Transparency is the watch word for anyone in leadership today. Whether he or she is a CEO, a politician, an educator or a preacher there is a cry from the bottom to the top for transparency. “Today anyone with a cell phone and access to a computer has the power to bring down a billion dollar corporation or even a government.” [I’m indebted to a recent book by Warren Bennis, Transparency for some of the details in this section.] We do our ministry in the world of blogs and Facebook. What we write and post “will be in the ether longer than a plastic bag in a landfill.” Fortune magazine noted that 23,000 new blogs appeared online everyday in early 2005. By mid 2007 there were an estimated 70 million blogs””there are even more today and all are looking for something to talk about. Just ask Michael Phelps. He learned the hard way that after thousands of photographs and TV cameras documenting his Olympic gold medal performances in the public arena, a single photo from a cell phone in a private moment can threaten one’s career. Remember, in today’s world nothing is reliably off the record. You can never assume you are alone. I walked into a fast-food restaurant in Statesburg while on my way to the House of Bishops and noticed a camera was watching my every move. Just imagine an argument with a sales-clerk, who was taking my hamburger order, it would be taped for all the world to see. You’ll be glad to know no argument was even thought of or took place.
But far in advance of the whistle blowers and this new enforced culture of candor, long before the high tech transparency was foisted upon us, St. Paul taught us that the only truly legitimate way to conduct one’s ministry is with transparency in your life. Our lives and ministry should be an open statement of the truth. How else, as he writes in verse 2, could we “commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”? This is the ultimate transparency ”” that we practice our ministry in the presence of God. You know well the words in the Collect for Purity, “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid”¦.” Do we find such words threatening or comforting?
We commend God’s truth with candor and with open statements of God’s word””therein speaking truth to power. Such is rarely as easy as it sounds. During FDR’s presidency there were few in his cabinet who dared to challenge him. He apparently could be more than a little bullying. The one who did, however, was General George Marshall. On more than one occasion he stood firm. “I am sorry, Mr. President, but I don’t agree with that at all.” Without his steadfastness the U.S. military would have been even less prepared than it was after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Transparency speaks truth to power. We get the courage to do this from the Holy Spirit. As Paul encouraged Timothy””“for God has not given us a Spirit of fear; but of power, love, and of self control.” Or as he puts it in this morning’s text, the light of Christ has shined in our hearts. Paul was on his way to Damascus when the same God who at the creation said “Let there be light” made his light shine in his heart. And he, Paul, became a new creation. As he puts it in chapter five of this same letter, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation””the old has passed away, behold the new has come”¦.”
What a blessing this night. Thank you. This is indeed a cup of cold water before wading into the Three Sacred Days.
Thank you so very much Bp. Lawrence.