 |
 |
       |
|
 S
P I R I T U A L F O R M A T I O N |
|
·
CHILDREN'S EDUCATION |
SERMONS The
Seventh Sunday of Easter By David Christian Much has been written over the past several years about the "decline" in the major Protestant denominations in this country. The Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, have all seen declining memberships over the past two or three decades. Our own branch of the church has, of course, not been spared its own problems. Prayer book reform, the ordination of women, abortion, and disagreements about human sexuality are but a few of the issues that have caused dissension within the church. Groups have sprung up within the church across the theological spectrum to fight for their own particular causes. Many people have tried to identify "the problem." Letters are written to church periodicals beginning "What has our church come to?" or "The problem with the Episcopal Church today is ..." Most of these writers identify one hot issue or another as the source of "the problem" and then proceed to offer their own solutions. Such difficulties are not limited to the national church. Dioceses and individual parishes also occasionally find themselves in dispute. The issue may be one of substance or it may be trivial but ill feelings and hostility can linger for a long time. In today's gospel, Jesus provides us with a clue to how we can overcome dissension and division in the church, both on the national scale and locally. The words come from John's account of the gathering in the upper room on the night of Jesus' betrayal. In this passage he prays that his followers may be united, that they may be one. He prays that they may be one even as he and the Father are one. And the basis for their unity is the same as the basis for the unity of Father and Son. That basis is love. Just as the Father and Son are united in love for one another, so also the followers of Jesus are to be united, through their love for Jesus, in love one with another. It is through love, love for each other based on our common love for the Lord, that we can become one. And it is through our unity that the world may come to know Christ. This unity does not mean that we cannot disagree. Each of us is different, with different gifts and different imperfections. Each of us can come to know God's truth and God's will only in part. We need each other--we need to hear each other--if we are to be the Church. We can disagree, we will disagree, but we can and must disagree in love and in humility. Such problems are not unique to the church in our day. The church in the first century was beset by dissension and heresy from within and persecution by the Roman authorities from without. A major figure of the church during that time was Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch. In the early second century he was transported from Antioch to Rome, where he was martyred. He was aware throughout this trip of his probable fate. We know him chiefly by a series of letters that he wrote to churches in a number of cities during that final journey. The letters are linked by a single underlying theme: Ignatius' plea to the churches for unity. Here is a bit of what he wrote: "Now for other men 'pray unceasingly' ... that they may find God.... Be yourselves gentle in answer to their wrath; be humble minded in answer to their proud speaking; offer prayer for their blasphemy; be steadfast in the faith for their error; be gentle for their cruelty, and do not seek to retaliate. Let us be proved their brothers by our gentleness and let us be imitators of the Lord, and seek who may suffer the more wrong, be the more destitute, the more despised; that no plant of the devil may be found in you but that you remain in all purity and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the Spirit." Ten years ago the bishops of our church resolved to consider how we are to go about being the church. In early Lent they gathered together at Kanuga to begin to address those things that divided them. At the end of their meeting they issued a statement that may serve as a model for all of us as we seek the unity of the church through our common love of our Lord. They said: "A consensus emerged that we must reorganize many aspects of our common life.... We choose intentionally ... to ground ourselves in our common faith and commitment.... "Whatever the immediate agenda that brings us together, we resolve to define ourselves primarily as a community of prayer, worship, and biblical and theological reflection in which to give and receive one another's gifts, and to seek God's will for our lives and our work as the servants of the church. "Whenever we meet, we will strive to prize the bonds that unite us above the issues that divide us. While absent from one another ... we will hold one another and our communities of faith across the church in daily prayer-that we and all our people may experience a new birth of love for God and one another to the glory of Christ whose name we bear as ambassadors of the Gospel, one with the apostles in proclamation, service, and witness." May we also strive to prize the bonds that unite us and hold one another in daily prayer, as we seek faithfully to serve our Lord in this place and love one another as he loves us. David
Christian Acts
16:16-34 |
Chapel
of the Cross · 674 Mannsdale Road · Madison, Mississippi
39110 · (601) 856-2593
Copyright © 2001, Chapel of the Cross