Abounding in Hope

Romans 15:1-13

Second Sunday after Pentecost/ 22^nd June 2014

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” (Romans 15:13).  

This was the text for the 221^st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) that convened this last week in Detroit, MI.  Ruling and teaching elder commissioners from 172 presbyteries, along with young adult advisory delegates, theological student advisory delegates, mission and ecumenical advisory delegates, gathered together in the Motor City to discern God’s will for the Presbyterian Church (USA).  And what a week it was. 

First, allow me to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to attend General Assembly as an observer.  As I shared with friends in Detroit and have said many times over the year, attending GA is the best place to see the Church at work. To walk around the exhibit hall and see all the ways this historic, influential denomination is having a profound impact upon the world, making a real difference in the lives of God’s people, working tirelessly for positive change, reformed and always being reformed—it’s inspiring to behold.

I’m a bit of a GA junkie.  This was my eleventh GA.  I was a young advisory delegate at the Biloxi Assembly (1987), where we voted to establish our national offices in Louisville.  I was a theological advisory delegate from Princeton Seminary at the Philadelphia Assembly (1989), when we celebrated our bicentennial.  I was a commissioner to the Charlotte Assembly (1998), and then, starting in 2001, in Louisville, I’ve attended every Assembly, but one (2008, San Jose). In two years we gather in Portland, Oregon.  In 2020, the Assembly will gather again in Baltimore.

The famous nineteenth century Presbyterian minister, Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), founder of modern revivalism and leader in the Second Great Awakening, which swept through Upstate New York from 1825-1835, once said, in 1835, there’s “a jubilee in hell every year, about the time of the meeting of the General Assembly.”[1] Some are saying the same thing today, given what this year’s Assembly adopted and recommended to the presbyteries. And, yet, maybe, just maybe, “hell” might be a little more nervous given the bold, courageous, prophetic decisions of this Assembly.

It’s easy to turn the General Assembly into a “they,” an objective entity, making decisions apart from the rest of the Church.  It’s also easy to demonize the actions of the Assembly, depending upon your perspective.  My friend Laura Cheifetz, who works for the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, shared a conversation she had with a Roman Catholic friend, a religious studies scholar, who said the PC(USA) is “shocking in the transparency of its governing structure and process. All open meetings, presence of advisory delegates from young people and other communions, and leadership shared equally between teaching and ruling elders (what other people might understand as pastors and church council leaders). Crazy!”

The GA is you and me, an equal number of ruling and teaching elders, elected by the 172 presbyteries—not to be our representatives, not to do our bidding (we’re not a representative democracy), but called to go and discern the voice of the Spirit, to listen and engage with fellow commissioners, to do difficult, necessary, important work, wrestling with the flesh and blood issues of our time.  Every commissioner to the GA works hard and returns home exhausted; this Assembly worked exceptionally hard trying to discern the will of God.

The same Spirit who rested upon Jesus when he said, quoting Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19), is the same Spirit resting on you and me, through the General Assembly, through the Church. This is our holy work. 
And because this Spirit is powerful and bold and good and loving and full of grace, we can abound with hope, we can venture forth into tomorrow, we can step out in confidence knowing that the Spirit leads the way.

It’s ludicrous to try to summarize the actions of the Assembly.  A summary of the Assembly’s actions is available here.

Dr. Heath Rada was elected moderator, a ruling elder from North Carolina.  He was formerly the president of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond and is well known throughout the denomination.   He did a great job moderating the Assembly this week and keeping it on task. 

Two momentous, even historic decisions were made this week. One was on Thursday afternoon and the other on Friday evening. 

On Thursday, the Presbyterian Church (USA) became the largest Protestant denomination supporting same-gender marriage.  As of noon on Saturday (at the close of the GA), ministers are free to officiate at same-gender weddings in places where they’re legal and sessions are free to offer the use of their sanctuary for these services.  Ministers and sessions are free to do this—if they so wish.  It’s not mandatory.  Ministers and sessions can choose not to bless these marriages.  The Assembly took this action through what is called an Authoritative Interpretation (AI), which does not require approval or ratification from our presbyteries. 

This might sound like a bold step, and it is, but it was actually proposed to alleviate the tension and pressure (now) formerly faced by ministers serving places where same-gender marriage is legal, as in Maryland.  Many ministers (including your own) have been caught in a crisis of conscience, wanting to fulfill their pastoral responsibility to care for church members, but worried that doing so would lead to ecclesial charges filed against them.  Some have refused to officiate at same-gender weddings. Some have violated our Constitution as an act of conscience, as an act of pastoral commitment to their gay and lesbian members. And have been brought up on charges for doing so.  Thankfully, those days are now over. The Assembly approved this action (61%).

The Assembly also approved a change in the wording of our Directory for Worship, which is part of the Constitution, changing the description of marriage from “man and woman” to “two people, traditionally man and woman.” The Assembly approved this by 71%.  Now it goes to presbyteries for a vote. If it receives a simple majority, the Directory will then be changed.

This was the first time the Assembly took decisive action on this issue. The two previous Assemblies effectively rejected any change in the Directory for Worship and would not consider an AI.  Many expected, at a minimum, that an AI would pass this Assembly, with some doubt about the change to the definition of marriage getting passed.  Many were surprised by the final outcome.

The world took note: CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC News.  Other denominations are also watching us. Not everyone is happy about this decision.  More churches will leave the denomination, members will leave or probably drift away—and that will be deeply sad and unfortunate.  It needs to be said that there are plenty of Presbyterians (ministers, members, and churches) wounded by the denomination’s formerly exclusionary positions for the last forty years who didn’t leave (including me). Some did, but most stayed. 

It is important to note, however, that on Friday the two largest conservative affinity groups, Presbyterians for Renewal and the Fellowship of Presbyterians released a very gracious pastoral letter that is worthy of our attention.  While grieving the actions of the Assembly, it reads, “We are not here to fight and divide, but to continue to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to testify to the transforming power of his love that is available to everyone. We urge you in the strongest possible way to refrain from actions, attitudes, and language that would mar the image of Christ in your response to the Assembly’s actions. Let us commit to one another, and to Almighty God, that we will seek to embody the grace and love of our Savior across our theological differences, and in personal and congregational deliberations about our future in the PC (USA).” (I invite you to read the entire letter here.)

The other major issue—that actually officials in both Washington and Jerusalem were paying close attention to—was whether or not the Presbyterian Church (USA) would divest its holdings from three companies doing business in Israel: Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions (worth approximately $21 million dollars).  This debate was intense. The Jewish lobby, both for and against divestment, was strong.  Two years ago the Assembly rejected divestment by three votes.  On Friday, by a seven-vote margin, the Assembly voted to divest in these three companies.  This decision made the cover of The NewYork Times on Saturday and was covered in the Israeli press. The reactions have been swift and harsh and even nasty.  Not surprisingly, the Presbyterian Church has been labeled anti-Semitic and condemned as a hate group.[2]  We are now the largest Protestant denomination to take such actions.  Once again, other denominations are taking note of what we have done.

It is extremely important to understand what the Assembly did and didn’t do. The PC(USA) is not divesting from Israel, but from three corporations with which the Church has tried to engage constructively for ten years, specifically around how they profit from Israel's occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. The PC(USA) is not anti-Israel. The PC(USA) is not associated with the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement, despite what you might hear or read in the press. The PC(USA) affirms Israel’s right to exist.  The PC(USA) supports a two-state solution.  The PC (USA) calls for travel to the Holy Land and for increased inter-religious dialogue.  The PC(USA) encourages “positive investment” in Israel, for both Israelis and Palestinians. We chose not to continue to profit from violence and destruction. It’s important to know this because the media’s coverage of church decisions is often inaccurate, misleading and just wrong. The moderator was interviewed on CNN early Sunday morning.  This is a nuanced decision—Presbyterians are nuanced people and nuance is often a challenge for many, including the media.[3]

The PC(USA) made international headlines twice this week.  What the world didn’t hear about, but what you need to know, is that there were many other GA actions that give witness to the Spirit’s work among us and give us hope:  The GA resoundingly affirmed that gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States that is not being adequately addressed. Did you know that 30,000 people a year are killed by guns in the United States?  The Assembly proposed a list of seven actions, including encouraging churches to declare themselves gun-free zones.  The Assembly approved a report “Tax Justice: A Christian Response to a New Gilded Age,” offering recommendations seeking a fairer tax system in the United States.

For me, among the most moving moments of the week (and there were many) centered around the Belhar Confession from South Africa. I spent most of my time this week observing the Theological Issues and Institutions Committee as it discussed Belhar.  What is Belhar?  It’s a confession from the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa that addresses the sin of racism in the church and calls for reconciliation, justice, and healing. "We believe...that the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands," Belhar attests, "namely against injustice and with the wronged." 

The Assembly recommended (86%) to the presbyteries that Belhar be included in our Book of Confessions, thus making it part of the Constitution of the PC(USA).  We studied this document several years here at CPC.  It’s a profound confession that calls us to confess the sin of racism within the church.  If approved, this will be the first confession from the global south to be included in the Book of Confessions and the first addition in thirty years.  The testimony in the committee was convicting, which included hearing from members of the Uniting Reformed Church who were involved in its composition—written in one sitting, one evening, as if inspired by the Holy Spirit. 

It was asked, why is Belhar needed since the Confession of 1967 already  speaks about racism?  C67 has just one paragraph about racism and refers to it as something occurring “out there” in society, as the civil rights movement swept through the county. Belhar turns the focus inward to the church, it holds up a mirror so that we can see our sin. Without confessing our sin, without acknowledging our racist selves—and, at some level we’re all racists, whatever our race may be—that broken, wounded of part ourselves will continue to wreck havoc upon the church—Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in American society—and upon the world.  I heard one white minister, who was raised in South Africa, under Apartheid, who now serves in the United States, describe himself as a “recovering racist.”  Every day he has to choose to reclaim the full humanity of his neighbor, whoever he or she might be, and in doing so, one day at a time, reclaims his own humanity.  Belhar is a gift to the church and to the world.

We also celebrated the formation of 248 new worshiping communities in the PC (USA), not conventional churches, but new communities gathering for worship and service, fellowship and mission. Our goal is to organize 1001 worshipping communities.  To celebrate, the commissioners tossed 248 large, red balloons to one another around the the plenary hall, all to the sound of Pharrell Williams’ pop song, “Because I’m Happy.”  There’s much to be happy about.

Some folks will leave the Church; others will come because of what we did this week. One commissioner shared this comment from a Detroit lunch waitress who said: “I heard you all are making some really good decisions.  I'll be visiting one of your churches.”

I agree with Carol Howard Merritt, a Presbyterian minister and author, who wrote, reflecting on the actions of the GA, “God is love and we live by the rule of love.  …We have watched lives destroyed because people thought that they had to choose between God or claiming their sexual identity. In all of this, we want to listen to the words of Jesus who commands us to ‘love one another.’ ‘They will know we are Christians by our love.’ God is love. When we make decisions of this magnitude,” she says, “love is our rule.”

For this reason, I am hopeful.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) might be small and getting smaller—and after this week’s Assembly we’ll be smaller still.  Our voice and influence as a denomination might not be as strong and large as it once was when the Protestant Establishment was, in many ways, the American Establishment.  But we still have something valuable to offer the world.

I was struck by this observation from Niraj Wakiroo, staff writer for the Detroit Free Press who covers religion and immigration.  Observing the Assembly all week, writing from “outside” and looking in at us (as a Muslim, I believe), Wakiroo said, “Watching the Presbyterian Assembly you can see why Protestant-rooted civilizations have been so successful. You see the Protestant sense of time, order, democratic openness, rule of law, and an unending drive to improve themselves and the world.”[4] He gets us.

The Protestant spirit of reform continues. Our disestablishment from the halls of civil power just might mean the emancipation of the Church of Jesus Christ to really be the Church. Freed from other encumbrances allows us to preach the Gospel, to take some risks for the sake of Christ, make some people uncomfortable with the truth, yet always speaking that truth in love to the powers that be, powers that hinder the advancement of God’s Kingdom vision of justice and peace and love and grace and hope.  This is why we can abound with hope. 

God is doing something new with and through the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the world is taking note.  We are all witnesses.  We’re blessed to be alive to see it. 

The days ahead will be difficult for us.  But whoever said following Jesus was supposed to be easy?  Of course it’s difficult—damn difficult.  That’s what makes the Christian life so interesting and meaningful and wonderful. 

So, “May the God of hope fill you—and me, the Presbyterian Church (USA), all of us, the church catholic—with all joy and peace in believing, so that you—so that we—may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” (Romans 15:13).  Amen.

For further reading:

www.pres-outlook.org.

Two pieces by colleague and friend MaryAnn McKibben Dana: 
What Affirming Same-Sex Marriage Means for the Presbyterian Church & Controversy is Based Right In: On Marriage, the Middle East, and the Presbyterian Church.

A Jewish response to the GA’s actions:
On the Presbyterian Conversation on Divestment 

Perspectives on Presbyterian Divestment

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[1]Cited in Bradley J. Longfield, Presbyterians and American Culture: A History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 78. 

[2]On Sunday, June 22, on Meet the Press, Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the Presbyterian decision as “disgraceful” and “unchristian.”

[3] For further information see this FAQ on divestment.

[4] Niraj Wakiroo posting on Twitter, @nwakiroo, June 19, 2014.

Life-Giver

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost, 8^th June 2014

I often wonder why Pentecost doesn’t have the same fascination, the same amount of celebration as Christmas and Easter.  We’ve all heard of C & E Christians—Christmas and Easter Christians—you might even know one or two.  But have you ever met a C, E, & P Christian?  I don’t think so. We don’t have to set up extra chairs in the sanctuary on Pentecost, as we did on Easter this year.  We don’t have packed pews this morning as we had on Christmas Eve.  No brass quartets.  No Pentecost carols.  No one has ever complained to me that we didn’t sing enough Pentecost hymns leading up to today—not that there are that many to choose from.  No Pentecost bonnets or candy for the day. There are no Hallmark cards to mark the occasion.  So, where are you going for Pentecost brunch after worship today?

            Given the theological weight of Christmas—Annunciations, Incarnation, “God with us,” and the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”—and the profundity of Easter—death and resurrection, empty tombs, garden encounters with the Risen Christ—it’s tough to compete with these two events.  Not that it’s a competition, of course.  But Pentecost has never measured up against these two days.  All that I remember about Pentecost as a child is that it was the day we had a delicious, buttercream sheet cake during fellowship hour that read “Happy Birthday” to the Church. That was my earliest association with the day.  But it didn’t measure up against Christmas and Easter.  Pentecost is the day we celebrate the birth of the church.  That is the way Luke describes it here in Acts 2. The formation of the church is worth celebrating, of course, but Pentecost has never really obtained “big-religious-holiday” status. 

            Perhaps this is because Pentecost has to do with arrival of the Holy Spirit, and the Church has never known what to “do” with the Holy Spirit.  She’s often cast aside as the orphan of the Trinity, the “third-wheel.”  The early Church theologians insisted that the Holy Spirit is one of the “persons” of the Trinity, equal to the other two, sharing the same essence.  Yet, many Christians who claim to believe in the Trinity are really Binatarians, who worship God and Jesus and ignore the active, dynamic presence of the Spirit.

            This brings me back to my quandary about Pentecost.  At times I think we should elevate Pentecost above Christmas and Easter—a little loopy, I know, maybe even heretical, but hear me out. 

             By Pentecost I mean not the formation of the Church, but the unleashing of the Holy Spirit upon the world.  Now, whether the Holy Spirit arrived in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension, as we have here in Acts 2, or, whether she arrived on Easter when Jesus breathed his Resurrection Spirit into the disciples, as we read in John 20, is the beside the point.  They both point to the fact that something happened, that the presence, power, and purpose of the Holy Spirit was given to disciples to equip and empower and direct them for Christ’s ongoing work in the world.  The Spirit was unleashed upon the world, blowing as a gentle breeze to comfort fearful disciples, assuring them of Christ’s ongoing presence, or, raging as a forceful, violent tempest to challenge, disturb, and ultimately thrust disciples beyond the confines of an upper room, locked away by fear, sent out beyond Jerusalem to a world waiting to hear the gospel, sent out to introduce the world to the presence of the Risen Christ.

         You see, the Holy Spirit makes Christ present to us. 

The Holy Spirit presents us with the very life of Christ. 

The Spirit is the life-giver, the giver of resurrection,

who brings new life to the dead parts of our lives,

and, ultimately brings us into the

presence of the Resurrected One at the end of our days.

The Holy Spirit is the fons vitae, as John Calvin (1509-1564) liked to say,

the fountain of life,

The Spirit makes Christ real.

The Spirit makes the gospel real.

The Spirit gives us faith.

The Spirit allows us to confess our faith.

The Spirit conveys the love of God.

The Holy Spirit whispers to the depths of our spirits

and reminds us again and again that we are beloved children of grace,

children of the covenant, bound to God. 

The Spirit extends Christ to us so that we know that “God is with us.” 

The Spirit comforts and assures us, gives us strength when we are weak,

calms our nerves when we’re afraid and anxious.

The Spirit is an agent provocateur who pokes and prods and pushes us

to grow and to grow up into the image of God in Christ.

The Spirit is continually working within the depths of the psyche

in order to yield life for us,

true life,

abundant life,

hopeful life,

meaningful life,

God-praising, Christ-serving, sacrificial life,

a life that is even willing to suffer for the sake of God’s love. 

The Spirit, as Paul knew, plumbs the depths of our spirits and prays for us,

prays with us, even when we don’t have the words to pray (Rom. 8:25).

The Spirit groans with us—groans!—groans for us, as Paul says,

with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

            You see, the Spirit translates for us—we who were untimely born, living more than twenty centuries after Jesus—the meaning, the power, the presence of his life, death, and resurrection.  For without the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are merely events that occurred a long time ago, historical “facts,” something we “believe” occurred in the past that we remember or commemorate. Jesus and his message then become distant, instead of something, someone close to us, that we experience here and now.

            Kevin Kling, playwright and storyteller, recently said at the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis, “There was a time when the Bible has a skin cover and floated on the breath of spoken words.”  He’s right.  There was a time when we didn’t need the Bible, as heretical as this might sound, because the Spirit was alive within Christ’s followers, in their experience.

            The Lutheran theologian Regin Prenter (1907-1990) made this clear in his classic work Spiritus Creator. He said, “…the Spirit is the real, divine sphere in which Christ comes out of the remoteness of history and the realm of pure ideas and becomes living, present reality—becomes experience.”[1] The Holy Spirit gives us an actual experience of Christ.

 

            Long before Prenter it was John Calvin (1509-1564) who spoke eloquently and provocatively about the person and work of the Spirit. “Till our minds are fixed on the Spirit,” Calvin said, “Christ remains of no value to us; because we look at [Christ] as an object of cold speculation without us, [that is, outside us], and therefore at a great distance from us.”  Without the Spirit, Calvin insists, Christ is far removed from us, buried in a remote past, someone we view remotely, objectively, cold, a “fact” of history to be studied and learned about, instead of a Christ encountered, a present reality, Christ known, Christ with us and for us and within us. Calvin insists, “It is only by his Spirit that he unites himself with us; and by the grace and power of the same Spirit we are made his members,” so that “we may mutually enjoy him.”[2]

            And because we are in relationship with the Risen Christ, through the Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ extends resurrection to us. The Holy Spirit raises us up from our own personal tombs of death and decay, all the places we are dead or stuck. 

The Holy Spirit is power, fire, energy, vital and vitalizing. 

