That We All May Be One

We’re celebrating the Feast of All Saints’ today. All Saints’ Day is one of the few holy days which can be celebrated on a Sunday, using the Lessons for the feast day instead of the regular ones for this Sunday in the church year. We began with the wonderful Reading from the Wisdom of Solomon, a book in the Apocrypha which we sometimes read at funerals because it is so comforting:

 “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died…but they are at peace…the faithful will abide with (God) in love because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.” (Wisdom 3)

 Psalm 24 picks up on the same theme: “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart…They shall receive a blessing from the Lord and a just reward from the God of their salvation.”  

 And then the marvelous vision of the kingdom given by St. John the Divine in his book of “Revelation” really sums it all up: “See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21)

 So, why do we need all these images? Why do we need all this comforting? Because – in the final analysis – death is what we fear most! Dying…ceasing to exist…ceasing to “be”…is humankind’s greatest fear, our great enemy. And all religions, as well as many other philosophical systems, try to deal with it. Many secular people fill their lives with ceaseless activity and the accumulation of “things” and “stuff” because they don’t want to think about dying, to think about that day when life, as we know it now, will end.

 Sometimes the Church is accused of having a rather “Pollyanna” attitude about death and dying — an “otherworldly” approach to it all. You know, “Pie in the sky by and by.” Be good on this earth and God will reward you will a perfect existence one day! Don’t worry about suffering now…some day things will get better in heaven!

 Well, I don’t think you can read the Bible and accuse its writers of having a “Pollyanna” view of death…or of denying its reality or its pain. Genesis virtually begins with the murder of one brother by another. The children of Israel slaughter others, and are slaughtered themselves, throughout much of the next five books of the Bible! Job and the other Wisdom writers wrestle with suffering, death and dying philosophically even as they struggle to understand God’s seeming absence in their own lives. And the prophets warn of impending death and destruction on every page of their books!

 Our Gospel Reading this morning is the very poignant story of Mary and Martha and their grieving at the death of their brother, Lazarus. They go through the five stages of grief, of death and dying, that Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described decades ago, and Mary is pretty obviously stuck at the Anger stage as our Gospel begins, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

 She’s mad at Jesus! She knows he has the power of life and death. Lazarus was his friend! Why did he let him die? You and I often get angry at God or at life itself when we lose loved ones, and the Bible is telling us it’s OK to feel that anger, even to “ventilate” that anger. God can handle it! 

 This Gospel story doesn’t even shy away from the gruesome realities of death. They resist opening the tomb at Jesus’ instruction because the decomposition of Lazarus’ body will have already begun in that desert heat…and no one wants to see (or smell!) that! And yet Jesus asks them to look squarely into that tomb, to confront the painful reality of death and decay and not to run away from it. Why?

 Because, he says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (John 11) In other words, if you trust in God (which is what “believe” really means), if you trust in God you can look straight into the jaws of death itself and see – instead of your worst nightmare – God’s glory!

  Later that same Jesus himself would face his own fear of death (“if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”). He would experience his own despair at the seeming absence of the Divine (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”) But Jesus would finally make that final act of trust just before closing his eyes for the last time (“Into your hands, I commend my spirit).    

 Well, there is a community of people down through the centuries who have taken those words and actions of Jesus at face value. A community of people who have not only believed in the existence of God, but who have put their trust in that God…indeed who have “bet their lives” on that God.  Bet their lives on the belief that the God who made us in the first place loves us enough never to let us go.

 This is the community of the baptized. This is the community which dares to call its members “little Christs” – Christians. This is the community of All the Saints! Peter and Paul and Mary Magdalene, Stephen and Phoebe, Ignatius, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Cranmer, Evelyn Underhill,  C. S. Lewis, Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King…

 And you, my sisters and brothers. You who have been washed in Baptism and anointed with the Holy Spirit. You who faithfully each week are nourished by Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. You who put your trust in the love and mercy of God to one day grant you a place at the Table in the heavenly Kingdom. You…the people of St. Paul’s!

