Acts 2:42-47, John 10:1-10
May 11, 2014
Since about 2008 there has been an
ongoing investigation of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) by
the Vatican. The LCWR represents about
80% of the nuns in the United States. In
2012 the Vatican issued an assessment of the group, which found them to be in
dire need of reform. The concern was
that they were spending too much time on poverty and social justice issues, and
not enough time condemning abortion and gay marriage. In addition, they were, according to the
Vatican, promoting radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic
faith.
One part of the report specifically
questioned the ties the LCWR had to Network, a non-profit organization
currently run by our Easter person this morning, Sr. Simone Campbell. Network has as its mission “to lobby for
federal policies and legislation that promote economic and social
justice.” This organization, with Sr.
Simone out front, was one of the most influential lobby groups advocating for
the Affordable Care Act when it was before our congress, around the time the
Vatican began its investigation. This
put Network, along with the LCWR who supported their work on the ACA, at odds
with the US Catholic Bishops, who lobbied hard against it.
This conversation between LCWR and
the Vatican continues today, and was in fact in the news this week because the
sisters were once again rebuked, this time for honoring Elizabeth Johnson –
who, as an aside, was a formative theologian for me in seminary, but that’s
kind of beside the point.
All of that is to say, I have my
own opinions about the dispute – and you probably have sense of those just based
on the Easter person I chose. But it
strikes me that at the heart of this dispute is a question of discernment. What is God calling us to do? How do we know?
In the gospel of John, Jesus says
we will know the voice of the shepherd when we hear it and will not be led
astray – “the sheep follow him because they know his voice,” the author writes. And more than that, when we follow the true
shepherd, we will be led to abundant life.
“I came,” Jesus says, “that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Cool. But there’s one problem: Is it really true that we’ll know the voice
of God when we hear it? Any quick glance
around us today answers that question:
two people believe they are following the voice of God, but they are
headed in opposite directions…it happens all the time. It’s happening with the nuns and the Vatican. Who is hearing the true voice of the
shepherd?
Sr. Simone Campbell, has found, and
continues to find, her path by listening for the shepherd’s voice and going
where she is led. We can judge whether
she is right or wrong, but no one can dispute her intentionality when it comes
to listening for the voice of God. She
spends time every day learning, praying, and listening so that she might become
more and more in tune with God’s purposes for her life and for the world.
Sr. Simone Campbell is committed to
social justice – you need about 30 seconds with her to know that. But she also writes about her faith and
spirituality, and how she figures out what God would have her do. “Come, Holy Spirit; that is my supplication
that starts my day,” she writes. She
also has a beautiful way of describing her spirituality. She calls it “walking willing.” As she says, “I have to be willing to walk
where the Spirit leads,” which of course requires listening for the spirit in
intentional ways. This is a way of saying
that contemplation or discernment and action are two sides of the same
coin. You need both for the life of
faith. Walking willing.
As a child Sr. Simone felt deeply
connected to her Catholic church and community.
She felt changed in a significant way after her first communion in first
grade. She was raised in the church and
educated by nuns who, as she says, kept her “tuned in and turned on to the
world around us.” This all laid the
foundation for her faith and her understanding of the gospel’s call on our
lives.
While a student at Mount St. Mary’s
College in L.A., she decided to join the religious order Sisters of Social
Service because she found their mission compelling and compatible with the
gospel. Their mission was to be active
in the world, a force for justice, and to focus on advocacy for the poor, the
homeless, the battered and forgotten.
When she took her final vows as a
nun, she chose the name Simone after Simon because she identifies with Simon
Peter; his enthusiasm, tendency to make mistakes, and his bravery to leap out
of boats. The religious order suited her
well, yet she knew if she was going to live out her call she had to be better
prepared – for her that meant law school.
After graduating law school she
started something called the Community Law Center in Oakland, CA. She and her staff represented people in all
sorts of challenging situations – some financial, some relational, some
chaotic. The work was heartbreaking, but
it seems that the more Sr. Simone’s heart broke, the harder she worked. She writes, “People want to turn away from
pain and poverty and difficulty. Yet
that’s where life is, and that’s how we become aware that we are one body.”
When she left the Community Law
Center she certainly continued to find herself with people who were in pain,
poverty and difficulty. She went to Iraq
at the end of 2002, just months before the war began. This is where her passion for affecting
policy was born. Her heart was broken by
the Iraqis, but, she says, it was also broken by U.S. policy there. She found a voice for speaking for those who
could not.
It was a natural next step, then,
for her to take over Network – the faith based lobbying group for social
justice issues in Washington D.C.. This
was her way of being a voice for the voiceless and for affecting policy. “We didn’t want to listen to politicians tell
us what they would do,” she writes. “We
wanted to tell them what they needed to do and then have them respond.”
They work on many issues of
economic justice, immigration, peacemaking, ecology. But the big issue that was up when she took
over was health care reform. We all know
how complicated and difficult that was, and Network was there in the thick of
it the whole time. In the end, many
elected officials were helped by Network, and Sr. Simone specifically, because
she was a trusted voice of faith. They
were able to see things not just fro a left-right point of view, but from a
faith-based point of view as well. And
of course, the ACA passed and was signed in to law.
