20 May 2007 Iron River/Houghton
In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus prays that all may be one. For weeks now, we’ve been hearing a conversation between him and his close followers, but today, the mood changes. Instead of a discourse or a dialogue, we are privileged to eavesdrop on Jesus’ prayer. He stops talking to the disciples, and begins talking to his Father.
And the first thing that he asks God to do in that prayer is to help all to be one, as he and his Father are one. He’s not just praying for his friends gathered at the table. Nor is he praying only for those followers who have been with him on his journey. He is praying for ALL to be one. Jesus asks God to make one his close friends and all those who will come to believe in him through their words and witness.
One of the amazing things about this prayer is that it ties together all of us who have come to believe in Jesus. When Jesus prays that all will be one in this way, it covers everyone from his early followers, throughout the ages and generations, to us today and beyond us to our children and grandchildren. When Jesus says ALL, he means ALL.
Much has been made, in recent years, of the various and sundry ways that Christians are divided. Are we progressives or fundamentalists? Are we Baptists? Methodists? Roman Catholics? Lutherans? Are we Anglicans or Episcopalians?
Does our worship represent primacy of scripture or of sacrament?
As some of you know, I was in Virginia this week. On the plane coming home, working on this very sermon, I met an Evangelical man who, when he heard that I was an Episcopalian, began to engage me in conversation. While he was gracious about it, his agenda was to make sure that I understood that his church interpreted scripture correctly and that ours seemed to miss the boat.
Perhaps our disagreements are more local, hinging around questions of church governance, music, or forms of worship. Certainly in my forty plus years of church membership, I’ve witnessed more church arguments at this local level than great arguments over who’s in or out.
The truth is, with very little difficulty, we can name a hundred ways that we are separated one from another, and yet still call ourselves Christian. And we could throw up our hands in despair because we somehow seem to be failing at this directive of Jesus. Except, that “may they all be one” is not a directive. It is Jesus’ prayer on our behalf. It’s the thing that he is asking God to accomplish on our behalf, not something that we are entirely responsible for.
I don’t know about you, but I have found questions of unity to be particularly troubling in recent months within our own Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion. Will there be schism? Will there be separation? Will the US Church get booted out of the family?
This week in Virginia, I spent time with Kathy Grieb, one of my favourite professors at Virginia Theological Seminary. Kathy teaches Greek and New Testament at VTS, and she was part of the Covenant Design Team that met in January, attempting to craft a covenant that might keep all of us at the Anglican Table.
Several months later, Kathy spoke to the US House of Bishops, essentially blowing the whistle about how skewed the process was. In the end, while I think that Kathy finds some things useful about the idea of covenant, she was not at all wild about the way the chips seem to be falling in this particular process.
On Friday, a group of friends, including Kathy, gathered for coffee and dessert. Kathy talked with us for several hours about her views on the church and the implications for what might happen as we move forward. It was amazing to hear her lay out implications and to talk about her passion for mission.
I actually jettisoned the first draft of this sermon after that conversation, as I made the connection between what Kathy had to say about the church and mission and how these things might relate to Jesus’ prayer on our behalf that we all might be one.
Certainly there are those who would like to see us all one as Jesus and the Father are one in some sort of cookie cutter, uniform way. In this view, there is a single entity who describes what is orthodox (right belief) and orthopraxis (right behaviour/practice). And those of us who fail to conform to those beliefs and practices will be left behind.
In the history of the church, this sort of line drawing has happened repeatedly.
But there is another kind of one-ness that seems possible to me, one that is not based in either orthodoxy or orthopraxis.
This one-ness comes out of the teachings of Jesus. In these last weeks, as Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure from them, he reminded them that others would know them by their love for one another. And he said that they could recognize other lovers of God based on those who kept His word.
In this vein, I’d like to share a story that Kathy told us on Friday night.
She said that back in the early 1980s, there was a US cathedral that had a mission relationship with a diocese in the Pacific Islands. The Episcopal Church had begun ordaining women; the Pacific Island Anglicans thought that ordaining women was a terrible idea. What to do? What would become of that mission-connection? Would the connection be severed over disagreements in church practice?
Well, apparently representatives from the cathedral travelled to that diocese. Each party acknowledged the difference of opinion. They shook hands and then the two sides got down to work literally building a church and building relationships. Their unity of purpose, of spreading the gospel, of behaving as Jesus behaved seemed far more crucial to them than some sort of lock-step orthodoxy.
Today, we have that same opportunity. We may or may not all agree. But we have the opportunity to demonstrate our one-ness not by conformity to one side’s view of orthodoxy, but by our commitment to living out the gospel. This town, this county, this nation, and our world are all filled with people who are hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, addicted, oppressed and/or in need of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The gospel calls us to act for justice.
Scripture provides us with a variety of texts that can be interpreted in a host of ways, speaking to issues of morality and behaviour. It is unwavering in it’s directives that we are to act for justice.
We can show ourselves open to the unity that Jesus prayed for by caring less about whether we agree on the issues that threaten to divide us and caring a great deal more about the amazing work we can accomplish together coming out of acting for justice.
Rather than throwing up our hands in despair about the conservatism or liberalism of our perceived enemies, we can form partnerships with those with whom we disagree theologically, in order to act for justice.
Kathy told us on Friday night that she’s heard a number of liberal Americans say, “Well, they say they don’t approve of us, yet they are happy to take our money.” And she has heard African bishops say, “We won’t take money from sinners.” No one is served by this type of mentality, least of all, God.
I find little hope of us all being one, as Jesus and the Father are one if we think it can be accomplished based on finding some common ground of orthodoxy. I find great hope of our all being one, if we come together in a commitment to serving those in need and acting for justice.
