That We All May Be One

Jesus came from farming country in the northern part of Palestine. The land is fertile and crops grow well there. I remember sitting on a hillside once looking down on some farmland up in the Galilee, and thinking how much it looked like some parts of the Midwest! And, while we think Jesus grew up in a town, perhaps not far from the “big city” of Sepphoris, he would have been surrounded by farmers and farm land.

That undoubtedly accounts for the frequency of agricultural images he uses – such as those in today’s Gospel – about scattering seed (“broadcasting” as it is known) and about the mystery of life and growth which all good farmers understand. Farming is not all about technique and expertise. A lot of it depends on geography and on the cycles of weather – God’s grace…or
Providence…or good luck (depending on your theology!)

In any event, harvests are often unpredictable and a yield of abundant crops is always an occasion for gratitude and for celebration.  Farmers know something about such things. Which, I suppose, is why the Church sets aside the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day and calls them “Rogation Days.” Days on which we “ask” – ask for fruitful seasons, ask for a blessing on commerce and industry, and commit ourselves to be good stewards of creation.

It was a lot easier for me to get “into” the Rogations Days when I was the Bishop of Iowa! Every week I drove hundreds of miles through fields of corn and soybeans and watched the natural cycles of plowing and seedtime and harvest, and of letting some fields lie fallow for re-creation. Most of us in big cities are far removed from such considerations – and it is no joke than many of our children think that fruit and vegetables spring forth, full grown, from the grocery shelves at Gristedes!

But we can be involved in agriculture. Even here in the city. And we can make a difference. Our church is trying to make a difference. According to a recent ENS press release: “As Congress begins the work of reauthorizing the US farm bill, more than a dozen Churches and faith based organizations, including the Episcopal Church, have come together…to urge major changes in US agricultural policy aimed at reducing hunger and poverty, and promoting the livelihood of farmers and rural communities in the US and around the world.”

“The ‘Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill’ which includes Christian denominations, major faith based organizations and the National Council of Churches…has developed a statement of legislative principles for farm bill reform.” According to those principles, the 2007 farm bill should:

*Increase investments that combat rural poverty and strengthen rural communities

*Strengthen and expand programs that reduce hunger and improve nutrition in the US

*Strengthen and increase investment in policies that promote conservation and good stewardship of the land

*Provide transitions for farmers to alternative forms of support that are more equitable and do not distort trade in ways that fuel hunger and poverty

*Protect the health and safety of farmworkers

*Expand research related to alternative, clean and renewable forms of energy

*Improve and expand international food aid in ways that encourage local food security.”     (April 24, 2007)

It’s too soon to know how fully the new farm bill will incorporate these principles but, as the former bishop of a rural diocese, I’m grateful to our church for such efforts.

I invite your prayerful support of such principles. Maybe we can do that by offering once again the prayer for this Rogation Monday:

“Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that your gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them, that we, who are constantly receiving good things from your hand, may always give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord…”

Some of us are working on initial responses to the Draft Covenant for the Anglican Communion.  This “covenant” is one of the ways forward proposed by the Primates of the Anglican Communion to hold our fragile worldwide family together. I am basically supportive of such a process — not because I want the Episcopal Church, or the Anglican Communion, to become a “confessional church” bound together by narrow statements of belief (other than the Creeds!) — but because I have seen how effective ecumenical “covenants,” concordats, and agreements can be in establishing full communion relationships.

I would cite, for example, the Bonn Agreement with the Old Catholics, the Concordat between the Episcopal Church and the Philippine Independent Church, or “Called To Common Mission” with the Evangelical Church in America. They are relatively brief; define common doctrine in broad, basic strokes; and open up the possibility for common mission in the name of Christ.

I do have some concerns. The name “covenant” seems a bit lofty for this effort. A covenant is something God initiates, not Primates. However, that train is already rolling down the track so the term “covenant” may just have to stand.

I think the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral should be named in its entirety in any such Covenant and — with its emphasis on  Scripture, the Creeds, the dominical Sacraments, and the historic episcopate — should be sufficient as doctrinal statements. If those things are adequate to establish full communion relationships with other Christian bodies, they should be sufficient for us to hold in communion.

Secondly, one of the geniuses of Anglicanism is that we are “episcopally led, but synodically governed.” That means, in this instance, that if any of the four so-called “instruments of unity”  (The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting), it should be the ACC. That is because only the ACC, of all these bodies, is made up of lay persons, bishops, priests, and perhaps even a deacon or two.

The mind of Christ is to be discerned in the Body of Christ and the Body of Christ is made up of all the ministers of the Church not only bishops!
Finally, while a process of “mutual affirmation and admonition”  (terms found in certain ecumenical agreements) probably need to be part of this Covenant, steps for exclusion or marginalization need not be. We certainly need a clear process for vetting major decisions which will effect the whole Communion by the whole Communion and we need processes for feedback and dialogue. We do not, in my opinion, need “excommunication” as a tool for closing off debate.