The Holy Spirit is dynamic, moving, swift and invisible,

like the wind, a wind—sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce—

trying  

to bring us to life,

to animate our souls,

to move our feet forward,

to get us to stretch out our hands in service, mission, and witness,

to cause our hearts to beat faster with joy. 

It’s only when the Holy Spirit is giving life to us that we can say the Spirit is bringing life to the Church. A Church that God is trying to take some place, moving us along, empowering us and inspiring us to be the people of God.

            It’s been said that the Church is dying.  Perhaps it is.  Some say Christianity is dying.  Perhaps it is.  Its message doesn’t seem to connect with folks the way it used to.  The way the Church perceives itself is definitely changing.  Christianity is changing.  Change is inevitable, it’s natural.  We can resist the change—which the Church loves to do.  Or, maybe—just maybe—the change we’re experiencing is actually a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in us, reforming us.  That’s what I think, primarily because I trust in the movement of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t want to take us back to the past, but to propel us forward into God’s future. 

            I was reminded of this recently.  Over the past six months the driver side mirror on my Jetta was knocked off, ripped right off.  Not once, not twice, but three times. The first time occurred in December, in front of my house; it was clipped by a snow plow that drove too close and smashed the mirror. The second time occurred right here in front of the Church House on Beechwood Avenue.  Hit and run.  This time the fender was dented, the mirror shattered.  And the third time occurred two weeks later, also on Beechwood Avenue, same location.  This time the person left a note.  I don’t park there anymore.  Was there a message in all of this for me?  It’s easy to go crazy trying to read meaning into events, but perhaps all of these incidents were trying to say to me: stop looking back.  Look ahead.  Drive forward. The Spirit propels us forward, into tomorrow, into the future.          

           

            The Spirit wants to move us.  That’s why it’s important to remember that God is a verb and not a noun; this distinction makes a considerable difference in our lives.  A verb implies movement, action. A noun is an object. It doesn’t move.  The God revealed to us on Sinai is a verb.  God said to Moses, my name is: I AM. Yahweh.  I am who I am; I will be who I will be (Exodus 3:14). Being itself. Jesus Christ and the Spirit share the same dynamic life of God and offer that life to us.  Yet it’s so easy to see them as nouns, instead of verbs. Jesus, Yeshua, means “Yahweh saves,” and the Spirit, pneuma in Greek, means “breath” and “wind.”  They both imply movement. 

My friend, James Hollis, a Jungian analyst, suggests that we would be better served by transforming some of our nouns to verbs.  It might make for “inelegant English,” but we would be better off.  We need to think of the human self, for example, not as a noun, but as a verb: a self selfing. Our stories are storying us.  Nature is naturing, it’s not static.  Hollis says, “Our ego, in service to understanding and the need for control converts the elemental processes in life into nouns.  We foolishly convert even ‘the gods’ into nouns, into objects ‘up there,’ looking down, rather than metaphors” for something at work in us and through us.[3]  When we turn verbs into nouns we fixate them, stop their movement or development or change or transformation, we grab hold of them and control them.  We do the same with our images of God; we’re often guilty of turning a verb into a noun, into a static idol. “We turn the mystery into nouns and make them objects.”[4] 

Perhaps, this, too, is why the Church has been reluctant to embrace the work of the Spirit, because the Spirit is pure verb: movement, action, blowing wherever she will, beyond our control—and that scares us. And it should!  But fear not!

            What if we faced that fear and let ourselves go?  What if we opened the sails of our spirits and allowed the Holy Spirit to blow through our lives in new ways, moving us forward, carrying us wherever we need to go? What would happen to us? What would happen to the Church? I don’t know for sure. But what I do know is that it will take the form of Christ: his grace, his joy, his goodness, his suffering-love, taking on flesh in our lives in tangible, life-changing, transforming ways.  It will be a church—a people—alive and always coming alive!  Come, Holy Spirit! Come!

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[1]Regin Prenter, Spiritus Creator, trans. John M. Jensen (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000 [1946]), 198-199.

[2]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), II.i.3.

[3]James Hollis, Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run OurLives (Ashville, NC: Chiron Publications, 2013), 1-2, 30.  Hollis is making a psychological point here, not a theological one, but it’s equally relevant.

[4]James Hollis in a talk given to the Jung Society of Washington, Embassy of Switzerland, Washington, DC, 7^th June 2014.

That They May Be One

John 17: 1-11

Seventh Sunday of Easter/ 1^st June 2014

Sacrament of the Lord's Supper

The seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer. In the hearing or reading of this text ,we become voyeurs, looking in, listening in on the poignant intimacy of Jesus at prayer. He’s in Jerusalem. He knows what’s coming.  He knows that before the sun rises the next day he would be betrayed and then arrested.  It’s just the two of them in conversation, Jesus and the God he calls Father, and yet what’s overheard is intended for his disciples’ ears—and ours.

            With no anxiety or fear, but confident of God’s faithfulness to him, Jesus prays with assurance; lacking nothing, he prays with gratitude.  Jesus prays for himself, then he prays for his disciples who will soon be left behind, and then he prays for others who will come to believe through the witness of his disciples.  So, in effect, Jesus is praying for the Church, which means that Jesus here is praying for us. This is Jesus’ prayer for you and for me. 

            What is Jesus praying?  What does he desire for them, for us?  Jesus wants them, he want us to know God the way he knows God.  In fact, Jesus tells us that this is what eternal life looks like.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).  Eternal life is not so much a place as it is a relationship.  It’s a way of living—life touched by eternity, life that becomes divine and holy and beautiful when one knows God, the God who sent Jesus Christ, the God known in the face of Jesus Christ.  “I glorified you on earth,” Jesus prays, “by finishing the work that you gave me to do. …I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world” (John 17:4, 6).  Everything God sent the Son to say to his disciples has been said and they trusted and believed.

            Then, on their behalf—that is, as a priest, a mediator—on behalf of these disciples and all the others who will come to trust and believe in Jesus because of their witness, Jesus prays that they be one, just as Jesus and God are one. Four times in this prayer Jesus asks for unity.  Jesus wants his disciples to be one, to be united, together.  Why?  Unity reflects the nature of God.  Unity reflects the nature of Jesus’ relationship with God.  Jesus is in God; God is in Jesus. Those who are in Jesus are in God because Jesus is in God.  One.  One-ness.  Union.  Unity.  Not uniformity, but unity, a unity that reflects the Triune God who is diversity in unity.  As Desmond Tutu reminds us, “For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.”  Jesus’ relationship with God, therefore, becomes the model for our relationship with one another in the Church.  

            “That they may be one.”  This is Jesus’ petition in 17:11, first for his disciples and then he repeats it again for the Church, for you and for me: “I ask not only on behalf of these [disciples], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one” (John 17:20-21).  That all followers of Jesus may be one.  Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them,” meaning, us, “so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one”—why?—“so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22-23).  Unity is a sign of Christ’s love.  Unity is for the sake of the Church, but it is also for the sake of the world, for those beyond the walls of the Church.  When we love one another—really love one another—and know God’s love for us and the love that binds us together, when the world sees how we live in community with one another, then the world, on the outside looking in at us, will come to know of God’s love for them, for those beyond the community of the faithful.

            That’s Jesus’ prayer.  That’s Jesus’ hope for the Church. 

So, what happened?  This certainly isn’t a description of the Church that I know. Is this an example of unanswered prayer?  Or is it a prayer waiting to be answered?

            Christian unity is supposed to be a sign of God’s love for the world because it presumes God’s love is at work in us.  When the world beyond the Church looks at us these days, the first thing that comes to mind is not, “see how much they love one another.”  That’s how the early Roman Christian, Tertullian (160-220), described the Church, “See how much they love one another.” 

Today, the Church, as a whole, is divided both theologically and culturally. Just look at the history of Christianity and the story of the Church. 

The Roman Catholic Church split east and west in 1054 and is still apart today. Although, Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I announced last week in Jerusalem, after praying together, that the first ecumenical synod in 1700 centuries will take place in Nicea in 2025.

