All Saints Episcopal Church, Hilton Head Island, SC
September 1, 2006
Hy-phen-at-ed (adj), the use of hyphenated words (e.g., German-American) to designate foreign-born citizens of the United States (1893); or, relating to, or being an individual or unit of mixed or diverse backgrounds or composition (citizens formally suspected of having conflicting loyalties)
Hyphenated words relating to people anywhere seem a bit outdated in this day and age. Yet the practice seems to be thriving in America, and a religious variation of the hyphen seems to be alive and well in parts of our denomination and elsewhere. We are not simply Episcopalians anymore. From a youth growing up in Baltimore, I was simply an Episcopalian, even if I couldn’t pronounce the word! Others in my neighborhood were Baptists, or Lutherans, or Roman Catholics. My affiliation to a particular church of denomination was never hyphenated. The only exception was my friend living across the street, Val Dowonckec, who belonged to a mysterious denomination called Greek-Orthodox. And because he was the best ballplayer on the block, we didn’t – and he certainly didn’t – care one way or another where he went to church, mysterious or not.
Certainly our particular denomination, and perhaps our western culture, is moving perilously close to pigeonholing or labeling everyone and everything. And the madness of it all is that others are making decisions about each of us based not on intimate knowledge or even consultation with us before we are conveniently placed in our very own cubbyhole. I want to shout to many, “You don’t really know me that well to give me a hyphen.” And to add insult to injury, I find myself hyphenating, pigeonholing, labeling other people. Is it that second-nature to humans? It is certainly not part of the ministry of Jesus. He did not find a convenient title or adjective for people; time and time again he went beyond the obvious to understand the person who shared in his life. He asked questions. He listened. He reached people where they were. And regardless of their situation or even place in society, he was with them…not above or below.
I came to see my own behavior recently at a concert in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. There in the balcony I watched intently as the orchestra, one by one, gathered on the stage before the performance. The concert master was tuning her instrument and others were in various stages of preparation for the performance, which was widely anticipated as it was an evening of Mozart.
Then all was quiet, and the conductor came to the center of the stage, receiving a rather enthusiastic round of applause. And then the young pianist entered to another round of applause. At that moment I found myself surveying the large orchestra and commenting to myself that the pianist was black. In fact, the pianist was the only black person on the stage. In a sea of white tuxedos and black dresses, I made a mental comment about a man I didn’t know. I found myself quietly muttering, “What in the world are you thinking,” lost in a moment of personal frustration.
I know you might be thinking, “So what, we do that all the time about everybody…first impressions and all that.” But for me I want to get beyond making those mental images, for I believe they can carry old, outdated, and useless information that can get in the way of seeing a person as simply a person, yet to be known. Even people I have known for a long time, who in some cases have public personas, surprise me.
We cannot afford to hyphenate anyone in the parish, or in our denomination, or in the world for that matter. Of course we will go on making those first impression judgments, some right on, others way off the mark. We will continue to label people and pigeonhole people out of necessity and to a large degree out of a need to protect ourselves and our personal beliefs…but will this get us any closer to someone, or will it find us experiencing isolation in blissful ignorance? Jesus, in his own life, could not afford to isolate himself from the very people, often sinners, he was called to minister to. And he found a way to see people without hyphens attached to their persons.
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