains to be seen what that work will look like!
Yours in the faith,
Fr. Christopher+
