That We All May Be One

“As you prepare to march, ” Dr. Martin Luther King once wrote, “meditate on the life and teaching of Jesus.” This was the title of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon as he kicked off the national conference on race at this year’s Trinity Institute in New York last night.

This annual meeting was once known as a kind of national “clergy conference” for The Episcopal Church, held at the historic Trinity Church, Wall Street. For years now, it has morphed into a nation-wide gathering with streaming down-links in Episcopal churches all across the country.

The 2016 theme is “Listen…For a Change” and is bringing together as speakers… writers, professors, activists and clergy to challenge the church to go even deeper in addressing the sin of racism, this nation’s “original sin.” Topics will include:

What is Race, Anyway?

A People’s History of Race

Soul Searching in a Culture of Control

Listen for a Change

What we can do together

In Michael Curry’s opening sermon he sought, as he always does, to make sure we remember that we are in this fight, not just as social workers and activists, but as followers of what he likes to call “the Jesus Movement.” And so, the citation of Dr. King’s number one “rule of life” imparted to his followers — “As you prepare to march, meditate on the life and teaching of Jesus.”

My guess is, that was an important point to make when addressed by King to his band of civil rights campaigners. If they were to carry out his non-violent approach, they would need to remind themselves of, and be deeply grounded in, “the life and teaching of Jesus.” It was from that life and those teachings that they would draw their extraordinary courage and strength.

Another guess is, Episcopalians at this conference are pretty good at “meditating on the life and teaching of Jesus.”

My question is, are we prepared…to march?

We are, ironically perhaps, in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Every year from January 18 (the feast of the Confession of Peter) to January 25 (the feast of the Conversion of Paul) Christians around the world are asked to pray for the unity of the church. Historically this observance has had as its intention the reunion of the various separated branches of the church — Catholics with the Orthodox, Anglican with Lutherans, Presbyterians with other Reformed churches, etc.

However, today it must be said that divisions within the churches are more troubling (and seemingly more intractable) than divisions between the churches. Witness the recent meeting of Anglican Primates which called for The Episcopal Church to suffer the “consequences” of our recent move toward marriage equality within the church as well as within the state. Or, the more subtle (but perhaps more worrying) moves by conservative Roman Catholics to sabotage Pope Francis’ progressive agenda, or evangelicals split over everything from immigration to women’s equality.

I have worked for the unity of the church for most of my adult life — as a parish priest, as a diocesan bishop, as our presiding bishop’s deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations. I have sought to do this under the banner of Jesus’ prayer in the Gospel according to John (from which the title of this web log is taken):

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20)

A recent commentary on the Fourth Gospel suggests that Jesus’ prayer was not intended for some kind of institutional unity (since it is unlikely that he came to establish a church anyway, but to renew the Judaism of his day) but rather for a kind of mystical oneness with God. With all the language of “mutual indwelling” in this chapter (“I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one…” 17:23), the author may have a point.

Certainly, the main point of Christianity (and all religions, in one way  or another) is that we may be “at one” with God. At its best, that’s what the word “atonement” means — at-one-ment. And Pope Francis has reminded us this week that the closer we draw to God, the closer we will draw to one another.

So, as I grow older I must admit that I am no longer as concerned about, or even interested in, what Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold once called “ecclesiastical joinery.” I am interested in exploring what it means to be “one with God” and, as I live into that reality, to find that I am increasingly “one” with every other human being, every other creature, every other precious part of the created order.

For, as Paul is reported to have preached in Athens, “In (God) we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said.” (Acts 17:28)

As we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. today, I want to focus especially on his commitment to non-violent resistance. I have often wished that the Palestinians had found a champion like Gandhi in India, King in the States, and Tutu in South Africa to lead them in a non-violent campaign against the Occupation and unjust policies of the government of Israel against them.

Naim Ateek and his organization, Sabeel, have tried to apply the principles of liberation theology and non-violence to the situation but, for some reason, it has never caught on with the vast majority of the Palestinian people. Is it because the situation is so much more difficult in Israel/Palestine than it was in India, the U.S., or South Africa? I cannot believe that it is.