 Happy All Saints’ Day!   

We gather, as the church in Synod, on the Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, an heroic figure in the life of the early Church. He was only the second bishop of Antioch in Syria and had a long episcopate there. But early in the 2^nd century, during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, he was arrested by imperial authorities, condemned to death, and transported to Rome to die in the arena.

 This was a familiar strategy for the Empire. By being tough on the leaders, the government hoped to terrify the rank and file. Instead, Ignatius took the opportunity to encourage his flock, speaking to groups of Christians in every town at which they stopped along the way on his final journey!

 When the prison escort reached the west coast of Asia Minor, it stopped before boarding ship, and delegations from several Asian churches were able to visit Ignatius, to speak with him at length, to assist him with items for his journey, and commend him to the grace of God. In response, he wrote seven letters that have been preserved – five to congregations which greeted him on the road, one to a congregation which would greet him in Rome, and one to St. Polycarp, who was Bishop of Smyrna, and a disciple of the Apostle John.

 It is from these letters that we learn most of what is important to preserve about Ignatius’ legacy – 1) the importance of maintaining Christian unity in love and sound doctrine (he warns them against factionalism in the church and against the heresy of Docetism, which taught that Jesus was not fully human, but only divine; 2) the role of the clergy as a focus of Christian unity, 3) Christian martyrdom as a glorious privilege.

 You and I can probably sign on to, and celebrate, the first two; but have a little problem with the third – martyrdom! I guess that’s why the Church has selected the Readings we heard today from Holy Scripture. Jesus reminding us of the fact that our lives are like that grain of wheat which, if it remains a single, unplanted grain is not worth very much; but, if it “dies,” it bears much fruit. (John 12:23-26) Dying to self in order to live for others!     

 And then St. Paul’s famous testimony, read at virtually all of our funerals, “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 8:38-39)

 Both Jesus and Paul are reminding us of something Ignatius took for granted – that dying is not the worst thing that can happen to us! Being unfaithful is much worse. And living for something greater than ourselves is what, in many ways, makes life worthwhile! Most all of you know that the word “martyr” does not only mean one who loses one’s life for the Faith, but that it also means “witness” – the kind of witness made by heroes and heroines like Ignatius who were willing to give it all for the sake of the Gospel.

 Many people today in the Church fear, not so much personal, individual death, but the death of the Church itself, as we have known it and loved it over the years. The Presiding Bishop herself said earlier this month that, on the heels of General Convention, “we are in a paschal moment” in The Episcopal Church today.  But she also went on to ask,

 “Will we discover resurrection or will we stay holed up in the tomb? We have opportunities to be creative and collaborative – we can’t be preservers of turf or maintainers of the status quo. That is, I believe, to remain in the tomb. We can be celebrants of the spirit behind the law, the life-giving, creative law that the Jewish people know as Torah.  We can experience the grace that comes of loving God and our neighbor, and not being afraid.”

 And both Bishop Katharine and the President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, made these observations about the new Executive Council which I believe can equally apply to this Synod meeting, to the annual Convention of the Diocese of Iowa, and other such gatherings taking place around our church this fall:

 “We are together…embarking on a journey to serve God’s people and God’s creation across this planet…The decisions we make as a body will impact the lives of people far beyond this place or this church. I think the biggest question before us is what will occupy us…where will we spend our energy?…We live with a vision of the reign of God, the kingdom of God, which last time I checked had not been fully realized; therefore we have work to do in the name of Jesus.” (Jefferts Schori; Oct. 2009)

 “What if…(this)…Council (this Synod) created a truly spiritually based Christian community together, based on relationship and understanding of each other’s gifts?

What if we understood and embraced the vision of our forebearers, and then took a look at that vision in light of our realities today? What if (we) prayed hard together and were able to discern what we are being called to do at this time in the life of the church? What if we figured that out together and then what if we did it?” said Bonnie Anderson.