Again, the genius of Anglicanism has been our ability to remain together in Word and Prayer and Sacrament…and in common mission…while allowing wide space for theological diversity, cultural adaptation, and freedom for the local church (read, “diocese”…and then “province”).

I believe that Anglican experiment is worth working for. We already have one branch of Western Catholicism with a top-down, infallible head. We know that it “works” (after a fashion!). Orthodoxy and Anglicanism have always offered another way.

Let’s not give up on it because it is messy!

Tomorrow, I board a Swiss Air liner for Geneva and a meeting of ecumenical officers of the World Council of Churches. This historic Council, formed after World War II out of the same spirit as the United Nations in the belief that global cooperation was indeed possible, has had its ups and downs in recent years. However, there is no broader body of Orthodox and Protestant Christians in the world. And it is important for us to meet, learn from each other, and share what each of us is doing in our own nations and communions. 

The following recent statement from the General Secratary of the WCC should prove instructive:

Churches rediscovering the biblical call to unity and caring for life together is the World Council of Churches’ vision for re-invigorating ecumenism in the 21st century, according to Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, the general secretary of the WCC.

Speaking to leaders of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) in Birmingham on 2 May, Kobia outlined his understanding of what faces the global ecumenical movement in the 21st century, and how the World Council of Churches intends to respond.

In the contemporary ecumenical landscape, it seems that the original “vigour, energy and commitment to ecumenism got lost,” Kobia observed. “The search for visible unity of the church is no longer a priority for churches and Christian World Communions who centre on their particular identities,” he said. Nevertheless, he argued, “We cannot compromise or hide our conviction that Christ himself wants the churches to be one so that the world may believe.”

Given this biblical call behind the churches’ search for unity, the WCC needs to assure those who have lost confidence and trust in ‘conciliar’ ecumenism in general and the World Council in particular that “we respect their needs and want to facilitate the best possible ways for them to discover and to develop the ecumenical dimension of Christian faith within their own communities and in fellowship with other churches”.

New programmes, activities

With that in mind, the WCC reshaped its work after its Ninth Assembly in 2006. Kobia noted that the WCC’s programmes now have three main foci:

Living out Christian unity more fully. WCC member churches are called to seek unity and to work and witness together. The Council’s activities for the years ahead are focused on working together for visible unity, new forms of mission, and providing space for deepening relationships and broader participation.

Being neighbours to all. This phrase in the Ninth Assembly’s message conveys the idea that, in the WCC, churches advocate for the good of all and, with their neighbours, address threats to the human ‘household’. Efforts will focus on working together to overcome threats that divide the human community, and on the pursuit of peace and the common good through living out shared values of justice and equality.

Taking greater care of creation. Churches in the WCC are committed to protecting the earth as well as its peoples. In this area, churches will work together to promote the culture and the practices of sustaining life.

These three foci are not the World Council’s organizational structure, Kobia said, but “a way of understanding all its programmes and projects.” He also stressed that “it is the participation of the churches and other partners that gives legitimacy” to the Council’s work and “makes it effective and powerful”.

In this regard, Kobia acknowledged “with thanks to God what has been already achieved” by the churches of the UK and Ireland. These churches “have made important contributions to the global ecumenical movement,” while their ecumenical instruments have “enriched the life of the churches and enabled them to engage with society more effectively,” he said.

Kobia encouraged CTBI member churches to participate in the preparation of an Ecumenical Declaration on Just Peace, to be issued in May 2011 at the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation which will mark the culmination of the Decade to Overcome Violence.

The WCC general secretary is nearing the end of a 24 April – 4 May visit to the UK and Ireland.

More information on Kobia’s visit to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, including a detailed schedule

Contact us

© 2007 World Council of Churches

It’s a joy for me to preach this ordination sermon, first of all because of my enormous respect for Tom Breidenthal which only grows over the years. Secondly, because of my fondness for the Diocese of Southern Ohio which I am privileged to visit from time to time as Bishop Visitor for the Community of the Transfiguration, and – last but not least – because I was ordained to the diaconate on the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena the Lessons for whose feast Tom has chosen for his ordination today! 

I’ve been a bishop for nearly 20 years now and I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed again with the ordination vows Tom will take in just a few moments. Two of them always leap out at me on those occasions. The first is, “Will you guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church?” And the second, “Will you be merciful to all, show compassion to the poor and strangers, and defend those who have no helper?” The expected answers to those questions are, respectively, “I will, for the love of God;” “I will, for the sake of Christ Jesus.”

It will not surprise Tom, or many of you, that sometimes those two vows come into conflict or at least stand in some dramatic tension. The first vow, about guarding the faith unity and discipline of the Church is what
St. John was up to in our Epistle today: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 

If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:5-7). John is talking about faith, unity, and discipline. He is talking about walking together…in fellowship.

The second vow is what the Prophet Isaiah was up to in our First Lesson: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…”( Isaiah 61: 1-2a).

