Text: 4:40-44 (see below)
Today the Church remembers a man who has touched the lives of millions of persons in recovery all across the globe. His name was Sam Shoemaker. An Episcopal priest and author, Sam was instrumental in assisting Bill Wilson with writing a book entitled Alcoholics Anonymous (also known as The Big Book). In addition to this ministry of healing and grace, Shoemaker served parishes in New York City and Pittsburgh. He was a passionate and eloquent preacher of the Gospel; an author of many books; and was instrumental in the establishment of small group ministries in the Episcopal Church. Sam Shoemaker was a titan of a man whose empathy and concern for those struggling with addiction is an example for all of us of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
I am currently reading a book by Richard Rohr entitled Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. Rohr writes that “every one of us is addicted in some way or another.” He believes that we must learn to identify our addiction, embrace our brokenness and surrender to God. When we adopt such a position, we will begin to bring healing to ourselves and to the world. From the Introduction of his book, Rohr states: “We cannot stop the drowning waters of our addictive culture from rising, but we must at least see our reality for what it is, seek to properly detach from it, and build ‘a coral castle and learn to breathe under water.’ The New Testament called it salvation or enlightenment, the Twelve Step Program called it recovery.”
The further I travel along my path of recovery; I find that the 12-Steps look more and more like the Gospel of Jesus. I am impressed each and every week by the radical hospitality and welcome that is offered at the meetings. Judgment is left at the front door. This is a gathering of people with a common experience – our brokenness and our desire to be made whole.
The hour I spend on Wednesday evenings is filled with God – a God whose compassion, grace and healing love is awesome and real. What is amazing about that weekly experience is that there are no candles, nobody wears any vestments, no priest to offer absolution, there are no stain glassed windows and no pipe organ in the small room in which we meet. It is simply “two or three gathered together” sharing our stories of our fall and recovery.
Rohr wrote another short piece called The 12-Step Program as Coded Gospel. In it, there is a passage that I am quite fond of:
“I am sure you have been in many gilded churches filled with haloed statues, Bible readings, lovely music, and proper ceremony, and have wondered if God was bored with the whole thing. I know I usually am. No transformed lives, little joy, no compassion for the larger world, no vulnerability, only the repeating of old and tired formulas by people who do not like to be surprised or unsettled. Least of all, by the ‘ever newness’ that we call grace, or the utter freedom that we call God. As Cardinal Newman out it, he was convinced that the one thing that characterized his Catholic congregation in England was that ‘they wanted to be left alone’” (page 6).
I wonder if the example of the Church that Rohr offers above is on its way out and that God is about to do something new and transformative. I wonder if the future Church will look more like a 12-Step group not focused or concerned about a creed or ritual but more concerned about a vulnerable community sharing its stories and supporting one another in their recovery.
Love One Another - Brian
Counter Community
Jacques Ellul
The church can only be a counter-community. If it is anything other than that, it has already compromised itself.
Source: Resist the Powers With Jacques Ellul by Charles Ringma
Luke 4:40-44
As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.
At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.
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