 What if we figured it out together? And what if we did it? What if we really embraced the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Faith which St. Ignatius confessed and was willing to die for? What if we figured out how that Faith needs to be lived out today? And what if we did it? (Pause)

 “Be deaf,” Ignatius wrote, “to any talk that ignores Jesus Christ, of David’s lineage, of Mary; who was really born, ate, and drank; was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was really crucified and died in the sight of heaven and earth and the underworld; (who) was really raised from the dead.”

 And on another occasion, he wrote, “Try to gather more frequently to celebrate God’s Eucharist and to praise him…break one loaf, which is the medicine of immortality…” And finally he said, “Flee from schism as the source of mischief…Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

 Well, we are gathered as lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons in Synod on this day, my dear friends. And surely Jesus Christ is present – in Word and Prayer and Sacrament…here in the Church Catholic.

 Let us seek to be that spiritually based community, praying hard and trying to discern what we are being called to do at this time in the life of the church, having confidence… with Jesus, Paul, and Ignatius that

 Nothing! No…Thing…will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

  “Some Pharisees came, and to test (Jesus) they asked him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’” (Mark 10:2)

 Well, first of all, the Pharisees did not need Jesus to instruct them about divorce.  The very first verse of the 24^th chapter of Deuteronomy makes it perfectly clear how easy it was for a Jewish male to write a certificate of divorce and put aside his wife. It doesn’t give any instruction about how a woman is to free herself from an abusive relationship or a loveless marriage arranged by her family, but the text is *real* clear about how easy it is for a man to get rid of his wife!

 No, the Pharisees did not need to be instructed by Jesus about divorce laws. They were experts in the Law. There is much more going on in this passage than that!  This is a familiar pattern in the Pharisees’ attacks on Jesus. They confront him publicly with a tough question, such as why he does work on the Sabbath, whether or not one should pay taxes to Caesar, or what he thinks about John the Baptist; and, in doing so, they hope he will make a mistake and give them a legal reason to discredit him, or even worse.

 In this case, the context is clear. The Essene (or Dead Sea Scrolls) community had formulated their opposition to divorce on what the king should do in his own life. They knew that royal marriages and divorces were politically dangerous and so they, like Jesus, appealed to Genesis, to God’s original intention for marriage, to argue against divorce. And John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, who had perhaps spent some time with the Essenes, had been arrested and eventually executed for criticizing the king (Herod Antipas) for divorcing his wife precisely to marry his brother’s wife, Herodias.

 So, behind the Pharisees’ “innocent” question about divorce lurks the mission and ministry of John the Baptist and just what Jesus thought about all that. He would have to answer this question at his own peril!  So Jesus does was he so often does in these verbal battles – he answers the question *with* a question! “What did Moses command you?” They give the correct answer, but Jesus pushes them beyond the legalistic answer back to God’s original intention.

 According to the very first book for the Bible, God intended married people to be permanently joined in marriage so no human tradition can claim authority to override that intention. If indeed married people become “one flesh” as the text says, divorce would be like trying to divide one person into two. And that can’t be God’s desire. But the point is, Jesus comments were not intended to create some kind of new legislation about marriage and divorce!

 Instead, he blasts the Pharisees for cooperating with the hard-hearted, one-sided system of divorce which seems clearly to favor men’s rights over women’s. He could not be accused of breaking the Law because his views coincided with the Essenes, and others, who were stricter in the interpretation than even the Pharisees. On the other hand, he has sided with John the Baptist’s dangerous views of the marriage between King Herod and Herodias!

The point is, Jesus wants to insist that God’s original intentions for human beings take precedence over other provisions in Mosaic Law. He is not intending to create some new legalistic system to deal with the painful realities of marital discord and the fact of divorce.     

Unfortunately, the Church has not always has been as adept as Jesus at avoiding the whole divorce business! Twenty years after this conflict with the Pharisees’ Paul tells the Corinthians that it would be OK for a Christian whose non-Christian spouse had divorced him or her to re-marry. In principle Paul was opposed to divorce, but he was trying to find a pastoral provision, sometimes called “the Pauline privilege!”

