In March of last year, the Rev. Sam Wells visited St. John’s and spoke about social engagement and the ministry of Jesus. He drew on his relationship with Marcia Owens, a gun violence prevention advocate. Her experiences, and Sam Wells’s model, are relevant once again, as some members of St. John’s and the Episcopal Church in Minnesota currently are supporting and engaging in activism to end gun violence in our communities.
We had the pleasure to welcome the Reverend Doctor Samuel Wells, vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, London, and one of the world’s leading theological minds for a weekend of reflection, learning, and worship. The weekend began with an all day Saturday seminar on the subject of “Living Without Enemies” (also the title of our Lenten read, cowritten by Sam Wells and Marcia Owens.) It continued with Sam preaching at our Sunday morning Eucharists and offering a forum in between. Finally, it concluded Sunday night with a service of music featuring the St. Martin’s Voices and a series of reflections by Sam Wells on the history of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Throughout all of it, the resounding message was of the need for the church to reclaim the primary ministry of Jesus—the ministry of “being with.” Wells spent a great deal of time Saturday illuminating what he believes are the four models of social engagement: Working For, Working With, Being For, and Being With. Walking us through these, he arrives at the conclusion that while all four have stumbling blocks and advantages, the main thrust of Jesus’ ministry was a ministry of “being with.”
He then encouraged us to take this as a model for our own social engagement—to focus the majority of our ministry on relationship, presence, and interdependence.
Sam offered us this thought: “’Being with’ begins by largely rejecting the problem-solution axis that dominates both the previous models…It sees the vast majority of life, and certainly the most significant moments of life, in these terms: love can’t be achieved; death can’t be fixed; pregnancy and birth aren’t a problem needing a solution.”
Christians, says Sam, need to worry less about solving problems—to stop seeing the world in terms of its problems, and people in terms of their deficits—and remember the end to which we are all called is relationship with God and relationship with each other. Our job, he said, is to “enjoy people for their own sake.”
Of course this doesn’t mean the church or Christians shouldn’t be concerned about pain and suffering, or that we shouldn’t try to alleviate it. But it does mean we may take a different approach than the rest of the world.
Using the model of gun violence prevention, Sam described in his Sunday forum the story of his relationship with Marcia Owens and her story of transformation. What started as a passion of hers to end gun violence in Durham, NC through legislative solutions became a ministry of presence and solidarity. Marcia’s life changed slowly as she spent time in the neighborhood where the shootings were most prevalent. She began to see her work not as addressing the problem of violence, but of getting to know the community most affected by the violence. As her focus shifted from “working for” to “being with” the community, she stopped dividing people into separate categories of victims and offenders, and experienced personal transformation as she discovered the beauty of simply being present.
I was deeply edified and inspired by The Reverend Doctor Wells, his wisdom and presence. Our time with him has given me new energy to look again at the ministries of Saint John’s, how I work as a leader in our community, and even to how I live my life as a neighbor and citizen.
The story of Easter which we are now celebrating is the story of God’s commitment to be with us. This one brief moment where God seems to be working and being for us is buttressed and supported on either side with a vast story of God’s willingness and desire to be with us. There in the garden, after conquering death and sin, Jesus shows up again, to be with us.
By the Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson, originally published in the May-June 2017 Evangelist.
