The Rev. Joseph Lund
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Biblical Reference
In the 60’s and 70’s, of the last century, there was something like a revolution here in the Episcopal Church in the United States. The revolution seems rather tame to us now after all we have gone through in the first years of this century, but in the last century it was very controversial. And, today, some people still find it controversial. If you think you know what I’m talking about, what if I added that this revolution also took place in other liturgical Christian bodies? Like the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. Perhaps then you would know that I am not talking about the new prayer book. The 26 year old new prayer book; although, this revolution affected that as well.
What I’m talking about is the “passing of the peace.” Some of you must remember that awkward moment, the first time you did it in church, when you were invited to pass the peace and suddenly you were confronted with meeting your neighbor, maybe somebody you didn’t know. A tough adjustment for those of us who are introverts, it invaded our privacy, made us come out of our worshipful mode. It was also a challenge for those of us who were extroverted. For we have to restrain ourselves from running about as if we were in a square dance.
Some good 10 yrs after this introduction of this liturgical action, in the parish where I was set out from in Washington D.C., there was a particular mature woman, a very faithful woman, very active in the Alter Guild, who was scandalized by this “liturgical fad.” I didn’t know that about her when I sat next to her in the pew. As the time came for the passing of the peace I turned to her, she immediately sat down, gracefully bent over and covered her head. I didn’t get anywhere near her that day. And just so you know how much of a magnet St. Margaret’s is to the world; when I left the service this morning after telling this little story, the first people I ran into was a couple from that parish. And they said to me, “We know who you’re talking about, but we won’t tell.”
As far as I know, she is the same and still acts the same way, though she’s she continues to be faithful to her parish. It must be very hard for her. I heard her once saying that passing of the peace was an “unnecessary innovation, an invasion of privacy and piety.” I was a know-it all seminarian then, all seminarians are know-it-all, and they have to unlearn everything over the years - I really wanted to take her aside and tell her what it was all about. The opportunity she was missing in greeting her neighbor. Perhaps meet somebody new or to encourage a stranger or visitor, but she intimidated me.
But you don’t intimidate me and you’re down there and I’m up here - so let me tell you something about it. In the early days the baptismal ceremony was such an honorable ceremony for adults. As you remember, adults would be studying for years before they were entered into the church. They couldn’t participate in communion until they were baptized. After they were drenched with water, and after they were sealed by the Bishop and made member of the church, the first liturgical action that they were invited to, and we still are invited today, was the exchange of the peace. This comes largely from St. Paul’s admonition to us, to “greet us each other with a holy kiss: it’s a very, very early practice.
Soon after the 2nd century, the action for exchanging the peace was moved to the Eucharist just before the presentation of the gifts — when the people walk up the aisle with the contributions and wine and bread in this particular church. Until 1549, in the Anglican Church, and still continuing in the Roman Church today, the peace was placed at the time of the breaking of the bread. But this liturgical action was deleted from the Anglican Episcopal practice in 1552. In 1979 the new/old prayer book, some 427 years later, restored the peace to the service in its ancient position, at the end of the liturgy of the word. We even have a musical setting for it. But I didn’t ask John to play it today.
In the late Middle Ages, a wooden plaque or ornamental plate was used to pass the peace without personal contact. I don’t know if it was because of the plague or other issues. The plaque usually had a picture of the crucifixion on it or some other religious scene. It was known as the pax board – pax is Latin for peace. It was first kissed by the celebrant, and then the celebrant handed it to the people around the celebrant and finally to every member of the congregation. Can you imagine today if we had to do that here? Would you want to be the last person to kiss that pax board?
In this century we understand that the passing of the peace is a liturgical greeting through word and gesture. To us it is a sign of reconciliation, love and a renewed relationship in the Christian community. Several weeks ago, I was talking at the coffee hour to one of the many priests who are retired and make St. Margaret’s their home. He told me about the time some 25 years ago when this passing of the peace was introduced to his parish. At that time there were two very dedicated and faithful, but headstrong, women in the parish. Imagine, only two! At one time, they were the very best of friends but they had fallen out over something that they probably didn’t even remember. So they shunned each other, they turned when they saw each other coming. This estrangement lasted an awfully long time.
In the meantime, the priest had been carefully preparing his congregation for this new moment in the service where we turn and greet one another. He explained the ancient history, as I have tried to, and its symbolic and real meaning. When that Sunday came, he notices these two women were sitting across from each other and he suddenly got nervous about what they would do. So he invited people in the usual way, “the peace of the Lord be always with you,” and then he turned to greet the people around him, all the time watching out of the sides of his eyes what these two women were doing. And, to his surprise they were holding on to each other and embracing and crying. They had been set free; they had been set free by God to forgive each other just in that little moment, on God’s terms. Not their terms. It took a Christian touch, as I like to call it, to bring these two people back into community.
This Christian touching has a divine history of healing as we heard in the Gospel according to Mark today. Before I talk about that, I ran across an article in the Christian Science Monitor just this past December. It’s about passing the peace - I’m going to read this to you. “Gina Cabona Caberry, a former professor of American Studies, is a church musician who performs at two Episcopal services each Sunday and therefore gets to exchange the peace twice with Christians who span the political spectrum. She confesses as a Texan she voted 4 times against George W. Bush yet Karl Rove, Bush’s campaign political advisor, belonged to her church before he left for Washington D.C. We Christians don’t all believe the same thing, she concludes, but we belong to a community where members agreed to try and love each other. Much of the time we succeed.”
