24 August 2005

Today we continue Stanley Hauerwas' comments On Being a Christian and an American in A Better Hope.

(Martin) Marty's story remains the optimistic story of America. He expects the conflicts to continue but believes that, in the longer future, "every story well told, well heard, and creatively enacted will contribute to the common good and make possible the deepening of values, virtues, and conversation. ... We have been speaking throughout of the "re-storying" of the republic and its associations. The advice for every citizen who wishes to participate in American life and its necessary arguments: start association, telling, hearing, and keep talking." In short, Marty seems to think all this will work out if we just learn to be "civil" to one another.

I don't think I agree with Hauerwas when he says Marty seems to want us to simply learn to be "civil" to one another. Marty has, from my limited reading, a profound sense of what it means to be baptized and live within the fabric of history and the culture of the day. In that story (baptized), "civil" need not be a bad word.. Rather there is radical faithfulness and new life bursting in and around us. In addition, I don't find anything "optimistic" in Christians who constantly live within the daily remembrance of their baptism. Since we have already died and been raised from the dead the life we face can and must be met with truthfulness and we can live within the vision of new life that is already ours. That will mean dialogue. That will mean we listen to other stories and it will mean that we tell our story. We don't tell our story as a story that is used like a bat in a discussion we plan on "winning" by beating up the other side. We tell the story of dying and rising. We therefore, do not need to fear other stories or be pushed around by them. We live within our story of water dancing on our heads and leaving no power in the world free from our storytelling even if it is the death of us. Yes, that may be done in a "civil" manner in which we are informed by the water of our baptism and face death for the well being of the "other." That sounds like a radical notion of "civil."

Connection: We need not fear those around us who do not live within the story we bring from our baptism. Instead, we can be engaging people who so honor others that we honor them with our presence, our interaction, and our death-defying love.

As we stand within the waterfall of our baptism today, hold us O God Most High and support us so that when the water reminds us of death we also stand within the wetness of new life that is the foundation of this day. Praise to you, O God of Grace! Amen.