 And the Church has been struggling with this ever sense! How to balance the high view of the permanence of marriage taught by Jesus with the painful realities of troubled marriages and the possibility of divorce?  Some churches have created elaborate systems for determining when a marriage may be declared null and void. While some churches today are experimenting with creating rituals for divorce to provide a way for the church to stand with divorcing couples in an attitude of prayer.

 The Episcopal Church has been in a number of places on that continuum, but our canon law today attempts to live in the tension by affirming the life-long intention of marriage, but providing space for a pastoral approach which honors people and allows us to enter into their pain and walk together toward reconciliation when possible, forgiveness and healing when it is not.

 I am absolutely convinced that we are close to the Spirit of Jesus in this approach. That Spirit is so beautifully described in our Second Lesson today from Hebrews: “It was fitting that God…in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering. For the one who sanctifies and those who are (being) sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters…Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God…Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:11ff)

 So, by treating marriage as grounded in God’s love, Jesus removes it from the realm of law. His original hearers, like so many out there today, viewed marriage as a contract. So, like any contract, it could be voided.  Jesus wanted to challenge that casual attitude about marriage but, unlike the Essenes, he did not think new laws or legalistic systems would create the kind of relationships God intended. Legalism is contrary to the Spirit of Jesus.

 Nonetheless, the challenge he lays down for us and the questions he poses about a hard-hearted treatment of divorce, on the one hand, and a casual attitude about marriage, on the other, are still crucial for our reflection today.  Not because we want tough laws, or canons, against divorce, but because we seek to make Christian families today what God yearns for them to be.

It’s pretty ironic that, on the day when we begin our fall Christian Education program here at Trinity Cathedral and commission our teachers and catechists (along with our Pastoral Visitors), our Second Lesson begins with these words: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness!”

 No wonder congregations have trouble recruiting Sunday school teachers every year! Who wants to be judged “with greater strictness?” Actually, the Apostle James doesn’t spend much time in his letter developing that idea, but moves along to write about the importance of guarding our tongues, and pointing out how destructive slanderous speech and partial truths can be. We need only look at some of the recent political outbursts there today to see the truth of those words!

 Actually, I think his only point in saying that ‘not many should become teachers’ is to highlight the importance of that ministry, and to recognize the fact that not everyone can do it. Not everyone has that particular gift …any more than we may have other specific gifts.

 But teaching our Faith to others is important and that’s why we’ll be praying for those catechists and teachers  “God of all wisdom and knowledge, give your blessing and guidance to all who teach in your Church, that by word and example they may lead those whom they teach to the knowledge and love of you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Occasional Services, page 186)

 Sometimes people hesitate to teach because they don’t think they “know enough” about the Christian faith to teach it. But notice what the prayer says: “…that by word and example they may lead those whom they teach to the knowledge and love of you…”

We want our teachers to lead our young people and adults “by word and example” to know and to love God!

 I don’t want to minimize the content of our Christian education courses and experiences, but I have to say that – of all the many years I spent in Sunday school – I can’t remember much content, but I can remember the faces and the voices, and the love and the faith of Nelson Glass who taught the boys’ Sunday school in Junior High.

 And Barbara Kane who taught the co-ed Senior High School class (and who just happened to be the mother of the girl I was desperately and hopelessly in love with in those days). I remember knowing – even then – that these adults “knew and loved” God…even as they “knew and loved” me! That’s what teachers (and Pastoral Visitors) are supposed to convey.

 In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are journeying through the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and he asks them “Who do people say that I am?” In others words, what are people saying out there? How am I being received? How is my message being understood? And the disciples give a variety of answers – presumably different things they’ve heard in their travels – because there was still a lot of confusion about just who this new rabbi was!

 Well, some say that you’re really John the Baptist; others that you may be the “Elijah” written about in the Prophets; others that you may actually be another prophet, they say. 

And then Jesus gets specific: “But who do you say that I am?” It was apparently important for Jesus to get some kind of reading about what people were saying about him, about what the general population was thinking at this point in his ministry. Doing his own “opinion polling,” if you will.

 But what he was really interested in was what his closest followers thought! Who did they think he was? Because, in the final analysis, it wasn’t going to be what popular opinion happened to be that was going to preserve his message. It was going to be what the disciples, later known as “apostles,” thought that would come down to us through the ages! They were the ones who were going to preserve, carry on, and even in some sense enlarge upon, his teaching.

 Well, Peter gets it right – at least initially – and speaks up: “You are the Messiah.” In other words, you are God’s Anointed One, the one we’ve been waiting for, the one who is finally going to deliver us from this endless oppression by the Roman government, and set us free!

 So, he was on the right track but as Jesus began to sketch out how all that was going to happen, and that it was not going to be by starting a war, but rather by undergoing great suffering and rejection and even death, Peter loses the thread and suffers a pretty severe rebuke himself from the One he has just called “Messiah!”

 But even that blunder gives Jesus the opportunity to teach the disciples some important lessons; lessons about self denial, about taking up their own crosses, and about what following him really meant. About the “cost of discipleship” And, finally, he leaves them with the insight that it’s not really about “getting it right.” It’s not about “perfection.” It’s about…being “faithful.”

 “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed…” Conversely, if we’re not ashamed of him, he won’t be ashamed of us! So, it’s not so much about getting it right about me, Jesus is saying. It’s about not being ashamed of me. It’s about being willing to share the “knowledge and love” you have of me with those to whom I send you.

 That’s what we are entrusting our teachers and catechists, and our Pastoral Visitors, with here this morning at Trinity Cathedral. With conveying the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ to those in their classrooms (if they are teachers), to those at home and in hospitals and nursing homes (if they are Visitors).

 And, by the way, it’s what all of us are called to do…in the various callings and in the ministries we all have – in our homes and families, in our neighborhoods and communities, in the businesses and institutions and schools where we spend our time. We are to share the knowledge and love of God with those to whom we are sent.   

 There’s a line in today’s Psalm which originally referred to “the heavens” themselves, and the silent witness they bear to God’s glory and faithfulness. But for centuries Christians have applied these lines to ministers and evangelists:

 “Although they have no words or language, and their voices are not heard,

Their sound has gone out into all lands, and their message to the ends of the earth.” (Psalm 19:3-4)

 That’s what God asks of us too, dear friends. Whether we are teachers or visitors or ordinary Christians. Whether we feel that we have the right “words or language” or not.

 By word and example our sound is to go out into all lands…and our message about Jesus…to the ends of the earth!