AMEN.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus prays that all may be one. For weeks now, we’ve been hearing a conversation between him and his close followers, but today, the mood changes. Instead of a discourse or a dialogue, we are privileged to eavesdrop on Jesus’ prayer. He stops talking to the disciples, and begins talking to his Father.
And the first thing that he asks God to do in that prayer is to help all to be one, as he and his Father are one. He’s not just praying for his friends gathered at the table. Nor is he praying only for those followers who have been with him on his journey. He is praying for ALL to be one. Jesus asks God to make one his close friends and all those who will come to believe in him through their words and witness.
One of the amazing things about this prayer is that it ties together all of us who have come to believe in Jesus. When Jesus prays that all will be one in this way, it covers everyone from his early followers, throughout the ages and generations, to us today and beyond us to our children and grandchildren. When Jesus says ALL, he means ALL.
Much has been made, in recent years, of the various and sundry ways that Christians are divided. Are we progressives or fundamentalists? Are we Baptists? Methodists? Roman Catholics? Lutherans? Are we Anglicans or Episcopalians?
Does our worship represent primacy of scripture or of sacrament?
As some of you know, I was in Virginia this week. On the plane coming home, working on this very sermon, I met an Evangelical man who, when he heard that I was an Episcopalian, began to engage me in conversation. While he was gracious about it, his agenda was to make sure that I understood that his church interpreted scripture correctly and that ours seemed to miss the boat.
Perhaps our disagreements are more local, hinging around questions of church governance, music, or forms of worship. Certainly in my forty plus years of church membership, I’ve witnessed more church arguments at this local level than great arguments over who’s in or out.
The truth is, with very little difficulty, we can name a hundred ways that we are separated one from another, and yet still call ourselves Christian. And we could throw up our hands in despair because we somehow seem to be failing at this directive of Jesus. Except, that “may they all be one” is not a directive. It is Jesus’ prayer on our behalf. It’s the thing that he is asking God to accomplish on our behalf, not something that we are entirely responsible for.
I don’t know about you, but I have found questions of unity to be particularly troubling in recent months within our own Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion. Will there be schism? Will there be separation? Will the US Church get booted out of the family?
This week in Virginia, I spent time with Kathy Grieb, one of my favourite professors at Virginia Theological Seminary. Kathy teaches Greek and New Testament at VTS, and she was part of the Covenant Design Team that met in January, attempting to craft a covenant that might keep all of us at the Anglican Table.
Several months later, Kathy spoke to the US House of Bishops, essentially blowing the whistle about how skewed the process was. In the end, while I think that Kathy finds some things useful about the idea of covenant, she was not at all wild about the way the chips seem to be falling in this particular process.
On Friday, a group of friends, including Kathy, gathered for coffee and dessert. Kathy talked with us for several hours about her views on the church and the implications for what might happen as we move forward. It was amazing to hear her lay out implications and to talk about her passion for mission.
I actually jettisoned the first draft of this sermon after that conversation, as I made the connection between what Kathy had to say about the church and mission and how these things might relate to Jesus’ prayer on our behalf that we all might be one.
Certainly there are those who would like to see us all one as Jesus and the Father are one in some sort of cookie cutter, uniform way. In this view, there is a single entity who describes what is orthodox (right belief) and orthopraxis (right behaviour/practice). And those of us who fail to conform to those beliefs and practices will be left behind.
In the history of the church, this sort of line drawing has happened repeatedly.
But there is another kind of one-ness that seems possible to me, one that is not based in either orthodoxy or orthopraxis.
This one-ness comes out of the teachings of Jesus. In these last weeks, as Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure from them, he reminded them that others would know them by their love for one another. And he said that they could recognize other lovers of God based on those who kept His word.
In this vein, I’d like to share a story that Kathy told us on Friday night.
She said that back in the early 1980s, there was a US cathedral that had a mission relationship with a diocese in the Pacific Islands. The Episcopal Church had begun ordaining women; the Pacific Island Anglicans thought that ordaining women was a terrible idea. What to do? What would become of that mission-connection? Would the connection be severed over disagreements in church practice?
Well, apparently representatives from the cathedral travelled to that diocese. Each party acknowledged the difference of opinion. They shook hands and then the two sides got down to work literally building a church and building relationships. Their unity of purpose, of spreading the gospel, of behaving as Jesus behaved seemed far more crucial to them than some sort of lock-step orthodoxy.
Today, we have that same opportunity. We may or may not all agree. But we have the opportunity to demonstrate our one-ness not by conformity to one side’s view of orthodoxy, but by our commitment to living out the gospel. This town, this county, this nation, and our world are all filled with people who are hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, addicted, oppressed and/or in need of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The gospel calls us to act for justice.
Scripture provides us with a variety of texts that can be interpreted in a host of ways, speaking to issues of morality and behaviour. It is unwavering in it’s directives that we are to act for justice.
We can show ourselves open to the unity that Jesus prayed for by caring less about whether we agree on the issues that threaten to divide us and caring a great deal more about the amazing work we can accomplish together coming out of acting for justice.
Rather than throwing up our hands in despair about the conservatism or liberalism of our perceived enemies, we can form partnerships with those with whom we disagree theologically, in order to act for justice.
Kathy told us on Friday night that she’s heard a number of liberal Americans say, “Well, they say they don’t approve of us, yet they are happy to take our money.” And she has heard African bishops say, “We won’t take money from sinners.” No one is served by this type of mentality, least of all, God.
I find little hope of us all being one, as Jesus and the Father are one if we think it can be accomplished based on finding some common ground of orthodoxy. I find great hope of our all being one, if we come together in a commitment to serving those in need and acting for justice.
AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment