Charlotte Collins Reed
Bexley Seabury Seminary
February 14, 2019
Cyril and Methodius
Some
years ago, my husband and I took our almost grown sons on a mini weekend
vacation to Cincinnati. The first day we
went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, an impressive and
deeply disturbing series of exhibits and slavery and the Underground Railroad, then
we checked out a local brewery. The
second day we went to the Creation Museum just over the river in Kentucky. The Creation Museum is remarkably well done,
but theologically in a different place than I am which made it a bit hard to
pony up the $25 per person to get in.
The opening line on the website says “The Creation Museum shows why
God´s infallible Word, rather than man´s faulty assumptions, is the place to
begin if we want to make sense of our world.”
But while I may disagree with some of their fundamental assumptions, the
exhibits do a remarkable job of engaging the stories of Scripture and bringing
them to life, making those stories accessible to people who may not have heard
them before.
When we first entered the museum, we were greeted by a man
holding a very large snake. We were
invited to touch the snake and marvel at its size and presence. I wondered whether this was a Genesis Chapter
3 snake or a Mark Chapter 16 snake, neither of which I found to be comforting
options. Was this snake a sign of our
fallenness as human beings, or a sign of this man’s great faith that he could
hold such a creature and not be harmed?
Neither thought made my heart leap with joy.
Today we celebrate the lives of Cyril and Methodius, two faithful
9th century Christians who took the gospel to the southern Slavs. Many people through out history have taken
the gospel to those who have not heard the Good News. I believe one of the marks of Bexley Seabury
is that we are forming disciples who can take the gospel into places where the
Good News may not have been heard before, or at least not heard in a way that
preached love rather than hate, mercy rather than judgement, inclusion rather
than exclusion. But Cyril and Methodius
did not just take the gospel to the Slavs, or just translate the gospel from
their language into the language of those they went to. Cyril actually had to invent a whole new
alphabet in order to translate the people’s spoken language into written
text. And I thought Greek was hard and
Hebrew was impossible! For their
efforts, Cyril and Methodius were opposed by the German bishops, thrown in
prison, and forbidden to do anything other than preach in the new Slavonic
language, which was considered a barbaric language by the German bishops. Cyril died not long after Pope Adrian
ordained them and approved the Slavonic liturgy. But Methodius went on to translate the
liturgy and the scriptures into Slavonic so the people could worship and hear
the scriptures read in their own language.
When he died, Methodius’s funeral was in Greek, Latin, and Slavonic and
it was said that he was all things to all people. I can hear Cyril and Methodius in the
wonderful reading from Philippians, proclaiming the gospel out of goodwill,
love, and joy, despite their imprisonment and other hardships. Theirs was a labor of love, rejoicing in the
Slavonic people’s growth and joy in the faith.
But what on earth could our gospel lesson possibly have to
do with Cyril and Methodius, much less the Bexley Seabury board? This passage is not thought to be original to
Mark’s gospel, but takes bit of Matthew-the great commission, and Luke-the
ascension-to fill out what some might think to be a disappointing and
unsatisfying original ending.
Personally, I think that running off in terror is a perfectly
appropriate response to seeing someone alive who was executed before your own
eyes, but that’s just me. Throw in some
snake handling, poison cocktails, and the casting out of demons and what could go
wrong?
However, what connects the work of Cyril and Methodius, the
gospel reading, and our work as the Bexley Seabury board are the six little
words “they will speak in new tongues.”
Our thoughts go to the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts where the
disciples spoke in new tongues so that everyone could hear the gospel in his or
her native language. The work of Cyril
and Methodius was to allow the Slavs to hear the gospel in their own
language. To do that, they had to invent
a new alphabet. Our work is to form
disciples to spread the gospel in new ways, new tongues if you will, to engage
people in languages and ways they will understand. What metaphorical alphabet is needed to
translate words like sin and redemption, grace and resurrection for folks with
absolutely no knowledge of those words?
What language is needed to break through the hate and vitriol of our
current climate with the message of God’s radical love and inclusion? What deep roots are needed for those who dare
to confront the demons of this time, to, I dare say, handle the snakes that
draw us from the love of God without being bitten? Those are the kinds of questions Cyril and
Methodius had to wrestle with and those are the questions we wrestle with at
Bexley Seabury. Those are hard questions and the answers make
for difficult work. But the answers will
help make the gospel of love and inclusion accessible to all people.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment