Sermon

On the Waterfront

by The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

This summer the movie industry mourned the death of Budd Shulberg, who wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront, which won the Oscar in 1954 as Best Picture. Among the tributes written about Mr. Shulburg was a reflection by the Rev. Timothy Safford. Father Tim writes that there is a powerful sermon preached in this movie which exposes mob corruption on the docks of New Jersey.

Early in the movie, kindly, disinterested Father Barry, played by Karl Malden, pronounces last rites over the body of Joey, a longshoreman who had just been thrown off the roof of his Hoboken row house by a couple of goons because he was going to testify to the crime commission about the mob corrupting his local union.

"Time and faith are great healers,” Father Barry says to Joey's enraged sister, Edie. She refuses to accept his pious platitude.
"Time and faith?" she cries. "My brother's dead and you stand there talking about time and faith?"
"Edie," the priest responds, "I do what I can. I'm in the church when you need me."
Edie is not placated. "You're in the church if I need you?'" she cries back. "Did you ever hear of a saint hiding in a church?"

Edie’s indictment is two-fold. First, she is mourning her brother’s death – she needs to hear of hope and resurrection.

But she is also angry because corruption is unchallenged. Her Lord calls his people to create justice, but if the Church is silent in the face of evil and corruption, the Church is guilty of being unfaithful.

We don't remember Mother Theresa because she stayed in her convent chapel, but because from that chapel she waded into the streets of Calcutta to touch the untouchable and share compassion.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from his cathedral faced the evils of apartheid, exposing brutality and injustice. He spoke truth to power, and demanded justice which, in the words of our baptismal covenant, respected the dignity of every human being.

Love your neighbor as yourself. That love must be compassionate and it must demand justice. And whatever form that love takes, it must be lived out beyond these walls.

Our mission as the baptized people of God is to be sent from this altar. Our worship this morning is not be a destination, but a launching pad. As the deacon says at the end of the liturgy: "Go!" [adapted from http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81840_113140_ENG_HTM.htm]

Today’s second reading comes from the Epistle of James and will be our second lesson for the next several Sundays. This letter exhorts us to be “doers of the word and not merely hearers.”

There was a time in the life of the church when this New Testament book was at the center of a controversy that rivaled the present day discussions on sexuality. As the Church in Europe and in England wrestled with issues in the 16th century, the letter of James was at the center of the storm. Martin Luther called it The Epistle of Straw, and while it is foolish to reduce a complex issue to a phrase, I am such a fool and will say that Luther refuted the notion that good works indicated the level of one’s faith. Thus, passages in James such as “Faith, apart from works, is dead” angered Luther and other reformers for it contradicted the doctrine of being justified by faith alone.

As the Church in England became the Church of England, it waded its way through the extremes of the Roman Catholicism of its day and the puritanism of zealous reformers. The Book of Common Prayer addressed the controversy in the Articles of Religion which say that we stand justified before God through the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thus, one cannot earn one’s way to heaven. And, good works necessarily follow being justified by faith. They are pleasing to God (and I love this language): such works “do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith, insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit.”

James’ Letter says precisely this. If a Christian has a true and lively Faith, and if a community of Christians lives a true and lively Faith, the fruit of that faith will be seen and known and tasted by those in and beyond the community of faith.

Today’s reading mentions three concrete examples of a true and lively faith: rich and poor are treated equally, the poor are not made subservient, and the community must be known for showing mercy. These exhortations, most likely written in the late first or early second century are relevant today, as is the theological discourse on justification and the relationship between faith and works.

But while the discourse continues – there is mission to be carried. As Edie said to Father Barry, What saint, what baptized person, what faithful follower of Christ should hide in a church when the needs of our neighbors are so many?

Compassion and justice, the fruits of faith which embrace the royal law ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’, need to be tasted by all every day.

In Botswana there is a the proverb: a hungry stomach has no ears. James’ epistle says, If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what good is that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

In the movie On the Waterfront, Edie lament makes an impact on Father Barry. Not long after Joey's death, he stands over another dead longshoreman lying in the belly of a cargo ship, killed by the goons, because he too was going to testify about corruption. Father Barry tells the longshoremen listening that this death is another crucifixion of a righteous man, just like Jesus crucified at Calvary. He says, "And anybody who sits around, and lets it happen, keeps silent about something he knows has happened, shares the guilt of it, just as much as the Roman soldier who pierced the flesh of our Lord to see if he was dead."

A stevedore shouts, "Go back to your church, Father!"

And with righteous indignation he shouts back, "Boys, this is my church!"

Wherever we find ourselves every day -- in the classroom, at work or at play, in the hospital, in the boardroom, in our neighborhood or an unfamiliar street – every place is our church.

God’s grace has saved us through Christ, and that same grace compels us to show forth the fruits of a lively faith in life-giving ways. From time to time we are called to be heroic, but much more often we are called to be compassionate, generous, honest, respectful, and forgiving. The grace we need to live this way is offered us in the weekly celebration of the life, death and resurrection of our Lord, the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. Faith if it has no works, is dead. And a dead faith is no good.

Jesus has come to release our tongues that we might speak of grace, love, justice and peace. He has opened our ears to hear the cries of the poor, the hungry, the forgotten, the hurting. Christ has given us his life and Spirit that we might embody the royal law: Love your neighbor as yourself.

It all begins when the deacon says: Go.  

© Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral