A sermon by Fr. Davenport ©
Church of the Ascension and S. Agnes, Washington, D.C.
5 May 2002
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:8-18
John 15:1-8
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Saad al-Bazzaz defected from Iraq in 1992. He argues that the fundamental conflict in Iraqi society is not between the Sunni and Shia Muslims, as most would argue. He says that it has "nothing to do with religion. It is between the mentality of the villages and the mentality of the cities." (1) Mr. al-Bazzaz says that Saddam Hussein embodies the mentality of the villages, which is tribal, a mentality that is similar to the Mafia. Mr. al-Bazzaz puts it this way:
in the villages each family has its own house, and each house is sometimes several miles from the next one. They are self-contained. They grow their own food and make their own clothes. Those who grow up in the villages are frightened of everything. There is no real law enforcement or civil society. Each family is frightened of each other, and all of them are frightened of outsiders. This is the tribal mind. The only loyalty they know is to their own family, or to their own village. Each of the families is ruled by a patriarch, and the village is ruled by the strongest of them. This loyalty to tribe comes before everything. There are no values beyond power. You can lie, cheat, steal, even kill, and it is okay so long as you are a loyal son of the village or the tribe. Politics for these people is a bloody game, and it is all about getting or holding power. . . .
In the city the old tribal ties are left behind. Everyone lives close together. The state is a big part of everyone's life. They work at jobs and buy their food and clothing at markets and in stores. There are laws, police, courts, and schools. People in the city lose their fear of outsiders, and take an interest in foreign things. Life in the city depends on cooperation, on sophisticated social networks. Mutual self-interest defines public policy. You can't get anything done without cooperating with others, so politics in the city becomes the art of compromise and partnership. The highest goal of politics becomes cooperation, community, and keeping the peace. By definition, politics in the city becomes nonviolent. The backbone of urban politics isn't blood, it's law.
The words 'city,' 'civility,' and 'civilisation,' come from the same Latin word, civilitas, which means politics. Since we are cynical, we associate politics mostly with bad things, such as dishonesty, insincerity, unprincipled scheming, sleazy deal-making, and the like. Politic, however, means prudent and wise and courteous. 'Politic' comes from the Greek word for city, polis. Also, the word 'urbane' describes someone who is polite, elegant, refined, learned, and polished; it comes from another Latin word meaning city, urbs, as in urban. My point is that implicit in our language is the recognition that the city mentality is what has produced civilisation, and really it is an essential element of every serious human achievement. Cities are were people live and work together, at least somewhat harmoniously, so that we may be creative and productive. Cities are where people unite and dwell together. At their best, cities encourage people to sacrifice for the common good, to live for something greater than themselves.
In today's gospel, our Lord presents the image of himself as the true vine, the real vine. His followers should dwell in him, and he will dwell in them, as a branch and a vine mutually dwell in one another. Such an organic bond among citizens of a city would mean that its individual citizens think of the welfare of the city before they think of their individual welfare. This builds strong communities and makes people secure. The city mentality encourages mutual indwelling. A city flourishes when its citizens hold up mutual indwelling as the model of their relationship with other citizens. Our culture, however, often does not encourage us to consider ourselves as branches of a vine. Rather, a lonely, tough individualism is the ideal - the cowboy out on the prairie. That romanticised, idealized image has tremendous influence on us. People search endlessly for self-fulfillment in ways that detach them from family, friends, community, and the Church, those things that should provide our primary sense of self and so empower and strengthen us. Today, we supposedly have liberated the individual by breaking the stranglehold of oppressive duties which we have toward other people, and we resent anything that limits choice or makes a claim upon us. (2)
Previously, our culture generally agreed with the Church that God had given man a goal: to serve and glorify him. As S. Paul told the Athenians in today's lesson, God made men "that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him." (Acts 17:27) Paul envisions a "thankful and reverent longing of the whole man for God whose goodness he has experienced." (3) Today, the prevailing view in our culture, and sometimes even in the Church, is that human beings determine what their purpose is. The result is that self-fulfilment is often divorced not only from God, but also from the welfare of society as a whole. We do not recognize that our own individual well-being is dependent upon the whole, just as the health of a branch depends upon the health of the vine. Instead, people feel malaise and rootlessness, a lack of belonging. Keeping with our Lord's parable, the Church teaches that the branch grows strong to benefit the vine. Our culture teaches that the vine is of no consideration; the branch grows strong for its own benefit.
Many people today do consider themselves to be spiritual, but they do not think that requires them to be grafted into any vine whatsoever, they do not think that requires any discipline, they do not think that requires relationship with other people. The world says that meditation and prayer is about what we receive from it, not about what we give, not about building a relationship with God and with other people. "Meditation is valued more for its relaxing and therapeutic value, not for what one meditates in or about." (4) Increasingly, our moral compass works the same way. True north is neither the ten commandments nor the sermon on the mount nor anything the Church teaches. Rather, we assume that morality comes primarily from personal conscience. The individual's will and feelings are the key determining factors, instead of something outside of themselves, such as the law or tradition or the community. (5) If we allow ourselves to be self-contained, without rule and correction from outside of ourselves, we become miniature Saddam Husseins, albeit without the extreme violence and cruelty. Spiritual life needs context and content and a subject; it needs accountability and objective standards; it requires communion with God and with other people. Spiritual life must be rooted. Everyone needs to be grafted onto the true vine.
If we are part of the vine, we must bear fruit. In other words, if we enjoy the privileges of the Church, we must build the Church. This is our purpose. There probably is no better example of bearing fruit than Paul's ministry. Paul has no fear of outsiders. He wants to embrace them, to graft them into the body of Christ. Through his leadership and vision, the gospel spreads outside of the synagogue. Paul recognizes that God's love and mercy extends to all people. Unlike Israel, the Church has no boundaries, and it remains our duty to graft all the peoples of the world onto the vine. We have to bring outsiders into the vine where they can enjoy God's love and meaning. We shall bear this fruit only if we depend upon Jesus. As he said, "Without me ye can do nothing."
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
1. Quoted by Mark Bowden, "Tales of the Tyrant," The Atlantic Monthly, May 2002, p. 45. Does Mr. al-Bazzaz's paradigm also apply to Red and Blue America? Jefferson and Hamilton?
2. Aidan Nichols, O.P., Christendom Awake, Eerdmanns (1999), p. 2.
3. I. Howard Marshall, Acts, Eerdmanns/Inter-Varsity (1980), p. 288.
4. Roger E. Van Harn, The Lectionary Commentary, I., Eerdmanns/Continuum (2001), p. 585, article by Michael Rogness.
5. Nichols, p. 15.
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