I
have attended the last couple of mid-week Lenten discussion/Bible series at the
cathedral. This last one was
particularly poignant. We were studying
the person of Moses. It began with an essay that a member of our choir had
written. It was humorous and kept our
attention, but then something happened that I have never seen in a congregation
that keeps most things at an intellectual level. The essayist mentioned her upbringing in a
very conservative and evangelical church and the whole concept of
conversion. What surprised me was that
individual people began talking about their conversion experiences. The old priest, who is now eighty-seven, told
a story I don’t remember hearing before.
As part of his seminary training, he was asked to be part of a
congregation in Montana. He was finishing up the year and pretty much deciding
that he was going to quit seminary and go back to his old job. Then, his bishop said that he had a special
assignment for him. He wanted him to go
to a small church and preach. So, he reluctantly
agreed, thinking that it was a small church in a small town and nobody would
show up, so he did not even prepare a sermon.
As he sat waiting for the service to begin, the size of the congregation
swelled and he became very nervous. This
was serious. There was no escaping
now. He got up to speak and only a
sentence or two came out of his mouth and he prayed fervently to God to give
him the words to say. God delivered, and
the congregation sat in silence for a full half hour after the service was
over. Nobody moved. Somehow God had
spoken to the people through this faithless seminarian, someone in training for
the priesthood, yet not at all sure of his vocation. God had spoken in such a profound way, that
he knew God’s existence and power, and returned to the seminary to resume his
studies.
What is the purpose of the
Church? Oscar Romero puts it this way,
“The church’s good name is not a matter of being on good terms with the
powerful. The church’s good name is a
matter of knowing that the poor regard the church as their own, of knowing that
the church’s life on earth is to call on all, on the rich as well, to be
converted and be saved alongside the poor, for they are the only ones called
blessed.” When it comes to really
thinking this thing out, all of us are poor, every one of us. I cringe when my girlfriend of nearly fifty
years says something to the effect to me that a certain person she is talking
about is from a lower class. I remind
her that I am from a lower class. She
forgets that she grew up with wealth and I was from a blue collar family. She forgets that I was once dependent on her
and now she is dependent on me. Life has
had many twists and turns for me as I am sure it has for you. Some of those twists and turns have probably
brought each of us to new conversions and insights about how God works in each
of us.
I have always thought that this
story of Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey that had never been ridden to
be a bit odd. I love the symbolism,
don’t get me wrong, but have you ever tried to ride an animal for the first
time? It is rarely an easy task. You usually get bucked off. I think we are missing details here and
probably for good reason because it misses the point. The point of this passage is to bring up the
contrast between the powerful, earthly kingdom of Rome in comparison to that of
Jesus. Jesus’ power is much different
and continues to be different from all that came before.
This past week, I shared an article
about the institutional church being like bubbles on the surface of water. They float along and as long as nobody
intentionally bursts them, they remain intact.
I have no qualms with the analogy, but like all analogies, I wonder
about the negative implications of it.
Will the institutional church survive?
Will the new leaders of the Roman Catholic Communion and the Anglican Communion
work for peace and unity among Christians, but most importantly, will it
happen? Will they see their roles as an
ecumenical influence on all of Christianity, as most of us do? Will we once
again be able to see a larger visible church, one to which we can point and
say, “There it is. There are
Christians. There are people who
identify themselves as Christians and share their faith with others and work
for peace and harmony among all people.”
We are all endowed with the Holy Spirit to carry out the mission of
Jesus in our lives regardless of our station in life. Very few are ever called to the station of
archbishop or pope, yet we are each called to ministry.
The violence of the world kills
Jesus, but the result of that violence, brings us life. It won’t make us popular and it may even make
us “a nobody” in the eyes of the world, but this is our lot when we follow
Jesus. Jesus is our atonement.
As Bruce Birch and Larry Rassmussen
have worded it, “Atonement means quite literally “to make one,” but this
reconciliation is costly because its path is through the suffering of the
cross. There is dying that goes with
unity. There is pain that goes with
giving up swords and spears, and living with pruning hooks and plows. There is pain and death and vulnerability
that come with living in the world defenseless, but in that way comes
unity. The church has always been clear
that as the body of Christ its life must be cruciform. Thus, if we are to make shalom, following
Christ, it cannot be at the level of lowest risk. It will require becoming vulnerable to the
pain of the world. It will require a
willingness to die.”
We live in an age when the shape of
the church is changing, and like the passage from Isaiah that I preached on
last Sunday, God says, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it? Do not remember the
former things, or consider the things of old.”
We are called to open our minds and
hearts to what God is doing right now, forgetting the past, and moving forward
into the future. We may be moving with
fear and trembling and all sorts of anxiety, but remember this: God is with us
each and every step of the way. Allow
God to work through you. Wait on God,
for God is about to do a new thing.
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