Becoming People of Justice: Thoughts From Your Pastor

Fr. Kevin Miller shares:

This Saturday we start a new sermon series for Savior; I’ve entitled it “Becoming People of Justice: 5 resources for the lifelong journey.” Let me talk about those phrases and how each one speaks to us at Church of the Savior.

Becoming People of Justice

Sometimes white evangelicals have viewed racial justice as an option. There’s a way of thinking that can go like this: “Prayer is not an option. Worship is not an option. Giving is not an option. But when it comes to racial justice or economic justice, well, some churches do that; ours just doesn’t happen to.”

As Christians we can never see justice that way. There is no way forward in Christian formation without squarely making justice part of the journey. We follow this God: “… all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4). We follow the Savior who said, “The Spirit of the Lord … has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And from front to back our Scriptures say things like “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17). 

So “Becoming People of Justice” is almost a shorthand way of saying, “Becoming People of God.”

The Lifelong Journey

What a year it’s been! Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Mike Ramos. Asian-owned stores defaced with racist graffiti. Yet for Christians, becoming people of justice is not merely a response to news. We must never stop working on our bias and fighting for justice: this is not an event, it’s a journey.  

In our regular and recurring life at Savior, even if the news cycle moves on, we will be having sermon series like this one, book studies (White Awake, by Daniel Hill, coming soon) and giving (our Vestry has donated over $10,000 this year to help minority communities). The fact is, “Loving Others” is deeply part of our hearts, and it’s part of our mission.

Does all this mean that Savior will become a more diverse church? That’s an excellent question, but for me, it’s not the first one to ask. Sometimes groups start working on diversity before they’ve worked on listening, awareness, humility. So here’s what I’ll be looking for instead. Do we, as St. Benedict taught, continue to welcome every person as if he or she is Christ? (I love how you do that, friends of the Savior!) And when people come to Savior, are they increasingly able to say of us, “They are working on their stuff”?

Let us not despise the day of small beginnings. Let us take just one small step after another, praying that God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.

Resources 

And finally, the word “resources”. As our culture awakens to its 400 years of racism, what can Christians uniquely bring to the longing for justice?  

We bring only what we have received from God: “Freely you have received; freely give.” But God has given us much: his Word, his Spirit, his hope, his people. I hope this sermon series will be prophetic and positive: if we join with God’s heart, He will bless us. As Isaiah promises:

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, 

with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 

and if you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry 

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, 

then your light will rise in the darkness 

your night will become like noonday. 

The Lord will guide you always, 

He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land 

And will strengthen your frame."

I pray that through this series we will be given encouragement, and language, for our journey together, and that we will grow in our capacity to “Love Others.” 

PS

And finally, a request for prayer. Please pray for the preachers in this series (Linda Richardson, Esau McCaulley, and Al Hsu) and me. There is an emotional and spiritual weight that comes when we speak on matters of racial justice. 

Compounding that for me, as an “old skinny white guy” (wink), I feel my inadequacy: I’m starting later than many of you in learning about, and working for, racial justice. Much of my life experience and education did not prepare me. I’m finding comfort in Paul, who knew full well, “I’m the least of all the apostles; I don’t even deserve to be called an apostle” but that didn’t keep him from preaching; in fact, he said, “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”

Cover Art: Sherry Anast © August 2020

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Kevin Miller was editor and vice-president at Christianity Today for 26 years and then associate rector at Church of the Resurrection for 5 years. He has been the rector at Savior since January 2017, and is also the co-founder of PreachingToday.com and CTPastors.com.

Meet The Rakes Family!

Meet The Rakes Family!

Since we haven’t been gathering in person for 4 months (and counting), I wanted to take the opportunity and share with our community some newer Attendees within Savior’s community. 

If you haven’t already met the wonderful Rakes Family, join me in getting to know them! 

Who is in your family (children, pets, etc.)?  
Our family consists of John (JP), Marissa, Samuel (age 6), Ana (age 3), Lydia (age 1.5), and Abigail (Lydia’s twin who lives in Heaven).

Where  do  you  live?  Where are you from?
We currently live in Warrenville.  JP is originally from Portsmouth, Virginia and Marissa is from Holland, Michigan.  We both went to Wheaton College, met there while living on brother/sister floors, got jobs here after graduation, and have decided to stay in this area.

How long have you been coming to Church of the Savior? 
We started coming to Savior in December.  

In your time at Savior so far, what have you enjoyed most? 
The church has been very welcoming and friendly and has the feel of a church family.  We have also appreciated the ways that the church is honest about the difficult aspects and struggles of faith.

What do you do when your family is not at church? (job, hobbies, etc.)
JP is a choral conductor and music professor. Marissa teaches high school math. We especially enjoy playing board games and baseball as a family. Samuel in particular is a huge baseball and Cubs fan, and we frequently play baseball in our yard or at the baseball field across the street.  

What has been a surprising gift to your family during this time of COVID? 
Normally, life is really hectic with work and evening rehearsals, and we don’t get to spend a lot of quality time together. We’ve appreciated being able to be together as a family.  Samuel and Ana have been growing closer during this time, and it’s been a huge blessing to spend so much of Lydia’s first 19 months with her and to see many of her milestones that we might have missed.

