Psalm 66.1-8
Galatians 6.1-16
Luke 10.1-11, 16-20
This
week the secular and religious media are reporting an interesting statement by
the Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop
Welby addressed the General Synod of the Church of England – the counterpart to
our General Convention, describing his recent experience as a commentator on
the same sex marriage initiative before the House of Lords. This official
statement by the Church of England was not supportive of the measure, the vote
on which failed to affirm marriage equality. Welby’s comments to the gathered
representatives of the church are cautionary rather than triumphant. He warned
them that the world is passing the church by on this issue and that the
church’s position is a source of growing hostility. Although he is not advising
the General Synod to take action on the issue immediately, he has called them
to consider seriously how the church will be perceived and what the
implications of that perception will be. No doubt there will be Christians who
believe criticism or ill feeling by the world outside it are a badge of honor –
suffering for the sake of the cross. But is it really?
Today’s
gospel lesson is interesting for how it describes Jesus equipping his disciples
for ministry through lack of
equipment. He instructs them to take
nothing with them – no extra clothing, no money, no food. They are forced to
interact with those to whom they bring their message in order to survive. They will not have the means to set
themselves apart and avoid making connections with those outside their own
circle. Jesus warns them that not everyone will be friendly toward them – they
are lambs among wolves - but he calls on
them to enter into unfamiliar territory with determination not fear. If they
are accepted they are to stay there, teach and heal and form relationships. If
they are not accepted, they try again elsewhere.
Luke
portrays the church in a very positive light. He writes an encouraging word for
gentile Christians who come to the faith in the face of hostility from Jewish Christians and those who practice
the civic and nature religions common in the gentile world. Luke seeks to demonstrate
and teach knowledge of Jewish tradition
to gentiles. And he hopes to portray the church in a positive light to those in
secular authority who have the power to persecute it or leave it in peace. As
with the story of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts, today’s gospel lesson
portrays the disciples as having a miraculous success rate with their mission
to spread the gospel. He depicts Jesus as drawing a stark line between those
who accept his teachings and those who do not. Those who reject him are
rejecting God. In the gospels it’s frequently difficult to tell the author’s
agenda apart from the tradition handed on by those who knew and interacted with
Jesus first hand. The gospels are not eyewitness accounts. Paul’s letters are the oldest documents in the
New Testament. The oldest of them is commonly dated at about two decades after
Jesus death. Mark’s gospel was created
in written form a decade or so after the letters. The oldest actual copies of the gospel books
come from the second century and the majority of them are fragments not
complete documents. To further complicate the issue, the gospels don’t agree on
their depiction of events, timelines or personalities. At best we get glimpses
or shadows of who and how Jesus was as a person.
Christians
themselves began to shape perceptions of Jesus’ teachings early on. That is
what we know as tradition – the aggregate thought and practice of Christians
through the ages. There are elements
within the church who would argue that tradition is meant to be timeless, that
it never changes. But the most casual observation would tell you that is not
true. Through the last 2000 plus years,
the church has adapted skillfully to newcomers and incorporated them and the
traditions and practices of their previous religions into its own. Whatever
resistance there may have been to it, incorporating newcomers and their
cultural baggage, has been a time- honored method of growing the church.
Paul
gets at that in today’s epistle lesson from Galatians. Paul traveled through
Greece and the area that is modern Turkey, preaching the gospel to gentiles.
That, in and of itself, was not especially unusual. There were synagogue
communities that had made room for gentiles. If you recall reading or hearing
the term “God fearers” in the New Testament,
that was the name for gentiles who participated in the worship of the synagogue
but stopped short of conversion. These people admired the ethics of the Jewish
faith and found its worship and community compelling, but they were reluctant
for a variety of reasons to enter fully into it. Such a transition would have
had a profound impact on social position and professional standing.
Jesus’
earliest followers were Jews. They modified synagogue worship gradually to
incorporate the teachings and practices associated with Jesus. Among them was a strong sense that one had to
be a Jew first in order to be a Christian, either by birth or by conversion.
Paul thought differently and in the letter to the Galatians, he urges members
of that church to ignore the demand that they convert. Paul argued that gentiles
need not be Jews first to be Christians. Living as we do in a time when the
church IS a gentile institution, this argument seems strange, but in the fifth
and sixth decades of the first century, it was a hot topic.
It’s
said often enough now to be a cliché, and yet in many ways we still haven’t
heard it: the church ministers now in an environment that has more in common
with that of the first century than the twentieth. What does that mean? For one
thing, the institutional aspect of the church’s identity does not get the
respect that it did fifty or one hundred years ago. The slow, careful and
deliberate apparatus of synods, councils and general conventions meeting face
to face every three years is at odds with a culture in which information flows
at lightning speed – one which favors experimentation and innovation. In many
instances the church has seen fit to stonewall cultural change. You’ve seen it
in the fight over marriage equality, the secrecy surrounding the sexual abuse
of children by clergy and the absurd charge of obstruction of religious freedom
by employers who refuse to provide health insurance for contraceptives. In an
arena in which all positions – not just that of the church – are heard there is
as Archbishop Welby put it “noticeable hostility” to the view of the church. Among people who engage regularly in spiritual
practices such as prayer and meditation, but who claim no religious
affiliation, one of the most prominent reasons for non-involvement with the
church is its emphasis on rules that are at odds with life as it really is.
Diana
Butler Bass, a sociologist and historian of religion, suggests that in the 21st
century discernment will be among the church’s most important tasks.
That word is a part of the traditional language of the church and we use it
frequently but it can be one of those churchy code words that no one really
understands. If you look it up in the thesaurus you get words like judgment,
acumen, discrimination, perspicacity, and shrewdness. The dictionary defines it
as the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure.
Within the church discernment is a deliberate and prayerful approach to
effective decision-making on important issues. We use it, for example, to describe the
process by which members of the church are identified and prepared to become
ordained leaders. Discernment may proceed at a more deliberate pace than
popular culture allows for, but that is because it seeks to include a variety
of voices and opinions in the decision-making process, particularly the voice
of God. The best discernment processes incorporate the results of trial and
experiment rather than expecting that life will grind to a halt until the
decision is made. They observe the environment in which the church does its
work, questioning whether the needs of the world have moved beyond the church’s
traditional position. It understands the authority of the faith community but
also its role as servant.
Discernment
requires interaction and engagement as Jesus requires it of his disciples in
today’s gospel lesson. It requires openness and fearlessness in unfamiliar
territory as Paul describes in today’s epistle lesson. Both of these texts
depict first-century situations. New leaders emerge from an ancient faith
community with ideas that challenge some of it’s most basic assumptions. They
identify opportunities to move that community beyond its time-honored
boundaries in a way that redefines its identity and what it means to be a
member of it. The process of deciding where to go and how to get there is
exhausting and frustrating for those who are inclined to get it over with. It
requires far more listening than talking. It is messy because it must take into
account experiments and challenges to established authority like Paul’s mission
to the gentiles or the ordination of eleven women to the priesthood without
permission or precedent nearly 30 years ago. It must also take into account the
fear and anger generated by such experiments. Discernment has to try to do all
these things and avoid becoming obstructionism.
Some
of the church’s greatest opportunities in the 21st century will be
found in serving persons who, right now, may perceive it as strange and foreign
territory – a place where they do not belong - not unlike Paul’s gentile converts.
In those situations, it will be important for us to keep our boundaries open
and fluid – to feel confident enough in God’s love that we are able to reach
out fearlessly in generosity and hope. In his speech to the general synod,
Archbishop Welby challenged the church to find a way to move forward saying “there
is here assembled, in weakness or confidence, in all sorts of fear and lack of
trust, people with the faith and wisdom who in grace will seek the way to the
greater glory of God.”
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