Proclaim by Word and Example

On October 13, a woman was attacked in a Philadelphia subway in broad daylight, in front of several other passengers. [It was widely reported] that the assault lasted several minutes before anyone intervened - although some commuters turned their phones to record the incident. People saw and did nothing.  This is not the first time something like this has happened and it won't be the last. But it garnered national news because people fretted that this type of incident may be the way we are now, after months of self isolation and self protection and the breakdown of social mores. Have we forgotten how to be together in a public place? Who we are in a crowd? T here is a well-documented psychological phenomenon called the bystander effect . Its basic assertion is that people are more reluctant to intervene in an emergency when others are present. In fact, the more people there are, the less likely any individual is to help any other person in trouble.  There are so many barriers...

  This sermon was preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Wellesley on Sunday, October 3, 2021. The reading for this sermon is Mark 10:2-16.  I can’t hear this Gospel proclaimed without thinking of a particular moment in my seminary chapel when it came up in the lectionary to be read. In that sanctuary, the Gospel was proclaimed right in the center of the aisle, in the midst of the students and professors. This particular Thursday night, the reader had just gotten to the part of this passage about the parents bringing their children to Jesus, when a squirmy toddler sprang free of his mother’s arms. And as the line “Let the little children come to me” was read, the just-barely-walking child tripped, tottled, crawled straight up the center aisle toward the reader, reaching, reaching with his little arms toward the speaker of Jesus’ words, shrieking with joy. The escapee was soon snatched up by the back of the overalls by his mother but not before my pewmates and I shared a gr...