The reason I was drawn to this article was because at the last parish I served as rector in Washington, DC, Karl Rove is a member and so is a former chairman of the Democratic party. They usually sat in the same pew and most of the time they embraced during the passing of the peace.
Now to the Gospel according to Mark. A man with leprosy comes to Jesus and begs him, he’s on his knees, he says to Jesus, “If you are willing you can make me clean.” The people around Jesus must have been focusing on what Jesus would do. “One thing He will not do,” they said, “is touch him.” But notice what Jesus did. Filled with compassion, he reached out his hand and he touched him, and he was made clean - a simple act but revolutionary in its time for Jesus nor anyone else was allowed to touch somebody with leprosy. Hebrew law forbad it. If you touched a leper you would become unclean because they were ritually unclean. You would not be able to go worship in your temple; you’d be banned from your community. And, it’s such a loathsome disease. The skin purifies right on the body. Thank God we have medicine and treatment for it today. But, who wants to touch somebody in that condition?
So think of this man, he may have gone many, many years without being touched by anyone. No human touch, no tap of kindness, no pat of thankfulness no - nothing. Everyone needs human contact - physical touching. How long do you think you would last without it? Jesus could have healed this man with leprosy just by saying it – “you are healed “- but he knew what this man needed. He needed to be touched to know that saving relationship we get from one another in kindness and love. Jesus knew that human contact is what he needed. And so he gave it to him.
The leper was taking a risk because he was in a community amongst people who were clean and that was illegal. He could have been ejected and the healing may not have worked. And you could have told if it did not because you couldn’t hide it. The leper risked this because he knew in his heart that Jesus would restore him - restore him physically spiritually and socially. Of course we know the serious risk that Jesus took in this encounter, because the man went out and told everybody even though Jesus had asked him not to.
He told everyone and the word spread and the religious authorities got even more hardened towards Jesus and that ill-will would lead to his death. They wanted him silenced. I think about the crowd, a shudder of horror and revulsion must have gone through them as they saw Jesus touching this rotting man - but the man needed to be touched! Jesus was always getting into trouble because he reached out in love to all. Human need takes precedence over every other consideration in Jesus’ world and this is also revolutionary for the time.
Divine action, this divine action is a spiritual reminder that Christ gives us individually what we need and note what I said, what we need not what we want. This man needed to be touched. Jesus did heal people in other ways. Remember the blind man whose vision he healed by taking clay and Jesus’ spit and put it on his eyes. Or the paralyzed man who was healed just by saying “your sins are forgiven” - the man asked to be healed and Jesus said “your sins are forgiven.” Oh, he was healed as well.
For Jesus, religion is a hands-on affair. If some of us have trouble even reaching out in greeting to the clean hands of the people next to us in the pew, who we know or do not know, how can we be Jesus’ hands serving in the world? When Jesus was confronted with human need, cautiousness and prudence was not his characteristic, but compassion, concern, and action. Jesus was willing to get his hands dirty.
This is where our church sometimes runs into problems. Not just ours, but the entire Christian world. We cannot always get things done. Sometimes we let our own motives and needs supplant what the community needs - we let conflicts and disagreements paralyze our hands and our hearts. Our minds approve and our hearts even love the Gospel but our concern for helping others seems to have difficulty getting from our hearts to our minds through our hands. We have difficulty getting our hearts and our hands working together. We don’t want to get dirty. The church is not only the church of the eye for the sacraments, which are an act of the faithful presented in beauty and great order as we do here so well at St. Margaret’s. But the church is also the church of the out-stretched hand in welcome, reconciliation and in help.
We must wonder what God thinks about us. Sunday after Sunday we experience the challenge of the Gospel in our worship service. We are inspired by God’s word and uplifted by the magnitude and splendor of our church music and our wonderful choir. But after our mountain-top experience together, we often allow our hands to fall idly at our sides and fail to extend the love of others in concrete terms. So passing the peace is only a beginning as the way we express our love of God and God’s unconditional love for each one of us. And, I must say, I’ve been in St. Margaret’s for 2 ½ years and I’ve never experienced anything but love, so I’m talking about the church at large.
I read recently about a statue of Christ at a church in Europe that was hit by a bomb during WWII. It was buried in the rubble and the devastated congregation was digging in it to find anything that they could use - and I think about these churches that are being burned in the South. How devastated they must have appeared looking for anything as they found this statue, the statue of Jesus. It was in perfect condition, except it had no hands. They got a local sculpture who was very well renowned and asked him to fashion a new set of hands. He worked very diligently, he was very talented, he used the best materials, but he could not, could not fabricate a hand or hands that would reflect the beauty of the statue. So the congregation decided, “Let’s not put hands on the statue let’s leave them off, so it reminds us the people of God, that Christ has no hands but ours. It is our hands that do the work that he is calling us to do.
Jesus stretched out his hands and touched the leper.
Amen.