Or, look at the history of the Reformed Church.  Try sorting out our family tree from the sixteenth-century all the way down to the present, following all of the schisms and divisions within our tradition. You’ll end up with a headache.

There was a time in the 1960s when ecumenism was all the rage, when it was in the air, when there was a concerted effort to come together.  After the devastation of the Second World War, the World Council of Churches was formed in 1948 to work for unity. The Roman Catholic Church, though, never joined the WCC, but they do send observers to WCC meetings.

Protestants and Roman Catholics are still divided, of course, although there is greater respect and mutual understanding today, perhaps more than ever.  The Roman Catholic Church now acknowledges the authenticity of Reformed baptisms. I’ve heard Francis described as the Protestant Pope. 

Yet, the Protestant world is legion with new denominations and sects forming every year, usually splitting over divergent interpretations of scripture. A Roman Catholic said to me years ago, you Protestants stressed the importance of reading the Bible in one’s own language and look what happened, the dissection of Christ’s body, a sect for every new interpretation of the Bible.

Several years ago, the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and the PC(USA), along with the United Church of Christ (UCC), agreed upon a shared understanding of the Lord’s Supper that now allows us to share ministers—that only took about 500 years.  And we have a way to go.  Presbyterians still don’t have a common understanding of the Lord’s Supper with the Methodists or the Episcopalians. 

            And as the PC (USA) prepares to gather in General Assembly in Detroit on the 13^th June, there are rumors—again—of schism, directly related to the interpretation of scripture.  How will the Assembly respond to the question of same-sex marriage?  Will the Assembly allow ministers to perform a marriage service for same-gender couples, as their conscience dictates?  Will the Assembly go even farther and recommend changing the definition of marriage?[1]  For some Presbyterians this will be a line that cannot be crossed; if we do amend the definition, they’re leaving the denomination. The fear and anxiety are building, just like two years ago.  Will there be a schism? The last schism in the American Presbyterian Church occurred over the question of slavery, which was also a fight over how to interpret scripture.  (We split in 1857 and were reunited in 1983.)

            Schism is a serious word and should be used with extreme care.  St. Augustine (354-430) said, “There is nothing more serious than the sacrilege of schism because there is no just cause for severing the unity of the church.”  Schism, Christian disunity, is a scathing indictment of the gospel.  We’re called to unity, not uniformity—unity.  Yet, so many choose uniformity over unity—causing many to suffer because of it. 

            The nineteenth century, English art critic, John Ruskin (1819-1900), who had an enormous influence during his lifetime, was on to something profound and timely for us when he said, “The root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian Church has suffered, has been because of the effort of men to earn, rather than receive their salvation; and the reason preaching is so commonly ineffective is, that it often calls on people to work for God rather than letting God work through them.” 

            Schism, heresy, disunity, division occur when women and men stand in the way of what God has done and is doing in their lives, when they become too self-absorbed and self-centered; when our nervous, worried, fearful egos try to take charge and thus get in the way of what God has done and is doing in our lives; egos that are themselves divided, alienated, separated from the One who grants life; egos that are themselves schismatic, that is, cut-off from God, disconnected from the One who makes us one.

            It’s been calamitous for the Church that the Table, given by the Lord as a symbol of our unity, has become, itself, an expression of just how divided we are as Christians—why can’t the family of God agree to come around this Table, have a meal together, break bread, share some wine, and tell the story of God’s love and presence in Christ. Why is this so difficult?

            And yet, when we come with all of our differences—north and south and east and west, male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white, young and old, conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat, Orioles and Yankees fans—when we come to this Table because of the One who has called us here, united in our trust in him, the One who offers us bread and wine, who in remembrance and presence offers himself, when we receive what Christ offers us, when we allow ourselves to be served—as we often do in the Reformed Church, when an elder serves us the bread and wine—when we surrender to God and allow ourselves to be used by the Spirit, something happens. Something always happens:

we become one with Christ

and Christ becomes one with us;

we become one with God,
           and God becomes one with us,

which means, then, that we, too, become–

one.

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[1] For an overview of the proposals before this year’s General Assembly, see.