Was there nothing worth fighting for?

My former Bishop, Scott Anson Benhase, has retired.  It makes me sad.  Don't get me wrong.  I love our new Bishop.  He was an excellent Canon in this Diocese and before that an excellent priest.  But I will miss Bishop Benhase.  He wrote what he called an eCrozier each week.  I loved reading what was on his mind.  (For those of you who are not Episcopalian, a crozier is a Bishop's staff.)  He posted  his last eCrozier.  As usual, it was thoughtful and spiritual and Biblical.  His last paragraph really made me start thinking:

There's a tendency among bishops as they retire to say in so many words: "look how hard I've worked and sacrificed for you in this ministry!" Me? I'm still surprised you allowed me to do this. Yes, at times it was an "impossible vocation," but it was always more privilege than burden. That's not to say I don't have some wounds from my time as bishop (I do), but as Alan Paton in Cry, the Beloved Country writes: I don't worry about the wounds. When I go up there, which is my intention, the Bid Judge will say to me, "Where are your wounds?' And if I say I haven't any, He will say, 'Was there nothing to fight for?' I pray the wounds I incurred as bishop were for what was right in God's eyes and, in some way, furthered your faith in Jesus, who is our only true help.

Where are your wounds?

I have avoided being political or even overtly religious on social media.  I try to live my Christianity instead of preaching about it.  I will occasionally share a meme about being kind and supportive or feeding the poor and helping the downtrodden.  I was once taken to task by someone who hardly knows me who suggested I wanted the government to feed the poor.  I gently reminded him that I had not brought the government into the conversation.  So, no wounds there.  My husband stays much more informed about politics, both conservative and liberal, so I try to stay out of the political lane.  I support him publicly when I think he's right and privately tell him when I think he's wrong.  We have wonderful discussions on both sides of many issues. No wounds there either.  Has there been nothing worth fighting for?  
 
Just this week I watched a video (that I did not mean to watch) of an Asian woman being beaten to the ground by a stranger who hated her for the way she looked.  Three grown men (two employees) inside a luxury apartment building stood and watched and then closed the door.  Perhaps they agreed with the perpetrator and decided to do nothing. They did absolutely nothing while that man kicked and beat that woman.  Two of those men are now unemployed.  There's a wound.  But not the type of wound our Bishop was referring to.

I look back over my life sometimes.  I guess everyone does.  I can't find one wound incurred from defending another, supporting another, protecting another.  If we risk nothing and lose nothing we will never be wounded in a way that matters.  
 
The Book of Common Prayer has many beautiful prayers for many occasions.  This is one of the Prayers for the Social Order:

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

May God show us what is right in His eyes and what is worth fighting for.




 

Comments

Popular Posts