I wonder, do think Jesus ever had to “learn” anything? We’re not told in the Gospels that he ever went to school (although he may well have). There is that instance in Luke’s Gospel when he is 12 years old in the Temple, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47). One reference in Mark when some people said: “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him…is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary…?” (Mark 6:2f) The implication being that Jesus was not known to be a theologically trained scholar or rabbi, but a relatively unlettered man who nonetheless demonstrated great wisdom. Ever known anyone like that? I certainly have. But I don’t think any of these instances require us to believe that Jesus was born with all the wisdom and knowledge he would ever need from the moment of his birth! A bright, interested, precocious young boy in the Temple does not require us to believe that he was teaching the scribes anything they didn’t already know, but simply that he was smart and attentive and articulate. The wonder that some felt that an “ordinary” person could impart words of wisdom does not mean that Jesus acquired all that wisdom without the need to learn just as we do. The Church’s teaching is not only that Jesus was the Son of God, but that he was God Incarnate – God in the flesh – and as such even he suffered some of the limitations of the flesh. I think today’s Gospel reading from Mark may well be an account of such a “teachable moment” in Jesus’ life. He’s confronted by a Gentile woman who asks healing for her daughter. All Jesus’ life he had been instructed to be wary of, and perhaps even to loathe, Gentiles. He’d heard that they were unclean, and that even touching them in certain circumstances would have made him ritually unclean. He had wrestled with his own calling and, at least initially, had come to believe that he was primarily sent to renew the house of Israel. If there were implications for the Gentiles, and for the rest of the world, so be it; but first he had to minister to his fellow Jews. Small wonder then that his initial response to this woman (as harsh as it may sound to us in our day) was “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (Mark 7) But the woman “answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!” And, apparently impressed with her combination of humility and courage, Jesus replied, ‘For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter!’” (Pause) Well, I supposed you can read this whole story as a kind of set-up, something scripted by Jesus, or even Mark the Evangelist to make a point. But I think it has the ring of history about it, and that Jesus really did learn something – in his humanity – about the faithfulness and worthiness even of Gentiles! (Pause) There’s another factor that makes it appealing to me to assume that even Jesus had to learn. And that is, that the very the process of education and growth is somehow divine! One of our Collects several weeks ago read, “Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life…” Among many other things, Jesus was intended to be a moral example for us who are his followers. He prayed, so we should pray. He forgave, so we should forgive. He loved, so we should love. Why not, “he learned, so we should learn?” God knows, we have a lot to learn! And the Bible has been trying to teach us for thousands of years now! The Book of Proverbs is full of homespun wisdom. Today, we’re told that “The rich and poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all…those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. Do not rob the poor because they are poor…for the Lord pleads their cause…” (Proverbs 22) And the Apostle James brings it home to how we treat one another right here in this congregation, “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say “Have a seat here, please.” “While to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’ or ‘Sit at my feet’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves…Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters…you do well if your really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” (James 2) The “royal law!” I’m not sure we’ve heard it referred to that way in Scripture before, but we certainly know this commandment et as “the second (after loving God) which is like unto it; You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Perhaps Jesus learned that lesson anew in a little town north of Galilee in Syria and he went on from there to bring hearing to the deaf and speech to the mute. May we learn that lesson right here at Trinity Cathedral in Davenport. And may our ears too always be open to the cries of the poor and the voices of the voiceless!

Two Sundays ago we concluded our series of Gospel Readings from the 6^th chapter of John, the long discourse on Jesus as “the Bread of Life.” I’ve never understood how any Christian, or Christian community, can read that chapter and have anything less than a very high view of the Eucharist…and of the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist!

 I mean onr Sunday the text read: “Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And the next Sunday he says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” (selections from John 6:51-58). You can’t have a much higher view of the Eucharist than that!

 Of course, it’s never been easy to believe! Even some of Jesus’ first disciples said, in response to all this, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it? But Jesus…said to them, ‘Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”

 I think what Jesus is saying is that all of this really depends on who you think he is! If the claim of the early Church, the New Testament, and the Creeds is really true…if Jesus really is “…the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…” if Jesus really is (in ways quite beyond our ability fully to understand) “God Incarnate,” then the rest of this stuff is easy to believe! It’s the “small stuff” compared to the Incarnation!

 I mean Jesus’ wisdom, the miraculous signs he gave, the sacramental realities of Baptism and the Eucharist, they simply follow from the basic fact of who he really is! And the fact that God uses the “stuff” of this world to become known to us – flesh and blood, the laying on of hands and human touch, water, bread, wine, oil – all of it! It’s called the “sacramental principle” and it just means that God comes to us in real, material ways sometimes.

 This was not absolutely new in Jesus (although it reached its pinnacle there). In our Reading from the First Book of Kings today Solomon has completed his oversight of the building of the First Temple in Jerusalem and they take great care to have the priests, and other community leaders, bring the so-called “ark of the covenant” (that “tent” or container which they had carried with them all through the desert time with the Ten Commandments and other symbols in it)…they brought this ark of the covenant into the new Temple so that it could be enshrined there.

