Peter Storey claimed many churches have “their backs turned on the world”. (Photo credit: IRD/Barton Gingerich) |
Peter Storey, a retired bishop of South African Methodism who now teaches at Duke Divinity School, praised the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement for meeting the world’s “real needs” in a sermon at the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill on November 2. He said he was dismayed at how many churches have “their backs turned on the world,” in contrast to OWS.
As an active bishop of South Africa’s autonomous Methodist Church, Storey fought against Apartheid and was prison chaplain to Nelson Mandela. He also founded the Gun Free South Africa movement. Now living in the U.S., he supports the United Methodist General Board on Church and Society’s agenda to fix our broken world through pacifism and government entitlement programs.
Storey spoke about “The Broken Open Church,” using the story of the paralyzed man in Capernaum whom Jesus healed after his friends lowered him through the roof because the crowd was so dense. This story from the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Storey said, represents the need for churches to “break open” and address the brokenness in the world. “I pray that you [God] will break my heart so wide open that the whole world falls in,” the bishop prayed. “When the church gets broken, people get mended.”
The retired bishop told how a Methodist church building in South Africa had been literally broken after 2,000 refugees from Zimbabwe came to live in the church. Much of this beautiful church, Storey said, had been left beyond repair, but “this is what it means to break churches open.” He explained that “we shouldn’t be surprised if compassion … does some damage to church property.” And he added: “Following Jesus has little to do with playing church once a week,” and “it’s always easier to do church than to be church.”
In the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man who was dropped through the roof in Capernaum, Storey said the drastic measures to get to Jesus were necessary because “the church got in the way.” Similarly, some in the church today have their “backs turned on the world.” He said becoming this kind of church “begins with making a place of welcome in our souls,” because “when we make space for the sufferer, the stranger, the enemy, then we create possibilities for God.”
Storey said “when we really feel about these things that hurt people, that violate them, and cause them to suffer,” such as “prejudice or poverty or the exploitation of vulnerability or the abuses of power, that’s when we cease to be helpless. When we really feel about these things we cease to be afraid for ourselves and we become able to act.”
Similar to United Methodist Church officials in the U.S., Storey would like the Church to “act” through channels of government enforced wealth redistribution, and he expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, saying, “I sometimes think about Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and wonder why the church wasn’t there first.” This movement, he said, is an example of “the real needs of the real world,” and these needs are “right there in the Church’s face.”
“I don’t recall such bitter political schism since the Vietnam War, nor do I recall such unapologetic contempt for the poor,” Storey said. The “broken open” church that promotes OWS “will always be under siege by people who have a do-not-disturb sign hanging on them.” And “there will always be people in church who prefer an argument to a healing,” Storey explained. Commenting on the 2012 U.S. presidential race, he said “I never thought I’d see the day” when an individual running for political office would have to “conceal the fact that he provided health care for needy people.”
Storey lamented the “War on Terrorism” in the Middle East as unnecessary and costly “while another kind of terrorist lurking in Wall Street can bring so much more disaster, loss, poverty, and bankruptcy to millions around the whole world and go unpunished. He asked: “How can such things stay?” And he concluded: “If I didn’t believe the Gospel could transform this deformed world, I would lose hope.”
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