s031g11
Seventh Sunday of Easter
5/6/2011
'protect
them in your name .. that they may be one' John
17.11
Sadly, the
name of God and the name of Jesus have been a source not
of unity but of division, down through the centuries.
In the past 65 years or so some parts of the church
have tried to recover that unity.
In 1947 in South India the Anglican, Methodist, Congregational,
Presbyterian, and Reformed joined to become the Church of South India. http://www.csisynod.com/history.php. In 1957 in the United States, the
United Church of Christ was formed from the Evangelical, Reformed and
the
Congregational Christian Churches, themselves the result of earlier
unions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Church_of_Christ. In 1977 in Australia, the Uniting
Church was a union of congregations of the Methodist Church of
Australasia, the
Presbyterian Church of Australia and the Congregational Union of
Australia
under the Basis of Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniting_Church_in_Australia. I guess there are quite a few
other examples of which I am unaware.
And while
these are quite astonishing achievements, I begin to
wonder who the 'they' are, those to whom Jesus referred to in my text
for
today. The ecumenical
enterprise sees 'they' as referring to Christians of other flavours,
whereas I
suspect that the 'they' that Jesus refers to are the Christians and the
orphans
and widows, those who have lost their heavenly parent, their heavenly
spouse –
those who are not 'christians'.
We have
been reflecting on recent Sundays on the Good Shepherd, the
one who seeks out the lost soul and brings it back to the flock. As I have reasoned, the lost soul is
not the one who has strayed from the church, but the lost soul is the
church
that has strayed from the world – like the devout of Jesus' day who had
separated themselves from those with whom Jesus associated – the tax
collectors, prostitutes and sinners. So
Jesus did not just pray for the unity of the devout
and the sinner, his whole ministry was about seeking that unity. Jesus' ministry was about
communion, the communion including both saints and sinners, the
communion of
the two who went up to the Temple to pray, the Pharisee and the
publican, the
communion of Simon the leper and Simon the Pharisee as well as the
woman who
anointed Jesus' feet with her tears in the house of Simon the Pharisee. (Luke 7.36-50).
I work in
a hospital which has, like much of Christchurch,
distinctively Anglican roots.
But most of the actual funding for the hospital comes from
government
sources and secular health insurance. Existing,
as we do in the hospital, largely funded by
secular sources, we are obliged to act in the same compassionate way
towards
Anglicans, people of other denominations, people of other faiths and
people of
no faith whatsoever. In fact
this has always been at the heart of the ethos of this hospital, for it
would
not have been founded had it been anything other than this. I have made the comment before that it
is startling that it is the secular society which demands that we, the
church,
fulfil Jesus' prayer for unity.
In
Christchurch, the Anglican Cathedral has stood for years in the
very centre of the city. It
has been the heart of the city, thousands have streamed through it
every day,
tourists as well as city dwellers seeking a place of refreshment in the
midst
of a hectic world. It has
always been a place for all people, with symbols of Maori culture as
well as
Jewish and other faiths. But
the devastation of the earthquake on February the 22nd has
caused
lots of people in the community to question what we should rebuild and
whether
it is appropriate for public money to be used for a denominational icon
of the
city. The questioners are
not averse to spending public money, but they reason that it should be
for a
place for all people. The Roman
Catholic Basilica of the Blessed Sacrament has also been extensively
damaged as
well. But this really calls
into question who we are.
And again it is interesting that the call for unity comes from
secular
sources – as well as some Anglican and Christian ones.
And these
are hard questions, because the Cathedral, both Anglican
and Catholic, are the seat of the bishop and symbols of his (and in the
Anglican case – her) authority.
For all the Catholics informally recognise the spiritual
authority of
the Anglican bishop, it is a big ask for this to happen formally – and
vice versa.
The
Anglican Communion is widely discussing a covenant which will
define who is Anglican and who isn’t. It
is particularly inconvenient to this debate to have
the secular world calling us to acknowledge and affirm people on a much
wider
basis than this, and to suggest that they will not financially
contribute to a
return to what was before.
This also serves to indicate how removed we in the church are
from the
thinking of those we serve in the world. For
many people in the world, the angst over issues of
human sexuality are irrelevant.
And it is
a big ask on another level. One
knows who to approach when one wants to deal with
Anglicans and Catholics, for we have a hierarchical structure. It is not that the person at the
top will always faithfully reflect the opinions of everyone
‘underneath’, but
other denominations and faiths do not have this structure.
To have a non-denominational
service, such as the memorial service on the 17th of March
meant
that if the Anglicans hadn’t take the lead, they would still be
debating over
the form of the service even now!
Of course the Anglicans did a wonderful job including others for
that
service. But this also shows
us how we as Anglicans in Christchurch are looked to, to take a lead.
This is
extremely scary stuff, and scary because significant numbers
of Anglicans and Christians still believe that their Anglican and
Christian
identity determines the love that God has for us.
For all their vociferousness I would contend that the
dearth of people attending worship is actually because good people of
faith
have moved beyond a ‘god’ who rewards devotion, let alone devotion of a
particular kind. These days people
have learned the lesson of the gospels, they know of a God who loves
unconditionally and recognise that the church has as much trouble
faithfully
reflecting this God as individuals do.
God does
not love us because of our devotion or orthodoxy.
If God only loved those who loved
the divine in return; that would make God into someone no better than a
tax-collector who instinctively does the same. (Mat 5:46)
With
Anglican and Catholic circles the bishop is the focus of
unity. A recent article in
‘Church Times’ begins: ‘A checklist has been drawn up that
makes it virtually impossible for an
openly gay person to become a bishop in the Church of England.’ It continues: ‘The advice, from
the Church House Legal Office, warns that the body that nominates to
diocesan
sees, the Crown Nominations Commission, is bound by the Equality Act:
“It is
not open to them to take into account the mere fact that someone is gay
by
sexual orientation.” It is
also generally unlawful, it says, “to discriminate on grounds of
religion and
belief”. Nevertheless,
exemptions written into the Act accept that the C of E “does not draw
the same
distinction as most secular employers between a person’s work life and
his or
her private life”. The key
factor is the requirement of a bishop to act as a focus of unity.’ http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=113056
So the
question of who Jesus means when he prays that ‘they’ may be one
becomes
important. If it is simply
that members of the church agree, then we might as well give up now. That option is a forlorn hope as
centuries of history show.
Similarly it is a forlorn hope that the denominations might come
together. I would contend that it is
only
when we seek the unity of all, the sacred and the secular, that we are
doing
what Jesus tried to do, and therefore likely to be blessed. It is only when the church is
outward looking in the sense of wishing to include all, that internal
differences of opinion are recognized for the unimportance they
actually
have.
The
church for which Jesus died and was raised to life is not my little
fiefdom! It is meant to be
catholic in the sense that it is called to embrace all, and both of
these words
are important. We are to embrace
others without hesitation, without discrimination and without
expectation, not
challenge, marginalize and alienate others and we are not to embrace
some but
not others. I suggest that
anything less is to trivialize God and the sacrifice of the Cross.