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Articles: Priest helps change the world

Posted by admin on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 08:36 AM

The Rev. Rodney Reinhart, 55, is leaving Michigan and taking his spiritual creativity with him to a pair of small Episcopal churches on Chicago's south side.
Before he pulls out of metro Detroit next week, I asked him if he wouldn't mind leaving behind a few of his best ideas. He was way ahead of me. "The two programs that I worked on hardest are in the hands of very good local committees and will continue here," he said. Back in 1985, Reinhart helped to refocus the religious community's attention on the AIDS crisis by organizing an ecumenical Christmas service for HIV-positive people and their families and friends. Two decades later, the event still draws a huge crowd. Then, in 2000, Reinhart tackled an even larger problem: religious biases that fuel conflict around the world. His idea, developed with the Rev. Ed Mullins of Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, was to hold an annual World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation. That service, built around a series of prayers for peace Reinhart wrote, has grown into an important interfaith gathering in metro Detroit. The prayers have been borrowed by other religious groups across North America and Japan. "I'm not a wealthy man, and I don't think I'm terribly brilliant," Reinhart said. "I just believe that if people are creative and have the courage to follow through on their ideas, it's possible to change the world on a shoestring budget." That approach to ministry makes Reinhart distinctive. He has found simple, yet moving, ways to connect the force of faith with the many challenges churning in his restless social conscience. As he described this creative process, he said he's merely borrowing from the core of Christianity. "In the prayer of consecration, a priest takes bread and wine and they become the very presence of our Lord," Reinhart said. "When Jesus chose bread and wine, he didn't reach for anything exceptional. He used the simplest elements of human life." So, when Reinhart thinks of a new approach to ministry, he reaches no further than "the suffering and joy, breathing and moving, births and deaths that are such normal parts of our lives." Little twists refocus people's vision, he said. His AIDS service is really just a Christmas party, except that the invitations go to people often excluded from such events. And his World Sabbath is just a series of prayers, but they're voiced by a rainbow's breadth of religious leaders. One of those prayers says, " In ancient times, when peace was threatened . . . God would set a priest before the people and command the priest to call the people to prayer. Today . . . we must call the people to pray." For 20 years in Detroit, Reinhart called people to pray at parishes in Wayne and Oakland counties. Recently, he said farewell to his parishioners at St. James Episcopal Church on Grosse Ile. Next week, he will call people to pray at St. Clement in Harvey and at St. Joseph-St. Aidan in Blue Island, Episcopal parishes along the southern rim of Chicago. At first glance, they're unremarkable parishes among the thousands of churches dotting the Midwest. But, looking closer, these are parishes full of all the pressing needs of everyday urban life. Their neighborhoods are a diverse mix of African-American and Hispanic families. One parish runs an extensive program to feed homeless people. It's the kind of place where Reinhart loves to work.

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