It has been a long time since I have given serious thought to the “scandal of denominations”. Sarah’s sermon on Sunday, however, brought it back to my attention, and I wondered if she was expressing a perspective of a new generation of Christian thinkers who have actually moved beyond our divisions and are comfortable working in the in-between land of the prayer of Jesus in John 17 that we all may be one.
The Gospel text for Sunday was not an easy one, as Jesus showed the radical nature of following Him. Cut off what impedes your following Him might seem like an invitation to separation. But few people thought they were starting a new denomination when they launched their ideas or concerns about what was being lost or neglected by the Church of their day. For John Wesley, for example, his new practice of group bible study, daily prayer and weekly Eucharist with his brother and members of what was labelled “The Holy Club” was a restoring of a lost rhythm of devotion rarely seen in the 18th century Anglican Church. His zeal for sharing the Gospel took him on a mission to the American colonies. When people responded, and were being organized into discipleship classes, he did what needed to be done to provide leadership by “ordaining” people for their community. His devotional practices, his methods for his own personal spiritual health, morphed into Methodism. Luther was struck by the holiness of the Eucharistic presence, and his own unworthiness. His experience drew attention to the cheapening of God’s forgiveness being sold through indulgences. Faith alone became his understanding as essential for salvation, and that challenged the Church’s place as the sole mediator between God and people. Others who assumed his ideas organized and attached his name to their movement. In the last century, it was the relative newness of discovering that manifestations of the Holy Spirit as the apostle Paul wrote about in his letters to the Church in Corinth were possible in modern times that lay the groundwork for Pentecostalism.
None of these movements were a scandal in themselves. They were seen as the work of God purifying and reviving the Church. But old ways held fast, and the new ways sought new wine skins, quoting Jesus as justification for that. And soon entangling theological nuances would develop along the way, providing the grounds for growing and deepening distinctions. Sarah’s revelation for most of us on Sunday was that the two billion Christians in the world have, over time, sorted ourselves out into forty-seven thousand different groups or denominations. “Each”, she added, “wearing the name of Jesus on their jerseys”.
It was confusing at the time of the disciples with Jesus to see others performing miracles and casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but not bonding themselves to the disciples’ group. Jesus said, “Whoever is not against us is for us. Whoever gives you a cup of water because you bear my name will by no means lose their reward”. “But”, he added,” woe to you if you cause one of these who believe in me to stumble”.
Jesus’s concern for our unity, our ability to see beyond our group, continues to be an incentive for ecumenical efforts. Denominations these days realize it is enough to reach a point of mutual recognition as sharing Christ’s work, even to accepting a mutuality of orders. For example, a Lutheran pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America can serve as rector of an Episcopal Church. The same Lutheran Church has such an arrangement with the Presbyterians and Methodists. The Episcopal Church is close to such a covenant with the United Methodist Church. It is a slow, careful process, and it is, as you may guess, still limited to who fits whom to a large degree, or who is ready for whom. After all, there are forty-seven thousand of us in our separated groups. We are far from a tipping point.
In reality, we pursue faith through much more basic fundamentals. Often it is exactly about how people make us feel. Who or what brings us closer to a sense of God and of purpose? During Sarah’s sermon, and especially when she declared herself as “an Irish Catholic, worshiping in a Presbyterian Church and serving in an Episcopal Church”, I wondered if form will follow function, and maybe function will come out of longing. Will our longing for God, as it did for Luther, for example, and for Wesley, drive our function? It is a process I suspect that is already at play. And we need to encourage the ones who are expressing a vision of porous denominations.
I used to call myself a Baptimethanglicanpente Orthodox. I found God in the Methodist Church, realized God’s mystery through the gift of icons and the prayer ethos of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, discovered the essential nature of baptism from both the Baptists and the Anglicans, assumed God’s call to a sense of historical or catholic belonging, as well as a call to ordination, in the Anglican Church, and received a sense of the power of the Holy Spirit among the Pentecostals. I once shared this with a group of clergy friends and it was the Presbyterian pastor who joked that “what we call this, Alan, is back sliding”.
I think we are being invited to look at one of those pictures that has a hidden face or figure within it but which asks you to shift your usual way of seeing things to let what is hidden be seen. Often it is a tiger or an elephant, but in our case, it is the face of Jesus. Who is offering you a cup of water? And who are we in danger of causing to stumble among those who believe in Christ’s name?
-Bishop Alan
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