This is a favorite text of our new Presiding Bishop and she has referred to it more than once, particularly as it is cited by Jesus in his inaugural sermon at the synagogue in
Nazareth recorded in Luke 4. It reminds us of God’s “preferential option” for the poor, God’s offer of healing for this broken world, and the liberty God’s love makes possible for the faithful. It is a challenging, risky text, but  Isaiah is talking about “being merciful to all, showing compassion to the poor and stranger, and defending those who have no helper.” He is talking about justice!

Sometimes, not least in the context of the tensions we face in the Anglican Communion today, those perspectives (unity and justice) are hard to hold together. We often hear it said, “You’re sacrificing justice for unity.” And the rejoinder from some: “But how can we know what true justice is without unity?” It’s a problem for bishops!

Of course, bishops are not the only Christians who have to balance those kinds of tensions and conflicts. The vows by which you are bound in baptism also ask two questions: “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” But also “will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?” What if the heritage of the apostles, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith you profess, is perceived by some as standing in the way of justice…disrupting peace among people…and disrespecting the dignity of at least some human beings? What if unity and justice appear to be in conflict?

What then?

Well, it can be anxiety producing! It can be excruciatingly anxiety producing…But then, Jesus has something to say about anxiety in today’s Gospel. He says to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear…If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you – you of little faith!…For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”

One of the great gifts, I have found over my years as a bishop, in trying to face squarely into the contradictions, or at least the tensions, within our faith is that it eventually throws one back on the sheer love and mercy and grace of God! Upon that primary relationship between ourselves and our God. We cannot always “figure it out!” Our structures are not always up to the task. And, doing things the way we have always done them will not always be sufficient in our post-modern age.

The good news is — we don’t have to figure it out. Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. It just may not be on our timetable!  The Christian Church is not all about structures (or even “instruments of communion!”). It is about being the Body of Christ. The Church has never had it all figured out! This Body into which you and I were baptized has been growing and adapting and evolving from New Testament times until today!  And it always will be, until the last, great day!

The important thing in the meantime, my dear brother Tom, and my dear sisters and brothers in Christ, is to try and “keep the main thing…the main thing!” That is why, in the midst of all our busyness and confusion, nothing must get in the way of our basic spiritual disciplines as Christian people – daily prayer and Bible study, weekly Eucharist, an annual retreat, and focused attention to God’s mission of reconciliation.

No matter what else you may do as a bishop, Tom, do those things! Daily prayer and Bible study, weekly Eucharist, an annual retreat, and focused attention on God’s mission. No matter what else you may do as a diocese, dear friends, do those things. Daily prayer and Bible study, weekly Eucharist, an annual retreat, focused attention on God’s mission! In order to keep the main thing the main thing! And what is that main thing?

According to Isaiah: It is to work for justice in order to prepare the way for the Kingdom of
God.

According to St. John: It is to keep the faith and work for its unity and discipline in order to prepare the way for the Kingdom of God.

And according to Jesus it is actually to begin to live in that Kingdom, under that Reign and Sovereignty of God, right now! Not to wait until we “have it all together.” Not to wait until we have it all figured out. But to throw ourselves now on the love and mercy and grace of God! To strive for God’s Kingdom… and to have confidence that all the rest will be given to us as well! 

Friday in the Second Week of Easter (Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27:1-9; John 6:1-15)

Earlier this week, in his thoughtful homily addressing the tragedy at Virginia Tech,
Jim Lemler pointed out that our Lord Jesus Christ was no stranger to violence. He was misunderstood, feared, despised, abused, tortured, and eventually executed by the state as an innocent victim of their version of capital punishment.

Even in today’s largely celebratory story of the feeding the multitude, the last line (which we sometimes miss) reads, “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” Even his own people, who wanted him to be their king, were prepared to use force against him!

But the violence didn’t stop with Jesus, even with his Resurrection. In the line which precedes our reading from Acts today and Gamaliel’s speech, the text says, “When they heard this (from the apostles) they were enraged and wanted to kill them.” And then the teacher Gamaliel proceeds to catalogue the violence perpetrated against some of Jesus’ predecessors in the prophetic tradition:

“Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men…joined him, but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed…After him Judas the Galilean rose up…and got people to follow him (but) he also perished. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone…”

So persuasive was Gamaliel that “they were convinced by him and when they had called in the apostles, they had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.” So, even in gaining their freedom, these early Christians suffered violence – they were flogged first!

I don’t know if society is more violent today than it was in ancient times, or prior generations. Certainly the tools are more horrendous. A cat-o-nine-tails with pieces of lead embedded in the leather is a terrible thing. But a Glock 9mm handgun with 33 rounds in each clip is a weapon of mass destruction!  And we permit its legal sale!

The World Council of Churches is more than half way through something called a “Decade To Overcome Violence.” We have a long way to go before even making a dent in this massive problem. And the focus needs to include, not only war and global terrorism, but the rage that seethes in the human heart and how we can be instruments in the of healing – and prevention — of that rage.

May our continuing celebration of the Easter season inspire and strengthen us for this ministry. And may we be comforted by the words of the Psalmist that, no matter what may befall us (and we never know what will befall us!): In the day of trouble he shall keep us safe in his shelter; God shall hide us in the secrecy of his dwelling, and set us high upon a rock!