Dear Friends,
We need to hear more from people like you, she said.
I had left my table in the restaurant to go pay the bill for my lunch with a guest. That is when another patron looked at me and said, We need to hear more from people like you. I have to say, I was so surprised by her comment that I am not even sure what I said in reply. I was rushing to my next event, and I wished I could have slowed that moment down and engaged her in a conversation.
I have been thinking about her words ever since. Wearing clericals on a regular basis has long been my practice. Over three and half decades of ministry, the uniform has elicited a whole host of responses from folks sharing the sidewalk, traipsing through the mall, riding the subway and visiting the hospital. I am sure that my colleagues who don the collar share similar experiences. Some walk by without seeing. Some nod and make gestures of respect. Some notice and then look away. I have had a pedestrian see me coming and cross the street to avoid me. I have had a person or two spit on me and make rude gestures with their middle finger. And I have had folks stop and ask me to pray for them or a family member. But I can’t remember a time when a stranger in a restaurant said, We need to hear more from people like you.
My hunch is that the brave and prophetic sermon preached by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde in Washington National Cathedral during the prayer service for the inauguration of President Trump on Jan. 21 was behind the request. Bishop Budde’s words on unity and diversity, truth telling and mercy, struck a universal chord. She said, In the name of our loving God, I ask you [President Trump] to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now. She named the 2SLGBTQ community members, and migrant workers and asylum seekers who fear reprisal and deportation. The gentle and yet firm word of mercy she spoke of resonates so deeply in this season of political and economic disruption and upset. She closed her sermon with, “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, to walk humbly with one another and with our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world…”
The closing words of course are at the heart of our baptismal covenant. And our baptismal covenant summons us each day to love God by loving our neighbour as ourselves, to serve the most vulnerable among us, and to quieten fear with the stillness of love. We can do this with brave and bold actions, and with brave and bold words – just as Jesus did.
The patron in the restaurant is right. The world needs to hear more from people like us.
Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Andrew Asbil
Bishop of Toronto
