What do Christians Look Like

(The lovely thing about reading Stringfellow is the huge sigh of relief that I am not the only person to have ever thought this. I am not the only person to have believed the church to work this way. It also means I don't have to think so damn hard - the wheel is already there.)

"For lay folk in the church this means that there is no forbidden work. There is no corner of human existence, however degraded or neglected, into which they may not venture; no person, however beleagured or possessed, whom they may not befriend and represent; no cause, however vain or stupid, in which they may not witness; no risk, however costly or imprudent, that they may not undertake. This intimacy with the world as it is, this particular freedom, this awful innocence toward the world that Christians are given, makes them look like suckers. They look like that to others because they are engaged in the wholesale expediture of life. They look like that because they are without caution or prudence in perserving their own lives. They look like that because they are not threatened by the power of death either over their own lives or over the rest of the world. They look like that because they are free to give their lives - to die - imminently, today, for the sake of anyone or anything at all, thereby celebrating the One who died for all though none be worthy, not even one (cf 1 Cor. 12:19)."

*all the bold and italics mine. And yes, still Stringfellow, A Private and Public Faith.

Without quoting, he goes on to say that the priesthood, the ecclesiastical orders, are there to support that work, not to be a substitution to that work. I had felt it a sacrifice to take on the priesthood, to support others doing the work, to make my world smaller so others could see the world as bigger. But that isn't how most laity or most in ecclesiastical orders see what they are doing. So, you know. That is probably the biggest reason no one had my back in all that mess I let go on for way too long.

More importantly, the lack of reinforcing this message is what keeps me out of church on Sundays. It was bad enough when I knew I could preach to myself or I could meet with a bible study group that supported the hard work. But anymore, I just can't stomach the aren't we so special, we Episcopalians, we tolerate and gracious people of God who being mostly of the well to do class, can rest on our paying taxes and who vote to let the state do the supporting of the poor, prisoners, widows and orphans.

And I can't even bear the thought of returning to the "we are the oppressed people of God, whom, if we could just get the poor, prisoners, widows and orphans to just go away, could all receive all the fame and fortune God is just waiting to give us."

What I really want to rant on today is tangentially related to this, so I'll add it anyway. Why is it that all of our laws, all of our structures, are defined by the private sexual relations of two people? The definition of household, what it means to have/be a dependent in the tax and housing codes? What would it look like to bring back economic patriarchy? Would we have more art? Would we all be able to eat better? Would we be healthier and happier? Because it seems to me that the dismantling of the extended household has been a terrible idea, something that has created even more problems for widow, orphan, poor, and prisoner. 'Merica is a terrible overlord. Just sayin.