Reconciliation over Judgement- If the Church Were Christian #5

Leviticus 19:33-34
Luke 10:30-37

There have been many quarrels throughout the Christian story.  It probably started the first time sometime said something to try to define Jesus’ nature (meaning who Jesus was as person and deity). 

Later people would get into fights over whether Jesus was Christ before his death or if he had been chosen because of his human sacrifice.

Then there was controversy over if the Son of God had been begotten by God or made by human beings. 

And then there was the debate over whether Christ had existed since the beginning of time or whether he came into being later.

And then there was that debate over whether he was human and divine, or if the two parts of Jesus were blended together or if they were separate aspects of each other

All of those disagreements broke the church up a few times, separating out those who were originally deemed as Christians to now those who are not.

There were debates about bishops ordinating people and whether people were generally good or bad and if they needed intervention by God to do anything good at all.

OH I almost forgot… And then there was the issue of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone or from the Father and Son together.  This question of Single or Double Procession, coupled with questions of priestly celibacy and whether the bread for communion should be leavened or unleavened (that were ultimately about questions of authority in the church) were the “straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back” issues that led to the separation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

And then of course there was the Protestant Reformation with all of its problems that finally divided the church again.  Those issues still remain today.

Since that point, the Lutherans divided out a few times, the Calvinists split out into congregalionists, Baptists, Presbyterian, and a few more groups, who then split again (as Baptists do doug might say, into American souther, national, progressive and 36 other denomination while the Presbyterians divided.

Later, the church of Englund split with the Catholic church, forming the Anglican tradition, which was seen in John Wesley’s eyes as returning to be too Catholic during his lifetime, which fortunately and unfortunately created the Methodist Church in American, which then broke off into 3 pieces over slavery but not before a couple of pieces had already broken off.

Those three churches would reunite in 1929 but some wouldn’t.  Today, there is the United Methodist Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Church, the African Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion, the Christian Methodist Episcopal, the Nazarene, and the Salvation Army Church which is all built upon Wesley’s theology generally.

And there are just more and more and more….39,000 of them in fact.

---------

            Now all of this might seem like a laughing matter, but the truth is that is truly makes the Church look foolish and many people on the outside see it as proof positive of the invalidity of the Christian faith.  And so it has become a major problem.  Interfaith dialogue is easier for us to handle than intra-faith because of these issues.  Perhaps we have been called to something of a reconciliation moment.

            But honestly, do I want to reconcile.  If you ask some of the conservative groups on campus, they will tell you that Catholics are not Christians (perhaps a history lesson is needed there) and that what they see if the simple answer to every situation. So as a pastor, just as much as many of you in the church might consider now that you’ve heard all of this, there are a lot of differences between us.  And while it may not seem like much, it really really is.  There are a lot of Christians who believe a whole host of different things about Christianity.  Who is correct?

            Now that is the big question isn’t it.  Who is correct is the issue that really has broken us up.  This isn’t about simple ideas or differences of opinion.  For much of Church history, this is about who is right in definition and action.  Have you ever had someone tell you that there was is the only way to be saved.  Have you ever had another Christian tell you that they aren’t sure you are actually a Christian.  Have you ever considered yourself to be unsure if someone else is actually a Christian (this guy has).

            What do we do with all of that.  We have to make a choice as to whether we keep down that path or reconcile with one another.  To be honest, this is the most difficult of all sermons in the series for me.  But I find some sense of relief when I step back and examine the lessons of scripture we have in front of us.  There are many in the Bible that we might use to remember that we are called to bring together the broken body into one, but when one reads in Deuteronomy about how we are to provide for the welcome of each other remembering that each of our ancestors crossed out of Egypt, then we remember how much the Jewish community dealt with division as well.

