Advent Lutheran Church

"What Holds Us Together?"

Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            In the late 1600s an Englishman by the name of John Bunyan wrote what has come down through the centuries as a classic in Christian literature.  The full title was The Pilgrim’s Progress From This World To That Which Is To Come, better known as Pilgrim’s Progress.  The story traces the journey of a character named Christian as he makes his way from his hometown, The City of Destruction, to heaven, The Celestial City. 

On his pilgrimage Christian meets Hopeful, and as they journey they discuss an individual named Temporary.  Temporary had intended to complete the pilgrimage with them, but the difficulty of the journey, combined with Temporary’s own pride, persuaded him to change his mind and fall away.  Christian and Hopeful create a term for what Temporary has done: they call it backsliding.

Backsliding.  Maybe you’ve heard the term.  It took root in the religious culture of early America and came to describe once-faithful believers who lost their resolve to continue the Christian walk.  The term also describes very well a reality we see in our Gospel lesson this morning, and one we may be tempted toward ourselves.

The story is the conclusion of an episode that began much earlier, when Jesus took five small loaves of bread and two small fish, blessed them and used the resulting abundance to feed a crowd of 5,000 people.  They were hungry indeed; they wanted more, so they kept on following him.  But now Jesus offers them not bread and fish but far more substantial food – he offers them himself. 

He tells the crowd, “Look, I’ve fed you bread and fish, but they were just appetizers.  I have so much more for you.  Hundreds of years ago, when your ancestors were making their way through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, God fed them by providing manna, a food that got them by, one day at a time.  But that’s all it was intended to do; it wasn’t meant to last.  The food that I offer doesn’t spoil; it is eternal.  I offer the Bread of Heaven; in fact, I am the Bread of Heaven.  My flesh and blood are the gifts of God for you; it is the way that God will sustain you spiritually now and also draw you into eternal relationship with him.”

            We hear those words of Jesus and think, “Of course; Christ is the Bread of Life.”  Holy Communion is part of our tradition.  We believe and teach the Real Presence of the divine Christ in the ordinary elements of bread and wine.  Far from being a stumbling block to us, his words remind us of the foundation of our weekly practice of Communion.  When he uses the graphic language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we hear those words as harsh, brutal, offensive to our sensibilities.  But they don’t push us away, because we know this Christ as the gift of God for the people of God.  While we might wince at the words we still receive them in faith.

            It was a much different story for his first audience.  To them, consuming human or animal blood went against the law of God, as set forth in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Blood was considered to be the life force of a being, and all beings belonged to God; so that life force also belonged only to God, not to be possessed or consumed by people. 

When Jesus claims that “whoever eats this bread will live forever,” meaning whoever receives him into themselves, the crowd realizes that it is being confronted with a very different understanding of their tradition.  They’re confronted with the claim by Jesus that God is doing a new thing in their midst, something completely unexpected by them but desired by God.

            For many, Jesus claims too much.  They leave.  The Scripture says that “they no longer went about with him.”  An accurate rendering of that phrase is that “they no longer conducted their lives according to his life.”  Their objection: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 

            I have heard variations on that same heart-felt objection often over the last several years as our church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has struggled to come to grips with the issue of homosexuality, most particularly as it relates to the possibility of homosexual persons in committed relationships becoming pastors in the church. 

            Several decades ago such a possibility would not even have crossed the minds of most people.  Now, that possibility has been approved by elected representatives from across the length and breadth of the ELCA meeting in Churchwide Assembly this past week.  Thanks to the internet I was able to watch the lengthy and passionate debate and then the vote on Friday.  If you also were able to watch, I’m sure you observed that, for some in our denomination, this possibility, this new development is “difficult, who can accept it?”

            The debate took different forms.  I heard comments that may be summed up this way: “The Bible is clear about homosexual behavior being condemned by God.  Either we side with the Bible and Church teaching as we’ve practiced it over hundreds of years, or we don’t.”  The counter comment goes like this: “The few passages in Scripture that have to do with homosexual behavior were addressing a cultural and social setting that simply does not exist today.  The Bible wasn’t written in a 21^st Century context.”

            Another line of reasoning went like this: If we approve this proposal we will severely cripple our partner relations with other churches, specifically those in Asia and Latin America, that are adamantly opposed even to dialogue on the issue of homosexuality.”  The counter to that says: “We already experience a lack of substance in our relationship with these churches.  Our approval of this measure would indeed be painful, but sometimes faithfulness is accompanied by pain.”

