Lent V
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
We're in the home stretch! Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and the beginning of Holy Week.
Much of where we've been this Lent has had to do with questions of identity and authority - simply put, as we face this time of great change who do we understand ourselves to be as human beings and as people of faith, and who and what are the sources of authority for us.
Last week, you'll recall, I talked about one of the ways we can respond as Christians and particularly as Episcopal Christians. The word is "re-traditioning": "revisiting our own Anglican/Episcopal tradition going all the way back to the New Testament and recovering those things that have, down the centuries, given energy and life to our tradition."
And I gave one example, of intentional re-visiting of the contents of some of the Epistles, a revisiting which led us to consider what Paul said about the role of women.
Lastly, I suggested four gifts and challenges that we have and face as a denomination.
I asked you to think on those things, and said that this week I would share what I believe are some of the things - some of the things - we need to do as we face this different future.
The first thing has solely to do with us, and it isn't something that's new for us as Episcopalians - we have to take seriously what underpins St. Paul's vision of the Body of Christ and baptism, a recognition that we need to embrace our identity as those who have been given the gift of God's spirit.
As a result of his mystic experience on the Road to Damascus Paul came to believe in the radical equality of all human beings, where "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:28). And we could add categories to that list, couldn't we?! No black nor white. No gay nor straight. Only people; only human beings. That's the foundation on which Paul's rich metaphor for the community of the faithful as a body - the Body of Christ - comes from.
"For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us" (Rom. 12:4-7). "Not all the members have the same function...." Our roles within the body are different, not more nor less important. Different roles, different ministries, equal value, equal importance. All of us - every person.
Every baptized person. It is through baptism that we become members of the body, through baptism we are gifted with the Spirit, gifted with equal membership - me and you. Only our roles are different.
That, of course, means a lot of things: about how authority is shared and bestowed, how the involvement of all in worship is visibly represented by some, how the community of faith is knit together.
Most of all, Paul is saying in this metaphor of the body that we're all involved in some way: "As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you', nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'" (1 Cor. 12:20-21)
Fundamentally, Paul is saying, we all have some sort of ministry in the service of God, that the question isn't "do I have a ministry?" but "what ministry do I have?"
In the Body of Christ everyone works in some way, because everyone is a minister, everyone is a "steward...of God's mysteries." (1 Cor. 4:1b)
The future invites you to ask what your ministry is, and how you can fulfil that ministry for the building up of God's kingdom.
The second thing I believe we need is a "bring them in" spirit. It's all too easy assume that the only way the community of faith grows is by people coming to our castle. I just can't remember the last time someone to me "Gosh, I've been desperately waiting to be asked to come to your church!" In this new age no path is being beaten to our door.
How do we develop that spirit? Ask these sort of questions:
- What would it take for me to be excited enough to ask my friends come to church? Or even my relatives? Spouse? Children? Brothers and sisters?
- Conversely, ask yourself 'what (if anything!) Stops me from asking? What embarrasses me?
Another thing I think we need is a "beginning again spirit". In addition to the re-traditioning I talked about last week we need to renew not conserve our history. As perhaps the greatest scholar of the Gospel of St. John, Fr. Raymond E. Brown, S.J. said,
"While each generation must preserve the teaching that has been passed on, it must also add to this living tradition its own experience of Christ. No one can hear the gospel of Christ except through the events of one's own time, for the Holy Spirit is a living teacher who does not merely repeat a tradition of the past. Thus, it is good to beware of legalism and authoritarianism, always listening anew for the voice of Christ."
So the question here is this: wouldn't you rather be motivated by a surging creativity when it comes to facing the future, or by desperate necessity? Wouldn't it be better to proceed with a measured, thoughtful, careful, adaptive, agile response, rather than a head-buried-in-the-sand one?
And the last thing for today: I think we need a genuinely inclusive spirit. As I said last week, we have been trapped into being a bi-polar church, we have been sucked into the "Liberal vs. Conservative" war and lost our sense of the traditional Anglican "Via Media", the "Middle Way". We all hope that those with whom we share our faith will be transformed by it and thus will be able to transcend the struggles of our time between the extremes.
But the seductive siren's song of both the far left and the far right is the same: "my way or the highway" - come join us and be like us or leave."
This is not what Jesus lived - or died - for; it is the exact opposite. A priest I know - Vincent Donovan - put it like this:
"Don't merely try and bring others to where you are, as wonderful as that place may be. But don't leave them where they are, either. Instead, go with them to a place neither of you have ever been."
This is the journey of reconciliation that lies at the heart of our faith.
These are only some of the things that we will need as a Church to survive and to thrive. I think they're among the most important, but they're not exclusive. What they all point to is this: we are being invited to embark on a new voyage of discovery into the uncharted waters of God's bountiful future. We don't make this journey alone, we make it with each other. And we make it with the God who loves us enough to send his son to be our companion and our guide.
In the end, St. Paul says it best:
"If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?.....[For] who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?......No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31b-32, 35;37-39)
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