Preparing Our Hearts for Worship

We’ve been having Zoom church for four months now: enough time that I imagine most of us have settled into some rhythms for this new form of worship even as we eagerly anticipate worshiping together in person. I find, though, that the ease and familiarity of worshiping in my own home has also made it a little more difficult to prepare for worship, to pull myself away from one last household chore or transition my girls from games and books to silence and coloring sheets.

So I reached out to some of the friends of the Savior to ask how they are preparing their hearts and minds for worship on Saturday nights. Their practices are simple, but I hope one or more of them may prove helpful as you and your family take the time to enter into worship in this new, strange form.

• Make a sacred space: perhaps you have a special room where you can watch the service, or you can rearrange some chairs to mark a change from other activities. Many people light a candle (I’m a fan of flameless LED candles) and place their reserved sacrament in a special spot. Even small changes signal that we’re entering into a time of worship.

• Prepare physically: many people mentioned beginning to prepare for the service about 15 minutes in advance by doing things like letting the dogs out, setting up dinner and coloring for younger children, making sure that technology is functioning properly. If you often find yourself rushing, as I do, to log into Zoom and print coloring pages at 4:58, beginning to set up earlier will allow more time to transition into worship.

• Listen to the prelude: each week, one of Savior’s talented musicians begins playing a prelude a few minutes before 5 pm. This provides a great opportunity to sit quietly, take a few deep breaths, and still your heart. 

Creating space before the service begins — physical space and mental space — is the common thread through these practices. As we all have experienced, some weeks this is far easier than others. But as we continue worshiping online, the practice of creating space can help us fully enter into worship even from our living rooms.

Pastor Sarah Lindsay
Coordinator of Family Ministries

Welcome Jean Ann Parker, Bookkeeper

Early this month, Savior welcomed Jean Ann Parker as the new Bookkeeper. Get to know her a little better in the interview below!

Jean Ann and Steve Parker

What is your role at Church of the Savior?

I am the Bookkeeper. I will be assisting Janis Hultgren.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

Until I was 1 year old my family lived in Winfield and then we moved to Wheaton and I was there until I married. After our wedding, my husband, Steve and I moved from Wheaton to Winfield and into the same house I lived in for the first year of my life…it was my grandparent’s home and they, at that point, were in long term care facilities. Five years later we moved back to Wheaton, which is where we raised our son, Dylan. At the end of 2014 we moved to St. Charles and love it!

What do you do when you’re not working for Savior?

I like anything to do with fiber – sewing, knitting and weaving. About a year ago I bought a weaving loom – a rigid heddle loom. I love taking classes to learn all the ins and outs of the craft. I belong to a weaving guild. I also enjoy having family and friends over to our home – I like to entertain. 

What is a piece of interesting trivia about you?

Ringo Starr and I are 4th cousins – we have a great, great, great grandma in common. No, I have never met him (I would love to!) but I have seen him in concert at Ravinia. 

Part V: "Ask Bishop Todd"

Interview Series with Bishop Todd Hunter
(Led by Fr. Kevin Miller)

PART 5 OF 5:

Q: The COVID-19 virus has changed daily life in America (and much of the globe) more than anything in our lifetimes. For a church like ours, what are the dangers of these changes; and what are the opportunities?

Bishop Todd Hunter:

COVID-19 is clearly an unpleasant menace to all of us. The world will be changed in predictable and unpredictable ways by this pandemic. Every human crisis brings both risk/threats and positive opportunities for the Gospel. As this pandemic, economic and social-psychological catastrophe unfolds, and perhaps becomes even more pervasive and broader in its impact, we are all going to wonder, in ever deeper ways: “What does this mean?” “How should the church respond?”

In trying to discern opportunities, I would begin with trying to assess needs that are close to you in the form of named people and named situations—not abstract situations. Beginning in this way may take you to broader, systemic needs, which is fine. Having named some people, assess your gifts, abilities and capacities in relationship to those needs. Jumping into the opportunities for ministry according to your gifts and station in life will give you special, meaningful memories to look back on, and not just the ugliness of this pandemic.  

The dangers in this setting, I think, are spiritual and relational.

Spiritual in that it is easy, and normal, to begin to question God. To wonder about suffering. To doubt the goodness of God—maybe even his existence. I’ll never forget the first time I heard the thought from Tom Wright: “How is any Jew supposed to believe in God after the Holocaust?” These huge human events have that sort of effect. The antidote? Saturate, marinate your heart, soul, mind, emotions and will in thoughts about the greatness, goodness, wisdom and completely competent love of God.

Relational, in that a form of xenophobia is growing in the world. Hating China or hating America. Hating Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians. Despising one of the cable news or talk radio outlets. Scorning those who wear masks or those who don’t. This dehumanizing of the other is seeping dangerously into our culture, and in the long-term is a greater threat to us than a virus. 

There are many things we don’t know about this pandemic: How long will it last? Will it come back? How vast will the economic ruin be? Those unknowns are enough to make anyone a nervous-Nellie or anxious-Andy. But thankfully there are also some things we know that can walk us through this current minefield:

The Lord is your shepherd. Being in the care of Another means you do not have to live under the tyranny of anxiety.

You are always safe in the kingdom of God. Everything else seems at risk, up for grabs. But God, his rule and reign, are never in doubt. Place your life in God’s kingdom by trusting and following Jesus. 

You have the peace of Christ: as Jesus said…

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14.27)

I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world. (John 16.33, MSG)

Photo Credit: c4so.org