Saint Vincent
Elizabeth Butler
Seabury-Western
January 22, 2008
Today we honor and recognize Deacon Vincent of Saragossa, who was martyred in 304. He was speaking on behalf of Bishop Valerius who had a speech impediment. Apparently, he spoke so brilliantly that those who heard him were moved, moved to great anger. While they merely killed the Bishop, they tortured Vincent before killing him. It makes one a little fearful of just what the ‘Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour’. It seems that one’s personal safety isn’t of highest concern. And yet, this passage and Vincent’s story seem to me very distant from my life. After all, most of us in this room aren’t going to be killed or even threatened by what we speak or not speak. What does this have to do with me?
Yesterday many of us saw a documentary in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Day entitled February First about the 4 men who, in 1960, sat at the ‘white’s only’ lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, NC. These four college freshmen, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, David Richmond and Ezell Blair, Jr, took enormous risks both physical and emotional to challenge the established yet suffocating structures of their day. Frankly, they didn’t do so knowing what would result, they were moved to sit in those seats because it was what they needed to do for their own dignity. They were in touch with the powerful Spirit dwelling at their core and choose to live out of that center.
I like to cook. I don’t do it very often these days, but one of the most important things about cooking is a reduction sauce. By applying heat, raising the temperature and pressure of a sauce such that it is bubbling vigorously, one distills down the liquid to a very small portion with extraordinarily potent flavor. It is reduced to the essence, the core, the center.
It seems to me that that is what we are called to do in this life—be ever more in touch with our center, our core, our essence, and to live out of that place within ourselves. Through prayer, worship, conversation and the still silence of our lives, we are to open ourselves to be in touch with and live out of our center—the Spirit dwelling within. The more we do that, the more we are also able to see and relate to the essence, the Spirit, dwelling within each human being.
It may not be that we are ever faced with physical harm or death if we don’t live out of our spiritual center, and yet we lose terribly by not doing so. Each day, each moment, we are to live out of our Spirit, our essence within, while respecting and honoring the Spirit or essence in others. Doing so may mean ending a relationship that is not healthy, speaking up when it is difficult to do or taking a seat at a particular place and time, regardless of the disruption or disapproval of others. It isn’t easy to do, but doing so unleashes the power of the Spirit in the world spreading healing, light, justice, peace and love.
Live from your essence, then, and do not worry about how you are to defend
yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at
that very hour what you ought to say.