 And this portion of the Hebrew Bible says that, “the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place…and when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house…” (I Kings 8 passim)     

Now here is a people who refused to make any kind of “graven image” or even picture of God, who were horrified by anything that looked like the worship of idols or representation of God who nonetheless write in their sacred scriptures of enshrining this tent in the “holiest place of the Temple” and – in the doing – experience the Presence and the Glory of God filling that Holy Place!

 It was simply unavoidable! They had to record the experience! This formless, spiritual Reality – the name of whom they would not even pronounce out loud except one a year– this Hidden God nonetheless becomes present to them in some very visible and tangible ways!

 Well, we need that sometimes. And even though Jesus also says in the Gospel that “It is the spirit that give life; the flesh is useless,” he also says, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” It is in the joining of the Spirit and the “stuff” of this world that God comes to us in what I’ve called the Sacramental Principle.

 We say that sacraments are “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.” When you come forward to receive Holy Communion in the Eucharist, you won’t be eating flesh and blood, you’ll be eating bread and wine. But that Bread and Wine will have been “consecrated” (prayed over, blessed) and because of that the Holy Spirit has acted and you will be receiving into your self, the Very Being and Life of Christ. Spirit and life! Spiritual food and drink!

 Why do we do this every Sunday? Because you and I need spiritual food for spiritual strength. The Epistle to the Ephesians says this morning, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness…” (Ephesians 6)

 Yes, that’s our struggle all right. Whether it’s against temptation and sin, against suspicion and fear, against poverty and disease, against hatred and violence, we need “the whole armor of God.” And, for catholic Christians like ourselves, part of that “armor” is the sacramental life. The sacramental system – baptism, Eucharist, confirmation, ordained ministers, confession, marriage, and healing. It’s all part of the package. The “whole armor of God.”

 And it’s why we need each other. And why we need the Church.

Sometimes “unity” comes in strange ways.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, at their recently completed Churchwide Assembly, took several significant steps with regard to the place of gay and lesbian Christians in their church.

First of all, they passed an extremely well-done social statement on human sexuality. Then, they passed  four resolutions concerning the implications of that social statement on the internal life of the ELCA. The effect of these was to open the door for the recognition of faithful, monogamous, relationships between members of the same gender and to permit those living in such relationships to serve as “rostered leaders” (including clergy) in the ELCA.

This will surely not advance cause of Christian unity directly anymore than similar decisions made by The Episcopal Church has. There will be defections from the ELCA, ecumenical relations especially with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as with the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (to the extent that the ELCA even had any ecumenical relationship with that smaller Lutheran body!), and there will be pain and distress from some — as well as joy and relief for others.

How then could this possibly foster church unity? Well, perhaps we are beginning to see new alignments and new partners across the Christian world. Some European Lutheran bodies have long been more inclusive of homosexual persons. A number of the Old Catholic churches in Europe (with which we are in full communion) have taken similar steps.  Ditto the United Church of Christ. And the Anglican Church in Canada is about to.

The United Methodist,  Presbyterian, and Moravian churches here in the U.S. may become emboldened to take steps forward in this direction.  Certainly they will have empathy for decisions made by their full communion partners in the ELCA since they are facing the same realities in their own churches.  

It is too soon to see what all this will mean in God’s time. The worst case scenario is that we will see a realignment of liberal Protestant churches driven more by cultural accommodation than by theological reflection and prayerful discernment (although the thoughtful ELCA social statement hardly signals that).

The best case scenario is that the Holy Spirit is once again shaking the Church by blowing winds of change. Like the acceptance of Gentiles in the New Testament, the 16th century Reformation, the establishment of The Episcopal Church on these shores free from control by the Church of England, liturgical renewal, women’s ordination, and other such developments.

All these are based on the centrality of baptism and the fact that “…as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There really is neither Jew nor Greek…slave nor free…male nor female; for you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28)

That is a unity perhaps hard to see at present, but infinitely deeper than institutional uniformity.

Time will tell. And only God knows.