            Early on, the Jews were busy trying to figure out if YHWH (Elohem) should be taken around in a tent or placed into a permanent dwelling.  They weren’t sure how to worship God, so they at times would try to take burnt offerings.  They might have even followed some of the Egyptian customs until God laid down the commandments, telling them how to live and in so doing, God would remain with them.  And so in Leviticus, which is a rules book for the Jewish people, the people learn to provide care for all persons.  It’s kind of the love your neighbor as yourself, but from the Jewish perspective.  Love your fellow Jew.  And it translates into the new testament as well.

            In the book of Luke, the gospel comes to a moment when the writer is trying to convey who is demonstrating the witness of Jesus more: the jew, the priest, or the Samaritan man.  And trust me, the Samaritan man wins out on this passage time and time again.  This story is one of the most famous literary passages in all of human history.  Throughout the world the “good Samaritan” is celebrated as a way of being. 

            Inside the Christian church, we are full of the first two though.  We walk over each other as Christians and we ignore the fact that we are of the same faith tradition.  And yet, are we…. John Wesley had something to say about all of this in his famous sermon called the Catholic Spirit.  In it, Wesley was postulating on a passage in second Kings where two disputing characters, Rackab and Jehonadab are trying to solve a long standing conflict.  They finally agree to meet and Rackab asks "Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?"* And Jehonadab answered: "It is." [Jehu said], "If it is, give me your hand."

            These two Jews, standing on either sides of an issue, find a way to reconcile.  If one’s heart is right with another’s then let us quarell no more.

            As a Church, our hearts haven’t fully healed from the 20^th century’s extreme divergences in Christian faith.  But there is reconciliation that must take place, and it is happening all over.  A first sign of such things happened in the last 1880s, when a man named John R. Mott created the World Student Christian Federation as a means by which the Christian church would succeed in helping the world endeavor to be one as they were intended to be.  His 6 year trip around the globe created movements in many countries, and now over 125 countries across the world have movements which in many cases are the primary means by which Christianity exhibits social justice and political power.

            This organization then created in 1946 the World Council of Churches, a juggernaut organization that outside of the United States stands as a major force in political and religious movements.  The ecumenical center in Geneva, Switzerland is one of the few places that most Christians might meet their Coptic, Orthodox, and other partners.  This center is a place of peace.

            Recent work has also been done by the last bishop, Pope John Paul II, to reconcile the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches in ways that have been unheard of over the past 400 plus years.  New doctrinal stances on baptism, eucharist, and salvation all have reestablished forward momuntum on the ecumenical spirit.

            But now as we become fearful for our lives as denominations, and as the para-church movement seeks division of institution (consider the Rock which says, want God but not Church) and as beurcratic leaders fight for the herd of Christians which is quickly diminishing in America, the world once again seems destined to break apart.  The world’s preeminent scholar of religion, Diarmaid McCullough, recently said in an interview that a Catholic Schism of again coming, threatening to dismantle the largest denomination in the world and change the global layout of Christianity.

           

            And this statement recently from the leading ecumenical cardinal in the Catholic Church.  The ecumenical enthusiasm of the decade after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) is over. Much progress was made. Separated Churches and Christians no longer met as enemies or competitors; Christian brotherhood among us was rediscovered. This is an irreversible process, and in a world that becomes more and more one world there is no realistic alternative to ecumenism. On the contrary, our shame lies in the fact that we continue to be disobedient to the will of our Lord "that they all be one". –

            The future requires each of us to decide the direction the church will go.  Will we become more divided, being seen by a world as judgmental of each other as much as we judge our own Christian brothers and sisters, or will we work toward reconciliation.  Jesus makes it clear for us: we are called to be the good Samaritans, the ones who go out of the way to provide for others, no matter what.  So for those of us who feel like reconciliation with your Catholic faith, with parachurches, with the church as large, is a hard prospect, remember that the Samaritan was outcast by Jews and Christians alike and in the end, he or she became the image of the kingdom of God.  We all have a lot of work to do, but perhaps it’s time to move in the direction of ecumenical spirit and holistic embodiment.  Perhaps the whole Christian community could be united…if we ourselves could reconcile ourselves to those who are others.  Will it be so…we shall see