William H. Joyner, Deacon

We often look to the Church for guidance in decisions we make in our everyday lives, and sometimes we wish this guidance were more clear cut: “I'm in such-and-such a situation, so let's look in the Bible, or in the Prayer Book, or to a member of the clergy, and we'll get the answer.” These are all good sources of help, and we do have rules, such as the Ten Commandments, that offer explicit guidance. But we don't belong to a rule-based church, we belong to a Jesus-based church, and we hear each week the principal commandments of Jesus: love God and love our neighbor. Everything else follows from these. We have the troubling problem of figuring out how to act with love in our daily lives, having what Jefferson called “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” and the tradition of the Church, and our own reasoning, as a guide. There are things clearly right and things clearly wrong but, for us, made in God's image but not yet achieving perfection, there seem to be a lot of things in between.

And more often than not the issues we as Christians face in the world are not clearly yes/no or multiple-choice issues. We can usually pass that kind of test, especially when it is presented to us in the abstract, on paper: “You see a person on the street in need of help. Should you (a) pass by on the other side, (b) stop and render assistance.” We all know what the right answer is. But if we see a person begging on Franklin Street, what do we do? Often we pick (a). We think, maybe, that the person is not really in need or that the person should be looking for a job. Or, perhaps correctly, that our response should be to give to the Inter-Faith Council and direct the person there, rather than give money. But moral choices are not often presented that way — sometimes they are not 'presented' at a particular time, like that, at all. We know that someone is being executed in Raleigh, or that politicians in Raleigh or Washington are enacting legislation that will make it more difficult for the IFC or other agencies to offer help, or that our help to the poor here and elsewhere in the world is being cut back or diverted. How do we respond to that?

Jesus not only healed the sick and fed the hungry, he confronted injustice and the establishment. Jesus not only came to fulfill the law but to extend the law. “You have heard it said 'love your neighbor and hate your enemies', but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “You ask if you should forgive your neighbor seven times, but I say seventy-seven times.” Does following Jesus mean that we act rightly, with love, when confronted with a choice, or does it also mean we seek to address injustice wherever we see it? In our baptismal vows, we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, not just those around us, or like us. This is our promise as individuals and as the community of the Church, and it is in the things “left undone” that we often fall short, especially if we think others are doing them. But we are not working alone in this; Jesus tells us that we are never alone, but Jesus, and the community, are with us in these actions and these decisions, even to the end of the age.