The Importance of Dissent
By: The Rev. Gigi Miller
First, I thank the Rev. Canon Allisyn Thomas for leading us in prayers for peace. As we move through these days of uncertainty, I commend today’s psalm 42, especially its closing verse, “Put your trust in God, for I will yet give thanks to God, who is the help of my countenance and my God.”
Many of you know that I recently attended a conference of the Association for Episcopal Deacons (AED). It’s held every three years, and this year, over 140 deacons from all over the country gathered in San Antonio. In June. It was 98 degree with 70% humidity outside and what felt like -15 in the meeting rooms - way outside the 65-to-75-degree comfort zone for San Diego deacons. But we shared experiences, deepening our relationships and meeting new friends.
One of the highlights of the conference was a keynote address by our Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe. He’d be the first one to admit that he’s not the same kind of speaker as our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, but he approached his short remarks with sincerity. And then he handed the mic to the deacons for a Q&A session. As someone observed, “He should think twice before asking deacons what we think, ‘cause we’re gonna tell him!” I won’t bore you with all the details of the spirited questions and comments, as a lot of them concerned diaconal minutia. But Presiding Bishop Rowe listened to our concerns and responded with humor and clarity, grounding our discussion in Christ’s teachings.
As I listened to the conversation, I was reminded of the importance of dissent and speaking truth to power, even to our church leaders. Today’s reading from Kings shows us the cost of contending with controlling forces that aren’t interested in a mutual exchange of ideas. The prophet Elijah has been challenging the corruption of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, in both political and religious terms. He destroys the false prophets that attempt to lead the people of Israel away from their God, and, in return, Jezebel vows to destroy Elijah.
Elijah is terrified and flees into wilderness, a political and religious dissenter with a price on his head. After much doubt and – let’s face it - more than a little whining on Elijah’s part, God restores Elijah’s strength and resolve. God then sends Elijah back to his community to continue making holy trouble and advocate for justice for people disregarded by the powerful.
Our world is filled with voices from all sides of the political and religious spectrum that seek to divide us and mischaracterize our motives. Dissent is viewed with suspicion as leaders try to convince us that we must support their agendas or risk being viewed as traitors. Podcasters and influencers hurl ugly epithets online, stoking fear and leading to further detachment, discord, and tragic violence. There seems to be no room for honest debates like the ones I heard in the frigid conference rooms in San Antonio.
In this respect, Jesus and his disciples live in a world not much different from Elijah or our modern society. Luke tells us that Jesus had just tamed the stormy Sea of Galilee when he and his friends disembark in Gerasa, then a Gentile city, where they’re greeted by a man possessed by demons. So many demons, in fact, that he is indistinguishable from them. They tell Jesus, when asked, that their name is Legion, a term which also refers to a Roman military unit of 6,000 soldiers.
It's important to note that in year 66 of the Common Era before Christ, Emperor Vespasian sent a legion to retake Gerasa from Jewish freedom fighters. According to the historian Josephus, the legion killed 1,000 young men, imprisoned their families, burned the city, and attacked the surrounding villages. Many of the young Jewish men killed were buried in the tombs to which the possessed man was shackled, which speaks to the destructive power of empire and the ways we can be imprisoned by past and present trauma. Living on the outskirts of the city, the man is disinherited and shunned by his neighbors.
Jesus exorcises the demons, and the man, like Elijah in the wilderness, is literally restored to himself, but fear still separates him from his friends, family, and neighbors. Before the man’s healing, the Gerasenes were afraid of the demons that possessed him. Now, in a classic case of the devil you know, they react with alarm at the sight of the man healed and sitting calmly at Jesus’ feet. This scene prompts us to consider who we push to the margins in our fear of others and whether we think past behavior defines a person’s future.
Jesus, in a parallel to Elijah’s return to his community, sends the man back to his home to “declare how much God has done for you.” Through his lived experience of trauma and recovery, the healed man becomes one of the first evangelists of the Good News of renewal and inclusivity in Christ.
Our Baptismal Covenant asks us, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being ?” Last week, the six Episcopal Bishops of California, including our own Bishop Susan, responded “This question is a direct and ongoing call to us as persons who follow Christ to live out our calling opposed to injustice, to violence of any kind, and to stand up where human beings are not treated as we would treat a child of God.”
The bishops’ open letter to the church echoes Paul’s to the Galatians, whose leaders are trying to enforce strict adherence to the law. Paul says, “you are children of God through faith.” Their society and ours try to define us by differences - in religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, orientation, language, age, ability, you name it. But none of that matters in God’s creation as, Paul says, “you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
So how does the unified Body of Christ dissent when confronting inequitable demands? The Episcopal Church’s response to a recent federal demand to assist Afrikaners over refugees already in the process of resettlement is an inspiring example. Rather than dispute the right of the Executive branch to determine the status of refugees, Presiding Bishop Rowe declined additional federal grant money on which church refugee resettlement groups, like Episcopal Migration Ministries, rely.
Though this decision, like Elijah’s denunciation of imperial might, was a costly one in terms of goals and resources, the Episcopal Church took a powerful stance of opposing injustice. At the deacons’ conference, Presiding Bishop Rowe reminded us that, though Christians are citizens of our respective nations, our first allegiance is to God. So, we have dual citizenship, delighting in our diversity and united in the Way of Jesus. Essayist Ross Gay writes, “Though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage (and it happens also to be very big business), noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive.” May we live into our dual membership by re-interpreting Christ’s message of love to a fractured humanity, even as we cherish God’s promise of its future rebirth.