Is it because Christian Palestinians are in the minority and non-violence does not find as much support in Islam as in Hinduism or Christianity? Possibly, yet the so-called “Golden Rule” has its place in the Qur’an as well and surely principles which have been imported from one religious tradition to another before (i.e. King studying Gandhi) could make a such a journey once again.

I believe the world (even people here in our country who are so largely “pro Israel” could see even more clearly the justice of the Palestinians’ cause if their witness could be carried out in a non-violent (but persistent and courageous) way.  Some of the most successful “revolutions” of our time have been accomplished, not at the barrel of a gun, but by brave and committed people being willing to risk injury, prison, or even death rather than to “repay evil for evil.”

May Dr. King’s spirit be revived today in all who seek an end to oppression and equal rights for all!

Already much has been written about the recently-completed meeting of Anglican Primates in Canterbury, England.  Some consider it a success because the Anglican Communion avoided a schism; some regard it a failure because the Episcopal Church is likely to be sanctioned because of our approval of official marriage rites for same gender persons, thus (according to them) changing the church’s doctrine of marriage.

There is much hue and cry that the Primates’ meeting has no official right to take this kind of action, since it is not actually a legislative body at all but was originally intended (like the Lambeth Conference, really) to be a rather informal gathering for mutual prayer, study and support. Others, deeply offended and even hurt by the Primates’ decisions shared today officially in a communique, have suggested that we withdraw from the Communion or, at the very least, refuse to continue funding an organization which seems to find us something of an annoyance at the least and a pariah at the worst.

I certainly do not believe that we should withdraw from the Anglican Communion. We are still in communion with the See of Canterbury (which the breakaway groups, including the so-called Anglican Church in North America, are not) and we are still full members of the Anglican Consultative Council, the only official legislative body in the Communion which alone has the power to admit new provinces into the Communion. To my knowledge, there is no mechanism whatsoever for the expulsion of a Province.

Nor do I believe that we should withhold funds from support of the Communion. I have preached and taught for over forty years that good stewardship means giving freely, with no strings attached, and that it is wrong to try and influence decisions or punish those with whom we disagree in the church by threatening to renege on a pledge of support.

I agree with those who believe that the Episcopal Church has been prophetic in a number of the actions we have taken — liturgical revision, the ordination of women, and now the full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons. Often, actions we have taken have taken the form of a kind of “civil (or ecclesiastical) disobedience” and any proponent of such a witness will tell you that it is not only expected, but absolutely necessary, to suffer the consequences of such actions. Only then, is the moral authority actually demonstrated.

While painful to say the least (as were the jail cells of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King) the pain can be endured if we are certain of the rightness of our cause and that the ultimate victory will be ours (or, in this case, God’s!). Both Dr. King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu had that kind of confidence…and so should we.

Two quotes from Dr. King (whose day we celebrate today…or on Monday) have provided me with a deep sense of peace in all this. I have used them both before in this very discussion of the Primates’ meeting and its results. I share them again with you, hoping for that same peace:

Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

And

The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

In other words, we should bless those who persecute us, bless not curse. And, although it may take a very long time, one day…in God’s good time…we will…all of us…be one.

I wrote yesterday that I hope the Primates of the Anglican Communion can find a way to model for us a way to disagree, but still to be bound together in love. Actually to learn from one another as we remain in dialogue for the sake of finding a deeper truth, a deeper unity.

Last night the President of the United States said, in his final State of the Union address: “Democracy grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise, or when even basic facts are contested, and we listen only to those who agree with us.  Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention.”

And so once again we see how religion and politics are so closely linked. Both the Anglican Communion and the United States of America (and other countries as well) are faced with the challenge of holding together diverse opinions in a single whole. To form “a more perfect union,” to know that we are “one body with many members.”

My fervent hope is that both the church and the nation(s) can find a way forward in this way. The reason for my hope? That both the church and the world are “under God” and that one more citation by the President is profoundly true: “I believe with all my heart that…”unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)