            Yet another concern is voiced this way: “Approving this measure will guarantee that we will lose members from our churches.  It’s already happened in the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ.”  The response to that fear has been framed this way: “We in the ELCA are in danger of losing members for the same reason that we’re in danger of not attracting new ones, and it has nothing to do with sex – we along with the other mainline denominations are increasingly seen as irrelevant in a culture that needs a clear, strong voice to speak out on behalf of the poor.”

            The debate has been a many-sided one, and many voices have engaged it.  That makes for a healthy exploration of the depths of any issue.  What has not been either healthy or faithful, I believe, is the incendiary nature of the rhetoric that has accompanied this conflict.  Long-time friends, well-established theologians of the Church, have blistered each other with letters and emails that border on personal attack.  Speakers in public forums have talked past one another, deaf to the other’s concerns.  Letter-writers have demonized each other in order to make their points. 

All of this does more than simply reflect our American culture of political intolerance.  That has been with us for some years now, and it is bad enough.  But the intolerance that has settled over the church debate about homosexuality seems to be driven by a desperation to “get it right” – to believe the right thing, to do the right thing – but to the exclusion of all else.  And therein lies the danger.

When it becomes more important for us to be right than it is to love, that is always wrong.

            Yes, there is truth and untruth, good and evil, as St. Paul makes clear in our Second Lesson; we are to prepare ourselves, enter the debate and argue clearly for what we believe.  Of course.  But if we do not love those with whom we disagree and who we are so certain are wrong, then whatever truth we claim to hold does not originate in Jesus Christ.

            Heaven has room for both Rush Limbaugh and Barack Obama.  I’m not sure they want to spend eternity together, but there’s room.  There is room for both the Southern Baptist and the Roman Catholic, for those with very different opinions about Iraq and Afghanistan, for those with opposing views on universal health coverage, on abortion, on capital punishment, on sexuality.  Heaven has room, because God has made it so.  The Church brings scandal on itself when we refuse – refuse – to reflect God’s gracious inclusion in our treatment of each other.  

            In the heat of conflict it is easy to forget that we follow a Jesus who was dying to love those who were nailing him to the cross.  That reality is at the center of the Church.  And when we forget what is at the center of the Church it is easy to become preoccupied by concerns about the boundaries.  That’s what most of our church fights are about, after all, boundaries: who is in, who is out and who decides.

            But those concerns are our concerns, not God’s.  God’s mission is far greater than boundaries.  God is on a mission to do nothing less than to love, bless and redeem the entire creation.  Because the success of that mission depends not on us but on God and God’s faithfulness to us, the success of God’s mission is never in doubt.  “My word will not return to me empty,” he promises us through the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, but will accomplish that for which I sent it.  Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God, his spirit is active among and within us now, inviting us to be part of God’s mission, inviting us to acknowledge our differences and, yes, set them aside for the sake of our public witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

            Many ELCA members rejoiced over the church’s action on Friday, seeing it as God doing a new thing in our midst.  Others were disappointed, some saying, in effect, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”  Some of them will be tempted to turn away.  But most in our Church accept that Christ calls us to high purpose.  Just as in our First Lesson Joshua called his people to decide whether they would serve The God or lesser gods, Christ calls us also to keep the main thing the main thing.  And toward the end of the Churchwide Assembly, there were strong signs that that was happening, signs that healing had begun, and that members were once again beginning to concentrate their energies on God’s mission for the sake of the world that God loves.  God calls us to be united for that mission. 

A number of dignitaries brought greetings to the Churchwide Assembly.  Among them was the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, Ishmael Noko.  His words are notable.  He told the assembly, “Again and again I've heard you make reference to Paul's letter to the Galatians in which he says that we are to 'bear one another's burden, for in doing so we fulfill the law of Christ.' (Gal 6.2)

“This is a mark of a Christian community,” Noko said, “which sharply distinguishes the Church from the ways of this world, in which each person bears their own burdens.  But in the Church, we are not allowed to bear our burdens alone."

In the midst of our conflicts, we can take hope and courage in the fact that we are held together not by our agreement on any issue, no matter how pressing; we are held together by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That gospel does for us what we cannot do for ourselves; it heals our brokenness, forgives the various ways we injure God’s creation and each other, it brings us into full and right relationship with God, and it allows us to hear God proclaiming to each of us: You are my beloved.

That was Jesus’ message.  It still is.  Faced with that truth, we can join Peter in saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  And for that Good News, let the people of God say together, Amen!