Once the ACA passed, Network began
a project called the “mind gap,” which was focused on the growing gap between
the rich and the poor. Their first act
was to put together a budget alternative to the one being considered in
congress. They called it a faithful
budget, and it sought to help those struggling most in our economy and
country.
It was right during this time that
the Vatican came out with their scathing report of the LCWR and Network. Sr. Simone was completely thrown off kilter. She based her life on the catholic social
teachings, which has been affirmed by all the Popes. The catholic social teachings are unequivocal
in their insistence on working for the poor and marginalized. She couldn’t believe that she and others were
being criticized for being too focused on social justice.
And so, all of the folks at
Network, as well as a number of other organizations, came together to talk
about what was next for this organization being named as errant by the
Vatican. In that meeting someone
mentioned a bus trip – a bus trip to highlight all the work catholic nuns do to
address issues of injustice and poverty throughout the United States – and
there “Nuns on the Bus” was born. As one
newspaper put it:
“In a spirited response to the
Vatican, a group of Roman Catholic nuns is planning a bus trip across nine
states, stopping at homeless shelters, food pantries, schools and health care
facilities run by nuns to highlight their work with the nation’s poor and
disenfranchised.”
Campbell put it a bit more
eloquently: “Nuns on the bus was a hymn
to the American sisters even as it sought to further the mission that the
religious sisters have always pursued – standing with those who have been left behind,
lifting up those who have been oppressed, gathering in those who have been
pushed to the margins.” The Cedar Rapids
Gazette simply said, “The nuns spoke softly, but they brought a very big bus.”
This bus tour, which started in Des
Moines, actually, was incredibly successful and well received by many. It spotlighted the work of religious sisters,
it allowed people to share their stories of living on the margins, and it
provided encouragement and support to those living out the gospel day in and
day out with little resources or recognition in a world that seems hell-bent on
ignoring the least among us.
I got tired reading Sr. Simone’s
book. Like physically tired just reading
about all she has done with her life – all she does each day. “Couch potatoes drive me nuts,” she says. I believe it – and I hope she has forgiveness
in her heart for us couch potatoes out here.
But for her it goes back to her spirituality. “My contemplative living of ‘walking willing’
leads to an asceticism of living yes…as long as I focus on the response to need,
I have plenty of energy for this life of yes.
When I get preoccupied with myself, this energy wanes, as do my insights
and spiritual practices.”
Listening for the voice of God –
for the shepherd’s call; this is what all people of faith must do. And one thing Sr. Simone suggests is that we
hear God’s call better when we are turned outward – oriented to others and especially
to those in need. Our way of life, our
choices every day about how to live, what to do, read, pray all work to either
open or close our ears to this shepherd’s voice.
Sr. Simone leads a very active
life, but she also leads a contemplative one.
Like so many of the monks and nuns, she is disciplined about spiritual
practices – prayer, reading scripture, community discernment, worship,
retreats. As we have seen in the last
two weeks, these disciplines are not just pious, route actions we do in order
to be good Christians. They shape us,
form us, and connect us to the divine so that we are more likely to respond
faithfully to this world. Here’s how Sr.
Simone puts it: “This is the essence of
the spiritual journey: taking our Gospel faith and Church’s teachings into the
marrow of our being and trusting that in our willingness we will be used so
that all things work for the good.”
I don’t know what Sr. Simone’s
favorite scripture passage is – or if she has one. But, I know the spirit of
Pentecost is with her as she constantly seeks the Holy Spirit. She talks often of the movement of the spirit
and invites the Holy Spirit into her life daily. I also know that one of the first things that
the earliest followers of Jesus did after they received the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost was to be together, holding all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods and
distributed to all who had need.
Something about the Holy Spirit drew people into a kind of community
where they recognized that we’re all in this together.
It’s not just that Sr. Simone lives
as a part of her own religious community, where they do indeed put all of their
money and possessions into a common till.
She sees her faith community as extending to everyone around her. She understands this way of life as the call
to all of us to live so that people hold things in common, distribute our resources
to all who have need. This is what she
advocates – this is what she does, and for her it is indeed the voice of the
shepherd she is following.
Reading and studying scripture
until it becomes a part of the marrow of our being is one way to help us know
whether or not we are hearing the voice of God.
But we have other ways to discern as well. One is suggested by our passage in John: Jesus came so that all might have life and
have it abundantly. One criteria we use
in evaluating our choices and actions is whether it brings abundant life to
others. Do our actions reflect Jesus’
life? Well look around…where do we see
people working for abundant life for all, and then ask yourself, am I a part of
that work?
The life of faith is a constant act
of both listening for the voice of God and acting when the spirit calls us to
create a world of justice and wholeness – and we can only do our best at
figuring out what that call is. But as
Sr. Simone says, “I know my spirituality calls me to walk willing with a broken
heart – a brokenness that in the process of opening up releases hope for the
many so that eventually justice for all our brothers and sisters may be
realized. But until that day, we will
stay in the struggle, walking in the dark and trusting that all things do work
toward the good.” Amen.
