Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

In combative times it’s often too easy to fall into a false separation between social justice, worship, and preaching the gospel. The simple truth is that Kingdom news is Good News for our souls as individuals and, if we live it, it is Good News for the community as a whole.

The challenge, in a reactive time, is to figure out what is justice and what is anger. There is, of course, such a thing as righteous anger that can lead to movements for justice. There is also unprocessed anger that continues cycles of reactive blame and retributive lashing out. We’re seeing the fruits of these kinds of cycles in the news today. 

Another path is harder. The path of the Church is one in which the whole community is shaped by the regular and rich encounter with Christ in Word and Sacrament and finds its voice in the message and voice of Christ. This takes longer.

This requires not just preaching prophetically but listening prophetically—listening to what’s moving in our shared life, our shared burdens, our shared hopes. That sharing is not just between one Christian and another but between the gathered people and Christ. This kind of sharing can break the cycle of violent indifference and indifferent violence rather than feed it.

I find that when I pray often it’s as if the still, small voice raises things that I had no idea were there. Or if I did know they were there I find that I was burying them under the chaff of busyness. Yet, when we make the space to listen, the Spirit will move where the Spirit chooses.

I’m always mindful of the example of Jonathan Myrick Daniels who went down to the Deep South in the heat of the movement for integration. He went down because it was in hearing the Magnificat at evening prayer that his heart was warmed toward justice. I’m sure he’d heard those words countless times and yet something in the swirl of the day’s news and the Virgin’s song called him to action—and strengthened him to give himself away for the sake of justice.

It would be easy, week in and week out, to preach or teach on the latest outrage or secular contretemps. It takes discipline to avoid those for the deeper work of being with the Triune God—to dwell with God in contemplation.

It’s that very act of taking in the Word and the Self that enables us to find the courage and the hope to give ourselves away. Week by week we need divine assistance to face the inhuman. We need the strength of broken bread to risk being broken ourselves. We need the blessing of the shared cup to risk being a blessing ourselves. We need inward and spiritual grace to be an outward and visible sign.

Between the outrages of the world we need to find the peace which passes all understanding. We need that space of peace so that we can see, hear, and know where God is speaking to us. We need that peace to discern what it true, holy, just, and pure. In an age of fake news we need that space to hear Good News. That Good News is prophetic. It is justice. It is peace. It is mercy.

Make space for the Good News in prayer, worship, and study—make space for peace—that you may preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are closest to you.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert